This article interrogates the intellectual foundations of global legal pluralism as a descriptive and normative position, and assesses its core claims with reference to the changing status of individuals in the postnational realm. In order to uncover the normative core of the pluralist position, the article turns to the rich tradition of value pluralism in political philosophy, particularly as articulated by Isaiah Berlin. It argues that as a normative position, pluralism – whether applied to the abstract sphere of values or the concrete realm of legal regimes – is normatively underdetermined, offering too little guidance as to how the conflicts endemic to a pluralistic world ought to be resolved. Unless it is supplemented by other, more substantive principles of political legitimacy such as democracy, freedom, equality, or justice, the principle of pluralism applied to the global legal realm is poised to reproduce, even exacerbate, existing inequalities of power and resources among those whom it affects.

This article gives an overview of two competing paradigms in the practice of judicial organs for the resolution of norm conflicts, namely the paradigm of a human rights based hierarchy versus the paradigm of systemic integration or conflict avoidance. Judicial practice indicates that norm conflicts typically manifest themselves between human rights obligations on the one hand and other categories of international obligations on the other. Do judicial organs resolve such norm conflicts in a manner that favours human rights obligations? If so, this would support the view in the literature that the international legal order is increasingly operating within a paradigm of hierarchy, with human rights at its apex. The article addresses this question based on the results of a study conducted by 10 authors who have analysed the practice of domestic, regional, supranational and international courts in dealing with norm conflicts between human rights, on the one hand and the other sub-regimes of public international law mentioned above, on the other (de Wet and Vidmar 2011). The article argues that judicial practice reveals no clear or consistent patterns of a human rights based hierarchy in international law can currently be induced from the manner in which courts resolve norm conflicts in international law. Instead, courts avoid resolving norm conflicts within a paradigm of hierarchy and instead remain within a paradigm of systemic integration that is aimed at maximizing the accommodation of competing sub-regimes of public international law.

Counterterrorist sanctions against individuals are a prime example of pluralism. Multiple claims of constitutional authority (in resolutions of the UN Security Council, under European Union law, and national law) assume to govern the same legal situation. Choosing between these different authorities has great implications for the legal situation of individuals. This paper analyses the legal position of individuals facing this plurality of claims of constitutional authority and how their rights are largely dependent on the choices of domestic courts. Attention will be given not only to procedural and judicial rights but also to the broader implications of individual sanctions as an example of pluralism. What does it mean for popular sovereignty? Do patterns or guidelines emerge of how courts should address multiple claims of authority? The paper takes into account the latest amendments of the UN sanctioning procedure (Resolutions 1988 and 1989 (2011)).

The European Union (EU) is embedded in a pluralistic legal context because of the EU and its Member States’ treaty memberships and domestic laws. Where EU conduct has implications for both the EU’s international trade relations and the legal position of individual traders, it possibly affects EU and its Member States’ obligations under the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO law) as well as the Union’s own multi-layered constitutional legal order. The present paper analyses the way in which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) accommodates WTO and EU law in the context of international trade disputes triggered by the EU. Given the ECJ’s denial of direct effect of WTO law in principle, the paper focuses on the protection of rights and remedies conferred by EU law. It assesses the implications of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) – which tolerates the acceptance of retaliatory measures constraining traders’ activities in sectors different from those subject to the original trade dispute (Bananas and Hormones cases) – for the protection of ‘retaliation victims’. The paper concludes that governmental discretion conferred by WTO law has not affected the applicability of EU constitutional law but possibly shapes the actual scope of EU rights and remedies where such discretion is exercised in the EU’s general interest.

Global legal pluralism is concerned, inter alia, with the growing multiplicity of normative legal orders and the ways in which these different orders intersect and are accommodated with one another. The different means used for accommodation will have a critical bearing on how individuals fare within them. This article examines the recent environmental jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights to explore some of the means of reaching an accommodation between national legal orders and the European Convention. Certain types of accommodation – such as the margin of appreciation given to states by the Court – are well known. In essence, such mechanisms of legal pluralism raise a presumptive barrier which generally works for the state and against the individual rights-bearer. However, the principal focus of the current article is on a less well-known, recent set of pluralistic devices employed by the Court, which typically operate presumptively in the other direction, in favour of the individual. First, the Court looks to instances of breaches of domestic environmental law (albeit not in isolation); and second, it places an emphasis on whether domestic courts have ruled against the relevant activity. Where domestic standards have been breached or national courts have ruled against the state, then, presumptive weight is typically shifted towards the individual.

International criminal law provides a particularly interesting case study for the proliferation of legal orders as it helps to understand the types of uncertainties their interaction may entail with respect to the position of the individual as well as the solutions that may be adopted in that respect. This article analyses a selected number of substantive and procedural uncertainties that originate in the relationship between international criminal law and domestic legal orders. The purpose of the discussion is to identify the particular legal devices that have been elaborated in order to ensure the coordination between these legal orders, and to suggest areas in which a better coordination is still to be achieved.