An innovative, interdisciplinary and far-reaching examination of the actual reality of international courts, International Court Authority challenges fundamental preconceptions about when, why, and how international courts become important and authoritative actors in national, regional, and international politics. A stellar group of scholars investigate the challenges that international courts face in transforming the formal legal authority conferred bystates into an actual authority in fact that is respected by potential litigants, national actors, legal communities, and publics. Alter, Helfer, and Madsen provide a novel framework for conceptualizing international court authority that focuses on the reactions and practices of these key audiences. Eighteenscholars from the disciplines of law, political science and sociology apply this framework to study thirteen international courts operating in Africa, Latin America, and Europe, as well as on a global level. Together the contributors document and explore important and interesting variations in whether the audiences that interact with international courts around the world embrace or reject the rulings of these judicial institutions.Alter, Helfer, and Madsen's authority framework recognizes that international judges can and often do everything they 'should' do to ensure that their rulings possess the gravitas and stature that national courts enjoy. Yet even when imbued with these characteristics, the parties to the dispute, potential future litigants, and the broader set of actors that monitor and respond to the court's activities may fail to acknowledge the rulings as binding or take meaningful steps to modify theirbehaviour in response to them. For both specific judicial institutions, and more generally, the book documents and explains why most international courts possess de facto authority that is partial, variable, and highly dependent on a range of different audiences and contexts - and thus is highly fragile.An introduction situates the book's unique approach to conceptualizing international court authority within theoretical debates about the authority of global institutions. International Court Authority also includes critical reflections on the authority framework from legal theorists, international relations scholars, a philosopher, and an anthropologist. The book's conclusion questions a number of widely shared assumptions about how social and political contexts facilitate orundermine international courts in developing de facto authority and political power.

I: The Varied Authority of International Courts; 1 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen: International Court Authority in a Complex !orld; 2 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen: How Context Shapes the Authority of International Courts; II: International Courts in their Social and Political Context; Africa; 3 James Thuo Gathii: The East African Court of Justice: Human Rights and Business Actors Compared; 4 Solomon Ebobrah: The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice: A Dual Mandate with Skewed Authority; 5 Claire Moore Dickerson: The OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration: Its authority in the Formal and Informal Economy; 6 Tendayi Achiume: The SADC Tribunal: Socio-Political Dissonance and the Authority of International Courts; Latin America and the Caribbean; 7 Salvatore Caserta, Mikael Rask Madsen: The Caribbean Court of Justice: A Regional Integration and Post-Colonial Court; 8 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer: The Andean Tribunal of Justice: From Washington Consensus to Regional Crisis; 9 Alexandra Huneeus: The Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Constitutionalism and Constitutional Lawyers across Countries; Europe; 10 R. Daniel Kelemen: The Court of Justice of the European Community: Changing Authority in the Twenty-First Century; 11 Mikael Rask Madsen: The European Court of Human Rights: From the Cold War to the Brighton Declaration and Backlash; Courts with a Global Reach; 12 Emilia Justyna Powell: The International Court of Justice and Islamic Law States: Territory and Diplomacy; 13 Gregory Shaffer, Manfred Elsig, Sergio Puig: The World Trade Organization's Dispute Settlement Body: Its Extensive but Fragile Authority; 14 Leslie Vinjamuri: The International Criminal Court: The Paradox of Its Authority; 15 Ron Levi, John Hagan, Sara Dezalay: International Criminal Tribunals: Prosecutorial Strategies in Atypical Political Environments; III: Reflections on International Court Authority; 16 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen: International Court Authority in Question: Introduction to Part III; 17 Andrei Marmor: Authority of International Courts: Scope, Power and Legitimacy; 18 Mikael Zurn: International Courts: Command v. Reflexive Authority; 19 Ingo Venzke: International Court's De Facto Authority and its Justification; 20 Jessica Greenberg: Jurisdiction, politics and truth-making: International Courts and the formation of translocal legal cultures; 21 Andreas Follesdal: The Lords and Lady doth Protest too Much, Methinks: On Authority, Legitimacy and Power, on Motives and Beliefs; 22 Ian Hurd: Authority and International Courts: A Comment on 'Content Independent' Social Science; IV: Growing and Diminishing IC Authority; 23 Karen J. Alter, Laurence R. Helfer and Mikael Rask Madsen: Conclusion: Context, Authority, Power