Lord Sumption: International Tribunals: For and Against

The Purpose and Limits of International Courts - International Conference (1-2 June 2023, MCC)
The proliferation of international courts and adjudicative bodies after the Second World War has had a deep impact on politics and policy at the level of nation state. Contentious social and political issues are increasingly submitted to the jurisdiction of international tribunals. While some have argued that this strengthens and reinforces the rule of law and enhances protection of human rights, other contend that it has detrimental effects on democracy. A wide range of actors are involved in bringing cases to international courts, including states, corporations, bar associations, national judges and constitutional courts, legal professionals, international networks of legal scholars, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations. Many of these actors support-with varying degrees of intensity-deciding political issues at international levels. This has, in turn, generated resistance by groups opposed to international intervention in domestic political struggles. This conference will bring together scholars to reflect on the legitimacy, effectiveness, and quality of international adjudication across the world, with a special focus on the European experience.
Lord Sumption
former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
Lord Sumption, OBE, PC, FSA, FRHistS is a British author, medieval historian and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018. Sumption has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). He studied Medieval History at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1967 to 1970. He was elected a fellow of Magdalen College, teaching and writing books on medieval history from 1971 to 1975 before leaving to pursue a career in law. Called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1975, he then pursued a successful legal practice in commercial law.
Sumption was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2012. He retired from the Supreme Court in 2018. As a historian, Sumption wrote a widely praised history of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, four volumes have been published and the fifth volume is coming this year. He has written in detail about his concerns regarding the relationship between the judiciary and politics in several lectures and books, most notably his books Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics (2019) and Law in a Time of Crisis (2021).
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[@veronicaalessandrello1022]

What a wonderful lecture.
🙏 I appreciate your wisdom, your voice your public presence in the social media educating us and giving us hope that justice will prevail as soon as we have bold authority like yourself and other good players speaking up to the most distorted and delusional power groups today.

[@seasonmists]

On reflection, I believe in the necessity of the ECHR, despite the tyranny of the expanded rulings of the ECtHR, because powerful countries must be held to a standard even if they are a democracy. Democracies do not guarantee making the right and humane domestic laws, in fact they are so polarised that voters are often susceptible to voting against their own human rights and interests. Sovereignty is as sacred as that of an authoritarian, fascist state's sovereignty.

[@dianasitek3595]

Once you lose faith in elections then the only alternative is autocracy or chaos. In the USA there is massive election fraud and illegitimate interference, and so elections are becoming defunct - with shocking consequences.