Race, Gender, or Power Politics? Perceptions of International Court of Justice

• In Event: The Legal Face of International Collaboration

Abstract

An emerging body of scholarship has examined public opinion of the legitimacy of international courts. This paper advances this literature by focusing on how identities of judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) affect public perception of its legitimacy. Theoretically, we combine insights from scholarships in race and ethnicity politics, international law, and international relations to propose several causal pathways linking perceptions of the court’s legitimacy with the race, gender, and nationality of its judges. Empirically, we design a survey experiment implemented in the United States based on a recent case brought to the ICJ by the State of Palestine regarding the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem. In this case, the State of Palestine contends that the embassy's relocation is in breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, because that treaty dictates embassies must be established on the territory of the receiving state and that the "special status of Jerusalem" means that the US violated its international obligations when it moved its embassy. After describing the background information of this case, we inform American respondents that the court ruled against the United States by a margin of one vote, while varying the race, gender, and nationality of the judge that cast the deciding vote. We then explore how these identity factors affect respondents’ evaluation of the legitimacy of the ruling, the judge, and the court. The results will demonstrate the identity foundation of international legal institutions such as the ICJ, and how ideational factors are crucial for understanding the nature of the international system.

Authors

• Enze Han, The University of Hong Kong

• Xiaojun Li, University of British Columbia