Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Normative Plurality in International Law

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Normative Plurality in International Law

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 57))

  • 526 Accesses

Abstract

While the practice of human rights courts promotes coherence among the regional and the universal human rights regimes, the principle of systemic integration is not meant to expand the normative content of the interpreted treaty on the basis of external instruments, especially non-binding instruments. Therefore, such practice cannot be conceptualised as interpretation, but as the application of external instruments. To defend this argument, I rely in the theory of Alf Ross concerning the sources of international law. Then, after adjusting Ross’s theory to the specific problems of the 21st century, and proposing three mutually reinforcing notions (specificity, completeness and purpose) that assist the judge in determining the applicable law to a case, I develop the content of the normative plurality hypothesis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Martti Koskenniemi, “Introduction” in Martti Koskenniemi, ed., Sources of International Law (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000) xi at xi; Robert Y. Jennings, “What is International Law and How Do We Tell It When We See It?” (1981) 37 Ann suisse dr int 59 at 60 [Jennings, “What is International Law”]; Duncan B. Hollis, “Why State Consent Still Matters—Non-State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law” (2005) 23:1 Berkeley J Int’l L 137 at 142–144; Harlan Grant Cohen, “Finding International Law: Rethinking the Doctrine of Sources” (2007) 93 Iowa L Rev 65 at 70 (“Largely unchanged, the doctrine has struggled to identify and categorize modern international phenomena. The result, this Article argues, is a disconnect between the rules identified as law by the doctrine of sources and the rules actually treated as law by the actors in the international system”).

  2. 2.

    Oscar Schachter, “Towards a Theory of International Obligation” in Stephen M. Schwebel, ed., The Effectiveness of international decisions; papers of a conference of the American Society of International Law and the proceedings of the conference (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1971) 9 at 9.

  3. 3.

    See generally Theodor Meron, “General Course on Public International Law: International Law in the Age of Human Rights” (2003) 301 Rec de Cours 1 at 21 [Meron, “General Course”]; Theodor Meron, The Humanization of International Law (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2006) at XV [Meron, Humanization]; René-Jean Dupuy, “Conclusions of the Workshop” in René-Jean Dupuy, ed., L’Avenir du Droit International Dans un Monde Multiculturel: Colloque de la Académie de Droit International de la Haye, 17–19 Novembre 1983 (The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff, 1983) at 478–487; René-Jean Dupuy, La Communauté internationale entre le mythe et l’histoire (Paris: UNESCO, 1986) at 171–173; Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, “Hacia el nuevo Jus Gentium del siglo XXI: El derecho universal de la humanidad” in Secretaria General de la OEA, Jornadas de Derecho Internacional 2003 (Washington: OEA, 2005) at 235–242; Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, A Humanização do Dereito Internacional (Belo Horizonte: Del Rey, 2006) at 135.

  4. 4.

    Menno T. Kamminga, “Final Report on the Impact of International Human Rights Law on General International Law”, in Menno T. Kamminga and Martin Scheinin, eds, The Impact of Human Rights Law on General International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) at 22;

  5. 5.

    Although not specifically addressing the issue of sources, Peters has argued that humanity has displaced sovereignty as the new normative foundation of international law, Anne Peters, “Humanity as the A and Ω of Sovereignty” (2009) 20:3 EJIL 513 at 514.

  6. 6.

    Kamminga, supra note 4 at 3.

  7. 7.

    Oscar Schachter, “International law in theory and practice: general course in public international law” (1982) 178 Rec des Cours 9 at 60.

  8. 8.

    See especialy, Ingo Venzke, How Interpretation Makes International Law. On Semantic Change and Normative Twists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

  9. 9.

    See e.g. Oliver Dörr, “Article 31. General rule of interpretation”, in Oliver Dörr and Kirsten Schmalenbach, eds, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2012) 521.

  10. 10.

    Alf Ross, A textbook of international law: general part (London: Longmans and Green, 1947) at 94.

  11. 11.

    Protocol on the Establishment of an African Court, supra note 43 at art 3.

  12. 12.

    See Lohé Issa Konate v. Burkina Faso, No 004/2013, Judgment, online: African Court on Human and People’s Rights <http://www.african-court.org/> (In this case, the African Court found violations African Charter, the ICCPR and the Revised ECOWAS Treaty).

