This chapter examines the institutional context of the Court. It focuses first on the Court’s function as a court, i.e. as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It then considers the Court’s relations with States, as an international court. Finally, he considers the Court’s institutional grounding as an organ of the United Nations, and examines its relationship with the United Nations. Professor Ginsburg argues that there is a gap between the Court’s formal institutional structures and its actual operation in practice, and emphasises in particular the way in which the Court has taken a central role in the development of international law.

This chapter starts to analyse the institutional frameworks of different international courts and tribunals in comparative perspective. More importantly, it introduces the invisible army of legal bureaucrats (clerks, registry and secretariat officials, and arbitral secretaries) who assist international adjudicators in their daily duties. The story focuses on their backgrounds, their modes of recruitment and promotion, their relationship with the judges and arbitrators they are called to serve, and the ambiguities inherent in that relationship. From here onwards, the role of bureaucrats in the judicial process will come into sharper relief. Their duties typically include: summarizing the parties’ arguments for the benefit of the adjudicators, conducting legal and factual research on the disputed issues, circulating internal memoranda that suggest options on how to solve the case, assisting in the preparation of oral questions for hearings, attending deliberations, and drafting the final judgments or awards.

This chapter introduces the relationship between law and governance. Laws and legal institutions are important in structures for governance, where governance is seen as the sum of the many ways that individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. The description of the concept of governance used is thus not equal to governance through government, but instead reflects a system where legal institutions are seen as one part of a structural nest with multiple mechanisms, measures, and actions. International law is also increasingly characterized by a general demand for openness, transparency, fairness, and mechanisms for accountability, all part of such governance systems. Environmental governance theories propose strategies, structures, institutions, and actions that respond to different aspects of complexity and uncertainty in the environment. In this way, the theories on resilience in social-ecological systems offer a transdisciplinary perspective on effective environmental governance, where law should have a prominent role.