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Hellestveit, Cecilie --- "Quasi-judicial mechanisms: international fact-finding" [2019] ELECD 509; in Bailliet, M. Cecilia (ed), "Research Handbook on International Law and Peace" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 373

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Law and Peace

Editor(s): Bailliet, M. Cecilia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781788117463

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: Quasi-judicial mechanisms: international fact-finding

Author(s): Hellestveit, Cecilie

Number of pages: 28

Abstract/Description:

This chapter discusses various types of international fact-finding mechanisms and assesses their role in the promotion of peace. This chapter relies on a stringent view of peace as a reflection of the absence of armed conflict. The author shows that international fact-finding mechanisms have gained ground as tools by which the international community responds to man-made emergencies that may threaten peace, but they give rise to a number of dilemmas. The chapter asks a number of crucial questions in this regard: Do international fact-finding mechanisms serve to bemoan violations of international law while concealing inadequacies in international law’s ability to respond to armed conflict and serious human rights abuse? Or is fact-finding an increasingly decisive component in the architecture of the international law of peace and its ability to contain, alleviate and ease recovery from armed conflict, responding to the predicament of fact-finding as ‘a significant weapon in the armoury of world order’?