Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law: Volume 2 2008 9781472565143, 9781849460644

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Preface Between the fourth and the sixth of September 2008, the Third Biennial Conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) took place at the Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg (Germany). The Conference was hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. The theme of the Conference was ‘International Law in a Heterogeneous World’; a topic that reflects an idea which is central to the philosophy of ESIL. Heterogeneity is considered to be one of the pillars upon which Europe’s contribution to international law is built, and the subject was discussed in a number of panels as well as two keynote speeches and one concluding round table. Of the many interesting research projects that were presented, a selection is offered in this volume. The papers cover a wide range of topics, but focus on the main theme of the conference: heterogeneity. Hence, this volume covers the topics of migration and immigration, international law and religions, international organisations, legitimacy in international law, the multiplicity of the law-making process, international legal traditions, international environmental law, and several more. This volume is the second in the series of the ‘Selected Proceedings of the European Society of International Law’. The background to the ESIL conferences is the notion that European legal scholarship has always been at the heart of international law even if its legacy mingles with other influences. Theoretical works have long explored ‘the European tradition of international law’ and emphasised the unique character of this contribution. Some critics have, of course, scoffed at European aspirations to universality in this discipline, by arguing that Europe is essentially preoccupied with European interests which are not truly universal. Nevertheless, regardless of the perspective adopted, Europe’s historical contribution cannot be denied. European theorists have played a central role in the evolution of international law, while the promotion of the international rule of law continues to permeate European foreign policy. This special contribution of the European tradition of international law is highlighted throughout this volume and will hopefully continue to flourish in the future. We owe many thanks to Falilou Saw, Yvonne Klein and Marina Filinberg, who organised the conference. Furthermore, we would like to thank Klaus Zimmermann for his logistic support, and Dietmar Bussmann, Florian Finocchario and Michael Brück for their technical support. Last but not least, we would like to express our gratitude to the Max Planck Society and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for their generous financial support of the conference.

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Avant-propos La troisième Conférence biennale de la Société européenne de droit international (SEDI) s’est tenue du 4 au 6 septembre 2008 à l’Université Ruprecht Karls d’Heidelberg (Allemagne), à l’invitation de l’Institut Max Planck pour le droit public compare et le droit international d’Heidelberg. La Conférence avait pour thème général «Le droit international dans un monde hétérogène», en écho à une idée qui est au cœur de la philosophie de la SEDI. L’hétérogénéité est l’un des piliers sur lesquels la contribution de l’Europe au droit international se construit et le sujet a été débattu tant au sein de divers panels, que par deux conférenciers prestigieux et dans le cadre de la table-ronde de clôture. Une sélection d’un certain nombre des projets de recherche présentés lors de la Conférence est offerte dans le présent ouvrage. Les contributions couvrent un large éventail de sujets, tout en restant centrées sur le thème principal de la Conférence, l’hétérogénéité. Ainsi, l’ouvrage touche-t-il des domaines aussi variés que l’immigration et les migrations, le droit international et les religions, les organisations internationales, la légitimité en droit international, la multiplicité des procédés d’élaboration du droit international, les traditions juridiques internationales, le droit international de l’environnement, et bien d’autres encore. Ce volume est le deuxième de la série des Actes de la Société européenne de droit international. A l’arrière-plan des conférences de la SEDI, il y a l’idée que l’Europe s’est toujours située au coeur du droit international même si son legs s’entremêle avec d’autres influences. Des recherches théoriques et historiques ont largement exploré “la tradition européenne du droit international” et mis l’accent sur le caractère sans équivalent de cette contribution. Bien sûr, certaines critiques ont moqué l’aspiration européenne à l’universalité en soutenant notamment que l’Europe se préoccupe avant tout des intérêts européens, lesquels ne sont pas vraiment universels. Quoi qu’il en soit, indépendamment de la perspective adoptée, la contribution historique de l’Europe peut difficilement être niée. Les théoriciens et philosophes européens ont joué un rôle central dans l’évolution du droit international et la promotion du règne du droit au niveau international continue d’imprégner la politique extérieure européenne. Cette contribution particulière de la tradition européenne du droit international est perceptible tout au long du présent ouvrage et continuera, peut-on espérer, à se développer à l’avenir. Nous tenons à exprimer notre gratitude à Falilou Saw, Yvonne Klein et Marina Filinberg, qui ont organisé la Conférence. Nous souhaitons également remercier Klaus Zimmermann qui a pris en charge l’aspect logistique ainsi que Dietmar Bussmann, Florian Finocchario et Michael Brück qui ont assumé les aspects techniques. Enfin et surtout, nous remercions très sincèrement la Société Max Planck et la Fondation Fritz Thyssen Foundation pour le généreux soutien financier qu’elles ont offert à la Conférence.

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Universality of International Law from the Perspective of a Practitioner BRUNO SIMMA *

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

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KEYNOTE SPEECH at a conference on ‘International law in a heterogeneous world’ devoted to the ‘universality’ of international law might remind the listener, especially an audience like tonight’s, with, I am sure, a particularly high percentage of post-modernists, of frightened people whistling in the dark—for which there is no reason, I would submit right at the outset. But what the topic I have been asked to talk about certainly seems to evoke is a tension between the two notions of heterogeneity and universality. The choice of the topic suggests the idea (or the hope) that heterogeneity does not exclude universality, that in today’s world the continued existence and vitality of universal international law will be contingent upon its capacity to accommodate an ever-larger measure of heterogeneity. Therefore, my focus tonight will be on international rules and mechanisms (particularly judicial) and international institutions serving this very purpose—that is, the accommodation of heterogeneous values and expectations by means of international law. I am aware that my topic will necessarily engage a number of buzzwords in contemporary international law, but beyond juggling with these, my approach tonight will be characterised by two main features. First, I will treat my topic from the perspective of a practitioner. That is, I will deal with the huge amount of theoretical writing on the subject only when absolutely necessary, and instead concentrate on practical aspects, and thus demonstrate how the theoretical problems that I come across in my presentation play out in practice. In doing so, I will have to condense or summarise quite a few issues that we will encounter on our rather extensive journey together, but with which, I trust, most of you will be familiar.

* Judge at the International Court of Justice. This paper was originally presented as the Keynote Speech at the opening session of the Biennial Conference of the European Society of International Law in Heidelberg on 4 September 2008. I would like to thank Markus Benzing for his extremely valuable and inspired assistance. I have kept the paper in its original format and only added footnotes where absolutely necessary. Also, I have not updated the text with regard to developments, for instance in the case law referred to, but only indicated such developments and commented on them in the footnotes.

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As the second specific take on my topic, I will base myself as much as I can on my personal experience, that is, on insights gained through giving occasional advice to governments, by serving in a few legal teams before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), through membership in one of the UN’s human rights treaty bodies, namely the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, through my work in the International Law Commission, as an arbitrator, and ultimately in the ICJ.

THREE CONCEPTIONS (LEVELS) OF UNIVERSALITY

In the following, I will define what I understand the ‘universality’ of international law to mean. I will arrive at three different conceptions, or levels, each with its own range of implications and problems. I will then deal with these conceptions in turn, and select from among the clusters of problems which they encounter—which I will call ‘challenges’—as well as from the ways to cope with these challenges, the one(s) on which I hope I will be able to say something meaningful. Let me now turn to my three different understandings, or ‘levels’, of universality of international law. At a first, if you want, basic level, and corresponding to what I would regard as the ‘classic’ understanding of our notion, universality of international law means that there exists on the global scale an international law that is valid for and binding on all states.1 Universality thus understood as global validity and applicability excludes neither the possibility of regional (customary) international law nor that of treaty regimes creating particular legal sub-systems, nor the dense web of bilateral legal ties between states (I exclude constructs like ‘persistent objection’ from tonight’s analysis). But all these particular rules remain ‘embedded’, as it were, in a fundamental universal body, or core, of international law. In this sense, international law is all-inclusive. At a second level, a wider understanding of universality responds to the question whether international law can be perceived as constituting an organised whole, a coherent legal system, or whether it remains no more than a ‘bric-à-brac’, to use Jean Combacau’s expression2—a random collection of norms, or webs of norms, with little interconnection. This question is probably best termed that of the ‘unity’ or ‘coherence’ of international law; and strong connotations of predictability and legal security will be attached to such (in my terminology) second-level universality.3 International law has, of course, long been perceived as a legal system by international lawyers, most of them admittedly not much bothered by fine points of systems theory, while today many commentators see this systemic character threatened by a process of ‘fragmentation’, a challenge to which I will turn later. 1 RY Jennings, ‘Universal International Law in a Multicultural World’ in M Bos and I Brownlie (eds), Liber Amicorum for the Rt. Hon. Lord Wilberforce (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987) 39, 40–1. 2 J Combacau, ‘Le droit international: bric–à–brac ou système ?’ (1986) 31 Archives de philosophie du droit 85, 85. 3 ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (United Nations, A/CN.4/L.682, 2006) 491.

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At a third level, universality may be taken to refer to an—actual or perceived— (changing) nature of the international legal system in line with the tradition of international legal thinking known as ‘universalism’. A universalist approach to international law in this sense expresses the conviction that it is possible, desirable, indeed urgently necessary (and for many, a process that is already under way), to establish a public order on a global scale, a common legal order for mankind as a whole.4 International law, according to this understanding, is not merely a tool-box of rules and principles destined to govern inter-state coordination and cooperation; rather it constitutes a ‘comprehensive blueprint for social life’, as Christian Tomuschat has called it.5 Universalism thus understood goes far beyond the addition of a layer of what Wolfgang Friedmann6 has called the ‘international law of cooperation’ to the body of the law. The concept implies the expansion of international law beyond the inter-state sphere, particularly by endowing individuals with international personality, establishing a hierarchy of norms, a value-oriented approach, a certain ‘verticalisation’ of international law, de-emphasising consent in law-making, introducing international criminal law, by the existence of institutions and procedures for the enforcement of collective interests at the international level— ultimately, the emergence of an international community, perceived as a legal community.7 Indeed, international law has undoubtedly entered a stage at which it does not exhaust itself in correlative rights and obligations running between states, but also incorporates common interests of the international community as a whole, including not only states, but all human beings. In doing so, it begins to display more and more features that do not fit into the ‘civilist’, bilateralist structure of the traditional law. In other words, it is on its way to being a true public international law.8 Just two quick remarks completing this point: first, and addressing concerns of certain voices coming from the Left, one can perfectly adhere to an universalist view as described without entertaining, or accepting, hegemonic second thoughts. And further, one can adhere to such a universalist approach without necessarily subscribing to the view that contemporary international law is undergoing a process of ‘constitutionalisation’. I will return to this issue at the very end of this address.

4 A von Bogdandy and S Delavalle, Universalism and Particularism as Paradigms of International Law (Institute for International Law and Justice/New York University School of Law, International Law and Justice Working Paper no 3, 2008) 1. 5 C Tomuschat, ‘International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century (General Course on Public International Law)’ (1999) 281 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 63. 6 WG Friedmann, The Changing Structure of International Law (London, Stevens, 1964). 7 HEH Mosler, ‘The International Society as a Legal Community’ (1974) 140 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1, 11–12. 8 B Simma, ‘From Bilateralism to Community Interest in International Law (1994) 250 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 217, at 231–34.

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Bruno Simma CHALLENGES FACED BY UNIVERSALITY AT ITS VARIOUS LEVELS

After the preceding brief tour d’horizon of what ‘universality’ of international law may be taken to mean, let me describe the challenges which the notion faces, and the ways to cope with them, using as a point of departure the conceptions I have just developed. The understanding of universality of international law in the classic (level I) sense, that is, its global reach, has encountered many challenges, indeed attacks, from different quarters, both philosophical/theoretical and practical, for a long time. They embrace more aggressive strands of regionalism and related, more ‘innovative’, concepts like those of a ‘League of (liberal) democracies’ versus ‘pariah’ or ‘rogue’ states, designed to bypass the United Nations, cultural relativism in international human rights discourse, as well as what I would call ‘post-modern’ challenges stemming from Critical Legal Studies, Marxist theory, the theory of Empire and Feminist theory. Level II universality in particular has not only come under fire from a new species of Voelkerrechtsleugner (negligible intellectually, if they were not to teach at influential US universities), but has also come under more friendly, if ultra-theoretical, fire from a very specific sociological school, ‘global legal pluralism’, which sees many autopoietic functional systems emerge on a global scale to eventually substitute the state.9 Finally, to formulate a challenge of my own to level III universality, universalism as thus understood appears to me not as far advanced as many of its protagonists (want to) believe; it suffers from serious practical shortcomings, and is also being attacked by several post-modern theories. But let us now turn to tonight’s specials, so to speak, from among the menu of challenges to universality. As I indicated at the outset, my choice is determined by the topic assigned to me, namely the viewpoint of a practitioner, particularly of the humble practitioner in front of you. This specific point of departure leads me to turn to a range of problems which German international lawyers would regard as belonging to Voelkerrechtsdogmatik rather than genuine theory, but which, wherever they may belong, have also considerable practical relevance. Thus, the challenge to level I universality, which I have selected for discussion is that of the alleged fragmentation of international law; as my ‘favourite’ challenge to level II universality, I will take up the proliferation of international courts and tribunals, while I could not yet find a comparable buzzword to sum up the problems encountered by the common-legal-order-of-mankind approach embodied in level III universality. Let me emphasise that these are quite subjective choices. The links between the various understandings of universality and ‘their’ respective challenges are anything but mutually exclusive, and notions like ‘fragmentation’ and ‘proliferation’ are not separated by sharp dividing lines. For instance, I could have selected fragmentation as the principal threat to universality in the sense of unity and coherence of

9 A Fischer-Lescano and G Teubner, ‘Regime Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 999.

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international law, and many observers would regard the proliferation of international courts and tribunals as one aspect, or one prominent cause of, such fragmentation.

In Particular: The ‘Fragmentation’ of International Law The Phenomenon After these clarifications, I turn to the phenomenon of fragmentation, conceived as a challenge to the universality of international law in the sense of the latter’s global validity and applicability, and to the international legal responses developed to cope with it. Fragmentation has become one of the great favourites in international legal literature over the past years. Its connotations are clearly negative: something is splitting up, falling apart, or worse: bombs or ammunition can be designed to fragment and thus become even more destructive. In international legal parlance the term gained such prominence out of the fear that international law might lose its universal applicability, as well as its unity and coherence, through the expansion and diversification of its subject-matters, through the development of new fields in the law that go their own way, and that legal security might thereby suffer (remember that I will take up the proliferation issue separately). In particular, it is the appearance of more and more international treaties of a law-making type, regulating related or identical matters in a variety of, sometimes conflicting, ways and binding different but sometimes overlapping groups of states, that is a matter of concern.10 Indeed, there is simply no ‘single legislative will behind international law’.11 The Arbitral Tribunal in the Southern Bluefin Tuna case has spoken of ‘a process of accretion and cumulation’ of international legal obligations.12 The Tribunal regarded this as beneficial to international law, and I would agree in principle. However, if taken to the extreme, the question does of course arise whether this development might lead to a complete detachment of some areas of international law from others, without an overarching general international law remaining and holding the parts together. In arriving at this question, one would not have to go as far as suspecting that ‘[p]owerful States labour to maintain and even actively promote fragmentation because it enables them to preserve their dominance in an era in which hierarchy is increasingly viewed as illegitimate, and to opportunistically break the rules without seriously jeopardizing the system they have created’.13

10 K Oellers-Frahm, ‘Multiplication of International Courts and Tribunals and Conflicting Jurisdictions – Problems and Possible Solutions’ (2001) 5 Max Planck United Nations Yearbook 67, 71. 11 ILC, Report on Fragmentation (n 3), para 34. 12 Australia and New Zealand v Japan – Southern Bluefin Tuna case, Award (adopted 14 August 2001) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility), 23 UNRIAA (2004) 40, para 52. 13 E Benvenisti and GW Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stanford Law Review 595.

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In my view, to see such sinister motives at work behind our phenomenon is not justified. I prefer to offer a much more natural, or let me say, technical, explanation: the phenomenon described as ‘fragmentation’ of international law is nothing but the result of a transposition of functional differentiations of governance at the national to the international plane;14 which means that international law today increasingly reflects the differentiation of branches of the law that are familiar to us from the domestic sphere. Consequently, international law has developed, and is still developing, its own more or less complete regulatory regimes, which may at times compete with each other. International Law’s Ways to Cope with Fragmentation Institutional Aspects So much about fragmentation as a phenomenon. Now, what are the institutions and methods by which international law attempts to reconcile necessary functional differentiation with unity and coherence? This task places responsibilities on different international actors: First—and leaving aside the law-making activities of international organisations—states as the principal creators of international legal rules ought to be aware of the need for coherence of the international legal system as a whole, for instance when they negotiate new international agreements. Second, international organisations and courts, when they interpret and apply international law, need to bear in mind that they are acting within an overarching framework of international law, residual as it may be. Last but not least, national courts, which play an ever more relevant role in the application of international law, must also be aware of the impact that their activities can have on the development of a coherent international legal system. Staying with the institutional aspects for a second, I would submit that— especially from my perspective as a practitioner—both the International Law Commission and the International Court of Justice represent pillars of unity and coherence of universal international law. While the Court has to, and thus claims to, apply the law as it stands, the Commission is supposed to systematise and progressively develop it. It is not unimportant to note that the personal ties between the two organs are strong. Many ICJ judges have formerly served on the ILC (in late 2008: seven out of 15). This has led to an interesting complementary relationship between the two bodies. Specifically with regard to tonight’s topic, the Commission’s projects pursue the purpose of fostering universality at all the levels that I have introduced, with an emphasis on levels I and II; its work products aim to be applied as widely as possible, even though more recently the Commission has also drafted rules that are designed for concretisation at the regional, or even bilateral, plane.15 Neither is the Commission shying away from the elaboration of special regimes if necessary. A 14 M Koskenniemi, ‘The Fate of Public International Law: Between Technique and Politics’ (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 1, 4. 15 See, eg, Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (adopted and opened for signature 21 May 1997, not yet entered into force) (1997) 36 ILM 700, UN ILC ‘Draft articles on the law of transboundary aquifers’ (2008) UN Doc A/CN 4/L724, UN ILC ‘Draft Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities’ (2001) GAOR 56th Session

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case in point would be the accommodation of specific features of reservations made to human rights treaties that is currently under way in the context of the wider ILC project on reservations: even Special Rapporteur Alain Pellet has come to accept that leges speciales to serve that purpose are no threat to the unity of the law, but will lead to a more responsive regime, not ‘self-contained’ in any sense, and thus to a progressive development of international law. The most recent, and most direct, contribution of the ILC to the unity and coherence of international law is the 2006 (final) Report of Martti Koskenniemi’s Study Group on Fragmentation with its ‘tool box’ of ways and means to cope with the undesirable effects of our phenomenon.16 While this voluminous study has been criticised by some as merely stating the obvious, from my specific viewpoint it is of immense value as a piece of work which attempts to assemble the totality of international law’s devices available to counter the negative aspects of fragmentation. As to the role of the ICJ as a guarantor of the unity of international law, I will say a few words on this later, in the context of judicial proliferation. I now turn from the institutions to the methods developed in international law to sustain its unity and coherence in the face of expansion and diversification. Again, the 2006 ILC Report on fragmentation is a great source of inspiration in this regard. Methods Employed The first device to be mentioned here is the introduction of a normative hierarchy in international law, above all the development of peremptory limits to the making and administering of international law in states’ relations inter se. From a voluntarist point of departure, the idea of any hierarchical relationship between international legal rules is problematic. Nevertheless, we have witnessed the recognition of two types of norms that do imply superior status: jus cogens, or peremptory norms, and, possibly, norms leading to obligations erga omnes. As to the latter concept, it does not necessarily entail a hierarchically superior position; therefore I will categorise it as a method of sustaining coherence in its own right. Let me just mention at this point that, while the ICJ was not the first to use the notion of obligations erga omnes, it was the Court’s famous dictum in the Barcelona Traction judgment of 1970 that triggered the doctrinal fascination with the concept.17 Concerning jus cogens, and in rather surprising contrast, it was not until 2006, ie, no less than 36 years after the Barcelona Traction judgment, and 25 years after the blessing of the concept by the entering into force of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties with its Articles 53 and 64, that the ICJ could finally bring itself to issue an authoritative pronouncement. This was eight years after the ICTY had first explicitly mentioned jus cogens in its Furundz˘ ija judgment

Supp 10, 370, UN ILC ‘Draft articles on the allocation of loss in the case of transboundary harm arising out of hazardous activities’ (2006) GA 59th Session Supp No 10 (A/59/10). 16 See ILC (n 3). 17 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company Limited, Judgment, ICJ Reports 1970, p 3, para 33.

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of 1998,18 five years after the European Court of Human Rights had done so in Al-Adsani,19 and three years after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights had followed suit.20 Better late than never, in its Congo v Rwanda judgment of 2006, the Court affirmed both that this category of norms was part of international law and that the prohibition of genocide belonged to it.21 A year later, the Court restated its recognition of jus cogens in the Genocide case.22 However, even though the existence and the relevance of jus cogens are by now almost universally accepted, ‘the car has remained in the garage’ (to use Ian Brownlie’s metaphor23) most of the time. This might actually be a good thing (no offence intended to British cars!), because in instances in which the concept, or rather its legal consequences, became operational, its application has met with considerable difficulties. This is exemplified by two rather recent cases that had to do with jus cogens in the field of human rights. In the first case, Al-Adsani, the European Court of Human Rights held that, even though the prohibition of torture had the character of jus cogens, the rules of state immunity were not trumped and set aside by it.24 In effect, the Court blocked a specific protection afforded to individuals (Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights) by interpreting the Convention in accordance with general international law on state immunity, resorting to Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, on which later. The Strasbourg Court stated that ‘[t]he Convention, including Article 6, cannot be interpreted in a vacuum’; rather, the Court would have to take into account the ‘generally recognised rules of public international law on State immunity’.25 Against this stands the joint dissenting opinion of those judges of the Grand Chamber, which possessed maybe the strongest international law credentials on the Strasbourg bench at the time: while they did not question the majority’s method of interpreting (away) Article 6 of the European Convention, they were of the opinion that, under general international law, the rules on state immunity could no longer render a claim against a foreign state inadmissible in national courts where the claim was based on the peremptory prohibition of torture.26 But, as I said, this remained the view of the minority. The ICJ’s recognition of the status juris cogentis of the prohibition of genocide did not have much impact in the Congo v Rwanda Case either. The Court

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Prosecutor v Furundz˘ija (Judgment) ICTY IT-95–17/1 (10 December 1998) para 153. See Al-Adsani v UK (App no 35763/97) ECHR 2001-XI 79. 20 Juridical Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (Advisory Opinion) IACtHR OC-18/03 (17 September 2003) paras 97 ff. 21 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Jurisdiction of the Court and Admissibility of the Application) (ICJ, 3 February 2006) (accessed 24 March 2009) para 64. 22 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) (ICJ, 26 February 2007) (accessed 24 March 2009) para 161. 23 Which I remember from discussions in the International Law Commission. 24 Al-Adsani v UK (n 18), para 61. 25 ibid, paras 55–56. 26 ibid, Joint Dissenting Opinion Rozakis and Caflisch, joined by Wildhaber, Costa, Cabral Barreto and Vajic´, para 3. 19

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emphasised that its jurisdiction remained governed by consent, irrespective of the jus cogens character of the substantive law involved. Lacking such consent on the part of Rwanda, which had excluded ICJ jurisdiction to rule on the Genocide Convention by way of a reservation, there was, in the circumstances of the case, no possibility for the Court to deal with the merits of the case.27 However, a joint Separate Opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, Elaraby, Owada and Simma pointed out that it was ‘not self-evident that a reservation to Article IX (of the Genocide Convention) could not be regarded as incompatible with the object and purpose of the Convention and we believe that this is a matter that the Court should revisit for further consideration’.28 The Opinion highlighted the role of decentralised enforcement of obligations under the Genocide Convention, with the states parties being the sole monitors of each other’s compliance (in contrast to later human rights treaties establishing treaty bodies with the competence of such oversight). According to the Opinion, this decentralised system can only function properly if states can bring a case before the ICJ concerning the alleged infringement of the Convention by another state. In conclusion of this point, the last word in this tug-of-war between old and new international law within the Strasbourg and Hague Courts may not yet have been spoken—as far as the ICJ is concerned, at present, it looks as if a new opportunity to probe jus cogens against state immunity might come its way.29 Another method of inserting hierarchy into international law, somehow related to the acceptance of jus cogens, has been embodied in Article 103 of the UN Charter, according to which the obligations of UN members under the Charter prevail over their obligations ‘under any other international agreement’. The ICJ has paid tribute, as it were, to Article 103 in the Lockerbie cases,30 followed by the European Union’s Court of First Instance in Yusuf and Kadi,31 while the respect shown to the Charter and the human rights regime established under its auspices by the European Court of Justice itself in its final Kadi decision32 has, deservedly or undeservedly, shrunk to a mere pro forma gesture—I will return to this development towards the end of my speech. Let us have a brief look at obligations erga omnes. For any observer capable of grasping the meaning of the Latin words involved, the relevance of this concept as

27

Armed Activities (n 20) para 67. ibid, (Joint Separate Opinion of Judge Higgins, Judge Kooijmans, Judge Elaraby, Judge Owada and Judge Simma) (accessed 24 March 2009) para 29. 29 What looked like a possibility in September 2008 turned into reality in December of the same year when Germany brought an Application suing Italy for breaches of international law committed by the Italian Corte di Cassazione through its refusal to accept the German plea to jurisdictional immunity for alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated by Germany in Italy and against Italian citizens between 1943 and the end of World War II. Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy). 30 In the Provisional Measures phase of the Lockerbie cases: eg, Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United States of America) (Provisional Measures) [1992] ICJ Rep 114, paras 42–44. 31 Case T–306/01 Yusuf v Council [2005] ECR II-3533; Case T–315/01 Kadi v Council [2005] ECR II-3649. 32 Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, [2008] ECR-II-3649. 28

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a means to secure the universal grip of fundamental values consecrated by modern international law is obvious (let me mention in passing that the intricacies of the Latin phrase involved were not the least of the reasons why the point of departure upon which the minimalist regime of ‘ce qui reste des crimes’ (that is, of notorious draft article 19 on ‘’crimes of states’) rests in the ILC Articles on State responsibility of 2001, was finally changed from breaches of obligations erga omnes to breaches of peremptory norms. Of course, jus cogens is also Latin, but this phrase has apparently lost its horror for the younger generation of international lawyers, having been around for half a century). While the concept of obligations erga omnes is certainly related to that of jus cogens, the fine points of their relationship are far from clear. Something resembling a regime of our obligations is in the making, but still finds itself in a very initial stage—let me refer to the ILC’s Articles on State responsibility, to the resolution of the Institut de droit international based on reports by Giorgio Gaja and adopted in Cracow in 2005,33 and to the monograph on the enforcement of obligations erga omnes by Christian Tams,34 as major doctrinal efforts in this direction. On the other hand, state practice has not (yet?) embraced the concept with any notable passion—in this sense I would still stick to what I wrote in 1993: ‘Viewed realistically, the world of obligations erga omnes is still the world of the “ought” rather than of the “is” ’ (this, of course, not in the Kelsenian sense).35 In view of this, the bold confirmation of the concept by the ICJ in its Wall Opinion of 2004 is remarkable,36 as, unfortunately, is the confusion about its use by the Court in certain commentaries on the Opinion. A further tool for coping with negative consequences of fragmentation is to be seen in the establishment of a regime around the lex specialis/lex generalis distinction, with the more specific norm setting aside a more general one. The rationale of this is that the more specific rule is more to the point, regulates the matter more effectively and is better able to accommodate particular circumstances.37 Turning to a specific aspect of lex specialis, let me make a short remark on ‘self-contained regimes’.38 In the wake of a problematic statement of the ICJ in the 1980 Tehran judgment, the international academic community has taken increasing notice of this phenomenon—a development that recently culminated in the profound analysis of ‘self-contained regimes’ by the ILC’s Study Group on Fragmentation. The Study Group’s final report identified three uses of the term, even though, as the report acknowledges, these might not always be clearly distinguishable from

33 Resolutions of the Institut de droit international, Rapporteur: Giorgio Gaja, Fifth Commission: Obligations and rights erga omnes in international law (Krakow, 2005). 34 CJ Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005). 35 B Simma, ‘Does the UN Charter Provide an Adequate Legal Basis for Individual or Collective Responses to Violations of Obligations erga omnes?’, in J Delbrueck (ed.), The Future of International Law Enforcement. New Scenarios – New Law (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1993) 125. 36 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136, paras 155ff. 37 cf ILC (n 3) paras 65 ff. 38 B Simma and D Pulkowski, ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self–contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 483.

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each other: first, and perhaps most commonly, the term refers to primary rules coupled with special sets of secondary rules under the law of state responsibility; second, ‘self-contained regimes’ are said to consist of subsystems of international law, that is, sets of rules, not necessarily secondary in nature, that regulate specific questions differently from general international law; third, the concept is sometimes accorded an even wider meaning, denoting an entire area of international law allegedly following its own rules of interpretation and enforcement, such as international human rights law or international trade law.39 What there now seems to be agreement about is that all three categories of ‘self-contained regimes’ cannot, at least not completely, ‘contract out’ of, decouple themselves from, the system of general international law. It is a fact, however, that differing approaches to interpretation and application of such regimes have developed, for instance in international trade law, human rights, or environmental law. Each regime has thus established its separate epistemic communities of lawyers working in the field, institutions developing and applying the law, and courts and tribunals enforcing it. But this is not necessarily a development that threatens the unity and coherence of international law. The formation of specific methods of interpretation or enforcement is inherent in the set-up of such regimes, and the expertise that lawyers will accumulate by working within them, as well as bodies of case law of courts and tribunals mandated to interpret and enforce these regimes, will contribute to a growing and intensifying corpus of law that responds to the needs of the specific regime. In a positive light, these sub-systems of international law, more densely integrated and more technically coherent, may show the way forward for general international law, as both laboratories and boosters for further progressive development at the global level. The last method to which I turn in my ‘tour d’horizon’ of ways and means developed in international law to cope with the challenge of fragmentation is that of systemic integration of regimes inter se by way of interpretation. I think we can speak of a presumption that states, when creating new rules of international law, do not aim at violating their obligations under other, pre-existing rules, but rather intend to operate within this framework.40 This very general proposition can be complemented by the maxim that any legal rule should be read in context with other rules applicable to the parties. For the law of treaties, this idea has been encapsulated in Article 31(3)(c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention. The exact conditions for the application of this provision are far from clear, however. Article 31(3)(c) stipulates that, in interpreting a treaty, there shall be taken into account ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’. While it is now agreed that the ‘relevant rules’ within the meaning of the provision can be norms having their pedigree in any of the recognised sources of international law,41 it is still disputed whether the term

39

ILC (n 3) paras 128–9. In this sense RY Jennings and A Watts, Oppenheim’s International Law 9th edn (Harlow, Longman, 1992) 1275. 41 ILC (n 3) para 426; ECtHR, Golder v UK (App no 4451/70) (1975) Series A no 18, 17 (para 35); Al–Adsani (n 18) para 55. 40

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‘parties’ refers to all parties to, for instance, the treaty establishing the ‘relevant rules’, or whether it is sufficient that the parties to a particular dispute are bound by the rule in question. A WTO panel in the EC—Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products case42 has opted for the first approach, basing its reasoning on the principle of state sovereignty and the corollary principle of consent: ‘Indeed, it is not apparent why a sovereign State would agree to a mandatory rule of treaty interpretation which could have as a consequence that the interpretation of a treaty to which that State is a party is affected by other rules of international law which that State has decided not to accept.’43 As the ILC’s Study on Fragmentation rightly observes, such a construction of the term ‘parties’ ‘makes it practically impossible ever to find a multilateral context where reference to other multilateral treaties as aids to interpretation under Article 31(3)(c) would be allowed’,44 due to ‘the unlikeliness of a precise congruence in the membership of most important multilateral conventions’.45 If the Biotech approach were followed, the most important multilateral agreements could not be interpreted by reference to one another. On the other hand, interpreting ‘parties’ to mean only those involved in a particular dispute before a court or tribunal would risk divergent interpretations of one and the same rule even for multilateral treaties of the law-making type. Hence, it has been suggested that it would be sufficient for the purposes of Article 31(3)(c) that the parties in dispute are both parties to the other treaty (ie, the treaty informing the interpretation of the instrument in question), if this instrument is of a ‘reciprocal’, ‘synallagmatic’, or ‘bipolar’ type, whereas the rule adopted by the panel in Biotech should apply if the treaty to be interpreted is of the ‘integral’ or ‘interdependent’ type.46 While this solution takes into account different structures of international treaties, it has yet to be adopted by and applied in practice. What the discussion certainly shows is that the principle of ‘systemic integration’ is far from providing a panacea to fragmentation. Besides, as the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Al-Adsani demonstrates, Article 31(3)(c) may, if applied ‘strictly’, ‘solve’ norm collisions in a way that is at odds with other rules of international law, such as jus cogens. Let me conclude this sub-chapter with a brief look at fragmentation as a matter before the ICJ. In explicit terms, and contrary to some of its former Presidents, the Court has not yet raised its voice in the discourse about this challenge. However, certain recent judgments do offer insights into the Court’s perception of the coherence and unity of international law and the ways to preserve these qualities. Thus, the Court has used the tool of systemic interpretation in the Oil Platforms case, resorting to Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

42 EC-Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products, Panel Report (adopted 29 September 2006) WT/DS291/R; WT/DS292/R; WT/DS293/R, para 7.68. 43 ibid, para 7.71. 44 ILC (n 3) para 450. 45 ibid, para 471. 46 ibid, para 472.

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to place a specific bilateral treaty within the broader context of general international law.47 Although this approach has been criticised by some observers as getting dangerously close to a circumvention of the principle of consent delimiting the jurisdiction of the Court, it demonstrates that international law does provide us with tools that allow for a coherent conception of its rules. In the recent case of Djibouti v France, the Court again applied Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention, this time to two bilateral treaties, and interpreted a Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 1986, whose alleged violation by France constituted the essence of Djibouti’s claim, in the light of a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation concluded between the two parties in 1977. This proved to be far less contentious than the use of our Vienna Convention Article in the Oil Platforms case, especially since the Court clarified that the earlier treaty, while having ‘a certain bearing’ on the interpretation and application of the later one, neither broadened the scope of the Court’s jurisdiction, nor could it significantly alter the interpretation of the Mutual Assistance Convention of 1986.48

The ‘Proliferation’ of International Courts and Tribunals as a Challenge The phenomenon and its effects In the second part of my speech I now turn to the issue of the proliferation and growing diversity of international courts and tribunals (but not of the substance of international law itself), here conceived as a challenge particularly to what I have called ‘second-level universality’, that is, the systemic coherence of international law, but of course also to be seen as an accelerant of fragmentation. In recent years, maybe the last two decades, a growing number of international legal scholars, among them several Presidents of the ICJ, have become quite concerned by this development and the ensuing problems. The choice of the word ‘proliferation’ must have been born out of these concerns, because, like ‘fragmentation’, the term has all kinds of undesirable connotations and undertones, again stemming mostly from the military world. Returning to the concerns as such, they result in part from the fact that, quite naturally, the jurisdiction of most international tribunals is limited to the rules established by the treaty instruments that set them up, ie, that such tribunals are not normally mandated to apply ‘general’ international law, at least not in express terms. There is no doubt that international judicial dispute settlement is decentralised, without coordinated allocation of jurisdiction or hierarchy between different international courts. Some international courts and tribunals have explicitly

47 Case Concerning Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v United States of America) (ICJ, 6 November 2003) (accessed 25 March 2009) para 41. 48 Case Concerning Certain Questions of Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (Djibouti v France) (Judgment) (ICJ, 4 June 2008) (accessed 25 March 2009) para 112.

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described themselves as ‘self-contained systems’,49 or as ‘autonomous judicial institutions’.50 International dispute settlement is indeed ‘insular’.51 On the other hand, some authors manage to see in the same picture the emergence of a system of international courts. Of course, this is a question of definition: Even those arguing for an ‘international court system’ or a ‘global community of courts’52—defined to comprise both international and national courts—recognise that ‘the international judiciary is an evolving, complex, and self-organising system’.53 Most of them would probably also agree that the international judiciary is ‘dancing on the edge of chaos’.54 But, irrespective of whether we are in the presence of an emerging system or an uncoordinated mess of diverse mechanisms, the fact is that the present state of affairs, characterised as an ‘explosion of international litigation and arbitration’, has not—yet?—led to any significant contradictory jurisprudence of international courts; such cases remain the exception and actually courts have gone to great lengths to avoid contradicting each other.55 The discussion also to some extent misconceives the mindset and professional ethos of international judges. In the words of Anthony Aust: ‘No wise judge (international or national) wants to reinvent the wheel’.56 Thus, most international judges fundamentally agree on the way the international legal system is structured; often, they have similar educational backgrounds. Furthermore, it will obviously add to the legitimacy of a judgment if an international court relies on the case law of other such courts, applies and maybe develops it, without, however, changing it fundamentally. Finally, quite a few international judges have moved from one court to another, thus also, more or less consciously, adding to the consistency of international jurisprudence.57 Rather than resulting in fragmentation, the emergence of more international courts, combined with an increasing willingness of states to submit their disputes to judicial settlement, has revived international legal discourse. This discourse has gained in frequency and intensity: courts nowadays have a greater say in it compared to doctrine. The more international courts apply a specific rule of international law in the same manner, the more legitimacy it will be accorded, and the more can we be certain about its normative strength. On the other hand, if

49 Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic´ (Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, Appeals Chamber) ICTY IT–94–1–AR72 (2 October 1995) para 11. 50 The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law (Advisory Opinion) IACtHR OC–16/99 (1 October 1999) para 61. 51 Y Shany, The Competing Jurisdiction of International Courts and Tribunals (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) 109. 52 AM Slaughter, ‘A Global Community of Courts’ (2003) 44 Harvard International Law Journal 191, 191. 53 J Martinez, ‘Towards an International Judicial System’ (2003) 56 Stanford Law Review 429, 443–44. 54 ibid. 55 B Simma, ‘Fragmentation in a Positive Light’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 845, 846. 56 A Aust, ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes: A Proliferation Problem?’ in TM Ndiaye and R Wolfrum (eds), Law of the Sea, Environmental Law and Settlement of Disputes. Liber Amicorum Judge Thomas A. Mensah (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2007) 131, 137. 57 Martinez, ‘Towards an International Judicial System’ (n 49) 436.

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various international courts do disagree on a point of law, the ensuing judicial dialogue may possibly further progressive development of the law.58 Convergence and Divergence of International Jurisprudence Instances of Divergence Let me now illustrate the problématique of proliferation by telling you a few stories about divergence and convergence in international jurisprudence and the phenomenon of parallel proceedings, to provide you with a concrete picture of the actual weight of the problem. First, instances of divergence: let me state at the outset that these few cases can be explained to a large extent by reference to the specific functions of the courts involved within the sub-systems, in which they have been set up. The most prominent of all these cases is certainly the collision between the ICJ in Nicaragua59 and the ICTY in Tadic´.60 In the Tadic´ case, the ICTY—in what has been called an ‘aggressive attack’61— diverged from the ICJ’s holding in the Nicaragua case on the question of the level of control necessary for the attribution of acts of paramilitary forces present in one state to another state. Whereas the ICJ had decided that, for these acts to be attributable, the state in question had to exercise ‘effective control’ over such paramilitaries, the ICTY Appeals Chamber did not hold the Nicaragua test to be persuasive and proposed that a less stringent test, ie ‘overall control’, was sufficient.62 The ICJ used the 2007 Genocide judgment to give its response to Tadic´. It held that the argument in favour of the Tadic´ test was unpersuasive and did not reflect international law on state responsibility. In the Court’s view, the ‘overall control’ test suggested by the ICTY had: the major drawback of broadening the scope of State responsibility well beyond the fundamental principle governing the law of international responsibility: a State is responsible only for its own conduct, that is to say the conduct of persons acting, on whatever basis, on its behalf.

The Court thus came to the conclusion that the ICTY’s reading of the rules of attribution in question had gone too far, stretching the connection between the conduct of a state’s organs and its international responsibility ‘almost to the breaking point’.63

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Simma, ‘Fragmentation’ (n 51) 846. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America), Merrls, Judgment, ICJ Rep 1986, p 14. 60 Prosecutor v Tadic´ (Judgment, Appeals Chamber) ICTY IT-94–1-A (15 July 1999) paras 99 ff, in particular 115 ff. 61 RJ Goldstone and RJ Hamilton, ‘Bosnia v. Serbia: Lessons from the Encounter of the International Court of Justice with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’ (2008) 21 Leiden Journal of International Law 95, 101. 62 Prosecutor v Tadic´ (n 546). 63 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) (ICJ, 26 February 2007) (accessed 25 March 2009) para 406. 59

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In an exercise of judicial diplomacy, the ICJ made it appear as if the ICTY had intended to limit its divergent test to the specific (jurisdictional) question of whether a conflict was internal or international. While Tadic´ can certainly be read in such a conciliatory way, a member of the ICTY Appeals Chamber that had decided the Tadic´ case, Nino Cassese, has recently stated quite bluntly that the Yugoslavia Tribunal actually did want to replace the Nicaragua standard developed by the ICJ at the level of general international law and posit two different tests or degrees of control leading to attribution: one for acts performed by private individuals, in case of which attributability would require ‘effective control’, and one for acts of organised and hierarchically structured groups, such as military or paramilitary units, in case of which ‘overall control’ would suffice. Cassese emphasised that—contrary to what the ICJ found in its Genocide judgment—the Appeals Chamber did in fact hold that the legal criteria for these two tests reflected the state of international law both for international humanitarian law and the law of state responsibility. The ICJ, Cassese suggested, should pay attention to state practice and case law, instead of simply and uncritically restating its previous views.64 As concerns the ICTY itself, it probably will not have much of a chance left to reply to the ICJ and thus initiate another round in what (with all due respect for my own Court) might be called a dialogue des sourds. But the International Criminal Court appears set to do so: quite recently, in the Lubanga case, an ICC Pre-Trial Chamber, about one month before the ICJ rendered its judgment in the Genocide case in early 2007, held—without discussing Nicaragua—that the overall control test as established in Tadic´ was also valid for the purposes of determining the nature of the conflict under the ICC Statute.65 A further example of divergent views on the same matter held by different international courts or human rights treaty bodies is provided by the question of the territorial scope of the application of human rights treaties. The European Court of Human Rights has developed its approach in this matter in a long line of case law, not without a little meandering, however. In the Bankovic´ case, concerning a complaint arising from the NATO bombing of a Serbian television station in April 1999, the Strasbourg Court held that the European Convention on Human Rights did not apply to acts of Member States of the Convention effected outside their territory, and stressed the ‘essentially territorial notion of jurisdiction’ under the European Convention.66 The Court distinguished the case from other situations where it had extended the applicability of the European Convention to extraterritorial acts, such as in Louzidou v Turkey and Cyprus v Turkey. In Loizidou, the Court had held that the responsibility of contracting states can be involved by acts and omissions of their authorities which produce effects outside their own territory. Responsibility could also arise when as a consequence of military action—whether lawful or unlawful—a state exercises effective control of an area outside its national

64 A Cassese, ‘The Nicaragua and Tadic´ Tests Revisited in Light of the ICJ Judgment on Genocide in Bosnia’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 649ff, particularly 657, 663 and 668. 65 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, Pre-Trial Chamber 1),ICC-01/04–01/06 (29 January 2007) paras 210–11. 66 Bankovic´ v Belgium and others (App no 52207/99) ECHR 2001-XII 333, para 61.

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territory.67 In Cyprus v Turkey, the ECHR had found that, ‘[h]aving effective overall control over northern Cyprus, [Turkey’s] responsibility cannot be confined to the acts of its own soldiers or officials in northern Cyprus but must also be engaged by virtue of the acts of the local administration which survives by virtue of Turkish military and other support’.68 Extraterritorial acts would thus only exceptionally qualify as an exercise of ‘jurisdiction’ within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention, said the Strasbourg Court in Bankovic´, if the state, ‘through effective control of the relevant territory and its inhabitants . . . as a consequence of military occupation . . . exercises all or some of the public powers normally to be exercised by that Government’.69 More recently, in Ilas¸cu v Moldova and Russia, and again in Issa v Turkey, the Court has confirmed this jurisprudence.70 The ICJ followed a somewhat more liberal approach in its Wall Opinion of 2004 with regard to the extraterritorial application of both UN Human Rights Covenants as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Court did so in a considerably less nuanced way, however. It stated simply that: while the jurisdiction of States is primarily territorial, it may sometimes be exercised outside the national territory. Considering the object and purpose of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, it would seem natural that, even when such is the case, States parties to the Covenant should be bound to comply with its provisions.71

In an equally broad manner, the UN Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No 31 [80] of the same year on the territorial scope of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, expressed the view that ‘a State party must respect and ensure the rights laid down in the Covenant to anyone within the power or effective control of that State Party, even if not situated within the territory of the State Party.’72 While you will probably agree with me that the Strasbourg, Hague and Geneva views on the extraterritorial applicability of human rights treaties differ in rather subtle ways only, my next example is more robust. It concerns the characterisation of Article 36(1)(b) of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the one hand and the ICJ on the other. While the Inter-American Court, in an advisory opinion rendered in 1999, had held that a detained foreigner’s right to have his consular post notified was ‘part of the body of international human rights law’,73 the ICJ in the LaGrand judgment of

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Loizidou v Turkey (App no 15318/89) ECHR 1996-VI 2216, para 52. Cyprus v Turkey (App no 25781/94) ECHR 2001-IV 1, para 77. 69 Bankovic v Belgium and others (n 60) para 71. 70 Ilas¸cu v Moldova and Russia (App no 48787/99) ECHR 2004-VII 179, para 316; Issa and Others v Turkey (App no 31821/96) ECHR 16 November 2004, paras 68–71. 71 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (n 32), para 109. In its Order on Provisional Measures of 15 October 2008 in the case Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation) (ICJ, 15 August 2008) (press release, accessed 25 March 2009), the Court took the same view with regard to the territorial reach of CERD, see para 109. 72 HRC, General Comment no 31 [80], The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant (Geneva, United Nations, CCPR/C/21/Rev 1/Add 13, 2004) para 10. 73 The Right to Information on Consular Assistance (n 46) para 141. 68

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2001 saw no necessity to enter into this controversial question and contented itself with holding that Article 36 amounted to an individual right, without pronouncing on its human rights character vel non.74 A few years later, in the Avena case, Mexico unfortunately raised this issue again and squarely confronted the Court with a respective submission—which led a somewhat irritated Court to finally state that the characterisation of the individual Article 36 right as a human right found support neither in the text nor in the travaux préparatoires of the Consular Convention.75 This finding was not necessary for the disposition of the case; it has rightly been criticised as an unfortunate instance of deliberate divergence of jurisprudence76 as well as an unnecessary obstacle to the development of a new human right. (Much More Numerous) Cases of Convergence Let me now show you the other side of the coin and speak about convergence of international jurisprudence. In a major study on our topic published in 1999, Jonathan Charney concluded that ‘the different international tribunals of the late twentieth century do share a coherent understanding of [international] law.’77 A more recent analysis (published in 2002) came to the conclusion that ‘by a margin of 173 to 11, tribunals are much more likely to refer to one another in a positive or neutral way than to distinguish or overrule.’78 Rather than damaging the unity of international law, frequent cross-referencing between international courts has thus contributed to its strengthening and greater coherence. By way of example for this tendency, I will concentrate on reference made by specialised courts and tribunals to ICJ jurisprudence. Thus, the WTO Appellate Body has often referred to decisions of the ICJ (and other international courts), mostly with respect to the rules on treaty interpretation,79 but also with regard to procedural issues such as the allocation of the burden of proof.80 The European Court of Human Rights has also looked to the case law of the ICJ in interpreting its own procedural law. For instance, the ICJ’s judgment in LaGrand to the effect that the Court’s provisional measures were binding upon the parties, was referred to in the Mamatkulov case decided by the Strasbourg Court, which

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LaGrand Case (Germany v United States) (Judgment) (2001) ICJ Rep 466 paras 77–78. Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v United States of America) (Judgment) (2004) ICJ Rep 12, para 30. 76 R Higgins, ‘A Babel of Judicial Voices? Ruminations from the Bench’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 791, 796. 77 JI Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Tribunals?’ (1998) 271 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 101, 161. 78 N Miller, ‘An International Jurisprudence? The Operation of “Precedent” Across International Tribunals’ (2002) 15 Leiden Journal of International Law 483, 495. 79 See, eg, US Standards for Reformulated Gasoline, Appellate Body Report adopted 29 April 1996 WT/DS2/AB/R, p 17; Japan – Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages, Appellate Body Report adopted 4 October 1996, WT/DS8/AB/R; WT/DS10/AB/R; WT/DS11/AB/R, p 12; Korea – Definitive Safeguard Measure on Imports of Certain Dairy Products, Appellate Body Report adopted 14 December 1999, WT/DS98/ AB/R, para 81. 80 United States – Measure Affecting Imports of Woven Wool Shirts and Blouses from India, Appellate Body Report adopted 25 April 1997, WT/DS33/AB/R, p 14. 75

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confirmed that its interim measures were equally binding.81 More recently in the Stoll case, the European Court of Human Rights has approvingly referred to ICJ case law on the interpretation of multilingual treaties, and in the Blecˇ ic´ case on the question of temporal jurisdiction.82 The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has relied on holdings of the ICJ in numerous instances as well. Most importantly, it has looked to the Hague Court and its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, with regard to questions of reparation83 or the standard of proof.84 The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea has made reference to the jurisprudence of the ICJ in the M/V ‘Saiga’, the ‘Grand Prince’ and more recently, in the Straits of Johor and the ‘Hoshinmaru’ cases,85 on issues as varied as the existence of a state of necessity, the power and duty of an international court to examine its jurisdiction proprio motu and the question whether international law required the exhaustion of diplomatic negotiations between states before they could turn to an international court. Among the tribunals vested with international criminal jurisdiction, the ICTY has made so ample use of ICJ jurisprudence that the divergence in the Tadic´ judgment has to be seen in perspective. For some more recent instances of favourable references, let me mention the Trial Chamber judgments in the Boškoski86 and Strugar87 cases, where the Yugoslavia Tribunal turned to the ICJ’s jurisprudence for the interpretation of Security Council resolutions and the customary law status of the Hague Regulations. As to the International Criminal Court, its Pre-Trial Chamber in the Lubanga case (already mentioned in another context) has favourably quoted the ICJ on the legal issue of when a territory is considered to be occupied under customary international law. It also took into account the factual findings of the ICJ with regard to the Ugandan involvement in the DRC in the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo case, and used it to qualify the conflict as international in character rather than internal, which had been the submission of the ICC Prosecutor.88 Concerning the ICC Appeals Chamber, it seems to have made only cursory reference to ICJ decisions so far.

81 Mamatkulov and Abdurasulovic´ v Turkey (GC) (App nos 46827/99 and 46951/99) ECHR 2005-I 295, paras 116–17. 82 Stoll v Switzerland (GC) (App no 69698/01) ECHR 10 December 2007, para 59; Blecˇ ic´ v Croatia (App no 59532/00) ECHR 2006-III-51, para 47. 83 ‘White Van’ (Paniagua–Morales et al v Guatemala) (Judgment) IACtHR, Series C, No 76 (25 May 2001) para 75 (fn 19). 84 Velásquez Rodríguez v Honduras (Judgment) IACtHR Series C, No 4 (29 July 1988) para 127. 85 ‘SAIGA’ (No 2) Case (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines v Guinea) (Merits) ITLOS Case No 2 (1 July 1999) para 133; The ‘Grand Prince’ Case (Belize v France) (Prompt Release) (Judgment) ITLOS Case No 8 (20 April 2001) para 78; Land Reclamation by Singapore in and around the Straits of Johor (Malaysia v Singapore) (Order) ITLOS Case No 12 (10 September 2003) para 52; ‘Hoshinmaru’ Case (Japan v Russian Federation) (Prompt Release) (Judgment) ITLOS Case No 14 (6 August 2007) paras 86–87. 86 Prosecutor v Boškoski (Judgment) ICTY-04–82-T (10 July 2008) para 192 (fn 779). 87 Prosecutor v Strugar (Judgment) ICTY-01–42-T (31 January 2005) para 227 (fn 775). 88 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (n 59), paras 212, 214–17, 220.

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Arbitral Tribunals in inter-state cases have relied on ICJ jurisprudence as a matter of routine.89 ICSID tribunals regularly quote decisions of the ICJ and its predecessor, in particular in relation to treaty interpretation or procedural questions, such as those related to jurisdiction and evidence, but also with regard to the protection of shareholders (Barcelona Traction), the assessment of damages and other matters. Interestingly, the jurisprudence of the ICJ, on its part, displays very little reciprocity, so to speak. The Court has until recently carefully refrained from referring to the case law of other existing international courts (while having no problems with citing old arbitral decisions and the like). (Un)fortunately this is not the place to speculate about the reasons for such abstinence. The Court’s attitude changed fundamentally in the Genocide case, in which the ICJ followed the jurisprudence of the ICTY on various fundamental issues as a matter of practical necessity. We will have to wait and see whether this new openness will spill over into other areas. Parallel Proceedings The Challenge Let me continue with some observations on the phenomenon of parallel proceedings, understood as the initiation of litigation in different international courts on what is essentially the same substantive dispute. The most prominent example to date is the Swordfish case.90 Chile had closed its ports to Spanish ships that—as Chile contended—had overfished swordfish in the high seas adjacent to Chile’s EEZ. While the EU regarded the case as predominantly trade-related, and consequently initiated a case in the WTO, Chile saw it as relating to the law of the sea, bringing proceedings before ITLOS in Hamburg. While the case has been suspended before both institutions, pending an amicable settlement, it demonstrates that multiple proceedings before several international courts and tribunals are a real possibility. A somewhat different situation occurred in the MOX Plant case, where the EU Commission initiated proceedings against Ireland in the European Court of Justice for breach of EU law committed through bringing a case against the United Kingdom under the Law of the Sea Convention. Here, it was not only the parties which initiated parallel proceedings (before ITLOS, an arbitral tribunal under the OSPAR Convention as well as an arbitral tribunal under UNCLOS91), but also the

89 See, eg, The Kingdom of Belgium v The Kingdom of The Netherlands (Award) Permanent Court of Arbitration (25 May 2005) in: — The Iron Rhine (Ijzeren Rijn) Arbitration (Belgium-Netherlands) Award of 2005 (The Hague, TMC Asser Press, 2007) 37–142, paras 45 and 59. 90 Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Swordfish Stocks in the South-Eastern Pacific Ocean (Chile/European Community) (Order) ITLOS Case No 7 (20 December 2000); on the developments referred to above, see the Hamburg Tribunal’s Press Releases on the case. 91 See, ‘Mox Plant’ Case (Ireland v United Kingdom) (Order) ITLOS Case No 10 (3 December 2001); Dispute Concerning Access to Information under Article 9 of the OSPAR Convention (Ireland v United Kingdom and Northern Ireland), (PCA, 2 July 2003) (2003) 42 ILM 1118; Case C–459/03 Commission of the European Communities v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland [2006] ECR I–4635.

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organ of a regional organisation which tried effectively to prevent the states involved from having their dispute settled by an independent arbitral tribunal outside the EU legal system. The most recent examples of parallel proceedings are probably the cases brought by Georgia against Russia in relation to the war in the Caucasus in 2008. Georgia initiated proceedings before both the ICJ and the European Court of Human Rights. The President of the ICJ issued an Urgent Communication to the parties (pursuant to Article 74(4) of the ICJ Rules of Court),92 while her Strasbourg counterpart indicated provisional measures (under rule 39 of the Strasbourg Rules of Court).93 As a state party to the ICC Statute, Georgia could also have made a state referral to the ICC under Articles 13(a) and 14 of its Statute. Possible Remedies There are several rules that might help solve the dilemma of parallel proceedings on the same dispute. The principle of lis alibi pendens requires a court to abstain from exercising jurisdiction where the same parties have already instituted proceedings before another court on the same subject-matter. It has been argued that this principle forms part of international procedural law as a general principle of law in the meaning of Article 38(1)(c) of the ICJ Statute.94 And of course the principle of res judicata is relevant here, too. Another concept that has recently been resorted to in the case of parallel proceedings is the principle of comity, that is, of respect for the competence of other tribunals. In the MOX Plant case, the Hague arbitral tribunal suspended its proceedings in order to wait for the decision of the ECJ, invoking ‘considerations of mutual respect and comity which should prevail between judicial institutions’.95 An example to the contrary would be the stance taken by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its advisory opinion on the Right to Information on Consular Assistance. Here, the Court refused to suspend proceedings with a view to a case (albeit one that was contentious) on similar legal questions before the ICJ (Breard), insisting on its status as an ‘autonomous judicial institution’.96 These two opposed approaches show that the principle of comity can hardly claim to be firmly rooted in international procedural law, even though considerations of the good administration of international justice speak in its favour.

92 Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (n 65); on 15 October 2008, the ICJ issued an Order on Provisional Measures directed at both parties to the conflict, http://www.icj–cij.org/docket/files/140/14803.pdf (last accessed 25 March 2009). 93 ECHR, Press Release 2008/581 of 12 August 2008. 94 A Reinisch, ‘The Use and Limits of Res Judicata and Lis Pendens as Procedural Tools to avoid Conflicting Dispute Settlement Outcomes’ (2004) 3 The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 37, 48. 95 Arbitral Tribunal Constituted Pursuant to Article 287, and Article 1 of Annex VII, of UNCLOS for the Dispute Concerning the MOX Plant, International Movements of Radioactive Materials, and the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Irish Sea, ‘MOX Plant’ Case (Ireland v United Kingdom), Order No 3 (Suspension of Proceedings on Jurisdiction and Merits, and Request for Further Provisional Measures) (PCA, 24 June 2003) < http://www.pca–cpa.org/upload/files/MOX%20Order%20no3.pdf> (accessed 25 March 2009) para 28. 96 The Right to Information on Consular Assistance (n 46), paras 61–65.

