Contestation and Strategic Adaptation in International Legal Institutions

Abstract

International courts and legal institutions face mounting challenges to their authority, impartiality, and legitimacy in an increasingly polarized global environment. Accusations of bias, power asymmetries, and normative contestation test the foundations of international law and raise fundamental questions about whether legal institutions can maintain independence and effectiveness. This panel examines how international legal institutions navigate political pressures while seeking to preserve their judicial and moral authority. How do courts and legal bodies respond to challenges from powerful states, organized movements, or alternative institutional arrangements? Do institutions adapt their practices, reframe their mandates, or face meaningful constraints on their capacity to act? Under what conditions can international law maintain impartiality when power dynamics and competing normative visions shape participation and decision-making? The panel explores how diverse actors strategically engage with international legal frameworks—whether through exit threats, forum shopping, weaponization of legal instruments, or discursive strategies to expand influence. These dynamics reveal international legal institutions as contested sites where authority, legitimacy, and normative meaning are continuously negotiated rather than settled. The panel contributes to understanding how international legal institutions balance judicial independence with political realities, and how strategic adaptation by both institutions and their challengers reshapes the landscape of global justice in the 21st century.

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