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Under the complex circumstances and the limited capacity in which the International Criminal Court (ICC) operates, the role of its prosecutor has been challenging. The ICC prosecutor cannot pursue all situations for investigation, and cases for prosecution. She has to be selective. Moreover, the individuals and the crimes over which the Court exercises its jurisdiction, and the present circumstances in which it operates raise political sensitivities that might undermine the ability of the Court to deliver its justice effectively. The ICC prosecutor faces a complex dilemma in negotiating a relationship between fealty to the law and the impact and possible benefits of political exigencies in delivering justice. It also raises the problem of the role of political considerations within the decision-making process. The exercise of discretion lies at the heart of these challenges, as the ICC's Statute allows the prosecutor to exercise significant discretion. This thesis will explore and analyse the discretionary power of the ICC prosecutor. It situates the development of the office historically by referring to the experiences of the War Crimes Tribunals after World War II and the two United Nations Tribunals of the 1990's. Against this background, it examines the scope of discretion and the way the Prosecutor has exercised it. This thesis will suggest that there has been a tendency to overlook the necessity of distinguishing between various senses of discretion open to the prosecutor to exercise. In exploring the scope of discretion, the thesis will argue that there is wider range of discretion with different senses, available to the Prosecutor and that has been exercised by her, when applying legal thresholds. In assessing these legal thresholds, the focus will be on 'sufficient gravity' and 'the interests of justice'. The thesis will suggest that the indeterminacy of the legal thresholds, such as 'sufficient gravity' is the space, which, in effect, allows decision-makers to exercise a wide range of discretion. The thesis refers to this discourse as legal interpretative discretion. This is to be distinguished from prosecutorial discretion, which is a different concept and allows decision-makers to consider extra-legal considerations, as the case with the term 'interests of justice '. An implication of the interpretation of the terms like 'sufficient gravity', is that the prosecutor can appear to possess almost unlimited power. In exploring the relationship between the two types of discretion the thesis will root the analysis within a close reading of examples of the investigations and prosecutions, and the scholarly literature. The thesis also discusses the relevance of political considerations within the decision-making process in the context of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It suggests that there need not be a conflict between the broad sense of justice as outlined in the Statute and political factors in giving effect to decisions. The thesis engages with the repeated statements by prosecutors, which have denied the use of discretion and asserted a fealty to strict legalism. It suggests that beneath these statements lie a resource, discretion, which helps not hinders international criminal justice.

The concept of legitimacy has long held a central place in political thought, but only in recent years have scholars started to look closely at questions of legitimacy in international affairs. Yet the literature now abounds with enquiries into the legitimacy of particular regimes, of humanitarian intervention and other forms of violence, and of various international institutions, including international law itself. These questions take many forms, as it is not simply the criteria, but also the very meaning of legitimacy that is contested—yet through these various meanings, certain continuities of use can be seen. As an application of Wittgenstein's analyses of `language games', a conceptual history of legitimacy can help to show the forms of these continuities, and also help us to understand the range of conceptual affiliates the term has picked up along the way, from legality to popular approval to moral appropriateness. Looking at contemporary uses of the term in IR, we can see how these ambiguous associations often intrude on one another, such that the concept evokes a significance greater than that which is claimed for it. This conceptual encroachment contributes to specific effects of the use of legitimacy, in terms of the way international politics can be represented and perceived. This leads to a recommendation that, if the concept of legitimacy is to become as relevant to global politics as it is in theories of the state, it is vital that IR theorists be more attentive to these practical implications of their conceptual (re)constructions.

Let me open this paper with a statement. The legitimacy of the judiciary is at risk, in several countries for similar reasons. In my own country – the Netherlands - the whereabouts of the judiciary and adjudication are subject of permanent attention of the public media. A criminal case of judicial error – an innocent man appears to have been imprisoned for 4 years – has raised serious questions about the functioning of criminal justice. Criminal lawyers plead for a more adverserial criminal trial.3 A member of parliament has even gone so far as to plead for the (re)introduction of laymen in the criminal justice system.4 The functioning of the civil judge too, is at stake in the public media. The complaints are that the judiciary is too slow and too expensive to be a serious option for conflictresolution. With some exaggeration one can say that civil adjudication is only for large corporations and other repeat-players.5 Lastly, the administrative judiciary is in discussion because of the somewhat shady borderline it shares with politics. The separation of administrative justice from the government is always an issue, because the judiciary has to manoeuvre between formalism and activism. On the institutional level, the combination of administrative adjudication and legislative advise within the Council of state is hard to reconcile with article 6 ECHR (fair trial).6 All this raises questions of a more general nature for the judiciary. How can independence be reconciled with accountibility? How can judicial quality be combined with efficiency and productivity? What does the cry for transparancy mean for the principle of open justice? And what do authority and legitimacy mean in present society?

This article reviews the role of lay judges in labor courts in five European Union countries (Germany, France, Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden). We find that a very high proportion of judgments are unanimous in all five countries, despite imputed differences of interest between the employee, employer and professional judges and significant variations in the way that lay judges are selected, trained and deployed. This suggests that one key contribution of lay judges is to provide legitimacy to the decision making process. Three different facets of legitimacy are explored, but further empirical research is needed to establish why decisions are generally unanimous and how legitimacy might be more systematically compared cross-nationally.

The Court of Justice of the European Union holds exclusive jurisdiction that extends to many international treaties, which can result in conflict of interpretation. This book compares the relationship of the Court of Justice to other courts and treaties, and examines how conflict of interpretation is largely avoided

In memory of Thomas Franck International lawyers have been less interested in the concept of legitimacy than political scientists or international-relations scholars. Indeed, Thomas Franck lamented in 1987 that international lawyers positively avoided the topic. The traditional approach was for lawyers to use the notions of legality and legitimacy more or less interchangeably; a legal context was assumed to confer automatically some type of legitimacy on the outcome of deliberations. It is striking that critiques of the substance of international law, such as those from the developing world or those drawing on critical and feminist theories, do not usually resort to the language of legitimacy to emphasize international law's inadequacies. Rather, they typically propose the creation of more law to remedy the deficiencies of the international legal system. The North American Treaty Organization's (NATO's) bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999 sparked an exploration of the differences between legality and legitimacy by international lawyers. The attack by NATO was certainly prima facie illegal: it was conducted without the endorsement of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and it was not an obvious use of the right to self-defense recognized in the UN Charter. Both scholars and politicians elaborated the idea of the legitimacy of the bombing � in the face of a humanitarian emergency caused by the Serbian government � to provide a contrast to what they saw as the morally inadequate or unattractive legal response.

The democratic deficit in global governance -- Democracy within and beyond the state -- The state as (democratic) self-legislator -- The constitutionalisation of international law -- Democracy in international law -- International governance by non-state actors -- A concept of (international) law -- Deliberative democracy beyond the state -- Democracy in conditions of global legal pluralism.

The Court of Justice of the European Union holds exclusive jurisdiction that extends to many international treaties, which can result in conflict of interpretation. This book compares the relationship of the Court of Justice to other courts and treaties, and examines how conflict of interpretation is largely avoided.