The Growing Complexity of the International Court of Justice's Self-Citation Network: Institutional Achievement or Access-to-Justice Concern?
Damien Charlotin, Wolfgang Alschner (None 2018)
1
European Journal of European Law 1,
83-112
Using state-of-the-art information extraction, this article identifies 1865 references of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to its own decisions or that of its predecessor between 1948 and 2013. We find that the ICJ self-citation network becomes increasingly complex. Citations are used more frequently and precedents grow more diverse. Two drivers fuel this development. First, jurisprudential specialization clusters citations in ôclassicö international law areas as the ICJ places increased emphasis on the continuity, expertise and predictability of its "settled jurisprudence" asserting its role among competing adjudicatory venues. Second, issue diversification expands citations as disputants increasingly craft their arguments around precedent making ICJ litigation more common-law like. The growth of citations adds complexity as precedent is predominantly used argumentatively to affect outcomes rather than ritualistically to pay tribute to past decisions. Although the growth of citations is an institutional achievement underscoring the Court's continued relevance, it also creates new access-to-justice barriers.
The Place of investment awards and WTO decisions in international law: a citation analysis
Damien Charlotin (None 2017)
Journal of International Economic Law,
279-299
International economic law is increasingly applied - and in the process developed - by international judicial bodies. As cases from international economic fora are multiplying, the place of their growing jurisprudence in general international law is understudied. To some extent, citation analysis allows for an investigation of the influence of other international judicial bodies over these economic foraùand the authority the latter exhibited in return. Drawing from an original data set of external citations to and from the main international fora (more than 3000 external citations in a larger data set of 75,000 citations), this article examines the citations from and to investment awards and World Trade Organization decisions. It reveals that these fora differ strikingly in their own citation practice, both in terms of the number of external citations but also in terms of the topics prompting the citations. In addition, the analysis shows that these fora are still rarely cited by other international courts and tribunals, pointing to a limited (at least, explicit) influence in contemporary international dispute settlement.
A Data Analysis of the Iran-US Claims Tribunals Jurisprudence - Lessons for International Dispute-Settlement Today
Damien Charlotin (None 2019)
3
Journal of International Dispute Settlement 3,
443-471
The Iran-US Claims Tribunal was instituted in 1981 to hear claims from the two governments and their nationals after they broke diplomatic and economic ties. Upon deciding hundreds of cases, the Tribunal has been hailed as an example of a successful international adjudicative body, and as a source of inspiration for international dispute-settlement scholars. Less often acknowledged, however, the Tribunal's output also constitutes a formidable and under-investigated dataset, ripe for empirical and data-oriented analysis. Such an analysis confirms the Tribunal's enduring relevance and sheds light on older and newer debates in international dispute-settlement scholarship. The oft-mentioned charge that the Tribunal's party-appointed members were "political", or the practice of issuing dissenting opinions, can be reviewed under this lens, as they lessons for international law scholars and practitioners today.
Identifying the Voices of Unseen Actors in Investor-State Dispute Settlement with Stylometry
Damien Charlotin (Freya Baetens (ed.) 2019)
Legitimacy of Unseen Actors in International Adjudication,
392-426
Can stylometric tools identify the role of assistants and secretaries in arbitration ?
2019 Developments in Investment Arbitration
Damien Charlotin (Lisa Sachs & al. (eds.) 2020)
Yearbook on International Investment Law and Policy,
193-229
This chapter highlights notable contributions made by investment treaty tribunals during 2019 in the areas of provisional measures, merits, quantum, other remedies, settlements, annulments, and domestic challenges to awards
Data Mining, Text Analytics, and Investor-State Arbitration
Damien Charlotin, Wolfgang Alschner (Pietro Ortolani et al. (eds.) 2022)
International Arbitration and Technology,
"Reading" is the primary technology investment arbitration practitioners use to engage with party submissions, prior awards, investment treaties and all other written materials relevant to the arbitration. Yet, an alternative and complementary approach to parse investor-state arbitration (ISA) texts is rapidly emerging. In what is variably known as "text mining", "text analytics", or "computational analysis", algorithms rather than humans are beginning to digest written materials to extract relevant insights. What this algorithmic approach lacks in nuance (computers are bad at understanding text), it makes up for in efficiency (computers excel at crunching numbers). This chapter targeted at arbitration professionals introduces the methodologies underpinning text analytics, explains and evaluates their use cases in investment arbitration, and assesses their promises and limitations.
2020 Developments in Investment Arbitration
Damien Charlotin (Lisa Sachs & al. (eds.) 2021)
Yearbook on International Investment Law and Policy,
148-188
This chapter highlights notable contributions made by investment treaty tribunals during 2020 in the areas of provisional measures, merits, quantum, other remedies, settlements, annulments, and domestic challenges to awards
Les LLMs et le Futur du Droit
Damien Charlotin (Benoît Frydman et al. 2024)
L'IA et l'Etat de Droit,
111-138
Large Language Models (LLMs) have crashed into the scene in late 2022, with ChatGPT in particular bringing to the mainstream what has before this remained within the domain of the initiates. This paper introduces the main features of LLMs and related Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the legal community, while reviewing their potential application in a legal context, as well as the main questions and issues raised by their increasing presence in a jurist’s life. Adopting a structural approach, the analysis highlights the areas of legal activity that stand to gain – or lose – from the generalisation of LLMs in our workflow. The radical innovation represented by LLMs will force jurists to rethink their approach to the law, their own role in it, and the future of legal education and training.
Noises Off: Towards Greater Consistency in International Arbitration Awards
Damien Charlotin, Lucy Greenwood, and Leonor Diaz-Cordova (None 2022)
Journal of International Arbitration 2,
213-232
Independence and Impartiality of ICJ and ITLOS judges
Damien Charlotin & Makane Moïse Mbengue (Giuditta Cordero-Moss 2023)
Independence and Impartiality of International Adjudicators,
181-192
This Chapter reviewed the standards and practice of impartiality for judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
Role and Responsibilities of States to Ensure MNEs Compliance with Environment and Human Rights Obligations
Damien Charlotin and Makane Moise Mbengue (None 2023)
ICC Dossier,
In a world where some multinational enterprises (MNEs) earn revenues higher than most states, it is no surprise that their corresponding impact—and responsibilities—on the environment and the respect of human rights have grown accordingly. States, be they home or host to these MNEs, are legitimately concerned about this impact. While environmental and human rights considerations can too often be pushed under the rug in the context of a global competition for investment and foreign capital, states are also increasingly seeking to enrol large business ventures in their own quest to further compliance with international rights standards. The difficulty consists in doing so without sacrificing the role of MNEs in spurring growth and economic development.
Automated Variance in Legal Decision-Making
Damien Charlotin (None 2024)
Lecture Notes in Computer Science,
The deployment of machine learning methods and artificial intelligence in the context of
legal decision-making will require a thorough look at the concept of variance - be it that original to human decision-makers, or that of automated systems. Human judges are, indeed, noisy in their decisions, a fact that, though deplorable from the viewpoint of individual cases, may have systemic value for the legal framework as a whole: in particular, individual variance in legal cases functions as an information-collection device that propagates, throughout the legal system, a potential lack of fit between the norm and its application, in call for a resolution. Besides, in justice as in machine learning, randomness and variance are increasingly not merely a byproduct but a fundamental aspect that enables these systems to avoid being trapped in sub-optimal configurations. In this context, this Note offers some reflections on whether algorithmic methods should seek to suppress or replicate variance in legal decision-making, and what principles should govern any deployment of deliberate, automated variance.