d'Aspremont: The Control Over Knowledge by International Courts and Arbitral Tribunals

Jean d'Aspremont (Univ. of Manchester - Law; Sciences Po - Law) has posted The Control Over Knowledge by International Courts and Arbitral Tribunals (in The Oxford Handbook of International Arbitration, Thomas Schultz & Federico Ortino eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter constitutes a heuristic exercise meant to re-imagine international courts and arbitral tribunals as bureaucratic bodies controlling the social reality created by the definitional categories of international law. It primarily claims that, in performing their wide variety of functions, international courts and arbitral tribunals, not only make use of the social reality created by international law, but also exert control over it. This control over the social reality created by the definitional categories of international law is approached as a form of control over knowledge and, it is argued, constitutes a feature of bureaucratic processes. In contending that international courts and arbitral tribunals control knowledge in this way, this chapter projects an image of international dispute resolution processes as bureaucratic sites where power is exercised. By virtue of this specific representation of international courts and arbitral tribunals as bureaucratic bodies controlling knowledge, this chapter challenges some common representations of international courts and arbitral tribunals as resorting to some pre-existing knowledge and accordingly sheds light on the extent to which international courts and arbitral tribunals define social reality and the problems in which they intervene. This chapter ultimately aims at providing new perspectives on the power exercised by international courts and arbitral tribunals, while also inviting international lawyers to reflect on the extent to which the knowledge they rely on to manage the world is controlled by international courts and arbitral tribunals.