Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that since the emergence of international law in the sixteen hundreds until the present, every account of the sources applicable to international law has relied on a normative form that challenges the theoretical objectivity and internal logic of the doctrine itself at a given time. That is, at least one of the elements taken into consideration by the diverse authors cannot be precisely described as an objective source. Therefore, as precise as the doctrine attempts to be, there has always existed an element that ultimately allows for a free interpretation of what constitutes law. I argue that these ‘not objectified factors’—bowring from the terminology used by Alf Ross—have always been present in international legal theory. In this chapter, I engage in a historical analysis of how scholars have spoken about legal sources from the 16th century until now. The main focus will be to identify relevant trends by virtue of the not-objectified factor that was predominant.
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Notes
- 1.
Prosper Weil, “Le droit international en quête de son identité: cours général de droit international public” (1992) 237 Rec des Cours 11 at 133.
- 2.
See Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, vol. 2, trans. by Francis W. Kelsey (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925) at 38 [Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis].
- 3.
See also Alberico Gentili, De Iure Belli Libri Tres, vol. 2, trans. by John C. Rolfe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933) at 7 (although he did not discuss agreements in international law, he declared that “international law is a portion of the divine law”).
- 4.
To be absolutely fair, such division is present since ancient Greece, Le Fur affirms that “l’antiquité a connu un droit naturel international”, Louis Le Fur, “La Théorie du Droit Naturel” (1927) 18 Rec des Cours 260 at 272; See also Serge A. Korff, “Introduction à l’histoire du droit international” (1923) 1 Rec des Cours 1.
- 5.
See Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or The Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns, trans. by Charles G. Fenwick (Washington D.C.: The Carnegie Institution, 1926) at 3–8.
- 6.
See Samuel Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et Gentium, vol. 2, trans. by C.H. Oldfather and W.A. Oldfather (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934) at 112.
- 7.
Wolff, for example, follows the Grotius in its classification; Christian Wolff, Jus Gentium Methodo Scoentifica Pertractatum, vol. 2, trans. by Joseph H. Drake (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934) at 9, 10 and 18; while sustaining the existence of the Law of Nature, Rachel sustained that the Law of Nations was only formed by what Grotius called voluntary law; contra Samuel Rachel, De Jure Naturae et Gentium Dissertationes, vol. 2, trans. by John Pawley Bate (Washington D.C.: The Carnegie Institution, 1916) at 163–165.
- 8.
International Commission of Jurists, “Public International Law: Projects to be Submitted for the Consideration of the Sixth International Conference of American States” (1928) 22 AJIL Supp 234 at 239.
- 9.
Or, as put by Judge Negulesco, “the mutual conviction that the recurrence is the result of a compulsory rule”; Jurisdiction of the European Commission of the Danube (1927), Dissenting Opinion by M. Negulesco, PCIJ (Ser. B) No. 14 at 105.
- 10.
Paul Guggenheim, “Contribution à l’histoire des sources du droit des gens” (1958) 94 Rec des Cours 5 at 52–53.
- 11.
See Volker Röben, “What About Hobbes? Legitimacy as a Matter of Inclusion in the Functional and Rational Exercise of International Public Power” in Rüdiger Wolfrum and Volker Röben, eds., Legitimacy in international law (Berlin; New York: Springer, 2008) at 356 (“[w]hether states can be expected to obey international law depends in essence on their being included in the exercise of this [public] power”); such a view is also shared by those who have separated sources of law from sources of obligations, having as a consequence that treaties are obligations while the source of the law is the will of states; see e.g., Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Advisory Opinion, [1951] ICJ Rep 14 at 32 (Dissenting Opinion of Judges Guerrero, Sir Arnold McNair, Read, Hsu Mo) (“The fact that in so many of the multilateral conventions […] the parties have agreed to create new rules of law or to declare existing rules of law, with the result that this activity is often described as ‘legislative’ or ‘quasi-legislative’, must not obscure the fact that the legal basis of these conventions, and the essential thing that brings them into force, is the common consent of the parties”); See also Gerald G. Fitzmaurice, “Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law” in Frederick Mari van Asbek, ed, Symbolae Verzijl, présentées au professeur J.H.W. Verzijl à l’occasion de son LXX-ième anniversaire (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1958) 124 at 155–160.