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Other possibilities for preventing parallel proceedings before international courts are conflict clauses in international treaties (eg Article 292 of the EC Treaty, Article 23 of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, Article 55 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 282 UNCLOS). However, a survey of different provisions contained in jurisdictional instruments and treaties reveals a rather disorganised picture. Equally, a look at the practice of international courts and tribunals shows that the instruments described for the prevention of parallel proceedings are hardly coordinated or effective. Before I leave this point, let me mention the approach taken by the Arbitral Tribunal in the Iron Rhine case between Belgium and the Netherlands, in which the Tribunal saved its turf in matters of EC law vis-à-vis the European Court of Justice and MOX-type problems, by resorting to an analogy with the position of domestic courts in a preliminary ruling procedure according to Article 234 of the EC Treaty. The Tribunal proceeded to put itself in the shoes of a domestic court, as it were, and in so doing arrived at the conclusion that the questions of EC law arising in connection with the track of the Iron Rhine were not to be referred to Luxembourg because they were not relevant (entscheidungserheblich) for the decision of the case,97 and then went on to decide the case itself. The Challenge Posed to International Courts and Tribunals A Particular Task for the ICJ? Does the ICJ have a particular responsibility, and particular competence, to ease the undesirable consequences of the birth of so many brothers and sisters, as it were? The question of a role for the ICJ as a ‘guarantor of the unity of international law’ (to be distinguished from that of a ‘guardian of the ancien regime’ in international law98) has different aspects. In favour of such a function, it could be said, first, that the ICJ is the only court with general jurisdiction, and the principal judicial organ of the UN (Article 92 UN Charter). Moreover, the Hague Court constitutes a universal interpretative community, in the sense that all principal legal systems are represented on its bench. Article 9 of the ICJ Statute specifically mandates the General Assembly to take into account ‘that in the body as a whole the representation of the main forms of civilisation and of the principal legal systems of the world should be assured’ when electing judges of the Court. Turning from institutional rules to their practical application, it has been suggested that in the discourse among international courts, the voice of the ICJ ought to receive particular attention. As a matter of course, findings by the Court on questions of general international law will as such counteract tendencies of fragmentation arising from the increase in the number of judicial ‘speakers’. The less ‘transactional’ the ICJ’s jurisprudence becomes,99 the more will it be able to unify and homogenise the law. 97

‘Ijzeren Rhine’ (n 83), paras 97–137. A von Bogdandy, ‘Constitutionalism in International Law: Comment on a Proposal from Germany’ (2006) 47 Harvard Journal of International Law 223, 226. 99 cf, G Abi-Saab, ‘Fragmentation or Unification: Some Concluding Remarks’ (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 919, 929–30. 98

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On the other hand, as I have mentioned earlier, ICJ jurisprudence on its part has hardly ever openly referred to other international courts and tribunals, the Court’s reliance on the work of the ICTY in the 2007 Genocide judgment being the recent exception. One can surely regard this recent example as an instance of judicial dialogue, even though it took the ICJ quite a few years to reply to the challenge posed from about one mile away. What the Genocide judgment also illustrates is that international courts are entitled to respect for their interpretation of those areas of international law over which they have been given jurisdiction. In this sense, the ICJ stressed that the ICTY did not have jurisdiction ratione materiae over questions of state responsibility, and thus in the Tadic´ case did not have to decide the question of the proper test of control. On the other hand, the ICJ expressly stated that it attached utmost importance to legal findings made by the ICTY in ruling on the criminal liability of the accused, since this was the Tribunal’s proper area of jurisdiction.100 What I take from this is that judicial respect for the specialised jurisdictional regimes of other international courts could possibly be considered an emerging general principle of international procedural law. The possibility of divergence of views between international courts not only exists with regard to the law, but also with regard to the factual assessment of a situation. Until now, this aspect has not been of major significance, probably because many of the ‘older’ international cases have been decided on more or less undisputed factual bases. However, one recent example of two international courts looking at essentially the same set of facts is, again, the Genocide case. There, the ICJ referred to the ICTY not only with respect to findings of law, but also concerning findings of facts. Out of sheer necessity, it relied heavily on those findings, carefully distinguishing, however, between different forms of documents and decisions produced by the Tribunal (such as indictments, on the one hand, and judgments, on the other). The case is thus an example of how two international courts can avoid divergence in the determination of facts, while it is clear that the principle of res judicata does not apply here. The Task of Other International Courts Let me turn to the role of other international courts. As a rule, these courts, while being aware of their specialised character and their specific mandate to interpret the instruments under which they were set up, have recognised that the special rules which they have the jurisdiction to apply and interpret, are not detached from general international law. Thus, for instance, the WTO Appellate Body, early in its history, accepted that WTO law ‘should not be read in clinical isolation from public international law’.101 Likewise, the European Court of Human Rights has held that ‘the principles underlying the Convention cannot be interpreted and applied in a vacuum. The Court must also take into account any relevant rules of international law . . ., although it must remain mindful of the Convention’s special character as a human rights treaty.’102

100 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (n 58), para 403. 101 US Standards of Reformulated Gasoline (n 73), 16. 102 Bankovic´ v Belgium and others (n 61), para 57.

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The perceived risk of divergent interpretations of international law and ‘forum shopping’ by states made possible by the remarkable increase in the number of international judicial bodies has led to a discussion on the need for some kind of hierarchical structure among international courts. It has been suggested, for instance, that it should be possible (or even mandatory) for other (specialised) international courts to refer questions of general international law to the ICJ for some kind of preliminary ruling.103 Some commentators have gone as far as suggesting that the ICJ should be turned into a constitutional court of the world community, or given appellate jurisdiction.104 However, apart from the question whether sufficient know-how and resources would be available at the Hague Court to tackle the highly complicated technical issues on the agenda of many of the specialised international courts and tribunals—and some psychological difficulties for the Alpha personalities involved—a direct reference by a specialised international tribunal to the Hague Court would require both an amendment to the ICJ Statute and an enabling provision in the treaty establishing the specialised court. Frankly speaking, another question that could—and should—legitimately be asked in this context would be whether it would necessarily always be a good idea for other international courts to look for guidance to, and defer to, the ICJ in all circumstances. The Court’s jurisprudence is sometimes infuriatingly ‘transactional’, and its reasoning sometimes more than sparse. Further, we have already come across instances where other, regional, international courts have taken desirable innovative steps and introduced more adequate solutions in ways that are far ahead of those of the ICJ. Let me remind you of the way in which the Court has for decades beaten around the bush concerning jus cogens, or its recent unnecessary negation of the character of the right to consular information as a human right. The Court has been rather timid, faced with the challenge of setting judicial limits to the powers of the UN Security Council.105 And if one compares the treatment of the issue of reparation in the 2007 Genocide judgment with certain decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the matter of reparation of violations of human rights obligations, or with the 2003 Decision of the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Selimovic (Srebrenica) cases,106 one could not be blamed for indeed regarding the Hague Court as a stubborn defender of certain ‘ancien regimes’ in international law. Returning to the issue of coordination and cooperation between international courts, such courts have explored other, less formal, cooperative mechanisms on their own initiative. For instance, more recently, meetings of judges of international courts also at the universal level have been organised upon the initiative of the ICJ, and are on their way to being institutionalised. Such meetings are certainly useful for the development of a common understanding of legal questions and for the fostering of mutual professional respect, but of course they cannot be a substitute 103 G Guillaume, ‘The Future of International Judicial Institutions’ (1995) 44 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 848, 848ff. 104 Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Tribunals?’ (n 71), 130–31. 105 In the Provisional Measures phase of the Lockerbie cases: eg, Lockerbie (n 28a), paras 42–44. 106 Ferida Selimovic & Others v Republika Srpska, (Decision on Admissibility and Merits) (Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 7 March 2003) Case No CH/01/8365.

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for a sound conceptualisation of overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions. It is also true that such meetings lack transparency. In conclusion of my remarks on the issues of fragmentation and proliferation: even critics of the idea of a coherent international legal system now seem to have conceded that international law can, and indeed does, form a system. For instance, Martti Koskenniemi recently agreed that ‘[h]ere is a battle European jurisprudence seems to have won. Law is a whole—or in the words of the first conclusion made by the ILC Study Group, “International law is a legal system” ’.107 As to fragmentation, it seems to me that many of the concerns about this phenomenon have been overstated. No ‘special regime’ has ever been conceived as independent of general law.108 And no master plan of divide et impera lies behind this development. Rather than couching it in terms of the ‘dangers’ of fragmentation, the phenomenon ought to be assessed in a much more positive way: the significance of international law has grown; it regulates more and more fields that before were left solely to foreign policy or domestic jurisdiction, like the protection of the individual, environmental concerns, or international trade. International law is dynamic, and globalisation calls for global legal solutions. As for the ‘proliferation’ of international courts and tribunals, I would submit that the debate on fragmentation has made international judges even more aware of the responsibility they bear for a coherent construction of international law. Nevertheless, the great increase in the number and subject areas of international courts has led to certain problems. The possibility of divergence between the jurisprudence of international courts does exist. Ultimately, from a very practical viewpoint, because of the ‘structural bias’ of specialised fields of international law and of the corresponding international institutions and courts, the real issue about fragmentation may be which court may be resorted to in order to decide a particular dispute. This choice will, in many cases, prejudge the outcome, given that a dispute may be conceived under different paradigms, for instance, as either a trade or an environmental dispute.109 Any international institution will necessarily be biased in its analysis of the dispute, depending on the specialised area which it has been designed to service. I thus agree with Martti Koskenniemi that, looked at from this angle, the phenomenon of fragmentation of international law, or proliferation of international courts and tribunals, essentially appears as the struggle of different international institutions, mainly international courts, for what he has called ‘institutional hegemony’.110 But, as I said, this struggle has hitherto been one among friends. It is being led with a sense of responsibility by all concerned. It has not been in the way of mutual respect, coordination and cooperation where necessary.

107

Koskenniemi, ‘The Fate of Public International Law’, 2007 (n 14), 17. ibid, 16. 109 ibid, 5 ff. 110 ibid, 8 and M Koskenniemi, ‘International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration’ (2004) 17 Cambridge Review of International Affairs 197, 205–06. 108

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Related Responsibilities of National Courts: Two Brief Observations Let me add to my treatment of relations between international courts and tribunals a few observations on the relationship between international and national courts and the responsibility arising for the latter in the context of our topic. As I have already mentioned at the outset, the jurisprudence of domestic courts on questions of international law is gaining more and more relevance for the development of the law. But together with this, there also arises an increasing responsibility on the part of these courts to maintain the law’s coherence and integrity. It would be tempting to pursue this topic in more depth—today I can only touch upon it in passing and limit myself to two remarks that lead back to the issue of the relations between courts at the international and the national level. First, it is quite obvious that in these relations, mutual respect is as important as it is between different courts at the international level. As for the position taken by national courts towards the jurisprudence of their international counterparts, we come across remarkable varieties indeed. Just compare the professional respect with which the Israeli High Court of Justice has dealt with the Wall Opinion of the Hague Court on the legal questions of necessity and proportionality relating to the course of the wall (while disagreeing on the factual assessment by the ICJ),111 with the way in which US courts, including the Supreme Court, disposed of the domestic repercussions of the LaGrand and Avena judgments concerning the individual right to consular information enshrined in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the consequences of its violation spelt out by the ICJ;112 and compare this again with the position taken on the same matter by the German Federal Constitutional Court.113 With my second remark I refer to an article by Eyal Benvenisti in the American Journal.114 Benvenisti sees national courts engaging in what he calls a ‘globally coordinated move’ to constrain national governments caught in the ‘debilitating grip of globalisation’ from resorting to policies (for instance in the field of counter-terrorism, environmental protection, or migration), which the judiciary considers to lead to disproportionate infringements of civil and democratic rights. According to Benvenisti, governments have begun to react to this judicial move and attempt to pre-empt their courts from reviewing such sensitive decisions by setting up, or mandating, international institutions which are—presumably—immune from 111 Above all, Mara’abe and others v The Prime Minister of Israel and others,The Supreme Court of Israel (Jerusalem, 15 September 2005) [2005] IsrSC (not yet published, procedure no HCJ 7957/04), particularly paras 56 and 74. 112 B Simma and C Hoppe, ‘From LaGrand and Avena to Medellin – a Rocky Road Toward Implementation’ (2005) 14 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 7; B Simma and C Hoppe, ‘The LaGrand Case: A Story of Many Miscommunications’ in JE Noyes et al (eds), International Law Stories (New York, Foundation Press, 2007) 371. The developments described and evaluated in these two papers were then topped, as it were, by the decision of the Supreme Court of 25 March 2008 in Medellin v Texas, 128 S Ct 1346 (2008). 113 C Hoppe, ‘Implementation of LaGrand and Avena in Germany and the United States: Exploring a Transatlantic Divide in Search of a Uniform Interpretation of Consular Rights’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 317. 114 E Benvenisti, ‘Reclaiming Democracy: The Strategic Uses of Foreign and International Law by National Courts’ (2008) 102 American Journal of International Law 241.

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national judicial review (such as the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, or the EU apparatus in charge of legislating migration policy). Then the author touches the point which is directly relevant to us here: he views a ‘potential standoff’ between national and international courts. While national courts have, thus far, shown deference to international courts (the House of Lords in Jones v Ministry of Interior (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) for instance, saying that the claimants in that case were ‘obliged to accept’ the ICJ’s ruling in the Arrest Warrant case), this may change once national courts realise that their international counterparts are more acquiescent with respect to intrusive governmental action, less assertive in restraining governments, and that international courts are somehow dependent on them, for instance, when they look at national jurisprudence to ascertain customary international law, or when international decisions need to be enforced at the domestic level.

The Claims of ‘Universalism’ Facing the Reality of Recent International Decisions Eyal Benvenisti’s interesting ideas lead me directly to the third—and concluding— part of my speech. Up till now, I have dealt with the topic of universality linked to the two buzzwords of ‘fragmentation’ and ‘proliferation’ viewed from a practical angle. Let me, in the third and last part of my speech, make a few observations on a challenge encountered by what I have called the third-level universality of international law, that is, its ‘universalist’ understanding as a common legal order, not only for states, but for all human beings. Obviously, the idealistic traits of this conception face many problems, questions and doubts, even about its justification outside the philosophical world of the pure ‘ought’. But quite apart from any idealism, the application of international law in a multi-level system of international governance with manifold consequences for the individual is already a fact of life. This phenomenon has led to the creation of legal responsibilities for individuals and their being directly targeted by international acts or decisions. These acts or decisions may emanate from precisely the international regulatory mechanisms that Benvenisti has in mind when he speaks of the attempts of governments to pre-empt their courts from scrutinising human rights-sensitive policy moves.115 This brings us to the question of international remedies: individuals seeking judicial review of such decisions enacted against them turn to international or supranational courts with increasing frequency. Let us have a brief look at where they can go, and how far they can get. First, Yusuf and Kadi before the European Community courts. In these cases, the Court of First Instance of the EC had decided on an action for annulment of EU legislative acts implementing the UN Security Council regime for the suppression of international terrorism. The CFI declined to review these acts on the basis of EU law.116 Its main reason for doing so was that the EC was bound by the obligations

115 116

ibid. Yusuf & Kadi (n 286).

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under the UN Charter in the same way as its member states117 and that, in accordance with Article 103 of the Charter, decisions of the Security Council take precedence over any other obligations. Neither did the CFI see itself in a position to review the lawfulness of the Security Council resolutions indirectly,118 given that the Community did not have any discretion in implementing them by EC regulations. What the CFI did, however, was to test the Security Council Resolutions in question against international jus cogens.119 The CFI found no conflict in this regard. The approach thus described was remarkable—and markedly universalist, to say the least, given that a judicial organ of one entity (the EC/EU) undertook to review acts of an organ of another entity (the UN) against the standards to which that second entity is subjected (jus cogens, ie international law). The judgment of the CFI in the Kadi and Al Barakaat cases was appealed. In his identical Opinions on these cases of 16 January 2008, Advocate General Poiares Maduro recommended that the European Court of Justice take a different stand than the CFI, assert jurisdiction, review the EC regulation in question against higher EC law, and consequently annul the regulation.120 The Advocate General stressed that the Community legal order was autonomous, the EC Treaty having created ‘a municipal legal order of trans-national dimensions, of which it forms the “basic constitutional charter”.’121 However, according to the Advocate General, the relationship between the Community legal order and international law was not a completely detached one: ‘[T]he Community’s municipal legal order and the international legal order [do not] pass by each other like ships in the night.’122 While there was a presumption that the Community intended to honour its international legal commitments, it was the task of the ‘Community Courts [to] determine the effect of international obligations within the Community legal order by reference to conditions set by Community law’ (emphasis added).123 The case law of the European courts showed that, while respecting the international legal obligations of the Community, the Community’s Court of Justice, as a priority, had to preserve the constitutional framework established by the EC/EU Treaty. ‘The relationship between international law and the Community legal order is governed by the Community legal order itself, and international law can permeate that legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community.’124 A limit on permissible judicial review by the Community Courts could be derived neither from Article 307 of the EC Treaty nor from a ‘political questions doctrine’ à l’Américaine. ‘On the contrary, when the risks to public security are believed to be extraordinarily high, the pressure is particularly strong to take measures that disregard individual rights, especially in respect of individuals who

117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124

ibid, paras 243 ff. ibid, para 266. ibid, para 277. Yusuf & Kadi (n 286), Opinion Advocate General Poiares Maduro 16 January 2008. ibid, para 21. ibid, para 22. ibid. ibid, para 24.

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have little or no access to the political process’,125 and thus, the greater the urgency to provide these persons with a judicial remedy. Given the unavailability of state-of-the-art judicial review against the listing of the claimants in the case at the UN level, and the questionable legitimacy of the process of listing altogether, Advocate General Maduro certainly had a point. What he consequently proposed was that the Luxembourg Court assumes the role of protector of individual rights that Professor Benvenisti diagnoses at the level of domestic courts. Yesterday, the European Court of Justice rendered its judgment in the Kadi and Al Barakaat cases.126 The Court appears to have followed grosso modo the Opinion of the Advocate General, even though the jury still seems to be out on the question of just how determined the judgment was designed to be with regard to Mr Kadi’s human rights concerns.127 The judgment of the CFI was worrisome insofar as its approach would have rendered the actions of the Security Council immune to judicial review on any level, subject only to the rather indeterminate standard of jus cogens (which might in this context shrink from a car in the garage, to a fig-leaf). Such deference was problematic, given that no efficient judicial remedy exists at the level of the UN law and institutions administering the regime of smart anti-terrorism sanctions. From the angle of the universality of international law, what was also problematic about the CFI’s approach was that here, for the first time, a regional international court declared itself competent to directly review Security Council resolutions passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, a power from which even the ICJ has hitherto shied away—remember its caution, if not deference, in the Lockerbie cases. Hence the danger that the universal application of international law might be hindered by a court that does not even belong to the institutional set-up of that (universal) international organisation. The ECJ’s judgment of yesterday declared that the CFI had no competence at all to engage in a review of this kind. The judgment of 3 September 2008 carefully abstains from reaching into the UN system in the way that the CFI did; rather, it adopts the opposite approach and stops –albeit half-heartedly128—the impact of this system at the EU’s legal borders, as it were, insofar as the UN system does not provide adequate protection of individual rights.129

125

ibid, para 35. Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation (n 28c). In conformity with the policy that I set out at the beginning, I will not comment on Kadi beyond the few remarks that I made in my speech of 4 September, neither do I claim already to have a firm opinion on the judgment. What I have begun to realise, however, is that Kadi represents probably neither the ultimate step by which Community law emancipates itself from public international law, nor the principled high stand on the protection of individuals against Kafkaesque diplomatic bureaucracies. 128 See the preceding and the following footnotes. 129 Just how sincere the Court’s judgment actually is with regard to the purported aim of protecting Mr Kadi’s rights is another matter, and not for me to take up here. In light of the follow-up to the case I cannot avoid the impression that, maybe, once the dust has settled, the decision will share the reputation of quite a few ECJ leading cases of being grandiose on principles without being of much help for the individual claimant. 126 127

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From a strictly universalist viewpoint, neither the CFI solution, nor the Maduro approach, nor the solution ultimately adopted by the ECJ appears satisfactory. Such decentralised, either direct (CFI) or indirect (ECJ), judicial review of acts of the Security Council always involve the risk of divergent assessments by different courts and thus, fragmentation. However, I am not only a proponent of universality but also a moderate droit-de-l’hommiste in Alain Pellet’s classification. To repeat: for the individuals affected, no effective judicial review is being offered at the UN level. How should this dilemma be solved? It seems that here we really are between a rock and a hard place: As international institutional lawyers and defenders of universal, ie, UN law, we would have to argue that the European courts, just like national courts, overstep their jurisdiction if they review acts of the Security Council. On the other hand, as human rights lawyers, we will have to advocate the upholding of human rights review also under circumstances as those encountered in the fight against international terrorism. If, under such conditions, universal institutions like the UN cannot maintain a system of adequate protection of human rights,130 considerations of human rights deserve to trump arguments of universality. The only question is whether this effectively happened in the ECJ judgment of 3 September 2008. The decisions in Yusuf and Kadi thus also exemplify the difficulties faced by judicial review within a multi-level system of international governance: In the end, it is the individuals addressed by international measures that may get caught up in its wheels. The next two cases I have in mind are Behrami and Saramati, decided by the European Court of Human Rights. The applicants had sought relief against both actions and omissions by states contributing to UNMIK or KFOR in Kosovo. Behrami concerned a claim for compensation for the failure of troops of the French KFOR contingent to mark or defuse undetonated bombs or mines known to be present on a specific site. Two children had played on the site; one was seriously injured by the explosives, the other died. In Saramati, the applicant demanded compensation for extra-judicial detention. The Court declined jurisdiction in both cases, since the acts of both KFOR and UNMIK were not attributable to individual UN member states, but rather to the UN as an ‘organisation of universal jurisdiction fulfilling its imperative collective security mandate’.131 The Court concluded that reviewing acts or omissions of states parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, which, however, had been acting on behalf of the UN would ‘interfere with the fulfilment of the UN’s key mission in this field

130 In my view, this was demonstrated with unfortunate precision by the Decision of the Human Rights Committee of 22 October 2008 on the individual communication by Nl Sayadii and P Vinck, Communication No 1472/2006, CCPR/C/94/D/1472/2006. 131 Behrami and Behrami v France, Saramati v France, Germany and Norway (GC) (App nos 71412/01 and 78166/01) ECHR 2 May 2007, para 151.

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including . . . with the effective conduct of its operations’.132 The Strasbourg Court has since reiterated this reasoning in the cases of Kasumaj v Greece133 and Gajic´ v Germany.134 The European Court of Human Rights apparently did not consider it possible that the UN, NATO and the particular state in question could be concurrently liable (multiple attribution). Thirdly, Beric´ and others v Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here, the Strasbourg Court likewise declined jurisdiction to review acts of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, acting under the Dayton Peace Agreement and the so-called ‘Bonn powers’. Between June and December 2004, the UN High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, had removed the applicants from all their public and politicalparty positions and indefinitely barred them from holding any such positions as well as from running for elections, for having personally contributed to obstructing the arrest and surrender of persons indicted by the ICTY in the Republika Srpska. When the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered the domestic authorities to make sure that an effective remedy against the removal from office was available, the High Representative reacted in a manner that the Court mildly characterised as ‘vigorous’, but which can more aptly be compared to the behaviour of an absolute monarch. He decided that: [a]ny step taken by any institution or authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to establish any domestic mechanism to review the Decisions of the High Representative issued pursuant to his international mandate shall be considered by the High Representative as an attempt to undermine the implementation of the civilian aspects of the [[Dayton] Peace Agreement] and shall be treated in itself as conduct undermining such implementation.135

The High Representative decided further that: for the avoidance of any doubt or ambiguity . . . it is hereby specifically ordered and determined, in the exercise of the . . . international mandate of the High Representative . . . that no liability is capable of being incurred on the part of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina . . . in respect of any loss or damage allegedly flowing, either directly or indirectly, from such Decision of the High Representative made pursuant to his or her international mandate, or at all

and that: it is hereby specifically declared and ordered that the provisions of the Order contained herein are, as to each and every one of them, laid down by the High Representative pursuant to his international mandate and are not, therefore, justiciable by the Courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina or its Entities or elsewhere, and no proceedings may be brought in respect of duties in respect thereof before any court whatsoever at any time thereafter.136 132 133 134 135

ibid, para 149. Kasumaj v Greece (App no 6974 /05) ECHR 5 July 2007. Gajic´ v Germany (App no 31446/02) ECHR 28 August 2007, para 1. Beric´ and Others v Bosnia and Herzegovina (App no 36357/04) ECHR 16 October 2007, para

19. 136

ibid, para 19.

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The Strasbourg Court held that the UN Security Council had ‘effective overall control’ over the High Representative and that thus his acts were attributable to the UN, rather than to individual member states.137 You will agree that the European Convention cases, I have presented, have the tendency, to put it mildly, to confirm Eyal Benvenisti’s point about the higher degree of ‘acquiescence’ on the part of even specialised human rights courts towards problematic policies of their government clientele.138 What these cases show is that the question of judicial review of the exercise of public authority by or at the behest of international institutions is of utmost topicality. Regional international courts such as the European Court of Human Rights have demonstrated their unwillingness to efficiently control the acts of the UN Security Council or its sub-organs, operating at the universal level. Such lack of protection at the regional level is, however, not compensated by any effective individual complaint mechanism at the UN level.139 And this brings me back to my principal challenge to third-level universality: as international law becomes more universal in the sense of directly regulating the behaviour of individuals, it is mandatory that this development is accompanied by judicial control through independent courts to which those individuals have access and which are ready to assume jurisdiction over acts of international institutions that directly encroach upon individual freedoms. If it were a regional court deciding that it was willing to provide for adequate judicial control, universality might suffer, but it would be a kind of universality which deserved to suffer.140

CONCLUSION

Thus far my review of the various conceptions of universality of international law, of the challenges that universality in its various appearances meets, and of the ways by which international law, especially the international judiciary, attempts to cope with them. I have exposed you to a veritable tour de force, also with regard to the amount of time I have been assigned to fill tonight. For this reason, I will desist from treating you to a typical German academic ‘conclusion’, ie, another 15 minutes of condensed wisdom, but only say the following: From the viewpoint of us practitioners, the universality of international law in all its variations is in relatively good shape. We may not always be aware of how thin the theoretical ice is on which we are moving, but what we keep in mind in very pragmatic ways is that we must handle the law, its reach, unity and coherence, in a responsible way. This is a state of mind whose presence, and dominance, I have personally experienced in Geneva at the sessions of the Committee on Economic, Social and 137

ibid, paras 27–30. Benvenisti, ‘Reclaiming Democracy’ (n 108). 139 I am speaking of ‘regional international courts’ here so as to exclude the European Community’s Court of Justice, which in its Kadi judgment has indicated its own way out of what I would call a denial of international justice. Particularly in the ‘light’ of the follow-up to the Kadi judgment, I am not sure, however, whether the ECJ was really determined to go the whole way in this regard. 140 See the preceding note. 138

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Cultural Rights, during entire summers spent with the International Law Commission, and now in the Great Hall of Justice of the Peace Palace. The international judiciary in particular has developed a set of tools to cope with the undesirable aspects of both fragmentation and proliferation, and appears to employ it in full awareness of these challenges on a regular basis. Hence, there is among us practitioners no feeling of urgent need for a ‘constitutionalisation’ of international law—to finally introduce the third great buzzword to which German international lawyers in particular supposedly have to bow if they want to be ‘cool’. Personally, I could never get rid entirely of the suspicion that the great attraction that ‘constitutionalisation’ of international law seems to have for German colleagues must have something to do with the fact that most, if not all, of them also have to teach Staatsrecht and European Community law at their universities, compared to which public international law does indeed still look pretty dishevelled in many places. Thus, the desire to imbue international law with some of the orderliness and hierarchy that constitutions create in most of our countries in most instances most of the time. In the words of Goethe: ‘Legt ihr’s nicht aus, so legt was unter’.141 Take this as the statement of the practitioner which I am supposed to impersonate. And do not get me wrong: we practitioners are not hostile towards any of the features or developments on which the protagonists of ‘constitutionalisation’ rest their case. We are as happy about the ‘widening and thickening’ of international law, to use Rosalyn Higgins’ words,142 without, however, seeing the necessity of couching our happiness in misleading terms or forcing it into some Procrustean bed. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books WG Friedmann, The Changing Structure of International Law (London, Stevens, 1964). RY Jennings and A Watts, Oppenheim’s International Law, Volume I Parts 2–4, 9th edn (Harlow, Longman, 1992). Y Shany, The Competing Jurisdiction of International Courts and Tribunals (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003). CJ Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2005). Chapters in Edited Volumes A Aust, ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes: A Proliferation Problem?’, in TM Ndiaye and R Wolfrum (eds), Law of the Sea, Environmental Law and Settlement of Disputes. Liber Amicorum Judge Thomas A. Mensah (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2007). 141 142

Zahme Xenien. R Higgins, ‘A Just World Under Law – Keynote Address’ (2006) 100 ASIL Proceedings 388, 389.

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RY Jennings, ‘Universal International Law in a Multicultural World’, in M Bos and I Brownlie (eds), Liber Amicorum for The Rt Hon Lord Wilberforce (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987). B Simma, ‘Does the UN Charter Provide an Adequate Legal Basis for Individual or Collective Responses to Violations of Obligations erga omnes?’ in J Delbrück (ed), The Future of International Law Enforcement. New Scenarios – New Law (Berlin, Duncker & Humbolt, 1993). B Simma, and C Hoppe, ‘The LaGrand Case: A Story of Many Miscommunications’, in JE Noyes, LA Dickinson and MW Janis (eds), International Law Stories (New York, Foundation Press, 2007).

International Documents Human Rights Committee, General Comment no 31 [80] – The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, CCPR/ C/21/Rev 1/Add 13 (Geneva, United Nations, 2004). Institut de droit international, Fifth Commission: Obligations and rights erga omnes in international law – Rapporteur Giorgio Gaja, (Krakow, 2005). International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, A/CN.4/L.682 (United Nations, 2006).

Journal Articles G Abi–Saab, ‘Fragmentation or Unification: Some Concluding Remarks’ (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 919–33. E Benvenisti, ‘Reclaiming Democracy: The Strategic Uses of Foreign and International Law by National Courts’ (2008) 102 American Journal of International Law 241–74. E Benvenisti and GW Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stanford Law Review 595–609. A von Bogdandy, ‘Constitutionalism in International Law: Comment on a Proposal from Germany’ (2006) 47 Harvard Journal of International Law 223–42. A Cassese, ‘The Nicaragua and Tadic´ Tests Revisited in Light of the ICJ Judgment on Genocide in Bosnia’, (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 649–68. J Combacau, ‘Le droit international: bric–à–brac ou système ?’ (1986) 31 Archives de philosophie du droit 85–105. A Fischer–Lescano and G Teubner, ‘Regime Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 999–1046.

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RJ Goldstone and RJ Hamilton, ‘Bosnia v. Serbia: Lessons from the Encounter of the International Court of Justice with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’ (2008) 21 Leiden Journal of International Law 95–112. G Guillaume, ‘The Future of International Judicial Institutions’ (1995) 44 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 848–62. R Higgins, ‘A Babel of Judicial Voices? Ruminations from the Bench’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 791–804. —— –––– ‘A Just World Under Law– – Keynote Address’ (2006) 100 ASIL Proceedings 388–95. C Hoppe, ‘Implementation of LaGrand and Avena in Germany and the United States: Exploring a Transatlantic Divide in Search of a Uniform Interpretation of Consular Rights’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 317–36. M Koskenniemi, ‘The Fate of Public International Law: Between Technique and Politics’ (2007) 70 The Modern Law Review 1–30. —— –––– ‘International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration’ (2004) 17 Cambridge Review of International Affairs 197–218. J Martinez, ‘Towards an International Judicial System’ (2003) 56 Stanford Law Review 429–530. N Miller, ‘An International Jurisprudence? The Operation of “Precedent” Across International Tribunals’ (2002) 15 Leiden Journal of International Law 483– 526. K Oellers–Frahm, ‘Multiplication of International Courts and Tribunals and Conflicting Jurisdictions – Problems and Possible Solutions’ (2001) 5 Max Planck United Nations Yearbook 67–104. A Reinisch, ‘The Use and Limits of Res Judicata and Lis Pendens as Procedural Tools to avoid Conflicting Dispute Settlement Outcomes’ (2004) 3 The Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 37–77. B Simma, ‘Fragmentation in a Positive Light’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 845–47. B Simma and C Hoppe, ‘From LaGrand and Avena to Medellin – a Rocky Road Toward Implementation’ (2005) 14 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 7–59. B Simma and D Pulkowski, ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self–contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 483–529. AM Slaughter, ‘A Global Community of Courts’ (2003) 44 Harvard International Law Journal 191–219.

Collected Courses JI Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Tribunals?’ (1998) 271 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 101–382. HEH Mosler, ‘The International Society as a Legal Community’ (1974) 140 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1–320.

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B Simma, ‘From Bilateralism to Community Interest in International Law’ (1994) 250 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 217–384. C Tomuschat, ‘International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century (General Course on Public International Law)’ (1999) 281 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–438.

Working Paper A von Bogdandy and S Delavalle, (2008) Universalism and Particularism as Paradigms of International Law (Institute for International Law and Justice/ New York University School of Law, International Law and Justice Working Paper no 3).

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Democracy after the Fall of the Berlin Wall It has Come—It is Coming—Will it Come? REIN MÜLLERSON *

T

HE POST-Cold War globalisation includes, as its substantial components, the broadening of both market economy and democracy. Both have spread by way of borrowing from more developed societies what has worked there and made them successful, as well as by means of purposeful efforts to promote these ideas and practices. Often seen as God, motherhood and apple pie, markets and democracy have, however, been a mixed blessing: successful and beneficial in many cases, while rather destructive in other circumstances. Why has it been so? What factors have determined success in some states of affairs, and failure in others? Today, I will try to give some tentative answers to these questions. Democracy has certainly something to do with international law. Professor Thomas Franck in 1990 wrote of the emergence of the right to democratic governance.1 Some years later, Professor James Crawford, as a new Whewell Professor of International Law in Cambridge, gave his inaugural lecture entitled ‘Democracy in International Law’.2 However, notwithstanding optimistic views of distinguished professors (I myself at that time belonged to this category of optimists, and was even quoted by Professor Crawford) the right to democracy has hardly become universal because, first, its content is too general to be of much help in practice, and secondly, its practical implementation is not general enough to reflect universal normative values. Why is it so? Why do we have so many problems, setbacks and backlashes with democracy and democratisation in today’s world? There are many reasons for that, and in my short presentation I cannot even enumerate all the problems and difficulties. Therefore, I will concentrate only on some of them.

* Professor and Chair of International Law at King’s College, London; former Foreign Minister of Estonia, former member of the UN Human Rights Committee; Institut de Droit International, member. 1 T Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’ (1992) 86 American Journal of International Law 46–91. 2 J Crawford, Democracy in International Law. Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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Rein Müllerson

What I have found in the process of researching for this problem, which was also the topic of my lectures, this summer, at the Hague Academy of International Law—a process that has included not only reading, reflecting and writing but also what may be called fieldwork in various capacities (participant, advisor, representative, monitor or simply interviewer)—is that in embarking on any study, one should keep his or her mind as open as possible. The point is that even when we start working on a new topic, we are never complete tabula rasa on the matter of our research. Usually we are already quite familiar with the new topic; otherwise we would not even know that we want to study it. However, this means that our minds are usually well (in a way, too well) prepared for the study of a new—or at least relatively new—problem; ie we are already biased; we often want to prove something we believe we already understand, we want to transform something that we feel intuitively into rational lines of reasoning, to find more eloquent and convincing arguments in favour of our views. This is natural—there is no way of completely avoiding this; what we can do is to recognise this inevitable bias and try to deal with it. To put it differently, if one is a great and unconditional fan of democracy, and believes that it is the best form of governance, we should be ready to come to the conclusion, as a result of our research (otherwise it would not be research), that democracy is not necessarily the best form of governance; that, say, some forms of authoritarianism may be preferable or at least better suited for some people, and so on. Therefore, instead of looking mainly for evidence that seems to prove our theories and points of view, we should concentrate more on facts and developments that would undermine our dearest convictions. Any serious researcher needs to follow Karl Popper’s recipe: the surest test of any theory is not trying to collect as much evidence as possible that supports one’s point of view (usually one can find lots of evidence); rather, it is necessary to look for facts that undermine one’s predilections, preconceived ideas and fears.3 This does not necessarily mean, and in most cases this does not mean, that as a result of our research we will have a complete change of mind, or that we will transform our world-view; though this may happen too, albeit rarely. What usually happens is that our views and understandings become more nuanced, hedged with various ‘ifs’ and qualified by ‘provided that’ and ‘other things being equal’ (which, at least in our field, they never are). Relative to the topic of my presentation today, this means that though personally preferring to live in a liberal democratic country, notwithstanding all of its problems and even unpleasant aspects, remaining persuaded that at least so far, democracy has given more to more people than any other form of governance, yet

3 Karl Popper divides all philosophers into ‘verificationists’ (or ‘justificationists’), who are looking for proofs supporting their theories, and ‘falsificationists’, who are interested in criticising or testing all, including their own, theories. He writes that ‘the rationality of science lies not in its habit of appealing to empirical evidence in support of its dogmas—astrologers do so too—but solely in the critical approach, which, of course, involves the critical use, among other arguments, of empirical evidence (especially in refutations)’ K Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London, Routledge, 1996) 229.

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believing that democracy’s potential is far from being exhausted, I have become a much more qualified, nuanced, cautious, contingent and contextual advocate of democracy. When we speak of the spread or promotion of democracy, we have to put at least three, probably even more, fundamental questions. The first of them is: do all societies, in the process of their evolution, have to go through the same stages; do they all, at the end of the day, evolve towards the same general model—in our case a democratic model? Even if we have sufficient grounds to believe that all or at least most societies indeed are generally following, in some important respects, the same historical path, and democracy in its various manifestations is one of the features that all societies sooner or later will share, we still have to ask whether societies that are ‘less developed’ can take short cuts in order to reach the image of their own future that they see in ‘more developed’ countries? The third question is to what extent can external support compensate for weaknesses of domestic democratic potential? Karl Marx, in one of his most deterministic statements, wrote about ‘tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results’, and he predicted that ‘the country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future’.4 A deterministic approach to history is not the domain of only Marx and Marxists. Many of those who promote democracy in today’s world, or who have done so in the past, also see the development of different societies as going through the same historical path. A century ago, American Baptists, for example, believed that ‘for Russia, sooner or later, there will be Runnymede and a Magna Charta, if not a Bunker Hill and Yorktown’.5 We can see the same in today’s world. Kishore Mahbubani has correctly observed that: [P]aradoxically, in the post-Cold War era, the West seems to have become an ideologically driven entity. The iconization of democracy – an unquestionably virtuous idea – became an ideological crusade that insisted democracy could be exported to any society everywhere in the world, regardless of its stage of political development.6

It is difficult to disagree with him. While criticising or even ridiculing such rigid historical determinism, it would be equally wrong to fall into another extreme and deny that there are some historical patterns and regularities. In that respect, it is important to note that what we see today in some developing, especially Muslim, countries, one could indeed have noticed in the Europe of some three hundred years ago (eg the attitude towards women, religious intolerance, etc). Though there aren’t any iron necessities, in a Marxian or Fukuyaman sense, in the social sphere, certain regularities still exist. Philip Allott has given, in my opinion, the best answer to the dilemma of voluntarism versus determinism:

4 K Marx, Das Kapital. A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I, The Process of Capitalist Production (Preface to the First Edition) (Chicago, Charles H Kerr and Co, 1906) 3. 5 DS Foglesong, The American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire’ (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 38. 6 K Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York, Public Affairs, 2008) 6.

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It is as if an ingenious and inquisitive Creator had chosen to conduct an experiment in one small corner of the universe–an experiment in which a piece of matter would be given a certain measure of control over its changing states, a living organism would be given a special kind of choice over its own life. But two possibilities of control and choice would be withheld–the possibility of simply submitting entirely to the necessary order of the physical universe and the possibility of acting entirely independently of the necessary order of the physical universe.7

As freedom of choice is relative, so are the constraints both of the physical universe and of the existing social order. People are able, but only to an extent and often with disastrous side-effects, to change the order of the physical universe (think about environmental problems). People are also able to transform the existing social order, but many constraints exist that people neglect at their peril. The deterministic approach to history, being not only an outgrowth of the Enlightenment’s legacy but also being related to the Judeo-Christian world-view of progress, has its opposite—voluntarism—which stems from the same sources. A voluntaristic approach to promotion of democracy means that if one were to consider that democracy is the best, if not the only worthwhile, political arrangement for all and for every society, it would be possible and indeed necessary to export democracy to places like, say, Afghanistan and Iraq. Here, both deterministic and voluntaristic approaches in practice lead to the same result. From my point of view, the honest answer to the first question is: I don’t know whether at the end of the day all states become democratic. I doubt it, but there is no way of knowing it for sure. In any case, if the whole world will indeed some day be democratic, this will not necessarily be a Western-style liberal democracy. There will, probably, be a lot of aspects carrying labels such as ‘made in China’ (or in Russia, for that matter). To answer the second question about short cuts, I would like to tell a story that well illustrates the problem. In the 1770s, the royal physician to the Danish Court, Johann Friedrich Struensee, by a strange and fatal confluence of circumstances, became so close to the physically feeble and mentally unstable King Christian VII that, through this influence, he became the de facto prime minister of the country, issuing laws to effect, among other interesting and wonderful things, the abolition of serfdom and of subsidies to unprofitable industries owned by the nobility, while also permitting unrestricted freedom of expression and religious freedoms.8 Unfortunately, but quite predictably, such laws had little effect in eighteenth-century Denmark, and the only tangible result of the freedom of expression was that shortly everybody started to talk about Struensee’s love affair with the Queen. Soon the man, who was well ahead of his time, was executed and the Queen was sent into exile.9 As a reaction to

7

P Allott, Eunomia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990) 55. See, eg PO Enquist, The Visit of the Royal Physician (New York, NY, Vintage, 2003); A Ross and O Espersen, Dansk Statsforfatningsret II, 3rd edn (Copenhagen, Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1980), 707. I am thankful to my former student, now a senior Danish diplomat, Kristina Miskowiak, who drew my attention to this interesting episode in Danish history. 9 This case is interesting and topical also because it allows one to distinguish between pretexts and reasons. The love affair for Struensee’s enemies served as a pretext, while Struensee’s reform attempts 8

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Struensee’s reform attempts, Denmark became even less tolerant and free than it had been before his attempts to put into practice some radical Enlightenment ideals. It was a very long time before these noble ideas became reality in Europe generally, including the Kingdom of Denmark. Such failures may be inevitable, since there is an issue of ‘democracy-readiness’. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times columnist, once put one of the most pertinent questions, which is also relevant for issues of democratisation, though he himself either did not know the answer or did not dare to formulate one. He asked: ‘Was Iraq the way Iraq was because Saddam was the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was, because Iraq was the way Iraq was?’10 The truth probably was that Saddam was the way he was because Iraq was the way it was, and vice versa. In some societies, unfortunately, the short or even middle-term choice would be between a secular dictatorship, religious totalitarianism, anarchy or civil war. In such cases the best scenario may well be an ‘enlightened dictatorship’ (a rare thing indeed) that may, but not necessarily will, gradually open up the way for democracy. Whether and to what extent outside forces can influence the democratic processes in a specific country depends on many circumstances, including, but not limited to, the relative strength of local pro-democratic forces, the presence and the level of material and cultural preconditions, the presence and the size of the middle class, the presence and nature of identity-based divisions (ethnic, religious, regional), the size and even geographic location of the country (eg, whether it is closer to Finland or Afghanistan), and many other variables. Some democracy experts do not consider such factors to be preconditions but rather core ‘facilitators or nonfacilitators’ that would make democratisation ‘harder or easier’.11 I would agree with such an approach if we were to add that some combinations of such ‘nonfacilitators’ make democratisation impossible, at least for the time being. External pressure for democratisation may indeed effect positive transformations, but usually only in small countries, and even then only when there is a confluence of favourable conditions. In their foreign policy such states practise bandwagoning, ie they are prone to joining stronger and more prosperous actors, accepting to a great extent the culture and way of life of those other states. Big countries, which due to their history, potential and size have great power ambitions, on the contrary resort to balancing, ie their response to outside pressure on questions of their foreign and especially domestic affairs is usually one of defiance and internal consolidation against external challenges. The post-Cold War experience has shown that pushing aggressively for a change in other societies is as dangerous and counterproductive as the rejection of changes whose time has come and which are called for by the people.

were the reason for his downfall. Today’s politics is full of such examples (eg, the attempts of US Republicans to impeach President Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, or the Khodorkovsky criminal case in Russia). 10

TL Friedman, ‘The big question’, The International Herald Tribune (New York, 4–5 March 2006), 6. T Carothers, ‘How Democracies Emerge: The “Sequence” Fallacy’ (2007) 18 Journal of Democracy 12, 24. 11

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Speaking of democratisation of non-democratic societies, one has to bear in mind what I would call the dialectical contradictions of democracy, ie contradictions between phenomena that on the one hand almost presume, but on the other hand also negate or at least constrain, each other. Democracy forms such contradictions with three other important social phenomena, and the resulting pairs of contradictions are: democracy and market economy, democracy and liberalism, and democracy and nationalism. The elements of these pairs are related to each other in their genesis, and historically they have supported each other while at the same time constraining each other and in some circumstances even violently clashing with each other. These contradictions have to be kept in mind and taken account of when one becomes involved in the processes of democratisation. Although market, ie economic freedom and political freedom are generally related in a positive sense (there has been no modern democracy without market economy, though there has been market economy without democracy), the parallel spread of market economy and democracy in practice has some serious problems. Firstly, the shock introduction of markets, especially unbridled markets, makes a few extremely rich while many become even poorer than they were under the previous system. As one of the central tenets of democracy (with some important qualifications, of course) is that the many count for more than the few, it should be clear that economic ‘shock therapy’ and political democracy are incompatible—one either has a shock or democracy; they do not come together. Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang goes even further than that: ‘Free market and democracy are not natural partners’,12 though it has to be emphasised that Professor Chang is not speaking of ‘market economy’ as such, but rather of ‘unbridled markets’, as advocated by Milton Friedman and his followers. One of the most persistent market-friendly advocates of political freedoms, Karl Popper, half a century ago wrote incisively: Even if the state protects its citizens from being bullied by physical violence (as it does in principle, under the system of unrestrained capitalism), it may defeat our ends by its failure to protect them from the misuse of economic power. In such a state, the economically strong is still free to bully one who is economically weak, and to rob of his freedom. Under these circumstances, unlimited economic freedom can be just as selfdefeating as unlimited physical freedom, and economic power may be nearly as dangerous as physical violence.13

Indeed, unbridled economic freedoms are as damaging for individual liberties as a complete lack of economic freedoms is in totalitarian states. It seems that capitalism and liberal democracy, phenomena that on the one hand presume each other, are at the same time also constantly in a kind of rivalry or competition. The freer a market is, the greater the economic inequality; the greater the inequality, the less would there be democracy, and vice versa. Strong democracy attained by curbing inequality almost inevitably also bridles market freedoms. 12 HJ Chang, Bad Samaritans. Rich Nations, Poor Policies & the Threat to the Developing World (New York, Random House Business Books, 2007) 18. 13 K Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2 Hegel & Marx (London, Routledge, 1996) 124.

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Economic inequality de facto and inevitably also increases political inequality, while political equality puts brakes on the widening of economic inequality. Democracy tries to make a society more equal, while an unbridled market increases inequality. The result of such constant balancing is that in Western European liberal democratic societies these two spheres—political and economic—while supporting each other, also constantly temper each other, softening each other’s impacts. There is another aspect of this dialectical contradiction between market economy and democracy. Professor Amy Chua, though over-generalising, in my opinion, on the negative role of so-called ‘market-dominant minorities’ (eg, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Ibo in Nigeria, Tutsi in Rwanda, Chinese in many South-East Asian countries) in the processes of globalisation, nevertheless, makes a point that is highly relevant in specific contexts existing in quite a few societies. She observes that ‘[T]he global spread of free market democracy has thus been a principal, aggravating cause of ethnic instability and violence throughout the non-Western world’.14 The reason for such a pessimistic conclusion is that in some developing and post-Communist countries, there are indeed ethnic minorities, who are generally better educated, more entrepreneurial, own disproportionate acreages of land, maybe are even more hard-working or are otherwise more fortunate than the rest of the population. They usually gain immensely from the liberalisation of markets, while the majority benefits only marginally, if at all. A simultaneous introduction of democracy releases suppressed discontent that creates a combustible mixture ready to explode in xenophobia, ethnic cleansing or even acts of genocide. In such cases both markets and democracy stumble over nationalism or, as Professor Chua observes, there is either a market backlash or democracy backlash. In extreme cases, as she shows, at the end of the day, there is neither market, nor democracy. Therefore, she concludes that ‘the United States should not be exporting markets in the unrestrained, laissez-faire form that the West itself has repudiated, just as it should not be promoting unrestrained, overnight majority rule—a form of democracy that the West has repudiated.’15 With the correction that in the West, majority rule never came overnight but through sometimes centuries-long processes of trial and error, one has to take seriously Professor Chua’s advice. Professor Chua’s pertinent observation leads us to the issue of the relationship between democracy and nationalism. Democracy and nationalism are related in various ways. If democracy is almost an unquestioned good, nationalism, especially after the Nazi atrocities in Europe and the proliferation of inter-ethnic conflicts in the post-Cold War world, as well as ‘cleansings’ in the name of ethnic purity carried out at the turn of the century in various parts of the world, is often considered as something wholly negative, dangerous and not fit for today’s post-modern world. However, the emergence and development of democratic governance in Western Europe was closely linked to the rise of nationalism and so-called Nation States. John Stuart Mill, one of the greatest

14 A Chua, World on Fire. How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (London, Arrow Books, 2003) 187. 15 ibid, 17.

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liberal thinkers, argued that democracy can only flourish where ‘the boundaries of government coincide in the main with those of nationality.’16 His argument in support of this contention was based on an analysis of the necessary conditions for a flourishing democracy: ‘Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion necessary to the workings of representative institutions cannot exist.’17 Historically the emergence and development of democracy was, if not conditioned, then at least facilitated by the homogenous nature of societies, and if they were not homogenous enough, they had to be made such. As the Italian novelist and politician Massimo Taparelli d’Azeglio famously put it in 1861: ‘We have created Italy. Now all we have to do is to create Italians.’18 To put it otherwise, without a degree of homogeneity, d’Azeglio believed, the country would not stay together. Homogenisation facilitated not only state building, but also progress towards democracy and human rights. It is easier to carry out democratic reforms in a more homogenous society than in a less homogenous one. The violent conflicts that erupted regularly in different parts of the world in the 1990s are, to an extent, similar to some that were endemic in Western Europe hundreds of years ago (eg, the Anglo-Scottish wars, the wars of Italian unification or independence struggles of Christian territories of the Ottoman Empire). Then and now, many conflicts have nationalism, state building and also democratisation among their causes. However, there are also huge differences between nation building in Western Europe two or three hundred years back and current developments. In the era of the formation of Nation States in Western Europe, the use of violence either for the purpose of unifying separate political entities or assimilating those who spoke different languages or professed other religions was not only lawful, it was completely normal. Western Europe went through this process of homogenisation, through its ‘ethnic cleansing’, at the time when such practices were considered normal; not only international law but also public morality didn’t condemn them. There were no international human rights standards, and even those who rebelled against oppression usually did not fight for the freedom of everybody, but for their own freedom to oppress others. Does this mean that today, heterogeneous states have to pursue policies of assimilation or exclusion? An answer to this question depends on whether we consider plural societies in isolation (both temporal and spatial) or in a concrete context (again both temporal and spatial). Taken in isolation, some states in Eastern and Central Europe may indeed have to go through the same processes of homogenisation that their more advanced Western neighbours went through centuries ago. However, these states are not to be 16 JS Mill, Utilitarianism. On Liberty, Considerations of Representative Government (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1993) 394. 17 ibid, 392. 18 See S Tharoor, ‘E Pluribus, India: Is Indian Modernity Working?’ (1998) 77 Foreign Affairs 128. India seems to be a significant exception to the requirement of homogeneity for democracy to be sustainable. That is why Robert Dahl called India an ‘improbable democracy’ (RA Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998) 159), while Amartya Sen spent pages explaining why democracy, notwithstanding all ‘non-facilitators’, has nevertheless survived in India (A Sen, The Argumentative Indian. Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (London, Allen Lane, 2005)).

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taken in isolation (and they themselves do not want to be taken in isolation), out of their geographical and temporal context. The search for solutions to minority problems has to be put into a wider (international or regional) context. In Europe, this is the European context. The role of the world community, regional and universal international organisations is important in deciding what form the process of democratisation and the accompanying rise of nationalism takes in specific countries, though it is necessary to warn that even if the world community were able to speak with one wise voice (a rare commodity), external influence has always its limits. Extreme nationalists or those opportunistic politicians who use the nationalistic card for political purposes have done a lot to discredit any kind of nationalism. It is often seen as the absolute opposite, as a complete negation of democracy. However, many people’s nationalistic sentiments, like their religious allegiances, are extremely strong, almost primordial. Governments and the political and intellectual elites of states, especially if they are in a disarray of transformation, usually embark on the search for a national idea that would consolidate the people. Although an agnostic and cosmopolitan, I nevertheless believe that a war against nationalism, especially if one were to try to get rid of it once and for ever, would be as futile and even counterproductive as a war against religion as led, for example, by Professor Richards Dawkins. Extreme forms of nationalism that glorify one’s own nation while belittling other nations (or some specific nation) have to be countered by educational, political and legal means. Although today nationalism, even mild, can hardly support democracy, democracy can live and cope with non-virulent forms of nationalism. Although today there are very few states in the world that could be called Nation States in the true sense of the word (ie being composed more or less monoethnically), states where ethnic fault lines are distinct, where ethnicities have been forced by authoritarian governments to live together and where the culture of tolerance is lacking, are prone to disintegrate as soon as the country starts opening up. Suppressed secessionist sentiments gain new momentum, which is often unstoppable. The uti possidetis juris principle of international law, which declares that existing internal administrative borders, especially those of federal states, should become recognised as new international borders,19 may have given additional support to secessionist sentiments. Neither external pressure to force recalcitrant ethnicities to live together, nor separation along ethnic lines, are options that are conducive for democratisation. There are three reasons why politicians become involved in democracy promotion abroad, so to say, in far-away places: hypocritical, idealistic and pragmatic (realistic).

19 As the Chamber of the International Court of Justice in the Burkina Faso/Mali case noted, the essence of the principle of uti possidetis ‘lies in its primary aim of securing respect for the territorial boundaries at the moment when independence is achieved. Such territorial boundaries might be no more than delimitations between different administrative divisions or colonies all subject to the same sovereign. In that case the application of the principle of uti possidetis resulted in administrative boundaries being transformed into international frontiers in the full sense of the term’ (Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali) [1986] ICJ Rep 554, 566).

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Hypocrites do not give a damn about democracy, especially in far-away places, but nowadays it is politically incorrect and almost suicidal to reveal what the real interests behind lofty words are, they have to be seen to be concerned by the fate of democracy, human rights and development in far-away places. Oil, gas, the directions of pipelines and the safety of tanker navigation may be their higher interests, but these interests have to be expressed in terms of values such as democracy, human rights and development. A more general strategic goal for hypocrites, allowing them to reach various more specific known or even unknown objectives, is the maintenance and consolidation of existing hegemonic domination, or vice versa, the change of the existing status quo, which is unfavourable for them.20 If hypocritical approaches to world politics, which use lofty words such as democracy and human rights to conceal economic and military-strategic interests, are always to be deplored,21 idealism—though often naïve and sometimes even dangerous—may nevertheless serve as an engine of progress. Anthony Dworkin, in response to John Gray’s attempt to outlaw all utopian projects as dangerous, writes in defence of minor utopias: If realism is a necessary corrective to utopian idealism, it is equally true that unchecked realism is likely to lead to a narrowing political possibility. Without some appeal to universal values, there is no standpoint to challenge unjust practices that are widely taken for granted. To take two examples from the Enlightenment era, the slave trade would not have been abolished when it was, nor the use of torture banned in criminal investigations, if William Wilberforce, Cesare Beccaria and their followers had not clung to grand visions of human advance.22

Today too, idealism remains a tool of progress. However, in social affairs generally and in international relations specifically, idealism has to be tempered by realism. Social experiments are not carried out in laboratories; they directly affect the lives of millions. Failures of such experiments may be fatal and their disastrous consequences are usually irreversible. 20 If the United States today is a status quo power in the sense that it seeks to maintain and consolidate its dominant position in the world (notwithstanding that by exporting ‘democracy’, say to the Middle East, Washington is seeking to change the region), China in that respect may indeed be seen as a revisionist power. Of interest in that respect is an article by Chinese scholar Feng Yongping entitled ‘The Peaceful Transition of Power from the UK to the US’ (2006) 1 The Chinese Journal of International Politics 83–108, who ends his historical study with an unmistakable conclusion: ‘From the perspective of China, which can be considered in a similar state to the United States at that time [ie when Washington peacefully took over from London the reins of world politics], the example of successful transition undoubtedly holds deep implications and provides a source for inspiration’. One can be sure that such ideas do not inspire people in Washington. That is why, among other issues such as Taiwan, Tibet, Xingjian and the trade imbalance, references to China’s democracy deficit and human rights violations may be used as an instrument to stop or slow down the coming transition of power. Peaceful transfer of power in a balance-of-power world is somewhat exceptional. The US national security strategies of 2002 and 2006 were both based on the premise of American economic and military superiority, which should help the US shape the world and not to be shaped by it; no strategic competitor is allowed to rise. 21 Although there is a so-called hypocrisy trap, which means that in accepting or recognising hypocritically some obligations or values, one may later be forced to act upon them. 22 A Dworkin, ‘The case for minor utopias’ Prospect (London, July 2001) (a review of J Gray’s Black Mass) 44.

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Although hypocrisy is generally deplorable and hypocritical, use of concepts of democracy and human rights in diplomacy discredits these worthy aims, it is necessary to acknowledge that hypocrisy in politics and especially in international politics will remain with us for any foreseeable future. David Runciman is right that ‘hypocrisy, though inherently unattractive, is also more or less inevitable in most political settings, and in liberal democratic societies it is practically ubiquitous’ and therefore ‘hypocrisy is something we have to learn to live with.’23 And though it may sound strange, it is mostly the liberal-democratic countries with wide international interests, whose foreign policy cannot do without hypocrisy. Beijing, for example, does not feel so much need to justify, especially before its population, how it satisfies its economic interests in Sudan, Nigeria or any other country. Governments in Washington, Paris or London, on the other hand, have to demonstrate, especially to their domestic electorates, that their foreign policy in different parts of the world, if not entirely dictated by ethical and humanitarian concerns, at least takes into account these concerns. I do not think that Western leaders, when they raise issues of human rights and democracy, say, with Chinese or Russian leaders, are so naïve as to believe that these governments will change their policies, because of their preaching. They probably even understand that excessively strong public pressure on these issues may be counter-productive. However, raising human rights concerns, especially during summit meetings, is necessary because otherwise the opposition in parliaments, mass media and human rights NGOs would accuse the government of betraying values for the sake of money and security, though the same electorate would outvote any government that does not guarantee its financial or security interests. Although most people care mainly about their prosperity and well-being, they also want to feel and to be seen as virtuous. Moreover, there are certainly some Western leaders who quite sincerely care about democracy and human rights even in far-away places (though I do not think, for example, that the late Robin Cook’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ helped change the world for the better more than any other policy), conditions permitting and recipes being adequate, efforts to promote democracy and human rights may indeed have some positive effects. Not every politician who speaks of human rights and democracy in far-away places is necessarily a hypocrite; not every human rights activist who claims to know a remedy for a dire human rights situation in a distant country is inevitably ignorant or naïve; not even every autocrat who claims to have the support of the population is to be automatically considered wrong. However, it is always safer to doubt and double-check; in matters where practical interests and ideology intermingle, one can never be sure. Then, there are pragmatists, who may even be fond of the goals of idealists, but who think that these goals can be realised only in specific favourable conditions and usually attempts to put them into practice will be counterproductive to other foreign policy objectives. They also believe that before one enters a brawl, one should have a clear exit strategy, ie they usually concentrate so much on the means 23 D Runciman, Political Hypocrisy. The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008) 1.

