The paradox of international institutional law

International Organizations Law Review

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 151-173

  Klabbers, Jan ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI   (Finland)

^b ACADEMY OF FINLAND   (Finland)

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EID: 72449160081     PISSN: 15723739     EISSN: 15718069     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157237408X326138     Document Type: Article

References (117)

1. This includes Niels Blokker at Leiden University, and Pieter Jan Kuyper at the University of Amsterdam (both chairs are part time). And hot of the press: Utrecht University, it seems, has also created a special chair for the law of international organizations, to be occupied by Ige Dekker. When I was a student, during the mid-1980s in Amsterdam, the chair in EU law also covered international institutional law, and additionally the Faculty employed a full-time lecturer in the topic. I currently hold a chair in international institutional law, nominally full-time but for a limited duration. This owes much to university management: the external funding on which it is based was granted for a fve-year period. Moreover, it temporarily replaces a previous full-time chair in international law, and is thus perhaps best seen as a clever financing move: it does not mean (for better or worse) that I can spend my time doing only institutional law, although, admittedly, much of my research has more or less naturally developed in that direction.
2. In the German-speaking world, chairs in public law may explicitly include international institutional law. This can be seen, again, as an indication of there being a separate discipline within public law.
3. The International Organizations Law Review was first published in 2004, and was created as the result of an inspired meeting, over a few beers, between Niels Blokker, Ramses Wessel and the undersigned in Café Luxembourg in Amsterdam, sometime in the summer of 2002. Blokker and Wessel function as its editors in chief, whereas the present author is its book review editor. It ought to be note d though that a journal called International Organization has existed since the late 1940s: it started out being devoted to the study of international organizations (including legal aspects), but has increasingly distanced itself from that mission and for some decades already refers to itself as a journal on international political economy.
4. The Journal of the History of International Law was first published in 1999.
5. Tere are at least two journals specializing in the matter: the International Criminal Law Review (since 2001), and the Journal of International Criminal Justice since 2003. Moreover, while not nominally devoted to international criminal law, Criminal Law Forum has done a lot to pave the way for the two more specialized journals. One may perhaps also mention the recently revived Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, although purists might insist on the distinction between international criminal law and international humanitarian law.
6. Tink Review of European Community and International Environmental Law, published since 1992
7. think Yearbook of International Environmental Law, published since 1990.
8. The awkwardly named The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals was established some two years earlier than IOLR, in 2002.
9. For a fne analysis of this particular new branch, see Tomas Skouteris, "The New Tribunalism: Strategies of (De)Legitimation in the Era of International Adjudication", 17 Finnish Y.B. Int'l L.-- (forthcoming).
10. See, e.g., Kriangsak Kittichaisaree, International Criminal Law (2001);
11. Antonio Cassese, International Criminal Law (2003).
12. The first of these was Alexandre Kiss & Dinah Shelton, International Environmental Law (1991)
13. followed by Particia W. Birnie & Alan Boyle, International Law and the Environment (1992)
14. and Philippe Sands, Principles of International Environmental Law (1995).
15. The same does not apply to international legal history, if at least one wishes to consider Arthur Nussbaum, A Concise History of the Law of Nations (1947) as a textbook, or Gerald Mangone, A Short History of International Organizations (1954) (mark the topic!). Tere are perhaps good grounds for not doing so, in that these mainly do history rather than historiography; the closest equivalent in international legal history to a legal-dogmatic textbook, however, would have to be a historiography of international law. The newest new thing, incidentally, would appear to be international investment law: the first textbook has only recently seen the light. See Rudolf Dolzer & Christoph Schreuer, Principles of International Investment Law (2008).
16. An exception, at first sight, has been international economic law, where the leading specialized journal (the Journal of International Economic Law) is fairly young, while the discipline as such has been systematized in textbooks and similar texts for quite a few decades. A partial explanation might be, however, the coincidence of the creation of the WTO and a growing dissatisfaction with the declining quality of what used to be the leading journal, the Journal of World Trade. In other words: there was a journal; it just was not considered to be very good anymore.
