On 29 February 2016 Ms Ezgi Yildiz defended her PhD thesis in International Relations/Political Science with a minor in International Law, entitled “A Court with Many Faces: Institutional Identities and Interpretative Preferences; The Case of the European Court of Human Rights and the Norm against Torture”, at the Graduate Institute. The committee was presided by Professor Thomas Biersteker and included Professor Keith Krause and Professor Andrea Bianchi, thesis co-directors, as well as Professor Mikael Rask Madsen, from the University of Copenhagen. Ms Yildiz tells us more about this interdisciplinary research that bridges international relations and international law.

Why did you decide to work on this subject?

My initial interest was sparked by the question: How do legal norms change over time? This was an intuitive research question, yet empirically capturing it was challenging. With this question in mind, I started studying instances of normative change by looking at the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Once I had a closer look at the ECtHR, I became fascinated by how its jurisprudential policies are shaped by its own environment. I then derived my original theory about how international courts develop their preferences with respect to norm development. Because of the nature of the research track I followed, in the end, the thesis I wrote was not the one I had in mind when I began my doctoral research. I started from empirical observations and close study of selected cases, and then built my argument and theory. My thesis can be considered a product of an intellectual journey throughout which I discovered a lot about my subject and myself.

And what did you discover?

We often treat international courts as black boxes that produce “truth” and “justice,” without bothering to examine their inner workings. We have a vague idea about how such courts work, but we do not necessarily think about them as actors that can formulate preferences or policies. From the conventional academic perspective, they are frequently described as simple honest brokers. But is it really the case? I took issue with this assumption in my thesis. My main finding is that this assumption is just a myth, and international courts should instead be understood as transnational actors with preferences. As my research shows, they have an important influence on the course of norm development. They serve as venues where abstract norms are discussed, negotiated, and pinned down as legal standards. The beauty of the courts’ function is to package these negotiated norms as applicable standards. As a result, norms change in ways dictated by the courts’ jurisprudential policies – themselves informed by the contextual, international, institutional and discursive developments surrounding the environment within which courts operate. Norms are thus constantly performed through legal practice, which generates not only non-linear norm development but also instances of norm regression or norm obstruction.

On the methodological level, I would not have made that discovery if I had not applied my original method of micro-level analysis, which differs from the mainstream macro-level analyses that present norm development as linear and progressive.

These findings are all the more interesting in view of the contemporary proliferation of international courts.

We indeed need innovative academic studies with strong theoretical and empirical foundations in order to better understand these new waves of transnational actors. Moreover, it seems very likely that new international courts will be designed in the near future to propose legal solutions to complex international problems. My research would help us understand and untangle what is really behind such “neat,” “neutral,” and “technical” solutions.

What will you most remember about your doctoral experience?

I really enjoyed it because it was intellectually challenging and it forced me to leave my comfort zone. Of course, this put me off balance at times, but it also heightened my senses and allowed me to be creative. My experience overall confirmed to me that I am in fact an independent thinker, who is comfortable going beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to instead adopt a wider interdisciplinary – or even transdisciplinary – lens when conducting research. I will take this approach onboard as I continue my career in academia.

Full reference: Yildiz, Ezgi. “A Court with Many Faces: Institutional Identities and Interpretative Preferences; The Case of the European Court of Human Rights and the Norm against Torture.” PhD thesis (summa cum laude), Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2016. 428 p.