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that they lose sight of the ends. Therefore, pragmatists are cautious, sometimes overcautious, when facing prospects of radical change (they may be suffering from a Burkean complex). They recognise the importance of oil and gas in the real world and see the inevitability of competition, if not conflicts, over access to these and other resources. Pragmatists are often cynical when dealing with issues of international politics, not necessarily because they are cynical by nature, but because such is the character of the subject matter they are dealing with. Now some concluding remarks. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik, in writing about why some developing countries have succeeded in their economic reforms while others have failed (none has succeeded, as he observes, when diligently following IMF and World Bank prescriptions), emphasises that ‘learning from other countries is always useful—indeed it is indispensable. But straightforward borrowing (or rejection) of policies without full understanding of the context that enabled them to be successful (or led them to be failures) is a recipe for disaster.’24 This insightful observation is as true, or maybe even truer, in the case of democratic reforms and promotion of democracy. Democracy, democratic institutions and values are more intimately related to and dependent on history and the culture of a society than economic and financial institutions. Learning, not borrowing, but at the same time not discarding the experience of other societies by self-servingly over-emphasising one’s uniqueness is the best way to proceed. Democratisation is more an art than a science, even if we have in mind only social sciences, which all contain, in different proportions, a degree of artfulness. Today, the issue is not so much whether democracy is, in principle, preferable to other forms of government. The most serious practical as well as theoretical issue in this field is: how to get there, how to transform a non-democratic society into a democratic one? Although a critical attitude towards promotion of democracy is necessary, one should be careful not to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’. The fact that claims over some rights are made abusively should not mean that these rights or goods thereby become less valuable. Humans have enough intelligence and flexibility not only to confuse and mislead others, but also to differentiate between use and abuse, sincerity and deception.25 For outsiders, to help others promote democracy and human rights, it is necessary not only to be sincere and enthusiastic, but also to have quite a deep knowledge and understanding of other societies, as well as enough humility to be aware of the limits of the positive effect any outside interference may have. In the absence of these conditions, any outside meddling does more ill than good. However, when these conditions are met outsiders may contribute to a spread of democracy that indeed has both intrinsic as well as instrumental value.

24 D Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes. Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007) 4–5. 25 Nicholas Wade opines that religion coevolved with the emergence of language as a safeguard against deception that came possible through the use of language: ‘With the advent of language, freeloaders gained a great weapon, the power to deceive. Religion could have evolved as a means of defence against freeloading’ (N Wade, Before the Dawn. Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (London, The Penguin Press, 2007) 165).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books P Allott, Eunomia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990). HJ Chang, Bad Samaritans. Rich Nations, Poor Policies & the Threat to the Developing World (New York, Random House Business Books, 2007). A Chua, World on Fire. How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (London, Arrow Books, 2003). J Crawford, Democracy in International Law. Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994). RA Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998). PO Enquist, The Visit of the Royal Physician (New York, Vintage Books, 2003). DS Foglesong, The American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire’ (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). K Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York, Public Affairs, 2008). K Marx, () Das Kapital. A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I, The Process of Capitalist Production (Preface to the First Edition) (Chicago, Charles H. Kerr and Co, 1906). JS Mill, Utilitarianism. On Liberty, Considerations of Representative Government (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1993). K Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 2 Hegel & Marx (London, Routledge, 1996). K Popper, Conjectures and Refutations. The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London, Routledge, 1996). D Runciman, Political Hypocrisy. The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2008). D Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes. Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007). A Ross, and O Espersen, Dansk Statsforfatningsret, 3rd edn (Copenhagen, Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1980). A Sen, The Argumentative Indian. Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity (London, Allen Lane, 2005). N Wade, Before the Dawn. Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (London, The Penguin Press, 2007). Journal Articles T Carothers, ‘How Democracies Emerge: The “Sequence” Fallacy’, (2007) 18 Journal of Democracy 12–27. TM Franck, ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’, (1992) 86 American Journal of International Law 46–91. S Tharoor, E Pluribus, ‘India: Is Indian Modernity Working?’, (1998) 77 Foreign Affairs 128–34.

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F Yongping, ‘The Peaceful Transition of Power from the UK to the US’, (2006) 1 The Chinese Journal of International Politics 83–108.

Newspaper Articles A Dworkin, ‘The case for minor utopias’, Prospect (London, July 2001) (a review of J Gray’s Black Mass). TL Friedman, ‘The big question’, The International Herald Tribune (New York, 4–5 March 2006).

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Jurisdictional Colonisation in the Spanish and British Empires: Some Reflections on a Global Public Order and the Sacred MÓNICA GARCÍA-SALMONES * AND LUIS ESLAVA ** INTRODUCTION

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PUBLIC LEGAL order that aspires to be global must involve the possibility of the sacred. The international legal system should thus be open to the sacred if it strives to create order among states in global governance.1 These claims arise from a reflection on international law in which we have tried to move beyond imperialistic conceptions of order and modern fears about the role of religion in international law. Here we examine the relation between religion and international law by applying a genealogical approach to two important legal international projects for ordering the world: one theological, the other humanist. Two imperial stories of universalism, redemption, conquest and conversion are recounted. The first occurred during the initial conquest of the New World, and its main characters are the Spanish Empire and the indigenous people of South America. The second story concerns the British Empire and European colonisation in North America. The aim of this article is to sketch some similarities, differences and lessons of the expansion of British and Spanish jurisdictions into the New World. While both these imperial projects relied on the deployment of their law throughout the Americas, the manner in which the exogenous law became implanted in the reality of the new lands and subjects was quite different, due to struggles between the divine and the terrestrial aspects of international governance in contemporary European political thought. Imperial authorities have always used law and space to establish power in a new land: new understandings of the nature of law that were formulated during the rise of modernity crucially affected the manner in which law was applied in the concrete spaces of colonisation and articulated in the daily life of * PhD Candidate, Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, The University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law. ** PhD Candidate, Institute for International Law and the Humanities, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Law School. 1 Since it is true that religion has no monopoly over ethics or morals, the sacred refers here to the most purely religious categories with no other equivalent in the secular world. See JHH Weiler, ‘La tradición judeo-cristiana entre fe y libertad’ in J Ratzinger et al, Dios salve la razón (Madrid, Ediciones Encuentro, 2008) 191. For other philosophical and moral teachings about world order, see for example, FT Chen, ‘The Confucian View of World Order’ in MW Janis and C Evans (eds), Religion and International Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2008).

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imperial subjects. In the Spanish Empire, order was produced through law founded in religious belief; for the British Empire, order was derived from the new liberal law of modernity. The decline of the Spanish Empire and the emergence of its British counterpart mark the transition between these two conceptions of law. As the Spanish Empire’s power and its theocentric interpretation of international law receded, the remaining competing jurisdictional systems—the British Empire and the Westphalian state system—responded with a secular conceptualisation of law and politics. Our current conception of international law is the legacy of a resistance by European leaders to conceive of a sovereignty that would not incorporate spiritual sovereignty.2 There is a certain parallel between the Westphalian moment at the beginning of modernity and the nascent era of global governance. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the scope of activities performed by empires and states had expanded profoundly, not only because of newly discovered territories and peoples, but also because recent acquisition of theological jurisdictions had brought forth substantive and transcendental matters that the theological encompassed. The key question at the beginning of modernity was how to impose a universal order on the relations between distinct territorial units, states and other international actors at a time when the universal language of Rome and its juridical apparatus were no longer valid. Arguably, it was the very posing of this question that inaugurated modernity, and the international legal system continues to be shaped by its structure and implications.3 Therefore, the enquiry and search for an order in international law (both in practice and theory) is as urgent as when it was first formulated.4 Current legal theorists have questioned classical positions on the question of public order, and claim that international law is intrinsically indeterminate.5 Other theorists regard classic international law as a type of basic constitution, since it supports a legal community of formally equal partners. Here the force of the normative self-understanding of modernity provides the foundation of a procedural constitution that promises order amongst de facto unequal sovereigns.6 A third line of inquiry has focused on how international law consolidates the status quo and

2 On the key position of the spiritual sovereignty in the negotiations of Münster for both the United Provinces and Spain, see generally, LM Baena, ‘Negotiating Sovereignty: the Peace Treaty of Münster, 1648’ (2008) 28 History of Political Thought 617. 3 cf S Felman, Jacques Lacan and the adventure of Insight (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1987) 103. 4 See especially, R Wolfrum and V Röben (eds), Legitimacy in International Law (Heidelberg, Springer, 2008). 5 M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia. The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). For the fact that Koskenniemi’s book has often been cited but rarely challenged, see D Kennedy, ‘The Last Treatise: Project and Person. (Reflections on Martti Koskenniemi’s From Apology to Utopia)’ (2006) 7 German Law Journal, 982. See also, M Garcia-Salmones, ‘The Ethos of the Rule of Law in the International Legal Discourse: Portrait of an Outsider’ (2008)10 International Community Law Review 29. 6 J Habermas, Der gespaltene Westen (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 2004) 131, 148, 192; B Kingsbury, ‘Sovereignty and Inequality’ (1998) 9 European Journal of International Law 599.

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thus perpetuates injustice, rather than promoting an emancipatory internationalism. On this view, a fair international order requires the return to international relations structured by national law and national interests.7 Since Cold War tensions have eased, the simple hard secular view of international law has been shown to be insufficient to address these critiques, and many theorists have demonstrated a new sensibility towards the ethical and the religious.8 This has been interpreted as a sign of a loss of faith in the secular project of modernity.9 The question of political agency has become a key issue in the future of international law, taking precedence over other problems such as the economic structure, the weight of history, the cultural origins and the power of the state.10 Moving beyond the positive legal materials, it is argued, international law must confront the political question in order to cope with present challenges. Nevertheless, international law as such seems to be endemically ambivalent, between universalism and empire. The duck-rabbit model of international law has been proposed as a way of capturing the sense in which international law contributes to a genuine desire in the powerful to avoid conflict and injustice.11 Finally, in an era of global governance, there is a need to rethink notions of democracy so that they might be meaningfully employed in the international legal system. Critical thought is most attuned to the legitimacy of international law when it is expected to establish a terrain between pure normativity and the pure politics of the powerful.12 This paper shares concerns about a de-territorialised international law with capacity to outlaw the powerless—a version of international law that resembles past imperial practices. We wish to interrogate this legal structure and in doing so take seriously the role played by colonial history in the formation of international law.13 The outstanding problems and critiques of international law have motivated us to transplant our reflections on global order in late modernity to the era of colonisation in South and North America through the Spanish imperial cities of God and the British rational jurisdictions. In the following two sections, we dissect the complexity of the public orders of the British and Spanish Empires with the purpose of making their imperial legal attributes visible. Following a review of

7 Wolfrum categorises this position as voicing Schmittian ideas. See R Wolfrum, ‘Legitimacy of International Law from a Legal Perspective: Some Introductory Considerations’ in Wolfrum and Röben (eds), Legitimacy in International Law (n 4) 3; C Schmitt, Die Kernfrage des Völkerbundes (Berlin, F Dümmler, 1926). 8 See especially, D Kennedy, ‘Losing Faith in the Secular: Law, Religion, and the Culture of International Governance’ in MW Janis and C Evans (eds), Religion and International Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1999) 311, 312. 9 ibid 316. 10 B Rajagopal, ‘Martti Koskenniemi’s “From Apology to Utopia: A Reflection”’ (2006) 7 German Journal of International Law, 1089, 1090. 11 For a similar use of this image in a legal issue see A Cockrell, ‘The South African Bill of Rights and the “Duck/Rabbit”’ (1997) 60 Modern Law Review 513. See especially the image of the duck-rabbit in L Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford, Blackwell, 1978 [1953]) 194. See also, E Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism: The True-False Paradox of International Law?’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 379. 12 JHH Weiler, ‘The Geology of International Law – Governance, Democracy and Legitimacy’ (2004) 64 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 547, 552. 13 R Falk, B Rajagopal, and J Stevens, ‘Introduction’ in R Falk, B Rajagopal and J Stevens (eds), International Law and the Third World (London, Routledge-Cavendish, 2008).

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the theological grounds that sustained the Spanish imperial project, we examine how the rise of the British Empire in the seventeenth century involved a complex matrix of theological, legal and political transformations. Several conceptual shifts that occurred during this process indelibly coloured the meaning of key notions such as sovereignty and common law, and revised the nature assigned to imperial subjects. The importation and violent application of the two European legal orders, with no previous topos in the new territories, required a conversion of new imperial subjects. Although the religious aspect of the British conquest has been largely glossed over, the Spanish and British imperial projects display a striking similarity in this regard.14 In particular, we consider the ways in which a secular order may become quasi-religious when it requires total allegiance of its subjects. In the final section, we reflect upon current visions of global public order, using insights drawn from our analysis of the Spanish and British imperial projects. These two legal histories of colonisation focus our attention on the role of the sacred in international law and global order.

THE IMPERIAL CITIES OF GOD

Inscribing the Spanish Empire in Land Unlike the era of settlement by British dissenters in the seventeenth century and its reliance on liberal interpretations of law and order, the nature of government, religion, and social relations appeared uncontroversial during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After the Moors’ surrender on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, the Spanish extended their Christianisation programme to the New World, with absolute certainty of the social propriety of their ways and the religious righteousness that justified their goals and means.15 The Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, conjoined Christianity and Spanish civilisation into a seamless cultural-moral complex that defined all political, religious or cultural alternatives as heretical and odious. Empire-building and social governance were pragmatic extensions of the eschatological narratives of Catholicism. This unity of sovereignty, governance and religion placed particular emphasis on the role of founding cities during colonisation. Cities were the administrative centres of the colony, the reproducers of capital, the seat of ecclesiastical power, and the space for all cultural activities: where education was received, history was written, and humanity advanced. In founding satellite cities, the major secular and theological foundations of the Spanish colonial enterprise came together:

14 For a summary of historiographical traditions of the British Empire, see A Webster, The Debate on the Rise of the British Empire (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006). 15 MD Szuchman, ‘The City as Vision–The Development of Urban Culture in Latin America’ in GM Joseph and MD Szuchman (eds), I Saw a City Invincible: Urban Portraits of Latin America – Jaguar Books on Latin America 9 (Lanham, Rowman and Littlefield, 1996) 2.

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humanism, Catholicism and a revitalised notion of jus gentium.16 Cities were ideal spaces for the sacred and the human to enter in a perpetual communion. In the foundation and planning of new cities, the Spanish imagination was thrilled by the encounter between divine and civil jurisdictions. Spatial explicitness rather than subtlety was the key mode of this project. The ordering of space according to law enabled an explicit coordination of the experience of being a subject. For both indigenous and European subjects, placement within or around jurisdictional urban clusters materialised their location in the Empire’s diagrammatic of power abroad and their positioning in a transcendental order that aimed to approach the sacred. In a pragmatic reading of Augustine’s topographic taxonomy of the world, Spanish colonisers realised that the city of man differed to the city of God.17 Despite Christianity’s designation as the official religion of the Spanish Empire, and the Church as the heart of the city of God, Augustine declared in De Civitate Dei that its message was spiritual rather than political. Christianity, Augustine argued, should be concerned with the mystical, heavenly City of Jerusalem (the New Jerusalem), rather than with Earthly politics. The city of man was therefore a platform for crafting the self in order to gain access to the city of God. On this view, the city of man should follow a ‘natural order’. Following this interpretation, the Spanish Empire sought to organise their cities according to ‘nature’, and thus connect Christian subjects (both conquerors and conquered) with a sense of proportion, which itself culminated in understanding the proportions of the greatest work of art: the godlike human body. This cosmology viewed all matter, including people, within a linear and hierarchical world—an order that should be reflected in the order of cities. In 1573, King Phillip II of Spain crystallised the natural/organic view of urban affairs and its role in the construction of the Spanish Empire in the Ordinances for the Discovery, New Settlement, and Pacification of the Indies (the Ordinances).18 The Ordinances are a paradigmatic piece of urban legislation in which it is possible to read how the Spanish Empire guided the foundation, construction, indoctrination and administration of its colonial communities.19 While the earliest voyages of 16 RM Morse, ‘Introducción a la Historia Urbana de Hispanoamérica’ in F Solano (coordinator), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo,1983) 17. 17 St Augustine and J Healey (translator) The City of God (London, Dent, 1931). 18 The norms on urban foundation and planning were part of the Ordenanzas de Descubrimientos y Nueva Población y Pacificación de la Indias (1573). These are divided into 148 chapters: the first 31 chapters were dedicated to the discoveries, chapters 32 to 137 dedicated to new populations, and chapters 137 to 148 to the pacification of the Indies. Later in the colony, they were included in Titles V, VI, VII, VIII and XII of Book IV of the ‘Recopilación de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias’ (first published in 1681). See G Guarda, ‘Tres reflexiones en torno a la fundación de la ciudad indiana’ in F Solano (ed), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo,1983) 89–96; and JE Hardoy, ‘La Forma de las Ciudades Coloniales en la América Española’ in F Solano (ed), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, 1983) 318; J Kinsbruner, The Colonial Spanish-American City: Urban Life in the Age of Atlantic Capitalism (Austin, University of Texas Press, 2005). 19 Previous and subsequent legislation included the 1523 Charter by Charles V, and the Recopilación de las Leyes de las Indias (1680). However, the Ordenanzas de Descubrimiento y Población of 1537 is

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conquest to the Americas were marked by savagery, by the time of King Phillip’s Ordinances the official response was to adopt a soft yet combative adjudication of the New World and its people that fulfilled pragmatic and celestial requests—a combination that profoundly informs the Renaissance understanding of jus gentium. By 1573, the Italian Renaissance had taken hold in Spain, and Spanish humanists and royal advisers had become familiar with Roman urban organisations through the translation of Vitruvius’ De Architectura (translated into Spanish as Medidas del Romano).20 A normative approach to imperial expansion (grounded in the new interpretation of jus gentium) was thus married to a more technical concern with the role of spatial distribution in human affairs. Moreover, while the new norms allowed the conquerors to acquire effective material possession of colonial territories, they also resembled Aquinas’ prescriptions for the ideal King.21 According to Aquinas, the city was the natural vehicle for the fulfilment of Christian ideals, due to the possibility of mastering the self through the mutual dependence, intellectual and common surveillance proper to city life.22 Following Aristotle, Aquinas envisaged the city as the measure of one’s morality. Therefore, the King should be engaged in a constant mission to urbanise the world of man: founding a town was the royal equivalent of the creation of the world.23 Although his power could only be realised at the material level of the subjects, the King was a terrestrial juncture in a power relationship that extended far beyond human existence. In the Spanish imperial project, the definitive differentiation between the sacred and the secular that would come to characterise the British colonisation of North America and mark the emergence of a modern international law was a rhetorical partnership that allowed the conqueror to intervene in the world in order to achieve transcendence. The metaphysical dimensions of space and governance were intentionally made indistinguishable in order to achieve sovereign presence across the new lands and subjects. Importantly, the sovereign presence aimed to permeate the mundane and sacred dimensions of daily life.

still the most cited normative document in which Spanish planning ideas are found. See for a critical review of normative sources of colonial Spanish town planning in America, R Martínez Lemoine, ‘The classical model of the Spanish-American colonial city’ in J Madge and A Peckham (eds), Narrating Architecture: A retrospective anthology (London, Routledge, 2006). 20 The ordinances were inspired by the classical Roman treatise of Vitruvius De architectura, which was rediscovered by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini in 1414. The first known edition of Vitruvius was in Rome by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in 1486. Translations followed in Italian (1521), French (1547), English, German (1543) and Spanish (1526) and several other languages. The Latin edition of Vitruvius’ book, published in 1582 was dedicated to Phillip II. See S Kostof, The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meaning Through History (New York, Bulfinch Press, 1991) 115. 21 Kostof, The City Shaped (n 20) 108–11. 22 T Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, discussed in RM Morse, ‘Introducción a la Historia Urbana de Hispanoamérica’ in F Solano (coordinator), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, 1983) 10–53. 23 Kostof, The City Shaped (n 20) 111.

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Marking and circumscribing the sovereign presence The material nature of the city was regarded as a suitable instrument to discipline subjects through spatial positioning. Phillip II’s Ordinances were issued as part of the Crown’s desire to institute a systematic sovereign presence and transcendental authority in the Empire. It was a normative effort to make the colonial enterprise an intelligent carrier of a sovereign spatial economy. In this context, a ‘sovereign spatial economy’ conveys the sense in which a local jurisdiction acts as a spatial configuration of power, an instrument that expands and contracts in response to its capacity to develop individual subjects and their subjectivities. As such, the Ordinances articulated planning technologies as a pedagogical practice, while theological belief operated as the grounding narrative to approach space and subjects. An example of the triangulation between theological convictions, control of physical space and instruction of new imperial subjects can be delineated in the foundation of cities by the Spanish Empire, during which the performance of liturgical ceremonies materialised the divine and secular forces in the chosen site for a new city. Bogotá, for instance, was founded twice because legal prescriptions were omitted in the initial founding ceremony. Even though Jimenéz de Quesada, widely remembered as the city’s founder, established 12 huts on the site of present-day Bogotá in commemoration of the Apostles, and offered the city to the Lord on 6 August 1538, the legally recognised ritual was not completed until 29 April 1539.24 Here the formality of law ensured the teleological function of both space and subjects. The process of sovereign deployment through urban planning, and the relationship between these and the manifestation of the sacred in the everyday life of imperial subjects, may also be perceived in the selection and circumscription of land urban settlement, and the subsequent distribution of property rights. Ordering to possess and the localisation of subjects according to colonial rights and obligations were one of the fundamental roles of urban planning. The colonial purpose fostered through the Ordinances was not to dominate the land, nor to convert natives immediately to Christianity. Pacification by Catholic missionaries would ultimately complete the task of discovery and conquest initiated by urban planners.25 The purpose of planning was to arrange space in a way that Christianisation and its cosmological imaginary were visible on the landscape, a configuration that would be later confirmed in the interior self of the imperial subjects. There are many examples of how the process of selection, circumscription and distribution of land functioned, but here we would only like to mention the criteria that guided the process of land selection. According to the Ordinances, new cities 24 R Londoño, ‘En las nubes de Bogotá’ (2006) www.bogotacomovamos.org/scripts/ contenido.php?idCnt=1. See also, D Ramos Pérez, ‘La Doble Fundación de Ciudades y las “Huestes”’ in F Solano (ed), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, 1983) 131–38; M Lucena Salmoral, ‘Bogotá y las tres Huestes: Estudio comparativo del reparto de oficios concejiles y encomiendas’ in F Solano (ed), Estudios sobre la ciudad Iberoamericana (Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, 1983) 139. 25 See especially; MM del Vas Mingo, ‘Las Ordenanzas de 1573, sus antecedentes y consecuencias’ (1985) 8 Quinto Centenario 83–101.

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were to be founded next to indigenous towns, ‘populated by Indians and natives to whom we can preach the Gospels since this is the principal objective for which we mandate that these discoveries and settlements be made.’26 As noted above, the initial act of possession was formalised by the deployment of legal formulae in which a transcendental experience was married to an urban planning rationale that defined the urban space as Spanish in opposition to an indigenous fringe. The indigenous did not come initially to the colonial town; the colonial town came to the indigenous. The positioning of indigenous as cartographic outsiders was complemented by instruction in commerce and the distribution of urban land property. The distribution of land was straightforward: as the indigenous population were physically outside the city’s limits, they were excluded from the city’s internal distribution of property rights. Following the Roman use of the grid as the official urban order, the Ordinances specified a square central plaza where the main authorities were to be situated. The rest of the city’s chessboard was distributed according to social and religious importance, and citizens were permitted rural possessions in the same order and proportion to their properties in the city. The indigenous, from the point of view of the coloniser, were outside the city’s geography, and were thus both topographically and semantically the other, an object for instruction and exploitation. Forced labour was in this manner also organised around this relocation. During the first century of the colony, indigenous people were required to pay tributes in urban, rural, or mining form,27 which were enforceable due to the proximity of indigenous settlements to the cities. The spatial relationship between the city and the indigenous population obscured the original indigenous ownership of the land and made their place in the colonial economic structure explicit. Even as the indigenous people of South American became outsiders in their own land, they occupied a key role in the political economy of the colonial city. Indigenous bodies were understood to be capable of labour and silent carriers of God’s voice. As a result, the initial command of the Ordinances was pragmatic, yet also visionary. According to Article 5, conquerors were to ‘[l]ook carefully at the places and ports where it might be possible to build Spanish settlements without damage to the Indian population’,28 and if there was an unexpected encounter with natives, they should always use commerce and ransom, instead of combative preaching. Commerce and ransom were supposed to be intelligible to the Indians; the gospel, on the other hand, had to be administered once the indigenous body was immersed in the early capitalist system of the Empire. The revelation of the sacred in the Empire’s order was only achievable through the incremental cancellation of 26 A Mundigo and D Crouch (translators), ‘Ordinance for New Discoveries, Conquests and Pacifications’ (1573) Chapter 36; reprinted by The New City with permission from ‘The City Planning Ordinances of the Laws of the Indies Revisited, I’ (1977) 48 Town Planning Review 247–68, The University of Miami, School of Architecture www.arc.miami.edu/Law%20of%20Indies.html. 27 The indigenous forced labour was divided into rural work, mining work and urban work. In 1657, the required urban tribute amounted to one month every two years, mining to one year every three years, and term of rural work was between six months to one year every three years. See Pedro F Simón, Noticias Historiales de la Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales (Bogotá, Biblioteca Banco Popular, 1982). 28 Mundigo and Crouch, ‘Ordinance for New Discoveries, Conquests and Pacifications’ (n 26).

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the indigenous body and territory, which in turn required the reconfiguration of space and instruction in the normative premises of Spanish imperial law. The Ordinances, epitomising these laws, operated under the central tension of the Spanish colonial enterprise: how to ensure the Empire’s presence in the New World, how to guarantee a sufficient labour force for the colonial economy, and, at the same time, how to protect and Christianise the native population.

Cultivation of Subjectivities, the City, and the Emergent International Law The corporeality of the imperial subject (both indigenous and coloniser) and her subjectivity occupied the whole mind of the planner. The individual was a subject of the monarch not only because of her physical presence within the kingdom; she was also, and primarily, a subject of the monarch due to that inner space in which the natural symmetry between the monarch and God was identified and made real within the city. All the city’s inhabitants lived under this redeeming logic, and they were all the potential subjects of salvation. Here it is possible to see how the almost-human yet flawed nature of the indigenous subject, as theorised by Francisco de Vitoria, was accommodated into the urban order. The city was the place in which indigenous culture, its ideas of property and governance, was realigned with the Empire’s order—the embodiment of a universal natural law. Following Anghie’s critical reading of Vitoria, the indigenous personality was conceived along two axes by the Spanish Empire:29 ‘First, the Indians belong to the universal realm as do the Spanish and all other humans beings because … they have the facility of reason and hence a means of ascertaining jus gentium which is universally binding.’30 However, in Vitoria’s reading of the New World, ‘the Indian [is] very different from the Spanish because the Indian’s specific social and cultural practices are at variance with the practices [the normative foundations of jus gentium] which are applicable to both Indian and Spaniard.’31 In other words, focusing on the cultural practices of each society and assessing them in terms of the universal jus gentium, Vitoria demonstrated ‘that the Indians are in violation of universal natural law. Indians are included within the system only to be disciplined’ and to ‘save the Indians from themselves.’32 Jus gentium, the natural law that was supposed to regulate the relations between sovereigns and the recognition of reason in all human beings motivated the development of urban practices that would close the inconvenient cultural gap between the indigenous and Spanish populations of colonial cities. Phillip II’s pragmatic use of urban development law emulated Vitoria’s pragmatic take on jus gentium. Establishing an urban order based on the assumption that both indigenous and colonisers were ordered by a natural/sacred schema, Phillip II’s Ordinances reintroduced divine law in the governance of colonised territory as a technical 29 A Anghie, ‘Francisco de Vitoria and the Colonial Origins of International Law’ (1996) 5 Social & Legal Studies 321. 30 ibid 327. 31 ibid. 32 ibid 331.

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matter. The form of this reintroduction was, as Phillip II realised, more durable and effective than any kind of combative preaching. It was the promotion of a divine order through secular activities such as settling, travelling and trading. Following the foundation of a colonial city, urban planners aspired to synchronise the city with an ideal space in which subjects were industrious and politically compliant. Territory and inhabitants, land and human flesh, were the raw materials in the project to propel each city and its citizens towards the idealised space where the sovereign signalled. This space might even be described as Utopia, a politically commanding concept that means non-space but has nonetheless served as the transactional spatial totem around which the monopoly of violence is exercised. Utopia recreates, according to this argument, a sacred meta-space that fulfilled the application of authority with transcendence, salvation and development. The symbolic energies that lie behind the city were thus a symptom of a grand redeeming project of ‘bringing the marginalised into the realm of sovereignty, civilising the uncivilised and developing the juridical techniques and institutions necessary for this mission.’33 Characteristic of this early encounter between the nascent disciplines of international law and urban planning law is the existence of another, the indigenous, who requires the protection of a transnational sacred order. THE RISE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE’S SOVEREIGNTY: FROM PROVINCIAL LOCALISM TO EMPIRE

The Rule of Law in the Empire: Moving away from Theological Foundations In spite of the wilderness of the new spaces and the foreignness of the new cultures that they encountered, common law accompanied the British colonists on their journeys abroad. Common law offered the colonists protection and comfort, insofar as it was able to reproduce home without bringing the anxieties left behind. The colonists’ identity was, to a large extent, preserved by the guarantees of the rights and liberties of an Englishmen before the common law. Initially, the government of the colonies was founded on the basis and traditions of a common law territorial jurisdiction: this was a selective law that did not create legal spaces, but followed British citizens wherever they were. That the Empire was carried within the coloniser’s body had clear repercussions for the indigenous people encountered by the British, who were thus radically excluded from British legal and political institutions. The diagrammatic of power of the British Empire operated, in principle, in the subject’s conception of himself, i.e. in the internal space that made him subject to the common law. The province of New York, captured from the Dutch in 1664, provides an instructive example of how the British dominated their colonies in the North and defended them against competing European interests. The struggle for sovereignty between King and Parliament in England meant that the sovereign presence receded 33

ibid 333.

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into the background of the British management of colonial affairs. For a long period, the province of New York was thus allowed to remain provincial. This came to an end with the rise of the sovereignty of the British Empire (c 1688–1750), which was marked by a renewed universalism and a deliberate attempt to withdraw matters of interest to the metropolis, such as trade and security, away from local governments.34 Importantly, however, both the local and imperial models of British territorial administration lacked the ideal of the transcendental that characterised the Spanish imperial expansion in the South. In the imperial framework, the story of the provinces in the North concerns trade, European settlers, land grants, common law, the new rule of law and, finally, the way in which virtual imperial legislation stood hopelessly for the sovereignty of the British Empire in those territories. The juridical basis and external justification for the British Empire were a matter of argumentation and study among legal philosophers and politicians of the time. Agricultural arguments given in the seventeenth century were considered sufficient to justify the British dominium over the colonies,35 although they would not satisfy the justification of the imperium, with its distinctive system of public law and government.36 Due to its own rejection of the Pope’s authority to attribute to the Spanish Crown dominion over the New World—‘the gift of the empire’, as Hobbes called it—the British Empire realised that it would soon be ensnared by the same criticisms being levelled at the Spanish colonial expansion.37 When the Spanish Crown’s arguments for America’s colonisation were called into question even by Spanish subjects,38 the Protestant kings promptly took up and reformulated the discussion about the legality and legitimacy of colonial enterprises.39 The British desire to avoid the controversy surrounding Spanish colonisation is exemplified in a conciliatory debate of the Council of the Virginia Company in 1607–08, on the need to document the Company’s activities to reassure investors. According to the decision, it was more dangerous than not to produce such a report. One of the members of Company present at the Council summarised the recent experience of the Spanish Empire:

34 See generally, RN Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763: Colonial Prelude to two Centuries of Federal-State Conflict Over the Management of Indian Affairs’ (1989) 69 Boston University Law Review 329. 35 J Tully, ‘Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground’ (1994) 11 Social Philosophy & Policy 153. 36 D Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000) 98. 37 T Hobbes, Behemoth or The Long Parliament (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1990) 12. 38 The changing sequence of legislation and of language in Spain during the 16th century is attributed to a large extent to a perceived lack of legitimacy in the colonial expansion. See especially, J Medina Rivaud, ‘La invención de la ciudad Americana: Convenio entre la realidad y la imaginación. Lectura yuxtapuesta’ in IM Zavala (ed), Discursos sobre la “invención de América” (Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1992). Rivaud cites as an example a well-known text of the beginning of the colonisation by ‘el pedra Hontesions’: ‘With which right have you started an atrocious war against those peoples who lived peacefully in their terrritories? You killed them each day when you want them to bring their gold to you; and what is your care to instruct them in our religion? Are they not men? Do they not have reason, soul? Should you not love them as yourselves? Be sure that under the present conditions you do not have more possibilities of salvation than a Turk or a Moor’, 283. (translation by the authors). 39 Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (n 36) 94.

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When after 50 years his fryars [of the Spanish Crown] declyn’d him from that sever and unjust course and he labourd by men of all learning to provide himselfe of a more acceptable title, all y[e] reasons, which were prepared to him, by men of discourse, from y[e] Indians transgressing y[e] Law of Nature; from his Civilians for their denying commerce: from his Canonists by y[e] Donation: and from his Devines, by propagation of religion … can be gathered for him no title, of Dominions or Property, but only a Magistracy, and Empiry, by which he is allowed to remove such impediments, as they had against y[e]) knowledge of Religion.40

Despite their strong desire to avoid global censure of their colonial expansion, the British anxiously sought meaning and a constitution for their empire. By 1573, the Spanish had stopped using the term ‘conquest’ in the official language of imperial politics. In his Ordinances, Philip II presented the legal basis for colonisation and attempted to rationalise the imperial expansion, drawing on solutions offered by lawyers and theologians of the day. The primary aim of Spanish colonisation after 1573 was to found as many territorial asentamientos as possible. According to the text of the Ordinances, neither commerce nor conquest would be a priority for the Spanish Empire in the American colonies.41 Spatial presence, and the civility involved in the materialisation of this performance, became the public policy of the Empire. On paper, at least, the plan for the Spanish Empire was therefore clear: secular and theological aspirations were to be merged in the foundation of asentamientos and their pedagogical rationale. By contrast, the grounds of the British Empire were founded in Protestantism, and its commitments against the principle of medieval dualism of Church and government, and in commerce.42 The geographical spatiality of the British Empire and its physical materialisation were downplayed in order to condense the Empire’s presence in the identity of its subjects.

Englishmen in the Provinces and Later Ethnocentric Geo-Legal Spaces The British Empire bestowed its colonists in North America with one of the few certainties that had survived the tumultuous seventeenth century in Britain: the common law. While the colonists thus enjoyed the traditional rights and liberties of Englishmen, the British colonial enterprise lacked a uniform imperial design or public policy. Without a public policy, neither the British colonists, nor the Native Americans that they encountered, were capable of making transactions of this precious good.43 In particular, the status of indigenous people was described in the

40 DB Quinn ‘Reasons against the publishinge of the Kinges title to Virginia’ in DB Quinn (ed) New American World: A Documentary History of North America to 1612 (New York, Arno Press, 1979). Vol III 418–19; quoted by Armitage, (n 36) 93. 41 MM del Vas Mingo, ‘Las Ordenanzas de 1573, sus antecendentes y consecuencias’ (n 25) 84−94. 42 Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (n 36) 98. 43 To the high value attached by the colonists to common law, see generally DJ Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire. New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1644–1830 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press and American Society for Legal History, 2005) 104.

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colonial laws in different ways, since they were not automatically considered to fall under British sovereignty. According to Mark D Walters, friendly Indian nations were described as ‘being at “peace” or in “amity” with, “tributary” to, “allied” to, under the “protection” of, or “subjected” to particular colonial governments’. They were ‘either subjects of the Crown or alien friends’. Other Indian nations were termed ‘“strange,” “foreign,” or “remote,” or as enemies’.44 The structure of a typical North American province was based on an ancient system of territorial jurisdiction, the county palatine, with a proprietor as ‘the true Lord’ of the land.45 The particularities of the territory, density and heterogeneity of population shaped the peculiar features of the transplantation of common law. For instance, when the English arrived to New York, the original Dutch population was promised that they would be allowed to maintain their legal relations as they were at the moment of the conquest. A peculiar mixture of legal traditions emerged. When colonists invoked common law, they referred to a selection of British rights and liberties that suited their particular situation and to which they felt entitled.46 Empire was a subjective experience of rational membership, activated through the invocation of the common law. The spatial fragility of the British presence was thus compensated by the requirement for a colonist’s strategic self-recognition as a subject of the incoming British Empire. A liberal conception of imperial presence at the individual level became the conduit of the Empire in the overseas colonies. After the Calvin case, it was clear that only the English and Scots could have access to the protection of English jurisdictional courts.47 However, Hulsebosch cites a Member of Parliament concerned by the implications of the Calvin case: … it might give a dangerous example for mutual naturalizing of all nations that hereafter fall into the subjection of the king, although very remote, in that their mutual commonalty of privileges may disorder the settled government of every of the particulars.48

At this early stage, England used common law principles to protect herself from the cultural and political uniformity of a virtual empire that was physically remote and

44 MD Walters, ‘Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut (1705–1773) and the Legal Status of Aboriginal Customary Laws and Government in British North America’ (1995) 33 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 785, 793. 45 The British Crown employed two agencies in the work of colonisation: the corporation and the proprietor. See generally, HL Osgood, ‘The Proprietary Province as a Form of Colonial Government’ Part I (1897) 2 American Historical Review 644. HL Osgood, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (New York, Columbia University Press, 1904) Volume II Part III Chapter VI; HL Osgood, ‘The Corporation as a Form of Colonial Government’ (1896) 11 Political Science Quarterly 259. 46 They could not, however, invoke a precedent that was non-existent in the province. See for instance, E Moglen, ‘Settling the Law. Legal Development in Provincial New York’ (unpublished dissertation, 1998) http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/stl 19. 47 Robert Calvin, a Scot born after the accession of James to the English throne, sued for the recovery of land in England that he claimed to have inherited. The decision held that those Scots born after James became King of England were not aliens, despite the fact that they were not under the authority of English Parliament and they lived under separate law in Scotland. On the important consequences of the Calvin case for the colonies, see especially, B Black, ‘The Constitution of Empire: the Case for the Colonists’ (1976) 124 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1157. 48 DJ Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire. New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1644–1830 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press and American Society for Legal History, 2005) 21.

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detached from English traditions. Conversely, there was also a generally accepted ‘jurisdictional conception of law’ in the provinces, such that a New Yorker was always entitled to a local legal forum. Overseas common law constitutionalism offered further means for establishing a protected legal space, a defence against invasive legislation of the British Parliament.49 In contrast to Spanish colonisation of the South, the British did not aim to create legal geographical spaces as such. Nevertheless, both the British Empire and its colonies were ethnocentric in their aspirations.50 For example, the British Empire only intervened in legal or political conflicts with the Native Americans when they involved a British subject. There were exceptions to the legal exclusion of indigenous people. The Mohegan case originated in a dispute over land between the province of Connecticut and the Mohegan Indians. In 1704, through their English ‘guardians’, the Mohegan Indians petitioned the Crown that certain transactions regarding their land had been made illegally. In its defence, the province of Connecticut claimed that the Native Americans were subject to colonial law and colonial courts.51 The Crown established in this case a Royal Commission to decide over the dispute. For the Royal Commissioner, the Natives were a distinct people, thus subject to the law of nature and the law of nations. The hearing of such international disputes fell under the jurisdiction of Royal Commissions, and not of local courts.52 Evidently the solution on this particular question determined the extension of the autonomy of the provinces and therefore, neither the Crown nor the colonies wanted to deliver their legal position on it. Under common law, the King had the dominium of the land, and as such controlled every purchase of land from the Natives through the governors.53 This was particularly striking because, properly speaking, not only the territory belonged to the Native Americans, but culturally they belonged to the territory, and the

49

ibid 36. Clinton speaks of ‘the characteristic ethnocentric British failure to understand Indian political and legal structures’; although the British did not seek to govern the political structure of the Aboriginal people, ‘they nevertheless profoundly affected Indian life through trade and diplomacy’: Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 363. 51 In 1640 the Mohegan chiefs ceded to English settlers all their lands except a reserve for farming and hunting. In 1659 they ceded to Major John Mason the reserved land and his heirs in trust for the whole Mohegan tribe ‘as their Protector and Guard’. The next year Mason transferred the lands to the colonial government under the condition that it would reserve sufficient land to the Mohegan when open to settlement. The Mohegan claimed that the transaction was invalid because they had not participated in it. During almost a century, in successive appeals to the Crown the Mohegan and Mason’s heirs claimed that the latter held the reserved land in trust for Mohegan use. In 1705 the Crown through an appointed commission invalidated the transaction. After appeal by the colony in 1743, a commission of review overturned the decision of 1705. The Mohegan Indians appealed this decision to the Privy Council. In 1772, without written reasons the Privy Council reported to the Crown that the decision of 1743 be affirmed. In 1773 the Crown confirmed the decision of the Privy Council. See MD Walters, ‘Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut (1705–1773) and the Legal Status of Aboriginal Customary Laws and Government in British North America’ (n 44) 803−805. 52 Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 336. 53 DJ Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire. New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1644–1830 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press and American Society for Legal History, 2005). 50

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jurisdiction over it was and is held in trust by the chiefs.54 Despite ‘the strong self-interest of colonial government’, British law increasingly sought to assure the Native Americans of a continued right of occupancy of their lands.55 With the French in the north and west, and to a lesser extent the Spanish in the south, competing for trade, land and influence over the Native Americans, the security of the Empire—as reports of the Board of Trade show—was decisive in later efforts to protect Native Americans and to establish a uniform policy in relation to them.56 Aggressive settlers in the marshland were always on the verge of offending and violating the rights of the Native Americans, opposing the interests of the Native Americans and the Empire. Thus the delicate question of the legality of land grants or de facto settlements also divided the Empire and the provincials. The British in the metropolis were willing to acknowledge a de facto control of parcel and purchase of land by the Native Americans. The pace of settlement, much to the displeasure of the provincials, was thus determined by the geopolitics of the Empire.57 Following 150 years of British colonial experience in North America, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 established a boundary line ‘for the present’—that is, without prejudice for future unilateral changes—dividing the territories of Native Americans and the European Colonies. It was the first legal demarcation of the British exclusive settlement and of domains reserved exclusively for the occupancy of the western Native American tribes.58 These were now geographical legal spaces. But they retained their ethnocentric character: the geo-legal space created by the British, in which the Natives were cartographic outsiders, was to be governed by the imperial rule of law. The Native Americans were permitted certain selfgovernment within their temporal spaces, although the Crown contemplated the possibility of imperial agents living among them.59 The possibility of controlling the Native Americans from the inside was essential for the security of the Empire. However, the colonists did not respect the segregated spaces of the indigenous tribes and the Empire, and the Empire—concerned with other immediate interests than the Indigenous affairs after the peace with France—did not pursue an effective implementation of the Royal Proclamation.60 In less than 15 years, the War of Independence had begun.

54

J Tully, ‘Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground’ (n 35) 164. Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 331. In view of the dispute with France over control of trade with the Five Nations Iroquois Confederation, the Board of Trade reported to the Queen in 1709 that ‘it is absolutely necessary for the security of the Province of New York, and the rest of your Majesty’s Dominions in that part of America that the five Nations of Indians be preserved and maintained in their subjection to the Crown of Great Britain as formerly.’ Quoted by Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 337. 57 Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire (n 53) 100–101. 58 Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 356. 59 At different moments this was proposed by the imperial agents in the province of New York, for example by William Johnson, and contemplated by the Board of Trade in a report to the Crown in 1764; see Clinton, ‘The Proclamation of 1763’ (n 34) 353, 358–59. 60 ibid 360. 55 56

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Who Is Sovereign? The Re-Design of an Imperial Order and the Dawn of Modernity in the British Realm The incoherent origins of the British Empire’s presence in North America were a reflection of England’s internal political strife. This was fuelled by the existence of two conflicting official versions of the constitutional theory of the British Empire: on the one hand, assertions of royal prerogative and, on the other, sovereign claims by the Parliament. Within the British Realm, the royal prerogative was evidently limited after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. However, this did not prevent the king from issuing royal proclamations for the colonies until the very last days before the revolution in North America (1775). Consciousness of a parliamentary sovereignty in the realm gradually increased during the eighteenth century. This was evident once the Crown became dependent on Parliament for its financial and military resources, prompting Parliament to exercise its rights to make law for the colonies.61 But whether the law was presented as royal or parliamentary, it was imperial, and thus increasingly identified with a new liberal imperial order. The outcome of the power struggle between King and Parliament would ultimately give Parliament absolute sovereignty over the British Empire. Among the strategies adopted by the Parliamentarians, characterising the common law as a law formed by a de-localised set of transcendental principles that nonetheless admitted change over time was especially favoured.62 Common law was transformed into a barrier against absolutism and also into a lingua franca of the Empire.63 Through their reasoning, lawyers would breathe life into and take custody of these fundamental laws.64 In the ancient legal and religious tradition of England, the claims of an absolutist king were not only illegal but also against God.65 While Philip II was crafting his godly cities for men in South America, the equally active Reformation was fragmenting this ideal in the northern European geography. Rather than entrenching power through cartographic presence, the British Empire inaugurated modernity and the mechanics of modern imperial expansion by unfolding law’s scope. From the reign of Henry VIII, the potential for legal challenges by external jurisdictions was nullified. Henry had denied the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, defying the summons to Rome because ‘the King may lawfully disobey the citation.’66 He instructed his agent in Rome to argue according to the principles of Roman law that no jurisdiction could be exercised over the king by an organ extra territorium: ‘a king who does not recognise a superior is free from any outside

61 E Moglen, Settling the Law. Legal Development in Provincial New York (unpublished dissertation, 1998) http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/stl.pdf 270. 62 See JGA Pocok, ‘Burke and the Ancient Constitution – A Problem in the History of Ideas’ (1960) 3 Historical Journal 125. 63 Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire (n 53) 29. 64 cf JGA Pocock, ‘Burke and the Ancient Constitution’, (n 62) 125. 65 ‘Ipse autem rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub deo et sub lege, quia lex facit regem’, which is the formula of Bracton’s conception of kingship. See E Lewis, ‘King Above law? “Quod Principi Placuit” in Bracton’ (1964) 39 Speculum 240, 265–67. 66 W Ullmann, ‘This Realm of England is an Empire’ (1979) 30 Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 186–87.

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jurisdiction.’67 The external battle against Rome was won, but the consequences of establishing independent jurisdiction and power over the political and the ecclesiastical were radical. By the mid-eighteenth century, the British Parliament acting in its legislative capacity had assumed the position of absolute sovereign.68

Hobbes and the Introduction of Self-interest Thomas Hobbes’s recommendation in Leviathan was that governments should not only tame the clergy, but also control the religious expression of citizens through law. The sovereign’s civil authority, the authority of the Leviathan, would rest in the citizens through the constitution of the commonwealth. According to Hobbes, the civil sovereign would be the authority in religious questions, and the authority in civil matters would, in turn, emanate from the citizens constituted in an assembly. In short, the complete jurisdiction over the divine is effectively transferred to the hands of the Leviathan: I conclude therefore, that in all things not contrary to the Morall Law, (that is to say, to the Law of Nature,) all subjects are bound to obey that for divine law, which is declared to be so, by the Lawes of the Commonwealth.69

Ahead of his time, Hobbes proposed a liberal system of the rule of law that united the previously separate theological and civil jurisdictions. His text was nevertheless attuned to the new post-revolutionary legal and intellectual environment of Interregnum England (1648–60), which was marked by a firm belief in the subordination of ecclesiastical authority to state power and by the promotion of religious tolerance and religious scepticism.70 A key issue for the transformations envisaged by Hobbes was the re-definition of the ‘relationship between the corporate church and the modernising English state.’71 Another concern was who or what would occupy the position left by a universal divine experience. In post-Restoration England, the Anglican Church would be safely identified with the English nation and thus with her political organisation. However, the first attempts at building a cosmopolitan Empire in which religious diversity—if only Christian diversity—prevailed, suggested that a greater free rein of authority was at the disposal of the rulers of the Empire than to the rulers of England. Indeed, in the absence of an imperial Church, the British Empire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries embodied the ideal situation depicted in Leviathan, in which the temporal sphere dominates the

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ibid 187. Black, ‘The Constitution of Empire’ (n 47) 1210–11; Hulsebosch, Constituting Empire (n 53) 39. 69 T Hobbes, E Curley (ed) Leviathan (Indianapolis,Hackett Publishing, 1994) 199. 70 JR Collins, The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 48. 71 ibid 205; A Orford, ‘International law and the Making of the Modern State: Reflections on a Protestant Project’ (2008) 3 In-Spire: Journal of Law, Politics and Societies 5. 68

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former spiritual jurisdictions.72 Accordingly, the transcendental experience in legal formulae disappeared and law became a metaphysical, self-sustaining law. By rejecting the role of religious faith in government, Hobbes introduced a new dogma to political philosophy: the credo of self-interest.73 Following Hobbes, the notion appears as a foundational element in philosophical and political theory and in the practice of a commercial and secular Empire. Famously, Hobbes declared that a commonwealth is generated through a causality of interests. Building a commonwealth is the only way that human beings have to defend themselves against invasion by foreigners and attacks upon each other, and the only way to secure the production of industry and farming. The introduction of ‘that restraint upon themselves’, in which ‘we see’ human beings ‘live in Commonwealths’ is ‘the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby’.74 To protect their interests, they ‘may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will’.75 In a Hobbesian commonwealth, the reason to obey is protection. If protection ceases, the self-interest of the individual makes her free to turn to self-protection.76 Contrary to the opinion of Aristotle, who sustained that there are two regimes, one for the advantage of the ruler and another to the advantage of the subjects, Hobbes claimed that ‘all the advantages and disadvantages of the regime itself are the same for ruler and subject alike and are shared by both of them.’77 The ‘first and greatest advantage’ that Hobbes alludes to in this passage is ‘peace and defence, and it is the same for both’. In the specific question of taxes, to which tradition attributes the loss of the colonies in North America, Hobbes thinks that if the ruler extracts ‘only what the administration of government requires, that is equally advantageous for himself and the citizens for their common peace and defence.’78 The psychology of self-interest made Hobbes personally prefer the monarchy because private and public interests more easily coincide in the person of the monarch than in the members of an assembly: The King must be carefull in his politique person to procure the common interest, yet he is more, or no less carefull to procure the private good of himselfe, his family, kindred and friends; and for the most part, if the interest chance to crosse the private, he prefers the

72 Strong explains that the Anglican Church maintained a strict partnership with the state until the constitutional revolution of 1828–32. By the 1840s, the ‘fundamental Episcopalian identity for an imperial Anglicanism was more readily achievable once the Church of England had adopted a new self-directing identity, initiated at the metropolitan centre, and taken up also in the colonial peripheries, which no longer looked to the old paradigm of a partnership with the state, which had prevailed until then.’ R Strong, Anglicanism and the British Empire, c. 1700–1850 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 290. 73 About the position of Hobbes as part and leader of a tradition see A Cromartie, ‘Harringtonian Virtue: Harrington, Machiavelli, and the Method of the Moment’ (1998) 41 The Historical Journal 987. 74 Hobbes, Leviathan (n 69) 117. 75 ibid 120. 76 ibid 153. 77 S Moller Okin, ‘The Sovereign and His Counsellours: Hobbes’s Reevaluation of Parliament’ (1982) 10 Political Theory 49, 69. 78 T Hobbes, R Tuck (ed) and M Silverthorne (ed) On the Citizen – Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 116–17 (emphasis added).

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private: for the Passions of men are commonly more potent than their Reason. From whence it follows that where the publique and private interest are most closely united, there is the publique most advanced.79

What is remarkable about this passage is Hobbes’ substitution of theological language by a language of interests. By the mid-eighteenth century, the rule of law in the British Empire had already acquired one notably modern characteristic: representation was neither derived from the divine body of the king nor was it any longer conceived along traditional geographical principles. The new law was based in the abstract representation assumed to exist through de facto authority and the universality of self-interest.80 Its imperial dimension was not based on the peoples of the different territories, although England and its colonies did possess representative assemblies in the traditional sense. Rather, the representation of the Empire increasingly adopted the model proposed in the Leviathan:81 a covenant by which the English citizens of the Empire had entered the polity of the Empire for reasons of self-interest.82 In this way, the law was based on the authority of the sovereign and sovereignty was based on the law of the Empire. In spite of all the elaborate theories about the origin of the commonwealth by Hobbes and subsequent liberals, the subjects and society of this model have no telos. The earlier Christian and humanist language of perfection was replaced by an obscure secular version of transcendental order. Self-interest replaced the need to materialise perfection in spatial terms. Self-interest became the credo of a new civil religion and the new intangible, yet resilient, universal for the Empire. In the year of Leviathan’s publication, the laws that became the foundation of the commercial identity of the Empire were passed. The Navigation Acts, which aimed to control the Empire and its commerce, contained protective measures for fostering English shipping during times of peace: all the commerce of the colonies was required to pass through England and take place solely on English ships—a system that lasted until the nineteenth century.83 The issue was no longer sovereignty of the seas, but

79 Hobbes, Leviathan (n 69) 131; S Moller Okin, ‘The Sovereign and His Counsellours: Hobbes’s Reevaluation of Parliament’ (1982)10 Political Theory 49, 51–53. Like other supporters of popular rights in the 17th century, Hobbes did not claim sovereignty for the Parliament—something that, paradoxically, demonstrates signs of modernity in his doctrine. Cf J Neville Figgis, ‘Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century’, in AW Ward, GW Prothero and S Leathes (eds), The Wars of Religion (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1904) 748–49. 80 Q Skinner, ‘Hobbes on Representation’ (2005) 13 European Journal of Philosophy 155. 81 Black pinpoints the shift in theory through which the Parliament became supreme authority to the mid-eighteenth century, while Goebel, like many others, signals the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and some others to the Commonwealth Act of 1649. Black, ‘The Constitution of Empire’ (n 47) 1210–11. What we have tried to show here is that the seed was already planted by 1651, with the modern notion of law offered in the Leviathan and even in some of Hobbes’s previous works. 82 A fact, which might explain the loss of the North American colonies, since as Moglen explains, they and the Empire had strikingly opposed interests. See E Moglen, Settling the Law. Legal Development in Provincial New York (n 46). 83 RG Marsden, ‘Early Prize Jurisdiction and Prize Law in England’ (1911) 26 The English Historical Review 34, 39.

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monopoly of trade and effective policing of the sea.84 What is remarkable is that the English Parliament inaugurated a legal system for all the territories of the Empire designed for times of peace with enforcement capability to prosecute offenders of any nation in violation of the Acts. Self-interest and absolute authority over divine and civil jurisdictions, embodied in trade and independence, provided the new coordinates for the order of the Empire.

REFLECTIONS ON EMPIRE, PUBLIC ORDER AND THE SACRED

Humanism, Empire and International Law An analysis of the legal and political projects of colonisation in North and South America reveals a desire by European sovereigns to create a new public order in the new continent. As is characteristic of imperial projects, both empires were compelled by a redemptive idea.85 In the complicated terrain of faith and governmentality in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spain and England each played a crucial role in the inauguration of modernity. For them, the New World was the revolutionary extension of the Old World’s territory, a place where it was possible to implement their political projects and to create the foundations of an international law that made sense of their world views and their ideas of order.86 In both the North and South, robbery, pillage, slavery and abuses of indigenous people and colonists alike were accompanied by the ideal of starting anew, of a governmental system that must improve on the existing systems in Spain and England. These new spaces were a great studio in which to experiment with new political ideas: in the South, godly cities for men; in the North, rational jurisdictions of liberty and commerce. The desire for renewal that inflamed European minds is evident in the way in which the colonisation of the New World took place. Although material goods typically flowed one-way from the colonies to Spain and England, the empires perceived a transaction to be taking place. In their view, the order brought to the colonial reality was a gift: precious knowledge that had been acquired painfully at home. Spain, in the midst of the counter-reformation, aimed to create godly cities of men. England, after bitter struggles for power between rival political and religious factions, transmitted to America the revolutionary ideal that worldly affairs should take precedence over ecclesiastical and religious matters. In both Spanish and British colonies, subjects participating in the new imperial order were obliged to convert. The indigenous people in the South and the Spanish imperial subjects that administered the colonies required a conversion to enter the 84 WG Grewe, Epochen der Völkerrechtsgeschichte (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1988) 343–45. See also, TC Wade, ‘The Roll De Superioritate Maris Angliae. The Foundations of the Stewart Claim to the Sovereignty of the Sea’ (1921–1922) 2 British Yearbook of International Law 99. 85 Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism’ (n 11) 383. 86 See on the role of colonies in the imperial persue of order, M Foucault, ‘Des Espaces Autres’ (1984) Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 46 www.foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/ foucault.heteroTopia.en.html.

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city. In the North, the indigenous people had to give up everything they had previously owned—beliefs, culture and material goods—if they wanted to participate in the life of the British colony. British colonists who entered the new order of the Empire also had to convert to the new liberalism and commerce of the government. However, the necessity of conversion represents a weakness of the imperial orders, and of the law produced by them. The requirement for conversion makes it apparent that neither empire dominated the law. Neither the Spanish nor the British empires were masters of the law, in the sense that they were unable to craft a superior law that would accept the plurality of their imperial subjects. The Atlantic slave trade, an issue which connected the activities of the English and the Spanish from the mid-1500s,87 exemplifies the theoretical tensions and internal ambiguities of both imperial projects; or to put it in another way, the public order they created was sustained to a large extent by power, rather than by internal coherence. The Spanish Empire believed that order could be created through the design and construction of theological-legal spaces. Even though they were imagined as utopias, these spaces were also mundane arrangements to organise the economy that lubricated the Empire. The desire by the new English order to become absolute sovereign over the secular and the divine produced a liberal Empire under the rule of law. The rise of the English Parliament in the seventeenth century to sovereign of the Empire offered influential social groups the possibility of preserving their economic interests, and to promote free trade, even in human beings. For this reason, the Atlantic slave trade escalated dramatically in the early eighteenth century.88 The Spanish, for whom the slave trade conditioned to a great extent the pursuit of the Empire, were actively engaged in this commercial enterprise with the English.89 In dark contrast to the ideal of the imperial cities of God and to the pursuit of human flourishing through representation without subjection to a superior being, the slave trade demonstrates that both the Spanish and the British Empire denied the practicability of their own legal orders. Despite the theological tenor of the Spanish project, the British and the Spanish empires’ expansive territorial ventures heralded the great anthropocentric shift that occurred in the political philosophy of modern Europe. The antipathy towards the notion of considering God as an agent of human history is made explicit in the secularisation programme pursued by the British Empire.90 The absorption of the religious into the civil jurisdiction at the beginning of the British Empire eventually confined the religious to the private conscience, and erased all references to the sacred from the public sphere. As we have seen, there was some hesitancy about the way in which sovereignty would be implemented during the shift of authority’s locus from King to Parliament. From the outset, however, the British clearly

87 See generally, JA Rawley and SD Behrendt, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2005) 55. 88 See especially, WA Pettigrew, ‘Parliament and the Escalation of the Slave Trade, 1690–1714’ (2007) 26 Parliamentary History 12. 89 Rawley and Behrendt, The Transatlantic Slave Trade (n 87) 5. 90 C Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge MA, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007) 270.

