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Ends and means in the settlement of international disputes over jurisdiction*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1985

A. V. Lowe
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Extract

This paper offers an analysis of some of the problems arising in those international disputes concerning issues of public international law which do not present any proximate threat to international peace or security. It does so in the context of an examination of procedures for settling disputes over jurisdiction in public international law, disputes of the kind which arose in 1982 when the United States’ right to control—that is, its jurisdiction over—exports from Western Europe to the Soviet Union was challenged by the EEC and its member states. The analysis is also intended to have general relevance to all international legal disputes in which individuals are directly involved as disputants with or alongside states.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 183 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1985

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References

1. See the British proceedings in the House of Lords in Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation v Westinghouse Electric Corporation [1978] AC 547. See further, Gray, E., The Great Uranium Cartel (1982), passimGoogle Scholar; and Lowe, A. V., Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (1983), pp. 106–9Google Scholar, 156–76.

2. See their article, ‘The Identification and Appraisal of Diverse Systems of Public Order’, in 53 AJIL 1 (1959)Google Scholar, and the penetrating discussion in R. A. Falk's classic monograph, The Role of Domestic Courts in the International Legal Order (1964), chapter IV and passim.

3. See further the materials set out in Lowe, op. cit. note 1.

4. PCIJ Rep., Ser. B, No. 10 (1927).

5. The Schooner Exchange v McFadden. 11 US 116, at 136 (1812). Cf., Falk, op. cit., note 3, pp. 29 ff; and see, too, the language of the English Attorney General in the Westinghouse case, loc. cit. note 1, at 590–2.

6. Cf. the role of H. L. A. Hart's ‘rule cf recognition’, whose binding force depends upon its acceptance: Hart, H. L. A., TheConcept of Law (1961), p. 105Google Scholar.

7. Whelan, F. G., ‘Prologue: Democratic Theory and the Boundary Problem’, in Pennock, J. R. and Chapman, J. W. (eds), Nomos XXV: Liberal Democracy (1983), 13Google Scholar.

8. These terms and the term ‘policy’, are used in the sense given to them by Dworkin. Rules are precise norms, which must be applied whenever the facts stipulated by the rule are given. Principles are standards required by justice, fairness or some other dimension of morality which must be taken into account by law officials as considerations inclining in one direction or another in a given case, but which do not have the ‘all-or-nothing’ quality of rules. Policies are standards setting out goals to be reached. See Dworkin, R., Taking Rights Seriously (1977), pp. 22–8.Google Scholar

9. See Lowe, A. V., ‘Do general rules of international law exist?’, Review of International Studies, 9(1983), p. 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf., the British pleadings in the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case, I.C.J. Rep., 1951, Pleadings, vol. II, pp. 494, 609; Ibid., vol. IV, p. 136.

10. Linklater, A., Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (1982), p. 45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an argument to similar effect, not based on contractarian theories, see Barrie Paskins, ‘Obligation and the Understanding of International Relations’, chapter 9 of Donelan, M. (ed.), The Reason of States (1978)Google Scholar.

11. See Linklater, op. cit. note 10, chapter 3 and passim, for a most illuminating discussion of this issue.

12. This is no more than a statement that international law is, in the area here discussed, essentially consensual and-not based upon natural law. That is not to say that natural law or its modern counterpart has no role to play elsewhere: see loc. cit. note 9.

13. It appears to be common ground between the US and its critics that individual citizens instituting private antitrust suits are acting as ‘private attorneys-general’, advancing a public interest: see Lowe, op. cit. note 2, pp. 180, 185.

14. Falk, op. cit. note 2, p. 61.

15. Lauterpacht, H., The Function of Law in the International Community (1983), p. 389Google Scholar. See O'Connell, D. P., International Law, 2nd edn. (1970), pp. 113–23Google Scholar.

16. Cf. the note in Harris, D. W., Cases and Materials on International Law, 3rd edn. (1983), pp. 78–9Google Scholar; Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th edn., vol. 18 (1977)Google Scholar, paras. 1406, 1420; E. Lauterpacht and Collier, J. G., Individual Rights and the State in Foreign Affairs (1977), pp. 628–30.Google Scholar

17. Vallat, Sir Francis, International Law and the Practitioner (1966), p. 54Google Scholar; also quoted in Harris, loc. cit. note 17.