17. See David Kennedy, "The Move to Institutions", 8 Cardozo L. Rev. 841 (1987).
18. See Jhr. W.J.M. Van Eysinga, Ontwikkeling en inhoud der Nederlandsche Tractaten sedert 1813 (1916).
19. He later became a judge at the PCIJ, and in that capacity pioneered a notion of international public law in his classic dissent in The Oscar Chinn Case, [1934] Publ. PCIJ, Series A/B, no.63.
20. See Jan Klabbers, "The Life and Times of the Law of International Organizations", 71 Nordic J. Int'l L. 287 (2001).
21. Methodological note : what follows aims to establish general trends; it does not aspire to be comprehensive, much less exhaustive. In other words, it is perfectly possible that I missed one or two relevant lectures, and maybe ascribed to others a relevance which, perhaps, would not be entirely warranted. In addition (but by no means fatal to my enterprise here), it is not always certain that the publication year of a lecture was also the year in which the lecture was given; a good example is formed by Bruno Simma, "From Bilateralism to Community Interest in International Law", 250 Recueil des Cours (1994/VI). The lectures themselves had been given in 1997.
22. See, e.g., Walther Schücking, "Le développement de pacte de la Société des Nations", 20 Recueil des Cours 349 (1927/V);
23. Giorgio del Vecchio, "La Société des Nations au point de vue de la philosophie du droit international", 38 Recueil des Cours 651 (1931/IV).
24. See, e.g., Ernest Mahaim, "L'Organisation permanente du travail", 4 Recueil des Cours 65 (1924/III).
25. See, e.g., Eugène Borel, "L'Organisation internationale de la Croix-Rouge", 1 Recueil des Cours 573 (1923/I).
26. See, e.g., Jean Hostie, "Le statut international du Rhin", 28 Recueil des Cours 105 (1929/ III).
27. See, e.g., Giulio Diena, "Les mandates internationaux", 5 Recueil des Cours 211 (1924/IV);
28. Henri Rolin, "La pratique des mandates internationaux", 19 Recueil des Cours 493 (1927/IV);
29. Norman Bentwich, "Le système des mandats", 29 Recueil des Cours 115 (1929/IV).
30. See, e.g., Paul Négulesco, "Principes du droit international administratif", 51 Recueil des Cours 579 (1935/I);
31. Åke Hammarskjöld, "Les immunités des personnes investies de fonctions internationales", 56 Recueil des Cours 107 (1936/II).
32. The latter, incidentally, exercised great infuence on the development of international law as registrar of the PCIJ. The story is well-told in Ole Spiermann, International Legal Argument in the Permanent Court of International Justice: The Rise of the International Judiciary (2005).
33. See, e.g., Charles Dupuis, "Les antecedents de la Société des Nations", 60 Recueil des Cours 1 (1937/II);
34. Pitman B. Potter, "Développement de l'organisation internationale (1815-1914)", 64 Recueil des Cours 71 (1938/II).
35. See Hans Kelsen, "Les rapports de système entre le droit interne et le droit internationale public", 14 Recueil des Cours 227 (1926/IV);
36. Hans Kelsen, "Téorie générale du droit international public: problèmes choisis", 42 Recueil des Cours 117 (1932/IV).
37. See Alfred Verdross, "Le fondement du droit international", 16 Recueil des Cours 247 (1927/I);
38. Alfred Verdross, "Les principes généraux du droit dans la jurisprudence internationale", 52 Recueil des Cours 191 (1935/II).
