Standard setting, compliance control and the development of international environmental law through the practice of international arbitral, judicial and quasi-judicial procedures

Although the main purpose of the international judiciary (covering international arbitral, judicial and quasi-judicial procedures) is to settle disputes, it can also perform other tasks: a concept described by Lauterpacht as 'a heterogeny of aims'. This thesis focuses on three other functions which the international judiciary is expected to fulfil in the international society lacking a centralized legislative body and sufficient law enforcement mechanisms, namely standard setting, compliance control and law development. The field of international environmental law is highly suitable for this study, on account of: 1) an abundance of ambiguous rules which demand clear standards for their practical application 2) scientific uncertainty, rapid changeability of situations and non-compliance derived from incapability of States, all of which need special considerations for compliance control and 3) newness of global environmental concern, which necessitates a substantial degree of law development. The above three functions are analyzed from the perspectives of inter-State relations and State-individual relations, on the one hand, and 'soft' control and 'hard' control, on the other. They are integrated into the concept of 'judicial control', whose main purpose lies in containing deviance within acceptable levels through adjudicative means. Several reforms are proposed to facilitate the improved functioning of international environment law through 'judicial control'. The most important in this context is that the international judiciary should ensure active but harmonized interaction of inner-regime law and outer-regime law. Thus even if the international judiciary is attached to a certain treaty-regime, it can make considerable use of the advantages of 'judicial control' over 'non-judicial control', namely its capacity to control States' compliance with outer-regime law, and to clarify a certain norm's meaning for all States in the international society