18. See Lowe, note 9.

19. See Lord Wilberforce in the Rio Tinto Zinc case, above, note 2, at 617, and Sir John Donaldson MR in British Airways Board v Laker [1983] 3 All ER 375, at 403.

20. The courts are quite capable of asserting their independence forcefully: see Re C(An Infant) [1959] ch. 363. Cf., Heuston, R. F. V., Essays in Constitutional Law (1964), pp. 52–5Google Scholar. On the status of customary international law as part of the common law of England, see Trendtex Trading Corporation v Central Bank of Nigeria [1977] QB 259.

21. Text in Lowe, op. cit. note 1, p. 182.

22. Ibid., pp. 185–6.

23. The right of the British Secretary of State to forbid compliance with certain foreign measures, in circumstances where compliance would damage British trading interests or infringe British jurisdiction or otherwise prejudice British sovereignty (Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980, ss. 1, 2) is no exception. Ministerial orders only forbid compliance with the foreign measure, and if that measure was an element in a private action, the action may nevertheless proceed—or not, as the courts see fit. See, for example, the Laker saga: British Airways Board v Laker Airways Ltd. [1983] 3 All ER 375 (QBD, CA); [1984] 3 All ER 39 (HL).

24. Loc. cit., note 21, above.

25. See, e.g., the comments on the operation of the Canada-US antitrust cooperation agreement: Campbell, , ‘The Canada-United States Antitrust Notification and Consultation Procedure’, 56 Canadian Bar Review 468 (1978)Google Scholar, quoted in Merrils, J. G., International Dispute Settlement (1984), p. 3Google Scholar.

26. See, e.g., the statement by Sir Eric Beckett, in the Anglo-Norwegian Fisheries Case, I.C.J. Rep., 1951, Pleadings, vol. IV, pp. 36–7. Cf., Brownlie, I., System of the Law of Nations: State Responsibility Part 7(1983), p. 142Google Scholar; the Mariposa claim (1933), UNRIAA, vol. VI, p. 338 at pp. 340–1.

27. See Sorensen, M., Manual of Public International Law (1968), p. 545Google Scholar; McNair, Lord, The Law-of Treaties (1961), pp. 547–50.Google Scholar

28. See, e.g., the recent modification of US practice in this regard: 74 AJIL 928–929 (1980).

29. See Merrills, J. G., International Dispute Settlement (1983)Google Scholar, and references therein.

30. See Eisenberg, M. A., ‘Private Ordering through Negotiation: Dispute Settlement and Rulemaking’, 89 Harvard Law Review 637 (1976)Google Scholar.

31. Note 1, above.

32. See, e.g., the statement in the diplomatic Note of 9 November 1979 concerning the Protection of Trading Interests Bill, reprinted in Lowe, op. cit. note 1, p. 180.

33. And possibly of non-contractarian theories, too: see Barrie Paskins, op. cit. note 10.

34. Cf., the saga of the unwanted dicta in Croft v Dunphy: Lowe, A. V. and Young, J. R., ‘An Executive Attempt to Rewrite a Judgment’, 94 LQR 255 (1978)Google Scholar.

35. PCIJ Rep. Ser. B, No. 10 (1927).

36. These processes are discussed briefly in Lowe, A. V., ‘Blocking Extraterritorial Jurisdiction’, 75 AJIL 257 (1981)Google Scholar, and illustrated by the materials reprinted in Lowe, op. cit., note 1 above.

37. For a brief description see Bridge, J. W., ‘The Law and politics of United States foreign policy export controls’, 4 Legal Studies 2 (1984)Google Scholar.

38. See United States‘ Department of Justice, Antitrust Guide for International Operations (1977).

39. Treacy v D.P.P. [1971] AC 537.

40. See the lists in Timberlane (549 F.2d. 597 (1978); reprinted in Lowe, op. cit. note 1, p. 15) and Mannington Mills (597 F.2d. 1287 (1979); reprinted Ibid., p. 45).

41. See, e.g. the comments of the Australian Attorney General, reprinted in Lowe, op. cit., note 1, p. 90 at pp. 94–5.

42. Bridge, loc. cit. note 37.