Securitization and Judicial Review: A Semiotic Perspective on the Relation Between the Security Council and International Judicial Bodies

This article examines therelation between the Security Council andinternational judicial bodies. The first partexplains, on the basis of linguistic theoriesof international security, the new role assumedby the Security Council after the Cold War. Thesecond part analyses, on the basis of insightsborrowed from legal semiotics, the position ofinternational judicial organs vis-à-vis theSecurity Council (especially the InternationalCourt of Justice and the Tribunals for Rwandaand the former Yugoslavia). The article arguesthat international judicial bodies havedeveloped ways of checking the power of theSecurity Council, which go beyond thetraditional modes of judicial review. Legalsemiotics offers the tools necessary tounderstand these countervailing activities andthus the relation between internationaljudicial bodies and the Security Council ingeneral.