Approach and material

In studying international legal argument as unfolding in the decisions of an international court, the question is what to do if one's analysis of the decisions is not to be only superficially about that court. The shifting divisions between the judges, the emergence and decline of what Lauterpacht termed ‘trends and principles’, the varying influence of specific judges over time and the numerous implicit overrulings of former decisions are all interrelated aspects that warrant a chronological analysis of the decisions of the same international court. Of course, no description takes the form of a one-way process of cognition, yet that ought not to prevent lawyers from analysing the decisions of international courts. A model of international legal argument concerned with the practical use of international law in specific cases, as distinct from the Buchrecht, is essential. Account must be taken of the written and oral pleadings of the parties appearing before the international court, yet the focus is on the decisions of, and therefore international legal argument within, the Permanent Court.

On one occasion, having regard to the increasing interest among scholars in commenting on the decisions of the Permanent Court, President Huber suggested to his colleagues that ‘the work in preparing our decisions must be such that if our critics – whether learned men or politicians – could be admitted to the private sittings of the Court, they would remain with the impression that the evolution of our judgments is really worthy of the Court’.