Access to justice in international courts for indigent states, persons and peoples

Abstract

Funding and litigation finance is an important aspect of international adjudication. The growing literature on courts and tribunal has however overlooked the subject of litigation cost and finance. This paper considers the development of the practice of trust funds that aid access to international courts and tribunals for states as well as corporate and natural persons. Next, the paper addresses strategies to increase access to justice by poorer developing states and indigent persons. The paper evaluates the means by which further confidence in the adoption of international adjudication, arbitral routes and other appropriate dispute resolution routes may be promoted among poorer parties in order to reduce the deleterious effects of acute financial inequalities between litigants and other participants. In order to exhaustively deal with this issue of litigation financing the paper will, therefore, compare the relevant law and processes of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, the various International Criminal tribunals, the World Trade Organisation and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute.