Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: the transnationalism of Detlev Vagts
- List of cases cited
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Introduction: a Festschrift to celebrate Detlev Vagts' contributions to transnational law
- 1 Detlev Vagts and the Harvard Law School
- 2 Constructing and developing transnational law: the contribution of Detlev Vagts
- I International law in general
- 3 ‘Hegemonic international law’ in retrospect
- 4 Textual interpretation and (international) law reading: the myth of (in)determinacy and the genealogy of meaning
- 5 The changing role of the State in the globalising world economy
- 6 Sources of human rights obligations binding the UN Security Council
- 7 Is transnational law eclipsing international law?
- 8 Participation in the World Trade Organization and foreign direct investment: national or European Union competences
- 9 From dualism to pluralism: the relationship between international law, European law and domestic law
- 10 Transnational law comprises constitutional, administrative, criminal and quasi-private law
- 11 Founding myths, international law, and voting rights in the District of Columbia
- 12 The tormented relationship between international law and EU law
- 13 International law scholarship in times of dictatorship and democracy: exemplified by the life and work of Wilhelm Wengler
- II Transnational economic law
- III Transnational lawyering and dispute resolution
- Bibliography of Detlev Vagts
- Index
7 - Is transnational law eclipsing international law?
from I - International law in general
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: the transnationalism of Detlev Vagts
- List of cases cited
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Introduction: a Festschrift to celebrate Detlev Vagts' contributions to transnational law
- 1 Detlev Vagts and the Harvard Law School
- 2 Constructing and developing transnational law: the contribution of Detlev Vagts
- I International law in general
- 3 ‘Hegemonic international law’ in retrospect
- 4 Textual interpretation and (international) law reading: the myth of (in)determinacy and the genealogy of meaning
- 5 The changing role of the State in the globalising world economy
- 6 Sources of human rights obligations binding the UN Security Council
- 7 Is transnational law eclipsing international law?
- 8 Participation in the World Trade Organization and foreign direct investment: national or European Union competences
- 9 From dualism to pluralism: the relationship between international law, European law and domestic law
- 10 Transnational law comprises constitutional, administrative, criminal and quasi-private law
- 11 Founding myths, international law, and voting rights in the District of Columbia
- 12 The tormented relationship between international law and EU law
- 13 International law scholarship in times of dictatorship and democracy: exemplified by the life and work of Wilhelm Wengler
- II Transnational economic law
- III Transnational lawyering and dispute resolution
- Bibliography of Detlev Vagts
- Index
Summary
Introduction
I recall first studying international law at law school in the mid-1990s. The course I took was taught by a disciple, and former student, of Judge Rosalyn Higgins. As well as to educate, the course's basic objective was to convince young lawyers of the relevance and importance of international law, despite the apparent vagaries and shortcomings of the international legal system.
We are all familiar with the standard critique such an approach sought to address: the critique led by legal positivists such as John Austin that laws properly so called are a species of commands which flow from a determinate source and are enforced by effective sanctions: as in developed domestic legal systems. On this analysis, international law was not law at all, but a mere elaboration of the international morality of State conduct. And even this morality was of limited effect; as States do not, in practice, invoke international law save in the service of their own interests. On this view, international law is merely a tool used in the course of international diplomacy.
We are all also familiar with the standard ‘policy-science’ riposte, championed by such luminaries as Professor Louis Henkin and Judge Higgins herself. This was that legal positivists ask themselves the wrong questions. What matters is not whether the international legal system has analogues to domestic legal systems of legislative, judicial, or executive branches, but whether international law is reflected in the policies of nations and in relations between nations.
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- Making Transnational Law Work in the Global EconomyEssays in Honour of Detlev Vagts, pp. 93 - 107Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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