  13. 13.

    I borrow the classification from: Benedict Kingsbury, “Concept of Compliance as a Function of Competing Conceptions of International Law” (1997–1998) 19 Mich J Int’l L 345 at 348.

  14. 14.

    Kelsen identified the presumed basic norm as providing that “the states ought to behave as they have customarily behaved”, Hans Kelsen, Principles of international law (New York: Rinehart, 1952) at 418; in this regard, neo-Kelsenism assumes that there is a basic norm, it may just be that it is epistemologically difficult to perceive, and therefore impossible—at this point in time—to accurately represent it as a rule in the descriptive sense: Jörg Kammerhofer, “The Benefits of the Pure Theory of Law for International Lawyers, Or: What Use Is Kelsenian Theory” (2006) 12 Int’l L Theory 5 at 52; at a more abstract level, Kammerhofer states that the fundamental problem of the system is that “there is no objective criterion to cognize the coherence of a normative order”, Jörg Kammerhofer, “Kelsen—Which Kelsen? A Reapplication of the Pure Theory to International Law” (2009) 22:2 Leiden J Int’l L 225 at at 243.

  15. 15.

    d’Aspremont argues that “grounding the ultimate law-ascertaining rule in a social practice constitutes [H.L.A.] Hart’s most important contribution to the theory of law as well as the theory of the sources of international law”, Jean d’Aspremont, Formalism and the Sources of International Law: A theory of the Ascertainment of Legal Rules (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) at 51 [Aspremont, Formalism].

  16. 16.

    Kelsen, however, dismissed the doctrine as it “n’est qu’une paraphrase de la théorie bien connue de l’auto-limitation de l’État, suivant laquelle l’État ne pourrait être obligé que par sa propre volonté”, Hans Kelsen, “Les rapports de système entre le droit interne et le droit international public” (1926) 14 Rec des Cours 227; also, my reading of neo-Kelsenism is that it would be uncomfortable with the formulation of Article 38 of the ICJ Statute stating that international custom is evidence of a general practice accepted as law, as “norms are not corporeal objects whose existence we can verify simply by way of an act of observation”, Jörg Kammerhofer, “Uncertainty in the Formal Sources of International Law: Customary International Law and Some of Its Problems” (2004) 15:3 EJIL 523 at 524.

  17. 17.

    Myres S. McDougal, “A Footnote” (1963) 57 AJIL 383 at 383.

  18. 18.

    Ibid.

  19. 19.

    Myres S. McDougal, Harold D. Lasswell and W. Michael Reisman, “Theories about International Law: Prologue to a Configurative Jurisprudence” (1967–1968) 8 Va J Int’l L 188 at 254; further to that, it has been noted that “In contrast with traditional schools of jurisprudence, the New Haven school takes into account, in its comprehensive analysis, many variables which affect the process of decision-making, other than ‘legal norms’”, Eisuke Suzuki, “The New Haven School of International Law: An Invitation to a Policy-Oriented Jurisprudence” (1974) 1 Yale Stud World Pub Ord 6.

  20. 20.

    Michael Reisman, “The View from the New Haven School of International Law” (1992) 86 Am Soc Int’l L Proc 118 at 121.

  21. 21.

    Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope, Legitimacy and Legality in International Law: An Interactional Account (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) at 350 [Brunnée and Toope, Legitimacy and Legality].

  22. 22.

    Ibid at 7.

  23. 23.

    Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope “Interactional international law: An introduction” (2011) 3:2 Int’l Theory 307 at 308 [Brunnée and Toope, “An Introduction”]; the criteria of legality they adopt are those proposed by Lon Fuller in: The Morality of Law, rev ed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969); the criteria, as described by H.L.A. Hart are: “Rules should be (i) general; (2) made known or available to the affected party (promulgation); (3) prospective, not retroactive; (4) clear and understandable; (5) free from contradictions; and they should not (6) require what is impossible; (7) be too frequently changed; finally (8) there should be congruence between the law and official action”, H.L.A. Hart, “Book Reviews” (1964–1965) 78 Harv L Rev 1281 at 1284.

  24. 24.

    Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope, “International Law and Constructivism: Elements of an Interactional Theory of International Law” (2000–2001) 39 Colum J Transnat’l L 19 at 47; their view is similar to McDougal, who once dismissed certain schools of jurisprudence that “continue to present ‘law’ as a ‘autonomous science or art, cleanly severable from the community processes which condition it and it in turn affects”, Myres S. McDougal, “The Ethics of Applying System of Authority: The Balanced Opposites of a Legal System” in Harold D. Lasswell and Harland Cleveland, eds, The Ethics of Power: The Interplay of Religion, Philosophy, and Politics (New York: Harper 1962) 221 at 228.

  25. 25.

    Brunnée and Toope, Legitimacy and Legality, supra note 7 at 47.

  26. 26.

    See José María Beneyto, et al (eds), New Approaches to International Law: The European and the American Experiences (The Hague: TMC Asser Press, 2012).

  27. 27.

    Martti Koskenniemi, “Letter to the Editors of the Symposium” (2004) 36 Stud Transnat’l Legal Pol’y 109 at 114.

  28. 28.

    David Kennedy, “A new stream of international law scholarship” (1988–1989) 7 Wis Int’l LJ 1 at 31.

  29. 29.

    Kennedy uses unilateral declarations to illustrate this point in David Kennedy, “The Sources of International Law” (1987) 2:1 Am U Int’l L Rev 1 at 50–51.

  30. 30.

    Ibid at 88; see also David Kennedy, “Theses about International Law discourse” (1980) 23 Ger Yb Int’l L 353 at 378–382; Martti Koskenniemi, From apology to Utopia: the structure of international legal argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) at 303–387.

  31. 31.

    From the process-based camp, see e.g. Myres S. McDougal, “International law, power, and policy: a contemporary conception” (1953) 82 Rec des Cours 133 at 143 (“The most fundamental obscurity in contemporary theory about international law secretes itself in over-emphasis, by most writers and many decision-makers, upon the potentialities of technical “legal” rules, unrelated to policies, as factors and instruments in the guiding and shaping of decisions.”); Rosalyn Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) at 18; for similar views from the rule-based approaches, see the text in: supra note 16.

  32. 32.

    Aspremont, Formalism, supra note 15 at 221–222.

  33. 33.

    Ole Spiermann, “A National Lawyer Takes Stock: Professor Ross’ Textbook and Other Forays into International Law” (2003) 14:4 EJIL 675 at 677.

  34. 34.

    Ross, supra note 10 at 80 (emphasis from the original).

  35. 35.

    Ibid at 80–81.

  36. 36.

    Hans Kelsen, Law and Peace in International Relations: The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 1940–41 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942) at 162 (“One should not overlook the important fact that in the last analysis the law is not only and exclusively what the legislator more or less clearly sets forth or what the general rule of customary law more or less comprehensibly implies. Law is also what the courts finally decide in a concrete case.”) [Kelsen, Law and Peace]; see also Lars Vinx, Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law: Legality and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) at 197 (Kelsen “explicitly rejects the claim that a system of general positive legal norms could fully and precisely determine the legal meaning of all particular acts in advance of judicial proceedings.”)

  37. 37.

    Rosalyn Higgins, “Policy Considerations and the International Judicial Process” (1968) 17:1 ICLQ 58 at 59 (For Higgins, “[w]hen, however, decisions are made by authorized persons or organs, in appropriate forums, within the framework of certain established practice and norms, then what occurs is legal decision-making”); see also Harold D. Lasswell and Myres S. McDougal, “Legal Education and Public Policy: Professional Training in the Public Interest” (1943) 52 Yale LJ 203 at 266.

  38. 38.

    Ross, supra note 10 at 80.

  39. 39.

    Ibid at 81.

  40. 40.

    Ibid at 81.

  41. 41.

    Ibid at 81–82.

  42. 42.

    Ibid at 92.

  43. 43.

    Holtermann, Jakob v. H. “Getting Real Or Staying Positive Legal Realism(s), Legal Positivism And The Prospects Of Naturalism In Jurisprudence” online: University of Copenhagen <http://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/40358538/HOLTERMANN_Getting_real_or_staying_positive_DRAFT_2012_05_27.pdf>.

