Most studies describing the evolution of international courts (ICs) have either drawn on classical legalistic approaches or been developed by constitutionalists. What has unified both strands of research is the often implicit description of a universal and unidirectional strengthening of legalization and judicialization in global affairs. The present volume puts the question in a different way. It does not from the outset normatively assume that ICs are important and powerful actors or that national actors without further ado cite, embrace or enter into a constructive dialogue with these supranational bodies. Rather what this book does is to ask - from a multidisciplinary perspective - how and to what degree do ICs actually influence, impose constraints on and create loyalty from those actors involved? It is our claim that rather little research has been occupied with the actual effects on the ground for those national courts, political institutions and citizens who are formally governed by the increased judicialization. International law in national courts, and among politicians and citizens, does not always have the desired effect at the domestic level. This volume is a genuinely interdisciplinary analysis of international law and courts, examining a wide range of courts and judicial bodies, including human rights treaty bodies, and their impact and shortcomings. By employing social science methodology combined with classical case studies, leading lawyers and political scientists move the study of courts within international law to an entirely new level. The essays question the view that legal dogmatics will be enough to understand the increasingly complex world we are living in and demonstrate the potential benefits of adopting a much broader outlook drawing on empirical legal research.