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favoured a secular imperial public order. In the Spanish conquest, the rejection of divine agency was more subtle, but nonetheless apparent in the planners’ aim to supplant God’s role. The colonisation of the New World demonstrates that both empires drew strength from humanism. The notion of humanism invoked here embraces both transcendent humanism, which transferred the power of God to human beings as divine agents that would construct terrestrial cities of God, and immanent humanism that adhered to the new philosophy of self-interested universalism.91 This does not mean that humanism is a bad thing, or that humanism is equivalent to empire, but rather that the two imperial legal expansions examined in this article can be identified as humanist projects. As argued by Koskenniemi, the most imperialist aspect of international law is its humanist civilising mission.92 In a recent article based on a psychoanalytical interpretation of international law, Jouannet traces the long tradition of imperialist search for a universal in international law to the common view that locates human nature between passion and reason.93 This dualist interpretational grid of human nature has been a constant in Western philosophy dating back to Plato’s commitment to the attainment of our highest state in a condition beyond the body, which is viewed as a hindrance that must be controlled and disciplined in this life.94 Drawing on the work of Nathaniel Berman on the relationship of international law and the psychoanalytical study of human nature, Jouannet argues that the constitutive ambivalence of human identity is mirrored in the ways that international law has sought to mask the hegemonic passions latent in actions taken by the League of Nations and the United Nations: from Upper Silesia to Saarland, and more recently in places such as Kosovo, Palestine and Bosnia. On the other hand, the rational has more often appeared in the form of the authoritarian approach to a crisis, like the recent war of Iraq, with a claim to the objectivity of the rules of international law and the legal discourse deployed during the invasion.95 Jouannet’s analysis reflects important imperial tendencies of the past and current searches for order in international law, some of which we have identified in this paper. A Global Public Order? Teitel describes the increasing constructive international rule of law, which she identifies with the merger of the laws of war and human rights legal systems, as ‘a 91

cf with M Hardt and A Negri, Empire (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2000) 91–92. See for example, M Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870–1960 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism’ (n 11) 403. 93 Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism’ (n 11) 403–407. 94 Taylor, A Secular Age (n 90) 276. See of Plato’s idealism and dualism, H Kelsen, ‘Platonic Justice’ (1938) 48 Ethics 367; For an explanation of Kelsen’s own legal theory in Platonic philosophy, see G Edel, ‘Kantianismus oder Platonismus? Hypothesis als Grundbegriff der Philosophie Cohens’ (1991) 1/2 Il Cannochiale. Revista di studi filosofi 59. 95 Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism’ (n 11) 403–405. See also, N Berman, ‘A Perilous Ambivalence: Nationalist Desire, Legal Autonomy, and the Limits of the Interwar Framework’ (1992) 33 Harvard International Law Journal 353. 92

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shift of paradigm in international law’.96 She claims that a depoliticised legalist language of rights and wrongs, which has gradually supplanted the previous discourse centred on state interests, consensus and deliberation, has been effectively extended by new bodies of the judiciary type through penetration of existing legal sovereign entities. This phenomenon can be compared with the situation under imperial law, when the law of nations understood itself as extraterritorial law, and assumed that it was capable of influencing or cancelling local politics. Beyond the recurrent appearance of hegemonic politics in the international order, there have been new sources of inspiration to rethink the concept of international law. Previous notions of the international legal system have shown how it is insufficient, unless it can be renovated by attempting to include deliberative democracy as a primary value in international governance. The argument that international law has moved beyond pure bilateralism is convincing.97 In this context, enhancing the legitimacy of international law means, for example, the strengthening of national parliaments’ influence over foreign relations, an area traditionally monopolised by heads of government.98 These arguments make clear that a public order, which aims to be global, and therefore not imperialistic, must incorporate a methodology and an ideology of democratic participation. In an era of globalisation, the aspiration for a public global order remains— despite doctrinal differences—an important common goal. We argue that the re-thinking of international law and of a global public order should not seek to revive redemptive imperial plans, but instead acknowledge the proliferation of pseudo-juridical relations on a global scale, all of them interacting in a state of quasi-anarchy. In the absence of a purposive common good in international society, with the political division of the world in more than 200 states, the very notion of a global public order may very well function as a common good.99 The attribute of commonness in this good is neither irrelevant nor incidental. The notion of commonness contains also an ideal of tolerance, of accepting something as common and consenting to something that may offend individual interests.100 In short, it means adopting the opposite attitude that the empires took in their creation of public order. The imperial position in the production of order was to silence (through action or omission) the dissenting voice. Today, it is hard to imagine even the skeleton of a global public order without a spirit of tolerance for diversity. Legal efficiency should also give way to an attitude of tolerance to what is idiosyncratic in the foreign. Von Bogdandy has noted that to postulate utopian ideas—that is, laws without a locus in space—as legal principles, harms the

96 See generally, RG Teitel, ‘Humanity’s Law: Rule of Law for the New Global Politics’ (2002) 35 Cornell International Law Journal 355. 97 B Kingsbury, The International Legal Order (NYU Law School, 2003, Public Law Research Paper No 01–04; IILJ Working Paper No 2003/1) http://ssrn.com/abstract=692626 or DOI: 10.2139/ ssrn.692626. 98 Wolfrum and Röben, Legitimacy in International Law (n 4) 23. 99 J Klabbers, ‘Constitutionalism and the Making of International Law: Fuller’s Procedural Natural Law’ (2008) 5 No Foundations. Journal of Extreme Legal Positivism 84, 102 para 6. www.helsinki.fi/ nofo. In this regard, Wolfrum considers that international law has developed its own system of values: Wolfrum and Röben, Legitimacy in International Law (n 4) 24. 100 JHH Weiler, Una Europa Cristiana (Madrid, Ediciones Encuentro 2003) 136.

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normativity of law.101 To put it differently, tolerance of non-Western, non-secular principles that have a topos in large territories and communities would promote the strength of international normativity. As we have seen, the imposition of utopian ideals by force and the destruction of indigenous principle within colonised territories was the way for the British and Spanish Empires to protect their validity of law. In this regard, current critiques of the anti-pluralism of a supposedly international order are meaningful and rich: at present, there is a risk that important pieces of international legislation will remain insignificant speeches to the greater part of the world’s population, which does not share the liberal values and aspirations that are promoted by the prevailing international order.102 Along the same vein, there is an urgent need in global jurisprudence to give greater weight and consideration to international affairs that do not involve one of the superpowers: commonness means also common interest.103 Although there are several territorial international unions of states with an important level of interaction between their members, such as the African Union, the Commonwealth and the Organization of American States, there is also reason to encourage the study of publicness in the European Union experience. The European Union has produced a wealth of legal principles concerning the relationship between the Union and its member states, which could enrich the core of a global public order in international law. Moreover the European Union has often managed to organise and channel public authority over private interests and powers.104 However, it is suggested here that in two particular important features of a global public order, inspiration should be sought in other places. First, there should be a serious interrogation about the role of the sacred in the European public sphere, and secondly about the notion of reason on which the European Union normative tradition is based. In his exploratory essay Un’Europa Cristiana, Weiler highlights the importance of learning the spirit of tolerance, which was conspicuously absent in ‘the imperial constitutional politics’ that surrounded the drafting of the treaty for a Constitution of Europe.105 An important reason for this is that in the European constitutional tradition, the sacred has been judged by modern reason to lie outside rational discourse and therefore relegated outside the public sphere.106 The key expression in this latter sentence is ‘modern reason’, whose genesis lies in the consolidation of the Spanish and British Empires. We suggest that a broader notion of reason than the one offered by modernity may be

101 A von Bogdandy, ‘General Principles of International Public Authority: Sketching a Research Field’ (2008) 9 German Law Journal 1909, 1913. 102 See H Charlesworth, ‘The Challenges of Human Rights for Religious Traditions’ in MW Janis and C Evans (eds), Religion and International Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1999). 103 cf, eg, the wealth of scholarly literature regarding the International Court of Justice’s decisions on Military and Paramilitary Activities and Oil Platform cases, where the United States was a party, to the scant attention received by Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo v Uganda), B Kingsbury and J Weiler, ‘Preface: Studying the Armed Activities Decision’ (2008) 40 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 2. 104 von Bogdandy, ‘General Principles of International Public Authority (n 101) 1909, 1916. 105 Weiler, Una Europa Cristiana (n 100) 50. 106 JHH Weiler, ‘La tradición judeo–cristiana entre fe y libertad’ in J Ratzinger et al Dios salve la razón (n 1) 196.

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useful for the consideration of a global public order. Modern reason might at this juncture make room for a reason that is able to deal with the transcendental, a sacred order that does not cancel difference, diversity or dissent. In legal philosophy, modern reason has attempted to substitute the sacred by ideals embodied in reason, passions, economy and humanity.107 Each of these has been integrated in previous paradigms of international public law, even though each of them arises periodically in constant struggle with each other.108 A possible way to avoid legal absolutism is to admit a notion of reason that is free from the need to worship the inanimate. The global public sphere would be better represented by a broader conception of publicness in which the sacred is possible. This can occur only when the public order does not aim to integrate the civil and the theological jurisdictions into one. The experiences of the Spanish and British Empires demonstrate that integration results in one of the two jurisdictions thriving at the expense of the other: the English and the Spanish took an either/or position on this question, and used religion instrumentally as a legitimising or delegitimising factor of previous legal orders. In both cases, imperial subjects were required to convert in an un-free total acceptance or total rejection of the sacred in the public sphere. It is doubtful that similar imperialistic positions can be maintained today. Only a global public order that is open to the sacred (perhaps through dialogue as endless contingency) has resonances of what we would accept as truly democratic.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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107 J Milbank, ‘Geopolitical Theology. Economy Religion and Empire after 9/11’ 27, www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php. 108 Another way to put this idea is to refer to the fragmentation of International Law, see ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (United Nations, A/CN.4/L.682, 2006).

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B Rajagopal, ‘Martti Koskenniemi’s “From Apology to Utopia: A Reflection”’ (2006) 7 German Journal of International Law 1089–94. Q Skinner, ‘Hobbes on Representation’ (2005) 13 European Journal of Philosophy 155–84. RG Teitel, ‘Humanity’s Law: Rule of Law for the New Global Politics’ (2002) 35 Cornell International Law Journal 355–87. J Tully, ‘Aboriginal Property and Western Theory: Recovering a Middle Ground’ (1994) 11 Social Philosophy & Policy 153–80. A von Bogdandy, ‘General Principles of International Public Authority: Sketching a Research Field’ (2008) 9 German Law Journal 1909–38. TC Wade, ‘The Roll De Superioritate Maris Angliae. The Foundations of the Stewart Claim to the Sovereignty of the Sea’ (1921–1922) 2 British Yearbook of International Law 99–108. MD Walters, ‘Mohegan Indians v. Connecticut (1705–1773) and the Legal Status of Aboriginal Customary Laws and Government in British North America’ (1995) 33 Osgoode Hall Law Journal 785–829. JHH Weiler, ‘The Geology of International Law – Governance, Democracy and Legitimacy’ (2004) 64 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 547–62.

Working Papers B Kingsbury, The International Legal Order (NYU Law School, Public Law Research Paper No 01–04; IILJ Working Paper No 2003/1).

Websites Sources M Foucault, ‘Des Espaces Autres’ Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 46–49 www.foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html. R Londoño, ‘En las nubes de Bogotá’ www.bogotacomovamos.org/scripts/ contenido.php?idCnt=1. J Milbank, ‘Geopolitical Theology. Economy Religion and Empire after 9/11’ www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php. E Moglen, ‘Settling the Law. Legal Development in Provincial New York’ (unpublished dissertation) http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/stl.pdf.

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Of Headscarves, Mosques and Occidental Values Does International Law Require a Culturally Neutral State?* NICOLA WENZEL **

INTRODUCTION

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ESTERN STATES HAVE had to cope with the cultural diversity of their populations, arising from migration, for some time.1 Claims of immigrants, who want to become part of the majority population without altogether abandoning central aspects of their cultural identity, have raised awareness of the fact that the public domain is not a culturally neutral sphere.2 Rather, the dominant national group uses the power instruments of the state to promote its cultural bonds. All public institutions and the whole public space are imprinted with a particular national identity: laws and regulations that seem at first glance to be culturally neutral are in fact culturally biased. Official language laws, a nationalised system of compulsory education with a curriculum focused on the dominant group’s language, literature and history, national cultural institutions, state symbols, national holidays, official dress codes, even street names are all evidence of ‘banal nationalism’3 that favours the majority culture and forces immigrants to abandon parts of their own culture and assimilate. This assimilation pressure has been met with an increasing assertiveness on the part of immigrants. They demand the recognition and accommodation of their cultural identity within the framework of the state. The answer to these claims has most often been what I will call identity politics: special norms or exemptions from

* This chapter was last updated in November 2008 ** Dr jur, Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Public International and Comparative Law, Heidelberg. I thank Viktoriya Bezdenezhnykh for her invaluable research assistance. 1 The term ‘culture’ is used here as describing a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and as encompassing, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs. See the preamble to the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2002) 41 International Legal Materials 57 et seq. 2 M Koenig/P de Guchteneire, ‘Political Governance of Cultural Diversity’ in M Koenig et al (eds), Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007) 3, 4 et seq. 3 Billig uses the term to describe those ideological habits which enable established nations to be reproduced: M Billig, Banal Nationalism (London, Sage Publications, 1995) 6.

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generally applicable laws and regulations that are specifically designed to accommodate immigrants’ cultural identities. Examples include the exemption of Sikhs from wearing a helmet when motorcycling, placing a cemetery at the disposal of Muslims in which burials may take place according to Islamic rites, or dispensation from attending classes on immigrants’ religious holidays. The willingness of states to adopt such identity politics naturally varies. Whereas some states are rather hesitant, some traditional countries of immigration, namely Canada and Australia, have gone so far as to include the accommodation of cultural diversity as an element of national identity.4 In the wake of 11 September 2001 and the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, however, observance of multicultural standards for Muslim immigrants is dwindling. As intercultural conflicts over the building of mosques, the wearing of headscarves in public schools or the crime rate of immigrant youngsters worsen, even traditional immigrant countries are faced with calls for the end of the ‘preferential treatment’ enjoyed by this group of immigrants.5 More fundamentally, states are challenged to find ways to hold diverse populations together. To do this, states tend to rely on the majority population’s culture. The majority population’s cultural identity serves as basis for national unity and solidarity. Immigrants are expected to adapt to this culture.6 Symptomatic of this trend is the notion of Leitkultur, or ‘defining culture’, that has shaped the political debate in Germany. Legislators have followed suit. They have attempted to actively favour the majority culture in public life by adopting norms that are more or less openly culturally biased. With the aim of impeding women who wear headscarves from teaching in public schools, several German Länder have, for example, enacted laws that prohibit the wearing of religious insignia by teachers in public schools, while including exemptions for religious insignia that form part of the Christianoccidental tradition or that are expressive of Christian-occidental values.7 In the same vain, the province of Kärnten in Austria has been trying to prevent the building of mosques in rural areas, by obliging the competent authorities to refuse to grant a building licence if a newly created special commission considers the building project to differ considerably from ‘local building traditions’.8 Such norms are an expression of so-called inverse identity politics. In contrast to traditional identity politics, which are a means of accommodating immigrants’ cultural identities, inverse identity politics are directed against immigrants’ cultural

4 Both countries have labelled their efforts as multiculturalism policy; see the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 and the 1999 New Agenda for Multicultural Australia: United in Diversity. 5 A good example is Quebec, where a Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences has been established in response to public discontent concerning the accommodation of immigrant identities. See http://www.accommodements.qc.ca/ (last accessed 22 April 2009). For an explanation of the reasons for the retreat from multiculturalism for Muslim immigrants, see W Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 92 et seq, 118 et seq, 124 et seq.. 6 S Ferrari, ‘Individual Religious Freedom and National Security in Europe after September (2004) 11’ Brigham Young University Law Review 357, 377. 7 For an overview of legislation in the different Länder see S Baer, ‘Staatliche Neutralität und Toleranz in der Christlich-abendländischen Wertewelt’ (2005) 58 Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 243 et seq. 8 For information on the draft law see http://kaernten.orf.at/stories/252330/.

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identities and favour the majority population’s culture. Inverse identity politics have not gone unchallenged, and in many cases have been modified and tempered by national courts. Nevertheless, their accumulation in recent years warrants an exploration into the position of international law9 as to these issues. Does international law prescribe the accommodation of immigrant identities? Does international law impose limits on states’ promotion of their own cultural identities? Behind these questions about the need for identity politics and the legality of inverse identity politics lies a more general question which I will seek to address: does international law require cultural neutrality? At first sight, to ask such a question seems preposterous. After all, the formation and promotion of a national identity based on a nation’s culture is a matter so close to the core of statehood and sovereignty that the rule of non-intervention in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of states unequivocally seems to apply. This first assessment is corroborated by the Friendly Relations Declaration, which explicitly acknowledges the applicability of the principle of non-intervention with respect to a people’s national identity.10 At the same time, the Friendly Relations Declaration, as well as Articles 1 ICCPR and ICESCR, include the right for all peoples to freely pursue their cultural development as part of the right of self-determination.11 Nevertheless, it is not implausible that international law regulates the way states deal with cultural diversity arising from migration. In fact, two international law regimes may help to answer the three questions on cultural neutrality: the emerging international law of cultural diversity and international human rights law. I will examine these two areas of international law in turn.

THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Recent years have seen the emergence of culture as a topic of international concern. The international community has propagated multiculturalism through the publication and promotion of best practices.12 UNESCO has taken up a strong stance on cultural diversity with the adoption of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on

9 European Union law is excluded from review. On the implications of EU migration law for national integration policies, see R Cholewinski, ‘Migrants as Minorities: Integration and Inclusion in the Enlarged European Union’ (2005) 43 Journal of Common Market Studies 695 et seq; G Toggenburg, ‘Who is Managing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in the European Condominium? The Moments of Entry, Integration and Preservation’ (2005) 43 Journal of Common Market Studies 717, 727 et seq. 10 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, UNGA Res 2625 (XXV) (24 October 1970): ‘The use of force to deprive peoples of their national identity constitutes a violation of their inalienable rights and of the principle of non-intervention.’ 11 On national identity as part of the right to self-determination, see D McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion – The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006) 290. 12 Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys (n 5), 175 et seq.

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Cultural Diversity13 and the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.14 This international law of cultural diversity,15 however, is only at its modest beginnings. This is true in particular for cultural diversity arising from migration. Insofar as multiculturalism is propagated through best practices, relations with indigenous peoples and ‘old minorities’ (in contrast to the ‘new minorities’) formed by immigrants are mainly targeted.16 The non-binding UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity has other shortcomings.17 The Declaration affirms cultural diversity as ‘the common heritage of humanity’18 and qualifies its defence as an ethical imperative. States may not deny the existence of cultural diversity and must take steps to ensure that all persons on their territory can live the cultural life of their choice. But the Declaration does not oblige states to follow the Canadian and Australian example and make the accommodation of cultural diversity an element of their national identity. Neither does it prevent states from protecting and promoting their own national culture. Because the concept of cultural diversity implies the equal worth of all cultures, it may be used to justify inverse identity politics. The argument goes as follows: the majority culture is under threat and has to be protected to prevent its disappearance. Therefore, when a state protects the majority culture through inverse identity politics, the state contributes to cultural diversity. From this perspective, the concept of cultural diversity lacks a countermajoritarian tendency. If the UNESCO Declaration, with its vague obligation to protect cultural diversity, on its own thus does not contain the answer to the questions raised above, it might yet be useful in the interpretation of the other international regime that I will now turn to, namely the regime of international human rights.

13 ‘UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity’ (2002) International Legal Materials 41, 57 et seq. 14 On the Convention see H Ruiz Fabri, ‘Jeux dans la Fragmentation: la Convention sur la Promotion de la Diversité des Expressions Culturelles’ (2007) 1 Revue Generale de Droit International Public 43 et seq. 15 See A von Bogdandy, ‘The European Union as Situation, Executive, and Promoter of the International Law of Cultural Diversity – Elements of a Beautiful Friendship’, (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 241, 245 et seq. 16 See for example Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Rec 1735 (2006), para 16.4. An exception is the UNDP Human Development Report 2004 ‘Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World’. 17 The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was adopted to give member states a tool to address the tension between the protection of national cultural artefacts and the principles of free trade in services enshrined in the WTO system and thus is of little help. The Declaration is a precursor to the Convention and was adopted with the same aim in mind, but follows a much broader approach. 18 The concept of common heritage of mankind traditionally governs certain spaces and establishes rules for the management of resources; CC Joyner, ‘Legal Implications of the Concept of the Common Heritage of Mankind’ (1986) 35 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 190 et seq. The implications of the qualification of cultural diversity as common heritage of humanity are as yet unclear.

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Nicola Wenzel INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS

The international law of human rights does not give an outright answer to these questions either. Neither do pronouncements of the human rights treaty bodies reveal any explicit opinion on the question of cultural neutrality. International human rights law does not dictate to states the course to follow in the management of cultural diversity,19 but it does provide a legal framework for state action in this domain. The ensuing constraints limit political options and thus indirectly shape states’ integration policies. Examining the limits imposed by the international law of human rights thus may allow to answer the initial question by way of inference. One obvious consequence of the human rights approach has to be made clear from the beginning: Examining the question of cultural neutrality under human rights aspects necessarily implies that all state policies that have no implications for human rights are permissible. As a consequence, symbolic furtherance of the majority population’s culture in the national anthem, the flag or in the preamble to the national constitution are not prohibited by international law as long as they have no negative impact on the human rights of immigrants. I will now examine step by step the compatibility of identity politics and inverse identity politics with international human rights law.

Interference with the Right to Develop and Maintain a Cultural Identity When states refuse to adopt identity politics, or when they adopt inverse identity politics, they interfere with human rights. My first task will be to identify these rights. International human rights law acknowledges individuals’ right to develop and maintain a cultural identity.20 This right is either provided for explicitly or is inferred from other human rights provisions. Article 27 ICCPR, for example, guarantees for persons belonging to minorities the right to enjoy their own culture. In the opinion of the UNHRC, this provision also applies to aliens.21 The provisions on freedom of religion contained in all major universal and regional human rights conventions protect one aspect of individuals’ cultural identity, namely their religious identity. But the protection of cultural identities has also been inferred from the right for respect of private life contained in Article 8 ECHR, for example, which has been interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as including protection of a minority’s way of life.22 19 W Kälin, ‘Integration of Migrants’ in TA Aleinikoff and V Chetail (eds), Migration and International Legal Norms (The Hague, TMC Asser Press, 2003) 271, 273 et seq, 279. 20 Kälin, ‘Integration of Migrants’ (n 19), 282. 21 UNCHR ‘General Comment 23’ in Note by the Secretariat, Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, UN Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev 1/Add 5 (1994), para 5.2. Most authors additionally require a certain stability and thus a certain length of residence, M Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 2nd edn (Kehl, Engel, 2005) art 27, para 17. 22 Noack et al v Germany (App no 46346/99) ECHR 2000-VI 535 (550). See also Chapman v UK [GC] ECHR 2001-I 41 para 73.

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When states refuse to adopt identity politics, or adopt inverse identity politics, they not only interfere with these cultural human rights, they also interfere with international provisions on the prohibition of discrimination. Whereas measures of inverse identity politics are openly discriminatory, the discrimination inherent in a state’s refusal to adopt identity politics is more subtle. Although seemingly neutral state laws apply equally to all persons and thus do not formally discriminate against immigrants, nevertheless their application may result in indirect discrimination, in the event that it causes stronger disadvantages for immigrants than for the majority population.23 Justification That the refusal to adopt identity politics on the one hand, and the adoption of inverse identity politics on the other hand, interferes with immigrants’ human rights, does not make these measures outright illegal. Rather, interference with human rights protecting cultural identity may be justified if it is in pursuance of a legitimate aim and is proportionate. Discriminatory treatment is permissible if it is justified by reasonable and objective grounds and is proportionate.24 Aims Pursued by the State When states adopt inverse identity politics, their aim by definition is to protect the majority population’s culture. The grounds invoked by states for rejecting claims for identity politics by immigrants in contrast generally are different, and most often belong to the domain of public safety and order. The obligation for motorcyclists to wear helmets, while it interferes with Sikhs’ religiously motivated wearing of turbans, for example, is obviously imposed for security reasons and not with the aim of protecting a national culture. The protection of public safety and order is included in the limitation clauses of the different human rights conventions, and thus definitely constitutes a legitimate aim. With respect to the protection of the majority population’s culture through inverse identity politics, the appraisal is more difficult. Generally speaking, respect for cultural and historical traditions is an integral part of the international system for the protection of human rights. The international system for the protection of human rights operates within a context of a great variety of national cultures. International human rights are designed as minimal standards, but do not offer an integral value system that would allow the international monitoring bodies to develop new standards in controversial cases in 23 Kälin, ‘Integration of Migrants’ (n 19) 275. On the concept of indirect discrimination in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR see J Ringelheim, Diversité culturelle et droits de l’homme, Collection du Centre des Droits de l’Homme de l’Université Catholique de Louvain 5 (Brussels, Bruylant, 2006) 321 et seq. On the concept in the context of the ICCPR see Althammer et al v Austria (ICCPR-Communication No 998/2001), UNCHR UN Doc CCPR/C/78/D/998/2001 para 10.2; Derksen v Netherlands (ICCPRCommunication No 976/2001) UNCHR UN Doc CCPR/C/80/D/976/2001 para 9.3. 24 Kälin, ‘Integration of Migrants’ (n 19), 277; W Kälin, Grundrechte im Kulturkonflikt (Zurich, NZZ-Verlag, 2000) 110 et seq.

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which opinions in the different member states vary widely.25 Rather, states are accorded certain latitude in the implementation of human rights norms in their cultural context. The doctrine of the margin of appreciation developed by the ECtHR26 is a particularly good example of the efforts of international human rights treaty bodies to address the inherent tension between affirming universal rights and respecting the diversity of human cultures.27 More specifically, a few decisions address interferences with human rights by states for the sake of protecting the majority population’s culture. The European treaty bodies have recognised that states pursue a legitimate aim when they protect the majority population’s culture. Most decisions concern specific aspects of a national culture. In a case concerning English authorities’ refusal to allow the wife of an immigrant already living in the UK to join her husband, on the grounds that the marriage was polygamous and the husband already had a wife settled with him in the UK, the European Commission of Human Rights held that the ‘preservation of the Christian based monogamous culture’ dominant in the UK constituted a legitimate aim in the context of Article 8 ECHR.28 More recently, the ECtHR has considered the protection of the national language to be a legitimate aim in the context of Article 8, acknowledging that ‘the official language is … one of the fundamental constitutional values in the same way as the national territory, the organisational structure of the State and the national flag.’29 Explicit references to national culture have remained isolated, however. But in recent decisions, the principles of denominational neutrality in schools30 and secularism as an organising state principle31 have been acknowledged by the Court to constitute legitimate aims.

25 PG Carozza, ‘Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law’ (2003) 97 American Journal of International Law 38, 58 speaks of ‘normative thinness’. 26 Handyside v UK (App no 5493/72) ECHR Series A no 24, 48; Casado Coca v Spain (App no 37928/97) ECHR Series A no 285-A, para 54; Fretté v France (App no 36515/97) ECHR 2002-I 345 paras 40 et seq; F v Switzerland (App no 11329/85) ECHR Series A no 128 para 33: ‘However, the fact that, at the end of a gradual evolution, a country finds itself in an isolated position as regards one aspect of its legislation does not necessarily imply that that aspect offends the Convention, particularly in a field—matrimony—which is so closely bound up with the cultural an historic traditions of each society and its deep-rooted ideas about the family unit.’ 27 See JA Sweeney, ‘Margins of Appreciation: Cultural Relativity and the European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era’ (2005) 54 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 459 et seq. 28 RB v UK (App no 19628/92) EComHR 29 June 1992. 29 Mentzen and Kuharec v Latvia (App nos 71074/01 and 71557/01) ECHR 2004-XII 301. In one case, however, the Court has expressed doubts as to whether the protection of a state’s cultural traditions and historical and cultural symbols may constitute a legitimate aim in the meaning of art 11 para 2: Sidiropoulos et al v Greece (App no 38178/97) ECHR 1998-IV 1594 para 38. 30 Dahlab v Switzerland (App no 42393/98) ECHR 2001-V 447. 31 Leyla Sahin v Turkey [GC] (App no 44774/98) ECHR 2005-XI 173 para 114 et seq; Refah Partisi et al v Turkey [GC] (App nos 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98 and 41344/98) ECHR 2003-II 267 para 67.

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Proportionality The refusal of states to adopt identity politics, on the one hand, and the adoption of inverse identity politics on the other hand, result in the pursuit of different aims, and the proportionality of the interferences has to be judged separately. Identity Politics International human rights treaty bodies have been reluctant to oblige states to grant culture-based exemptions from generally applicable laws and thus adopt identity politics.32 The European Commission on Human Rights for example has decided that the obligation for a teacher to observe normal working hours, which he asserts clash with his attendance at prayers, was compatible with freedom of religion;33 the same applies to the obligation requiring a motorcyclist to wear a crash helmet, which in his view is incompatible with his religious duties.34 In the same vain, the UNHRC has held that the obligation for a Sikh to wear a hard hat as safety headgear during his work as maintenance electrician is justified under Article 18 paragraph 3 ICCPR, and does not constitute a prohibited discrimination in the meaning of Article 26 ICCPR.35 But some of these decisions date back as far as the 1970s, and it is unclear whether they would be upheld today, in the face of increased awareness of the need to protect cultural diversity. A hint that international human rights treaty bodies may become more assertive on culture-based exemptions from neutral state laws can be found in the decision by the ECtHR in the Cha’are Shalom Ve Tsedek case. In this case, the ECtHR held that French law that established an exception to the principle that animals must be stunned before being slaughtered to permit the religiously imposed practice of ritual slaughter gave effect to the freedom of religion provisions.36 To find out whether states’ refusal to adopt identity politics may be justified, the individual’s right to culture on the one hand and the objective pursued by the state on the other hand have to be balanced. In this balancing process, the international law of cultural diversity comes into play. The principles of the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity may be used as a tool of interpretation in the context of human rights conventions. As has been stated before, the UNESCO Declaration calls on states to enable all individuals to live the cultural life of their choice. It thereby adds weight to the claims of immigrants for cultural accommodation in those cases in which cultural accommodation would have no negative impact on the majority population’s culture. The same is true for the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families37

32 In this sense see also Ringelheim, Diversité culturelle (n 23), 167, 169; S Stavros, ‘Freedom of Religion and Claims for Exemption from Generally Applicable, Neutral Laws: Lessons from Across the Pond?’ (1997) 6 European Human Rights Law Review 607, 622. 33 X v UK (App no 7215/75) EComHR DR 22, 27, 34 et seq;.See also Konttinen v Finland (App no 24949/94) EComHR 3 December 1996. 34 X v UK (App no 7215/75) EComHR DR 14, 234, 235. 35 Singh Bindher v Canada (Communication No 208/1986) UNCHR, UN Doc CCPR/C/37/D/208/ 1986 para 6.2. 36 Cha’are Shalom Ve Tsedek v France (App no 27417/95) ECHR 2000-VII 231 para 76. 37 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families UNGA Res 45/158 (18 December 1990) UN Doc A/RES/45/158; see art 31 in particular.

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and the UN Declaration on the Human Rights of Individuals who are not Nationals of the Country in which they Live,38 which stress the right of immigrants to retain their own language, culture and tradition and the states’ obligation to respect their cultural identity. These international instruments may not be used to argue for a general immunity from general laws for immigrants in cases in which their human rights are affected by neutral state laws. But in my opinion, they severely restrict the state’s margin of appreciation. States will have to accommodate immigrants’ cultural identities in certain specific circumstances and will have to adopt identity politics.39 States will have to adopt identity politics in particular if no rights of others are in danger, if the costs are low and the organisational arrangements are possible without complications. Taking into account the reticence of international treaty bodies to impose cultural accommodation, however, it is probable that these bodies will deem the international consensus, on which these instruments are based, insufficiently concrete to impose a particular conduct on states.40 But international treaty bodies should at least use the international law of cultural diversity to impose a procedural obligation on states. States should be obliged to give special consideration to the needs of immigrants when they adopt and implement legislation.41 Thus they will not be allowed to pass lightly over cultural arguments, and will have to demonstrate a certain cultural sensitivity and flexibility. Because of its procedural nature, this obligation is limited. But, eventually, the international consensus on cultural accommodation will become more precise in the future. Then, international human rights treaty bodies may be ready to restrict states’ margin of appreciation in the way proposed above, and thus transform the procedural obligation into a substantive one. Inverse Identity Politics Inverse identity politics involve a clash between the individual’s right to culture and the state’s legitimate interest in protecting its own national culture. In this constellation, the UNESCO Declaration’s effects are neutralised, because it could be invoked on either side of the balance. With respect to inverse identity politics, the Declaration thus is not of much help. But there are decisions of international human rights treaty bodies that deal with measures states adopt to protect their own national culture. Admittedly, the jurisprudence is sparse. But inferences on the relevant aspects in the balancing process may be drawn from it, anyway. In a case concerning freedom of expression, the ECtHR has taken the position that just because a case touches on national symbols and national identity, states do not benefit from a wider margin of appreciation.42 Most pronouncements, however, 38 UN Declaration on the Human Rights of Individuals who are not Nationals of the Country in which they Live UNGA Res 40/144 (13 December 1985) UN Doc A/RES/40/144; see art 5 para 1(f) in particular. 39 See also Ringelheim, Diversité culturelle et droits de l’homme (n 23), 424 et seq for a different reasoning. 40 See, mutatis mutandis, Chapman v UK [GC] (App no 27238/95) ECHR 2001-I,41 para 94. 41 ibid para 96. 42 Stankov and the United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden v Bulgaria (App nos 29221/95 and 29225/95) ECHR 2001-IX 693 para 107.

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concern state neutrality as one aspect of a state’s national culture. The ECtHR has accorded special weight to state neutrality in religious matters. The reason is that the Court sees state neutrality in religious matters as a means of managing religious diversity: ‘The Court has frequently emphasised the State’s role as the neutral and impartial organiser of the exercise of various religions, faiths and beliefs, and stated that this role is conducive to public order, religious harmony and tolerance in a democratic society.’43 In recent decisions in the context of religion, the ECtHR has even gone so far as to interpret the right to freedom of religion as requiring state neutrality in religious matters: ‘However, in exercising its regulatory power in this sphere and in its relations with the various religions, denominations and beliefs, the State has a duty to remain neutral and impartial.’44 The state’s duty of neutrality as conceived by the Court is an open concept; it does not embrace specific manifestations, such as secularism or laïcité, which are expressions of the historical evolution of church– state relations in member states. Rather, it is the consequence of the application of the individual right to freedom of religion, and as such is also inherent in Article 18 ICCPR.45 International freedom of religion provisions are thus no obstacle to a state church or an official religion.46 But this may not result in violation of the freedom of religion or in discrimination of persons who do not accept the official religion.47 Two conclusions may be drawn from this jurisprudence. First, inverse identity politics that are in conflict with the principle of state neutrality in religious matters are incompatible with freedom of religion. Inverse identity politics often use concepts of occidental values and culture to disguise privileges for the Christian faith. The laws in certain German Länder, mentioned before, which prohibit teachers from wearing religious insignia, yet provide for an exemption for symbols that are an expression of occidental values, are a typical example. The reference to cultural values only serves to disguise a privilege for the Christian religion that if it were accorded openly would unequivocally be in conflict with the principle of state neutrality in religious matters.48 Secondly, states’ human rights duty of neutrality in religious matters may not be generalised so as to deduce a general obligation to state neutrality in cultural matters from the international human rights provisions. Such a broad obligation to cultural neutrality would not only be a stranger to international law, which relies

43

Leyla Sahin v Turkey [GC] (App no 44774/98) ECHR 2005-XI 173 para 107 et seq. Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia v Moldova (App no 45701/99) ECHR 2001-XII 81 para 116. See UNCHR ‘General Comment 22’ in Note by the Secretariat, Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies. UN Doc CCPR/C/21/Rev1/Add 4 paras 9, 10. 46 Darby v Sweden (App no 11581/85) EComHR Series A 187 para 45; Ringelheim, Diversité culturelle et droits de l’homme (n 23) 84 et seq 47 Darby v Sweden (App no 11581/85) EComHR Series A 187 para 45; UNCHR ‘General Comment 22’ (n 45), paras 9, 10. See also Waldman v Canada Communication No 694/1996 UNCHR, UN Doc CCPR/C/67/D/694/1996, para 10.6: if a state decides to provide public funding to religious schools, funding has to be available to all schools without discrimination. 48 For a similar argument based on German constitutional law, see H Bielefeldt, ‘Menschenrechte in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft’ (transcript, 2007) 139 et seq. 44 45

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fundamentally on states’ ability to foster their national identity and culture. In addition, a duty for states to remain neutral in cultural matters would be an impossible obligation to fulfil. Nevertheless, what can safely be said is that policies of neutrality in cultural matters will more easily prevail over the conflicting cultural rights of immigrants. Put differently, if a national culture consists in a public sphere regulated by neutral rules that allow the accommodation of different cultures in the common public domain, it will be upheld more easily against conflicting rights to cultural identity. To use the vocabulary developed by Rawls, international human rights favour a public sphere based on a procedural consensus on what is right, rather than on a substantive consensus of what is good.49 When a state furthers the interests of the national culture and adopts inverse identity politics, its public sphere is based on a substantive consensus of what is good. Therefore, the threshold for justifying inverse identity politics is high. International human rights do not rule out the possibility for states to propagate substantive ethical values; states may promote their own national culture, but if this leads to interference with international human rights, such interference will be more difficult to justify.

CONCLUSION

States are not culturally neutral. Even if they do not pursue an active cultural policy, their public sphere is inevitably imbibed with the majority population’s culture. International law respects this fact. It does not require states to be culturally neutral. This preliminary conclusion, however, is subject to two qualifications. First, states must acknowledge and if necessary counterbalance the disadvantages for immigrants arising from the application of seemingly neutral laws that, in reality, are culturally biased, if the application of such laws impedes immigrants in the exercise of their human rights. To a certain extent, international human rights law obliges states to accommodate immigrants’ cultural identities by adopting identity politics. Secondly, international law limits states’ efforts to actively favour the majority population’s culture. In human rights sensitive areas, at any rate, inverse identity politics are not permissible without qualifications. Inverse identity politics that are in conflict with the principle of state neutrality in religious matters are incompatible with the international freedom of religion provisions. In all other cases, inverse identity politics have to overcome a high justificatory hurdle. In this perspective, it is safe to say that although international law does not require cultural neutrality, it favours it.

49 See J Rawls, Political Liberalism, The John Dewey Essays in Philosophy 4 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books H Bielefeldt, ‘Menschenrechte in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft’ (transcript, 2007). M Billig, Banal Nationalism (London, Sage Publications, 1995). W Kälin, Grundrechte im Kulturkonflikt (Zurich, NZZ-Verlag, 2000). W Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). D McGoldrick, Human Rights and Religion – The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006). M Nowak, UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 2nd edn (Kehl, Engel, 2005). J Rawls, Political Liberalism, The John Dewey Essays in Philosophy 4 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993). J Ringelheim, Diversité culturelle et droits de l’homme, Collection du Centre des Droits de l’Homme de l’Université Catholique de Louvain 5 (Brussels, Bruylant, 2006).

Chapters in Edited Volumes W Kälin, ‘Integration of Migrants’ in TA Aleinikoff and V Chetail (eds), Migration and International Legal Norms (The Hague, TMC Asser Press, 2003). M Koenig and P de Guchteneire, ‘Political Governance of Cultural Diversity’ in Koenig, M et al (eds), Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007).

Journal Articles S Baer and M Wrase, ‘Staatliche Neutralität und Toleranz in der Christlichabendländischen Wertewelt’ (2005) 58 Die Öffentliche Verwaltung 243–52. A von Bogdandy, ‘The European Union as Situation, Executive, and Promote of the International Law of Cultural Diversity – Elements of a Beautiful Friendship’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 241–75. PG Carozza, ‘Subsidiarity as a Structural Principle of International Human Rights Law’ (2003) 97 American Journal of International Law 38–79. R Cholewinski, ‘Migrants as Minorities: Integration and Inclusion in the Enlarged European Union’ (2005) 43 Journal of common market studies 695–716. S Ferrari, ‘Individual Religious Freedom and National Security in Europe after September 11’ (2004) Brigham Young University Law Review 357–84. CC Joyner, ‘Legal Implications of the Concept of the Common Heritage of Mankind’ (1986) 35 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 190–99.

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H Ruiz Fabri, ‘Jeux dans la fragmentation: la Convention sur la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles’ (2007) 1 Revue Generale de Droit International Public 43–87. S Stavros, ‘Freedom of Religion and Claims for Exemption from Generally Applicable, Neutral Laws: Lessons from Across the Pond?’ (1997) 6 European HumanRights Law Review 607–27. JA Sweeney, ‘Margins of Appreciation: Cultural Relativity and the European Court of Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era’ (2005) 54 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 459–74. G Toggenburg, ‘Who is Managing Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in the European Condominium? The Moments of Entry, Integration and Preservation’ (2005) 43 Journal of Common Market Studies 717–38.

Websites Sources UNDP Human Development Report 2004 ‘Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world’ http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr04_complete.pdf.

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Coping with Multiculturalism through Cosmopolitan Law JESSICA ALMQVIST *

THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF INTERNATIONAL LEGAL REASONING

A

CCORDING TO CRITICAL strands of thought, international law and its interpreters tend to oscillate in a somewhat helpless manner—or at least in a way that is not independent—between different (and competing) political doctrines (idealism and realism) when seeking to resolve conflicts of direct relevance to international affairs. In order for international law to offer an answer to such conflicts and, thus, to overcome its indeterminacy, so the argument goes, its interpreters must align themselves with one of these doctrines in the interpretation of facts, provisions and principles. When Professor Martti Koskenniemi published his now widely read and celebrated book on this topic, From Apology to Utopia,1 it was appreciated, above all, because of its considerable revelation of the extent to which international law and politics and, hence, political doctrines, are closely intertwined with one another, and how this relationship bears upon, and explains the nature of, international legal reasoning in the field of international adjudication and conflict resolution more generally. The contention about the existence of a close relationship between law and politics as an unavoidable circumstance of international judicial life is brought to the forefront of interest in this study. But, instead of reflecting upon the way in which this reality risks encumbering the ability of international law and its courts to deliver justice in an independent and impartial manner in response to protracted conflicts that come before them, it focuses on a somewhat different enterprise: that of reflecting upon the comparative advantage of differing political doctrines in capturing what is at stake in conflicts and in terms of offering an adequate scheme of principles to govern their fair and peaceful resolution.2 Considering international law’s tendency to oscillate between opposing and conflicting doctrines (and, hence, the risk of ‘politicisation’), an argument about the comparative advantage of some * García-Pelayo Research Fellow, Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies, Madrid. 1 M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). 2 Thus, my claim is not about the need for ‘depoliticising’ international legal argument in relation to claims that accrue from conflicts in multicultural societies in the sense of seeking to be ‘neutral’ in relation to political doctrines. Rather, it assumes that the task of resolving conflicting claims about rights recognised in international law might need to consider the contributions in the field of theories about justice and fairness, which take seriously the reality of conflicting claims and offer an account of their fair resolution. See eg J Waldron, ‘Rights’ in RE Goodin and P Pettit (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993).

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political doctrine in the context of conflict resolution cannot reasonably be a purely theoretical exercise, that is, an exercise in pure reason, at least not if that argument purports to have some practical utility here and now instead of in some distant future which could be set apart from, or fully ignore the ‘legal wisdom’ about the importance attached to a sense of unity in international law and its interpretation.3 That sense of unity is essential for international law to be able to claim authority by virtue of it being law (and not something else) quite regardless of what each of us holds to be the most attractive account of this or that fact, provision or principle to inform these endeavours. In other words, for it to make sense of thinking of international law as law in the first place, and not as being easily reducible to a set of conflicting moral or political views about right and wrong in international affairs, the promotion of a particular political doctrine in this context should not be ignorant of the prospects of some ‘common ground’ across differing international legal communities on the ‘reasonableness’ of the concepts and principles it sets forth.4 That being said, the idea about the relevance of common ground is not necessarily conservationist in nature and in spirit, at least not if one refrains from an understanding of the substance of common ground as settled, once and for all, but one whose nature is sensitive to changes in the social and political background conditions (stemming from eg emerging global transportation and communication networks). Thus, what is entertained in this study is an understanding of international law and its constitution as ‘living’ and in this sense as prone to adjustments and reinterpretations in the light of social and political changes.5 In other words, while not discarding claims about the utility of promoting a certain political doctrine in a given historical period, it upholds the view that social and political changes can generate the need for a different doctrine whose basic claims about relevant facts and principles are more truthful to the new conditions. What is favoured then is a dynamic or evolutionary interpretation of international law.6 At the same time, while the idea of common ground entails an aspiration towards moral agreement across differing legal communities, the spirit of this study is more cautious. While not ruling out that such an agreement might be an honourable objective, it hesitates about the prospects of reaching such an agreement in regard to the principles that are to govern conflict resolution in the international judicial context. The most to hope for instead is that principal adjudicators will think of the substantive claims set forth as ‘reasonable’.

3 See relevant documents of the International Law Commission on ‘Fragmentation of International Law: difficulties arising from the diversification and expansion of international law’ (after 2000). 4 J Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York, Columbia University Press, 1995). 5 Here I refer to the thrust of the claim about the ‘Living Constitution’. See B Ackerman, ‘The Living Constitution’ (2007) 120 Harvard Law Review 1737. 6 On evolutionary interpretation, see eg P van Dijk and GJH van Hoof, Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, 3rd edn (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1998) 77 et seq.

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THE RISE OF MULTICULTURAL CONFLICTS

The question about the role of international law and its contributions to the field of conflict resolution takes on renewed significance—and, as contended here, is brought into doubt—as a result of an ever-growing multiculturalism within and across societies and states. The ongoing processes whereby people of differing cultures are brought into physical proximity with one another—whether it is through migration, commerce, refuge from failing states and mass violence—have led to an increase in conflicts with an intercultural dimension in those states and societies which have become attractive destinations. People with different cultural backgrounds and attachments, in terms of language and religion as well as habits and traditions, are forced to ‘rub shoulders’ with one another,7 more now than ever before, and this fact has revealed that the condition of ‘living together’ in spite of these differences, which from an international legal perspective includes sharing a territorial space and a set of public institutions, is not necessarily an ‘easy’ undertaking, but one that requires a universal effort towards understanding and tolerance, not merely from governments and public officials, but from all subjects of the law. While the European experience in the post-war period entails considerable empirical evidence in support of the claim about the human ability of living together in peaceful ways in spite of cultural differences created by human mobility across borders, it also entails stories and events as well as political actions that bear witness to some of the challenges that might arise in multicultural contexts and which are of real concern. The headscarf affairs and the cartoon controversies provide important illustrations of conflicts with an intercultural dimension which remain unsettled. Another case in point is the legitimisation of a political discourse that capitalises on a looming discontent with ‘foreigners’ (in a legal and cultural sense) and which has facilitated the adoption of extraordinary measures to control, contain (detain) and deport those who have been classified as ‘illegal immigrants’ without any legal opportunities to challenge before court the decisions that affect them.8 A third example refers to the European anxiety to participate in the Global Fight against Terrorism, which requires the adoption of measures, several of which are directed against foreigners in a cultural sense (such as the UN Security Council’s blacklisting).9 Though the felt need to respond to the devastating terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London is understandable, the rapid deterioration of human rights protection in relation to those who have been identified as ‘terrorist suspects’ (and whose cultural and/or legal status is often that of foreigner) is not.10

7 J Waldron, ’Liberal: Political and Comprehensive’ in G Gaus and C Kukathas (eds), Handbook in Political Theory (London, Sage, 2004) 89. 8 Directive (EC) 2008/115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on common standards and procedures in member states for returning illegally staying third-country nationals [2008] OJ L348/98. 9 For the creation of a consolidated list, see UNSC Res 1267 (15 October 1999) UN Doc S/RES/1267. The Consolidated List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to Al-Qaida, Usama Bin Laden, and the Taliban and other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them, last updated 17 October 2007, www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/pdflist.pdf. 10 See eg Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (2 June 2008 ) UN Doc A/HRC/8/13, Section II.

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The conflicts between states and foreigners related to cultural differences can hardly be thought of as either trivial or parochial (ie domestic) from the standpoint of international law and its interpreters. For one thing, the interested parties to the conflicts are rarely confined to one particular domestic realm; rather, a civil or public action in a one place tends to provoke responses from governments and cultures in other places, including violent protests against, and condemnations of, the action held to affect the status of their populations and cultures (eg attacks against embassies). In this sense, their resolution raises concerns about the conditions of peaceful and amicable relations in international affairs, and whether these entail some sensitivity in relation to cultural differences across states and populations.11 Furthermore, since 9/11, some of these conflicts (in particular, those related to methods of deportation, control orders, freezing of assets and CIA flights), while regretted, have come to be seen as the inevitable consequence of meeting an international commitment to respond to the threat of international terrorism in an effective manner. Thus, from this perspective, the resolution of these conflicts raises matters related to international security.12 Finally, and at the heart of this study, the fact that the claims on the different sides of the conflicts in question tend to be articulated in the language of human rights, and have been brought before human rights courts, indicates the possibility of state failures to meet their international human rights obligations in relation to foreigners.13

A LIMITED UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURE

Notwithstanding several good reasons for understanding the conflicts in focus as endowed with international legal relevance—whether as a result of their transnational, human rights or security dimensions—the political doctrines that international law has hitherto tended to align itself with offer a meaning of culture that tends to marginalise a deeper reflection of the nature of these conflicts and, hence, of their peaceful and fair resolution. Indeed, both the idealist and realist doctrines that dominate the international legal debate unite in the contention that culture in the sense relevant to international law mainly refers to the nation. In other words, both doctrines unite in a primordial concern with conflicts with territorial and historical dimensions. The differences between the two sets of doctrines lie in their views on the main principles that govern the settlement of conflicts with a cultural flavour. Their divergence emanates from a disagreement about the worth and

11 The Office of the UN Secretary-General ‘Alliance of Civilizations – Report of the High-level Group’ (from 13 November 2006) www.unaoc.org/repository/HLG_Report.pdf. 12 While on a deeper level the conflict is between state and foreigners, in the public context the conflict is often played out between states and leading human rights NGOs. 13 By now, several cases of this kind have been dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights. Most of the complaints have been rejected. See eg X v Austria (App 1753/63) (1965) 8 Yearbook 174 (EComHR); X v UK (App 8231/78) (1982) 28 DR 5; Zeynep Tekin v Turkey (App no 41556/98) ECHR 29 June 2004; Leyla Sahin v Turkey (App no 44774/98) ECHR 2005-XI 173; Köse and 93 others v Turkey (App no 26625/02) ECHR 24 January 2006; Kurtulmus¸ v Turkey (App no 65500/01) ECHR 24 January 2006; Phull v France (App no 35753/03) ECHR 11 November 2005.

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quality that we may attribute to culture-related claims (such as their authentic nature or their relationship with human rights protection) and how to weigh them against other international interests. On one hand, and to put it in simple terms, the realist doctrines depict most culture-related claims as parochial, inauthentic, or in any case irrelevant from an international legal standpoint; on this account, only unmediated national claims about the right to independence and statehood ought to receive attention, but merely because of the potential threat to international peace and security that they pose, and the need to reaffirm respect for basic principles of international relations rooted in basic principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty and non-intervention. The idealist doctrines, on the other hand, are more prone to endorse the worth and quality of culture-related claims. From their standpoint, such claims are not only relevant to international affairs, but may also be seen as revealing failures to respect the principle of national self-determination in relation to all nations.14 The cultural dimensions of the decolonisation process, the nationalist demands in the wake of the collapse of communism, and the rise of the indigenous peoples movement, bear witness to the need to strengthen the principle of national self-determination, whether it is in the form of independence or statehood (a radical reading), autonomous communities, federalism, or local self-government (a moderate reading).15 Still, while for the idealists each of these processes seemed to strengthen the need for a conceptual and practical separation of the notions of state and culture, none of them challenged any of the notions of such. In fact, the rise of international human rights law left the notion of the nation as representing something like the ‘archetype’ of culture from the standpoint of international law largely intact.16 In spite of a near-exclusive focus on ideas about the nation in understanding the significance of culture from the standpoint of international law, it must be noted that other meanings are being entertained, at least to some extent, in the field of international human rights law. However, these other meanings of culture are not treated in a coherent and unified manner, but crop up in different sub-fields of international human rights law (concerning migrants,17 minorities,18 women,19

14 See International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR) Art 1 and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 (ICESCR) Art 1. 15 See eg M Koskenniemi, ‘National Self-determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice’ (1994) 43 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 241. 16 The assumed link between culture and nation is also reinforced in the political philosophical contributions that were advanced in response to contemporary nationalist movements. See for example C Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’ in A Gutmann (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994) and W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). 17 UNGA International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families (adopted 18 December 1990, entered into force 1 July 2003) 30 ILM 1521 Art 17. 18 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR) Art 27. 19 UNGA Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW) Arts 5(a) and 13(c).

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children,20 etc), and there is no clear sense whether each of them has common roots or share conceptual foundations. In its negative versions, culture is depicted as a barrier or obstacle that prevents individuals from benefiting from their human rights,21 and, at times, as a source of violence and, thus, of human rights infringement unless the state interferes through condemnation and criminalisation.22 In its more positive versions, in contrast, culture is depicted as something like a ‘common good’ that all individuals have a right to access, and benefit from.23 In this context, culture is sometimes seen as a truly universal good and sometimes, as a communal good that is valuable only for its members while not necessarily for others.24 The partial recognition of the relevance of other meanings of culture from the standpoint of international law and in particular related to human rights indicates that a nation-orientated interpretation of the notion of culture does not succeed in setting out a full-blown explanation of how culture is relevant to international law and its interpreters. Even so, although other meanings are entertained, until now, not much has been done in terms of advancing them, and, above all, of sorting out what seems to be a more complex relation between the individual and culture than a conventional focus on the nation seems to admit. Still, for international law to be able to offer a sound understanding of the nature of the conflicts with an intercultural dimension which now stands in need of more critical reflection, and even engagement, its interpreters must distance themselves from the nation, and consider the utility of alternative or complementary interpretations of culture.25 Especially urgent is the need to shift the focus onto conflicts with an intercultural dimension with their source in an increasing human movement across territorial borders whereby people of differing cultures are brought into proximity with one

20 UNGA Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (CRC) Art 31 21 See eg UNGA Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW) Art 5(a). 22 See eg Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (adopted 23 February 1994 UNGA Res 48/104); Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (adopted 9 June 1994, entered into force on 5 March 1995) 33 ILM 1534 (‘Convention of Belem Do Para’); Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa [final version] (adopted 13 September 2000, entered into force 25 November 2000) OAU Doc CAB/LEG/66.6; and African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (adopted 11 July 1990, entered into force 29 November 1999) (1992) 18 Commonwealth Law Bulletin 1112 Art 21. 23 See eg International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 (ICESCR), Art 1; UNGA International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted 21 December 1965, opened for signature March 7 1966) 660 UNTS 195; UNGA Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (CRC) Art 31. 24 See eg International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR) Arts 1 and 27; Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities, UNGA Res 47/135 (18 December 1992) Art 1.1; UNGA International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (adopted 18 December 1990, entered into force 1 July 2003) 30 ILM 1521 Art 31. 25 A more detailed account of culture is provided further on in this paper.

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another, and the conflicts that arise as a result of this process, in an attempt to sort out not merely what is at stake, but also what are the basic principles to govern their resolution.

A COSMOPLITAN APPROACH

My proposal to turn to cosmopolitan doctrine when approaching these questions is not meant to be a ‘fantastic or exaggerated’ idea, but one that brings into the centre of international attention some basic sociological facts about the modern world. The first one is the fact of an ever-increasing human mobility across borders (quite regardless of state approval), brought about by a variety of factors including the advancement of global transportation systems. A second point is that the intercultural encounters resulting from this mobility are not necessarily peaceful, but generate new conflicts and quarrels that need to be settled. While acknowledging that cultural differences between states (natives) and foreigners are sources of antagonism, hatred and disagreement, the doctrine also stresses the possibility of living together in spite of such differences. Third, a classical reading of cosmopolitanism also encourages us to understand that tensions between states and foreigners (including how we respond to their cultural differences) are not insignificant, but constitute a main tug in the establishment or maintenance of peaceful international relations.26 Against this background it seems to make sense to reflect on the comparative advantage of the cosmopolitan doctrine in guiding our thought on these matters, including closer attention to the basic principles it sets forth. Instead of maintaining an international stance of deliberate ‘privatisation’ or ‘domestication’ of the questions at stake, the doctrine in question brings the main preoccupations related to human movement, including cultural quarrels, to the forefront of the international agenda in order to search for common solutions and frameworks. The first part of this section will be dedicated to two basic cosmopolitan principles as set forth by Immanuel Kant (who remains one of the most articulated cosmopolitans) to guide conflict resolution between states and foreigners. It then sets forth an account of the worth or quality of culture-related claims arising in the context of conflicts related to culture and how the two principles might guide us in resolving them.

26 But note the relevance of the long-standing principle of diplomatic protection, and the recent contributions of the International Law Commission towards the progressive codification of that principle.

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Hospitality In his discussion of ‘cosmopolitan right’,27 a main principle of the establishment of peaceful international relations, Immanuel Kant focused on the question of conditions of entry and stay for foreigners. In this context, he articulated a principle of hospitality (hospitableness), according to which an alien has the right ‘not to be treated as an enemy upon his arrival to another’s country.’28 While reckoning that more specific rights of foreigners (residence and naturalisation) were positivistic in the sense that states might choose to grant or not to grant them,29 in order to act in accordance with universal principles, states would need to respect the right to visit, to associate. This right, Kant contended, ‘belongs to all men by virtue of their common ownership of the earth’s surface.’30 Indeed, ‘natural right extends to the right to hospitality, ie the privilege of aliens to enter, only so far as makes attempts at commerce with native inhabitants possible.’31 Furthermore, while this right seems narrow, he defends a meaning of that right that under certain circumstances is broader than a right to political asylum, including protection from starvation and from fatal disease. He argues that the state is permitted to refuse a visitor only ‘when it can happen without his death’.32 From this perspective, Kant’s conception of cosmopolitan law contains several justifications for some of the refugee rights that have been established in international law.33

27 For a contemporary interpretation of this concept, see eg J Waldron, ‘What is Cosmopolitan?’ (2000) 8 The Journal of Political Philosophy 227. 28 I Kant and T Humphrey (translator), To Perpetual Peace. A Philosophical Sketch (Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1983) para 358. 29 ibid. Eg according to Kant, an alien may request the right to be a permanent visitor (which would require a special, charitable agreement to make him a fellow inhabitant for a certain period). 30 ibid. 31 ibid. 32 ibid. See also P Kleingeld, ‘Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany’ (1999) Journal of the History of Ideas 505, 513–15, citing H Williams, Kant’s Political Philosophy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983) 260. 33 See UNGA Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 150. As of 31 October 2008, 140 states had ratified this Convention. For a most comprehensive account of the various definitions of the term ‘refugees’, see GS GoodwinGill, The Refugee in International Law, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996). Goodwin-Gill explains that: ‘In ordinary language, it [the term “refugee”] has a broader, looser meaning, signifying someone in flight, who seeks to escape conditions or personal circumstances found to be intolerable. The destination is not relevant; the flight is to freedom, to safety. Likewise, the reasons for flight may be many; flight from oppression, from a threat to life or liberty, flight from prosecution; flight from deprivation, from grinding poverty; flight from war or civil strife; flight from natural disasters, earthquake, flood, drought, famine. Implicit in the ordinary meaning of the word “refugee” lies an assumption that the person concerned is worth of being, and ought to be, assisted, and, if necessary, protected from the causes and consequences of flight’ (p 3). The legal definition is much more restrictive and excludes ‘economic refugees’ and makes a distinction between victims of natural disasters and victims of conditions or disasters with a human origin (pp 3–4). Thus, according to Art 1(a) of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ‘the term “refugee” shall apply to any person who: … (2) As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.’ In this paper, the term ‘refugee’ is used in its broader sense.

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Still, given the general nature of the Kantian claim, it might not seem helpful in seeking to advance a more detailed understanding of the rights of different categories of persons who move about in the world (whether refugees, migrants or adventure-seekers, etc), and the more precise basis for their rights of entrance and stay. Furthermore, although not advocating universal admission, it must be noted that, while on its face, the principle of hospitality, if applied to its fullest extent, might encourage the acceptance of some kind of mass invasion, Kant did not believe that this would occur. His understanding was that ‘nature wills otherwise’: it uses ‘two means to prevent people from intermingling and to separate them, differences in language and religion which do indeed dispose men to mutual hatred and to pretexts for war.’34 Whether it is reasonable nowadays to continue to insist on a natural ‘cultural filter’ that de facto limits human mobility across borders (significant technological developments having taken place since the time of Kant’s writings) is debatable. Nevertheless, a cosmopolitan approach insists that hospitableness ought to be the default position, and that any restrictions of that principle must make sense from the standpoint of cosmopolitan law. Thus, for example, the nationalist claim that this is our place and because of this we choose which rights to grant to those who do not belong here, is not an acceptable one (since for cosmopolitans, the surface of the earth is ultimately shared in common with all others and because other considerations related to the circumstances of the foreigners take precedence).35 Another problematic denial of entry for foreigners would be the nationalist response that a people have a right to protect their national culture. While recognising that cultural differences could provoke mutual hatred and even lead to war, Kant also held that the ‘the growth of culture and men’s gradual progress toward greater agreement regarding their principles lead to mutual understanding and peace.’36 However, the prospects of peaceful relations among individuals would be produced and secured through equilibrium of the liveliest competing powers.37 Thus, it would not be through cultural assimilation, deportation, or denial of the rights to visit and associate.

