L'expert en droit international

Abstract

As the function of expertise is getting usual in international relations, the statute of the expert who exerts it and the methods which it employs are rarely mentioned. Although he works side by side to diplomats and permanent personnel of States and international organizations, his work differs from theirs as the experts, also called consultants or technicians, are appointed by states and international organizations in order to provide advice on a particular topic. The thesis defended is that the use of international experts exceeds the specific differences of the various contexts in which it intervenes, and can be analyzed under a certain number of common characteristics: the opinion of the technician, international agent, can be essential for the contents of the decisions taken subsequently by the subjects of international law, particularly in regard to the development and the application of the standards. This raises specific issues such as the control of the expert and the way in which it must exert his role, which remains distinct from that of decision making. To solve them, the main principles governing the recourse to the expert in international law and the methods of insertion of its opinion in decisions and normative instruments must be seized. The advisory competency of the technician thus relates to the base of the standards which are applicable to him in its relationship to the authority commanding the expertise, from the moment he starts the expertise until the delivery of its opinion in a report or any other support. From this moment, this opinion becomes external, and it is the use which is made by the subjects of international law which is likely to grant it a fundamental character like a stage of formation and application of the law.