  44. 44.

    Rémi Bachand, “La Critique en Droit International: Réflexions autour des Livres de Koskenniemi, Anghie et Miéville”, (2006) 19 RQDI 1 at 12.

  45. 45.

    Ross, supra note 10 at 91.

  46. 46.

    Kunz said of the book that it is “a work which no serious student of international law can afford to ignore”, Josef L. Kunz, “Book Reviews and Notes: A Text-Book of International Law. By Alf Ross” (1949) 43 AJIL 197 at 199; however, Green described the book as “ordinary nonsense”, L.C. Green, “Book Reviews: A Text-Book of International Law. By Professor Alf Ross” (1948) 2:2 Int’l L Q 275 at 277.

  47. 47.

    Ross, supra note 10 at 80.

  48. 48.

    Ibid at 82.

  49. 49.

    Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law: Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, UNGAOR, 61st Sess, Supp. No. 10, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.682 at para 20 [Fragmentation Report].

  50. 50.

    Ibid at paras 10–12.

  51. 51.

    Clive Parry, The Sources and Evidences of International Law (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1965) at 7.

  52. 52.

    Higgins, supra note 27 at 59; as for the New Haven school, see also W. Michael Reisman, “The View from the New Haven School of International Law, The Jurisprudence of International Law: Classic and Modern Views” (1992) 86 ASIL Proc. 118 at 119 (“The New Haven School of jurisprudence is an entirely secular theory of law but it takes the perspective long associated with natural law, that of the decision maker.”)

  53. 53.

    Myres S. McDougal, “Some Basic Theoretical Concepts About International Law: A Policy-Oriented Framework of Inquiry” 4:3 J Conflict Resolution 337 at 337.

  54. 54.

    H. Patrick Glenn, “A Concept of Legal Tradition” (2008–2009) 34 Queen’s LJ 427 at 438.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons Case, Advisory Opinion, [1996] ICJ Rep 226 (reprinted in 35 ILM 809) at 105.2.E.

  57. 57.

    Contra, Ige F. Dekker and Wouter G. Werner, “The Completeness of International Law and Hamlet’s Dilemma—Non Liquet, The Nuclear Weapons Case and Legal Theory” (1999) 68 Nordic J Int’l L 225 at 234.

  58. 58.

    The Case of the S.S. “Lotus” (France v. Turkey) (1927), PCIJ (Ser. A) No. 10 at 18 [Lotus].

  59. 59.

    Ibid at 413; quoting Paul Guggenheim, Traité de droit international public (Geneve: Librarie Georg, 1967) at 1.

  60. 60.

    See Report of the International Law Commission: Fifty-eight session, UNGAOR, 61st Sess, Supp. No. 10, UN Doc A/61/10 (2006) at para 251 (conclusion 1) [Report of the ILC, 58th Session].

  61. 61.

    Lotus, supra note 58 at 18 (“…as expressed in conventions or by usages generally accepted as expressing principles of law…”).

  62. 62.

    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171 at art 9, (1967) 6 ILM 368 (“1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law. 2. Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.”)

  63. 63.

    African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 27 June 1981, 1520 UNTS 271 at art 6, (1982) 21 ILM 58 (“Every individual shall have the right to liberty and to the security of his person. No one may be deprived of his freedom except for reasons and conditions previously laid down by law. In particular, no one may be arbitrarily arrested or detained.”)

  64. 64.

    Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of the Congo), Merits, Judgment, [2010] ICJ Rep 639 at para 77 (reprinted in 50 ILM 40) [Ahmadou Sadio Diallo, Merits].

  65. 65.

    Exceptions to the Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies (Arts. 46(1), 46(2)(a) and 46 (2)(b) of the American Convention on Human Rights) (1990), Advisory Opinion OC-11/90, Inter-Am Ct HR (Ser A) No 11, at para 28; see also Case of Ivcher-Bronstein (Peru) (2001), Inter-Am Cr HR (Ser C) No. 74, at paras 103–105.

  66. 66.