Equal Respect for Freedom While ‘cosmopolitan’ in the first instance centres on how to regulate the relationship between foreigners and the state at the ‘gate’, so to speak, an equal challenge facing international law is how to understand the relationship with individuals residing on territories of foreign states. There is a persistent temptation of states to delimit, in practice, the range of beneficiaries of human rights to nationals or citizens,38 or to simply assume that foreigners are not entitled to the same respect as nationals or citizens, but without attempting to offer sound and reasonable 34 35 36 37 38

Kant, To Perpetual Peace (n 28) para 367. ibid para 358 [the right to the earth’s surface … belongs to all men in common]. ibid para 367. ibid. H Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951).

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justifications for these kinds of delimitations. In this context, international law’s alignment with political doctrines that centre on culture as the nation seems to give some sense to this delimitation with the consequent subordination of foreigners to nationals and citizens. In this light, the turn to cosmopolitan is meant as a simple reminder and reinforcement of the basic principles that sustain international human rights law: its universal scope of application, as well as its commitment to principles of non-discrimination and equal respect. Human equality is the default position; any imposition of restriction must be justified in relation to those who are most seriously affected as a result of that restriction.39 It is obvious that Kant’s account of rights in relation to foreigners does not seem to dwell on critical issues in immigration debates at the moment, such as the conditions of rights to residence as well as the acquisition of social and political rights.40 Had we had the opportunity to ask Kant about these matters, he might have told us that these kinds of questions would need to be addressed in the framework of the ‘coming cosmopolitan constitution.’ As he noted (in the passage following the articulation of the right to hospitality and the purpose of this right, ie commerce): In this way [through the establishment of transnational commercial relations] distant parts of the world can establish with one another peaceful relations that will eventually become matters of public law, and the human race can gradually be brought closer and closer to a cosmopolitan constitution.41

Thus, while not setting forth a comprehensive account of which kinds of freedoms such a constitution would recognise, the spirit of Perpetual Peace seems to reveal that it would be a constitution that would be capable of accommodating all of us, regardless of our cultural differences, in a spirit of equal respect. Whether we are still waiting for the establishment of such a constitution, or whether it is possible to detect several of its essential features in the many constitutions that are now in force, might be a question that reasonable people disagree about. Even so, to the extent that constitutions include a Bill of Rights that in principle extend to all human beings who happen to reside or live within their respective territorial jurisdictions, it does seem to make sense to speak of at least a partial establishment. While the question of the full range of freedoms is not agreed upon, the universal scope and nature of the civic freedoms (quite regardless of period of settlement, etc) in such a constitution seems uncontroversial. This seems to suggest that the most protracted conflicts that emerge at the moment can be pinned down to refusals to allow foreigners to benefit from the full range of

39 G Gaus, Social Philosophy (New York, ME Sharpe, 1999) 119. As Gaus explains: ‘any discriminatory act—any action that provides differential advantages or burdens—stands in need of justification; any unjustified discriminatory act calls for redress. See also J Raz, Ethics in the Public Domain. Essays in the Morality of Law and Politics (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994) 220. According to J Raz, for authorities to be legitimate they must act for reasons and their legitimacy depends on a degree of success in doing so. 40 See eg J Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London, Routledge, 2001). For a constructive interpretation of cosmopolitanism to attend to these issues, see eg S Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). 41 Kant, To Perpetual Peace (n 28) para 358 (emphasis added).

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freedoms. While by no means seeking to undermine claims about the importance of social and political rights to foreigners, this essay insists upon the continued relevance of the claim about the universal and unconditional nature of civic freedoms. Several of the most perplexing conflicts between states and foreigners in Europe at the moment (including those related to headscarves, cartoons, detention and deportation without access to court, blacklisting, etc), reveal an apparent disregard of what the principle of equal respect for civil freedoms, in fact, requires in a multicultural context.

A Complementary Account of Culture So far, my account of ‘cosmopolitan’ has been rather general, in that it has only referred to some of its basic principles. Much remains to be done in conceptual terms before it is reasonable to think of that doctrine as better equipped than others to aid international law and its interpreters to address and respond to conflicts in multicultural societies. In particular, what is missing is an account of culture that is able to explain what is at stake in these conflicts and the normative significance of cultural differences from the standpoint of human rights and the principle of equal freedom. This section aims to fill this gap. To begin with, it must be noted that cosmopolitans are inclined to endorse a vision of the relation between individuals and culture which, in a manner similar to realistic doctrines, diminishes the moral worth of culture-related claims arising as a result of human movement across borders from the standpoint of international law. For the most part, the cosmopolitan vision stresses the impure, intermingling and changeable nature of culture, and depicts the individual as a ‘freewheeler’ who is capable of moving about among differing cultures and benefiting from a diverse range of culture-specific goods and riches from different parts of the world. On this account, the individual is not tied to any culture in particular, neither does she see settlement in a new culture as negative, but as an adventurous and rewarding endeavour. It was in this spirit that Professor Jeremy Waldron set forth his account of culture in his essay on ‘The Cosmopolitan Alternative’ in 1992, that was meant to offer an important alternative to nation (or close-knit communities)-oriented understandings of the relation between individuals and their cultures.42 Still, we might ask: is the cosmopolitan stance able to offer a sound alternative or complementary meaning of culture? Particularly troublesome is that while the cosmopolitan account of culture explains how it is possible for people to move about in the world and settle in distant places, in spite of cultural differences, sometimes radical ones, it does less in terms of setting the stage for addressing the difficulties facing many travellers. This is so since the cosmopolitan account seems to focus on individuals who are prepared in linguistic and cultural terms to move

42 J Waldron, ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative’ (1992) 25 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 751. See also J Waldron, ‘What is Cosmopolitan?’ (2000) 8 Journal of Political Philosophy 227.

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about (as ‘citizens of the world’).43 It affords hardly any attention to those who are less prepared (or not prepared at all) in this sense but still move to foreign places, and this in spite of the plain truth that many migrants do not embark on their travels because of a curiosity about other cultures, but because of a (felt) need to escape unbearable conditions of violence or poverty (refugees in the broader sense).44 That being said, however, an apparent neglect of the circumstances of the less fortunate traveller does not mean that cosmopolitan doctrine has nothing to offer to conflict resolution in multicultural societies. Once cosmopolitans shift the focus onto the range of cultural obstacles or barriers facing individuals in foreign places in seeking to use their freedoms, the need for a more careful consideration of the nature of culture-related claims should become apparent. While upholding the claim about the possibility of moving about and of living together, including resolving matters of common concern, in spite of cultural differences, cosmopolitans cannot reasonably remain estranged from the painful truth that people are rarely prepared (or able) to leave their cultural baggage behind (and acquire new) when heading for what seem to be more secure and prosperous destinations for themselves and their families. Indeed, unless cosmopolitans engage in a more serious debate about the less glamorous dimensions of culture, their viewpoint might not be able to aid in conflict-resolution in multicultural societies where a sound alternative to the nation-oriented paradigm is most needed. A cosmopolitan account of culture is inextricably tied up with a set of deeper assumptions about the individual as the moral unit of concern; indeed, its ignorance of culture-related claims is due, at least in part, to a rejection of the nation or other collectives as constituting such units. Even so, more recent anthropological and sociological interpretations of culture do not understand the term culture as referring to collectives, but instead as denoting a set of ‘individualisable’ properties of each human being (such as cultural equipment, conduct rules, and ideological commitment) which inform and constrain individual action in social and public realms.45 The degree of cultural differences that pertain between any given individual (on the one hand) and the culture that dominate each of these realms (on the other) can be measured from the standpoint of these properties. In this context, the notions of foreignness, alienation and estrangement are often used to denote not mainly or only a legal status, as much as seeking to capture an individual sentiment that is produced in situations where significant differences prevail between the cultural attachment of an individual and the culture dominating the public institutions of a given setting. In what follows is an attempt to elaborate a more

43 M Nussbaum, ‘Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism’ in J Cohen (ed), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism. With respondents. (Boston, Beacon Press, 1996) 3–17. 44 Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law (n 33), 3–4. 45 See eg A Swidler, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’ (1986) 51 American Sociological Review 273. See also R Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order. Explorations in Cultural Analysis (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987) 337–38. Wuthnow understands culture not only as referring to inner states or feelings, but also as vehicle for individual utterances and actions.

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comprehensive account of two of these properties and their direct relevance to the aim of securing respect for human rights in multicultural settings.46 One of the more protracted conflicts with their source in cultural differences of the kind in focus are those depending on the fact that cultures represent differing settlements on matters of adiaphora.47 These are settlements that regulate the way in which we go about our day-to-day assignments and preoccupations, whether it is about diet, dress, child-rearing, caring for the elderly and sick, or about marriage, divorce, and much else. From the standpoint of cosmopolitan moral law, these are matters of ultimate moral indifference in the sense that none of us can say, for sure, which way is the best or right for all (even though most of us would insist on the universal nature of some basic outer limits). Even so, in spite of an apparent stance of moral indifference towards the way in which each conducts his social or civil affairs, most conflicts with an intercultural dimension that crop up in multicultural societies are precisely concerned with these matters. In fact, these conflicts tend to reveal an intense human interest and, not infrequently, opposition and condemnation of ways of dress, worship, child-rearing, marriage, etc that are different from one’s own. According to Kant, this is so because in this realm of human affairs, we fabricate morality.48 Thus, rather than assuming that humans follow a set of practices in a ‘blind-folded’ manner, if asked, each of us will in all likelihood find some explanation for our preference or for following one set of practices rather than another.49 The recognition of this link between thought (or conscience) and practice is not meant to refute the charge that by no means all who follow a given practice agree or endorse it, and that several cultural practices survive only as a result of instruction, social pressure (even threats of compliance), prejudice or myths, rather than independent thought. Neither is it meant to silence critics (whether outsiders or insiders) of particular cultural practices. At most, it is meant as a reminder of the range of reasons or explanations for a given cultural engagement, and the need to consider the possible worth of cultural attachments from the standpoint of those whose attachments they are.50 Quite regardless of whether we think of the settlements as representing differing conceptions of the good life, or simply matters of life (and in this sense connoting something like personal or social ‘infrastructures’),51 from the standpoint of cosmopolitan law, culture-specific claims about respecting them must be seen as raising questions about the nature and scope of individual freedom and how to secure equal respect for the freedom of every individual in multicultural societies. Furthermore, given that most domestic legal

46 For a more elaborate account of each of these properties, see J Almqvist, Human Rights, Culture and the Rule of Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2005). 47 See eg I Kant, P Heath (ed) and JB Schneewind (ed) Lectures on Ethics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997) 130 et seq. 48 ibid 362 and 363. 49 J Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1999) 161. 50 See eg J Locke, ‘An Essay on Toleration’ in M Goldie (ed), Political Essays Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997) 139–40. 51 C Taylor, ‘God Loveth Adverbs’ in C Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1989) 211. Taylor refers to Aristotle, Politics III 1280b.

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systems are not restricted to a set of prohibitions that outlaws violence, but entails considerable regulation of social matters (including education, health care, social security, dress codes, food preparation, slaughter regulations, marriage and divorce, drugs etc), and to the extent that the specific contents of these kinds of regulations tend to be shaped by the culture that dominates the public institutions of the state, the introduction of new cultures tend to raise claims about the need for legal revisions, accommodations, or abolitions of some of these regulations. In other words, from a cosmopolitan standpoint, the rise of antagonism and disagreement on matters of adiaphora is not regrettable as such; rather, the challenge for the state consists instead of how to secure equal respect and tolerance of the range of possible ways of making use of one’s freedom, whether it is understood as attending to ordinary life issues, or seeking to pursue the good life. What is important to emphasise in this context is that nationalist sentiments— whether secular or religious in spirit and content—have no prior or automatic right to place restrictions on the range of permissible ways on the sheer basis that it antagonises or offends the ways of others. Thus, it is not enough, at least not if we are committed to the principle of equal respect for individual freedom, to demand of foreigners and others who differ in cultural terms that they follow the way of the natives (ie to assimilate). While no culture can be assumed or be proclaimed as immune from influence or coercive measures (law and social pressure) in multicultural societies, whether in a majority or minority position, the starting point for thinking about restrictions of individual freedom is that no culture has a prior claim to domination, but that public institutions must give reasons or justifications for resisting accommodations of new cultures introduced into the state framework as a result of an impressive (and seemingly unstoppable) human mobility across territories. The main challenge to the provision of equal freedom is the rise of identity politics. As John Locke noted in his essay on toleration, the right to toleration, which includes toleration of dress, diet, and worship, etc, is not absolute, but may be restricted. The right is meant to be exercised in the spirit of duty, sincerity and out of conscience. Thus, it does not protect attempts to use religious habits, gestures and manners in an attempt to gain power and dominance and to force and compel others to be of one’s mind. However, Locke carefully pointed out that political ambition is not the fault of worship, but the product of depraved, ambitious human nature making use of all sorts of religions.52 Furthermore, in a sensitive context, a given cultural practice can become fraught with political significance quite regardless of the intention of the person whose practice it is. From the standpoint of freedom, the rise of identity politics is regrettable, because it undermines the conditions for its meaningful exercise. It politicises matters that ought to be of ultimate indifference.

52 J Locke, ‘An Essay on Toleration’ in M Goldie (ed), Political Essays: Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997) 139.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

This study has shed light on the unfortunate impact of the persistent alignment of international law and its interpreters to political doctrines that depicts culture as referring to the nation in international legal reasoning about facts and law. This alignment is regrettable, in that it fails to capture what is at stake in the conflicts that ravel at the moment generated by the fact that people are forced together in spite of their cultural differences and must establish ways of living together. In addition, it undermines the claim about a distinct cosmopolitan dimension of international law (international human rights law) and the acute importance of reinforcing the basic principles that are inherent in that dimension in the face of national policies that exclude or marginalise foreigners from the ambit of human rights protection. An unrelenting focus on the fate of the nations in a globalising world risk debilitating the cosmopolitan claim about the universal and unconditional nature of individual freedom, and the duty of states to secure equal respect for that freedom. The national responses to claims of new cultures bear witness to the standing temptation of states to reduce the scope of application of international human rights law to the nationals of this or that state, or to interpret that law as permitting the favouring of their culture-specific preferences and norms without any consideration of the hardships suffered as a result. Against this background, a reinforcement of the cosmopolitan roots of international human rights law together with the articulation of a cosmopolitan account of the relationship between the individual and culture seek to provide a basis for a more engaging role of international law and its interpreters in the field of conflict-resolution in multicultural societies. It also aims at empowering courts— whether regional or domestic—on matters of human rights at a time when such empowerment is much needed. Insofar as foreigners are excluded from taking an active part in political life and legislative debates in their place of living, courts— whether international, regional or national—represent unique public forums to which to turn with complaints against encroachments or unreasonable restrictions of civil freedom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books J Almqvist, Human Rights, Culture and the Rule of Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2005). H Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1951). S Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). J Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London, Routledge, 2001). P van Dijk and GJH van Hoof, Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, 3rd edn (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1998). G Gaus, Social Philosophy (New York, ME Sharpe, 1999).

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GS Goodwin-Gill, The Refugee in International Law, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996). I Kant and T Humphrey (translator) To Perpetual Peace. A Philosophical Sketch (Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1983). I Kant, P Heath and JB Schneewind (eds) Lectures on Ethics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997). M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). J Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York, Columbia University Press, 1995). J Raz, Ethics in the Public Domain. Essays in the Morality of Law and Politics (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994). J Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1999) H Williams, Kant’s Political Philosophy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983). R Wuthnow, Meaning and Moral Order. Explorations in Cultural Analysis (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987). Chapters in Edited Volumes J Locke, ‘An Essay on Toleration’ in M Goldie (ed), Political Essays, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997). M Nussbaum, ‘Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism’ in J Cohen (ed), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism. With respondents. (Boston, Beacon Press, 1996). C Taylor, ‘God Loveth Adverbs’ in C Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1989). C Taylor, (‘The Politics of Recognition’ in A Gutmann (ed), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994) J Waldron, ‘Rights’ in RE Goodin and P Pettit (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993). J Waldron, ‘Liberal: Political and Comprehensive’ in G Gaus and C Kukathas (eds), Handbook in Political Theory (London, Sage, 2004). Journal Articles B Ackerman, ‘The Living Constitution’ (2007) 120 Harvard Law Review 1737– 812. P Kleingeld, ‘Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany’ (1999) Journal of the History of Ideas 505–24. M Koskenniemi, ‘National Self-determination Today: Problems of Legal Theory and Practice’ (1994) 43 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 241–69. A Swidler, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’ (1986) 51 American Sociological Review 273–86.

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J Waldron, ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative’ (1992) 25 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 751–94. J Waldron, ‘What is Cosmopolitan?’ (2000) 8 Journal of Political Philosophy 227–43.

Website Sources The Office of the UN Secretary–General ‘Alliance of Civilizations – Report of the High–level Group’(13 November 2006) www.unaoc.org/repository/ HLG_Report.pdf.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé Face au ‘Nouveau’ Modèle de Migration ‘Temporaire ou Circulaire’ La Technique de Coopération des Autorités et Quelques Questions Relatives au Statut Personnel des Étrangers Face au Pluralisme MARINA VARGAS GÓMEZ-URRUTIA*

INTRODUCTION

L

A PRÉSENTE COMMUNICATION a pour objectif de mener une réflexion sur le modèle de migration temporaire ou circulaire—promue dans différents forums internationaux1 comme une alternative possible à la gestion de l’immigration légale—et sur le rôle du droit international privé dans ce nouveau contexte migratoire. Conçue comme un nouveau mode de gestion de la circulation légale des personnes, la migration temporaire ou circulaire est définie comme ‘un mouvement de personnes qui ne modifient pas leur résidence habituelle et qui à aucun moment ne peut se transformer en migration définitive’.2 Ce mouvement temporaire de personnes présente plusieurs modalités, la migration circulaire et multidirectionnelle en étant l’une des formes les plus caractéristiques. On entend par migration circulaire et multidirectionnelle le ‘mouvement fluide des populations entre des pays

* Professeur Dr collaborateur Droit international privé—Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED-España). Ce travail est encadré dans le Proyect SEJ 2007/67381 – Derecho civil internacional: pluralidad e interacción de normas internacionales. Problemas de aplicación (Dr Miguel Gómez Jene, Main researcher). Mes remerciements à Paloma Abarca Junco pour son appui et ses commentaires précieux. Traduction : France Brousse. Toutes les erreurs sont de mon exclusive responsabilité. 1 OIM (Organisation Internationale pour les Migrations), La Migración Internacional y el Desarrollo: perspectivas y experiencias de la OIM (avril 2006), www.un.int/iom/ IOM%20Perspectives%20and %20Experiences%20Spanish.pdf. GFMD (Forum Mondial sur la Migration et le Développement), doc prép Bruxelles 2007. Commission européenne, Communication de la Commission au Parlement européen, au Conseil, Comité économique et social européen et au Comité des régions relative aux migrations circulaires et aux partenariats pour la mobilité entre l’Union européenne et les pays tiers (16.05.2007) COM/2007/0248 final. 2 K Newland, ‘Migración circular, tendencias empíricas y políticas’ conférence 15.2.2008 voir ibid ‘A Surge of Interest in Migration and Development’ (2007) Migration Information Source, www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=580.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 113 … qui, lorsqu’il se produit volontairement et lorsqu’il est lié à des besoins de main d’œuvre des pays d’origine et de destination, peut être bénéfique pour toutes les parties concernées.’3 Sous une perspective différente mais dont la finalité pratique est elle aussi de réguler et d’ordonner les mouvements migratoires internationaux, l’Union européenne encourage la ‘circularité’ comme une incitation dans les politiques migratoires, en esquissant le modèle en fonction du cadre réglementaire communautaire actuel et naturellement dans le respect des compétences des États membres en matière de droit des étrangers et de l’immigration.4 Du point de vue de la politique législative, la Commission européenne considère nécessaire de faciliter la migration circulaire étant donné les avantages qu’elle présenterait en permettant un certain degré de mobilité licite entre le pays d’origine et le pays de d’accueil, parce qu’elle: permettrait d’offrir une alternative crédible à l’immigration irrégulière et, si elle était bien gérée, pourrait contribuer à assurer l’adéquation entre l’offre et la demande de main d’œuvre au niveau international et contribuer à une répartition plus efficace des ressources disponibles et de la croissance économique.5

Dans ce sens, la migration circulaire diffère de celle visée dans les accords bilatéraux classiques sur les travailleurs migrants, qui depuis les premières formulations à l’aube du XXe siècle6 puis dans leurs évolutions progressives, constituent encore le corpus international bilatéral le plus important de la réglementation et de l’ordonnancement juridique des migrations du travail.7 Face à l’ensemble de traités bilatéraux ayant trait aux travailleurs migrants, l’option juridique multilatérale— dont la nécessité a été soulignée à plusieurs reprises au sein d’instances, d’organismes internationaux8 et d’autres forums internationaux spécialisés9—reste en retrait. Elle ne doit pourtant point être condamnée à l’oubli et ceci, pour deux raisons principales. Tout d’abord, et d’un point de vue général, parce qu’elle est particulièrement utile lorsqu’il s’agit de créer des domaines de coopération internationale de plus grande envergure et portant sur des matières extrêmement diverses. En politique migratoire internationale, ces domaines de coopération permettraient, entre autres, la construction d’un cadre juridique (international) de référence pour réguler, canaliser et/ou faciliter les flux migratoires, coordonner les politiques d’État

3 P Levitt et N Nyberg Sorensen, ‘Global Migration Perspectives: The Transnational Turn in Migration Studies‘ (2004) 6 Global Migration Perspectives 1–13, www.gcim.org/gmp/ Global%20Migration%20Perspectives%20No%206.pdf. 4 COM/2007/0248 final (n 1) 1. 5 COM/2007/0248 final (n 1) 1. 6 M Lô Diatta, ‘L’évolution des accords bilatéraux sur les travailleurs migrants’ 135 Journal du droit international (2007) 101–31. 7 Voir OIT, 65 Estudios sobre migraciones internacionales (2004) Annexe I. 8 Le ‘Compromiso de Montevideo sobre Migraciones y Desarrollo’. Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB) – Foro Montevideo (Uruguay) – XVI Cumbre Iberoamericana de Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno (nov 2006), http://www.xvicumbre.org.uy/pdf/xvi_compromiso.pdf (17.06.2009). 9 Voir Bureau permanent de la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, ‘Quelques réflexions sur l’utilité d’appliquer certaines techniques de coopération internationale développées par la conférence de La Haye de droit international privé aux questions de migration internationale (deuxième note de suivi)’. Doc prél no 6 (mars 2008), www.hcch.net/upload/wop/genaff_pd06f2008.pdf.

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rapprochant les divers régimes étatiques et harmonisant, dans la mesure du possible, la règlementation applicable à l’immigration ; mais aussi, et en cohérence avec ce qui précède, d’établir des normes juridiques d’application commune. Deuxièmement, et d’un point de vue spécifique, un cadre commun multilatéral reposant sur la coopération internationale serait particulièrement utile pour la mise en œuvre de la migration circulaire et il permettrait la confluence des politiques d’État concernant les éléments qui justifient ce type de migration, tout en assurant une tutelle plus efficace des objectifs et des intérêts en présence. En allant un peu plus loin, on peut dire qu’encourager la migration circulaire signifie mettre en œuvre une politique législative visant à éviter, dans la mesure du possible, l’installation définitive des migrants économiques et de leurs familles, et donc, en cohérence, qui essaie d’inverser la tendance à rester dans le pays d’accueil. Si le modèle parvient à se consolider, la réorientation et la modification de certains instruments réglementaires communautaires en vigueur et des lois nationales sur les étrangers semblent inévitables. Ainsi l’ont annoncé la Commission européenne et certains États membres, comme l’Espagne.10 On peut donc se demander si le modèle de migration circulaire doit conférer ou non un sens différent à l’intégration et quelles en seraient les conséquences, au regard du droit international privé, sur les règles régissant le statut personnel. Au vu de ce qui précède, on peut affirmer que nous nous trouvons face à une perspective nouvelle, mais point méconnue, du traitement des migrations internationales où il faut concilier politique migratoire et développement durable. La circularité apparaît comme une incitation politique et la coopération internationale multilatérale, au-delà des programmes bilatéraux, comme une nécessité. Dans l’Union européenne, la Commission explore actuellement la possibilité d’inclure la circularité comme partie intégrante de la politique migratoire communautaire, mais dans le cas de certains groupes d’immigrants seulement, si bien que des changements législatifs s’annoncent déjà (I). Pour une circularité efficace et sûre, la coopération internationale est nécessaire. En théorie, les traités multilatéraux semblent être un instrument adapté et utile pour créer des espaces de coopération internationale destinés à gérer certains aspects de la migration circulaire. Dans ce contexte, les techniques de coopération internationale des Autorités centrales développées par la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé peuvent apporter des solutions viables pour la création et la gestion du modèle (II). Enfin, le concept de circularité inscrit dans ce modèle migratoire peut avoir une incidence sur l’idée d’intégration, nous invitant ainsi à une réflexion sur la revalorisation possible du critère de rattachement à la loi nationale face au rattachement à la loi du domicile comme principe régissant les relations familiales privées dans le système de droit international privé (III).

10 En Espagne, voir Secretaría de Estado de Cooperación Internacional, ‘Principales Líneas de Actuación en Migración y Desarrollo’ (Madrid, 3.12.2007), www.fiiapp.org/uploads/documentos/ f5deea2e185be22f5d21b067649b79ca.doc.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 115 LA MIGRATION CIRCULAIRE COMME NOUVELLE MODALITÉ DE GESTION DE LA MIGRATION LÉGALE

Le Forum mondial sur la migration et le développement, tenu à Bruxelles en juillet 2007, considère la migration circulaire comme un instrument efficace de développement et comme un objectif concret à incorporer aux législations nationales et aux projets bilatéraux mettant à l’épreuve la viabilité du concept. Dans ce sens, le concept de circularité connaît un regain d’intérêt dans la communauté internationale et ceci en raison de deux aspects fondamentaux : tout d’abord, parce que, pour les pays d’origine, il est considéré comme une mesure positive favorisant leur développement ; ensuite parce que, dans les pays d’accueil, s’il est bien géré, il permettra de répondre de façon efficace et avec souplesse aux demandes de main d’œuvre, d’améliorer la circulation légale des personnes et de lutter contre l’immigration irrégulière. Il ne s’agit pas d’un modèle inconnu. De fait, il est déjà appliqué dans le cadre de programmes bilatéraux sous les auspices de l’OIM, comme le Programme des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers du Canada avec le Guatemala et le Mexique11 ou les programmes MIDA de l’OIM et l’Union européenne (Migrations pour le Développement en Afrique) avec quelques pays africains.12 Dans le cadre des Nations Unies il y a le programme Tokten (Transfer of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals).13 Les États européens ont également mis en œuvre des programmes bilatéraux qui se traduisent par des accords-cadres de main d’œuvre comprenant certains éléments caractéristiques de la migration circulaire.14 Néanmoins, il n’existe pas de véritable réglementation à l’échelle mondiale concernant le recrutement de main d’œuvre étrangère; une absence qui peut nuire à l’objectif de co-développement et qui, dans une grande mesure, facilite le recrutement de main d’œuvre hautement qualifiée et le déplacement des meilleurs cadres techniques à travers le monde (body shopping).15

11 OIM, ‘Programa de Trabajadores Agrícolas Temporales de Canadá (2a evaluación)’ (mars 2008) 25 Cuadernos de Trabajo sobre Migración 3–48. 12 A Bustinduy, ‘La importancia de la implicación de los actores del Sur en el codesarrollo. Lecciones aprendidas del programa MIDA‘ (2008) 2 Revista virtual codesarollo–cideal.org, Análisis. www.codesarrollo–cideal.org/revista/02/analisis.pdf. 13 J Bellavista et V Renovell (éds), Ciencia, tecnología e innovación en América Latina (Barcelona, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Barcelona, 1999) 44 et seq. 14 En Espagne, il y a plusieurs accords: Acuerdo sobre mano de obra entre España y el Reino de Marruecos (BOE 226, de 20.9.2001). Acuerdos Marco de Cooperación en materia de Inmigración avec Mali (BOE 135, de 4.6.2008), Cabo Verde (BOE 39, de 14.2.2008), Mauritania (BOE 260, de 30.10.2007), Guinea Conakry (BOE 26, de 30.1.2007) y Gambia (BOE 310, de 28.12.2006); et, avec l’Amérique Latine sur la régulation et l’encadrement des relations de travail avec la Colombie (BOE 159, de 4.7.2001), l’Equateur (BOE 164, de 10.7.2001) et le République Dominicaine (BOE 31, de 5.5.2002). Avec le Pérou, il y a un Acuerdo para la cooperación en materia de inmigración (BOE 237, de 1.10.2004) qui facilite la coopération pour la formation de fonctionnaires, l’échange d’information et d’investigation policière. 15 Commission mondiale sur la dimension sociale de la mondialisation, Une mondialisation juste. Créer des opportunités pour tous (Genève, Bureau international du Travail, 2004) 107.

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Le Contexte de la Migration Temporaire ou Circulaire Il faut insister sur le fait que le modèle de migration circulaire temporaire s’efforce de concilier l’intérêt des pays hautement industrialisés souhaitant couvrir leurs besoins de main d’œuvre en souplesse, en ordre et en toute légalité, et les intérêts des pays en développement souhaitant pénétrer sur les marchés du travail plus riches, favoriser le transfert des connaissances et atténuer le risque de fuite des cerveaux.16 En effet, pour les pays en voie de développement, l’émigration peut présenter aussi bien des effets positifs que négatifs. D’une part, elle permet le départ d’un surplus de main d’œuvre entraînant ainsi une baisse du chômage et fonctionne comme un levier de soulagement de la pauvreté grâce aux envois de fonds des émigrants à leurs familles. D’autre part cependant, la perte définitive de personnes intelligentes et qualifiées peut annuler les perspectives de développement du pays concerné. On sait que la perte de personnel hautement qualifié dans le secteur santé suite à l’émigration dans les pays riches affecte gravement la gestion des services de santé dans certains États africains. Une tendance similaire est observée dans l’éducation. Il en découle une spirale négative de perte de capital humain. À l’inverse, ces pays obtiendraient d’importants bénéfices du retour des migrants qui apporteraient les connaissances, les compétences et les contacts acquis à l’étranger. De ce point de vue, les mesures favorisant la migration circulaire temporaire revêtent une importance capitale pour ces pays et seraient d’autant plus efficaces qu’elles reposeraient sur une conception commune de circularité sur la base d’une coopération entre les pays d’origine et d’accueil.

Formes de Migration Circulaire dans l’Union Europe´enne Suite au Conseil européen de décembre 2006, où a été affiché le besoin d’explorer ‘les moyens de faciliter la migration circulaire et temporaire’, la Commission a ouvert un processus de consultation et de débat visant à développer le concept de migration circulaire et son application pratique dans l’Union européenne. Dans sa Communication de juillet 2007, la Commission a proposé une définition du concept et des façons de mettre en œuvre la circularité de la migration dans l’espace communautaire, en insistant sur la nécessité d’adopter des mesures facilitant son application.17 Pour ce qui est de la définition, la migration circulaire est conçue comme une forme de circulation légale des personnes dont la gestion doit permettre un haut niveau de mobilité légale entre deux pays dans un sens et dans l’autre. Cette gestion peut adopter plusieurs formes ou modalités, les plus importantes dans le contexte de l’Union européenne étant les suivantes: (a) La migration circulaire des ressortissants de Pays tiers déjà installés dans l’UE. L’idée est de faciliter aux immigrants résidents légaux la possibilité de retourner

16 17

Forum Mondial sur la Migration et le Développement, doc prép (n 1) 4. COM/2007/0248 final (n 1) 9–10.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 117 dans leur pays d’origine afin de s’y consacrer à une activité (de chef d’entreprise, professionnelle ou de toute autre sorte) tout en conservant leur résidence principale dans l’État membre où ils résidaient. Cette mobilité s’effectuerait à titre volontaire et ne s’appliquerait qu’à certains groupes d’immigrants déjà résidents. (b) La migration circulaire de personnes établies dans un pays tiers. Son objectif consiste à permettre l’entrée temporaire sur le territoire de l’Union afin de travailler, d’étudier ou de se former, ou de concilier ces trois situations, à condition de rétablir la résidence et l’activité principale des intéressés dans leur pays d’origine à la fin de ladite période. La circularité permettrait de conserver un certain degré de mobilité privilégiée pour voyager dans l’UE moyennant par exemple des procédures simplifiées d’admission. Cette catégorie comprendrait une série de situations visant certains ressortissants extracommunautaires. Il semble évident que l’établissement de politiques communautaires favorisant la migration circulaire va exiger des ajustements ou des modifications de la législation communautaire, et donc, des législations internes des États membres, même si – comme nous l’avons indiqué – certains de ces États disposent déjà de programmes bilatéraux qui encouragent une certaine circularité comme cela a été observé dans les accords-cadres de coopération en matière d’immigration.

Cadre Législatif Communautaire Facilitant La Migration Circulaire Il n’existera pas un cadre législatif harmonisé incorporant la migration circulaire dans l’Union européenne, sans que la Commission n’ait beaucoup avancé sur cette voie. Pour l’instant, les mesures envisagées pour encourager la circularité portent sur l’admission de certaines catégories d’immigrants, aussi bien par le biais de certains instruments réglementaires en phase de préparation que de certaines directives déjà pleinement applicables. Dans la proposition de Directive relative aux conditions d’entrée et de séjour des travailleurs hautement qualifiés, par exemple, les mesures d’incitation à la circularité consisteraient à faciliter les procédures d’admission des personnes ayant résidé légalement sur le territoire de l’Union pendant un certain temps (pour des raisons professionnelles, pour des études ou d’autres types de formation). Dans la proposition de Directive relative aux conditions d’entrée et de séjour des travailleurs saisonniers, la principale mesure prise pour stimuler la circularité serait l’introduction d’un titre de séjour pluriannuel qui permettrait de revenir plusieurs années de suite sans avoir besoin de refaire toutes les démarches d’admission. Enfin, dans la Proposition de Directive relative aux conditions d’entrée et de séjour des stagiaires rémunérés, la circularité pourrait permettre à ces personnes de revenir dans l’UE pour des périodes limitées afin de recevoir une formation supplémentaire ou d’améliorer la leur.18

18 Commission européenne, Communication de la Commission—Programme d’action relatif à l’immigration légale (SEC(2005)1680) (21.12.2005) COM/2005/0669 final.

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Quand aux instruments réglementaires déjà existants, ils consistent en trois directives qui pourraient incorporer des mesures de promotion de la circularité. Ainsi, dans la Directive 2003/109/CE relative au statut des ressortissants de pays tiers résidents de longue durée,19 qui prévoit la perte du statut de résident de longue durée en cas d’absence supérieure à 13 mois consécutifs, l’élargissement de la période jusqu’à deux ou trois ans est envisagée. Dans les deux autres directives relatives respectivement aux conditions d’admission des ressortissants des pays tiers à des fins d’études, d’échange d’élèves, de formation non rémunérée ou de volontariat (Directive 2004/114/CE20) et sur l’établissement d’une procédure d’admission spécifique des ressortissants de pays tiers aux fins de recherche scientifique (Directive 2005/71/CE21), les alternatives pour faciliter la circularité portent sur plusieurs aspects. Ainsi, l’établissement de permis multiples d’entrée permettant de s’absenter du territoire de l’Union européenne sans perdre les droits de séjour, la simplification générale des procédures d’admission des personnes ayant travaillé préalablement comme chercheur ou étudiant dans l’UE, à condition qu’ils retournent dans leur pays d’origine à la fin de cette période. Dans une optique plus large, la possibilité de lier les deux directives a été envisagée afin de permettre des procédures d’admission plus simples lorsqu’il s’agit d’étudiants qui, après avoir achevé leurs études, souhaitent rester dans le pays d’accueil comme chercheur. La condition du retour dans le pays d’origine peut ralentir le recrutement, ce qui permettrait aux États membres d’autoriser le changement de situation migratoire in situ; c’est-à-dire sans avoir à retourner dans le pays d’origine à condition que la demande de modification ait été présentée avant l’expiration du titre de séjour aux fins d’études, une situation déjà visée dans de nombreuses législations nationales, notamment l’espagnole, quoiqu’avec des limites importantes. Pour que ces mesures soient efficaces et sûres, elles requièrent une étroite collaboration avec les pays d’origine, non seulement dans le domaine de la migration mais aussi dans d’autres domaines liés à cette dernière comme l’emploi, la politique sociale, l’enseignement et la formation. Comme nous l’avons déjà indiqué, l’importance de la coopération au niveau multilatéral a été soulignée dans diverses instances et forums de débat. Mener une réflexion sur les techniques de coopération internationale des autorités développées par la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé et sur la viabilité de leur application à la gestion de certaines questions de la migration circulaire s’avère donc pertinent.

19 Directive 2003/109/CE du Conseil du 25 novembre 2003 relative au statut des ressortissants de pays tiers résidents de longue durée. JO L 16 du 23.1.2004. 20 Directive 2004/114/CE du Conseil du 13 décembre 2004 relative aux conditions d’admission des ressortissants de pays tiers à des fins d’études, d’échange d’élèves, de formation non rémunérée ou de volontariat. JO L 375 du 23.12.2004. 21 Directive 2005/71/CE du Conseil du 12 octobre 2005 relative à une procédure d’admission spécifique des ressortissants de pays tiers aux fins de recherche scientifique. JO L 289 du 3.11.2005.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 119 LA MIGRATION CIRCULAIRE ET LE ‘MODÈLE DE LA HAYE’ DE COOPÉRATION INTERNATIONALE

Depuis l’année 2006, la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé a déclaré être disposée à entamer une réflexion sur la possibilité d’appliquer ses techniques de coopération internationale à certaines questions de migrations internationales. Une réflexion qui, tenant compte du rôle des Autorités centrales dans certaines conventions de la Haye et de l’expérience tirée de la pratique, aurait comme objectif de vérifier la viabilité du système de La Haye de coopération internationale dans la gestion des programmes de migration temporaire ou circulaire, y compris l’organisation du retour, le transfert de fonds et l’établissement d’un système d’accords et de réglementation des autorités intermédiaires.22 La note établie par le Bureau permanent en mars 2008 précise ces questions et révèle non seulement les relations des travaux de la Conférence de La Haye avec les questions migratoires internationales (1), mais aussi comment la technique de coopération des Autorités centrales (ci-après, le modèle de La Haye), faciliterait la mise en œuvre des traités de migration temporaire ou circulaire au niveau multilatéral23 (2).

Les Travaux de la Conférence de La Haye de Droit International Privé et Leurs Relations avec les Migrations Internationales Le lien ou la relation entre les travaux de la Conférence de la Haye et les migrations internationales est attesté par le fait que bien des questions apparues suite aux mouvements transfrontaliers relèvent du droit international privé. Ainsi, les mariages et les divorces internationaux, la protection juridique des enfants (y compris le transfert illicite ou ‘enlèvement international’) et d’adultes vulnérables (parmi lesquels figurent les migrants âgés, par exemple les ascendants dans le regroupement familial), les régimes matrimoniaux et de succession ou le recouvrement international d’aliments. La Conférence de la Haye a élaboré un important corpus de conventions multilatérales sur cette matière (les Conventions de La Haye24) et une ratification plus ample de ces dernières contribuerait à résoudre, avec ordre et sécurité juridique, bien des problèmes de trafic externe dans un environnement de forte pression migratoire internationale. Par exemple, la Convention de La Haye du 25 octobre 1980 sur les aspects civils de l’enlèvement international d’enfants est un traité multilatéral, qui tend à protéger les enfants des effets nuisibles de l’enlèvement et de la rétention au-delà des frontières internationales en prévoyant une procédure permettant leur retour rapide. La Convention de La Haye du 29 mai 1993 sur la protection des enfants et 22 Doc prél No 8 de mars 2006 sur les affaires générales et la politique de la Conférence. Voir aussi Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, ‘Recommandations et Conclusions du Conseil sur les affaires générales et la politique’ (2–4 avril 2007) Conclusion no 6. 23 Bureau Permanent de la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, Quelques réflexions sur l’utilité d’appliquer certaines techniques de coopération internationale (n 9). 24 Toutes les Conventions : www.hcch.net/index_fr.php?act=conventions.listing.

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la coopération en matière d’adoption internationale protège les enfants et leurs familles des risques d’adoptions à l’étranger illégales, irrégulières, prématurées ou mal préparées. Cette Convention qui fonctionne également par l’intermédiaire d’un système d’Autorités centrales nationales, renforce la Convention des Nations Unies relative aux droits de l’enfant (art. 21). Elle a pour but de garantir que les adoptions internationales soient organisées dans l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant et en respectant ses droits fondamentaux, ainsi que de prévenir l’enlèvement, la vente et le trafic d’enfants. La nouvelle Convention sur le recouvrement international des aliments destinés aux enfants et à d’autres membres de la famille et son Protocole sur la loi applicable aux obligations alimentaires établit un système, d’application assez large, pour la reconnaissance et l’exécution de décisions en matière d’obligations alimentaires rendues dans les États contractants – combiné avec des procédures expéditives; un système de coopération entre Autorités centrales dans chaque pays afin de faciliter le traitement des demandes internationales; l’accès à des services virtuellement gratuits pour les demandeurs d’aliments, y compris, le cas échéant, une assistance juridique gratuite dans tous les États contractants; l’obligation de prendre des mesures rapides et efficaces pour exécuter les décisions provenant d’autres pays en matière d’aliments. Une attention toute particulière a été prêtée aux droits du débiteur, notamment aux procédures qui leurs sont accessibles pour modifier les décisions en matière d’aliments, qui bénéficieront également des services gracieux offerts par les Autorités centrales.25 Le succès des Conventions de La Haye réside non seulement dans le grand nombre d’États contractants26 mais aussi dans le constat empirique de résultats favorables.27 Il est dû tant à la qualité technique de l’œuvre de La Haye qu’à la création à partir de 1964, de véritables régimes de coopération permanente et institutionnalisée moyennant l’établissement, dans certaines conventions, d’Autorités centrales dans chacun des États parties.28 À partir de la naissance de ce système, et de son perfectionnement progressif, de graves problèmes de fond ont pu être évités sur lesquels il aurait été très difficile d’arriver à un accord comme on l’a

25 Convention du 23 novembre 2007 sur le recouvrement international des aliments destinés aux enfants et à d’autres membres de la famille. www.hcch.net/index_fr.php?act=conventions.text&cid=131. 26 Par exemple, la Convention du 25 octobre 1980 sur les aspects civils de l’enlèvement international de mineurs et la Convention du 29 mai 1993 relative à la protection de l’enfant et à la coopération en matière d’adoption internationale, avec 81 et 75 États parties respectivement. Sur Internet: www.hcch.net/index_fr.php?act=text.display&tid=10#family. 27 Par exemple, l’‘Espace Enlèvement d’enfants’ fournit des informations sur le fonctionnement pratique de la Convention, ainsi que sur les travaux de la Conférence de La Haye concernant la surveillance de la mise en œuvre de la Convention et la promotion de la coopération internationale dans le domaine de l’enlèvement d’enfants. Le site Internet : http://hcch.e-vision.nl/index_fr.php?act=text. display&tid=21. Le ‘Guide des bonnes pratiques en vertu de la Convention de La Haye du 29 mai 1993’ recense les questions importantes relatives à la planification, à la mise en place et au fonctionnement du cadre juridique et administratif de mise en œuvre de la Convention : Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, La mise en œuvre et le fonctionnement de la Convention de La Haye sur l’adoption internationale : Guide de bonnes pratiques, Guide No 1 en vertu de la Convention de La Haye du 29 mai 1993 sur la protection des enfants et la coopération en matière d’adoption internationale (Bristol, Family Law, 2008). Pour consultation : www.hcch.net/upload/adoguide_f.pdf. 28 GAL Droz, ‘La Conférence de La Haye et l’entraide judiciaire internationale’ (1980) 168 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 159–84.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 121 observé dans le cas de la Convention sur l’adoption internationale de 1993. D’autre part, le rôle actif des autorités nationales facilite également l’obtention d’une solution rapide à d’importants problèmes humains sans avoir à faire appel aux juges, comme par exemple la Convention sur les aspects civils de l’enlèvement international d’enfants.29 Pour nous en tenir à l’objectif central de cette communication, il nous faut souligner le rôle actif que la technique de coopération internationale de La Haye attribue aux Autorités centrales et leur fonction de tutelle pour la défense des intérêts particuliers des requérants considérés comme la partie faible de la relation juridique.

Le Modèle de Coopération Internationale des Autorités Centrales de La Haye et son Application à Certains Aspects de la Migration Temporaire ou Circulaire Comme nous l’avons signalé, à partir de la création de la technique de coopération internationale des autorités, le système des Autorités centrales devient le modèle adopté par la Conférence de La Haye aussi bien pour les conventions sur la coopération procédurale internationale30 que pour les conventions règlementant des matières spécifiques (par exemple la protection internationale des enfants et des adultes in genere, l’enlèvement international d’enfants, l’adoption internationale ou le recouvrement international des aliments). Sans entrer dans l’analyse évolutive du fonctionnement et de la structure des Autorités centrales dans le système conventionnel de La Haye,31 il convient de souligner le caractère bilatéral de l’intervention de ces autorités et leur fonction de tutelle comme les éléments phares du modèle actuel de La Haye. Avant d’examiner le premier élément (caractère bilatéral de l’ intervention), il nous faut retenir que la technique de coopération internationale se construit autour d’une Autorité centrale créée dans chaque État contractant afin de centraliser et transférer les différentes demandes. En général, les conventions posent une série de prémisses sur le régime juridique de cette structure : il incombe à chaque État contractant de désigner son Autorité centrale et d’en notifier la désignation au ministère des Affaires étrangères des Pays Bas, soit au moment du dépôt de son instrument de ratification ou d’adhésion, soit ultérieurement. Les conventions n’imposent pas aux États l’obligation de créer un organisme ex novo, le rôle de 29 JD González Campos et A Borrás Rodríguez, Recopilación de convenios de la Conferencia de La Haya de Derecho internacional privado (1951–1993). Traducción al castellano (Madrid, Marcial Pons, 1996) 14. 30 Convention du 18 mars 1970 sur l’obtention des preuves à l’étranger en matière civile ou commerciale et la Convention du 25 octobre 1980 tendant à faciliter l’accès international à la justice, www.hcch.net/index_fr.php?act=text.display&tid=10#litigation. 31 GAL Droz, ‘Évolution du rôle des autorités administratives dans les Conventions internationales de droit international privé au cours du premier siècle de la Conférence de La Haye’ dans Études offertes à Pierre Bellet (Paris, Librairie de la Cour de cassation, 1991) 129–47. Doctrine espagnole, inter alia: A Borrás Rodríguez, ‘El papel de la autoridad central: los Convenios de La Haya y España’ (1993) 45 Revista Española de Derecho Internacional 63–80; S García Cano, ‘Evolución de las técnicas de cooperación internacional entre autoridades en el Derecho internacional privado’ (2005) 112 Boletín Mexicano de Derecho Comparado 75–109.

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l’Autorité centrale peut retomber sur n’importe quelle autorité déjà existante en droit interne et c’est à l’État qui la désigne qu’incombe son organisation. L’intervention bilatérale des Autorités centrales désignées par chaque État contractant prend la forme d’une double fonction, de réception et de transmission. L’Autorité centrale reçoit d’une part, les demandes adressées dans son État (par exemple, de demande de restitution d’un enfant ou de reconnaissance d’une résolution relative au droit de garde) et la transmet à son homologue dans l’État étranger. D’autre part, elle reçoit et transmet les demandes de son homologue étranger faisant appel à sa collaboration (par exemple, afin de faciliter la localisation et le retour d’un enfant ou afin d’obtenir la reconnaissance et l’exécution d’une résolution donnée).32 Du point de vue règlementaire, les conventions introduisent un ensemble de règles matérielles33 qui établissent comme prémisse l’obligation générale pour les Autorités centrales de coopérer entre elles et de promouvoir la coopération entre les autorités compétentes pour accomplir les objectifs de la convention (obligation globale de coopération ad extra et ad intra). Elles énoncent ensuite un ensemble d’obligations visant à atteindre l’objectif de la convention dans chaque cas concret (obligations spécifiques de coopération). Alors que, dans certains cas, ces obligations spécifiques sont attribuées exclusivement à l’Autorité centrale, dans d’autres cas, l’intervention d’autorités publiques voire de personnes ou d’organismes privés est admise, même si la responsabilité ultime d’exécution et du résultat retombe sur l’Autorité centrale désignée. Il est important de souligner que l’extension et l’amplitude de la capacité de prendre des décisions des Autorités centrales varie d’une convention à l’autre. Alors que dans la Convention de 1980 sur les aspects civils de l’enlèvement international d’enfants, l’intéressé peut ne pas faire appel à l’intervention de l’Autorité centrale34 et celle-ci, si elle a été requise, peut admettre ou rejeter dans certaines circonstances la demande, dans la Convention de 1993 sur la protection des enfants et la coopération en matière d’adoption internationale, les requérants ne peuvent pas passer outre l’intervention de l’Autorité centrale et par conséquent, une décision de rejet de la part de l’Autorité centrale de l’État d’accueil ne permettrait pas de faire jouer la Convention. Dans cette Convention sur l’adoption, l’intervention et la prise de décisions de la part des Autorités centrales ne s’achève pas lors de la première phase de la procédure, elle se poursuit tout au long de celle-ci. Si l’Autorité centrale de l’État d’origine considère que l’enfant est adoptable, elle s’assure que les consentements nécessaires ont été obtenus et évalue si l’adoption et le placement dans la famille 32

S García Cano, Evolución de las técnicas de cooperación internacional entre autoridades (n 31)

100. 33 Ces normes matérielles de Droit international privé ne règlent pas le fond mais le procédé ainsi que quelques aspects formels. Voir AP Abarca Junco (éd), Derecho internacional privado, tome 1 (Madrid Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 2008) 109–25. 34 E Pérez Vera, ‘Conferencia de la Haya de Derecho Internacional Privado Envelement d’enfants. Rapport explicatif’ dans Colegio Universitario de Toledo, Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de Toledo et Caja Toledo (éds), La sustracción internacional de menores (aspectos civiles), Ponencias, comunicaciones y materiales de trabajo de las Jornadas de profesores de Derecho internacional privado de Toledo (26 y 27 de enero de 1990) (Toledo, Patronato Universitario de Toledo, 1991) 164.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 123 adoptive prévue sont dans l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant. Si c’est le cas, l’Autorité centrale de l’État d’accueil est consultée afin qu’elle donne son accord pour poursuivre la procédure d’adoption internationale et pour qu’elle approuve la décision prise par l’Autorité centrale de l’État d’origine de confier l’enfant aux futurs parents adoptifs.35 Comme on peut l’observer, une intervention bilatérale de cette nature favorise, d’un côté, la collaboration directe et étroite des Autorités centrales étant donné qu’elles exercent, dans chaque État contractant, la double fonction de réception et de transmission. Les fonctions et les compétences étant identifiées et réunies en une seule structure administrative, on vise à simplifier la procédure et à éliminer la bureaucratie excessive qu’entraîne la multiplication des autorités administratives compétentes (en Espagne par exemple, trois ministères différents interviennent pour l’accomplissement des démarches d’autorisation d’entrée, de séjour et de travail). Du point de vue des particuliers, le système fournit une plus grande sécurité juridique tout en réduisant les coûts. Nous avions cité la fonction de tutelle des Autorités centrales comme deuxième élément caractéristique du modèle de coopération de La Haye. Comme dans le domaine de l’intervention, la portée de la fonction de tutelle s’avère différente suivant les objectifs des conventions. Alors que, dans les Conventions de la Haye relatives aux procédures civiles, la fonction de tutelle de l’Autorité centrale a pour objet de faciliter les procédures afin de garantir la tutelle judiciaire effective des particuliers, dans les conventions sur les enfants et les adultes et, en général, dans les conventions sur le droit de la famille, cette fonction vise à réaliser et à garantir des valeurs matérielles bien déterminées et concrètes ou bien la protection de l’adulte ou du créancier des aliments, en tant que partie faible de la relation juridique.36 La traduction juridique de cette fonction de tutelle dans le cadre de la coopération internationale diffère également selon les objectifs conventionnels et les intérêts en présence.37 Ainsi, dans la Convention relative à l’enlèvement international d’enfant, dont l’objectif est la réalisation de l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant dans chaque cas concret, c’est-à-dire la présomption du retour nécessaire et immédiat de l’enfant déplacé ou retenu illicitement à l’endroit où se trouvait sa résidence

35 Le modèle de fonctionnement de la Convention de La Haye de 1980 a été adopté par la Convention du 23 novembre 2007 sur le recouvrement international des aliments destinés aux enfants et à d’autres membres de la famille (http://hcch.e–vision.nl/index_fr.php?act=conventions.text&cid=131). L’intervention et les fonctions de coopération et d’aide des Autorités Centrales sont plus limitées dans les Conventions de La Haye sur la protection générale de mineurs (1996) et sur la protection internationale d’adultes (2000). 36 A Borrás, ‘La protección internacional del niño y del adulto como expresión de la materalización del derecho internacional privado: similitudes y contrastes’ dans LI Sánchez Rodríguez et al (éd), Pacis Artes, Obra homenaje al Profesor Julio D. González Campos— Tomo II Derecho internacional privado, derecho constitucional y varia (Madrid, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid et Eurolex 2005) 1287 et seq. 37 Sur les fonctions des Autorités centrales et le bien juridique protégé dans les Conventions de La Haye, voir M Herranz Ballesteros, El interés del menor en los Convenios de La Haya de Derecho internacional privado (Zaragoza, Lex Nova, 2004) 205–25.

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habituelle immédiatement avant son déplacement ou sa rétention illicite,38 les règles qui régissent l’intervention et les fonctions des Autorités centrales, essaient de réaliser de façon satisfaisante cet objectif au cas par cas, l’Autorité centrale devant fondamentalement et comme représentant de l’enfant prêter assistance au demandeur de l’ordre de retour afin de préserver le droit de l’enfant à ne pas être objet de déplacement ou de retenue illicite.39 Dans la Convention de La Haye de 1993 sur l’adoption internationale, l’intervention des Autorités centrales répond à l’idée de la réalisation de l’intérêt du mineur en cohérence avec l’article 21 de la Convention de New York de 1989 sur les droits de l’enfant40 et avec la nouvelle approche de l’adoption internationale comme un droit fondamental de l’enfant qui doit être protégé et non comme un droit des adoptants. Par conséquent, le fondement de la tutelle dans l’adoption internationale réside dans le fait qu’elle se réalise avec toutes les garanties, sauvegarde et contrôles nécessaires. Les fonctions des Autorités centrales ne sont pas tant l’assistance aux futurs adoptants que de s’assurer que la procédure d’adoption internationale, à chacune de ses phases, soit réalisée conformément aux règles, sauvegardes et contrôles prévus dans le texte de la convention pour garantir l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant.41 Dans les Conventions relatives à la protection internationale des enfants (Convention de La Haye de 199642) et à la protection internationale des adultes (Convention de La Haye de 200043), la fonction de tutelle de l’intervention semble bien plus floue et est transférée en dernière instance aux autorités compétentes (judiciaires ou administratives) des États concernés. En effet, ces Conventions de La Haye, à caractère général, réglementent la protection internationale des catégories de personnes nécessitant une protection juridique spéciale (enfants et adultes) et leurs objectifs ne sont pas élaborés à partir de résultats concrets. Cette généralité oblige à confier aux autorités compétentes la plus haute responsabilité quant à la concrétisation de l’intérêt de l’enfant (ou de l’adulte) et les fonctions des Autorités centrales visent principalement à prêter assistance à d’autres autorités.

38 I Barriere–Brouse, ‘L’enfant et les conventions internationales’ (1996) 123 Journal du droit international 843–88. 39 Sur les obligations, les pouvoirs et les fonctions dans la Convention de La Haye de 1980, P-P Miralles Sangro, El secuestro internacional de menores y su incidencia en España (Madrid, Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales, 1989) 153–56. 40 Sur le système conventionnel général de protection des droits de l’enfant et la Conférence de La Haye, M Vargas Gómez-Urrutia, La protección internacional de los derechos del niño y la la conferencia de La Haya de derecho internacional privado (México, Secretaría de Cultura del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1999) 25 et seq. 41 JHA, van Loon, ‘International Co-operation and Protection of Children with Regard to Intercountry Adoption’ (1993) 244 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 191–456. 42 U Calvento Solari, ‘Conferencia de La Haya de Derecho Internacional Privado: Convenio sobre protección de niños. Nota explicativa’ (octubre de 1997) 67 Infancia: Boletín del Instituto Interamericano del Niño-OEA 61 et seq. 43 A Bucher, ‘La Convention de La Haye sur la protection internationale des adultes’ (2000) 10 Revue suisse de droit international et de droit européen 37 et seq; E Pérez Vera, La protección de los mayores de edad en el umbral del siglo XXI (Reflexiones desde la perspectiva del Derecho internacional privado), Discurso de ingreso en la Real Academia de Jurisprudencia y Legislación (Granada, 2000).

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 125 Finalement, en matière d’obligations alimentaires, la fonction de tutelle des Autorités centrales de la Convention de La Haye de 200744 se rapproche de celle retenue par la Convention de La Haye sur l’enlèvement international d’enfants, mais à partir de l’expérience de la Convention de New York de 1956 sur le recouvrement des aliments à l’étranger.45 De notre point de vue, le modèle de La Haye pourrait être adopté dans un cadre multilatéral de migration temporaire ou circulaire. D’une part, les objectifs de la migration circulaire dans les programmes et les accords-cadres actuels n’assurent pas correctement la protection des droits des travailleurs migrants, notamment à cause de l’absence d’un contrôle auprès des entreprises privées. L’intervention des Autorités centrales garantirait le respect des droits des travailleurs migrants et contribuerait à la prévention de l’immigration irrégulière. D’autre part, le cadre juridique selon le modèle de La Haye permettrait d’incorporer l’obligation générale de coopérer et les procédures de recrutement pourraient être unifiées en fixant des obligations concrètes de collaboration et les domaines de décision des Autorités centrales. Le modèle de migration temporaire ou circulaire serait ainsi doté de plus de certitude et de garanties juridiques.

LA MIGRATION CIRCULAIRE ET SES CONSÉQUENCES POSSIBLES SUR LES MODÈLES D’INTÉGRATION ET SUR LA RÈGLE DE CONFLIT DE LOIS APPLICABLE AU STATUT PERSONNEL

Comme nous l’avons avancé au début de cette étude, encourager la migration circulaire signifie mettre en place une politique législative qui évite dans la mesure du possible l’installation permanente ou de longue durée des immigrants dans le pays d’accueil. Si le modèle finissait par être instauré, il faudrait se demander si, d’une part, les notions traditionnelles de l’intégration au sein des sociétés d’accueil sont valables dans le contexte de la migration circulaire (1) et envisager, d’autre part, la revalorisation éventuelle du rattachement à la loi nationale comme critère régissant les relations familiales privées (2).