39. See Arnold D. McNair, "La terminaison et la dissolution des traités", 22 Recueil des Cours 459 (1928/II);
40. Arnold D. McNair, "L'Application et l'interprétation des traités d'après la jurisprudence brittannique", 43 Recueil des Cours (1933/I);
41. Arnold D. McNair, "Les efets de la guerre sur les traités", 59 Recueil des Cours 523 (1937/I).
42. Note also that McNair's monumental The Law of Treaties (1961) was first published in 1930.
43. See Jules Basdevant, La conclusion et la redaction des traités et des instruments diploma-tiques autres que les traités, 15 Recueil des Cours 535 (1926/V).
44. See International Status of South-West Africa, advisory opinion, [1950] ICJ Rep. 128 (McNair J., concurring).
45. Lauterpacht's magnum opus (one of them, at any rate) was The Function of Law in the International Community, and was published in 1933. Before the Hague Academy, he too never focused on international organizations. His two specialized lectures dealt with justicia-bility and interpretation of treaties.
46. See Hersch Lauterpacht, "La théorie des diférends non justiciables en droit international", 34 Recueil des Cours 493 (1930/IV);
47. Hersch Lauterpacht, "Les travaux préparatoires et l'interprétation des traités", 48 Recueil des Cours 709 (1934/II).
48. See Alfred Verdross, "Règles générales du droit international law de la paix", 30 Recueil des Cours 271 (1929/V);
49. Jules Basdevant, "Règles générales du droit de la paix", 58 Recueil des Cours 471 (1936/IV);
50. Hersch Lauterpacht, "Règles générales du droit de la paix", 62 Recueil des Cours 95 (1937/IV).
51. See A.L. Goodhart, "The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949", 79 Recueil des Cours 183 (1951/ II).
52. See Camille Gutt, "Les accords de Bretton Woods et les institutions qui en sont issues", 72 Recueil des Cours 67 (1948/I).
53. See Max Soerensen, "Le Conseil de l'Europe", 81 Recueil des Cours 117 (1952/II).
54. The ECSC was the topic of a special thematic session, resulting in a thematic volume (90 Recueil des Cours (1956/II)), with contributions by Max Kohnstamm, "The European Coal and Steel Community";
55. M.J. de Soto, "Les relations internationals de la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier";
56. and Henri Rieben, "De la cartellisation des industries lourdes européennes à la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier"
57. See Shabtai Rosenne, "United Nations Treaty Practice", 86 Recueil des Cours 275 (1954/ II).
58. See C. Wilfred Jenks, "Co-ordination: a new problem of international organization: a preliminary survey of the law and practice of inter-organizational relationships", 84 Recueil des Cours 151 (1950/II).
59. See Jean-Flavien Lalive, "L'immunité de jurisdiction des états et des organizations internationales", 84 Recueil des Cours 205 (1953/III). The first course limited to the immunities of organizations alone was taught three decades later.
60. See Christian Dominicé, "L'immunité de jurisdiction et d'exécution des organisations internationales", 187 Recueil des Cours 145 (1984).
61. See Emile Giraud, "Le secretariat des institutions internationales", 79 Recueil des Cours 369 (1951/II)
62. followed a decade later by Marcel Prélot, "Le droit des assemblées internationales", 104 Recueil des Cours 471 (1961/III).
63. See Clyde Eagleton, "International Organization and the Law of Responsibility", 76 Recueil des Cours 319 (1950/I).
64. He had laid the foundation for this already seven years earlier when he published a book, in Dutch, on aspects of international organization (the word 'law' was still missing from the title, and note the singular form). See A.J.P. Tammes, Hoofdstukken van internationale organisatie (1951) (its first part addresses decision-making in great detail).
65. See René-Jean Dupuy, "Le droit des relations entre les organizations internationales", 100 Recueil des Cours 457 (1960/II).
66. See Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "Le principe d'égalité des états et les organizations internationales", 100 Recueil des Cours 1 (1960/II).
67. It had been the topic of the doctoral dissertation of Bengt Broms, who later sat once on the ICJ as an ad hoc judge, and for many years has been one of the members of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal. See Bengt Broms, The Doctrine of Equality of States as Applied in International Organizations (Doctoral thesis, University of Helsinki, 1959).
