Between Sovereign Prudence and Global Jurisprudence: The Evolution of Supranational Courts and Cosmopolitan Norms in Human Rights Discourse and State Practice

Abstract

To the chagrin of many committed realists, states today operate in an indubitably ethical environment influenced by a revival of the cosmopolitan tradition, whose central tenets uphold that: (a) individuals are the fundamental units of moral concern and ought to be regarded as one another’s moral equals; (b) whatever rights and privileges states have, they have them only in so far as they thereby serve individual’s fundamental interests; (c) states are not under a greater obligation to respect their individual member’s fundamental rights than to respect the fundamental rights of foreigners. The appearance on the topographic map of inter-state politics of new actors, institutions, and standards of accountability and layers of governance has resulted in the reframing of the state’s own sovereign political authority under the aegis of international law. This has prompted a recognizable shift from realpolitik based in self-serving state interests to humanitarian cosmopolitanism; a turn from the state prerogative of self-defense to the responsibility to prevent and protect; and, most importantly, a repudiation of ethics based on the exploitation and instrumentalization of human subjects and citizens and a reinforcement of concerns over human beings qua persons, who, endowed with inalienable rights that extend beyond the provenance of any one statist regime, give renewed salience to an enlightened cosmopolitan sentiment of thinking nothing human alien. The dissertation will aim to explore the impact and purpose of supranational judicial arbitration and international courts, in particular, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), and their growing relevance in international relations and global governance. The study, rooted in cosmopolitan orientation, will attempt to define emerging accountability frameworks for transnational human rights violations within a predominantly state-centric political paradigm, analyze emerging normative frameworks for transnational human rights obligations, and delineate theoretical, legal and political channels for rethinking the relationship between power, ideas, and international institutions in the areas of global multilateral governance and international humanitarian and human rights law.