Les Notions Traditionnelles d’intégration (des Immigrants) et la Migration Temporaire ou Circulaire L’OIM a déclaré: ‘Il convient de repenser les notions traditionnelles d’intégration des migrants au sein des communautés d’accueil dans un monde de plus en plus transnational’.46 Les tendances migratoires actuelles mettent en évidence la nécessité d’élargir les efforts d’intégration pour inclure le rôle des immigrants temporaires ou circulaires 44

Texte de la Convention: www.hcch.net/upload/text38s.pdf. Texte de la Convention: http://untreaty.un.org/French/sample/FrenchInternetBible/partI/ chapterXX/treaty1.htm. 46 OIM — L’agence des migrations, ‘Une mobilite mondiale accrue appelle a repenser les politiques d’integration’ (12.07.2006) www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/news-releases/newsArticleEU/cache/offonce/ lang/fr?entryId=8533. 45

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dans les sociétés d’accueil. Si l’on convient que l’intégration n’implique pas nécessairement une installation définitive, le respect de l’identité culturelle, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit d’immigrants originaires de pays où la religion joue un rôle essentiel, mais toujours sur la base d’un ensemble fondamental de valeurs permettant aux uns et aux autres de se sentir identifiés et de coexister de façon pacifique. En effet, lorsque les politiques en matière d’intégration reposent sur une conception unidirectionnelle des mouvements migratoires, la migration est conçue en termes d’installation définitive dans le pays d’accueil, souvent suivie par l’acquisition d’une nouvelle nationalité (modèle assimilationniste). Néanmoins, comme nous l’avons indiqué au point I, la migration internationale présente un aspect circulaire ou multidirectionnel qui confère un nouveau sens à l’identité individuelle. En effet, comme cela a été mis en exergue par la littérature scientifique, cette mobilité circulaire suscite chez les personnes qui émigrent un sentiment d’appartenance à plus d’un pays ou d’une société, ce qui, conjointement à la possibilité d’avoir deux nationalités ou plus, donne une nouvelle dimension à l’intégration. Les politiques communautaires sur l’intégration conçues par l’Union européenne dans son Agenda pour l’intégration des ressortissants des pays tiers s’attachent sur le plan théorique à promouvoir cette nouvelle dimension, mais les textes juridiques continuent à reposer sur l’idée de permanence et de stabilité sur le territoire communautaire. Ceci peut être constaté dans les mesures relatives au regroupement familial et au statut de résident de longue durée qui ont été adoptées.47 En effet, la Directive 2003/86/CE du 22 septembre sur le regroupement familial48 est l’un des instruments légaux les plus importants qui peut contribuer à l’intégration et la stabilité des immigrants dans le pays d’accueil. Le critère d’intégration dans les règles sur le regroupement familial y est visé dans son Considérant 4: Le regroupement familial est un moyen nécessaire pour permettre la vie en famille. Il contribue à la création d’une stabilité socioculturelle facilitant l’intégration des ressortissants de pays tiers dans les États membres, ce qui permet par ailleurs de promouvoir la cohésion économique et sociale.

Pourtant, dans un contexte migratoire circulaire qui ne favorise pas la permanence mais bien le retour, le regroupement familial va être fortement limité étant donné que les conditions imposées par la directive et par les législations nationales par rapport au temps de séjour et aux conditions d’hébergement ne se produiront pas dans le nouveau modèle. Quant à la résidence de longue durée, la Directive 2003/109/CE du 25 novembre relative au statut des ressortissants de pays tiers résidents de longue durée,49 vise à 47 AP Abarca Junco et M Vargas, ‘Un proyecto para encauzar la acción legislativa en la Agenda para la integración de los nacionales de terceros países en la Unión Europea’ (2007) Análisis del Instituto Universitario de Investigación sobre Seguridad Interior, www.iuisi.es/12_publicaciones/12_2007/ doc056–2007.pdf. 48 Directive 2003/86/CE du Conseil, du 22 septembre 2003, relative au droit au regroupement familial. JO L 251 du 3.10.2003. 49 Directive 2003/109/CE du Conseil, du 25 novembre 2003, relative au statut des ressortissants de pays tiers résidents de longue durée. JO L 16/44, de 23.1.2004.

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Le Rôle du Droit International Privé 127 octroyer un ‘statut européen’ aux résidents des pays tiers en situation de séjour régulier et ininterrompu pendant cinq ans sur le territoire des États membres. Cette directive considère comme critère principal d’intégration, la résidence légale et ininterrompue dans un État membre pendant une durée donnée (5 ans) car elle témoignerait de l’ancrage de la personne dans le pays. Toutefois, une absence prolongée du territoire (douze mois) peut entraîner la perte du statut de résident. Il est donc évident que le fondement de l’intégration repose sur des termes d’installation définitive et qu’il ne favorise pas la circularité. De ce point de vue, il serait nécessaire d’incorporer la nouvelle dimension d’intégration des immigrants temporaires. Pour ce faire, on pourrait mettre à profit le cadre de coopération internationale selon le modèle de La Haye expliqué au point II. D’une part, des séances d’orientation (obligatoires) préalables au départ devraient être prévues, permettant aux immigrants de connaître les valeurs essentielles de la nouvelle société d’accueil. D’autre part, des campagnes de sensibilisation dans les écoles, sur le lieu de travail et dans les médias des pays d’accueil pourraient contribuer à une meilleure préparation des sociétés d’accueil à l’arrivée des nouveaux immigrants. Mais la conciliation des exigences d’intégration des immigrants et du respect de leur culture d’origine suscite un autre dilemme relevant du droit international privé. En termes de loi applicable au statut personnel, l’idée d’intégration dans un contexte de migration temporaire ou circulaire permettrait peut-être de trouver de nouveaux arguments en faveur du critère de rattachement à la loi nationale face à ceux qui le considèrent comme un obstacle à l’intégration.

L’alternative Loi Nationale — Loi du Domicile face à L’intégration dans un Modèle Migratoire Temporaire ou Circulaire Comme nous venons de le voir, un changement du modèle d’immigration provoque un changement de l’idée de l’intégration, ce qui va être reflété dans le droit des étrangers mais également dans les règles de conflit des lois. Concrètement, dans le choix du critère de rattachement à la loi nationale ou de la résidence habituelle (du domicile) pour régir les relations privées de la famille. En effet, l’incidence du mouvement migratoire est un argument historique en faveur d’un critère ou de l’autre.50 Ainsi, les États qui connurent une forte émigration au XIXe siècle et dans la première moitié du XXe tendent à préférer l’application de la loi nationale, alors que les États récepteurs d’immigration donneraient la priorité à l’application de la loi du domicile.51

50 J Déprez, ‘Droit international privé et conflits de civilisations. Aspects méthodologiques (Les relations entre systèmes d’Europe occidentale et systèmes islamiques en matière de statut personnel)’ (1988) 211 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–372, notamment 22–41. 51 Laboratoire d’études et de recherches appliquées au droit privé, Le droit de la famille à l’épreuve des migrations transnationales. Colloque du Laboratoire d’études et de recherches appliquées au droit privé, Université de Lille II (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1993) (avant-propos de F Dekeuwer-Défossez).

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Mais pour expliquer aujourd’hui la préférence pour l’un ou l’autre de ces critères de rattachement, on ne peut désormais plus se contenter de retenir les données d’autrefois, ni même les traits qui ont caractérisé les migrations économiques des années soixante, même s’ils restent sous-jacents (essentiellement, la demande de main d’œuvre étrangère de la part des pays développés et seulement de façon tardive, des efforts pour une intégration sociale et politique des étrangers afin de faciliter leur naturalisation). Les détracteurs du rattachement à la loi nationale dans un contexte de forte pression migratoire soutenaient qu’appliquer la loi nationale comme loi régissant les relations familiales était un obstacle à l’intégration des étrangers et se montraient donc partisans du rattachement à la loi du domicile (selon leur formule ‘loi du lieu d’accueil’) car il répondrait mieux à l’intérêt de l’État dans une politique d’immigration qui mettrait l’accent sur l’intégration pour éviter la fréquence avec laquelle le correctif classique de l’ordre public peut opérer dans le secteur de la loi applicable.52 Cela dit, dans un contexte de migration circulaire, l’argument précédent peut perdre de sa valeur compte tenu de deux éléments. Il convient tout d’abord de signaler que la loi nationale n’interdit en rien l’intégration dans la société d’accueil puisqu’il s’agit d’un fait indépendant du statut familial. Ensuite, en réalité, il n’existe pas de véritable opposition entre l’intégration de fait dans la société d’accueil et le lien avec le pays d’origine car, comme nous l’avons avancé, l’une des caractéristiques de la migration circulaire est le développement des relations personnelles et familiales dans la pluralité culturelle et ceci permet l’intégration simultanée au sein de plusieurs communautés sociales (transnationalité). La revalorisation du critère de rattachement à la loi nationale dans un contexte de migration circulaire gagne donc en intensité lorsqu’elle est évoquée en tenant compte de l’idée de l’identité nationale et culturelle de la personne.53 De nombreuses études doctrinales s’accordent à signaler que la loi nationale est plus respectueuse de l’identité culturelle de la personne dans la mesure où elle reflète la loi d’origine de l’individu, celle avec laquelle il possède un lien personnel plus étroit. Cela se traduit par le fait que le rattachement à la loi nationale supposerait une vocation de reconnaissance de la spécificité de l’étranger et de son appartenance à une communauté nationale différente de celle du pays d’accueil. La doctrine a souligné que si l’on poussait cette vision jusqu’à l’extrême, on courrait le risque de tomber dans une approche ‘déterministe’ de l’identité culturelle de l’individu et de son lien avec la patrie. Toutefois, dans un contexte migratoire circulaire, ces objections n’auraient pas lieu d’être, puisque la circularité serait un argument de poids pour conserver le critère de rattachement à la loi nationale qui s’accorderait davantage avec la situation migratoire de la personne et pour assurer la continuité

52 M Farge, Le statut familial des étrangers en France: de la loi nationale à la loi de la résidence habituelle (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2003) 83–97. M Vargas Gómez-Urrutia, La reagrupación familiar de los extranjeros en España. Normas de extranjería y problemas de derecho aplicable (Cizur Menor, Thomson-Aranzadi, 2006) 303–10. 53 E Jayme, ‘Identité culturelle et intégration: le droit international privé postmoderne. Cours général de droit international privé’ (1995) 251 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–267, notamment 262–64.

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des relations juridiques personnelles. Une continuité qui devient désormais nécessaire puisque la permanence ou la stabilité dans le pays d’accueil tend à se diluer. Modifier la loi applicable aux relations familiales privées n’a donc plus de sens. CONCLUSIONS

(1) Depuis que le Forum mondial sur la migration et le développement a proposé à l’été 2007 de promouvoir la circularité comme une modalité de gestion migratoire, le concept et les objectifs de la migration temporaire ou circulaire sont placés à l’avant-garde du débat sur la migration et le développement. Sa définition fait référence au mouvement migratoire à caractère non permanent entre les pays, en fonction des besoins de travail des pays d’origine et d’accueil et pour le bénéfice de tous. Ce modèle essaie de conjuguer l’intérêt des pays très industrialisés qui doivent couvrir leurs besoins de main d’œuvre en souplesse, avec ordre et légalement, avec les intérêts des pays en développement d’accéder aux marchés du travail les plus riches, de favoriser les connaissances et de freiner le risque de fuite des cerveaux. (2) Dans l’Union européenne, cette alternative est en phase d’analyse. La tendance à la circularité dans le cadre communautaire se limite à sélectionner dans le pays d’origine des travailleurs saisonniers en fonction du marché européen ou bien des personnes à haute qualification qui viendraient sur le territoire de l’Union européenne pour une période de temps limitée, sans avoir la possibilité d’acquérir un statut de séjour durable (circularité appliquée aux non-résidents) ou à faciliter le retour dans le cas des résidents dans l’Union européenne possédant la capacité de démarrer en dehors du territoire communautaire une activité professionnelle ou une entreprise (circularité appliquée aux résidents). (3) Afin de faciliter cette nouvelle approche migratoire, la Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé propose de mettre à l’épreuve ses techniques de coopération internationales des Autorités centrales en les appliquant à la gestion de la migration temporaire ou circulaire. Le modèle conventionnel multilatéral de La Haye sera utile pour la gestion de ce modèle car il parvient, à travers la structure des Autorités centrales, à mettre en œuvre une coopération bilatérale efficace et à assurer la tutelle des intérêts en présence. (4) Dans un contexte de circularité, l’intégration doit être perçue de façon différente de celle qui a été considérée traditionnellement. En effet, il faudra partir d’une idée plus souple d’intégration puisque le nouveau modèle n’implique pas la permanence dans la société d’accueil. Il s’agit de conserver l’identité culturelle de l’étranger et de la conjuguer avec le maintien des valeurs fondamentales de la société d’accueil pour promouvoir une coexistence harmonieuse. Ce changement aura également des conséquences évidentes sur nombre d’aspects liés à l’intégration (regroupement familial, éducation, etc.) qui rendront peut-être nécessaire une révision de règles régissant les droits et les devoirs des étrangers, c’est-à-dire le droit des étrangers. (5) Depuis le début des migrations, considérées permanentes, deux théories ont toujours été confrontées, celle de la multiculturalité contre celle de l’intégration. La première préférait le rattachement à la loi nationale en ce qui concerne le

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BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages AP Abarca Junco (éd), Derecho internacional privado, tome I (Madrid Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 2008). J Bellavista et V Renovell (éds), Ciencia, tecnología e innovación en América Latina (Barcelona, Publicaciones de la Universidad de Barcelona, 1999). Commission mondiale sur la dimension sociale de la mondialisation, Une mondialisation juste. Créer des opportunités pour tous (Genève, Bureau international du Travail, 2004). Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé, La mise en œuvre et le fonctionnement de la Convention de La Haye sur l’adoption internationale : Guide de bonnes pratiques, Guide No 1 en vertu de la Convention de La Haye du 29 mai 1993 sur la protection des enfants et la coopération en matière d’adoption internationale (Bristol, Family Law, 2008). M Farge, Le statut familial des étrangers en France: de la loi nationale à la loi de la résidence habituelle (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2003). JD González Campos et A Borrás Rodríguez, Recopilación de convenios de la Conferencia de La Haya de Derecho internacional privado (1951–1993). Traducción al castellano (Madrid, Marcial Pons, 1996). M Herranz Ballesteros, El interés del menor en los Convenios de La Haya de Derecho internacional privado (Zaragoza, Lex Nova, 2004). Laboratoire d’études et de recherches appliquées au droit privé, Le droit de la famille à l’épreuve des migrations transnationales. Colloque du Laboratoire d’études et de recherches appliquées au droit privé, Université de Lille II (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1993). P-P Miralles Sangro, El secuestro internacional de menores y su incidencia en España (Madrid, Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales, 1989). M Vargas Gómez-Urrutia, La protección internacional de los derechos del niño y la conferencia de La Haya de derecho internacional privado (México, Secretaría de Cultura del Gobierno de Jalisco, 1999).

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M Vargas Gómez-Urrutia, La reagrupación familiar de los extranjeros en España. Normas de extranjería y problemas de derecho aplicable (Cizur Menor, Thomson-Aranzadi, 2006).

Articles d’Ouvrages Collectifs A Borrás, ‘La protección internacional del niño y del adulto como expresión de la materalización del derecho internacional privado: similitudes y contrastes‘ dans LI Sánchez Rodríguez, JC Fernández Rozas, P Andrés Sáenz de Santa María, M Virgós Soriano, MA Amores Conradi, FJ Garcimartín Alférez et JJ Álvarez Rubio (éds), Pacis Artes, Obra homenaje al Profesor Julio D. González Campos — Tomo II Derecho internacional privado, derecho constitucional y varia (Madrid, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid et Eurolex, 2005). GAL Droz, ‘Évolution du rôle des autorités administratives dans les Conventions internationales de droit international privé au cours du premier siècle de la Conférence de La Haye’ dans Études offertes à Pierre Bellet (Paris, Librairie de la Cour de cassation, 1991). E Pérez Vera, ‘Conferencia de la Haya de Derecho Internacional Privado Envelement d’enfants. Rapport explicatif’ dans Colegio Universitario de Toledo, Excelentísimo Ayuntamiento de Toledo et Caja Toledo (éds), La sustracción internacional de menores (aspectos civiles), Ponencias, comunicaciones y materiales de trabajo de las Jornadas de profesores de Derecho internacional privado de Toledo (26 y 27 de enero de 1990) (Toledo, Patronato Universitario de Toledo, 1991) 164.

Articles de Périodiques I Barriere-Brouse, ‘L’enfant et les conventions internationales’ (1996) 123 Journal du droit international 843–88. A Borrás Rodríguez, ‘El papel de la autoridad central: los Convenios de La Haya y España’ (1993) 45 Revista Española de Derecho Internacional 63–80. A Bucher, ‘La Convention de La Haye sur la protection internationale des adultes’ 10 Revue suisse de droit international et de droit européen (2000) 37–59. A Bustinduy, ‘La importancia de la implicación de los actores del Sur en el codesarrollo. Lecciones aprendidas del programa MIDA’ (2008) 2 Revista virtual codesarollo-cideal.org, Análisis. U Calvento Solari, ‘Conferencia de La Haya de Derecho Internacional Privado: Convenio sobre protección de niños. Nota explicativa’ (octubre 1997) 67 Infancia: Boletín del Instituto Interamericano del Niño-OEA 61–85. S García Cano, ‘Evolución de las técnicas de cooperación internacional entre autoridades en el Derecho internacional privado’ (2005) 112 Boletín Mexicano de Derecho Comparado 75–109. P Levitt et N Nyberg Sorensen, ‘Global Migration Perspectives: The Transnational Turn in Migration Studies’ (2004) 6 Global Migration Perspectives 1–13.

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M Lô Diatta, ‘L’évolution des accords bilatéraux sur les travailleurs migrants’ (2007) 135 Journal du droit international 101–31. Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) ‘Programa de Trabajadores Agrícolas Temporales de Canadá (2a evaluación)’ (mars 2008) 25 Cuadernos de Trabajo sobre Migración 3–48.

Cours J Déprez, ‘Droit international privé et conflits de civilisations. Aspects méthodologiques (Les relations entre systèmes d’Europe occidentale et systèmes islamiques en matière de statut personnel)’ (1988) 211 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–372. GAL Droz, ‘La Conférence de La Haye et l’entraide judiciaire internationale’ (1980) 168 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 159–84. E Jayme, ‘Identité culturelle et intégration: le droit international privé postmoderne. Cours général de droit international privé’ (1995) 251 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–267. JHA van Loon, ‘International Co–operation and Protection of Children with Regard to Intercountry Adoption’ (1993) 244 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 191–456.

Référence Internet AP Abarca Junco et M Vargas (2007) ‘Un proyecto para encauzar la acción legislativa en la Agenda para la integración de los nacionales de terceros países en la Unión Europea’ Análisis del Instituto Universitario de Investigación sobre Seguridad Interior, www.iuisi.es/12_publicaciones/12_2007/doc056–2007.pdf. K Newland, (2007) ‘A Surge of Interest in Migration and Development’ Migration Information Source, www.migrationinformation.org. Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) (2006) La Migración Internacional y el Desarrollo: perspectivas y experiencias de la OIM, www.un. int/iom/IOM%20Perspectives%20and%20Experiences%20Spanish.pdf.

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International Law and the Right to Have Rights ALISON KESBY *

I

N THIS PAPER, I examine how international law and international legal concepts can facilitate, and yet also impede, inclusion at the national level. The lens through which I examine the relationship between international law and states’ negotiation of pluralism is Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘the right to have rights’. In the first section of the paper, I briefly discuss this concept. The second section then provides a more in-depth discussion of a context which raises the issue of the right to have rights, namely, the movement of people across borders. The third and final section explores the implications of the treatment of non-nationals at the border for equality and inclusion within states. By examining the right to have rights and its reinterpretation by the political theorist, Étienne Balibar, the paper aims to point to articulations of international law that facilitate inclusion and the negotiation of a diversity of interests within states.

THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS

As is well known, Arendt articulated the right to have rights as a response to the treatment of stateless people in the interwar period and the Second World War, who in being deprived of their nationality and of their citizenship, also lost their human rights. In Arendt’s account, human rights flow from membership of a political community, such that the right to citizenship is the right to have rights.1 Reversing most constitutional formulae, which found the rights of the citizen on the rights of man, and citizenship on humanity, for Arendt, human rights are not the foundation but the outcome of politics.2 According to Arendt, true human rights are based upon human plurality—that is, on the recognition of the distinctiveness of each person. In her view, this plurality can emerge and flourish only in the political sphere.3 She argued that human rights are those rights which are the product of the deliberations of a diverse group of people.4 Citizenship, being the status which * Research Fellow in Public International Law, St John’s College, Cambridge. 1 See H Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism revised edn (New York, Harcourt Inc, 1973) ch 9. 2 See, eg, ibid 297–302. 3 This idea is developed by H Arendt in The Human Condition 2nd edn (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998) in relation to her conception of ‘action’. See also H Arendt, The Promise of Politics (New York, Shocken Books, 2005) 93–200. 4 Here I draw on Arendt’s conception of human rights as the product of politics and ‘human plurality’ as the condition of politics.

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permits participation in such negotiations, is thus the guarantor of human rights.5 On this analysis, to be excluded from a political community is to be excluded from the sphere of rights—to have no voice in their content and no chance of claiming their protection—and ultimately to become an ‘anomaly’ for which the law does not provide.6 Arendt’s work is not without its critics. We need not accept her thought in its entirety to recognise that it is a productive point from which to address the question of the role of international law in states’ negotiation of increased pluralism within their societies. In articulating the right to have rights, Arendt sought to highlight the link between participatory political communities founded on plurality, on the one hand, and protection against arbitrary deprivation of nationality and statelessness on the other.7 In her assessment, superfluity at the domestic level and superfluity at the international level go together; rights-bearing in national and international law are two sides of a single coin. It is this relationship between the national and the international which I seek to probe in this paper. Within the context of the present forum, we could frame the issue as follows: how might international legal concepts contribute to how citizenship is conceived within and beyond states? Here, I will focus on one international legal concept, the border (that is, national borders), and how conceptions of the border in international law may facilitate or hinder the negotiation of pluralism within states. The following section examines conceptions of borders in international law in the context of the movement of people. In the final section of the paper, I draw the connection between how borders are conceived in international law and the issue of inclusion within states.

BORDERS AND THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE ACROSS STATES

According to received accounts, whereas nationals have a right to enter their state of nationality under international law, and states a duty to admit them, the admission of non-nationals is subject to state discretion. Here, I examine the role of borders in the exercise of this discretion. In exploring these issues, I draw on the work of Étienne Balibar who has reinterpreted Arendt’s writing in the contemporary context. For Balibar, rethinking the border is the key to re-conceptualizing citizenship.8 On one conception, borders are lines which distinguish one sovereign territory from another. That is to say, they are conceived in geographical or territorial terms. Today, however, borders are increasingly taking more complex forms. In Balibar’s account, borders are plural and relational, in the sense that they do not have the same meaning for everyone.9 Whilst for a ‘rich person from a rich country’, borders 5

Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (n 1), 290–302, especially 300–01. See, eg, ibid 301. 7 ibid 300–02. 8 See, eg, E Balibar and J Swenson (translator), We, The People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004) 101–14. 9 E Balibar and C Jones, J Swenson, J Turner (translator), Politics and the Other Scene (London, Verso, 2002) 81. 6

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signify a mere formality and the point at which their ‘surplus of rights’ may be exercised, for ‘a poor person from a poor country’, borders operate as discriminator and filter.10 In addition, the place at which borders are experienced may shift from group to group. For the members of one group, or for those members in one context, a national border may be described by the state’s territorial frontiers, but for another group, or for those members in another context, that same state’s border may take shape elsewhere. One of the means by which the discriminatory function of borders described by Balibar is achieved is by ‘exporting’ the border. National borders are being exported today by many governments and in many ways, such that entry into foreign states is negotiated from within would-be entrants’ state of nationality. Through this process, non-nationals may be prevented from leaving, and hence contained within their state of origin. For example, the UN Smuggling11 and Trafficking12 Protocols require states to adopt cooperative measures to prevent trafficking or smuggling and illegal entry into the territory of the state party.13 ‘Without prejudice to international commitments in relation to the free movement of people’, states parties are to ‘strengthen’ their border controls in order to prevent and detect trafficking in persons and migrant smuggling.14 In each case, sanctions are to be imposed on commercial carriers which fail to ensure that their passengers possess the travel documents required for entry into the receiving state.15 In light of the obligations which these Protocols impose on states, it has been said that international law permits, if not requires, states to prevent their nationals from departing their territory by unauthorised or irregular means.16 Here borders become a tool of international crime control: they are exported so as to impede the entry of non-nationals affected by such crime. A further context of the exporting of borders is the extraterritorial application of immigration laws. One well-known example of this practice is an agreement entered into in 2001 by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, permitting British immigration officers to grant or refuse passengers at Prague Airport leave to enter the UK before they boarded planes destined for the UK.17 The acknowledged object of the procedure was to stem the flow of asylum-seekers, especially Roma asylum-seekers, from the Czech Republic to the UK. In 2004, the House of Lords considered a challenge to these pre-clearance

10

ibid 83. Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (adopted 15 November 2000, entered into force 28 January 2004) GAOR 55th Session Supp 49, 65. 12 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (adopted 15 November 2000, entered into force 25 December 2003) GAOR 55th Session Supp 49 Vol 1, 60. 13 See Art 11(1) of the Protocols (nn 11 and 12) and Art 7 of the COE ‘Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings’ (done 16 May 2005, entered into force 1 February 2008) CETS No 197. 14 ibid. 15 Art 11(2)–(4) of the Protocols (nn 11 and 12). 16 C Harvey and RP Barnidge, ‘Human Rights, Free Movement, and the Right to Leave in International Law’ (2007) 19 International Journal on Refugee Law 1, 14. 17 This section draws on A Kesby, ‘The Shifting and Multiple Border and International Law’ (2007) 27 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 101. 11

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procedures by a number of Czech Roma who had been refused permission to leave Prague.18 Rejecting their claims under the Refugee Convention and the customary international law principle of non-refoulement, Lord Bingham did not consider that they had presented themselves at the frontier of the UK ‘save in a highly metaphorical sense’.19 Hence, there could be no argument that they were being returned to a country in which they had a well-founded fear of persecution. From another perspective, however, the Roma were in reality confronted with the ‘UK border’ while still in Prague. UK immigration rules applied extraterritorially to them. In continuing to articulate borders solely in terms of their territorial function, international law fails to address their socially discriminatory effects. In contrast to the situation just discussed in which non-nationals experience the border as a regime of exclusion and containment, international law may also support the right of non-nationals to reside within a state. Distinctions between nationals and non-nationals can be attenuated on the basis of a person’s family ties within a state and the protection of the right to respect for private and family life or exceptionally, by the potential ‘complementary protection’ to which the principle of non-refoulement (as articulated in international human rights law) may give rise. Here, I will briefly discuss the right to respect for private and family life. Several human rights instruments express the principle that states must respect the family life of those in their territory. Although respect for family life does not equate to a right of admission or freedom from expulsion, states parties to these instruments must respect the right to family life in exercising their discretionary powers of admission and expulsion. For example, whilst the European Court of Human Rights acknowledges that the right of a non-national to enter or remain in a country is not ‘as such’ guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, and that under international law, the entry of non-nationals into a state is a matter of state discretion, the Court has maintained that immigration controls must be exercised consistently with Convention obligations, including protection of the right to family life provided in Article 8.20 An interference with family life will only be justified within the terms of Article 8(2) where the state has struck a fair balance between the applicant’s right to respect for family life and the state’s pursuit of such legitimate aims as immigration control21 and the prevention of crime and disorder.22 The strength of a person’s family ties in the state, and the feasibility of transferring those ties to the state of origin, or a third state, are weighed against the public interest. In the case of expulsion, for example, the public interest often has to do with the commission by the individual concerned of a crime. Relevant factors include the nature and severity of the offence committed by the person, his or her family situation, such as the length of a marriage, and whether there are children, and the ‘seriousness of the difficulties’ the spouse and children are likely to face in

18 R (on the application of European Roma Rights Centre et al) v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport & Anor (UNHCR intervening) [2004] UKHL 55; [2005] 2 AC 1. 19 ibid, para 26. 20 eg, Abdulaziz v United Kingdom (1985) 7 EHRR 471, paras 59 and 60. 21 eg, Gül v Switzerland (1996) 22 EHRR 93, para 38. 22 Boultif v Switzerland (2001) 33 EHRR 50, para 47.

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the country of origin.23 In recent case law, the Court has extended the application of Article 8 to the grant of residence permits.24 It has also required that immigration measures respect the right to private life of long-term residents.25 For example, the deportation of long-term residents may violate a person’s right to respect for private life where he or she is able to establish the requisite ‘network of personal, social and economic relations that make up the private life of every human being’.26 Well-established family and social ties may therefore mitigate the effects of a person’s status as a non-national and give rise to an intermediate category in which admission and the right to remain may be secured without the formal status of nationality being conferred. Here the focus of international law shifts from a person’s formal legal status being determinative of state action—and the border operating solely as discriminator and filter—to a situation in which the state has to take into account the effect of its actions on a person’s familial relationships within its borders and beyond. In this way, the right to respect for private and family life may prevent a person from being removed from the place in which his or her key relationships are located. Residence secured in this way may then be the gateway to political participation—what Balibar terms the right to reside with rights.27 The ‘minimal recognition’ that the person belongs to what he terms a ‘common sphere of existence’ forms the basis for the contestation of rights.28 By contestation of rights is meant here not just claims in relation to civil and political rights, but also welfare demands, engaging economic, social and cultural rights.

BORDERS, PLURALISM AND THE ENJOYMENT OF RIGHTS

Up until this point, I have been discussing the role of international law in facilitating admission to states in certain circumstances, and exclusion in others. In this section, I argue that the way non-nationals are treated at the border may also have consequences for the treatment of citizens, and more generally, for equality and inclusion within a state. Secondly, I point to a more relational understanding of national borders and of citizenship which may facilitate the extension of human rights to all who are present within a community. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt argued that statelessness precipitated the crisis of the nation-state: the inequality of status associated with it challenged the equality on which the nation-state was founded, for the inequality of treatment of the stateless eventually flowed over onto citizens.29 Drawing on Arendt’s analysis, Balibar examines the implications of the discriminatory character of 23

ibid, para 48. Sisojeva v Latvia (2007) 45 EHRR 33, para 91. 25 Slivenko v Latvia (2004) 39 EHRR 24. 26 ibid, para 96. 27 E Balibar ‘Strangers as Enemies: Further Reflections on the Aporias of Transnational Citizenship – Lecture delivered at McMaster University, 16 March 2006’ www.globalautonomy.ca/global1/ article.jsp?index=RA_Balibar_Strangers.xml, 14. 28 Balibar, We, The People of Europe? (n 8), 119. 29 See, eg, Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (n 1), 290. 24

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borders both for the equality of citizens and the inclusion of non-citizens within the community.30 The inequalities of the border may be internalised and undermine the prospects of politics within the community for citizens and non-citizens alike.31 According to Balibar, the construction of the stranger as the enemy at the border is the clearest sign of the modern-day crisis of the nation-state, and of the nation-state returning to a ‘lawless model of governance’.32 On Balibar’s analysis, institutions of the ‘rule of law’ ‘turn against themselves’ and come to produce and then reproduce illegality.33 For example, states block immigrants’ efforts to gain legal status, only to transform their illegal status into the raison d’être for repressive security measures.34 Balibar’s point is that this reproduction of illegality is not limited to the treatment of non-citizens. However, the very challenge that the undemocratic nature of the border poses to the equality of citizenship also presents an opportunity to re-conceptualise citizenship. As noted by Balibar, borders are paradoxical: they are indeed sites of state repression and at times violence, and yet their very conflictual nature can turn them into sites of politics.35 For Balibar, citizenship needs to be reconceived from the standpoint of the border.36 He maintains that confronting ‘the different modalities of exclusion’ is ‘the founding moment of citizenship.’37 Thus, Balibar re-articulates citizenship as an active process of the rightless asserting and claiming rights.38 In Balibar’s analysis, Arendt’s right to have rights becomes the universal right to politics:39 that each person has the capacity for, and the right to participate in, politics. He reconceives citizenship as an active process independent of formal status, such that the right to reside can become the right to have rights. Even before formal citizenship status is granted, there can be engagement in political struggles. Here citizenship is ‘a continuous process in which a minimal recognition of the belonging of human beings to the “common” sphere of existence … already involves – and makes possible – a totality of rights’.40 Thus the right to have rights becomes ‘a right of residing with rights’.41 In this re-conceptualisation, formal status is not a precondition for citizenship. Rather, citizenship is a matter of all those who happen to be present in the community—irrespective of their status— contesting rights. On this analysis, borders are ‘constitutive of being in the world’42 not simply in the sense of dividing global territory (as per their articulation in

30

See, for example, Balibar, We, The People of Europe? (n 8), 101–14. ibid. 32 E Balibar, ‘Cosmopolitics and Cosmopolitanism’, lecture delivered at Birkbeck College London, 6 November 2007. 33 Balibar, We, The People of Europe? (n 8), 62. 34 ibid. 35 ibid, 108–11. 36 See ibid, 101–14. 37 ibid 76. 38 ibid, 118–19. 39 See, eg E Balibar, ‘What is a Politics of the Rights of Man?’, in E Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx (New York, Routledge, 1994). 40 Balibar, We, The People of Europe? (n 8), 119. 41 Balibar, Strangers as Enemies (n 27), 14. 42 Balibar, ‘Cosmopolitics and Cosmopolitanism’ (n 32). 31

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international law) but in terms of the coming together of a plurality of people engaged in politics, who in so doing have the potential to ‘democratise’ borders and confer rights on themselves. Balibar’s analysis opens at least two divergent articulations of the relation between borders (and the regulation of the movement of people) and inclusion within states—that is, of who has the right to have rights in a community. On the one hand, when the border retains its undemocratic and socially discriminatory function, the exclusionary practices—and the inequality of relations—may turn inwards, such that citizenship internalises the inequalities of the border. Thus, the regulation of the movement of persons across borders may put in question the articulation of citizenship—and the democratic community per se—as the sphere of rights. But things need not be so. When the border is conceived as a political space in which rights are contested by both those possessing and those lacking formal citizenship status, the border becomes the means of re-conceptualising citizenship as active citizenship—as political participation—such that the participants by their very presence exercise the right to have rights. Balibar’s call to use the border as the means of re-conceptualising citizenship as an active citizenship of political participation is a challenge to international law to reconceive the border as a place where rights may be contested and instantiated and to reorient its norms and practices towards the realisation of rights for all, irrespective of status and wherever a person is located. His analysis invites us to enlarge our understanding of what constitutes national borders, and to examine the diverse ways in which they affect people’s lives today. At the same time, he shows how orienting international law away from formal status to the real, social relationships between people may facilitate the extension of human rights to all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books H Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, revised edn (New York, Harcourt Inc, 1973). H Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd edn (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998). H Arendt, The Promise of Politics (New York, Shocken Books, 2005). E Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx (New York, Routledge, 1994). E Balibar, C Jones, J Swenson and C Turner (translator) Politics and the Other Scene (London, Verso, 2002). E Balibar and J Swenson (translator) We, The People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational Citizenship (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004).

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Journal Articles C Harvey and RP Barnidge, ‘Human Rights, Free Movement, and the Right to Leave in International Law’ (2007) 19 International Journal on Refugee Law 1–21. A Kesby, ‘The Shifting and Multiple Border and International Law’ (2007) 27 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 101–19.

Website Sources E Balibar, ‘Strangers as Enemies: Further Reflections on the Aporias of Transnational Citizenship – Lecture delivered at McMaster University, 16 March 2006’ www.globalautonomy.ca/global1/article.jsp?index=RA_Balibar_Strangers.xml.

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La Théorie Politique de l’État en Droit International Considérations Historiques à Partir de l’Étude de Grotius RÉMI BACHAND * INTRODUCTION

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OUT AU LONG du XXe siècle, plusieurs auteurs ont montré que les champs scientifiques n’évoluent pas uniquement selon des critères scientifiques mais qu’ils étaient aussi le résultat des relations sociales et notamment des relations de pouvoir dans la communauté scientifique autant que dans la société dans son ensemble.1 Les chercheurs et les académiques étant ainsi directement ancrés dans un contexte social particulier qui influence autant l’ontologie et l’épistémologie que les résultats mêmes de leurs recherches, il devient dès lors vain de continuer à étudier l’évolution des champs scientifiques au regard des seules ‘révolutions scientifiques’ ou en ne mettant l’accent que sur les influences intellectuelles desdits chercheurs.2 Ce qu’une telle perspective nous permet de comprendre, c’est que les concepts et paradigmes de ces champs sont intrinsèquement chargés de la ‘politisation’ historique et des relations de pouvoir qui en ont influencé la * L’auteur est professeur de droit international et directeur du Centre d’études sur le droit international et la mondialisation (Cédim) à l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Les recherches menant à cet article ont été menées lors d’un séjour postdoctoral au European Law Research Center de l’Université Harvard et l’auteur tient à remercier son directeur, David Kennedy, pour son soutien lors de ces recherches. Il tient aussi à remercier Louis Rousseau et Olivier Barsalou pour leurs précisions et commentaires. 1 Pensons notamment à P Bourdieu, ‘La spécificité du champ scientifique et les conditions sociales du progrès de la raison’ (1975) 7 Sociologie et société 91; M Horkheimer et C Maillard, S Muller (traducteurs) Théorie traditionnelle et théorie critique (Paris, Gallimard, 1974); RW Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ (1981) 10 Millenium: Journal of International Studies 126 et D Kennedy, ‘The Twentieth-Century Discipline of International Law in the United States’ dans A Sarat, B Garth and RA Kagan (éds), Looking Back at Law’s Century (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002) 386. 2 C’est d’ailleurs exactement pour cette raison que P Bourdieu parle de ‘champ’ plutôt que de ‘discipline’, concept que nous adoptons à sa suite: Pour P Bourdieu, ‘[d]ans un champ, les agents et les institutions luttent, suivant les régularités et les règles constitutives de cet espace de jeu (et, dans certaines conjonctures, à propos de ces règles mêmes), avec des degrés divers de force et, par là, des possibilités diverses de succès, pour s’approprier les profits spécifiques qui sont en jeu dans le jeu. Ceux qui dominent dans un champ donné sont en position de le faire fonctionner à leur avantage, mais ils doivent toujours compter avec la résistance, la contestation, les revendications, les prétentions, «politiques» ou non, des dominés’: P Bourdieu avec LJD Wacquant, Réponses. Pour une anthropologie réflexive. (Paris, Le Seuil 1992), 78.

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création et qui leur ont permis d’intégrer le champ scientifique en question. Lorsque ces concepts et paradigmes sont centraux au champ, ces relations sociales historiques en viennent à contaminer complètement celui-ci et à influencer implicitement toute proposition émancipatrice qui demeurerait à l’intérieur d’une stratégie de ‘résolution de problèmes’—ce qui est le cas pour la plupart de ces propositions— plutôt que d’adopter une posture inspirée des théories critiques.3 Une conséquence importante de ce constat pour les approches critiques concerne l’importance d’étudier l’histoire du champ afin d’identifier ces relations de pouvoir historiques qui continuent souvent à se cacher dans les interstices de son étude et de sa pratique. Cette tâche doit cependant être conduite d’une manière particulière: elle doit en effet se concentrer sur les paradigmes et concepts qui sont perçus comme étant scientifiques, c’est-à-dire incontournables et apolitiques, afin de montrer que leur soi-disant neutralité n’est en réalité qu’un voile pour le reconduction de relations de pouvoir historiques (qui peuvent cependant avoir pris des dimensions différentes, notamment en favorisant des groupes et des classes sociales qui n’existaient pas au moment de l’apparition des concepts et paradigmes). Une telle méthode peut permettre de montrer que le champ aurait pu être construit de façon complètement différente puisque ces concepts et paradigmes centraux ne sont pas le fruit d’une logique inévitable, mais bien le produit d’une contingence historique et sociale. Elle favorise aussi une critique qui dépasse le cadre des approches de résolution de problèmes dans la mesure où elle montre qu’il existe des possibilités dépassant ce monde ‘tel qu’il est’ qui sert de fondement aux solutions traditionnellement proposées par lesdites approches. En droit international, le concept le plus important est celui d’État. Les internationalistes ont bien sûr une théorie explicite et analytique de ce concept, où celui-ci est constitué d’un territoire, une population et un gouvernement, en plus d’un possible quatrième élément sur lequel la doctrine est encore à débattre et qui consiste en la reconnaissance de l’entité étatique de la part des autres États et que certains associent à la capacité de conclure des traités. Il s’agit d’une théorie analytique en ce sens que sa seule fonction est de déterminer avec ‘objectivité’ les entités qui sont des États et celles qui n’en sont pas. Cela dit, les internationalistes ont également ce qu’il conviendrait d’appeler une théorie politique de l’État qui consiste en ce que ceux-ci doivent implicitement penser du fonctionnement de l’État pour pouvoir écrire ce qu’ils écrivent, pour garder, autrement dit, la cohérence théorique de leurs écrits. Il s’agit donc d’une théorie politique de l’État qui est implicitement partagée par les individus impliqués dans la production scientifique du champ du droit international et qui sert de

3 Nous comprenons par une ‘théorie de résolutions de problèmes’ une théorie qui ‘prend le monde tel qu’elle le trouve, avec ses relations sociales, ses relations de pouvoir et les institutions grâce auxquelles il est organisé comme étant un cadre donné pour son action. Son objectif principal est de faire en sorte que ces relations et ces institutions fonctionnent tranquillement en s’attaquant de manière efficace à certains de leurs problèmes’ et une théorie critique comme une théorie qui ‘ne prend pas les institutions, les relations sociales et les rapports de domination pour acquis mais les remet en question en étudiant leurs origines ainsi que la pertinence et, le cas échéant, comment ils pourraient être dans un processus de changement’, Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders (n 1) 128–29 (notre traduction).

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fondement à l’ensemble de celui-ci. Si cette théorie n’est décrite nulle part, elle est néanmoins présente à peu près partout4 dans les travaux propres au champ du droit international. Pour comprendre la théorie politique de l’État intrinsèque au droit international, il importe de comprendre la chaîne causale qui unit la production normative à la sanction, chaîne causale propre à tout ordre juridique, et de remettre celle-ci en relation avec deux principes juridiques communs à la plupart des systèmes de droit contemporains. Cette chaîne a trois maillons qui sont: 1) le moment où l’‘État’, en vertu de la nature volontariste du droit international, s’engage à l’endroit d’une règle contraignante; 2) le moment où l’‘État’ prend une action qui deviendra un ‘fait international’ qui sera lui-même jugé au regard de la règle dans une analyse binaire utilisant les critères légal/illégal (ne considérons pas ici les problèmes de l’indétermination et de l’interprétation); 3) si l’action a été jugée illégale, des sanctions pourront être adoptées contre l’‘État’. Or, pour que cette chaîne puisse s’insérer avec cohérence dans une théorie du droit international, et considérant ces deux principes juridiques que sont le principe de l’individualité de la peine et celui selon lequel nulle peine ne peut être subie pour un délit commis par autrui, il sera nécessaire de s’assurer (ou de postuler implicitement) que les individus qui subiront concrètement les effets causés par les sanctions seront aussi factuellement (plutôt que juridiquement) responsables des actions commises à l’étape des deux premiers maillons. En d’autres termes, la ‘socialisation des effets de la responsabilité juridique’ implique la prémisse de la ‘socialisation de la prise de décision’. Or, ce que n’importe quelle analyse sociologique de l’État arriverait facilement à montrer, c’est qu’il existe encore des distinctions extrêmement importantes au regard de l’accès au processus décisionnel étatique entre les différents groupes de la population, groupes pouvant principalement être distingués en fonction de la classe, du genre et de la race. En fait, même à cette époque où les thèses marxistes semblent avoir été reléguées aux oubliettes, il se trouve encore plusieurs auteurs pour dire que cette ‘volonté de l’État’ s’emploie plus que jamais à défendre les intérêts du capital,5 que cette volonté de l’État, en d’autres termes, est d’abord et avant tout celle des classes et des groupes dominants de la société, bien qu’une relation de détermination absolue soit évidemment à rejeter.6 Bref, loin d’être l’universalisation

4 Évidemment, nous gardons à l’esprit le fait que certaines dimensions du droit international (comme l’ensemble du système des droits humains et le droit pénal international, par exemple) s’écartent passablement du schéma que nous cherchons à décrire. De la même façon, nous ne nions pas que certains chercheurs ou certaines approches théoriques ont une théorie de l’État qui s’écarte en partie de ce que nous sommes en train de décrire et critiquent le phénomène que nous qualifions ici de réification de l’État. Cela dit, ces exceptions ne sont pas suffisantes pour que l’on considère que le champ du droit international a abandonné, de manière générale, la théorie réifiée de l’État dont nous parlons ici. 5 Par exemple: S Sassen, ‘The State and Economic Globalisation: Any Implications for International Law?’(2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 109; L Panitch, ‘The New Imperial State’ (2000) 2 New Left Review 5. 6 Rappelons à ce sujet l’opinion de M Kamto: ‘Pour représenter l’État, les organes étatiques ne sont pas nécessairement représentatifs et n’ont pas à satisfaire un critère de légitimité quelconque, qu’il soit démocratique ou non. … [À ce sujet, la CIJ] semble s’en tenir au principe de la neutralité voire de l’indifférence du droit international vis-à-vis de l’ordre interne de l’État, sauf exception prévue par le droit international’: M Kamto ‘La volonté de l’État en droit international’ (2004) 310 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 87.

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de la volonté de la population, la volonté de l’État demeure en réalité grandement influencée par les déséquilibres de pouvoir internes à celui-ci. Il s’agit, en d’autres termes, d’une certaine forme de privatisation du processus décisionnel (lors des deux moments: celui où l’État s’engage à respecter certaines règles et celui où il commet des actes susceptibles d’être évalués au regard de celles-ci) aux mains des classes et des groupes dirigeants de l’État, privatisation du processus décisionnel qui est donc contraire aux postulats que doit nécessairement adopter le champ du droit international pour garder sa cohérence théorique. Celui-ci doit, dès lors, réifier cette volonté de l’État, c’est-à-dire imaginer celle-ci comme étant quelque chose de concret davantage que le résultat d’une dynamique sociale complexe parce qu’autrement, il serait forcé d’admettre son incohérence au regard de cette chaîne à trois maillons dont nous parlions. Bref, étant donné que le droit international se trouve incapable de prouver l’identité commune des acteurs impliqués dans les trois étapes de ladite chaîne, il doit se contenter de la postuler implicitement, de faire ‘comme si’ cette identité commune existait véritablement. Or, force est d’admettre que bien souvent, l’identité entre ceux qui décident des actions qui sont attribuées à l’État et ceux qui subissent les conséquences des sanctions lorsque ces actions sont considérées comme étant illégales est différente. Cette opposition entre la privatisation du pouvoir décisionnel et la socialisation de la responsabilité juridique que cherche à cacher la théorie politique réifiée de l’État constitue ce qu’il convient d’appeler la contradiction fondamentale du droit international. Pourtant, malgré certaines remises en question épisodiques (c’est-à-dire lors de situations très concrètes), cette association implicite entre la population et l’État qui découle de cette théorie politique de l’État semble demeurer importante dans la ‘vision du monde’ partagée autant dans la doctrine que par les preneurs de décisions. On voit là l’aspect idéologique du droit: cette compréhension de l’État réifié qui voile la complexité des relations de pouvoir semble tellement dominante qu’on ne peut tout simplement pas imaginer que le droit international pourrait avoir une autre théorie de l’État. Cette contribution fait partie d’un programme de recherche qui cherche à comprendre la construction historique, dans la doctrine (et en particulier chez ceux que l’on qualifie à tort ou à raison de ‘Pères fondateurs’ du droit international/droit des gens) de cette théorie politique réificatrice de l’État. Nous chercherons ici à identifier les éléments contextuels d’origine économique, politique et sociale qui ont poussé Hugo Grotius à adopter, dans ses écrits qui ont le plus marqué l’évolution du champ du droit international, une théorie politique réificatrice de l’État qui voile les relations sociales et qui intègre conséquemment la contradiction fondamentale décrite plus haut et qui est, après lui, demeurée centrale au champ du droit international. La thèse qui sera soutenue est la suivante: lors de sa jeunesse marquée par la guerre que menait la République des Provinces-Unies à l’Espagne et par les luttes de pouvoirs entre les États-généraux de cette République et les états de Hollande, Huig de Groot7—qui était un plaideur et un politique avant d’être un

7 Afin de faciliter la distinction entre ses écrits de l’époque ‘néerlandaise’ et ceux réalisés en France, nous allons utiliser son nom néerlandais (Huig de Groot) pour parler de la première époque, et son nom latinisé (Hugo Grotius) pour parler de la seconde.

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théoricien—avait une théorie relativement ‘républicaine’ de l’État qui contraste à plusieurs égards avec celle adoptée (notamment dans Du droit de la guerre et de la paix) dans les travaux réalisés alors que Grotius était en exil en France et survivait grâce à une rente offerte par Louis XIII. La théorie de l’État adoptée par Grotius dans cette dernière époque semble en effet avoir été influencée par l’absolutisme qui émergeait à l’époque en France. Puisque les travaux de Grotius qui ont davantage marqué le champ du droit international sont ceux écrits à l’époque française, et que la théorie politique de l’État adoptée dans les travaux de cette époque semble préfigurer grandement celle qui prédominera dans le droit international jusqu’à ce jour,8 cette contribution suggérera que cette théorie demeure à ce jour influencée par une théorie absolutiste du pouvoir où la fin principale de la gouvernance est la reproduction de la cour et du régime monarchique.

LE CONTEXTE EN HOLLANDE À L’ÉPOQUE DE DE GROOT (JUSQU’À 1618)

La théorie de l’État qu’avait Huig de Groot ne peut être comprise en faisant abstraction du contexte politique dans lequel celui-ci œuvrait, d’autant plus que la plupart de ses écrits sont d’abord et avant tout des contributions (voire des plaidoiries) aux débats politiques de l’époque. Nous commencerons donc cette section en faisant un survol des principaux éléments de ce contexte avant d’expliquer sa théorie de l’État.

Le Contexte Politique de la Hollande au Début du XVIIe Siècle La compréhension des écrits de de Groot durant la période allant du début du siècle jusqu’à 1618, année de son emprisonnement, exige de comprendre au moins quatre éléments contextuels reliés à la vie politique de la nouvelle République des Provinces-Unies. Ces éléments sont: les différends religieux et ceux sur le niveau de tolérance à accorder aux adhérents des religions minoritaires; les différends concernant la séparation des pouvoirs entre les États-généraux de la République et les états9 des provinces; la guerre contre l’Espagne; et la nouvelle politique coloniale. Si les débats religieux ont d’abord opposé les protestants aux catholiques (débats au cœur de la guerre entre les Provinces-Unies et l’Espagne), c’est rapidement (à partir des années 1580) entre les Luthériens et les Calvinistes, puis entre les

8 Non pas que le champ du droit international gardera sans la modifier la théorie politique de l’État de Grotius mais plutôt qu’à sa suite, la théorie politique de l’État adoptée aura généralement tendance à réifier celui-ci et à occulter les relations sociales en son fondement, de la manière dont nous l’avons expliquée. 9 Afin d’éviter la confusion avec ‘État’ compris comme sujet de droit international, nous écrirons états avec un ‘é’ minuscule lorsque nous parlerons des corps législatifs des Provinces (estates), sauf lorsque ce concept apparaîtra dans une citation de langue française.

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Arminiens et les Gomaristes10 que ceux-ci eurent lieu.11 Ce qu’il est important de savoir ici, c’est que la population et l’élite de la Hollande, l’une des sept provinces de la République autoproclamée des Provinces-Unies, avaient la réputation d’être beaucoup plus tolérantes aux divergences religieuses que celles des autres provinces; et que le plus grand défenseur de la tolérance en Hollande aussi bien que dans la République était Jean Oldenbarnevelt qui était l’Avocat, c’est-à-dire le principal représentant de la Hollande aux États-généraux, et dont le principal conseiller n’était nul autre que de Groot. Certains écrits de de Groot font d’ailleurs état d’une grande implication dans ce débat, comme nous le verrons plus loin. Ces débats religieux eurent un impact sur la politique et des débats sur la distribution des pouvoirs entre la République et les provinces s’ensuivirent rapidement. Réalisant cette plus grande tolérance religieuse des Hollandais, Oldenbarnevelt, de Groot et les Arminiens défendirent bientôt une position franchement décentralisatrice, promouvant l’idée selon laquelle la République n’était qu’une union confédérative dans laquelle certains pouvoirs (parmi lesquels les questions religieuses ne figuraient pas) avaient été délégués aux États-généraux. Au contraire, Maurice d’Orange—stadhouder de cinq des Provinces (dont la Hollande et Utrecht)12—et les Gomaristes, sachant que les positions arminiennes n’étaient véritablement influentes qu’en Hollande, étaient plutôt en faveur de la centralisation des pouvoirs—argument appuyé par la pratique concrète des États-généraux qui n’avaient cessé d’étendre leurs domaines de compétences.13 La guerre contre l’Espagne constitue également un élément contextuel important. Rappelons que le point de départ de cette guerre était le désir de l’Espagne d’écraser la Réforme dont l’influence grandissait dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (en gros, la Belgique, les Pays-Bas actuels et le Luxembourg), et qu’elle se poursuivit à cause du désir de la puissance colonisatrice d’empêcher l’indépendance proclamée suite à l’Union d’Utrecht (1579) et à l’Acte de La Haye (1581). L’influence de la guerre sur les écrits de de Groot doit se comprendre en conjonction avec la politique coloniale de la République et avec la trêve conclue en 1609. Cette trêve, rappelons-le, fut loin de ne faire que des heureux et une partie importante de la population, menée par Maurice, demeurait favorable à la guerre tant et aussi longtemps que l’Espagne ne

10 Rappelons qu’alors que Gomar défendait le dogme calviniste de la prédestination selon lequel Dieu aurait déjà décidé qui sera sauvé et qui ne le sera pas, Arminius considérait que l’action individuelle avait, dans une certaine mesure, la capacité de permettre à l’individu d’être sauvé. 11 Sur les querelles religieuses de l’époque, voir: J Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995) 365–94 et P Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, Vol 1 (New York, Barnes & Noble, 1961) 38–63. 12 Les stadhouders étaient au départ au nombre de trois (un pour les provinces de Friesland et d’Ommelands; un pour la Hollande et la Zélande; un autre pour les provinces d’Utrecht, de Gelderland et d’Overijessel), mais ce nombre est descendu à deux lorsque Utrecht, Gelderland et Overijessel ont convenu de se placer sous le stadhouder de la Hollande et de la Zélande (qui était à ce moment Maurice d’Orange). Le stadhouder était également le capitaine-général des provinces, c’est-à-dire qu’il était aux commandes de l’armée. Puisque l’armée pouvait difficilement être sous la direction de deux ou trois stadhouders différents, Maurice est rapidement devenu, en pratique, le capitaine-général de l’armée de l’Union. Cela dit, ses fonctions principales concernaient l’administration de la justice, ainsi que la supervision de la Réforme dans le clergé. À cause de ses fonctions, le stadhouder était généralement le plus grand défenseur de la centralisation des pouvoirs: Israel, The Dutch Republic (n 11) 300–06. 13 ibid, 446 et seq.

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reconnaîtrait pas l’indépendance des Provinces-Unies.14 Une coalition aux intérêts divers se créa ainsi contre le camp de ceux qui avaient mené et soutenu les négociations. Comme le fait remarquer Geyl: D’inévitables intérêts matériels étaient mélangés à ces considérations de plus haute nature. Certains groupes puissants considéraient qu’il était à leur avantage de poursuivre la guerre. D’abord les militaires; ensuite les corsaires qui étaient grandement préoccupés par les activités commerciales de la Zélande à travers le monde; aussi bien que ceux qui étaient de près ou de loin impliqués dans les activités martiales de tous genres. Finalement, il y avait aussi ceux qui, depuis un certain temps, avaient travaillé à la fondation de la Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, un projet qui était directement dirigé contre le territoire colonial espagnol en Amérique, et qu’Oldenbarnevelt avait, aussitôt les négociations commencées, cherché à empêcher.15

C’était ainsi un nombre non négligeable de commerçants d’Amsterdam qui s’étaient opposés à la trêve négociée par Oldenbarnevelt parce que celle-ci risquait de nuire à leurs activités commerciales coloniales. Cette politique coloniale et la guerre contre l’Espagne, faut-il le rappeler, furent centrales dans les écrits de de Groot dans la mesure où l’un de ses principaux écrits de l’époque, le De Jure Praedae,16 cherchait justement à défendre la prise d’une caraque portugaise (rappelons que les couronnes portugaises et espagnoles étaient alors unifiées) par un navigateur hollandais lors d’une expédition coloniale. Ces deux personnages que sont Oldenbarnevelt et Maurice d’Orange en vinrent donc à personnifier ce conflit multidimensionnel qui finit par coûter la vie au premier et à forcer de Groot à l’exil. En effet, et les détails ne sont pas importants pour notre propos,17 le conflit continua de s’envenimer entre les Remontrants (comme on en était venu à appeler les Arminiens) et les Contre-Remontrants (c’est-à-dire les Gomaristes), jusqu’au point où, en 1618, Maurice et ses troupes en vinrent à mettre Oldenbarnevelt, de Groot et certains de leurs collaborateurs sous arrêt. Le premier sera condamné à mort et décapité en 1619, le second condamné à la prison à vie. Il réussit néanmoins à s’évader en 1621 et trouva refuge en France où il vécut pour la plus grande partie du reste de sa vie.

