Research

The Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for International Courts and Governance (iCourts) investigates the causes and effects of the growing number of international courts across the world. During its first period of research (2012-2018), iCourts’ research projects focused on the empirical processes related to the creation of international courts. The projects related to the new iCourts research agenda enlarge the perspective and ask about the world that international courts and law are helping to create.

In collaboration with partner organisations, iCourts is hosting several projects addressing the current legal, political, societal, and technological challenges that international courts are currently facing. These projects (listed below) are supported by prestigious funding organisations. These include the European Research Council, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions, the Independent Research Fund Denmark, Carlsberg foundation and the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

These projects constitute an essential point of reference for the interdisciplinary and empirical study of international law and courts, an effort continually led by iCourts.

Ongoing research projects funded by:

The Danish National Research Foundation

• Turning Empirical? The Transformation of Scholarship of International Law (TEMPTATION)

  Focusing on scholarship of international law, TEMPTATION aims to theorize and conceptualize the alleged empirical turn philosophically and to study its scope and character empirically.

The European Research Council

• ERC Human Rights Nudge / Redesigning the Architecture of Human Rights Remedies

  For decades, human rights have been treated as the business of international institutions like the European Court of Human Rights. Yet, the respect for human rights on the part of governments has been invariably weak.

• ERC IMAGINE

  The project investigates constitutional imaginaries behind the European integration project. The overarching objective is to provide a novel account informed by the intellectual history of both post-communist an “old” Europe.

• ERC JustSites

  JustSites studies the constellation, structure and functioning of “justice sites”, defined as the political, legal and professional localities beyond courts in which international criminal justice is produced, received and has impact.

The Jean Monnet Erasmus+ Programme

• EUPoLex

  EUPoLex promotes excellence in empirical and interdisciplinary teaching and research in EU Studies. The action deepens the students and young professionals’ knowledge, competences and skills for exploring the intersection between EU Law and Politics, crucial for successfully developing EU-related academic and professional careers.

The Independent Research Fund Denmark

• Circulation and dissemination of populist ideas of law and justice across languages, communities and genres (CIRCLE)

  The purpose of CIRCLE is to investigate the rhetoric of populism and to identify the linguistic representation of populist ideas of law and justice across languages, communities, and genres.

• LEGALESE – Danish Language Processing for Legal Texts

  LEGALESE is a joint venture by the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Law and Department of Computer Science, Schultz, and Ankestyrelsen.

Other projects

• Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

  Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights This project develop a database on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the Danish public sector.

• Data Science for Asylum Legal Landscaping (DATA4ALL)

  Leveraging large-scale decision data in the Nordics, DATA4ALL pioneers a new research agenda combining data science and migration law to understand the significant outcome variations in asylum decisions within and across countries.

• International Law & Military Operations (InterMil)

  his research project provides research-based public-sector consultancy within the field of military studies.

• Nordic Refugee Determination: Advancing Data Science in Migration Law (NordASIL)

  NordASIL will produce a novel approach to answer two questions: What factors shape the production of national asylum decisions? and Why do asylum outcomes across similar cases differ so much from one another?

• SHIELD – Study Hub for International Economic Law and Development

  SHIELD is a research group at the Faculty of Law, examining the topics of international economic law, dispute settlement, and policy-making. SHIELD also studies significance of economic and non-economic values in these fields.