The rising of international judicial organs from the early 1900’s is one of the greatest progresses which have been made in the field of modern international law. As to the origin of the international judicial organs, both Chinese and foreign scholars hold the viewpoint that all kinds of international courts or tribunals can be traced back to the Peace Conferences at Hague in 1899 and 1907, and the Conferences blazed the path for the development of all the judicial organs. But this contention works against the practice of international adjudication. According to this article, many international judicial organs, such as the international administrative tribunals, the international courts of human rights, and the international criminal courts or tribunals, are different from the so-called “the Hague courts and tribunals” in their nature, principles, structure and so on. They have their own developing path. Their origin is not the Peace Conferences at Hague, but the Peace Conference at Versailles instead. The Peace Conferences at Hague tried to bring the experiences of modern international arbitration into the dispute resolution mechanisms with more judicial characteristics, thus opened the first important developing direction of international judicial organs. The Hague represents the traditional horizontal international community which bases on a plat-like power structure between the sovereign States. On the contrary, the international criminal courts or tribunals, and the international courts of human rights judge mainly the recently arisen relationships between individuals and the international society, the States and the international organizations. The Versailles is the sign of the modern vertical international community with organized tower-like power structure. This horizontal-vertical dual structure, which reflects States’wills for independence and mankind’s hope for global governance, should be the basis of the international community in the foreseeable future. And it means that the international judicial organs will keep up with the two developing paths in quite a long time. |