L’État chez de Groot Huig de Groot a été extrêmement influencé par les débats politiques et religieux de son époque et l’ensemble de son œuvre est transcendé par ceux-ci du fait que plusieurs de ses écrits étaient en fait des prises de position adoptées dans le cadre de ses fonctions politiques, voire des plaidoiries dans des affaires juridiques dans lesquelles il était impliqué. Comme le fait remarquer Harm-Jan van Dam qui croit fermement qu’il était un plaideur plutôt qu’un philosophe ou un théoricien: 14

Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century (n 11) 251 et seq. ibid, 252 (notre traduction). 16 H Grotius et GL Williams, WH Zeydel (traducteurs), MJ van Ittersum (éd), Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Jure Praedae) (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 2006). 17 On renverra le lecteur à Geyl (n 11) 58–62. 15

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[l]e point de vue qu’il exprime et les arguments qui sont donnés comme preuve ne sont valides que dans le contexte du travail dans lequel ils apparaissent, avec un but et dans un domaine bien précis, ce qui fait en sorte qu’ils varient en fonction du temps, des circonstances, des sujets traités et de l’auditoire. Il cherche à marquer des points plutôt qu’à soutenir un point de vue.18

Comme on l’a vu, dès son plus jeune âge, de Groot a été très près d’Oldenbarnevelt au point d’accompagner celui-ci lors son périple en France en 1598—il n’avait alors que quinze ans—où ils étaient chargés de convaincre Henri IV de ne pas conclure de paix avec l’Espagne, ce qui aurait permis aux Espagnols de concentrer leurs forces sur les Provinces-Unies. À partir de ce moment et jusqu’à leur condamnation en 1619, leurs deux noms allaient être au centre des conflits politiques et religieux de la nouvelle République, de Groot et Oldenbarnevelt défendant sans relâche les pouvoirs des états de la Hollande contre les tendances centralisatrices des Étatsgénéraux menés par Maurice d’Orange, ainsi que la tolérance religieuse, luttes qui allaient les mener, comme nous l’avons vu, à prendre le parti des Remontrants contre le dogmatisme des Gomaristes. Ces luttes allaient marquer—le mot est faible—le destin des deux, menant Oldenbarnevelt à l’échafaud et Grotius à l’exil en France.19 L’élément qui allait marquer le plus les écrits de de Groot unissait toutefois celui-ci et Oldenbarnevelt à Maurice et ce, malgré certains désaccords sur les stratégies à adopter. Cet élément, c’est la guerre contre l’Espagne et c’est d’abord et avant tout la tentative de de Groot de justifier la guerre que mène la République contre son ennemi, qui donnera corps à sa théorie de l’État. Le point de départ de la stratégie d’argumentation de de Groot à ce sujet—et il s’agit d’un élément qui sera aussi central dans la théorie de l’État qu’aura Grotius dans sa période française—concerne une sorte de théorie contractualiste qui est au fondement historique de l’État. Cette théorie de l’État est centrale dans la stratégie qu’utilise de Groot pour justifier la guerre que mènent alors les Provinces-Unies contre l’Espagne et c’est dans le De Jure Praedae20 que sa vision de l’État et de l’origine de celui-ci est la plus pleinement développée. À cet endroit, de Groot cherche à justifier la prise, dans le détroit de Malacca, d’une caraque portugaise par un navigateur néerlandais œuvrant pour le compte de la Compagnie des Indes

18 H-J van Dam, ‘Introduction’ dans ibid (éd) et H Grotius, De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. Critical Edition with Introduction, English Translation and Commentary, Vol I (Leiden, Brill Academic, 2001) 5 (notre traduction). Voir aussi Waszink donnant son opinion sur Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic: ‘Même si nous avons soutenu qu’il n’y a aucune raison pour douter de la sincérité de Grotius et de ses croyances sur la vérité de l’exemple Batave, l’exposé historique qu’il fait dans [The Batavian Republic] n’est pas complètement dépourvu de manipulation, et notamment en ce qui concerne l’histoire ancienne de la Hollande’ J Waszinck, ‘Introduction’ dans ibid (éd) et H Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic (Assen, Van Gorcum, 2000) 20 (notre traduction). 19 Sur la vie de Grotius, la meilleure bibliographie, qui est à la fois complète et objective, nous semble être la suivante: H Vreeland, Hugo Grotius the Father of the Modern Science of International Law (New York, Oxford University Press, 1917). On pourra aussi consulter l’excellent résumé de J Basdevant, ‘Grotius’ dans Pillet, (éd), Les fondateurs du droit international: leurs oeuvres, leurs doctrines (Paris, V Giard & E Brière, 1904) 125, 127–54; ainsi que E Dunbauld, The Life and Legal Writings of Hugo Grotius (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1969) et V Hély, Étude sur le droit de la guerre de Grotius (Paris, F Pichon, 1875) 5–9. 20 Grotius et Williams, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16).

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orientales.21 Cette justification se fera en développant une théorie du droit naturel dont les premières lois concernent les droits de défendre sa vie et ses biens, ces deux lois ayant aussi comme conséquence qu’il est injuste de permettre à autrui de faire du mal ou de saisir les biens légitimement acquis par un innocent, et qu’il sera juste de corriger le mal fait par le délinquant et notamment de saisir des biens lui appartenant, jusqu’à une quantité proportionnelle à ce qui a été volé. C’est sur cette base que de Groot établira les critères relatifs à la cause matérielle22 de sa théorie de la guerre juste dans De Jure Praedae en ce sens qu’il considère qu’une guerre sera juste si elle est menée conformément aux lois de droit naturel permettant l’autodéfense, la défense de ses biens, afin d’obtenir le remboursement d’une dette ou découlant d’un contrat ou afin de punir une injustice commise avec une intention injuste.23 Après avoir défendu l’existence d’une guerre juste et possédant ainsi la plupart des éléments ‘substantiels’ pour justifier la guerre des Provinces-Unies contre l’Espagne, mais également la prise de la caraque, de Groot faisait face à un autre problème. Pour plusieurs qui n’avaient pas encore reconnu l’indépendance de la République, les Provinces-Unies se trouvaient encore sous la souveraineté de la couronne espagnole et n’avaient aucun droit de résister à ses armées, et encore moins de lui faire la guerre comme elles le faisaient depuis plus de deux décennies, guerre qui allait éventuellement permettre de justifier également la prise de la caraque portugaise. C’est donc afin de contrecarrer ce type d’arguments que de Groot développera sa théorie de l’entente originelle par laquelle les individus sont rassemblés afin de se défendre plus facilement contre les délinquants (et ainsi faire respecter leurs droits découlant du droit naturel) et afin de mettre en commun le travail de chacun, entente qui sera à l’origine de l’État. Celui-ci est donc, pour de Groot, le fruit de l’accord explicite (lorsque cette volonté est exprimée au moment même de la formation de l’État) ou implicite (une fois qu’il est formé) des individus qui s’unissent et qui en deviennent des citoyens (cives), les dirigeants de celui-ci, qu’ils soient des magistrats ou un prince, sont par conséquent contraints par cette

21 Robert Feenstra résume mieux que quiconque le contexte de l’écriture du De Jure Praedae: ‘En 1603 une caraque portugaise est capturée par des navires hollandais dans le détroit de Malacca. La compagnie des Indes Orientales, qui venait d’être fondée en 1602 et à laquelle ces navires appartenaient, exerce le droit de prise. Il y a des actionnaires qui, sous l’influence de motifs religieux, doutent de la légitimité en droit de cette prise; il y en a d’autres qui craignent que leur réputation n’en souffre ou que le profit qu’ils en tireront pour le moment ne soit suivi d’un dommage dans l’avenir. Les directeurs de la Compagnie veulent les rassurer et, en 1604, ils demandent à Grotius d’écrire une justification qui pourra convaincre ces actionnaires, notamment sur la question du droit. Grotius accepte cette tâche et s’en acquitte en composant un long traité sur le droit de prise: De Jure Praedae. Il y remonte aux principes premiers du droit afin d’en déduire toutes les conséquences favorables à la thèse présentée. Quand l’ouvrage est terminé, en 1606, les directeurs ne paraissent plus en avoir besoin et Grotius le tient en portefeuille.’ R Feenstra, ‘Mare Liberum, Contexte historique et concepts fondamentaux’ dans A Dufour, P Haggenmacher et J Toman (éds), Grotius et l’ordre juridique international (Lausanne, Payot, 1985) 37, 37–9. 22 Notons au passage que Grotius énonce également des critères qui relèvent de l’identité du sujet, de la manière d’entreprendre la guerre et du but visé par celle–ci, critères qui sont nécessaires à faire d’un conflit une guerre juste. Pour un bon résumé, voir: Basdevant, Grotius (n 19) 162–68. 23 Grotius et Williams, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16) 102–04.

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entente d’origine et peuvent, comme nous le verrons, être dépossédés s’ils outrepassent les prérogatives que celle-ci leur accorde.24 C’est cette analyse qui permet à de Groot de tenir ce propos révolutionnaire pour l’époque: ‘le prince existe par et pour l’État; ce dernier n’existe pas par et pour le prince’.25 À d’autres endroits que dans De Jure Praedae, cette thèse permettra à de Groot de montrer que, puisque les Bataves—qui seraient les ancêtres des Hollandais—ont, depuis dix-sept siècles, joui de la liberté politique et ont continuellement eu une forme relativement semblable de gouvernement ayant une forme aristocratique où la souveraineté résidait dans les états—il s’agirait donc là d’une preuve que l’entente historique au fondement de la Hollande revêt une forme décentralisée—le fait que certaines prérogatives aient été accordées à un prince (espagnol) ne fait pas en sorte que celui-ci ne soit pas quand même lié par certaines règles qui le contraignaient et qu’il est obligé de respecter. Or, selon de Groot, puisque les princes espagnols ont dépassé les prérogatives qui leur étaient attribuées, la guerre que leur menaient alors les Hollandais était nécessairement légitime.26 La conséquence de cette analyse du point de vue d’une théorie de l’État, c’est que la souveraineté ne se trouve pas toujours entre les mains du prince, mais qu’elle se trouve dans certains cas (selon ce qu’en dit l’entente originelle) dans les mains des états (ce qui était le cas en Hollande27) qui peuvent, dans certaines situations, accepter de céder certaines prérogatives à un prince, qui est néanmoins tenu de respecter l’entente par laquelle ces prérogatives lui sont cédées et ne peut les outrepasser. Lorsque le prince excède ces compétences, les états peuvent légitimement lui faire la guerre.28 C’est d’ailleurs précisément ce type d’argument qui était utilisé par de Groot et Oldenbarnevelt lors du différend avec Maurice portant sur l’instance devant décider de la tenue d’un synode pour régler le différend religieux entre les Arminiens et les Gomaristes, les premiers considérant que, puisque les questions religieuses ne faisaient pas partie des prérogatives accordées par les provinces aux États-généraux de la République, ceux-ci n’étaient nullement justifiés d’organiser un synode national.29 En fait, la correspondance entre la situation prévalant entre la République et l’Espagne, d’une part, et entre la Hollande et la

24 Notons toutefois que dans un texte écrit en 1614 et qui, dans le contexte du débat sur la prédestination et le niveau (celui des états–généraux de la République ou celui des états de la Hollande) auquel un synode devait se tenir, cherchant à convaincre que l’État doit avoir le contrôle sur l’Église, Grotius affirme que le pouvoir suprême n’est pas contraint par le droit positif, c’est–à–dire par les lois qu’il a lui–même adoptées: H Grotius et H–J van Dam (éd), De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. Critical Edition with Introduction, English Translation and Commentary, Vol I (Leiden, Brill Academic, 2001) ch 6 § 14. 25 Grotius et Williams, Zeydel, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16) 414 (notre traduction). 26 H Grotius et J Wasnick (éd), The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic (Assen, Van Gorcum, 2000). 27 Notons que de Groot cherche à cet endroit à justifier la guerre que mène la Hollande (et non la République) à l’Espagne. 28 H Grotius et P Borschberg (ed), Commentarius in Thesis X. An Early Treatise on Souvereignty, the Just War, and the Legitimacy of the Dutch Revolution (Bern, Peter Lang, 1994). Ce livre est une discussion sur la décentralisation des pouvoirs décidée par l’entente originelle, ainsi que sur la possibilité de céder, à certaines conditions, certaines parties de la souveraineté à des princes étrangers, à qui on peut toutefois légitimement faire la guerre s’ils ne respectent pas lesdites conditions. 29 Waszinck, Introduction (n 18) 5 et seq.

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République, d’autre part, laisse à penser que de Groot était autant influencé par les conflits internes à la République que par la guerre contre la couronne espagnole au moment d’élaborer sa thèse sur l’origine de l’État. Ce droit de résistance qui est accordé aux états dans The Antiquity et dans le Commentarius se trouve élargi dans le De Jure Praedae. En effet, de Groot fait d’une part remarquer que, même si ces entités internes que sont les états ne pouvaient être considérées comme étant des États, la guerre pourrait quand même être lancée à cause de la possibilité qu’ont les peuples de s’opposer aux dangers qui ont comme origine les agissements du Roi, et notamment lorsqu’il ne défend pas son peuple adéquatement. Pour défendre son argumentation, de Groot rappelle les écrits de Covarruvias selon qui ‘les peuples ont gardé les pouvoirs leur ayant été conférés par le droit naturel, et peuvent s’en prévaloir lorsque le roi lui-même ne fait pas usage de son propre pouvoir’.30 Il estime également que, lorsque le Prince cause un préjudice aux magistrats inférieurs, ceux-ci ont le droit de lui déclarer la guerre,31 et laisse entendre à plusieurs endroits que le peuple lui-même peut révoquer un prince lorsque celui-ci outrepasse les pouvoirs lui ayant été accordés ou se comporte comme un tyran. Ainsi … le pouvoir qui a été accordé à un prince peut être révoqué, et particulièrement lorsque le prince excède les limites définissant ses tâches, étant donné qu’en de telles circonstances il cesse, ipso facto, d’être regardé comme un prince. Puisque celui qui abuse du pouvoir souverain devient indigne de la souveraineté et cesse d’être un prince, ces actes ont comme conséquences de le transformer en tyran.32

Puis, plus loin: Nous n’avons pas non plus besoin d’arguments pour prouver que le nom de tyran peut être attribué non seulement aux individus qui usurpent le pouvoir souverain qui ne leur appartient pas par la violence, mais aussi à ceux qui abusent de la violence dans l’exercice légal de la souveraineté. En d’autres termes, ce terme est applicable dans les cas où la faute réside non seulement dans le titre du pouvoir mais aussi dans son exercice en tant que tel.33

Ce passage est extrêmement important dans la mesure où, contrairement à ce que Grotius écrira éventuellement dans Du droit de la guerre et de la paix, il signifie implicitement que le contrat à l’origine de la formation de l’État peut en tout temps être révoqué si le souverain se comporte comme un tyran (même en respectant le domaine des pouvoirs lui étant accordés) ou s’il outrepasse les pouvoirs qui lui ont été cédés. Et enfin: Par conséquent, même si nous ne pourrions dire que l’autorité souveraine du prince peut être mise de côté de manière imprudente ou que n’importe quel tort causé suffit pour

30 31 32 33

Grotius et Williams, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16) 394. ibid, 394. ibid, 399 et seq (notre traduction). ibid, 413 (notre traduction, nos italiques).

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justifier des actions d’une telle importance, nous devons néanmoins rejeter fermement l’idée selon laquelle toute personne qui aurait rejeté l’autorité du prince devient coupable du crime de rébellion.34

Ainsi, bien qu’il cherche à justifier la guerre que mènent les Provinces-Unies et la Hollande à l’Espagne, position qui aurait pu être défendue par un argument minimaliste selon lequel les états de la Hollande ou les États-généraux de la République, en tant qu’institutions politiques, étaient en droit de mener une telle guerre, de Groot évoque à plusieurs reprises l’idée selon laquelle ce droit appartiendrait aux peuples en tant que tels, nous donnant ainsi l’impression que, selon lui, le peuple hollandais aurait pu se révolter et déposséder les magistrats des états de la Hollande s’ils avaient agi en tyrans. Cette théorie est importante au regard d’une théorie politique de l’État et se distingue grandement, comme nous le verrons, de la façon dont Grotius théorisera plus tard ce concept. Outre cette théorie de la résistance, cette théorie de la volonté des individus au fondement de la création de l’État a une autre conséquence importante pour notre propos qui est qu’elle permet aux individus de transférer au prince ou à des magistrats certains pouvoirs décisionnels que celui-ci (ou ceux-ci) pourra (pourront) exercer en leur nom. La plus importante de ces prérogatives concerne le pouvoir d’entreprendre des guerres. L’autorité d’entreprendre des guerres publiques appartient aussi aux magistrats. Ainsi, une fois que l’État a transféré sa volonté entre les mains de la magistrature, tout ce qu’il était permis de faire à l’État de son propre chef est désormais permis aux magistrats au nom de l’État. Le terme ‘magistrat’ devrait ainsi être compris, bien sûr, comme se référant à celui à qui a été accordé le mandat d’entreprendre la guerre.35

Ou, comme il l’explique à un autre endroit: Les princes, d’un autre côté, ne sont investis d’aucun pouvoir qui ne soit pas dérivé de l’État grâce à des élections désignant, soit des dirigeants individuels, soit des dynasties, de telle sorte que le droit d’entreprendre une guerre n’appartient au prince que dans la mesure où il agit pour l’État et qu’il a reçu un mandat lui permettant d’agir ainsi.36

Cela étant, dans certaines circonstances, des magistrats de rang inférieur pourront engager la volonté de l’État et entreprendre une guerre. En effet, et s’appuyant sur Vitoria pour faire une telle affirmation (rappelons-nous en pour la suite), de Groot croit que: lorsque le prince est absent ou négligeant et lorsque aucune loi n’empêche expressément cette alternative, le magistrat qui le suit dans la hiérarchie peut sans aucun doute exercer les pouvoirs nécessaires, non seulement à la défense de l’État, mais aussi pour faire la guerre, pour punir les ennemis et même pour mettre à mort les malfaiteurs.37

Dans un tel cas, nous explique de Groot, la question se pose de savoir si une telle guerre menée par un magistrat de second rang peut être considérée comme étant

34 35 36 37

ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid,

414 (notre traduction). 97. 393 (notre traduction). 98 (notre traduction).

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quand même une guerre publique. Selon lui, il en est ainsi dans la mesure où ‘de telles guerres sont supportées par la volonté de l’État’.38 Cette volonté de l’État (et rappelons-nous que de Groot définit l’État comme étant une association d’hommes), qui demeure si importante dans les théories contemporaines de droit international, se trouve ainsi ‘dé-constitutionalisée’ dans la mesure où elle peut être engagée par des magistrats n’ayant pas été formellement habilités par la constitution ou n’ayant pas reçu les titres de plénipotentiaires en vertu de celle-ci et ce, principalement parce qu’elle n’est pas la volonté d’une institution mais plutôt celle d’une association d’hommes. Ainsi, ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui la responsabilité de l’État peut se trouver engagée par des gestes posés à l’encontre de l’organisation formelle de l’État, c’est-à-dire de manière manifestement contraire à sa constitution. Une question importante découle de ce constat: si la responsabilité de l’État peut être engagée par des gestes posés à l’encontre de la constitution sous prétexte d’un désaccord important entre des magistrats inférieurs et le prince, voire entre le peuple et ses magistrats, quel sera au contraire l’effet sur cette responsabilité lorsque le prince agira de manière contraire à la volonté des magistrats inférieurs ou lorsque les magistrats agiront de manière contraire à la volonté du peuple? Dit d’une autre manière, les individus qui se sont associés et qui ont, du fait de cette association, accordé certains pouvoirs à un prince ou à des magistrats, pourront-ils être juridiquement responsables pour les actions posées par le prince ou les magistrats lorsque ceux-ci ont manifestement outrepassé les prérogatives qui leur ont été accordées ou qu’ils agissent tels des tyrans? La réponse à cette question exige que nous nous attardions sur les conséquences juridiques des actions illicites. En premier lieu, soulignons que cette ‘déconstruction’ de la volonté de l’État ne semble malheureusement pas suffisante pour en éviter toute réification et de Groot se questionne—après avoir affirmé que l’un des critères pour qu’une guerre soit juste est qu’elle doit avoir été engagée volontairement—sur la façon de joindre la volonté des magistrats à ceux des sujets qui feront la guerre pour eux. Il répond à cette interrogation de la façon suivante: ‘la volonté des sujets est régie par la volonté de ceux qui sont aux commandes’39 et ce, pour la simple raison que les sujets (tout comme les esclaves par ailleurs) n’ont qu’une raison partielle qui les empêche de bien distinguer la justice de l’injustice. Cette subsomption de la volonté des sujets à celle de ceux qui commandent a comme principale fonction, dans l’argumentaire de de Groot, de justifier la saisie de la cargaison d’un navire propriété d’un sujet portugais afin de compenser la Compagnie des Indes orientales (VOC) pour des pertes subies dont le responsable était le roi espagnol—rappelons que les couronnes espagnoles et portugaises étaient à l’époque unifiées. En effet, après avoir justifié la guerre aux yeux de ceux qui refusaient de reconnaître l’indépendance de la République, de Groot œuvre à expliquer la légalité de la saisie des biens d’un particulier portugais par un navigateur de la VOC. Cette justification exigera de lui qu’il fasse le lien entre les intérêts des particuliers et ceux du souverain afin que les actes illégaux de ce dernier puissent permettre la saisie des biens des premiers. 38 39

ibid, 98 (notre traduction). ibid, 114 (notre traduction).

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Le point de départ de l’argumentation de de Groot est ce constat selon lequel: En ce qui concerne les dettes encourues, les théologiens ont déclaré, de la manière la plus admirable et sur la base de l’équité naturelle, que toutes les personnes qui ont, d’une manière ou d’une autre, contribué aux causes de l’inégalité, sont sous l’obligation de contribuer à la cause de l’égalité. Par ailleurs, il a aussi été soutenu qu’une contribution à l’inégalité a été faite, non seulement par les individus qui ont personnellement commis l’action consistant en une saisie ou une détention violente, mais aussi par ces autres individus qui ont donné des commandements, des conseils, leur consentement ou leur travail permettant la commission de l’action illégale, ou qui ont fait obstruction à la restitution.40

Ainsi, c’est sur la base de cette analyse qu’il en vient à dire que ‘l’équité naturelle’ fait en sorte que, ‘puisque nous profitons des avantages découlant de notre association dans la société civile, nous devrions de la même façon souffrir de ses désavantages’.41 En d’autres termes, si l’on a cédé certaines prérogatives à un prince ou à des magistrats et que ces pouvoirs sont utilisés afin de causer du tort à autrui, on devient responsable de ces actions et l’on peut être forcé à verser une compensation à celui qui en a été victime.42 À la suite de cette analyse permettant a priori de prendre n’importe quelle action contre les sujets du souverain à l’origine du tort causé, de Groot cherche quand même à imposer certaines limites afin de protéger les individus contre la violence non nécessaire aux fins du droit naturel. Ainsi, bien qu’il soit d’avis qu’il est possible d’attaquer n’importe quel sujet de l’ennemi qui résisterait lors d’une guerre, il suggère aussi que certaines personnes doivent être épargnées (les femmes, les enfants, les déserteurs, les fermiers qui n’ont pas pris les armes, etc.) dans la mesure où elles ne représentent pas de menace au rétablissement de la paix. Par contre, la propriété de ces sujets peut être saisie si leur État a commis une injustice ou a une dette à rembourser. Ainsi, si: un État … agit mal à notre égard ou … nous doit une dette, il n’y a évidemment rien pour empêcher la prise de biens appartenant aux sujets en guise de paiement …. Par conséquent concluons-nous que tous les sujets sont, à tout moment, passibles d’être spoliés, mais pas nécessairement de perdre leur vie pour une telle raison. … Ou, si nous choisissons de prendre la question du point de vue des droits des créditeurs, nous pourrions trouver que les biens des sujets, mais pas leur personne, sont susceptibles d’être engagés pour la dette de l’État et que, par conséquent, dans les cas de prises, les prises de propriété sont également permises mais les attaques corporelles sont interdites.43

L’analyse que fait de Groot des effets juridiques sur les sujets des actions contraires au droit commis par l’État est un peu difficile à suivre du fait d’une apparente contradiction entre les principes au fondement de l’analyse et les conclusions qu’il en tire. En fait, on en vient, nous semble-t-il, à des résultats différents selon que l’on fait une interprétation que nous pourrions qualifier de ‘textuelle’ de ces conclusions ou que l’on fait une interprétation qui tienne aussi compte du contexte général de 40 41 42 43

ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid,

155 158 155 165

(notre traduction). (notre traduction). et seq (notre traduction). et seq (notre traduction).

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ses explications. En effet, de Groot en vient d’une part à la conclusion que les biens de tous les sujets en toutes circonstances peuvent être saisis pour compenser un tort commis ou afin de rembourser une dette due. Pourtant, cette conclusion ne semble pas totalement conforme aux principes et aux explications sur lesquels elle est fondée, à savoir que la responsabilité est ainsi socialisée du fait des prérogatives qui ont été cédées. En effet, si la ‘socialisation de la responsabilité’ découle du fait que les peuples ont cédé à l’État certains droits et certains pouvoirs qui étaient les leurs en vertu du droit naturel et que le souverain peut être dépossédé de ses fonctions s’il outrepasse les pouvoirs cédés, il semble normal que ces mêmes peuples ne soient pas responsables des actes du souverain outrepassant les pouvoirs ainsi cédés. On est aussi en droit de se questionner sur la situation qui prévaut lorsqu’un peuple est en rébellion contre son souverain, ou que des états sont eux-mêmes en guerre contre un prince, surtout dans la mesure où de Groot soutient que ‘[l]’État peut exister séparément du prince; mais le prince ne peut être créé que par le consentement général de l’État’.44 Lorsque le consentement vient à manquer, peut-on conclure que les agissements du prince deviennent sans valeur? Par exemple, qu’est-ce que de Groot aurait à dire sur la saisie éventuelle de biens appartenant à un Hollandais par un État n’ayant pas reconnu l’indépendance des Provinces-Unies sous prétexte d’un droit à être compensé de dommages causés par les Espagnols? Bref, vue d’une manière globale, cette analyse de de Groot nous semble manquer un peu de cohérence mais, de manière générale, elle demeure quand même assez loin de la théorie réifiée de l’État que fera Grotius au moment où il sera influencé par l’absolutisme émergent de Louis XIII. De manière générale, si l’on cherche à résumer la théorie de l’État qu’avait de Groot, on peut dire ceci. Pour lui, l’État, c’est le peuple. Ce concept ne représente en effet rien d’autre que la réunion consensuelle des individus d’un territoire donné.45 Du point de vue de ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui le droit international, ce sont les agissements de cet État qui créent le fait international susceptible d’engager sa responsabilité internationale pouvant éventuellement se traduire par la saisie des biens des individus membres de l’État. En se choisissant un souverain, c’est-à-dire un prince ou des magistrats, l’État (le peuple en d’autres termes) cède à celui-ci les prérogatives juridiques de sa volonté. Par conséquent, le souverain ne peut pas outrepasser les pouvoirs qui lui sont ainsi octroyés parce que de cette manière, la volonté qui se trouve matérialisée dans cette action en vient à ne plus représenter la volonté du peuple et de l’État. Autrement dit, la volonté à l’origine du fait international est celle du peuple et le souverain n’agit donc qu’en tant que

44

ibid, 415 (notre traduction). On peut noter ici que plusieurs auteurs qui se sont attardés davantage sur la période néerlandaise de de Groot qu’aux travaux de l’époque française de Grotius ont considéré celui-ci, de façon générale, comme un penseur républicain. S’il est pertinent de souligner cet élément, c’est que les auteurs qui, au contraire, ont surtout travaillé à partir du Droit de la guerre et de la paix ont parfois dit de lui qu’il était un penseur de l’absolutisme. Nous évoquerons ces dernier auteurs dans la partie portant sur la période française de Grotius mais pour des auteurs qui perçoivent de Groot comme un républicain, voir: R Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993) et M van Gelderen, ‘From Domingo de Soto to Hugo Grotius: Theories of Monarchy and Civil Power in Spanish and Dutch Political Thought, 1550–1609’ dans G Darby, (éd), The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt (London, Routledge, 2001) 151. 45

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représentant ou de médiateur de celui-ci. On perçoit donc une séparation claire entre le souverain et l’État. Le souverain, chez de Groot, n’est pas l’État; il le sert. Cette théorie de l’État, on le rappelle, avait comme principaux objectifs de défendre une décentralisation des compétences en direction de la Hollande mais aussi de légitimer la guerre (et les différentes actions prises lors de celle-ci, telle que la capture de la caraque portugaise) que menaient cette province et la République des Provinces-Unies à l’Espagne. Cette légitimation de la résistance n’est donc pas un élément parmi tant d’autres comme chez certains autres auteurs de l’époque: c’est non seulement l’élément le plus important de sa théorie, c’en est même son point de chute, c’est-à-dire que la majorité de ses écrits cherche à convaincre de l’existence d’un tel droit de résistance à la tyrannie. Conformément à cet objectif, les deux caractéristiques principales de sa théorie de l’État concernent donc la légitimation de la résistance active face au pouvoir illégitime et une ‘désabsolutisation’ du pouvoir, c’est-à-dire une décentralisation de celui-ci.

L’Influence de l’Absolutisme dans la Théorie de l’État de Grotius Cette théorie de l’État subira des transformations substantielles chez Grotius et ces changements semblent être explicables du fait que Du droit de la guerre et de la paix a été écrit en France (où l’État absolutiste était en pleine émergence), où Grotius s’était exilé et où il recevait une pension (très irrégulière toutefois) de Louis XIII. Nous commencerons cette section en soulignant quelques éléments importants de l’absolutisme avant d’expliquer la théorie de l’État de Grotius, ce qui nous permettra de mettre en exergue quelques distinctions significatives entre cette théorie et celle de de Groot. L’Absolutisme Nous n’entrerons pas dans les débats qui concernent la périodisation exacte de l’absolutisme en France, surtout parce que l’établissement d’un État absolutiste dans ce pays est le résultat d’un long processus et peut difficilement être associé à une date précise. Ce qui est certain, c’est que lorsque Grotius y arrive en 1621, le processus de centralisation des pouvoirs est entamé et qu’on peut déjà parler au moins d’un ‘absolutisme relatif’,46 ou encore d’un ‘absolutisme émergent’.47 La compréhension du De Jure Belli ac Pacis requiert que nous soulignions un certain nombre de points qui concernent la configuration des relations sociales caractérisant l’absolutisme en Europe continentale de manière générale, et en France de façon plus particulière. Outre la centralisation progressive des pouvoirs entre les mains du roi et de ses proches, un premier élément à se rappeler est que les décisions concernant les 46 En fait, Le Roy Ladurie parle déjà d’absolutisme relatif pour parler de la période de la régence de Marie de Médicis (officiellement de 1610 à 1614, mais de facto jusqu’à 1617): E Le Roy Ladurie, L’ancien régime—tome 1 1610–1715 (Paris, Hachette, 1991) 38. 47 WG Grewe et M Byers (traducteur), The Epochs of International Law (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2000) 173 et seq.

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relations interétatiques n’étaient pas prises en fonction de soi-disant ‘intérêts étatiques’ mais visaient d’abord et avant tout les intérêts dynastiques, et plus particulièrement la reproduction d’une hiérarchie socio-politique à l’avantage des ‘preneurs de décisions’. La politique européenne (et notamment les guerres) n’était donc pas constituée de relations inter-nationales autant que de relations entre souverains. Si cette ‘personnalisation’ de la politique est particulièrement visible lors des guerres, elle affecte de manière générale l’ensemble de la vie politique, l’exemple le plus frappant demeure le vœu de fidélité, non pas envers l’État mais envers le roi lui-même, que devaient faire les officiers au moment d’entrer en fonction.48 Ainsi, et comme le fait remarquer Roelofsen en parlant du siècle séparant la Paix d’Augsbourg (1555) et la Paix de Westphalie, ‘[l]es Monarques comme Henry VIII, François I ou l’Empereur Charles V ne se considéraient pas comme étant les représentants des intérêts de leurs États’49 mais assuraient la gouverne de leur royaume dans le seul objectif d’asseoir leurs intérêts et ceux de la cour. En second lieu, on doit souligner certaines particularités des relations sociales de propriété dans la France de l’époque. La principale caractéristique de celles-ci était que les paysans demeuraient de facto en possession de leurs terres, ce qui diminuait la quantité de travail susceptible d’être appropriée et réinvestie dans les moyens de production et constituait subséquemment une limite importante à la croissance économique. Ce type de relations sociales de propriété se distinguait de celui qui commençait à prédominer en Angleterre où le capitalisme agraire, apparu au XVIe siècle et qui entraînait la prolétarisation des paysans et la transformation des lords féodaux militarisés en propriétaires capitalistes assujettis aux règles du marché, avait permis une augmentation importante de la productivité économique, augmentation qui mettait par ailleurs une pression certaine sur ses rivaux de l’Europe continentale qui se devaient de trouver une manière d’égaler les revenus de ce pays.50 On doit également dire deux mots sur les offices vénaux, institution par laquelle le roi attribuait certaines de ses fonctions juridictionnelles en échange d’une somme d’argent devant lui être versée.51 Cette façon de nommer les officiers faisait que les fonctionnaires n’étaient ni manipulables, ni révocables et venaient à entretenir, d’une certaine manière, une relation symbiotique avec le roi qui ne pouvait plus gouverner en faisant totalement abstraction d’eux. En d’autres termes, l’absolutisme avait beau être un régime de gouverne politique où le décideur, le roi, était d’abord et avant tout préoccupé par la reproduction de sa dynastie et de ses intérêts, il s’agissait néanmoins d’un régime qui était favorable aux intérêts d’une

48 B Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations (London, Verso, 2003) 181. 49 CG Roelofsen, ‘Grotius and the Development of International Relations Theory: “The Long Seventheenth Century” and the Elaboration of a European States System’ (1997) 17 The Law Review Association of Quinnipiac College School of Law 35, 37. 50 Sur le développement de cette thèse: Teschke, The Myth of 1648 (n 48) 167–93. 51 Sur les offices vénaux, voir: R Mousnier, Les institutions de la France sous la monarchie absolue (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1974). 609–38.

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classe dominante plus large, à savoir la noblesse qui avait réussi, grâce à la vénalité notamment, à investir les lieux du pouvoir politique. Ce besoin constant d’être légitimé par les officiers et la noblesse (dont certaines parties étaient en tout temps susceptibles de se soulever), mis en conjoncture avec la faible productivité économique faisait alors en sorte, selon Teschke, que la royauté était dans l’obligation d’adopter des comportements agressifs en matière de politique étrangère afin d’assurer la croissance économique nécessaire, à la fois pour éviter les révoltes populaires, mais aussi pour entretenir cette noblesse et éviter d’attiser son mécontentement qui aurait pu déstabiliser le régime. En effet, les carences du mode de production féodal à l’égard de la capacité d’assurer la croissance nécessaire pour calmer ces possibles soulèvements forçaient les monarques à accumuler les richesses grâce à différentes stratégies, et notamment grâce à des conquêtes militaires. En d’autres mots, l’accumulation géopolitique était une nécessité pour la reproduction personnelle des classes dirigeantes au sommet de la société organisée autour du monarque qui figurait au plus haut niveau de la hiérarchie sociale.52

Il n’est donc pas surprenant de voir Grotius écrire un livre sur le droit de la guerre après son arrivée en France. Deux derniers éléments s’avèrent importants pour comprendre les écrits de Grotius. D’abord, après avoir vu leurs deux derniers rois se faire assassiner—en l’espace d’à peine plus de vingt ans—les Français ont, de manière générale, été pris d’aversion pour les thèses tyrannicides dont certains Jésuites (dont Francisco Suarez) se portaient défenseurs.53 Cette répugnance pour ces thèses mais aussi le danger de troubles civils et de conflits politiques majeurs qui étaient toujours présents lors de l’assassinat d’un souverain auraient été à l’origine de la demande du Tiers-état de décréter ‘l’inviolabilité de la personne royale et sa supériorité à toute instance humaine’ lors des États-généraux de 1614.54 Ensuite, on ne saurait passer sous silence le fait que l’arrivée de Grotius en France coïncide avec une légère recrudescence des conflits religieux entre les catholiques majoritaires dans le pays et les huguenots, ainsi qu’avec une série de trois ‘guerres de religion’ que mènera le jeune Louis XIII de 1621 à 1627 contre ces derniers.55 Ainsi, et bien que l’époque, perçue au sens large, se caractérise par une politique étrangère agressive, ce sont surtout les conflits internes et la résistance politique qui inquiètent le nouveau pourvoyeur de Grotius au début des années 1620. Bref, le contexte politique, économique et social dans lequel Grotius a écrit De Jure Belli ac Pacis est celui d’un État français dominé par un mécanisme décisionnel de plus en plus centralisé mais qui n’avait d’autres choix que d’intégrer les revendications de la noblesse et de contenter celle-ci, nécessités qui passaient, à cause de la faiblesse structurelle de l’économie, par une politique étrangère agressive

52 B Teschke, ‘Theorizing the Westphalian System of States: International Relations from Absolutism to Capitalism’ (2002) 8 European Journal of International Relations 5, 12 (notre traduction). 53 Voir notamment Y–M Bercé, La naissance dramatique de l’absolutisme (Paris, Le Seuil, 1992) 42–44. 54 ibid, 64. 55 ibid, 98–110.

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et de nombreuses guerres. Il s’agit donc d’une privatisation du mécanisme décisionnel (entre les mains du roi) au profit d’une classe de privilégiés, proche du pouvoir. De manière plus conjoncturelle, l’époque se caractérise aussi par un désir d’éliminer la résistance (religieuse ou autre) qui représentait jusqu’à un certain point une menace pour le régime, pour la dynastie voire, comme le montrait l’histoire récente, pour la vie du roi.

L’ÉTAT CHEZ GROTIUS

L’analyse que faisait de Groot au moment où il cherchait à justifier la guerre menée par la Hollande et la République à l’Espagne, ainsi que le maintien des pouvoirs aux mains des états de Hollande face aux tendances centralisatrices de la République a subi d’importantes modifications dans l’œuvre majeure de Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix, écrite en France alors que Grotius survivait grâce à une pension de Louis XIII. La première définition qu’il offre de l’État demeure néanmoins relativement proche de celle de de Groot. Selon Grotius, l’État est ‘une réunion parfaite d’hommes libres associés pour jouir de la protection des lois et pour leur utilité commune’,56 hommes qui se sont principalement réunis afin s’assurer une protection commune contre les dangers de l’isolement.57 Cet État, faut-il mentionner, est distinct de la souveraineté ou de la puissance souveraine et Grotius utilise une analogie pour faire comprendre la relation entre cette association humaine (l’État) et le souverain exerçant le pouvoir dans celle-ci. Voyons donc quel est le sujet de cette puissance suprême. Il est commun, ou propre. De même que le sujet commun de la vue est le corps, et que son sujet propre est l’œil, ainsi le sujet commun de la souveraineté est l’État, que nous avons défini plus haut une association parfaite,58

alors que ‘[l]e sujet propre sera une personne unique ou collective, suivant les lois et les mœurs de chaque nation’.59 Grotius distingue donc les trois éléments que sont l’État, la souveraineté et le peuple, conformément à ce qu’écrivait de Groot. Autre point en commun, l’origine de l’État demeure une sorte de contrat social, dont l’organisation politique (c’est-à-dire la détermination de l’exercice concret de la souveraineté) se trouve enracinée dans les lois ou les mœurs de la nation ainsi créée. On se rend néanmoins rapidement compte des différences lorsqu’on en vient aux conclusions que tire Grotius quant à la signification de la souveraineté et au droit de résistance dont peuvent jouir les sujets par rapport au souverain. Grotius s’interroge d’abord sur la signification politique de cette ‘association d’hommes libres’ et se demande si celle-ci revient à donner un droit d’auto gouvernance au peuple, idée contre laquelle il s’insurge sévèrement, prenant soin de:

56 H Grotius et P Pradier-Fodéré (traducteur), D Alland, S Goyard-Fabre (éds), Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (Paris, Presses universitaire de France, 1999) Livre I Ch I § XIV (1). 57 ibid, Livre I Ch IV § VII (3). 58 ibid, Livre I Ch III § VII (1). 59 ibid, Livre I Ch III § VII (3).

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rejeter … l’opinion de ceux qui veulent que la souveraineté réside partout, et sans exception, dans le peuple, de telle sorte qu’il soit permis à ce dernier de réprimer et de punir les rois toutes les fois qu’ils font un mauvais usage de leur pouvoir.60

En effet, selon lui, [i]l est permis à tout homme de se réduire en esclavage privé au profit de qui bon lui semble, ainsi que cela ressort de la loi hébraïque et de la loi romaine. Pourquoi donc ne serait-il pas permis à un peuple ne relevant que de lui-même, de se soumettre à un seul individu ou à plusieurs, de manière à leur transférer complètement le droit de le gouverner, sans en réserver aucune partie?61

On perçoit donc dans ce passage deux distinctions importantes par rapport à l’analyse que faisait de Groot. D’une part, le vocabulaire pour expliquer le phénomène de cession de la souveraineté, c’est-à-dire des droits (découlant du droit naturel) qui appartenaient aux individus dans la période précédant l’association politique, signifie désormais la ‘soumission’ des peuples au souverain alors que les écrits de de Groot nous permettaient de déduire qu’il s’agissait plutôt là de la délégation de pouvoirs qui pouvaient être repris si le souverain outrepassait ses pouvoirs ou agissait comme un tyran. Cette différence de vocabulaire n’est pas fortuite et a d’importants effets sur la théorie de la souveraineté de de Groot et de Grotius. En effet, alors que pour le premier, comme nous l’avons vu, le prince n’existe que pour l’État (et subséquemment pour le peuple) plutôt que l’inverse, Grotius rejette l’idée que le peuple puisse s’autodéterminer, c’est-à-dire, qu’il ait une quelconque fonction dans le processus décisionnel de l’État à un autre moment que celui de l’association des individus, au fondement historique de l’État.62 Une seconde distinction est tout aussi significative. Pour Grotius, le pouvoir d’auto-détermination de cette réunion d’hommes libres devient, contrairement à ce que nous avons déduit des écrits de de Groot, confronté à une contrainte temporelle dans la mesure où il ne peut, au mieux, être exercé qu’au moment même où se fait l’association civile ou politique, moment au cours duquel il est possible d’établir certaines limites aux pouvoirs que pourra exercer le sujet propre de cette puissance souveraine. Mais une fois ces limites établies, la possibilité de déposséder le souverain de ses fonctions n’existe plus, sauf en de rares exceptions. Grotius fait en effet remarquer que: la société civile ayant été établie pour maintenir la tranquillité, l’État acquiert d’abord sur nous et sur ce qui nous appartient, une sorte de droit supérieur, autant que cela est nécessaire pour cette fin. L’État peut donc, pour le bien de la paix publique et de l’ordre, interdire ce droit commun de résistance et il ne faut pas douter qu’il ne l’ait voulu, puisqu’il ne pourrait autrement atteindre son but.63

Autrement dit,

60

ibid, Livre I Ch III § VIII (1). ibid, Livre I ch III § VIII (1). 62 Voir E Jouannet qui remarque que le souci de Grotius est de faire apparaître le sujet propre de la souveraineté comme étant ‘le lieu exclusif de la souveraineté’: E Jouannet, Emer de Vattel et l’émergence doctrinale du droit international classique (Paris, Pedone, 1998) 262. 63 Grotius et Pradier-Fodéré, Du droit de la guerre et de la paix (n 56), Livre I Ch IV § II (1). 61

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en matière de chose publique, ce qui est sans contredit le plus important, c’est cet arrangement dont j’ai parlé, et suivant lequel les uns commandent et les autres obéissent. Il est incompatible avec la liberté que chaque particulier aurait de résister.64

Ce droit—et il s’agit là du retournement le plus spectaculaire de Grotius!—est même refusé aux entités internes et aux autorités inférieures. Il s’est rencontré dans notre siècle des hommes certainement instruits [Grotius semble alors parler de lui-même avant qu’il se soit forcé de fuir la Hollande], mais qui, trop asservis aux temps et aux lieux, se sont persuadés à eux d’abord — je le crois, en effet, ainsi —, puis ont persuadé aux autres, que ce qui vient d’être dit n’avait lieu qu’au regard des personnes privées, mais ne touchait pas les autorités inférieures, qu’ils considèrent comme fondées en droit à résister aux injures de celui qui tient dans ses mains le pouvoir souverain. Ils pensent même qu’elles se rendraient coupables d’une faute, si elles s’abstenaient de résister. Cette opinion ne doit pas être admise.65

Cela dit, et pour être honnête avec Grotius, celui-ci dresse ensuite une liste d’exceptions au principe de l’illégalité du droit de résistance. Trois de ces exceptions—qui sont possiblement les trois plus susceptibles de se produire—nous rappellent directement la situation qui prévalait en Hollande avant son exil. Spécifiquement, ces exceptions concernent les cas où: les princes qui sont subordonnés au peuple — soit qu’ils aient dès le principe reçu le pouvoir dans de telles conditions, soit que tel ait été le résultat d’une convention ultérieure, comme cela a eu lieu à Lacédémone —, si ces princes viennent à violer les lois et à se rendre coupables envers l’État, non seulement on peut leur résister par la force, mais, au besoin, on peut les punir de mort;66

où ‘le roi … n’a qu’une partie de l’autorité souveraine, et que l’autre portion appartienne au peuple ou à un sénat’;67 ou encore les situations où ‘au moment où le pouvoir souverain est déféré, il a été stipulé que dans certaines éventualités il sera possible de résister au roi’.68 Grotius semble aussi accorder, après une longue analyse, le droit de résistance dans ‘les cas d’extrême nécessité’69 sous prétexte que, puisque l’association a pour but de défendre sa vie, il serait illogique de ne pas accorder le droit de résistance à ceux qui font face, à cause de leur union à cette association civile, à une mort certaine. Cela dit, le droit de résistance n’est pas accordé par Grotius lorsque le souverain ne règne que pour assurer la survie ou la reproduction de son régime et Grotius écrit à une autre occasion que le fait de maltraiter des personnes innocentes ne fait pas perdre son titre au prince70. En résumé, les dimensions les plus importantes du droit de résistance qui est accordé par Grotius se réfèrent à ladite entente originelle et cette dimension s’explique possiblement par le fait que Grotius ait cherché à ne pas trop se distancer des écrits de de Groot. Cela dit, un élément significatif doit être souligné en ce qui 64 65 66 67 68 69 70

ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid,

Livre Livre Livre Livre Livre Livre Livre

I Ch IV § IV (5). I Ch IV § VI (1). I Ch IV § VIII. I Ch IV § XI. I Ch IV § XIV. I Ch IV § VII (1). II Ch I § IX (2).

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concerne ces exceptions: le droit de résistance, dont la justification était l’objectif premier de de Groot, se retrouve, chez Grotius, confiné au rang d’exception. Une autre distinction entre de Groot et Grotius concerne la capacité de représenter la volonté de l’État. Nous l’avons vu précédemment, de Groot considérait que la capacité qu’ont les souverains ou les magistrats d’engager la volonté de l’État n’existait que du fait que ce pouvoir leur avait été délégué et que, par conséquent, ce pouvoir pouvait être exercé par des magistrats inférieurs ‘lorsque le prince est absent ou négligent’.71 Grotius, à l’inverse, fait du caractère public de la guerre l’une des conditions pour qu’une guerre soit solennelle. Ainsi, lorsque nous investiguons sur le ‘fonctionnement’ de l’engagement de la volonté de l’État, c’est vers la déclaration de guerre qu’il faut se tourner. Or, tout en donnant certaines exceptions rares et relativement restrictives,72 Grotius insiste pour dire que, puisque ‘la guerre fait péricliter tout un État, il est pourvu par les lois de presque tous les peuples, à ce qu’aucune guerre ne soit entreprise que par l’ordre de celui qui a la puissance souveraine dans l’État’:73 par conséquent, la guerre publique doit être déclarée par le souverain pour être solennelle.74 Dès lors, les exceptions que l’on pouvait trouver chez de Groot sont-elles disparues, Grotius allant jusqu’à affirmer que: Francisco de Vitoria a osé donner aux habitants d’une ville le droit de faire la guerre pour venger les injures dont le prince néglige de poursuivre la réparation. Mais son opinion est avec raison rejetée par d’autres auteurs.75

Rappelons que de Groot s’appuyait justement sur Vitoria pour soutenir que les magistrats inférieurs pouvaient faire la guerre lorsque le prince était absent ou négligent.76 De manière générale, les différences remarquées entre de Groot et Grotius sont le reflet d’un passage important dans la construction évolutive du champ du droit international. Alors que le premier avait une théorie qui était relativement décentralisée de la prérogative d’engager la volonté et la capacité d’action de l’État, Grotius en arrive à une théorie véritablement ‘constitutionalisée’ de celle-ci, c’est-à-dire où le seul critère utile pour déterminer qui peut agir pour l’État est le respect de l’entente originelle, c’est-à-dire, dans les mots de notre époque, le respect de la constitution. Dans le contexte de l’émergence de l’absolutisme où les pouvoirs étaient de plus en plus concentrés entre les mains d’un souverain qui dirigeait de manière à assurer la reproduction de son régime, on peut facilement percevoir que

71

Grotius et Williams, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16) 98 (notre traduction). ‘Car, en premier lieu, on ne doit pas douter qu’il ne soit permis à un magistrat préposé à une fonction, de contraindre par le moyen des agents de son autorité un petit nombre de rebelles, toutes les fois qu’il n’est pas besoin pour cela de plus grandes troupes, et qu’il n’y a pas de péril qui menace l’État. En second lieu, si le danger est tellement imminent que le temps ne permette pas de consulter celui qui possède le suprême pouvoir dans la nation, cette nécessité fera encore ici une exception’: Grotius et Pradier-Fodéré, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (n 56) Livre I Ch III § IV (3). 73 ibid, Livre I Ch III § IV (2). 74 ibid, Livre I Ch III § V (1). 75 ibid, Livre I Ch III § IV (3). 76 Grotius et Williams, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (n 16), 98. 72

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la signification de ce glissement est une privatisation de la capacité à engager l’État dans des actions créatrices de faits internationaux.77 Ce lien qui est ainsi établi entre le souverain et les gouvernés a des conséquences importantes pour ces derniers en ce qui concerne ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui la responsabilité étatique pour faits illicites. Grotius, c’est bien connu, passe pour être l’un des premiers à avoir établi des normes de ‘droit humanitaire’. Ces règles sont développées dans son livre 3. Ce livre, le dernier du Droit de la guerre et de la paix, a une structure particulière qu’il vaut la peine d’exposer, au moins en ce qui concerne ses 14 premiers chapitres (sur 25). De manière générale, les huit premiers chapitres (mais plus particulièrement les chapitres IV à VIII) expliquent les différents droits que fait naître la guerre. Ces droits, qui émanent du droit volontaire humain (c’est-à-dire du droit des gens) puisque les exemples sont puisés dans la pratique répétée des belligérants, sont notamment ceux de tuer l’ennemi et ses sujets, de piller et d’acquérir les biens de ceux-ci, de faire de ces derniers des esclaves et de se rendre maître des individus vaincus.78 La pertinence de ces chapitres pour notre propos réside dans l’explication qui est donnée par Grotius de ce droit envers les peuples ennemis: pour lui, la guerre déclarée à celui qui a le pouvoir souverain sur un peuple, est censée déclarée en même temps, non seulement à tous ses sujets, mais à tous ceux qui pourront se joindre à lui en qualité d’alliés, comme étant une dépendance de lui-même; et c’est là ce que disent les jurisconsultes modernes, que, lorsque le prince est défié, ses adhérents sont défiés.79

Cette responsabilité a aussi des répercussions sur les dettes engagées par les souverains et même si ‘[s]uivant le pur droit de nature, personne n’est tenu du fait d’autrui, si ce n’est celui qui succède dans les biens’,80 Grotius est néanmoins d’avis que les individus sont engagés par les dettes du corps politique (qu’il appelle la

77 Cette domination du roi sur la détermination de la guerre et de la paix est d’ailleurs suffisamment importante pour qu’un de ses plus grands exégètes estime que, pour Grotius, la guerre n’a pas encore pris le caractère ‘d’État à État’ mais demeure une relation entre les souverains, ce qui n’est d’ailleurs pas surprenant du fait qu’il s’agissait en réalité d’un reflet de la société européenne de l’époque, comme nous l’avons souligné précédemment: P Haggenmacher, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1983) 542. Roscoe Pound ne dit pas autre chose, rappelant que, dans son système, les ‘obligations étaient les obligations des souverains personnels en tant qu’individus et ses règles étaient imposées à la capacité humaine de ces souverains. Il était alors un corpus de règles s’appliquant aux souverains qui gouvernaient de façon personnelle; s’appliquant aux souverains parmi lesquels Louis XIV est devenu le prototype’. Il ne faut d’ailleurs pas s’étonner de ce constat, nous rappelle le doyen Pound, puisqu’en évoquant ces obligations, il ne fait que reproduire l’état de l’organisation du monde à son époque: R Pound ‘Philosophical Theory and International Law’ (1923) 1 Bibliotheca Visseriana dissertationum ius internationale illustrantium 71, 74–76, la citation 74. Martin Wight apporte toutefois un son de cloche légèrement différent, soutenant que les règles du droit international, selon Grotius, ‘lient plutôt les peuples, mais plus particulièrement encore leurs dirigeants. Le droit de la guerre lie la conscience individuelle afin que les sujets qui croient que la cause d’une guerre est injuste ne devraient pas servir militairement’, M Wight et G Wight, B Porter (eds), Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 53 (notre traduction). 78 Grotius et Pradier-Fodéré, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (n 56) Livre III Ch V, VI, VII et VIII. 79 ibid, Livre III Ch III § IX. Voir aussi: ‘Suivant le droit des gens, tous les sujets de celui qui commet l’injustice, qui sont tels à titre permanent, soit indigènes, soit venus d’ailleurs, sont soumis au droit de représailles’: ibid, Livre III Ch II § VII (2). 80 ibid, Livre III Ch II § I (1).

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société civile) et par son chef,81 ce qui n’est pas surprenant compte tenu de la lourde taxation qui était imposée (principalement aux paysans) à cause des aventures guerrières des rois français de l’époque, comme nous l’avons vu précédemment. Les chapitres suivants (X à XVI) constituent le corps des temperamenta, c’est-à-dire des limites qui sont imposées aux belligérants au moment de faire la guerre, et qui relèvent du droit naturel. Dans le premier de ces chapitres, qui est en fait un chapitre introductif à ces tempéraments, Grotius ‘retire à ceux qui font la guerre presque toutes les choses dont [il] peu[t] paraître les avoir gratifiés’.82 À partir de là, il revient sur les énoncés prononcés en début de livre et affirme que ‘si la cause de la guerre est injuste, … tous les actes qui en naissent sont injustes’83 et apportent des limites relativement importantes au droit de tuer, de détruire ou de prendre les biens de l’ennemi, au traitement des prisonniers, à l’acquisition de la souveraineté suite à une victoire militaire, ainsi qu’au comportement à adopter par rapport à des choses qui sont dépourvues de Postliminium.84 La relation entre ces deux parties, à savoir les chapitres IV à VII et les chapitres X à XVI est loin d’être claire et ces ambiguïtés ont généralement été, à tort ou à raison, interprétées d’une manière extrêmement favorable à Grotius.85 Pour la plupart de ceux qui se sont penchés sur la question, considérant que le droit naturel, chez Grotius, semble avoir priorité sur le droit volontaire,86 le vrai droit serait celui des tempéraments et non pas ces règles tirées de la pratique humaine qui permettent aux belligérants de faire tout ce qu’ils veulent.87 Mais quoi qu’il en soit, cette prédominance possible du droit naturel ne modifie en rien la relation existant entre l’État, le souverain et ses sujets et l’affirmation selon laquelle la guerre qui est déclarée au souverain est aussi déclarée à son peuple est possiblement ce qui permet de comprendre la véritable articulation entre les deux parties du livre. En effet, il 81

ibid, Livre III Ch II § I et II. ibid, Livre III Ch X § I (1). 83 ibid, Livre III Ch X § III. 84 ibid, Livre III Ch XI–XVI. 85 ‘C’est peut-être là la partie la plus personnelle, la plus intéressante et assurément la plus humanitaire de l’œuvre’: Basdevant, ‘Grotius’ (n 19) 210. ‘C’est là dans l’œuvre de Grotius une partie véritablement humaine qui lui fait honneur. Elle vient couronner une doctrine qui toute entière, a pour but d’atténuer les méfaits et les horreurs de la guerre. Grotius a compris qu’au–dessus du droit, il y a la charité’: J Joubert, Études sur Grotius (Paris, Domat-Montchrestien, 1935) 95. 86 Selon plusieurs auteurs, l’une des difficultés de la théorie des sources de Grotius est qu’il ne hiérarchise pas les trois types de droits (naturel, volontaire humain et volontaire divin) de son système (voir par exemple M Bourquin, ‘Grotius est-il le père du droit des gens? (1583–1615)’ dans: Faculté de Droit de Génève (ed), Grandes figures et grandes œuvre juridiques (Génève, Georg & Cie SA, 1948) 77, 86–93 qui estime que même si, a priori, on peut être d’avis que Grotius donne primauté au droit naturel, cette analyse est plus difficile à défendre lorsqu’on fait une lecture plus poussée de Du droit de la guerre et de la paix). On doit toutefois noter que, concernant la relation entre le droit naturel et le droit divin, il affirme que ‘[l]e droit naturel est tellement immuable, qu’il ne peut même pas être changé par Dieu ‘ (Grotius, Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (n 56) Livre I Ch I § X (5)). Ce qui nous laisse sur l’impression qu’au contraire, selon lui, le droit naturel a une certaine priorité sur les deux autres types de droits. 87 Contra: PP Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law According to Grotius and Vattel (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1960) 107–22 (qui semble croire que les règles découlant du droit des gens ont priorité sur les tempéraments, notamment du fait de certaines incohérences dans l’élaboration de ceux-ci). Voir aussi les bémols que met E Jouannet pour qui Grotius établit une distinction entre les droits parfaits, qui peuvent justifier une guerre juste, et les droits imparfaits, qui ne le peuvent pas. Selon elle, les tempéraments feraient partie des droits imparfaits: Jouannet, Emer de Vattel (n 62) 174 et seq. 82

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semble que la meilleure interprétation du troisième livre soit la suivante: étant donné ce qui a été dit précédemment concernant la nature de cette ‘union d’hommes libres’ qu’est l’État, il est normal que les individus, qui jouissent des bénéfices de cette union, souffrent également de ses désavantages. Par conséquent se trouvent-ils être liés au souverain qu’ils ont ‘choisi’ et c’est ainsi qu’on doit comprendre la relation qu’ils entretiennent entre eux et avec ce souverain comme créateur d’un ‘tout organique et unitaire’ appelé l’État. Cette relation fait en sorte que l’individu est responsable des agissements du souverain, puisque ces agissements ont été, du fait de son association expresse ou implicite à l’entente originelle et à l’État, indirectement pris en son nom. Cela dit, la guerre ne permet pas que l’on fasse subir n’importe quel supplice aux parties individuelles du tout qu’est l’État. Ces tempéraments ne remettent donc jamais en question le fait que l’individu est toujours responsable des agissements du souverain: ils ne font qu’‘adoucir’ un peu les effets de cette responsabilité socialisée. Si l’on compare cette analyse à celle que faisait de Groot, on peut constater certaines distinctions significatives pour notre propos. Pour ce dernier, la socialisation de la responsabilité découle, comme chez Grotius, de l’entente originelle. Cependant, l’interprétation que nous avons faite de ses écrits nous a permis de dire que ce lien entre les individus et le souverain, relation médiatisée, si l’on veut, par l’État, est relativement friable et que les individus ne peuvent probablement pas être tenus responsables des décisions prises par le souverain lorsque celui-ci a outrepassé les prérogatives qui lui ont été accordées, ou qu’il se comporte comme un tyran et qu’une résistance lui est de ce fait opposée. Enfin, on le répète, le droit de résistance accordé aux peuples contre un pouvoir illégitime ou ayant outrepassé les termes de l’entente originelle est l’aspect principal de la théorie. Chez Grotius, cette analyse ne peut plus être faite à cause de la relégation au rang d’exception extrêmement rarissime du droit de résistance qui permettait implicitement de ‘rompre’ le consentement donné aux actions décidées par le souverain, ainsi que de l’importance accordée par lui au maintien de la stabilité de l’État qui permet à ce dernier d’imposer l’ordre et la paix publique. En fait, si les limites imposées par de Groot au droit de la guerre venaient principalement d’une telle ‘déconstruction’ de la relation individus—État—souverain, chez Grotius, elles découlent au contraire du fait que nonobstant le caractère unitaire de l’État, on ne peut, sous prétexte d’une guerre menée contre le souverain, faire subir n’importe quelles souffrances aux parties individuelles (c’est-à-dire aux individus) de ce tout unitaire qu’est l’État. Ainsi, et même s’il n’est peut-être pas faux de dire, comme certains auteurs l’ont proposé, que Grotius n’envisageait pas encore l’État du point de vue de la personnalité juridique88 et que le système juridique qu’il décrit se caractérise principalement par des relations entre souverains, n’en demeure pas moins que ce

88 Par exemple PP Remec qui affirme que ‘[l]’association qui est représentée dans l’État n’est pas, selon Grotius, un organisme possédant une personnalité pleine, mais plutôt une relation juridique spéciale existant entre les membres de cette association afin de mieux réguler les intérêts qui leur sont communs’: Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law According to Grotius and Vattel (n 87), 72 (notre traduction); et P Haggenmacher pour qui, chez Grotius, ‘[l]e belligérant public n’est donc pas, ici, un État souverain en tant que sujet du droit international, mais un organe souverain en tant que maître suprême dans l’État’: P Haggenmacher ‘Grotius et le droit international – le texte et la

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système implique nécessairement une version réifiée de l’État où celui-ci est perçu comme étant un tout unitaire qui sert de relais pour transmettre à l’ensemble du peuple (le principe de socialisation de la responsabilité) les effets des décisions prises par le souverain (qui préfigure le principe de la privatisation du processus décisionnel).

