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Abstract

This thesis explores the social and professional interactions that occur everyday within international courts and tribunals, with a view to assessing their impact on judicial outcomes. In particular, it focuses on the role of the parties’ counsel pleading in the courtroom, the legal bureaucrats assisting the bench, and the so-called practitioner-academics (i.e. the many scholars who have direct or indirect stakes in the adjudicative process). The hypothesis is that the everyday practices of these inner circles of legal professionals are crucial in shaping the merits of decisions – perhaps more so than the substantive law adjudicators are called upon to interpret and apply, and certainly more so than the external political pressures to which adjudicators are subject.

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