    Case of Ivcher-Bronstein, ibid at para 104 (“The Court has established that, although this article does not stipulate minimum guarantees in matters which concern the determination of the rights and obligations of a civil, labor, fiscal or any other nature, the minimum guarantees established in paragraph 2 of the article should also apply to those categories and, therefore, in that respect, a person has the right to due process in the terms recognized for criminal matters, to the extent that it is applicable to the respective procedure.”); see also Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 32, Article 14: Right to equality before courts and tribunals and to a fair trial, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/GC/32 (2007).

  67. 67.

    European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Europ TS No 5, 213 UNTS 211 at art 5 (“(a) the lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court; (b) the lawful arrest or detention of a person for non-compliance with the lawful order of a court or in order to secure the fulfilment of any obligation prescribed by law; (c) the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so; (d) the detention of a minor by lawful order for the purpose of educational supervision or his lawful detention for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority; (e) the lawful detention of persons for the prevention of the spreading of infectious diseases, of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants; (f) the lawful arrest or detention of a person to prevent his effecting an unauthorised entry into the country or of a person against whom action is being taken with a view to deportation or extradition.”) [ECHR].

  68. 68.

    Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 8: Right to liberty and security of persons (Art. 9), U.N. Doc. U.N. Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.1 at 8 (1994).

  69. 69.

    Ahmadou Sadio Diallo, Merits, supra note 64 at para 66.

  70. 70.

    Richard A. Falk, “The Adequacy of Contemporary Theories of International Law—Gaps in Legal Thinking” (1964) 50 Va L Rev 231 at 234.

  71. 71.

    “As already noted, customary international law merely contains a general requirement of the application of equitable criteria and the utilization of practical methods capable of implementing them. It is therefore special international law that must be looked to, in order to ascertain whether that law, as at present in force between the Parties to this case, does or does not include some rule specifically requiring the Parties, and consequently the Chamber, to apply certain criteria or certain specific practical methods to the delimitation that is requested.”, Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Gulf of Maine Area (Canada v. United States of America), [1984] ICJ Rep 246 at para 111 and 114 (reprinted in 23 ILM 1197).

  72. 72.

    Michael Akehurst and Peter Malanczuk, Modern Introduction to International Law, 7th ed (New York: Rutledge, 2007) at 374.

  73. 73.

    Especially because if we accept that soft law is lower-level normativity, in practical term law cannot be more or less binding and more or less complied with, see Jan Klabbers, ‘The Redundancy of Soft Law’ (1996) 65 Nordic J Int’l L 167; Jan Klabbers, ‘The Undesirability of Soft Law’ (1998) 67 Nordic J Int’l L 381; interestingly, Dupuy has argued that the criteria to identify soft law should be “substantial, i.e., dependent on the nature and specificity of the behavior requested of the State”, Pierre Marie Dupuy, “Soft Law and the International Law of the Environment” (1990–1991) 12 Mich J Int’l L 420 at 430.

  74. 74.

    In the context of the Rome Statute, it has been argued that “by resorting to the use of ‘constructive ambiguity,’ the drafters did leave open opportunities for a positive and precedent-setting approach”, Valerie Oosterveld, “The Definition of Gender in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Step Forward or Back for International Criminal Justice” (2005) 18 Harv Hum Rts J 1 at 58.

  75. 75.

    Contra Julius Stone, “Non Liquet and the Function of Law in the International Community” (1959) 35 Brit YB Int’l L 124.

  76. 76.

    Lassa Oppenheim, Robert Y. Jennings and C.A.H. Watts, Oppenheim’s international law, 9th ed (London: Longmans, 1993) at 13.

  77. 77.

    Martti Koskenniemi, “‘The Lady Doth Protest Too Much’ Kosovo, and the Turn to Ethics in International Law” (2002) 65:2 Modern L Rev 159 at fn 10.

  78. 78.

    See Hans Kelsen, “Théorie du droit international public” (1953) 84 Rec des Cours 1 at 120 [Kelsen, “Théorie”].

  79. 79.

    Kelsen, Law and Peace, supra note 36 at 117–119; see also Vinx, supra note 36 at 198; Jochen von Bernstorff, The Public International Law Theory of Hans Kelsen: Believing in Universal Law, trans by Thomas Dunlap (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) at 212–213.

  80. 80.

