Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Shany & Horovitz: Judicial Independence in the Hague and Freetown: A Tale of Two Cities

Yuval Shany (Hebrew Univ. - Law) & Sigall Horovitz (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) have posted Judicial Independence in the Hague and Freetown: A Tale of Two Cities (Leiden Journal of International Law, Vol. 21, p. 113, 2008). Here's the abstract:
This note evaluates the application of rules on judicial independence and impartiality in two international decisions issued in 2004 - the ICJ Order on Composition in the Wall Advisory Proceedings and the disqualification decision of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Sesay - and compares them with a code of judicial conduct recently prepared by an ILA study group (the Burgh House Principles on the Independence of the International Judiciary). We assert that the approach taken by the ICJ in Wall is excessively restrictive and is out of step with contemporary tendencies to embrace stricter standards of judicial independence and impartiality.