The basic structure

The national principle of self-containedness

Most lawyers work and think on the basis of a national legal system: they are ‘national’ lawyers. As such most rarely pay regard to international law. The standard approach is to see the national legal system as being self-contained, capable of solving on its own disputes and other issues as they present themselves. Where dealing with an issue belonging to the vast domain within which national lawyers regard national law as being self-contained, a national lawyer will be at least sceptical, if not dismissive, of an argument as to the relevance of international law. This starting-point may be termed ‘the national principle of self-containedness’. For example, the state is seen as perfectly capable on its own, that is, in its national law, to regulate the relationship between individuals, and between individuals and the state; thus individuals are not normally a concern for the international law of coexistence. In respect of a treaty-based regime part of which clearly has direct effect on individuals, the European Court of Justice indeed takes the view that in a very fundamental sense it ‘constitutes a new legal order of international law’.

In the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua case, the International Court referred to ‘matters in which each State is permitted, by the principle of State sovereignty, to decide freely’.