Contemporary Lawmaking Processes and Progressive Lawmaking Processes That Bind the States Without Unanimous Vote

Avgerinopoulou, Dionysia-Theodora

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-21417-3_5

Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou²

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Abstract

Over the past half century, a new sub-field of Public International Law, named “International Institutional Law,” emerged regarding the functions of inter-governmental organizations and other international arrangements—comprehensively speaking “international institutions.” By “international institutions” I comprehensively refer to both the inter-governmental organizations (“IOs”) and the treaty-based international institutions. “Treaty-based international institutions” or “treaty-based (international) bodies” are institutions in the framework of a treaty, i.e. in this case, a MEA In other places, I refer to all of these bodies, bodies, and institutionalized elements of the architecture of an MEA collectively, as “international arrangements,” which is another commonly cited and comprehensive term.^, International Institutional Law is the legal aspect of the political phenomenon of the so-called “autonomy” of the inter-governmental organizations (“IOs”). IOs are no longer merely “new settings for old techniques of diplomacy.” They have moved away from the state-centric model and are now fora for policies that tend to evolve to a certain extent independently from the separate interests of each of their Member States. The autonomy of an IO is a necessary prerequisite for the recognition of the existence of lawmaking powers held by the IOs, and lawmaking itself is a feature of the autonomy of an IO. The IOs’ autonomy has already been ascertained in theory and in practice by, among others, the fact that IOs enjoy a legal personality that is separate from the legal personality of their Member States. The IOs’ legal personality is either outlined in the founding instruments of the IO or inferable from the competences that the founding instrument or other pertinent legal instruments attribute to the IO. The question that still remains open is not whether an IO is an “autonomous arrangement” in International Law, but what is the degree of autonomy enjoyed by an IO. The present Book researches the degree of autonomy to the extent that this is related to the lawmaking functions of the IOs. Under the lawmaking perspective, the answer to this question has two tiers: the first tier provides a general answer that applies to the majority of IOs and relates to the definition of an IO itself; the second tier depends on an analysis of each IO separately.

