This paper contrasts two different perspective on foreign relations law, one that developed in liberal democracies at the centre of geopolitical gravity, and one shaped by the postcolonial contexts and historical experiences of countries at the periphery of the global political economy. It argues that taking into account the peripheral perspective not only pluralizes comparative foreign relations law and thus makes it more representative. It might also help understand contemporary transformations of foreign relations law in Western liberal democracies, as these legal orders become less centric and more peripheral in a new multipolar geopolitical context. The contrasts between the different legal paradigms come into sharp relief in the legal treatment of transnational corporations, whose socio-legal reality questions categorical distinctions between international and national, political and economic, state and individual.

The study of foreign relations law has been largely devoted to the study of domestic laws as they affect foreign policy, a welcome complement to the traditional emphasis on international law. There has been less interest, however, in the legal dimensions of formulating foreign policy, a particular form of statecraft that is reducible to neither the constraints of domestic law, nor those of international law but that remains, in its own specific way, legally informed. In articulating and extolling the value of that dimension, Guy de la Charrière, a long time legal advisor to the French foreign ministry who ended his career on the bench of the ICJ, contributed to our understanding of "foreign relations law" long before "foreign relations law" became fashionable. He did so in a way that emphasized the significance of strategic legal considerations in the formulation of foreign policy; what he called "la politique juridique extérieure des Etats" (the legal foreign policy of states). These considerations are not so much legal constraints as lawyers would have them, but factors that highly determine, over time, the orientation and purpose of states' policies and commitment to international law. Uncovering such early and non-Anglophone voices in the effort to formulate the conceptual framework of foreign relations law can help further problematize the very notion.

Like an interface, foreign relations law addresses multiple and diverse questions about how the ‘domestic’ relates to the ‘international’ sphere. This introductory chapter unfolds the idea of bridges and boundaries between foreign relations law and public international law and develops the guiding questions of the volume. It also reflects on missed encounters between the two fields and introduces the core concepts and the approach of the book. Finally, it exposes the overall structure of the book and summarizes the contents of individual chapters.

The growing importance of foreign relations law raises the question of whether the traditional exclusion of parliaments from country’s foreign affairs is wrong and utterly flawed. While there are practical benefits in seeing foreign relations as belonging only to the executive branch, this approach undermines the potential for national parliaments to engage in developing this area of law. Hence, in this chapter I examine the role of parliaments in foreign relations law taking Bosnia and Herzegovina as an example. I argue that foreign affairs should be analysed as a matter of the distribution of powers between the executive and legislative branch, and not the exclusion of the foreign affairs power from the legislature. My main conclusion is that the impact of parliaments on foreign relations law depends on their role in a state and effective use of their competencies.

This chapter describes and analyzes the law and practice concerning Chinese foreign relations law in the context of global environmental governance. It explains why Chinese foreign relations law is fragmented and unpredictable. Against this fragmentation, it focuses on the field of environmental law and analyses how “environmental diplomacy” plays a role in Chinese foreign relations law pertaining to the environment. To demonstrate general law and practice, the chapter focuses on two core issues, which are allocation of Chinese public powers on negotiating, concluding and approving international environmental treaties and agreements and international cooperation with global environmental institutions. Finally, the chapter explores two issues concerning the legal status of environmental treaties in China, their legal place and methods of implementation that ensure compliance.

Foreign relations law is not (yet) treated as a discrete field of law in Switzerland, but it exists as a matter of fact. One of its core functions is the allocation of powers for international law-making. Progressively bolstered in the 1990s as a reaction to internationalisation, the Swiss legal framework on democratic participation in international law-making is unique in terms of the actors involved, the phases during which participation is possible, and the intensity and effects it features. Yet the framework is not without its limitations as it is geared towards just one source of international law - treaties. The ‘age of treaties’, however, seems to have run its course and formal law-making is increasingly superseded by informal law-making. This Chapter discusses the efforts undertaken in Switzerland to associate Parliament more closely in the making of ‘soft law’ and demonstrates that building bridges between the international and domestic spheres is far more complex in the context of informal law than it is for treaties.

A core challenge for foreign relations law – as with all public law – is how to constrain decision-makers and yet enable them to be effective. In the United States, the original solution was an innovative distribution of powers between Congress and the President. Over time, however, this distribution of powers has changed with respect to foreign affairs. The core story, often told, is of the rise of presidential power to undertake actions without congressional consent. As the President’s power has grown in scope, however, it has also become subject to more procedural requirements. Transparency and regularity are now expected and often mandated with respect to uses of executive power related to foreign affairs. These requirements do not stem from the U.S. Constitution but rather from a web of diffuse sources, including U.S. congressional law, U.S. executive branch practice, and various aspects of international law. This new set of constraints serves to some degree as a substitute for the original constitutional constraints. This book chapter describes these twin developments in relation to presidential foreign affairs power – the erosion of scope-based checks and the rise of process-based checks. It argues that international law has played a role in both developments. In closing, it considers the extent to which the changes described here may have relevance for the practice of other nations.