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From Judicialisation to Politicisation? A Response to Daniel Quiroga-Villamarín by an Academic Turned Practitioner

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Cynical International Law?

Part of the book series: Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht ((BEITRÄGE,volume 296))

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Abstract

This comment is a reply to Daniel Ricardo Quiroga-Villamarín’s chapter ‘From Speaking Truth to Power to Speaking Power’s Truth: Transnational Judicial Activism in an Increasingly Illiberal World’. In his reply, the author agrees that we are indeed living in a period of backlash against liberal cosmopolitanism, but questions some parts of Daniel’s methodology and argumentation. As judges are constrained by positive law, their potential for innovation and activism is limited. They must balance community interests with rights of states and individuals and are not a vehicle of revolution but at best evolution. The comment concludes with a call for dispute resolution by courts as a means for upholding pluralism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For further references see Paulus (2007), pp. 695, 710.

  2. 2.

    Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags (1914) XIII. LP, II. Sess., (306), p. 6. Author’s translation.

  3. 3.

    For further reference and contextualisation see only Arend (1993), p. 491.

  4. 4.

    Fukuyama (2018).

  5. 5.

    House of Lords, Bartle and the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and Others, Ex Parte Pinochet; R v. Evans and Another and the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and Others, Ex Parte Pinochet, Judgment of 24 March 1999, [1999] UKHL 17.

  6. 6.

    Paulus (1999).

  7. 7.

    Simma (1994), p. 230.

  8. 8.

    Simma (1994), p. 248.

  9. 9.

    Simma (1998), p. 65.

  10. 10.

    See e.g. Ambos (2013), pp. 57–59.

  11. 11.

    Paulus (2010), p. 207.

  12. 12.

    Id., p. 219.

  13. 13.

    Id., p. 224.

  14. 14.

    Id., p. 221.

  15. 15.

    Habermas (1996).

  16. 16.

    Franck (1995), pp. 7–9.

  17. 17.

    Koskenniemi (2009), pp. 83, 87. Cf. Müller and Paulus (2009), pp. 85, 89.

  18. 18.

    Paulus (2009), pp. 106–109.

  19. 19.

    ECtHR, Perínçek v. Switzerland (GC), App no 27510/08, 15 October 2015.

  20. 20.

    Id., paras. 116–127.

  21. 21.

    German Federal Constitutional Court, BVerfGE 90, 241 (247); 94, 1 (8) on the complex relationship between facts and opinions in this regard; for the contrary view on Article 10 ECHR, see ECtHR, Springer v. Germany (No. 2), App No 48311/10, 10 July 2014, §§ 63–64.

  22. 22.

    Cf. Gebhard and Trimino (2013), para. 24 with further references. But see CEDAW Committee, General Comment No. 24, para. 31 (c) recommending that, ‘[w]hen possible, legislation criminalizing abortion should be amended, in order to withdraw punitive measures imposed on women who undergo abortion’.

  23. 23.

    Professor Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School may be the best example. A former US Ambassador to the Holy See, she is now chairing US Secretary Pompeo’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, see https://www.state.gov/commission-on-unalienable-rights. Accessed 12 May 2020.

  24. 24.

    See also Koskenniemi (2019).

  25. 25.

    Bryde (2011).

  26. 26.

    See generally Müller (2017), Mudde (2017).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Andreas Paulus

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  1. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Björnstjern Baade , Dana Burchardt , Prisca Feihle , Linus Mührel  & Lena Riemer , , ,  & 

  2. Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Alicia Köppen

  3. Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, Germany

    Raphael Schäfer

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Paulus, A. (2021). From Judicialisation to Politicisation? A Response to Daniel Quiroga-Villamarín by an Academic Turned Practitioner. In: Baade, B., et al. Cynical International Law?. Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, vol 296. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-62128-8_8

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