- 12.
See, Malcolm N. Shaw, International law, 5th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) at 92–119.
- 13.
Alf Ross, A textbook of international law: general part (London: Longmans & Green, 1947) at 80–91.
- 14.
Kelsen stated: “[t]he ambiguity of the term ‘source’ of law seems to render the term rather useless”, Hans Kelsen, Principles of international law (New York: Rinehart, 1952) at 304 [Kelsen, Principles]; he was obviously uncomfortable with the terminology of the time, since in his opinion, by calling custom and treaties ‘sources’, “on se sert d’une abréviation, qui risque facilement d’induire en erreur”, Hans Kelsen, “Les rapports de système entre le droit interne et le droit international public” (1926) 14 Rec des Cours 227 at 265.
- 15.
Kelsen, Principles, ibid.
- 16.
“[T]he material sources might better be described as the ‘origins’ of law[, … m]aterial historical, indirect sources represent, so to speak, the stuff out of which the law is made”, Fitzmaurice, “Some Problems”, supra note 11 at 153.
- 17.
“[T]hose provisions operating within the legal system on a technical level”, Shaw, supra note 12 at 66.
- 18.
See e.g. Martti Koskenniemi, From apology to Utopia: the structure of international legal argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) at 307 [“A period of naturalism is contrasted with a period of positivism and these again with some ‘eclectic’ period. Yet, the contrasts re-emerge within modernism as it understands different sources…”].
- 19.
The Gospel of John at 1:1 (please note that as the Gospel was originally written in Greek, the phrase “the Word” is a translation of the Greek word “Logos”); while John was clearly using logos to speak of Jesus, it is interesting to compare it with the legal connotations that some Greek philosophical schools have given to the term: “[i]n Stoicism the logos is the divine order and in Neoplatonism the intelligible regulating forces displayed in the sensible world. The term came thus to refer, in Christianity, to the Word of God, to the instantiation of his agency in creation, and, in the New Testament, to the person of Christ”, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 1999, s.v. “logos”.
- 20.
See Francisco Suarez, Selections from Three Works, vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944) at 172; Gentili, supra note 3 at 7–8.
- 21.
Hugo Grotius, De Jure Praedae Commentarius, vol. 1, trans. by Gwladys L. Williams and Walter H. Zeydel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950) at 8 [Grotius, De Jure Praedae].
- 22.
Judith N. Shklar, “Comment On Avineri” [1973]:1 Political Theory 399 at 402.
- 23.
See Gordon E. Sherman, “Jus Gentium and International Law”, [1918] 12:1 AJIL 56 at 60–61.
- 24.
Dig. 1.2.1–2 (Ulpian).
- 25.
Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, supra note 2.
- 26.
“From the foregoing, then, I conclude and state as my third proposition that the natural law is truly and properly divine law, of which God is the Author”, Suarez, supra note 20 at 198.
- 27.
See e.g., Balthazar Ayala, De Jure et Officiis Bellicis et Disciplina Militari Libri III, vol. II (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1912); Pierino Belli, De Re Militari et Bello Tractatus, vol. II, trans. by Herbert C. Nutting (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936); Francisci de Victoria, De Indis et de Ivre Belli Relectiones, trans. by Franciscus de Victoria (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1917).
- 28.
Giovani de Legnano, Tractatus De Bello, De Represaliis et De Duello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917) at 224.
- 29.
See James Brown Scott, Law, the state, and the international community (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939) at 202.
- 30.
Gentili, supra note 3 at 8.
- 31.
Ibid at 9–10.
- 32.
Ibid at 10.
- 33.
Ibid at 11.
- 34.
Ibid at 11.
- 35.
Grotius, De Iure Praedae, supra note 21 at xiv.
- 36.
