Defense thesis : Amélie Marissal
Making a career at the pace of trials? The structure of the labor market for international criminal lawyers in The Hague.

The thesis is directed by Claire LEMERCIER (Directrice de recherche).

Jury :

Gilles BASTIN, Sara DEZALAY, Léonie HENAUT, Claire LEMERCIER (Directrice de recherche), Sophie POCHIC, Laurent WILLEMEZ

Summary

Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of multiple data sources (interviews, written sources, career database), this thesis studies the development of a labor market of lawyers working for the international criminal tribunals in The Hague. These international courts include the International Criminal Court, the first court to operate on a permanent basis, and numerous other organizations, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which, since the 1990s, operate on a more temporary basis. In these legal organizations, employment relationships depend on the number, pace, and duration of trials.

In such a context, the thesis analyzes the phenomena of regulation and stabilization of labor markets and professionals’ careers, professionals who are both emblematic of globalization and part of a public service. Even if recruiters and hired lawyers widely consider employment relationships as temporary, the study reveals the development of a bureaucratic regulation of employment relationships, which lie at the crossroads of localized international bureaucracies, national legal labor markets, and individual biographies.

The thesis highlights the multiple effects of such market organization on the stabilization of lawyers' career paths and on the activity of the tribunals. These effects are visible in the ways in which these lawyers interpret their career longevity, as well as in their strategies of defining and crossing geographic and professional boundaries over the life-course.