68. Kooijmans, later appointed to the ICJ, also devoted his doctoral work to the equality of states, albeit less specifcally referring to international organizations. See P.H. Kooijmans, The Doctrine of the Legal Equality of States: An Inquiry into the Foundations of International Law (1964).
69. See also Tammes, supra note 38 (containing a lengthy discussion of how the idea of state equality plays out in international organizations).
70. See Finn Seyersted, "Applicable Law in Relations between Intergovernmental Organizations and Private Parties", 122 Recueil des Cours 427 (1967/III).
71. See G. Balladore Pallieri, "Le droit interne des organizations internationales", 127 Recueil des Cours 1 (1969/II).
72. See Riccardo Monaco, "Les principes régissant la structure et le fonctionnement des organisations internationales", 156 Recueil des Cours 79 (1977/III).
73. See Eric Suy, "The Status of Observers in International Organizations", 160 Recueil des Cours 75 (1978/II).
74. See Tammes, supra note 38.
75. See H.G. Schermers, De gespecialiseerde organisaties: hun bouw en inrichting (1957).
76. See Karl Zemanek, Das Vertragsrecht der internationalen Organisationen (1957);
77. Hungdah Chiu, The Capacity of International Organizations to Conclude Treaties, and the Special Legal Aspects of the Treaties so Concluded (1966).
78. Somewhat ahead of time, one might say, in light of the later emergence of the topic as one suitable for research and perhaps regulation, is Konrad Ginther, Die völkerrechtliche Verantwortlichkeit internationaler Organisationen gegenüber Drittstaaten (1969).
79. See Bernard Rouyer-Hameray, Les compétences implicates des organizations internationales (1962);
80. Finn Seyersted, Objective International Personality of Intergovernmental Organizations: Do Teir Capacities Really Depend on the Conventions Establishing Tem? (1963).
81. See Nagendra Singh, Termination of Membership of International Organisations (1958).
82. See Obed Y. Asamoah, The Legal Signifcance of Declarations of the General Assembly (1966);
83. Jorge Castaneda, Legal Efects of United Nations Resolutions (1969);
84. see also the late 1960s discussion between Richard A. Falk and Nicholas G. Onuf, arguably the most jurispruden-tially informed, as reproduced in Jan Klabbers, International Organizations 297-313 (2005).
85. Closely related is Edward Yemin, Legislative Powers in the United Nations and Specialized Agencies (1969).
86. See Ralph Zacklin, The Amendment of the Constitutive Instruments of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies (1968).
87. See Kuljit Ahluwalia, The Legal Status, Privileges and Immunities of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations and Certain Other International Organizations (1964);
88. C. Wilfred Jenks, International Immunities (1961).
89. See Tomas M. Franck, "D.W Bowett's The Law of International Institutions", 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1565, 1565 (1963-1964) (book review).
90. This applies, more or less, to the present author, whose took a course on international institutional law for which the compulsory reading included Bowett as well as the synoptic Dutch version (still coming in at some 300 pages) of Schermers. See H.G. Schermers, Inlei-ding tot het internationale institutionele recht (2d edn, 1985).
91. The one exception to this is formed by the legal advisors of international organizations: they may lose sleep over questions of implied powers, while the rest of us fret about Darfur.
92. The oddity of thinking in such terms is refected in the language used: can one meaningfully speak of a right to have a power? And if one were to have such a right, would the right also cover the mode of acquisition, be it agency, delegation, or transfer? Useful work on the latter trichotomy has been done by Dan Sarooshi, International Organizations and their Exercise of Sovereign Powers (2005).
93. See the new Article 3a TEU: "In accordance with Article 3b, competences not conferred upon the Union remain with the Member States." To be on the safe side, Article 3b, paragraph 2, repeats this almost verbatim: "Competences not conferred upon the Union in the Treaties remain with the Member States." The Lisbon Treaty can be found in Ofcial Journal C 306/12, 27 December 2007.