Ibid at xvi; Karl Zemanek, “Was Hugo Grotius Really in Favour of the Freedom of the Seas?” (1999) 1 J Hist Int’l L48 at 50–51 and fn 8.
- 37.
Grotius, De Iure Praedae, ibid at 13.
- 38.
Ibid at 26–27.
- 39.
Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, supra note 2 at 9.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid at xxi.
- 42.
See David Kennedy, “Primitive Legal Scholarship” (1986) 27 Harv Int’l LJ 1 at 79 and 82.
- 43.
Ibid at 14.
- 44.
Somos, who has done an impressive analysis of Grotious and his contemporaries’ writings is of the view that Grotius “presented an unbroken string of forced interpretations that had shocking implications for just war theory, and he did so in order to show that the Bible should not be used in international law at all”, however, he also states: “Grotius was clearly no atheist, and I doubt that he set out to write [De Jure Praedae], and later [De Jure Belli ac Pacis], to construct a seculartheory of international relations”, Mark Somos, “Secularization in De Iure Praedae: from Bible Criticism to International Law” (2005–2007) 26:1 Grotiana 147 at 157 and 190.
- 45.
The 1738 edition of De Jure Belli ac Pacis translated by Jean Barbeyrac—which is not my preferred edition—contains a very useful index of “Passages of Scripture, Illustrated examined or corrected in this Treatise”, which illustrates the point here made, Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, trans. by Jean Barbeyrac (Clark: Lawbook Exchange, 2004); see also David J. Bederman, “Reception of the Classical Tradition in International Law: Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis” (1996) 10 Emory Int’l L Rev 3 at 5 (although Bederman discusses Grotius use of Greek and Latin sources, he noted that “Almost the entirety of this textual authority (at least for the 1625 edition of the book) came from antiquity. Those sources can, in turn, be equally divided between biblical quotes and the writings of classical authors.”).
- 46.
Mark W. Janis, “Religion and the Literature of International Law: Some Standard Texts” in Mark W. Janis, Carolyn Maree Evan, eds, Religion and International Law (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1999) at 123 (“His theory of a law of nations based on the consent of sovereigns was meant to be more or less religiously neutral. However, from a reading of his text, it is doubtful that Grotius meant to be or was irreligious or secular”); William P. George, “Grotius, Theology, and International Law: Overcoming Textbook Bias” (1999–2000) 14:2 J L & Religion 605 (arguing that English-language international law textbooks “present Grotius as the one who finally liberated international law from theology when, in fact, his approach to international law was unabashedly theological”); contra, Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts, “Introduction: Grotian Thought in International Relations”, in Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts, eds, Hugo Grotius A\and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) 1 at 3–4 (in their view, Grotius presented a “systematic reassembling of practice and authorities on the traditional but fundamental subject of the jus belli [laws of war], organized for the first time around a body of principles rooted in the law of nature”); Somos, supra note 44 at 190 (“Te fact remains that his use of biblical references in [De Jure Praedae] indicate that he was already thinking in terms of the essentially secular, new system of laws that we find in De iure belli ac pacis”); Mark Somos, Secularization and the Leiden Circle (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2011) at 384 (“If one has to date the birth of secular international law, one cannot find a better year than 1625”).
- 47.
Vattel, supra note 5 at 4.
- 48.
Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, Elementa Juris Naturae et Gentium (Indianapolis: Libery Fund, 2008) at 323.
- 49.
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural Law and Politic Law (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006) at 176.
- 50.
Ibid at 177.
- 51.
Gentili, supra note 3 at 10.
- 52.
Robert Phillimore, Commentaries upon international law, vol. 1 (London: W.G. Benning, 1854) at 56.
- 53.
Robert Browning, Pippa passes (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1994) at 25, online: Literature Online <http://lion.chadwyck.com>.
- 54.
Rachel, supra note 7 at 8.
- 55.
Richard Zouche, Iuris et Iudicii Fecialis, sive, Iuris Inter Gentes, et Quaestionum de Eodem Explicatio, vol. 2, trans. by J.L. Brierly (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1911).
- 56.
Ibid at 2.
