Research On The Evaluation Of Expert Evidence By The International Court Of Justice

In the modern international dispute settlement of the previous two centuries,courts sought expert advice in very few cases,usually as a last resort.But over the past four decades,the reliance on experts has increased dramatically.Human activities themselves are becoming more and more complex,more and more scientific,more and more specialized,and increasingly dependent on experts.As a result,there has been more and more controversy over such activities.At the same time,international agreements continue to evolve,often by gradually relying on science,economics and other areas of expertise to gradually solve more complex technical problems.Therefore,today,parties to international disputes often present expert evidence to support their arguments,and the International Court of Justice will consider designating its own experts to bridge the gap between law and other fields.However,the expert evidence system is still developing slowly and imperfectly in the judicial practice of the International Court of Justice.From the specific cases of the International Court of Justice,it is known that the national courts still hold a cautious attitude towards the expert evidence system.This article is divided into five parts:The first part is an overview of expert evidence.In this part,the concept of expert evidence is first elaborated,starting with the characteristics of experts,and further expounding the concept of expert evidence.Next,the article analyzes three types of expert evidence: experts appointed by the courts,experts hired by the parties,and experts privately used by the courts.Then,in this section,the necessity of the existence of expert evidence is also introduced.With regard to the necessity of the existence of expert evidence,this paper first introduces the challenges brought by the development of science and technology to the judicial activities of the International Court of Justice,and then points out the great help of the use of expert evidence to solve the problem,and then demonstrates the necessity of the existence of expert evidence.In the second part,we mainly analyze several typical cases in the judicial practice of the International Court of Justice.These cases will vividly show how the International Court of Justice deals with expert evidence in cases of scientific andtechnical facts.This paper mainly selected three cases: the pulp mill case,the Antarctic whaling case and the aerial spraying herbicide case.In these three cases,the International Court of Justice has not appointed its own experts,but the attitude towards the experts of the parties is gradually changing and tends to be more positive.In the pulp mill case,the parties joined the experts in their own agent team and participated in the lawsuit as an expert-lawyer.However,the Court made its own recommendation regarding this arrangement,arguing that this arrangement might circumvent the expert's acceptance of cross-examination and court inquiry.In the Antarctic whaling case,the parties took this advice and accepted the cross-examination procedure as an independent expert,especially in Australia.In the case of spraying herbicides in the air,the court showed a more positive attitude and listed a list of issues that needed to be clarified for the parties,which showed that the courts had made great efforts.The third section analyzes the characteristics of expert evidence in the judicial practice of the International Court of Justice.First of all,it is certain that the International Court of Justice is still cautious about the opening and development of the expert evidence system.The International Court of Justice rarely appoints its own experts,but at the same time it can be seen that this system has been recognized by more and more judges.It is gradually improving and developing.At the same time,it can be observed from the case that the judges of the International Court of Justice lack an assessment of reliability in the evaluation of expert evidence,which will lead to two extremes,one is the blind acceptance of expert evidence and the other is unreasonable.Dismissed expert evidence.In the fourth part,the paper analysis the evaluation methods of expert evidence in other international courts and tribunals,then draw lessons from the evaluation of expert evidence by the International Court of Justice,which mainly includes two aspects.On the one hand,the use of experts appointed by the court is increased,so that the court has its own toolkit for dealing with scientific facts;on the other hand,it provides the basic ideas of the judges on the reliability analysis of expert evidence,including the premise,limitations and acceptability of the methods used by experts.And so on.