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Regional or General International Law? A Misleading Dilemma*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

Jonkheer H. F. van Panhuys
Jonkheer H. F. van Panhuys
Affiliation:
Professor of International Law, University of Leyden
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Extract

Of old lawyers have been wrangling about the true nature of international law and indeed about its very existence. Although there is no likelihood that they will relinquish this pleasant habit in the near future, certain shifts may be discerned in the points on which their opinions are divided. At a time not so very far behind us there was much controversy about the question as to whether public international law should be considered only the external segment of public (or constitutional) municipal law—äusseres Staatsrecht as the Germans call it—or whether it constitutes a truly objective system of law having its sway over States independently from its adoption by any rule of municipal law. If the former proposition is the correct one—and in the Netherlands it has been vigorously and eloquently advocated by Suyling —public international law would be similar in character to private international law. For today it seems to be almost common ground that in principle rules of private international law appertain to municipal and not to international law in the objective sense.

Type
Articles
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , June 1961 , pp. 146 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1961

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References

1. Critische rechtswetenschap en volkenrecht, 1907Google Scholar, Suyling has remained true to his original starting-point, see RM Themis, 1951, pp. 379 ff.Google Scholar

2. See e.g. Reports of the PCIJ, Series A, nr. 20. p. 41 (The Serbian Loans Case).

3. See literature mentioned by McDougal and Lasswell in AJ (The American Journal of International Law), 1959, p. 1 n. 1Google Scholar; Van der Molen, The Present Crisis in the Law of Nations, in Symbolae Verzijl, 1958, pp. 238 ffGoogle Scholar; my book The Rôle of Nationality in International Law, 1959, p. 233 n. 3.Google Scholar In addition Röling's report for the VIRO (1958): Europees volkenrecht of wereldvolkenrecht?, although the problem here has a different tenor than the one discussed in the text above.

4. Cf. on this possible construction the interesting remarks made by Wengler in Revue hellénique de droit international, 1955, p. 127, n. 2.Google Scholar

5. Cf. Schwarzenberger, , Power Politics, 1951, p. 31.Google Scholar

6. Völkerrecht und Landesrecht, 1899, p. 47Google Scholar; compare as regards the terms “lawcreating act” and “original law” also Logemann, NJB (Nederlands Juristenblad) 1950, pp. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

7. In an arbitral award of 1923 the Swiss Federal Council characterized this rule—incorrectly identified with the Monroe doctrine—as the basis of the droit public sud-américain. See Reports of International Arbitral Awards I, p. 228 (and p. 280).Google Scholar

8. Kelsen, Thus, Principles of International Law, 1952, p. 96Google Scholar; and Puig, , Les principes du droit international public américain, 1954, p. 8.Google Scholar

9. Cf. Wengler, , “La communauté, les pays tiers et les organisations internationales” in Actes officiels du congrès international d'études sur la communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier, III, 1958, p. 17Google Scholar; Wengler's report is in other connexions too of great interest for the problem discussed here.

10. Charter of the United Nations, Commentary and Documents, 2d rev. ed., 1949. p. 99.Google Scholar

11. ICJ Reports, 1954, p. 56.Google Scholar

12. Cf. Suyling, , Critische rechtswetenschap en volkenrecht, p. 34Google Scholar and RM Themis, loc. cit. p. 387.Google Scholar

13. Compare for instance Article 219 of the E.E.C. Treaty and Article 62 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

14. The Projected Arab Court of Justice, 1957, pp. 169 f. and 208.Google Scholar The idea of rendering possible an appeal from a particular international tribunal with the International Court of Justice is no novelty, cf. e.g. British Year Book of International Law 1932, pp. 117 ff.Google Scholar; Annuaire de l'Institut de Droit International no. 44 (I), p. 310.Google Scholar

15. François, , Handboek van het volkenrecht I, 2nd ed., p. 315Google Scholar; nowadays agreements between Commonwealth-countries are indeed registered, cf. United Nations Legislative Series: Laws and Practices Concerning the Conclusion of Treaties, 1953, p. 112, n. 1.Google Scholar

16. NJB, 1950, p. 6.Google Scholar

17. Loc. cit., p. 541.

18. Compare certain developments in the United States referred to by the present author in NTIR (Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Internationaal Recht) 1957, p. 76.Google Scholar

19. Compare inter alia Article 75 of the E.C.S.C. Treaty, Article 20 of the Transitional Agreement attached to this Treaty, and Article III (1) of the E.E.C. Treaty. The fact that in the final phase the E.E.C. Commission is exclusively empowered to conclude treaties (cf. for instance Articles 113 and 114) does not mean that—for instance where this power is not recognized by third States—the member States could not act independently although this action may be co-ordinated behind the scenes.

20. Series A/B, nr. 63, pp. 134 and 135; a statement in the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning the Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, goes in the same direction, see ICJ Reports, 1951, p. 21.Google Scholar See, however, also 1957, p. 27.

21. Compare on this matter the interesting article by Tammes in NTIR, 1953/1954. pp. 374 ff.Google Scholar

22. I am indebted to Mr. B. H. ter Kuile for having kindly checked the officially published text of the decisions of the E.C.S.C. Court on this point. It is remarkable that up to now the problem raised in the text has received little attention in the literature.

23. ICJ Reports, 1950, pp. 276 f.Google Scholar

24. Compare also Berlia in Journal du droit international (Clunet) 1952, p. 40Google Scholar; in a somewhat divergent sense Röling, The Responsibility of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Organs of the State according to International Penal Law (an Address), 1955, p. 23.Google Scholar

25. Bracht, , Entwicklung und Grundzüge der sowjetischen Völkerrechtstheorie, 1957, p. 180.Google Scholar

26. AJ 1950, p. 10Google Scholar; one reads here inter alia: “Obviously today it is more accurate to speak of international laws or multinational law than of international law.”

27. Internationale Spectator, Vol. XIII, no. 15 (09 18, 1959), p. 140.Google Scholar

28. Etymologically I think this “neutral” use of the term “legal order” is justified in any case. Expressions like “primitive legal order” or “barbarian legal order” need not be considered to be contradictiones in terminis.

29. See NJB, 1960, p. 97.Google Scholar

30. This awareness exists in many regiones and blocs (although the ideas on what would constitute ideal international law may be widely divergent); cf. e.g. Starke, “Regionalism as a Problem of International Law” in Law and Politics in the World Community, 1953, p. 119Google Scholar; Charlier, , Recueil des Cours de l'Académie de Droit International, 1957 (I), p. 254Google Scholar; Gaidukow, in Bracht, , loc. cit., p. 94Google Scholar; DrAmeli, Mohsen, NJB, 1957, p. 508.Google Scholar

31. Loc. cit., p. 250.

32. Article 58 reads as follows:

“The King shall have the supreme direction of foreign relations.

He shall promote the development of the international legal order.”