Domestic Contestations against International Courts and Tribunals: Introduction to the Special Issue

Domestic authorities, including national courts, at times, resist accepting the decisions of international courts and tribunals. The formal division between the national and international legal orders creates space for domestic authorities to contest or avoid international binding judicial decisions. The present special issue examines domestic contestations in multiple fields of international law, including human rights and investment law. In contesting some of the international decisions, domestic authorities invoke a wide range of legal bases in resisting the effect of international decisions. The contributions in the present issue examine various such argumentative bases of contestations. The contributions also consider whether domestic resistance could give rise to the opportunity for international courts and tribunals to critically reflect on their own decisions and underlying reasoning.