Oldal 52 [52]
MARJAN AJEVSKI
into contact with national judicial administrations, or national foreign ministries
in a completely different way and for completely different reasons. The same is true
for individuals or non-governmental entities, different organs of the court come
into contact with these actors in a different way — the judges through their case
law and decisions, or through the various public lectures that they give or prizes
that they receive. The registrars, on the other hand, have a more formal or service
oriented contact, either through field offices for the ICC, or through information
dissemination and outreach, or through managing the administrative part of an
application process (e.g. the ECtHR).
These different types of relationships can have different effects on the various
aspects of an international court’s operation. For example, while it is obvious that
interactions with the foreign ministries of states can have a negative impact on the
independence of the judges, it is not so obvious why this should be the case for the
administrative organs of the registrar. Quite the contrary, some of these contacts
are necessary, for example, when the ICC needs to ask and lobby for support from
governments so it can carry out its functions successfully.
On the other hand, interactions with NGO’s or academia can call into question
the independence of the judges if they receive compensation for their lectures or
receive public awards for their work on the bench, or if they are members of the
boards on some NGOs or even companies. Conversely, judges’ interactions with
national parliaments or courts can both be seen as an intimidation, or a legitimacy
enhancing exercises depending on the setting or the tone of the exercise. It is only
when we see courts as complex bureaucracies, rather than unified entities can we
understand the full extent of a court’s operations. The Report clearly demonstrates
the benefits of this approach.
THE BANALITY OF GOOD
In Representing Justice®* Resnik and Curtis portray how representations of justice
in architecture and the art found in court buildings demonstrate the image of jus¬
tice that a state or an international organization, wants to project. In their chapter
devoted to ICs, they discuss the Peace Palace (the home of the ICJ) and the art
housed within it, noting that the image that the funders and the designers wanted
to project was one of grandeur and gravitas in the pursuit of international law, a
shiny city atop a hill, a beacon for peace through law. When the ICC was created
and a design competition was announced, it proclaimed the vision of the Court as
33 Judith Resnik — Dennis E. Curtis, Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights
in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2011.
+50 +