- 57.
Rachel, who wrote after Zouche, denounced his reliance on reason as confusing the law of nations and the law of nature, Rachel, supra note 7 at 179.
- 58.
Zouche, supra note 55 at 2.
- 59.
Ibid.
- 60.
Ibid at 2 (Psalms), 4 (Exodus), 8 (Genesis and Kings), 61 (Daniel) and 70 (Ezekiel).
- 61.
Johann Wolfgang Textor, Synopsis Juris Gentium, vol. 2, trans. by John Pawley Bate (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1916) at 4.
- 62.
Ibid at 1.
- 63.
Ibid at 2.
- 64.
Cornelius van Bynkershoek, Questionum Juris Publici Libri Duo, vol. 2, trans. by Tenney Frank (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930).
- 65.
Vattel, supra note 5 at 8.
- 66.
Heineccius, supra note 48 at 323.
- 67.
Burlamaqui, supra note 49 at 174.
- 68.
Wolff, supra note 7 at 9.
- 69.
Vattel, supra note 5 at 4.
- 70.
Wolff, supra note 7 at 10.
- 71.
Ibid at 19.
- 72.
Ibid at 18.
- 73.
Vattel, supra note 5 at 9.
- 74.
Ibid.
- 75.
Ibid at 5.
- 76.
Zouche, for instance, bases his chapter on “the law of nations” on Iustinianus’s Digest, Jean Bodin’s fifth book of the Commonwealth, Hobbe’s Leviathan and Grotious’s De Jure Belli et Pacis, Zouche, supra note 55 at 3.
- 77.
Baldus de Ubaldi, Consilia IV at ccccxcvi, as quoted by Gentili, supra note 3 at 11.
- 78.
Henry Wheaton, Elements of international law: with a sketch of the history of the science (London,: B. Fellowes, 1836).
- 79.
Le Fur, supra note 4 at 325.
- 80.
North American Dredging Company of Texas (U.S.A.) v. United Mexican States (1926), IV RIAA 26 at 29 (para 12).
- 81.
On this point, see Hans J. Morgenthau, “Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law” (1940) 34:2 AJIL 260 at 261–273.
- 82.
Alfred Verdross, “Les principes généraux du droit dans la jurisprudence internationale” (1935) 52 Rec des Cours 191 at 207 [Verdross, “Les principes généraux”].
- 83.
Ibid at 210; Raimondo explains five arbitral cases where general principles were used as subsidiary sources of international law, Fabián Raimondo, General principles of law in the decisions of international criminal courts and tribunals (Leiden; Boston: M. Nijhoff Pub., 2008) at 10–15.
- 84.
See e.g. Eastern Extension, Australasia and China Telegraph Company, Ltd. (Great Britain) v. United States (1923), VI RIAA 112 at 114 (“International law, as well as domestic law, may not contain, and generally does not contain, express rules decisive of particular cases; but the function of jurisprudence is to resolve the conflict of opposing rights and interests by applying, in default of any specific provision of law, the corollaries of general principles, and so to find—exactly as in the mathematical sciences—the solution of the problem”).
- 85.
Karl Wolff, “Les principles généraux du droit applicables dans les rapports internationaux” (1931) 36 Rec des Cours 479 at 483.
- 86.
Raimondo, supra note 83 at 16.
- 87.
Permanent Court of International Justice—Advisory Committee of Jurists, Procès-Verbaux of the Proceedings of the Committee (The Hague: Van Langenhuysen Frères, 1920) at 306 (13th Mtg., 1 July 1920, annex No. 3) [Procès-Verbaux].
- 88.
Ibid at 293–294 (13th Mtg., 1 July 1920).
- 89.
Ole Spiermann, “‘Who Attempts Too Much Does Nothing Well’: The 1920 Advisory Committee of Jurists and the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice” (2002) 73 Brit YB Int’l L 187 at 213 [Spiermann, “Who Attempts Too Much”].
- 90.
Procès-Verbaux, supra note 87 at 296 (13th Mtg., 1 July 1920) and 308–309 (14th Mtg., 2 July 1920).
