Quasi-judicial Bodies and the Establishment of Standards and Principles for Assessing Mental Harm Sustained by Civilians Exposed to Hostilities

Extract

1. Introduction

Contemporary global governance has marked what has been termed as the ‘judicialization of international dispute settlement’.¹ Yet, whereas this has largely meant that international courts are perceived as the main adjudicators of international disputes, the last few years have noted an augmented tendency² both on a global³ as well as regional level,⁴ for international bodies to establish quasi-judicial bodies as accountability mechanisms for violations occurring in the course of either international or non-international armed conflicts.⁵ These bodies come officially under different titles such as fact-finding missions, panels or commissions of inquiry,⁶ yet they share similar features on how they are instituted and on how they view their role in the wider international dispute settlement framework through a stark retributive justice prism, where the punishment of international norms offenders is often advocated through the intervention of the International Criminal Court.⁷ This retributive justice, dispute settlement aura that these quasi-judicial bodies emit, is further underlined by the fact that in many cases their existence relates to conflicts that have been unable for years to find their place before international courts⁸ or they have but these international judicial bodies have either found themselves lacking jurisdiction or such jurisdiction has been highly disputed by one of the parties concerned. ⁹