The Power of Courtiers: Comparing International Judicial Communities

In recent years, sociolegal scholars have sought to deconstruct international courts into the plurality of human agents who inhabit them. International courtiers (judges, arbitrators, counsel, bureaucrats, administrative staff, scholars, etc.) form professional communities which gravitate around specific legal institutions and infuse meaning to their everyday practices. Yet, while exhibiting common patterns, those communities are also starkly different from one another. Some are tighter, others more diffuse. Some exhibit a pragmatic ethos, while others maintain closer contacts with academia. Some speak a technocratic jargon, others the language of affect and emotion. Moving from these premises, this chapter lays the theoretical foundations for a proper comparison of international judicial communities -- that is, an assessment of how those communities structure their interactions, organize their practices, and wield their power in different regimes and institutions. The comparison hinges on three main factors: the social structures governing the networked interactions among community members; the various forms of capital possessed and deployed by community participants to advance their social positions relative to one another; and the patterns of performance that shape the beliefs, sensibilities, and preoccupations of community members.