- 91.
Ibid at 344 (15th Mtg., 3 July 1920, annex No. 1).
- 92.
James Brown Scott, “The Draft Scheme of the Permanent Court of International Justice” (1920) 7 International Conciliation 507 at 525.
- 93.
Protocol of Signature Relating to the Statute for the Permanent Court of International Justice Provided for by Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 16 December 1920, [1921] 6 LNTS 379, at art. 38, (1923) 17 AJIL Supp 55, online: United Nations Treaty Collection <http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/LON/Volume%206/v6.pdf>.
- 94.
Shaw, supra note 12 at 66.
- 95.
Charles De Visscher, “La codification du droit international” (1925) 6 Rec des Cours 325 at 339; Paul Heilborn, “Les sources du droit international” (1926) 11 Rec des Cours 1 at 20.
- 96.
Example of this is Lassa Oppenheim’s famous analogy to a stream of water, which has appeared in every subsequent edition of his book: “Just as we see streams of water running over the surface of the earth, so we see, as it were, streams of rules running over the area of law. And if we want to know whence there rules come, we have to follow the streams upward until we come to their beginning. Where we find that such rules rise into existence, there is the source of them”, Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol. I (London: Longmans, Green & co., 1905) at para 15, p 21; see also, De Visscher, ibid at 345 (“Ni la coutume, ni la convention ne sont, à proprement parler, les bases ou les fondements du droit international: elles ne constituent que les sources formelles du droit positif”); Heliborn, supra note 88 at 20 (“[c]omme sources du droit international, c’est-à-dire comme modes de sa formation…”).
- 97.
Procès-Verbaux, supra note 87 at 335 (15th Mtg., 3 July 1920).
- 98.
See, Stephen Hall, “The Persistent Spectre: Natural Law, International Order and the Limits of Legal Positivism”, [2001] 12 EJIL 269 at 284.
- 99.
Treaty of Peace with Turkey Signed at Lausanne, 24 July 1923, 28 LNTS 11, (1924) 18 AJIL Supp. 4.
- 100.
The Case of the S.S. “Lotus” (France v. Turkey) (1927), PCIJ (Ser. A) No. 10 at 16.
- 101.
Ibid at 17.
- 102.
Antoine Favre, “Les principes généraux du droit, fonds commun du droit des gens” in Faculté de Droit de L’Université de Genève, ed., Recueil d’études de droit international: en hommage à Paul Guggenheim (Genève: La tribune de Genève, 1968) 366 at 372.
- 103.
Resolution adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations, 19 September 1927, 53 OJ Spec Supp 9, (1947) 41 AJIL Supp 106 at 106–107.
- 104.
Edwin M. Borchard, “‘Responsibility of States,’ at The Hague Codification Conference” (1930) 24 AJIL 517 at 520–522.
- 105.
Ibid at 530.
- 106.
United Nations Documents on the Development and Codification of International Law, U.N. Doc. A/AC.10/5 (29 April 1947), (1947) 41:4 AJIL Supp 29 at 82.
- 107.
Vingt et Unième Commission, Les principes généraux de droit comme source du droit des gens (1932) 37 Ann Inst Droit Int’l 283 at 297.
- 108.
Ibid.
- 109.
Verdross, “Les principes généraux”, supra note 82.
- 110.
Maurice Bourquin, “Règles générales du droit de la paix” (1931) 35 Rec des Cours 1 at 73.
- 111.
Manley O. Hudson, “The Succession of the International Court of Justice to the Permanent Court of International Justice” (1957) 51:3 AJIL 569 at 570.
- 112.
“Report of the Informal Inter-Allied Committee on the Future of the Permanent Court of International Justice: February 10, 1944” (1945) 39:1 AJIL Supp. 1 at 1.
- 113.
Ibid at 20.
- 114.
Charter of the United Nations, 26 June 1945, Can TS 1945 No. 7, at Annex, Art. 38.
- 115.
