Who Rules the World?

Abstract

While the proliferation of international courts Cs has been described in details, we know surprisingly little about who the actual judges sitting at the helm of contemporary judicialized international law are. What was once been termed the “invisible college of international law” remains to a large extent invisible to this day. What is certain, there are today many more international judges than previously Currently, more than three hundred men and women hold the office of international judge. Most are found in Europe, at the two regional courts of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, but many other regional and global courts also employ a significant number of international judges. Besides some mainly descriptive studies of the international judiciary, we have very little analysis of who these people are and what commonalities they have, for example in terms of education, knowledge, and know-how. This chapter seeks to remedy this gap and presents a first systematic study of the configuration of the international judiciary as concerns the legal educational capital of international judges.