The role of international courts and tribunals in shaping expertise – the ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change in an Arctic expertise context

Despite a considerable focus in the literature on how expertise comes to be defined, there has so far been little interest in how expertise is shaped in the wording of treaties and the subsequent application by courts. This presents a gap in the literature, as international treaties and courts have significant impact on the definition of expertise. Set in an Arctic context, where Western science and Indigenous Knowledge are increasingly considered to be complementary bodies of knowledge, this paper uses a decolonial approach to demonstrate how international law and the courts that apply it can impact processes of expertise-building. The paper concludes that there is two-way relationship between international law and expertise (international courts are influenced by, and influence, how expertise is perceived). This becomes relevant when the underlying processes on which the courts base their definition of expertise are shaped by colonial dynamics, as there is a danger of maintaining existing colonial legacies, which can negatively impact the ongoing process of re-defining expertise in a decolonial manner.