    Vinx, supra note 36 at 198 (“It is true that the claim to completeness can be sustained only through partly discretionary exercises of authority on the part of courts. But this is not a special defect of international law; rather, it is a general truth about any kind of legal order.”); Bernstorff, ibid at 212–213 (“As Kelsen saw it, the decision by the court created an individual legal norm by concretizing a norm of customary law or an international legal treaty”).

  81. 81.

    Kelsen, “Théorie”, supra note 78 at 120.

  82. 82.

    Hersch Lauterpacht, The Development of International Law by the International Court (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982) at 4–5.

  83. 83.

    Hersch Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in the International Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933) at 84 [Lauterpacht, The Function].

  84. 84.

    Lotus, supra note 58 at 18; Hernandez has recently noted that in a recent advisory opinion, “the Court took a strong step in resuscitating Lotus” and the binary conception of legality; Gleider I. Hernandez, The International Court of Justice and the Judicial Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) at 265.

  85. 85.

    See Dekker and Werner, supra note 57.

  86. 86.

    Lauterpacht, The Function, supra note 83 at 94.

  87. 87.

    Ibid at 95.

  88. 88.

    Maria A. del-Cerro, “Paper Battle on The River Uruguay: The International Dispute Surrounding the Construction of Pulp Mills” (2007) 20 Geo Int’l Envtl L Rev 161 at 172–173.

  89. 89.

    Treaty between the Argentine Republic and the Eastern Republic of Uruguay concerning the boundary constituted by the River Uruguay, Argentina and Uruguay, 7 April 1961, 1970 UNTS 332.

  90. 90.

    Statute of the River Uruguay, Argentina and Uruguay, 26 February 1975, 1295 UNTS 339.

  91. 91.

    Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay, Verbatim Record of the Public sitting, at 30–31 (Jun. 8, 2006), online: International Court of Justice <http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/135/13128.pdf>; see also Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay, Order of 13 July 2006, 45 ILM 1025, at para 80, online: International Court of Justice <http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/135/11235.pdf>.

  92. 92.

    Application Instituting Proceedings, Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay, (May 4, 2006) online: International Court of Justice <http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/135/10779.pdf>.

  93. 93.

    Statute of the River Uruguay, supra note 90 at art 1 (“The Parties agree on this Statute, in implementation of the provisions of article 7 of the Treaty concerning the Boundary Constituted by the River Uruguay, of 7 April 1961, 3 in order to establish the joint machinery necessary for the optimum and rational utilization of the River Uruguay, in strict observance of the rights and obligations arising from treaties and other international agreements in force for each of the Parties”).

  94. 94.

    Ibid at art 41 (“Without prejudice to the functions assigned to the Commission in this respect, the Parties undertake: (a) To protect and preserve the aquatic environment and, in particular, to prevent its pollution, by prescribing appropriate rules and measures in accordance with applicable international agreements and in keeping, where relevant, with the guidelines and recommendations of international technical bodies; …”).

  95. 95.

    Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay), [2010] ICJ Rep 14 at para 56 [Pulp Mills].

  96. 96.

    Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, 3 March 1973, 993 UNTS 243; Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat, 2 February 1971, 996 UNTS 245, (1972) 11 ILM 963; Convention on Biological Diversity, 5 June 1992, 1760 UNTS 79, 31 ILM 818; Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, 22 May 2001, 2256 UNTS 119, (2001) 40 ILM 532.

  97. 97.

    Pulp Mills, supra note 95 paras 59 and 62.

  98. 98.

    Ibid at para 203.

  99. 99.

    Cymie R. Payne, “Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v. Uruguay)” (2011) 105:1 AJIL 94 at 98.

  100. 100.

    Pulp Mills, supra note 95 para 205; see also.

  101. 101.

    Joost Pauwelyn, “The Role of Public International Law in the WTO: How far can we go?” (2001) 95:3 AJIL 535 at 536.

  102. 102.

    Payne, supra note 99 at 99; see also Laura Pineschi, “The Duty of Environmental Impact Assessment in the First ITLOS Chamber’s Advisory Opinion: Towards the Supremacy of the General Rule to Protect and Preserve the Marine Environment as a Common Value?” in “Jurisdictional Immunities of the State and Exequatur of Foreign Judgments: a private International Law Evaluation of the Recent ICJ Judgment in Germany v. Italy” Nerina Boschiero, et al. (eds), International Courts and the Development of International Law, Essays in Honour of Tullio Treves (T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, The Netherlands, 2013) 425 at 427.

