In recent years, international courts have become important governing institutions, playing roles related to lawmaking, problem-solving, and dispute resolution. As a consequence ICs have become more susceptible to politicization and legitimacy challenges. This paper focusses on how ICs adapt to legitimacy challenges: what legitimation strategies are available, when are ICs likely to use such strategies, and how might we observe courts using these strategies? The paper explores two types of strategic legitimation. First, judges can adopt certain interpretative and justificatory techniques to enhance an IC’s legitimacy, such as judicial economy, incrementalism, citations, etc. Second, an IC may mobilize supporters - state or public audiences - by outreach and state preference assessments.