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Notes

1.
See BHARAT H. DESAI, INSTITUTIONALIZING INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 84 (Transnational Publishers, Ardsley, NY 2004) (using a comprehensive phrase, “International Environmental Institutions” (IEIs); JORGEN WETTESTAD, DESIGNING EFFECTIVE ENVIRONMENTAL REGIMES: THE KEY CONDITIONS 26 (Edward Elgar Publishing 1999) (analyzing the role of secretariats in MEAs.). Further, by evaluating the role of treaty-based international institutions, DiMento recognizes that those, too, acquire step by step an autonomous presence on international law. This is the reason why DiMento uses the term “autonomous international arrangements” in order to describe them. See JOSEPH F. DIMENTO, THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW (University of Texas, Austin 2003), p. 37.
2.
JOSE E. ALVAREZ, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAW-MAKERS, OXFORD MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 344 (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005); for a detailed definition of the internal or administrative law of the International Organizations, otherwise called “International Institutional Law”, see, e.g., HENRY G. SCHERMES & NIELS M. BLOKKER, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW (2003): JAN KLABBERS, AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW (Cambridge University Press 2002); C. F. AMERASINGHE, PRINCIPLES OF THE INSTITUTIONAL LAW OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (Cambridge 1996).
3.
LAWRENCE T. FARLEY, CHANGE PROCESS IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 2 (1982) (quoting Hans J. Morgenthau).
4.
Michel Virally, Definition and Classification of International Organizations: A Legal Approach, in THE CONCEPT OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION 51 (Georges Abi-Saab ed., 1981).
5.
CATHERINE BRÖLMANN, THE INSTITUTIONAL VEIL IN PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW 16 (2007).
6.
JAN KLABBERS, AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW 8–13 (2002).
7.
HENRY G. SCHERMERS & NIELS M. BLOKKER, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW, 3rd ed. (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001), at §§ 27, 28.
8.
PHILIPPE SANDS & PIERRE KLEIN, BOWETT’S LAW OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 16 (5th ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2001).
9.
This definition is the most commonly accepted in the field. See, e.g., JOSE E. ALVAREZ, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAW-MAKERS, OXFORD MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 344 (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005); CLIVE ARCHER, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (3rd ed. 2001); HENRY G. SCHERMERS & NIELS M. BLOKKER, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW, 3rd ed. (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001), at 26.
10.
JOSE E. ALVAREZ, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAW-MAKERS, OXFORD MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 344 (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005); NIGEL D. WHITE, THE LAW OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 60 (1996).
11.
See Nigel White, Descending Separate Will, in FROM GOVERNMENT TO GOVERNANCE: THE GROWING IMPACT OF NON-STATE ACTORS ON THE INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN LEGAL SYSTEMS (Wybo Heere ed. 2004); Proceedings, 2004 Hague Joint ASIL/NVIR Conference, at 31–38 (2004).
12.
See THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY 288 (Robert Audi ed., 1995) (defining functionalism in the different disciplines of the social sciences). Even within the juridical domain, there is no single school of Functionalism, but, rather, diverse expressions of functionalist legal doctrine. See, e.g., ATHENA DEBBIE EFRAIM, SOVEREIGN (IN)EQUALITY IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 28 (2000). Cf. Douglas M. Johnson, Functionalism in the Theory of International Law, 26 CAN. Y.B. INT’L L., 3, 56 (1988).
13.
See generally David Mitrany, The Communal Organization of World Affairs, in THE PROGRESS OF INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT (1933) (initially presenting the Functional idea as a theory of international organization); see also DAVID MITRANY, A WORKING PEACE SYSTEM (1966); DAVID MITRANY, FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF POLITICS ix, xix (1975).
14.
For further elaboration to theoretical approaches, see JOSE E. ALVAREZ, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAW-MAKERS, OXFORD MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 344 (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005), p. 24–57.
15.
See, e.g., DAVID MITRANY, FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF POLITICS ix, xix (1975).
16.
ATHENA DEBBIE EFRAIM, SOVEREIGN (IN)EQUALITY IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 28 (2000), at 35.
17.
HEATHCORE, NINA, NEOFUNCTIONAL THEORIES OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION, IN FUNCTIONALISM: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 38, 40, A.J.R. GROOM & PAUL TAYLOR EDS., 1975 at 38, 39.
18.
Jose E. Alvarez, Design & Functions of Institutions, & Issues of Sovereignty, in INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN CONTEXT: LAW, POLITICS, MORALS 678, 681 (Henry J. Steiner, et al. eds., 3d ed. 2008).
19.
March J.G. & Olsen J.P., The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life, 78 AM. POL. SCI. REV. 734 (1984).
20.
See generally Philip Allott, Language, Method and the Nature of International Law, 45 BRIT. Y.B. INT’L L. 3 (1988); Harold J. Berman, Toward an Integrative Jurisprudence: Politics, Morality, History, 76 CAL. L. REV. 779 (1988); Seyom Brown & Larry L. Fabian, Toward Mutual Accountability in the Nonterrestrial Realms, 29 INT’L ORG. 877 (1975); F. V. Garci-Amador, Current Attempts to Revise International Law – A Comparative Analysis, 77 AM. J. INT’L L. 286 (1983); Ernst B. Haas, Is There a Hole in the Whole? Knowledge, Technology, Interdependence and the Construction of International Regimes, 29 INT’L ORG. 825 (1975); Edward McWhinney, The Need for a New General Theory of International Law, 23 CAN. Y.B. INT’L L. 311 (1985).
21.
See I. DETTER, LAW MAKING BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 44 (1965); SEILD-HOHENVELDERN, ANNOTATION, DAS RECHT DER INTERNATIONALEN ORGANIZATIONEN EINSCHLIESSLICH DER SUPRANATIONALEN GEMEINSCHAFTEN, 1522 (5th ed. 1992); SOMMER, JULIA, “ENVIRONMENTAL LAWMAKING BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS”, 41 ZAÖRV 56/3 (1996) at 650.
22.
See JOSE E. ALVAREZ, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AS LAW-MAKERS, OXFORD MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 344 (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2005), p. xiii.
23.
Article 38 reads as follows:
1. 1.
  The Court, whose function is to decide in accordance with international law such disputes as are submitted to it, shall apply
  
  a.
  international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contenting States;
  
