Precedents: Lawmaking through international adjudication

German Law Journal

Volumn 12, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 1005-1032

  Jacob, Marc ^a  

^a MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR COMPARATIVE PUBLIC LAW AND INTERNATIONAL LAW   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85178214649     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20718322     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S207183220001720X     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. 1 ARNOLD DUNCAN MCNAIR, THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE 9 (1949).
2. 2 See, e.g., Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ Statute), 26 June 1945, UNTS, vol. 33, 993, Arts 38(1)(d) & 59.
3. 3 See FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE, ZUR GENEALOGIE DER MORAL III 12 (1887).
4. 4 It is however conceivable that underlying rules or principles could indirectly be violated, thereby triggering some form of legal consequence.
5. 5 RUPERT CROSS & JAMES W. HARRIS, PRECEDENT IN ENGLISH LAW 3 (1991).
6. 6 RUDOLF DOLZER & CHRISTOPH SCHREUER, PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT LAW 36 (2008).
7. 7 AES Corp. v. Argentina, Decision on Jurisdiction, 26 April 2005, 12 ICSID Reports 312, para. 23.
8. 8 NEIL DUXBURY, THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF PRECEDENT ch. 1 (2008).
9. 9 See Frederick Schauer, Precedent, 39 STANFORD LAW REVIEW 571 (1987) (noting the logical semblance between argumentation and justification).
10. 11 Cf. Neil MacCormick & Robert Summers, Further General Reflections and Conclusions, in: INTERPRETING PRECEDENTS, 531‐532 (Neil MacCormick & Robert Summers eds, 1997).
11. 12 See Martti Koskenniemi, Methodology of International Law, in: THE MAX PLANCK ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW, margin numbers 7, 24 (Rüdiger Wolfrum ed., 2007), available at: http://www.mpepil.com.
12. 13 See GEORGES SCELLE, PRÉCIS DE DROIT DES GENS: PRINCIPES ET SYSTÉMATIQUE 6 (1932) (for the former view); HANS KELSEN, REINE RECHTSLEHRE 64 (1934) (on the latter position).
13. 14 See ALFRED VERDROSS & BRUNO SIMMA, UNIVERSELLES VÖLKERRECHT: THEORIE UND PRAXIS para. 618 (1984). Although even this is strongly contested, cf. Allan Pellet, Article 38, in: THE STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ‐ A COMMENTARY (Andreas Zimmermann, Christian Tomuschat & Karin Oellers‐Frahm eds, 2006), 784 (insisting, as the mainstream does, that the ICJ’s jurisprudence is not a real source of law but merely a documentary “source” in the sense of a resource or investigatory tool).
14. 16 Subsequently published as Lord Reid, The Judge as Law Maker, 12 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF PUBLIC LAW TEACHERS 22 (1972).
15. 17 See, e.g., ALLAN C. HUTCHINSON, EVOLUTION AND THE COMMON LAW 98 (2005) (“messy, episodic, and self-correcting”).
16. 18 See Robert Howse, Moving the WTO Forward ‐ One Case at a Time, 42 CORNELL INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL 223, 230 (2009) (albeit professing to “common law prejudice”).
17. 20 Examples of the former include the Realists and the Critical Legal Studies movement. On resuscitating liberal democratic ideals, see, e.g., JEREMY WALDRON, THE DIGNITY OF LEGISLATION 2 (1999).
18. 21 See, e.g., BERND RÜTHERS, RECHTSTHEORIE: BEGRIFF, GELTUNG UND ANWENDUNG DES RECHTS 160‐162, 505‐567 (2008) (with further references). The idea of gaps in the law is of course itself an enduring controversy.
19. 23 See, e.g., PATRICK S. ATIYAH, PRAGMATISM AND THEORY IN ENGLISH LAW 2‐3 (1987).
20. 25 See, e.g., Joxerramon Bengoetxea, Neil MacCormick & Leonor M. Soriano, Integration and Integrity in the Legal Reasoning of the European Court of Justice, in: THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE (Gráinne De Búrca & Joseph H. H. Weiler eds, 2001).
21. 26 Cf. Aleksander Peczenik, Jumps and Logic in the Law, 4 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LAW 297 (1996).
22. 28 Nationality Decrees Issued in Tunis and Morocco, PCIJ 1923, Series C, No. 2, 58 (Prof. de Lapradelle’s speech).
23. 30 See SHABTAI ROSENNE, 3 THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COURT 1920‐2005 1553 (2006) (recognizing the value of a precedent without any need for “difficult theories of judicial legislation”); Stephen M. Schwebel, The Contribution of the International Court of Justice to the Development of International Law, in: INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE HAGUE'S 750TH ANNIVERSARY, 407 (Wybo P. Heere ed., 1999).
24. 31 See VERDROSS & SIMMA (note 14), para. 619.
25. 76 GEORG SCHWARZENBERGER, 1 INTERNATIONAL LAW AS APPLIED BY INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS § I 32 (1957).
26. 82 See, e.g., KATJA LANGENBUCHER, DIE ENTWICKLUNG UND AUSLEGUNG VON RICHTERRECHT 77‐93 (1996).
27. 83 See, e.g., Felix S. Cohen, The Problems of a Functional Jurisprudence, 1 MODERN LAW REVIEW 5, 20 (1937).
28. 86 See, e.g., Martin Morlok, Neue Erkenntnisse und Entwicklungen aus Sprach‐ und Rechtswissenschaftlicher Sicht, in: PRÄJUDIZ UND SPRACHE, 33‐34 (Bernhard Ehrenzeller, Peter Gomez, Markus Kotzur, Daniel Thürer & Klaus A. Vallender eds, 2008).
29. 88 Case concerning Territorial and Maritime Dispute between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v. Honduras), Judgment of 8 October 2007, ICJ Reports 2007, 740‐746, paras 268‐287.
30. 91 See Advisory Opinion of 21 June 1971, ICJ Reports 1971, 23, paras 30‐31 and Advisory Opinion of 23 July 1923, PCIJ 1923, Series B, No. 5, 27.
31. 92 See, e.g., Lotus (note 87), 26 and Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium), Judgment of 14 February 2002, Joint Separate Opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans and Buergenthal, ICJ Reports 2002, 89, para. 88 (expressing puzzlement at the Court’s reliance on Factory at Chorzów).
32. 93 Although distinguishing could also be seen as a form of departure. Perhaps it is hence best to adopt Llewellyn’s more prosaic phrase of “killing the precedent”.
33. 96 See, e.g., the Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria Case, the jurisprudence on recourse to the travaux préparatoires (shifting from impermissible if a treaty is clear to an apparently freely available aid to interpretation), and the role of equity in the law of maritime delineation in Tunisia/Libya. On the latter, see PROSPER WEIL, THE LAW OF MARITIME DELIMITATION: REFLECTIONS 172‐173 (trans. By Maureen MacGlashan, 1989).
34. 98 Chided, e.g., by THOMAS (note 19), 139‐153 (referring to an aphorism by R. W. Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”).