It is widely known that the Memorandum submitted by the Secretary-General (infra note 116) discussed in this paragraph was actually drafted by Sir Hersch Lauterpacht.
- 116.
International Law Commission, Survey of International Law in Relation to the Work of Codification of the International Law Commission (Memorandum submitted by the Secretary-General), 10 February 1949, UN. Doc A/CN.4/1/Rev/1 at 22.
- 117.
Oppenheim, supra note 96 at 22; for an interesting comparison of Oppenheim’s editions, including the issue of sources, see Mark W. Janis, “The New Oppenheim and Its Theory of International Law Oppenheim’s International Law” (1996) 16:2 Oxford J Leg Stud 329.
- 118.
Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol I, 2nd ed (London: Longmans, 1912).
- 119.
Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol I, 3rd ed by Ronald Roxburgh, (London: Longmans Green, 1920).
- 120.
Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol I, 4th ed by Arnold Duncan McNair, (London: Longmans Green, 1928).
- 121.
Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol I, 7th ed by Hersch Lauterpacht, (London: Longmans, 1948) at 27.
- 122.
Ibid at 29.
- 123.
Bin Cheng, “General principles of law as a subject for international codification” (1951) 4 Curr Legal Probs 35 at 37.
- 124.
Procès-Verbaux, supra note 87 at 335 (15th Mtg., 3 July 1920).
- 125.
Alfred Verdross, “Les principes généraux du droit dans le système des sources du droit international public” in Faculté de Droit de L’Université de Genève, ed., supra note 102, 521 at 524.
- 126.
See e.g., Géza Herczegh, General principles of law and the international legal order (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1969) at 42–44.
- 127.
Michel Virally, “Le rôle des “principes” dans le développement du droit international” in Faculté de Droit de L’Université de Genève, ed., supra note 102, 531 at 542–543.
- 128.
Frede Castberg, “La méthodologie du droit international public” (1933) 43 Rec des Cours 309 at 370.
- 129.
Bin Cheng, General principles of law as applied by international courts and tribunals (Cambridge: Grotius Publications Ltd., 1987) at 19.
- 130.
Joe Verhoeven, “Considérations sur ce qui est commun: Cours général de droit international public” (2008) 334 Rec des Cours 9 at 110.
- 131.
Report of the International Law Commission: Fifty-eight session, UNGAOR, 61st Sess, Supp. No. 10, UN Doc A/61/10 (2006) at p 419 (it must be noted that the ILC was speaking specifically about hierarchy in national legal systems).
- 132.
“Collaboration of the American Institute of International Law with the Pan American Union” (1926) 20 AJIL Supp. 300 at 304.
- 133.
Ibid at. 304–306; International Commission of Jurists, supra note 8 at 238–239.
- 134.
I am, again, borrowing terms from Alf Ross, who divided the factors that constitute a judicial decision “based on the degree of their objectivity. This is greatest for the formulated rules, least for the spontaneous factors”, Ross, supra note 13 at 82; as Spiermann explains: “In Ross’ view, there were three kinds of sources: (1) ‘objective’, written sources (treaties); (2) ‘partly objective’ sources derived from previous practice, whether in courts or among subjects of law (precedent and custom); and (3) ‘[t]he free, not formulated, not objectified factors spontaneously arising in the judge as the mouthpiece of the community to which he belongs and which he serves”, Ole Spiermann, “A National Lawyer Takes Stock: Professor Ross’ Textbook and Other Forays into International Law” (2003) 14:4 EJIL 675 at 677–678.
- 135.
Goldmann notes that among the earliest examples of ‘soft law’ are the ‘voeux’ contained in the Final Acts of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Peace Conferences, Matthias Goldmann, “We Need to Cut Off the Head of the King: Past, Present, and Future Approaches to International Soft Law” (2012) 25:2 Leiden J I L 335 at fn 5.
- 136.
Spiermann, “Who Attempts Too Much”, supra note 89.
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Fuentes, C.I. (2016). Talking About Sources: The Constant Reliance on a Non-objectified Element. In: Normative Plurality in International Law. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 57. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43929-7_2
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