  103. 103.

    Which was later expanded by the ICJ to any activityhaving the potential adversely to affect the environment of another State; Certain Activities Carried Out by Nicaragua in the Border Area (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua) and Construction of a Road in Costa Rica along The San Juan River (Nicaragua v. Costa Rica), Judgment of 16 December 2015, online: ICJ <http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/150/18848.pdf> (“Although the Court’s statement in the Pulp Mills case refers to industrial activities, the underlying principle applies generally to proposed activities which may have a significant adverse impact in a transboundary context.”)

  104. 104.

    The customary nature of the obligation of conducting environmental impact assessments was confirmed by ITLOS in: Responsibility and Obligations of States Sponsoring Persons and Entities with Respect to Activities in the Area, Seabed Dispute Chamber, Advisory Opinion, [2011] ITLOS Rep 10 at paras 145 and 148.

  105. 105.

    Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 23 May 1969, 1155 UNTS 331 at art19 (c), (1969) 8 ILM 679.

  106. 106.

    Ibid at art 41 (b) ii.

  107. 107.

    Ibid at art 58.

  108. 108.

    Ibid at art 31.

  109. 109.

    Andronov v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Judgment of 20 November 2003, UNAT Judgment No. 1157, [2003] U.N. Jur. Yb. 497, UN Doc. AT/DEC/1157 at p 9 (emphasis is from the original).

  110. 110.

    The Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić (Prijedor Case), IT-94-1, Decision on the Defense Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction (2 October 1995) at para 71 (International Tribunal for the of Former Yugoslavia, Appeals Chamber) [Tadić].

  111. 111.

    The Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić (Prijedor Case), IT-94-1, Decision on the Defense Motion on Jurisdiction (10 August 1995) at para 74 (International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Trial Chamber).

  112. 112.

    International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), SC Res 827 (1993), UNSCOR, 1992Un Doc S/RES/827/ (1993), reprinted in (1993) 32 ILM 1159.

  113. 113.

    Tadić, supra note 110 at para 77.

  114. 114.

    Ahmadou Sadio Diallo, Merits, supra note 64 at para 66.

  115. 115.

    Fragmentation Report, supra note 49 at para 35.

  116. 116.

    Ibid.

  117. 117.

    See, Loizidou v. Turkey, No 15318/89, (1997) 23 EHRR 513 at para 67; The MOX Plant Case (Ireland v. United Kingdom), Provisional Measures, [2001] ITLOS Rep 95 at para 50.

  118. 118.

    See Al-Jedda v. United Kingdom, No. 27021/08, (2011) 53 EHRR 23 at para 102 (“In the event of any ambiguity in the terms of a Security Council Resolution, the Court must therefore choose the interpretation which is most in harmony with the requirements of the Convention and which avoids any conflict of obligations.”)

  119. 119.

    Boaventura de Sousa Santos proposes “a constellation of local and mutually intelligible local meanings, and networks of empowering normative references”, Boaventura de Souza Santos, “Toward a Multicultural Conception of human rights” in Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol, ed., Moral imperialism: a critical anthology (New York City: New York University Press, 2002) at 47; which is clearly based on Theodor Adorno’s concept of the constellation: “The unifying moment survives without a negation of negation, but also without delivering itself to abstraction as a supreme principle. It survives because there is no step-by-step progression from the concepts to a more general cover concept. Instead, the concepts enter into a constellation. The constellation illuminates the specific side of the object, the side which to a classifying procedure is either a matter of indifference or a burden. The model for this is the conduct of language. Language offers no mere system of signs for cognitive functions. Where it appears essentially as a language, where it becomes a form of representation, it will not define its concepts. It lends objectivity to them by the relation into which it puts the concepts, centered about a thing. Language thus serves the intention of the concept to express completely what it means”, Theodor W. Adorno, Negative dialectics (London: Taylor & Francis, 2004).

  120. 120.

