Trust in International Courts – A Factor for Authority

International courts function as an important pillar of the international rule of law. However, in recent years, many international courts have faced pushback by several types of actors. This has spurred considerable interest in analysing the performance of international courts. This paper contributes to this research by assessing the role of trust for the performance of international courts. It analyses how trust that actors have in international courts contributes to building robust authority of international courts – and inversely, due to which mechanisms, the lack of trust can undermine this authority.