94. This refers, of course, to H.G. Schermers & Niels M. Blokker, International Institutional Law: Unity in Diversity (4th edn, 2003).
95. Other works oozing a synthetic approach, in alphabetical order, are C.F. Amerasinghe, Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations (2d edn, 2005);
96. Jan Klabbers, An Introduction to International Institutional Law (2002);
97. and Nigel D. White, The Law of International Organisations (2d edn, 2005). White's first edition is less successful in this respect.
98. I borrow the term from Martti Koskenniemi, "The Wonderful Artifciality of States", 88 ASIL Proc. 22 (1994).
99. For a discussion of that debate, see Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention (2003).
100. The only fairly close example that comes to mind is a brief intervention by Ige Dekker and Eric Myjer, "Air Strikes on Bosnian Positions: Is NATO also Legally the Proper Instrument of the UN?", 9 Leiden J. Int'l L. 411 (1996).
101. See Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt, advisory opinion, [1980] ICJ Rep. 73, para. 37.
102. The European Court of Justice held, plausibly, that the EC had succeeded its member's position within the old GATT. See Cases 21/72-24/72, International Fruit Company and others, [1972] ECR 1219.
103. The same reasoning was rather less plausibly applied by the Court of First Instance with respect to the EC's position within the UN in case T-315/01, Kadi v. Council and Commission, [2005] ECR II-3649, and has been abandoned by Advocate General Maduro in his opinion to case C-402/05 P, Kadi v. Council and Commission (opinion of 16 January 2008, not yet published).
104. For a critique, with references, see Jan Klabbers, " Constitutionalism Lite", 1 Int'l Org. L. Rev. 31 (2004).
105. Ten again, how clear are such things ever? The daily paper Helsingin Sanomat carried a small item on 12 February 2008, reporting that in Saudi Arabia, forists are prohibited from selling red tulips for Valentine's day, on the apparent theory that adultery thrives in the vicinity of red tulips.
106. Indeed, the ILA's report contains probably the most far-reaching proposals to date. See Final Report of the Committee on Accountability of International Organizations, in ILA, Report of the Seventy-first Conference 164 (2004).
107. To some extent, that is: global administrative law has other concerns as well, and is probably best seen as an attempt to come to terms with the highly important issue of how to control governance that takes place without formal institutions. The seminal piece-almost a manifesto-is Benedict Kingsbury, et al., "The Emergence of Global Administrative Law", 68 Law & Contemp. Probs 1 (2005).
108. See Mark Pallis, "The Operation of UNHCRs Accountability Mechanisms", 37 N.Y.U. Int'l L. & Pol. 869 (2005).
109. See James Salzmann, "Decentralized Administrative Law in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development", 68 Law & Contemp. Probs 189 (2005).
110. See Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, advisory opinion, [1951] ICJ Rep. 15, 23.
111. The best discussion I am aware of is Ian Hurd, After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council (2007).
112. See Jan Klabbers, "Two Concepts of International Organization", 2 Int'l Org. L. Rev. 277 (2005).
113. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to the law of treaties: few lawyers will be able to have a decent career without ever encountering a treaty. Yet, interestingly, not many would support the thesis that the law of treaties is a separate discipline.
114. For an illustration as to just how important the institutional element can be, see Michael Barnett & Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (2004).
115. Peter Euben once put it rather nicely: "Institutions of higher learning ... are both the end point of education and the beginning of politics. Our students are also our fellow citizens, who vote, are asked to defend their country, can sign binding contracts, and are tried as adults." Peter Euben, Hannah Arendt on Politicizing the University and Other Clichés, in Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World 175, 186 (Mordechai Gordon ed., 2001).
116. e.e. cummings, I believe.
117. The thought owes much to communications with Armin von Bogdandy and Matthias Goldmann.