  b.
  international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
  
  c.
  the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
  
  d.
  subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.
2. 2.
  This provision shall not prejudice the power of the Court to decide a case ex aequo et bono, if the parties agree thereto.
Statute of the International Court of Justice art. 38, June 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, TS No 993 (1945).
24.
See CHARLES H. ALEXANDROWICZ, THE LAWMAKING FUNCTIONS OF THE SPECIALIZED AGENCIES OF THE UNITED NATIONS (1973), at 2; Jutta Brunnée, Sources of International Environmental Law: Interactional Law, in The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law (Samantha Besson & Jean d’Aspremon eds, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017).
25.
Regarding the new sources of international law, beyond the traditional sources, described in Article 38, see SALEM H. NASSER, SOURCES AND NORMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: A STUDY ON SOFT LAW 86 (Mobility and Norm Change) (2008); Nicholas Onuf, Lawmaking in the Global Community: A Working Paper (1974), in NICHOLAS ONUF, INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: ESSAYS AND ENGAGEMENT, 1966–2006, at 63 (2008). For a specific reference to the lawmaking competences of the UNGA, see Nicholas Onuf, Professor Falk on the Quasi-Legislative Competence of the General Assembly, in ONUF, INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: ESSAYS AND ENGAGEMENT, 1966–2006, at 63 (2008) at 15; R. A. Falk, The Legitimacy of Legislative Intervention by the United Nations, in ESSAYS ON INTERVENTION 51–52 (R. J. Stanger ed., 1964); R. A. Falk, On the Quasi-Legislative Competence of the General Assembly, 60 AJIL 782 (1966).
26.
JURIJ DANIEL ASTON, SEKUNDÄRGESETZGEBUNG INTERNATIONALER ORGANISATIONEN ZWISCHEN MITGLIEDSTAATLICHER SOUVERÄNITÄT UND GEMEINSCHAFTSDISZIPLIN (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005) (extensively analyzing the issue).
27.
See, e.g., Certain Expenses of the United Nations, Advisory Opinion, 1962 ICJ 151 (July 20).
28.
EDUARD YEMIN, LEGISLATIVE POWERS IN THE UNITED NATIONS AND SPECIALIZED AGENCIES 6 (1969).
29.
See SALEM H. NASSER, SOURCES AND NORMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW: A STUDY ON SOFT LAW 86 (Mobility and Norm Change) (2008), at 78 (citing Jaen-Didier Sicault, Du Caractère Obligatoire des Engagement Unilatéraux en Droit International Public, 83 REVUE GENERALE DE DROIT INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC 633 (1979) (categorizing unilateral acts being promulgated by IOs among the sources of international law and referring specifically to a few categories of unilateral acts as classic study objects: notification, recognition, protest, renunciation and promises).
30.
Kristina Daugirdas, International Organizations and the Creation of Customary International Law, SSRN Electronic Journal (2018), https://ssrn.com/abstract=3160229 (last accessed February 2019).
31.
Paul Szasz, General Lawmaking Processes, in THE UNITED NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 27, 31 (Christopher C. Joyner, ed. 1997).
32.
Paul Szasz, General Lawmaking Processes, in THE UNITED NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 27, 31 (Christopher C. Joyner, ed. 1997), at 27.
33.
See, e.g. E. SPILIOTOPOULOS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW I, A. Sakkoulas Publications, Athens, Greece, (in Greek) 1996.
34.
HENRY G. SCHERMERS & NIELS M. BLOKKER, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL LAW, 3rd ed. (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001), p. 3.
35.
HANS KELSEN, PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 441 (2d ed. 1966).
36.
P. B. POTTER, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION 209 (5th ed. 1948).
37.
SOMMER, JULIA, “ENVIRONMENTAL LAWMAKING BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS”, 41 ZAÖRV 56/3 (1996) at 634, 650.

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European Institute of Law, Science and Technology, Athens, Greece
Dionysia-Theodora Avgerinopoulou

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Avgerinopoulou, DT. (2019). Contemporary Lawmaking Processes and Progressive Lawmaking Processes That Bind the States Without Unanimous Vote. In: Science-Based Lawmaking . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21417-3_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21417-3_5
Published: 01 September 2019
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-21416-6
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