    Jorg Kammerhofer, “The Benefits of the Pure Theory of Law for International Lawyers, Or: What Use Is Kelsenian Theory” (2006) 12 Int’l L Theory 5 at 25 (“A normative theory does not have such a “given,” because here the theory through the creation of the intellectual superstructure determines its object: the Ought. A purported “norm” that does not satisfy the criteria of normative theory simply is not a norm!”).

  121. 121.

    “Leaving ultimates aside, what this shows is not so much that the sources of law are undiscoverables, as that they can never be exhaustively stated…”, 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 161; see also Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade, “International law for humankind: towards a new jus gentium (I). General course on public international law” (2005) 316 Rec des Cours 9 at 150 [Cançado Trindade, “General course”].

  122. 122.

    Pieter H. Kooijmans, “Human Rights, Universal Values?”, Dies Natalis Address, Institute of Social Studies, 12 October 1993, p. 7 online: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam <http://lcms.eur.nl/iss/diesnatalis1993OCR.pdf>.

  123. 123.

    See Mireille Delmas-Marty, Trois défis pour un droit mondial (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998), at 104 (“Le droit a l’horreur du multiple. Sa vocation c’est l’ordre unifié et hierarchisé, unifié parce que hierarchisé. Et l’image qui vient à l’esprit des juristes, c’est la pyramide des normes, construite pour l’éternité, plutôt que celle des nuages, fussent-ils ordonnés”).

  124. 124.

    Case concerning the question whether the re-evaluation of the German Mark in 1961 and 1969 constitutes a case for application of the clause in article 2 (e) of Annex I A of the 1953 Agreement on German External Debts between Belgium, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America on the one hand and the Federal Republic of Germany on the other (1980), XIX RIAA 67 at para 16 (Arbitrators: Erik Castrén, President, Karl Arndt, Marc J. Robinson, Hedwig Maier, Maurice E. Bathurst, Albert D. Monguilan, and Wilhelm A. Kewenig).

  125. 125.

    Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Merits, [1986] ICJ Rep 14 at para 178 (reprinted in 25 ILM 1023) (“Rules which are identical in treaty law and in customary international law are also distinguishable by reference to the methods of interpretation and application”) [Nicaragua].

  126. 126.

    Fisheries Jurisdiction (Spain v. Canada), [1998] ICJ Rep 432 at para 46 (“The régime relating to the interpretation of declarations made under Article 36 of the Statute is not identical with that established for the interpretation of treaties by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties”).

  127. 127.

    Alexander Orakhelashvili, The Interpretation of Acts and Rules in Public International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) at 382 (To conclude, in order to affect the content of treaty rules, other ‘relevant rules’ of international law must be unambiguously established in terms of the sources of law criteria, and be applicable specifically to the dispute as to the interpretation in question.)

  128. 128.

    Nicaragua, supra note 125 at para 191.

  129. 129.

    See e.g. Kamminga and Scheinin, supra note 99; See also Cançado Trindade, “General course”, supra note 121 at 66. (“The accelerated development of contemporary International Law bears eloquent witness of the purpose of reshaping the international legal order in fulfillment of the changing needs and aspirations of the international community as a whole.”)

  130. 130.

    “That is, the increasing importance of human rights discourse, which is starting to transform the whole body of public international law”, Meron, “General Course”, supra note 3 at 21; Meron, Humanization, supra note 3 at XV.

  131. 131.

    Bruno Simma “Human Rights before the International Court of Justice: Community Interest Coming to Life?” in Holger Hestermeyer, et al, Coexistence, cooperation and solidarity: Liber Amicorum Rüdiger Wolfrum (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2012) 577 at 599–600 (“These actors have developed doctrines and rules custom-made for human rights, for instance with regard to the interpretation of human right treaties and other questions of treaty law, which may go too far to more conservative circles of the legal mainstream, This aquis must not be levelled by the participation on the discourse of a generalist court like the ICJ.”)

  132. 132.

    Bruno Simma, “Mainstreaming Human Rights: The Contribution of the International Court of Justice” (2012) 3:1 J Int. Disp. Settlement 7 at 20–21.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, New York, NY, USA

    Carlos Iván Fuentes

Authors
  1. Carlos Iván Fuentes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fuentes, C.I. (2016). Normative Plurality in International Law. 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_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43929-7_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43927-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43929-7

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation