Adjudicating over Anarchy: Judicial Remedies, Compliance, and Enforcement in International Law

by Geraldo Vidigal

Overview

Geraldo Vidigal thoroughly examines the judicial powers of international courts and tribunals and how these powers are used in practice. Without access to state-backed enforcement measures, international adjudicators must rely on their authority to influence real-world outcomes. The book reviews, and offers a comprehensive theory for, the various social mechanisms that explain why and how international judicial pronouncements affect the behaviour of states, influencing the views of individuals within states as well as changing states' mutual expectations of cooperative and sanction-worthy behaviour. The book considers how judicial remedies can induce compliance by targeting specific areas of disagreement, interpreting obligations, declaring violations, and establishing how wrongdoer states must offset unlawful injury. An often untapped type of remedy relies on the ability of courts to determine permissible responses to breach: what measures other actors may take to respond to violations, compelling wrongdoers to comply with their obligations and provide redress for injury.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107160255
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/22/2026
Series:	Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law , #195
Pages:	630
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 1.50(h) x 9.50(d)

About the Author

Geraldo Vidigal is Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in Law (Cambridge), LLM (Sorbonne), and LLB (University of São Paulo). He has worked as Dispute Settlement Lawyer at the World Trade Organization and as Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute (Luxembourg).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: the paradox of international adjudication; 2. Law without hierarchy: sanctions, shared understandings, and compliance in horizontal legal orders; 3. Courts without power: judicial authority in international law; 4. Judicial remedies in international law: adjudicating, declaring breaches, establishing consequences; 5. Authorising sanctions: permissible responses as a judicial remedy; 6. From mere adjudication to permissible responses: the wto system of remedy repetition and remedy escalation; 7. Between remedy repetition and remedy escalation: post-judgment procedures in international law; 8. Compliance disputes before international courts: procedure and remedies; 9. Partial adjudication and remedy foreshadowing: final rulings as remedies for non-compliance; 10. Conclusion: A judicialised order in the anarchical society.