CONCLUSION

Les historiens du droit international ont généralement travaillé à partir d’une approche que l’on pourrait qualifier d’idéaliste (bien que de plus en plus d’exceptions commencent à émerger), c’est-à-dire qu’ils ont bien souvent cherché à décortiquer l’histoire du champ en analysant les écrits de ceux qu’on qualifie de ‘Pères fondateurs’ du droit international en insistant sur les filiations intellectuelles existant entre eux. Cette approche exige de faire une interprétation très serrée, si l’on veut, et de rechercher quelle était la véritable intention de l’auteur au moment d’écrire ses traités. Cette approche est certainement pertinente d’une perspective critique parce que, et un peu comme on le fait en science politique lorsqu’on étudie les auteurs classiques libéraux, elle nous permet de comprendre l’évolution historique et philosophique des arguments utilisés pour justifier et légitimer un ordre de domination et ses relations de pouvoir, que ce soit l’ordre politique libéral ou l’ordre juridique international. Ce que cette contribution postule toutefois, c’est qu’une telle approche n’est pas suffisante et qu’une approche matérialiste peut aussi s’avérer d’une grande pertinence pour faire la critique du champ du droit international. Une analyse matérialiste et critique du droit international peut prendre deux orientations différentes. Dans la première, plutôt que d’analyser les écrits des ‘internationalistes’ (qu’on nous permette cet anachronisme), on cherchera plutôt à comprendre comment l’état des relations sociales et des relations de pouvoir a permis l’émergence de règles et d’institutions et comment celles-ci ont été utilisées par les différents acteurs afin d’en arriver à leurs fins. Dans la seconde, on fera un retour aux ‘Pères fondateurs’ mais on cherchera à comprendre les éléments politiques, sociaux et économiques les ayant influencés plutôt que de comprendre leur influence intellectuelle. Cette méthode nous permet de comprendre comment les relations sociales ont influencé, non plus le droit international en tant que pratique sociale mais plutôt en tant que champ scientifique. Elle demande moins de faire une déconstruction très pointue des textes, comme on a souvent eu l’habitude de le faire, que de rechercher la façon dont les textes ont été reçus et interprétés (que cette interprétation ait été la bonne ou non). C’est dans cette seconde perspective que cette contribution se situe, même si elle s’est contentée de souligner les éléments contextuels des écrits de l’auteur étudié, l’espace nous ayant manqué pour en analyser la réception historique. légende’ dans A Dufour, P Haggenmacher et J Toman (eds), Grotius et l’ordre juridique international (Lausanne, Payot, 1985) 122. Voir aussi: P Haggenmacher, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste (n 77) 542.

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Une analyse de la ‘théorie politique’ de l’État dans les différentes époques de la vie de Huig de Groot/Hugo Grotius nous permet de bien illustrer la pertinence de cette approche dans la mesure où, plus peut-être que n’importe quel de ces soit-disant ‘Pères fondateurs’, Grotius a été influencé par les luttes politiques et sociales auxquelles il a assisté, voire auxquelles il a participé directement, et le résultat de ces contextes différents est une théorie de l’État qui évolue sensiblement au cours de sa vie: d’une théorie ‘républicaine’ de son époque hollandaise, il finit par adopter une théorie ‘absolutiste’ après qu’il ait été accueilli par Louis XIII en France. L’importance de ces changements vient du fait qu’alors que Le droit de la guerre et de la paix a grandement marqué le champ du droit international, le reste de ses écrits, outre l’un des chapitres du De Jure Praedae qui a influencé le droit de la mer mais qui est relativement silencieux sur une quelconque théorie de l’État, a été d’une influence marginale, voire complètement nulle sur le droit international.89 Or, il appert que la théorie adoptée dans Le droit de la guerre et de la paix est une théorie qui réifie beaucoup plus l’État que celle de ses écrits précédents, occultant ainsi presque totalement les relations sociales nationales, et qu’à la suite de Grotius, le champ du droit des gens/droit international adoptera de plus en plus une théorie qui, justement et comme nous l’avons expliqué en introduction, réifie l’État, ce qui fait en sorte qu’on y conçoit le droit international comme un ordre juridique qui gère les relations entre les États (et uniquement eux) sans vraiment considérer le fait que ceux-ci ne sont rien d’autre que la somme des relations sociales et des relations de pouvoir internes aux sociétés ‘nationales’. Est-ce à dire que le champ aurait évolué différemment et aurait une théorie politique de l’État différente et, considérant l’importance de la théorie de l’État sur l’ensemble du droit international en tant qu’ordre juridique, une structure différente si c’eurent été les écrits de de Groot qui avaient joué le rôle qu’ont joué les travaux de Grotius? Il est difficile de répondre à cette question mais ce qui est certain, c’est que Grotius a joué un rôle important dans l’évolution du champ du droit international, ne serait-ce qu’à cause de l’influence qu’il a lui-même eue sur Vattel dont le livre principal90 a été de loin le traité de droit des gens le plus lu au cours du XVIIIe siècle et qui fait constamment référence au traité du juriste hollandais.

89 Parmi les travaux de de Groot dont nous avons parlés, rappelons que le De Jure Praedae et le Commentarius in Thesis XI ont été retrouvés en 1864 et publiés quelques années plus tard seulement. Bien sûr, l’un des chapitres du De Jure Praedae était connu depuis les années 1610 et a eu à l’époque une influence importante sur le droit de la mer, mais n’inclut pas les dimensions sur les plus importantes de l’œuvre générale en ce qui concerne la théorie de l’État de de Groot. Par ailleurs, des œuvres telles que The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic et De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra n’ont eu, à notre connaissance, aucun impact sur le développement du droit des gens. 90 E de Vattel et J Brown Scott (éd), Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, tome 2, réédition (Washington D.C., Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916 [1758]).

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Ouvrages Y-M Bercé, La naissance dramatique de l’absolutisme (Paris, Le Seuil, 1992). P Bourdieu avec LJD Wacquant, Réponses. Pour une anthropologie réflexive (Paris, Le Seuil, 1992). E de Vattel et J Brown Scott (éd), Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, tome 2, réédition (Washington DC, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916 [1758]). E Dunbauld, The Life and Legal Writings of Hugo Grotius (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1969). P Geyl, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century, Volume 1 (New York, Barnes & Noble, 1961) WG Grewe et M Byers (traducteur), The Epochs of International Law (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2000). H Grotius et P Borschberg (éd), Commentarius in Thesis XI. An Early Treatise on Souvereignty, the Just War, and the Legitimacy of the Dutch Revolution (Bern, Peter Lang, 1994). H Grotius et Pradier-Fodéré, P (traducteur), Alland, D, Goyard-Fabre, S (éds), Le droit de la guerre et de la paix (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1999). H Grotius et J Wasnick (éd), The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic (Assen, Van Gorcum, 2000). H Grotius et H-J van Dam (éd), De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. Critical Edition with Introduction, English Translation and Commentary, Volume I (Leiden, Brill Academic, 2001). H Grotius, GL Williams, et WH Zeydel (traducteurs), MJ van Ittersum (éd), Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Jure Praedae) (Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 2006). P Haggenmacher, Grotius et la doctrine de la guerre juste (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1983). V Hély, Étude sur le droit de la guerre de Grotius (Paris, F. Pichon, 1875). M Horkheimer et C Maillard, S Muller (traducteurs), Théorie traditionnelle et théorie critique (Paris, Gallimard, 1974). J Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). E Jouannet, Emer de Vattel et l’émergence doctrinale du droit international classique (Paris, Pedone, 1998). J Joubert, Études sur Grotius (Paris, Domat-Montchrestien, 1935). E Le Roy Ladurie, L’ancien régime – tome I, 1610–1715 (Paris, Hachette, 1991). R Mousnier, Les institutions de la France sous la monarchie absolue (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1974). PP Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law According to Grotius and Vattel (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1960).

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B Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations (London, Verso, 2003). R Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993) H Vreeland, Hugo Grotius the Father of the Modern Science of International Law (New York, Oxford University Press, 1917). M Wight, et G Wight, B Porter, (éds), Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). Articles d’ouvrages collectifs J Basdevant, ‘Grotius’ dans Pillet, (éd), Les fondateurs du droit international: leurs oeuvres, leurs doctrines (Paris, V Giard & E Brière, 1904). M Bourquin, ‘Grotius est-il le père du droit des gens? (1583–1615)’ in: Faculté de Droit de Génève (éd), Grandes figures et grandes œuvre juridiques (Génève, Georg & Cie SA, 1948). R Feenstra, ‘Mare Liberum, Contexte historique et concepts fondamentaux’ dans A Dufour, P Haggenmacher et J Toman (éds), Grotius et l’ordre juridique international (Lausanne, Payot, 1985). P Haggenmacher, ‘Grotius et le droit international—le texte et la légende’ dans A Dufour, P Haggenmacher et J Toman (éds), Grotius et l’ordre juridique international (Lausanne, Payot, 1985). D Kennedy, ‘The Twentieth-Century Discipline of International Law in the United States’ dans A Sarat, B Garth et RA Kagan (éds), Looking Back at Law’s Century (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002). H-J van Dam, ‘Introduction’ dans HJ van Dam (éd) et H Grotius, De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra. Critical Edition with Introduction, English Translation and Commentary, Volume I (Leiden, Brill Academic, 2001). M van Gelderen, ‘From Domingo de Soto to Hugo Grotius: Theories of Monarchy and Civil Power in Spanish and Dutch Political Thought, 1550–1609’ dans G Darby (éd), The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt (London, Routledge, 2001). J Waszinck, ‘Introduction’ dans ibid (éd) et H Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic (Assen, Van Gorcum, 2000). Articles de périodiques P Bourdieu, ‘La spécificité du champ scientifique et les conditions sociales du progrès de la raison’ (1975) 7 Sociologie et société 91–118. RW Cox, ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ (1981) 10 Millenium: Journal of International Studies 126–55. L Panitch, ‘The New Imperial State’ (2000) 2 New Left Review 5–20. R Pound, ‘Philosophical Theory and International Law’ (1923) 1 Bibliotheca Visseriana dissertationum ius internationale illustrantium 71–90.

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CG Roelofsen, ‘Grotius and the Development of International Relations Theory: “The Long Seventheenth Century” and the Elaboration of a European States System’ (1997) 17 The Law Review Association of Quinnipiac College School of Law 35–59. S Sassen, ‘The State and Economic Globalisation: Any Implications for International Law?’ (2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 109–16. B Teschke, ‘Theorizing the Westphalian System of States: International Relations from Absolutism to Capitalism’ (2002) 8 European Journal of International Relations 5–48.

Cours M Kamto, ‘La volonté de l’État en droit international’ (2004) 310 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–428.

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Réception et Application du Droit International Moderne par le Japon: Son Attitude Évolutive de 1858 à 1945 NISHIUMI MAKI *

INTRODUCTION

A

UJOURD’HUI, plusieurs internationalistes européens s’intéressent à la clarification du caractère ‘européen’ du droit international moderne et à la manière dont leurs prédécesseurs à la fin du XIXème siècle ont vu le processus de colonisation qui se déroulait à cette époque à l’échelon mondial.1 J’aimerais me joindre à cette tendance et présenter sur ce sujet un point de vue non-européen.2 Les historiens et juristes des pays d’Asie, dont le Japon, s’intéressent à leur tour au processus par lequel le droit international moderne a été reçu et appliqué par ces pays.3 Cet article a pour but de clarifier l’attitude du Japon à l’égard du droit international moderne depuis le moment de son ouverture, c’est-à-dire de la deuxième moitié du XIXème siècle, jusqu’à la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale. L’attitude du Japon à l’égard du droit international moderne n’a pas été cohérente, mais au contraire évolutive et ambivalente. Elle ressemble, me semble-t-il, à celle d’un japonais qui se positionne par rapport à l’Europe. D’un côté, il l’adore et l’accepte volontiers, mais de l’autre, il la conteste et même la rejette.4 * Professeur à l’Université Chuo, Japon. 1 Par exemple, E Jouannet, ‘Structure intellectuelle de la pensée internationaliste classique et colonialisme européen’ Rapport lors de la Conférence inaugurale de la SEDI à Florence, 2004, publié sous le titre: ‘Colonialisme européen et néo-colonialisme contemporain (Notes de lecture des manuels européens du droit des gens entre 1850 et 1914)’ (2006) 6 Baltic Yearbook of International Law 49; M Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: the Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). 2 Parmi les internationalistes qui s’intéressent à ce sujet, on peut énumérer entre autres: A Anghie, ’Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in 19th Century International Law‘ (1999) 40 Harvard International Law Journal 1; Y Onuma, ‘When was the Law of International Society Born?’ (2000) 2 Journal of the History of International Law 1; Y Matsui, ‘Kindai Nihon to Kokusaiho(1)(2)’ (‘Japon moderne et droit international’) (1974) 13, 14 Kagaku to Shiso (Science et pensée) 87–97, 344–59. 3 Ainsi, Higashi Ajia Kindaishi Gakkai (la Société de l’histoire moderne d’Asie orientale) a publié successivement les numéros spéciaux suivants, intitulés: ‘Higashi Ajia ni okeru Bankokukoho no Juyo to Tekiyo’ (‘Réception et application du droit des gens dans l’Asie orientale’) (mars 1999) 2 Higashi Ajia Kindaishi (Histoire moderne d’Asie orientale); ‘Ajia ni okeru Kindaikokusaiho’ (‘Droit international moderne dans l’Asie’) (mars 2000) 3 Higashi Ajia Kindaishi. Plusieurs historiens et internationalistes japonais et coréens y ont contribué sur ces sujets. 4 On peut bien voir cette mentalité dans l’essai de 1914 de S Natsume, ‘Watashi no Kojinshugi’ (‘Mon individualisme’) (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1978) ou dans le roman de S Endo, Ryugaku (Faire ses études à l’étranger) (Tokyo, Shincho Bunko, 1965) etc.

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Dans cet article, je considèrerai successivement: (1) Le milieu international à l’époque où le Japon a été obligé de recevoir le droit international moderne en tant que tel; (2) L’attitude apparemment contradictoire du Japon à l’égard des puissances occidentales et à l’égard des pays voisins tels que la Chine et la Corée, dans l’élaboration des traités bilatéraux; (3) Le caractère discriminatoire du droit international moderne et la signification de l’attitude du Japon à l’égard de ce droit; (4) Le projet de Daitowa-Kyoeiken (La zone co-prospère de la grande Asie orientale) et les attitudes des internationalistes japonais à son égard. LE MILIEU INTERNATIONAL À L’ÉPOQUE OÀ LE JAPON A ÉTÉ OBLIGÉ DE RECEVOIR LE DROIT INTERNATIONAL MODERNE EN TANT QUE TEL

L’année 2008 marque le 150ème anniversaire de l’établissement des relations diplomatiques entre le Japon et cinq pays occidentaux: la France, les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, la Russie et les Pays-Bas. En 1858, le Japon a conclu ou, plus précisément, a été obligé de conclure avec ces pays des traités de paix, d’amitié et de commerce.5 Vers le milieu du XIXème siècle, ces pays occidentaux avaient alors accompli, à travers leurs propres expériences de la révolution industrielle, un processus rapide de modernisation. Ils se lançaient alors à la recherche de nouveaux marchés, amorçant également leur expansion vers l’Asie. Par ces traités, le Japon a ouvert les ports d’Hakodate, Kanagawa, Nagasaki, Niigata et Hyogo, promettant à ces pays occidentaux un libre commerce.6 Antérieurement, le Japon avait adopté une politique d’isolement, qui s’appelait en japonais ‘Sakoku’, par laquelle il était interdit au peuple japonais de sortir du Japon et aux étrangers d’entrer au Japon. Les relations diplomatiques et de commerce extérieur étaient limitées à quelques pays comme les Pays-Bas et la Chine. La raison principale de cette politique était d’empêcher l’évangélisation catholique qui, selon la pensée du gouvernement de cette époque, le Shogounat, menaçait son autorité. ‘Sakoku’ a duré plus de deux cent ans et favorisé, en raison de l’état de la paix, un développement de la culture, de l’industrie et des finances japonaises. Mais, depuis la fin du XVIIIème siècle, au fur et à mesure du développement du capitalisme mondial mis au point par les pays occidentaux, des pays comme la Russie et les États-Unis ont demandé au Japon d’ouvrir ses frontières et son marché 5 Précisément, le Japon avait conclu depuis 1854 des traités d’amitié avec les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, la Russie et les Pays-Bas. Ces traités ont été transformés en traités de paix, d’amitié et de commerce en 1858. 6 ‘Les villes et ports de Hakodate, Kanagaoua et Nagasaki seront ouverts au commerce et aux sujets français, à dater du 15 août 1859, et les villes et ports dont les noms suivent le seront aux époques déterminées ci-après . . .’ (article 3 du Traité entre la France et le Japon, signé à Yedo, le 9 octobre 1858. Ratification échangée à Yedo, le 22 septembre 1859, dans Teimei kakkoku Joyaku Ruisan – Treaties and Conventions concluded between Empire of Japan and Foreign Nations (Tokyo Nisshusha, 1874) ; ’Dans tous les ports du Japon ouverts au commerce, les sujets français seront libres d’importer de leur propre pays ou des ports étrangers, et d’y vendre, d’y acheter et d’en exporter pour leurs propres ports ou pour ceux d’autres pays, toutes espèces de marchandises qui ne seraient pas de contrebande . . .’ (article 8 dudit traité).

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intérieur. Et ‘Sakoku’ s’est achevé, en 1858, avec la conclusion des traités de paix, d’amitié et de commerce mentionnés ci-dessus.7 Au Japon, on dit souvent que ces traités étaient ‘inégaux’. Ils étaient considérés tels pour trois raisons principales: d’abord, l’absence du pouvoir de fixer librement les tarifs douaniers ; le Japon n’avait pas le droit de fixer unilatéralement et souverainement ces taxes. À cette époque-là, l’OMC n’existait pas(!) et chaque pays souverain avait donc a priori le droit de décider les taux de droits de douane. Mais le Japon était obligé, par ces traités, de consulter préalablement ses partenaires et ne pouvait fixer ses taxes qu’après avoir obtenu leur consentement.8 C’est la première raison de qualification d’‘inégal’. La deuxième raison concerne la juridiction consulaire ; le Japon n’avait pas juridiction sur les ressortissants-accusés des pays étrangers. Ainsi, les criminels des pays européens, qui avaient commis des crimes ou délits sur le territoire du Japon ou les commerçants-débiteurs de ces pays européens étaient tous jugés, en application des lois de leur pays d’origine, par les consuls de chaque pays qui résidaient au Japon.9 La troisième raison est une clause de la nation la plus favorisée non réciproque ; le Japon a été obligé par ces traités d’admettre une clause de la nation la plus favorisée non réciproque. Selon elle, seuls les pays partenaires jouissaient des avantages liés à cette clause, tandis que le Japon ne pouvait en profiter.10 Bref, le Japon n’était pas considéré, dans ces traités, comme un pays civilisé, c’est-à-dire un pays pleinement souverain.11

7

Revue officielle du 150ème anniversaire des relations Franco-Japonaises 1858–2008, 24–25. Les articles réglementant le commerce ont été annexés audit traité. D’après l’article IX dudit traité, l’agent diplomatique français au Japon, de concert avec les fonctionnaires qui pourraient être désignés à cet effet par le gouvernement japonais, avaient le pouvoir d’établir les règlements qui seraient nécessaires pour mettre à exécution les stipulations des articles réglementant le commerce. D’ailleurs, la classe IV des règlements commerciaux dit que ‘cinq années après l’ouverture du port de Kanagaoua, les droits d’importation et d’exportation pourront être modifiés, si l’un ou l’autre des deux Gouvernements de France et du Japon le désire‘. Il s’avère donc que le Japon n’a pas eu le droit souverain de décider unilatéralement les taux de droits de douane. 9 ‘Tous les différends qui pourraient s’élever entre français au sujet de leurs droits, de leurs propriétés ou de leurs personnes, dans les domaines de Sa Majesté l’Empereur du Japon, seront soumis à la juridiction des autorités françaises constituées dans le Pays.’ (article V dudit traité); ‘Les sujets français qui se rendraient coupables de quelque crime contre les Japonais ou contre des individus appartenant à d’autres nations, seront traduits devant le Consul français et punis conformément aux lois de l’Empire Français.’ (article VI dudit traité); ‘Tout sujet français qui aurait à se plaindre d’un Japonais, devra se rendre au Consulat de France et y exposer sa réclamation. Le Consul examinera ce qu’elle aura de fondé et cherchera à arranger l’affaire à l’amiable . . .’ (article VII dudit traité) ; ‘[S]i quelque sujet français se cachait frauduleusement ou manquait à payer ses dettes à un Japonais, les autorités françaises feraient de même tout ce qui dépendrait d’elles pour amener le délinquant en justice et le forcer à payer ce qu’il devrait.’ (article XVIII dudit traité). 10 ‘Il est expressément stipulé que le gouvernement français et ses sujets jouiront, librement, à dater du jour où le présent traité sera mis en vigueur, de tous les privilèges, immunités et avantages qui ont été ou qui seraient garantis à l’avenir par Sa Majesté l’Empereur du Japon au Gouvernement ou aux sujets de toute autre nation.’ (article XIX dudit traité). 11 Il y a un autre article qui est lui aussi révélateur d’une relation franco-japonaise asymétrique. Il s’agit de l’article XXI. D’après cet article, toute communication officielle adressée par l’agent diplomatique français aux autorités japonaises sera écrite en français. Cependant, pour faciliter la prompte expédition des affaires, ces communications seront, pendant une période de cinq années, accompagnées d’une traduction japonaise. C’est une inégalité linguistique qu’on n’a pas relevée expressément, me semble-t-il, jusqu’à aujourd’hui. 8

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C’est pourquoi la modification de ces traités inégaux a été l’un des buts diplomatiques principaux du Gouvernement Meiji.12 Pour réaliser ce but, il fallait que le Japon soit reconnu par les pays occidentaux comme pays civilisé. Cette reconnaissance était également indispensable pour que le Japon puisse maintenir son indépendance et éviter d’être colonisé par ces pays. Le Japon s’est donc mis à se moderniser en introduisant intensivement les technologies et industries modernes, les institutions politiques économiques et militaires, et les cultures occidentales, y compris le droit et, bien sûr, le droit international. Lors de la négociation du traité de paix, d’amitié et de commerce avec les États-Unis, les représentants japonais ont avoué naïvement et franchement à leurs partenaires américains qu’ils ne connaissaient pas le droit international diplomatique.13 Cela signifiait que le droit international moderne était tout à fait étranger pour le Japon en ce temps-là. Le Shogounat a néanmoins envoyé de jeunes boursiers aux Pays-Bas. Il s’agissait de Shusuke Nishi et Shin’ichiro Tsuda. Ils ont fait leurs études de droit international à Leiden et, après leur retour au Japon en 1866, ils ont commencé pour la première fois au Japon à donner des cours de droit international à l’Institut d’État à Edo (Tokyo), en se fondant principalement sur la doctrine de Simon Vissering, Professeur de l’Université de Leiden.14 Mais le Japon, à la fin de l’époque d’Edo, ne maîtrisait pas encore le droit international, à cause de la montée de la xénophobie dans le débat politique interne. Le nouveau Gouvernement Meiji a proclamé en 1868, juste après son établissement, que les relations diplomatiques devraient être régies par le droit des gens et par les traités conclus antérieurement par le Shogounat.15 D’ailleurs, ‘Elements of international law’,16 l’ouvrage de Henry Wheaton, internationaliste américain, a été traduit d’abord en chinois, en 1864, et ensuite en japonais, l’année suivante. Cette traduction s’est avérée précieuse. Beaucoup d’intellectuels et praticiens japonais de cette époque ont lu cet ouvrage et été influencés considérablement par lui.17

L’ATTITUDE APPAREMMENT CONTRADICTOIRE DU JAPON À L’ÉGARD DES PUISSANCES OCCIDENTALES ET À L’ÉGARD DES PAYS VOISINS TELS QUE LA CHINE ET LA CORÉE DANS L’ÉLABORATION DES TRAITÉS BILATÉRAUX

La guerre Sino-Japonaise (1894–95) et la guerre Russo-Japonaise (1904–05) ont été de bonnes occasions pour montrer que le Japon était devenu un pays civilisé, qui observait pleinement les règles du droit de la guerre. Pour cela l’armée de terre et la 12 Nous adoptons un calendrier japonais (Gengo) qui a été institué au VIIème siècle, à l’instar du calendrier chinois. On le fixe lors de l’intronisation d’un nouvel empereur et le révise lors de sa succession. Le Gengo à cette époque était Meiji. Le Gengo actuel est Heisei. 13 T Harris et ME Cosenza (éd), The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris, First American Consul General and Minister to Japan (New York, Doubleday, 1930) (traduit en Japonais par S Sakata Harris Nihon Taizaiki (1)(2)(3) [Tokyo, Iwanamibunko, 1954] 97–98, 120–21 de (3)). 14 F Ito, ‘Kokusaiho‘ (‘Droit international’) dans J Aomi(éd), Kindai Nihonshi Taikei (Système de l’histoire du Japon moderne) (Tokyo, Yuhikaku, 1979) 461–62. 15 Déclaration du Gouvernement Meiji du 8 février 1868. 16 H Wheaton, Elements of international law with a sketch of the history of sciences (Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1836). 17 Ito, ‘Kokusaiho’ (n 14) 463 et seq.

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marine ont fait accompagner leurs opérations par des internationalistes célèbres à titre de jurisconsultes, pour faire face aux divers problèmes survenus lors des conflits armés. Il s’agissait de Nagao Ariga (armée de terre) et Sakue Takahshi (marine). Tous les deux ont fait leurs études à Berlin, Vienne (Ariga) ou Londres (Takahashi) et, après leur retour au Japon, ils sont devenus professeurs de droit international à l’Université de l’Armée de Terre (Ariga) et à l’Université Impériale de Tokyo. Ariga a publié deux ouvrages en français: La guerre sino-japonaise au point de vue du droit international18 et La guerre russo-japonaise au point de vue continental et le droit international.19 Ces deux ouvrages ont été appréciés20 et contribué à montrer que ce nouveau pays d’Asie observait bien les règles du droit de la guerre. D’ailleurs, ces ouvrages ont été cités fréquemment dans les ouvrages publiés en Europe. Quant à Takahashi, son ouvrage Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War21 comporte une préface écrite par TE Holland et une introduction écrite par J Wastlake. Ces deux internationalistes éminents y ont affirmé que le Japon avait bien observé les règles du droit de la guerre et avait déjà bien rempli les conditions nécessaires pour être qualifié de pays civilisé.22 La méthode de rédaction de leurs ouvrages consistait à admettre d’abord le caractère avancé de la civilisation européenne et à insister ensuite sur l’intégration du Japon dans cette civilisation.23 Ils étaient plutôt malins! Mais leurs perspectives étaient en vogue parmi les intellectuels et les élites politiques japonais à cette époque. Le développement industriel remarquable et le succès militaire ont permis au Japon de devenir une puissance importante d’Asie. La modification des traités inégaux s’est achevée à la fin du XIXème siècle et au début du XXème siècle.24 Et à la conférence de la Paix qui s’est tenue à Paris après la Première Guerre mondiale, le Japon était présent au rang des vainqueurs, à côté de la France, des États-Unis, de l’Angleterre et de l’Italie. Depuis la fin de période d’Edo, le gouvernement japonais avait l’intention de faire ouvrir la Corée. Cette intention a été mise en œuvre lors de l’affaire de Kanfado (Kokato en japonais). En 1875, un vaisseau japonais qui naviguait sur le rivage Ouest de la Corée, sous le prétexte d’explorer la voie maritime, en ignorant la contestation exprimée par le gouvernement coréen, a vu son canot attaqué par une batterie située sur l’île Kanfado. Ce vaisseau a réagi et a détruit la batterie. Cette affaire a donné au Japon une bonne occasion pour conclure un traité d’amitié

18

N Ariga, La guerre sino-japonaise au point de vue du droit international (Paris, Pedone, 1896). N Ariga, La guerre russo-japonaise au point de vue continental et le droit international (Paris, Pedone, 1908). 20 Surtout dans le monde académique français. 21 S Takahashi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1899). 22 TE Holland, ‘Préface’ dans S Takahshi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War (n 21) vi,; J Westlake ‘Introduction’ dans ibid xvi. L’autre ouvrage de S Takahasi, International Law applied to the Russo-Japanese War with the Decisions of the Japanese Prize Courts (London, Stevens and Sons, 1908) a été également très apprécié en Europe. 23 S Yamauchi, ‘Meiji Kokka niokeru Bunmei to Kokusaiho (Civilisation et droit international dans l’État Meji)’ (1996) 115 Hitotsubashi Ronso 19, 29–31. 24 Le Japon a réussi successivement à modifier les traités inégaux avec les États occidentaux d’abord en 1894 dans le domaine de suppression de la juridiction consulaire, et ensuite en 1911 dans celui du rétablissement du droit de fixer les droits de douane. 19

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avec la Corée. Dans la négociation, le Japon a utilisé une politique de menace. Il a notifié au gouvernement coréen que si la Corée n’acceptait pas ce traité, les troupes japonaises débarqueraient sur le territoire coréen. Il a à cet effet fait retirer une fois son plénipotentiaire en déclarant que la négociation avait échoué. Enfin, le Japon a réussi à faire admettre toutes ses exigences et le traité d’amitié entre le Japon et la Corée a été signé en 1876.25 Ce traité appartenait parfaitement au type du traité inégal. Il stipulait l’ouverture des trois ports, l’établissement des ressortissants japonais et l’envoi de consuls du Japon à ces endroits et la juridiction consulaire. Certes, ce traité stipulait le libre commerce entre ces deux pays et l’exonération d’impôts pour exportation et importation des marchandises. Entre eux, apparemment, cette disposition était équitable et égalitaire. Pourtant, les importations de soja, riz et d’or au Japon depuis la Corée ont été très importantes pour le développement du capitalisme japonais. Cette exonération était donc d’abord et surtout favorable aux intérêts du Japon. Pour la Corée, ces exportations vers le Japon ont entraîné une hausse des prix des grains due à ces flux vers le Japon. Cette disposition a donc contribué à situer la Corée comme marché de marchandises, et terrain de fourniture de ressources alimentaires au bénéfice du capitalisme japonais.26 L’attente que les puissances occidentales avaient à l’égard du Japon d’obtenir l’ouverture de la Corée a donc bien été satisfaite. Après la conclusion de ce traité avec le Japon, la Corée a dû conclure successivement des traités de même type avec les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, l’Allemagne, l’Italie et la France. A travers ses expériences avec les pays occidentaux, le Japon a bien appris le sens et le résultat du libre échange pour les pays moins développés économiquement, basé sur le traité inégal. Au moment où il commençait justement à modifier ces traités inégaux par obtention d’une capacité autonome de fixer les tarifs douaniers, le Japon a obligé la Corée à conclure un traité inégal.27 Tout en demandant aux pays développés occidentaux un statut international égalitaire, le Japon imposait une dépendance aux pays moins avancés d’Asie. En 1896, juste après la guerre sino-japonaise, le Japon a également conclu un traité inégal de commerce et navigation avec la Chine, où était stipulée également la juridiction consulaire, et qui subsistera jusqu’en 1943. La méthode employée par le Japon à l’égard de ces deux pays était tout à fait identique à celle des pays européens à l’égard du Japon! Pourtant cette attitude du Japon apparemment contradictoire n’était que révélatrice du contenu même du droit international moderne. LE CARACTÈRE DISCRIMINATOIRE DU DROIT INTERNATIONAL MODERNE EUROPÉEN ET LA SIGNIFICATION DE L’ATTITUDE DU JAPON À L’ÉGARD DU DROIT INTERNATIONAL MODERNE

Le droit international moderne européen est né et s’est développé, basé sur le mode de production capitaliste, dont le sujet était un pays civilisé européen (ou un pays 25 26 27

Matsui, ‘Kindai Nihon to Kokusaiho’ (2) (n 2) 346–48. ibid. ibid.

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du continent américain qui avait les mêmes compositions sociales et structure économique). Le but principal de ce droit était d’assurer l’ordre minimum, la prévisibilité et la stabilité qui permettraient à ces pays de déplacer au-delà de leur frontière des hommes, marchandises et capitaux.28 Les internationalistes du XIXème siècle ne doutaient pas que les sujets du droit international étaient limités aux seuls pays civilisés. Comme l’a écrit WE Hall dans son ouvrage A Treatise on International Law,29 le droit international est un produit de la civilisation propre de l’Europe moderne. Il constitue un système hautement artificiel qui ne pourrait pas être compris par les pays appartenant à une civilisation différente. Il est donc évident que seuls les pays européens, successeurs de la civilisation européenne, peuvent être considérés comme y obéissant.30 Ce caractère discriminatoire du droit international moderne est remarquablement montré, entre autres, dans l’ouvrage de J. Lorimer, Professeur à l’Université d’Edimbourg, intitulé The Institutes of the Law of Nations.31 Lorimer y affirmait que l’humanité se compose de trois catégories: l’humanité civilisée, l’humanité barbare et l’humanité sauvage. D’après lui, les pays d’Europe et d’Amérique du Nord et du Sud constituaient l’humanité civilisée. Ces pays jouissaient d’une pleine reconnaissance politique et donc de la qualité plénière de sujet du droit international. Des pays tels que la Chine, la Turquie, la Perse, le Japon et le Siam constituaient l’humanité barbare. Ces pays ne jouissaient que d’une reconnaissance partielle et donc n’étaient que sujets partiels du droit international. Les pays civilisés concluaient avec eux des traités inégaux, comme évoqué plus haut pour le Japon. Le reste du Monde où habitent l’humanité sauvage étaient pour les pays civilisés un espace terra nullius, auquel on pouvait appliquer la théorie de l’occupation, et était par conséquent destiné à être colonisé par ces pays.32 De fait, si on se met à faire l’analyse historique du droit international moderne, on ne peut pas nier que ce droit est un droit de domination par les pays capitalistes d’Europe et d’Amérique à l’égard du reste du Monde. Comme Röling l’écrit, dans tous les droits positifs se cachent des éléments de puissance et d’intérêt. Le droit ne peut pas être assimilé à la puissance ou aux intérêts, mais il reflète un rapport de force existant. Il a tendance à servir les intérêts des forts. Le droit international européen, c’est-à-dire le droit international classique, n’est pas une exception. Il a servi les intérêts des pays riches.33 Le Japon est devenu le premier pays non européen à obtenir la pleine reconnaissance comme nation civilisée, sujet plénier du droit international. Mais ce n’était que la victoire de la civilisation européenne, de l’hégémonie du droit international moderne. Au lieu de défier la structure de domination et de dépendance du droit international moderne européen, il a obtenu le statut de pays dominant en sortant de celui de pays dépendant. En 1896, le Japon a réussi à obtenir un statut privilégié

28 OJ Lissitzyn, International Law Today and Tomorrow (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publications, 1965) 3 et seq. 29 WE Hall, A Treatise on International Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1880). 30 ibid, 34 et seq. 31 J Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations, Vol 1 (Edinburgh, Blackwell, 1883). 32 ibid, 101–03. 33 BVA Röling, International Law in an Expanded World (Amsterdam, Djambatan, 1960) 15.

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en Chine en concluant un traité de commerce et navigation avec elle. Lors de la négociation de ce traité, le plénipotentiaire chinois, Hung Chang Li (Ri Kosho), a protesté auprès du Premier ministre du Japon, Hirobumi Ito, en disant que ce n’était pas une attitude cohérente de demander à la Chine d’abaisser davantage les taux de droits de douane tout en demandant aux pays occidentaux de permettre l’augmentation des tarifs douaniers. Notre Premier ministre a répondu imperturbablement que ce n’était qu’une parole ridicule et mélancolique!34 Après la Restauration de Meiji, le Japon a toujours montré une attitude obéissante vis-à-vis du droit international moderne. Il en résulte qu’à la fin du XIXème siècle, la plupart des manuels de droit international publiés en Europe évaluaient positivement ce pays en disant qu’il avait non seulement observé attentivement le droit international, mais contribué à son développement. Mais, au revers de cette obéissance quasi automatique, sans esprit critique quant au contenu de ce droit, il y a eu, me semble-t-il, une pensée de négation du droit international et une croyance dans la politique de puissance. Ainsi, Yukichi Fukuzawa, un des penseurs représentatifs de l’époque Meiji, qui insiste sur l’importance que le Japon devienne une grande puissance moderne afin de maintenir son indépendance vis-à-vis des puissances européennes, a exprimé un point de vue très nihiliste dans son article.35 D’après lui, le droit international n’est qu’une apparence cérémonieuse. Les relations entre les États sont au fond en quête de la satisfaction des intérêts et de l’hégémonie de chaque pays. Cent volumes d’ouvrages de droit international ne peuvent l’emporter sur quelques batteries. Les traités de paix ne peuvent l’emporter sur quelques munitions. Les canons et munitions n’ont pas pour but de maintenir et protéger la raison existante mais de créer des déraisons.36 Cette manière de pensée était présente non seulement chez quelques penseurs mais aussi dans les comportements du Gouvernement Meiji lui-même. En ce qui concerne l’acceptation de la juridiction obligatoire pour un différend juridique, le Gouvernement Meiji a toujours été réticent, même pour une juridiction très limitée. Il a apparemment montré sa fidélité envers le droit international. Mais, en réalité, on pourrait dire qu’il a graduellement mais sûrement accumulé une méfiance ineffaçable envers ce droit.37 Ce courant souterrain apparaîtra dans les années 1940.

LE PROJET DE LA DAITOWA-KYOEIKEN (LA ZONE CO-PROSPÈRE DE LA GRANDE ASIE ORIENTALE) ET LES ATTITUDES DES INTERNATIONALISTES JAPONAIS À SON ÉGARD

Après les expériences mentionnées ci-dessus, l’attitude du Japon à l’égard du droit international moderne va changer radicalement. Dans les années 1940, après la 34

M Mutsu, Kenkenroku (Mémoire de fidélité) (Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 1895) 231 et 233. Y Fukuzawa, ‘Tsuzoku kokkenron’ (‚Droits de l’État désacralisés’) (1878) dans Fukuzawa Yukichi Zenshu (collection Fukuzawa Yukichi) tome 4 (Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 1959) 637 36 ibid. 37 Y Ishimoto, ‘Meijiki ni okeru chusai saiban’ (‘Arbitrages internationaux in Meiji période’) (1963) 9 Hogakuzasshi 168, 182 et seq. 35

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création de la Mandchourie et le déclenchement de la guerre contre la Chine, a commencé le projet de construire Daitowa-kyoeiken (la zone co-prospère de la grande Asie orientale). C’était un projet de construire, sous la direction du Japon, en Asie orientale et du Sud-Est, une zone ou un nouvel ordre co-prospère, afin de libérer cette région de la domination coloniale des pays occidentaux.38 Ce projet a été inspiré par la notion de Großraum de Carl Schmitt.39 En réalité, c’était un slogan et une idéologie lancés par le Gouvernement japonais pour mener à bien la guerre Daitowa (la guerre du Pacifique et celle contre la Chine). Ce projet visait la création d’une communauté économique constituée principalement par le Japon, la Chine et la Mandchourie, en faisant de l’Asie du Sud-Est un terrain de fourniture de ressources au bénéfice du Japon. Plusieurs internationalistes ont participé activement à ce projet en essayant de proposer une nouvelle théorie du droit international de la grande Asie orientale et de modifier le droit international moderne au fur et à mesure.40 Ces trois internationalistes sont: Kaoru Yasui, Masatoshi Matsushita et Shigejiro Tabata. Kaoru Yasui, professeur de l’Université impériale de Tokyo, a présenté soigneusement la théorie du droit international du Großraum de Carl Schmitt. D’après lui, l’Asie orientale se situait à la périphérie du monde européo-centriste et le droit international de l’ancien régime s’y était élaboré en conséquence, comme le régime de traités inégaux le montrait. Le droit international du Großraum européen est proposé en opposition à l’universalisme de l’Empire anglais. L’importance historique de ce nouveau droit international consiste en ce qu’il accélère de l’intérieur la

38 La construction de cette zone a commencé par l’établissement de la Mandchourie que le Japon a reconnue par le Protocole entre le Japon et la Mandchourie de 1932. Le Japon a fait établir le Gouvernement Wa¯ng Zhàomíng à Nanjin et l’a entériné par le Traité des relations fondamentales entre le Japon et la Chine du 30 novembre 1940. Ce même jour, a été proclamée une déclaration commune du Japon, de la Chine et de la Mandchourie dans laquelle étaient affirmées ‘les idées communes de construire un nouvel ordre basé sur la morale dans l’Asie orientale’. Le 26 juillet 1940, le Conseil des ministres a adopté une décision intitulée ‘points essentiels des politiques fondamentales d’États‘. Cette décision indiquait ‘la politique du Japon, afin de réaliser la paix mondiale, consiste à construire un nouvel ordre de Daitowa au centre duquel se trouve le Japon, basé sur l’alliance du Japon, de la Chine et de la Mandchourie.’ Aucune étendue précise ni fondement propre n’ont été définis pour Daitowa. Elle s’est formée au fur et à mesure de l’élargissement de la guerre d’agression par le Japon. Néanmoins, les dirigeants japonais de cette époque étaient communément conscients de ce que l’‘ancien régime’ était caractérisé par l’agression des puissances occidentales vis-à-vis des pays d’Asie dont le Japon. La conscience commune de victimes de l’agression occidentale et la pensée de libération des nations d’Asie qui en découle ont abouti quasi nécessairement à la pensée qu’il fallait prendre l’hégémonie en Asie au lieu de l’impérialisme européen. Voir Y Matsui, ‘Gurobarukasuru Sekainiokeru Fuhen to Chiiki – Daitowa Kyoeikenron niokeru Fuhenshugihihan no Hihantekikento’ (‘L’universel et le régional dans le monde mondialisé – considération critique de la critique de l’universalisme dans la théorie de Daitowa kyoeiken’) (2004) 102 Kokusaiho gaiko zassi 567–588. 39 C Schmitt, Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte, Ein Beitrag zum Reichsbegriff im Völkerrrecht (Berlin, Deutscher Rechtsverlag, 1939) (traduit par I Okada, ‘Ikigai rekkyo no kanshokinshi wo tomonau kokusaihotekikoikichitsujo – Kokusaihojo no reich gainen heno kiyo‘, dans Nazis to Schmitt [Tokyo, Bokutakusha, 1976]). 40 La Société japonaise du droit international a entamé en 1942 des recherches communes qui ont pour but d’étudier la problématique qui se traduira dans le processus de construction de Daitowa, d’accélérer la mise au point de son régime de droit international et de contribuer à l’établissement d’un nouvel ordre mondial ainsi qu’à l’amélioration du droit international mondial. Dans ce but, a été publié Daitowasosho (collection du droit international de Daitowa) à laquelle ont participé quatre internationalistes dont Yasui et Matsushita.

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fin de la domination mondiale du droit international européen. Dans cette perspective, le Japon se libère d’abord du droit international de l’ancien régime, puis se met à émanciper toutes les nations de l’Asie orientale. L’Asie orientale sera constituée comme zone de co-prospérité indépendante au centre de laquelle se situera le Japon. Le droit international de Daitowa y sera créé et régira désormais les relations externes et internes de la zone, conformément aux idées propres du Japon, leader de cette zone. Yasui ne traitait pas du contenu même de ce nouveau droit international. Il a étudié le droit international du Großraum ainsi que celui du marxisme, toujours en tant que critique contre la théorie du droit international libéral. Se prononcer pour ou contre ces deux droits internationaux, celui du Großraum ou du marxisme, était au-delà de sa pensée. Quoi qu’il en soit, sa pensée était cohérente au sens où il s’agissait de démanteler l’ancien ordre anglo-saxon afin de libérer les nations d’Asie.41 Masatoshi Matsushita, professeur de l’Université Rikkyo, a soutenu que la nature juridique de Daitowa-kyoeiken ne peut être expliquée ni par des relations conventionnelles ni en tant que prolongement des États. La zone co-prospère n’est pas un ensemble formel d’États égaux mais une association organique d’États inégaux. Cette zone serait qualifiée d’association de droit de vivre des États (une association qui assure le droit de vivre de chaque État membre), une association de destin au-delà des volontés spontanées. Par conséquent chaque membre de cette zone ne pourrait pas s’en retirer, mais il aurait une certaine liberté sous réserve des limites dues au droit de vivre. D’où la nécessité de recomposer la notion de souveraineté en droit international. Selon lui, l’État directeur est à la fois à l’intérieur et au-delà de cette zone. Dès lors, pour constituer juridiquement le statut de l’État directeur, il a rejeté le principe d’égalité des États en disant que ce principe n’était pas fondé parce qu’il essaye d’appliquer la théorie de l’égalité à ceux qui sont en réalité inégaux. Il a donc substitué au principe d’égalité celui d’équité, c’est-à-dire ‘sorezore ni sono tokoro wo eshimuru’ (procurer à chaque nation le statut qui lui est adéquat).42 ShigejiroTabata, professeur de l’Université impériale de Kyoto, a insisté sur le fait que le droit international moderne ne consistait pas en un ordre vraiment unifié mais en des ordres pluralistes qui présupposaient des valeurs et des idées diverses. D’après lui, le droit international du Großraum constitue un pas important qui justifie la pluralité des ordres juridiques internationaux, parce que la notion de Großraum y était considérée comme une entité historique et politique, unifiée et concrète et pas un donné naturel tel que la race ou le peuple. D’ailleurs, il soulignait combien la direction dans la zone était incompatible avec le principe traditionnel d’égalité des États. Il a mené des recherches historiques pour retracer la genèse de ce principe. Il en a conclu qu’une égalité entre États dans la zone ne serait pas une égalité absolue mais une égalité relative qui se reconnaîtrait seulement selon le critère objectif des valeurs et idées de la zone, qui sont: procurer à chaque nation le statut qui lui est adéquat. Il en a déduit qu’une égalité absolue devait être rejetée. Il

41 K Yasui, Oshu koikikokusaiho no kisorinen (Les idées fondamentales du droit international du Großraum de l’Europe), tome 1 de Daitowasosho (Tokyo, Yuhikaku, 1942). 42 M Matsushita, Daitowa Kokusaiho no Shomondai (Problématique du droit international de Daitowa) (Tokyo, Nihon Hori Kenkyukai, 1942).

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doit plutôt s’y réaliser une égalité relative c’est-à-dire que toutes les nations qui ont la même capacité doivent être traitées tout à fait égalitairement.43 Il y a certes eu une contestation qui reste encore légitime aujourd’hui et qui réside dans leur dénonciation de l’européo-centrisme dans l’histoire mondiale ; ils ont mis en relief que le droit international moderne a servi les intérêts impérialistes des pays oligarchiques occidentaux ; ils ont soutenu l’idée d’une construction pluraliste de l’ordre juridique international susceptible de réceptionner des valeurs hétérogènes. Ils ont remis en cause de la notion d’égalité des États. Mais ils ne regardaient guère la réalité de ce projet, ce que l’armée japonaise a fait en Chine, en Mandchourie, aux Philippines, en Birmanie et en Indochine etc. Ils ont soutenu, consciemment ou inconsciemment, l’agression de ces pays par le Japon. Il leur manquait de façon très évidente un point de vue auto-critique: ils étaient très critiques envers l’impérialisme européen, mais ne l’étaient pas envers l’impérialisme japonais lui-même.44

CONCLUSION

J’ai essayé d’offrir un point de vue comparatif pour apprécier le droit international moderne et son influence sur les pays non-européens, en l’occurrence, le Japon. Ce pays ou mon pays est difficile à situer dans un schéma manichéen, c’est-à-dire la domination des pays d’Europe et des États-Unis sur les pays d’Asie. Le Japon a dominé et envahi des pays voisins, en évitant habilement mais aussi avec beaucoup d’efforts, d’être colonisé par des puissances occidentales. Le Japon s’est parfaitement adapté au droit international moderne et a par conséquent été qualifié de nation civilisée. Dans les années 1940, afin de justifier la guerre de Daitowa, les internationalistes japonais ont contesté le droit international moderne et ont vainement tenté de créer un nouveau droit international de la grande Asie orientale, en se fondant sur le droit international du Großraum de Carl Schmitt et en remettant en cause l’ordre juridique international et le principe d’égalité des États, etc. Ce que je ne peux pas trancher, c’est la responsabilité des internationalistes engagés intensivement dans cette entreprise. Il y a eu des discours d’ultranationalisme, mais ils n’étaient pas nombreux. La plupart des articles sur le projet de Daitowa-kyoeiken rédigés par les internationalistes japonais étaient, contre toute attente, objectifs et académiques. Ils étaient sérieux et honnêtes à leur manière, poursuivant la réalisation de ce projet, c’est-à-dire pour eux une émancipation des nations d’Asie contre la domination des pays occidentaux. Comme je l’ai dit plus haut, ce projet revêtait une idéologie qui dissimulait l’agression par le Japon des pays voisins d’Asie. C’est pourquoi les travaux des internationalistes afin de contribuer à ce projet ne sont plus guère pris en considération aujourd’hui. Pourtant

43 S Tabata, ‘Kokusaiho Chitsujo no Tagenteki Kosei’ (‘Composition pluraliste des ordres juridiques internationaux’) (1942/1943) Hogakuronso Vol 47–3 382–402, Vol 48–2 349–75 et Vol 48–6 908–34; ibid, ‘Kindai Kokusaiho niokeru Kokkabyodo no Gensoku nitsuite’ (‘Sur le principe d’égalité des États dans le droit international moderne’) (1944) 50–3 Hogakuronso 218–40. 44 Matsui ‘Gurobarukasuru Sekainiokeru Fuhen to Chiiki’ (n 38) 578, 587.

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je me demande si on doit rester sur une appréciation catégorique leur reprochant d’avoir consciemment ou inconsciemment soutenu l’agression japonaise sur le plan théorique du droit international. N’y aurait-t-il pas pour autant un certain mérite à reconnaître à leurs thèses, tel que la critique du droit international européen, la composition pluraliste de l’ordre juridique international, ou la remise en cause du principe d’égalité des États? Il nous est impossible de connaître tous les éléments d’une période quelconque. C’est une limite intrinsèque des êtres humains vivants.45 L’appréciation des faits sociaux est nécessairement polyédrique. Si on a fait de son mieux dans sa vie dans cette limite inhérente aux êtres humains, il y aurait place pour accepter ou évaluer ces travaux plutôt positivement. Mais on doit bien sûr supposer qu’il y a une différence de point de vue, côté agresseur et côté agressé. Ce que je peux faire pour le moment, c’est seulement souligner l’importance de conserver un esprit critique vis à vis des discours énoncés par le gouvernement. Comme scientifiques, nous internationalistes devons aussi prendre une responsabilité sociale.46

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages N Ariga, La guerre sino-japonaise au point de vue du droit international (Paris, Pedone, 1896). N Ariga, La guerre russo-japonaise au point de vue continental et le droit international (Paris, Pedone, 1908). S Endo, Ryugaku (Faire ses études à l’étranger) (Tokyo, Shincho Bunko, 1965). WE Hall, A Treatise on International Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1880). T Harris et ME Cosenza (éd), The Complete Journal of Townsend Harris, First American Consul General and Minister to Japan (New York, Doubleday, 1930) (traduit par S Sakata, Harris Nihon Taizaiki (1)(2)(3) [Tokyo, Iwanamibunko, 1954]).

45 Après la guerre, Yasui a été obligé de quitter l’Université de Tokyo par décision du Ministre de l’éducation nationale. Il a alors publié un essai intitulé ‘science et liberté de conscience’ dans un journal de cette université où il a écrit comme suit: ‘La position du Japon à l’égard de l’Asie orientale a eu un double aspect: libération et agression. Comment résoudre cette contradiction, la tragédie des nations? C’était une mission urgente qui s’est offerte à moi. Motivé par une revendication intérieure irrésistible de mon cœur, j’ai essayé d’établir scientifiquement les idées de libération de l’Asie orientale, tout en sachant la limite de ma capacité intellectuelle. Cet effort n’a pas abouti à cause de la grande vague de cette époque, je l’admets. Mais ce serait à l’encontre de la liberté de conscience, si on assimilait mon discours à une coopération à la guerre d’agression, et si on me stigmatisait comme militariste ou ultranationaliste. Je ne peux pas m’exonérer de ma responsabilité. Je regrette profondément que mes ouvrages aient comporté une lacune aussi grave. J’ai déjà réfléchi plusieurs fois sur moi-même, mais à cette occasion, je réfléchis encore plus sévèrement sur moi-même.’ K Yasui ‘Gakumon to Ryoshin no Jiyu’ (‘Science et liberté de conscience’) (avril 1948) publié dans Tokyo Daigaku Shinbun (Journal de l’Université de Tokyo) dans K Yasui, Michi – Yasui Kaoru Sei no Kiseki (la vie de Yasui Kaoru) (Tokyo, Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1983) 44–47. 46 Matsui ‘Gurobarukasuru Sekainiokeru Fuhen to Chiiki’(n 38) 587–88.

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M Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: the Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). OJ Lissitzyn, International Law Today and Tomorrow (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publications, 1965). J Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations a treatise of the jural relations of separate political communities,Volume 1 (Edinburgh, Blackwell, 1883). M Matsushita, Daitowa Kokusaiho no Shomondai (Problématique du droit international de Daitowa) (Tokyo, Nihon Hori Kenkyukai, 1942). M Mutsu, Kenkenroku (Mémoire de fidélité) (Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 1895). S Natsume, ‘Watashi no Kojinshugi’ (‘Mon individualisme’) (Tokyo, Kodansha, 1978 [1914]). BVA Röling, International Law in an Expanded World (Amsterdam, Djambatan, 1960). C Schmitt, Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte, Ein Beitrag zum Reichsbegriff im Völkerrecht (Berlin, Deutscher Rechtsverlag, 1939) (traduit par I Okada, ‘Ikigai rekkyo no kanshokinshi wo tomonau kokusaihotekikoikichitsujo – Kokusaihojo no reich gainen heno kiyo’ dans Nazis to Schmitt (Tokyo, Bokutakusha, 1976)). S Takahashi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1899). S Takahashi, International Law applied to the Russo-Japanese War with the Decisions of the Japanese Prize Courts (London, Stevens and Sons, 1908). H Wheaton, Elements of International Law with a Sketch of the History of Sciences (Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1836). K Yasui, Oshu koikikokusaiho no kisorinen (Les idées fondamentales du droit international du Großraum de l’Europe), tome 1 de Daitowasosho (Tokyo, Yuhikaku, 1942).

Articles d’Ouvrages Collectifs TE Holland, ‘Préface’ dans S Takahshi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1899). Y Fukuzawa, ‘Tsuzoku kokkenron’ (‘Droits de l’Etat désacralisés’) dans Fukuzawa yukichi Zenshu (collection Fukuzawa Yukichi), tome 4 (Tokyo, Iwanamishoten, 1959 [1878]). F Ito, ‘Kokusaiho’ (‘Droit international’) dans J Aomi (éd), Kindai Nihonshi Taikei (Système de l’histoire du Japon moderne) (Tokyo, Yuhikaku, 1979). J Westlake, ‘Introduction’ dans S Takahshi, Cases on International Law during the Chino-Japanese War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1899). K Yasui, ‘Gakumon to Ryoshin no Jiyu’ (‘Science et liberté de conscience’) publié dans Tokyo Daigaku Shinbun (Journal de l’Université de Tokyo) dans Yasui, K (1983) Michi – Yasui Kaoru Sei no Kiseki (la vie de Yasui Kaoru) (Tokyo, Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, avril 1948).

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Articles de Périodiques A Anghie, ‘Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in 19th Century International Law’ (1999) 40 Harvard International Law Journal 1–80. Y Ishimoto, ‘Meijiki ni okeru chusai saiban’ (‘Arbitrages internationaux in Meiji période’) (1963) 9 Hogakuzasshi 168–83. E Jouannet, ‘Colonialisme européen et néo-colonialisme contemporain (Notes de lecture des manuels européens du droit des gens entre 1850 et 1914)’ (2006) 6 Baltic Yearbook of International Law 49–77. Y Matsui, ‘Kindai Nihon to Kokusaiho (1)(2)’ (‘Japon moderne et droit international’) (1974) 13, 14 Kagaku to Shiso (Science et pensée) 87–97 et 344–59. Y Matsui, ‘Gurobarukasuru Sekainiokeru Fuhen to Chiiki – Daitowa Kyoeikenron niokeru Fuhenshugihihan no Hihantekikento’ (‘L’universel et le régional dans le monde mondialisé – considération critique de la critique de l’universalisme dans la théorie de Daitowakyoeiken’) (2004) 102 Kokusaiho gaiko zassi 567–88. Y Onuma, ‘When was the Law of International Society Born?’ (2000) 2 Journal of the History of International Law 1–66. S Tabata, ‘Kokusaiho Chitsujo no Tagenteki Kosei(1)(2)(3)’ (‘Composition pluraliste des ordres juridiques internationaux’) Hogakuronso (1942/1943) Vol 47–3 382–402, Vol 48–2 349–75 et Vol 48–6 908–34. S Tabata, ‘Kindai Kokusaiho niokeru Kokkabyodo no Gensoku nitsuite’ (‘Sur le principe d’égalité des États dans le droit international moderne’) (1944) 50–3 Hogakuronso 218–40. S Yamauchi, ‘Meiji Kokka niokeru Bunmei to Kokusaiho’ (‘Civilisation et droit international dans l’Etat Meji’) (1996) 115–1 Hitotsubashi Ronso 19–40.

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Legal Problems Arising from the Dissolution of International Organisations The Case of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO): Dissolution de facto or Hibernation? KI GAB PARK *

INTRODUCTION

I

NTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS MAY pass through several stages during their existence, similar to human beings and states: creation, transformation and extinction.1 The dissolution of an international organisation may be caused by, inter alia, achievement or completion of its purpose or by extraordinary circumstances which fundamentally prevent the achievement of the purpose. Dissolution may also be occasioned by changes in or from the member states, ranging from non-existence of member states to consensus of member states.2 Today, as in the past, the dissolution of an international organisation is a significant event in the international community, sometimes causing serious liquidation problems among member states. * Professor, Faculty of Law/School of Law, Korea University 1 ‘Dissolution’ has been defined as follows: ‘Dissolution is generally not defined in the text books, but relates to a cessation of the existence of an organization and in that sense is the counterpart of the creation or establishment of an organization’: RA Wessel, ‘Dissolution and Succession: the Transmigration of the Soul of International Organizations’, in J Klabbers (ed), Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations (Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming in 2009); ‘Liquidation technique, avec la disparition de la personnalité juridique et du capital de l’Organisation. Liquidation au sens du vocabulaire commun, c’est-à-dire une disparition “sans phrases”’: P Daillier, ‘La dispariton de la CECA le 23 juillet 2002: des problèmes de succession d’organisations internationales?’ in J Andriantsimbazovina et al (eds), Les Dynamiques du droit européen en début de siècle: études en l’honneur de Jean-Claude Gautron (Paris, Pedone, 2004) 19. 2 Eg, Convention pour l’établissement d’une organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (signed 1 July 1953) Article XIV: ‘L’Organisation sera dissoute si le nombre des Etats Membres se réduit à moins de cinq. Elle pourra être dissoute à tout moment par accord entre les Etats Membres. Sous réserve de tout accord qui pourrait être conclu entre les Etats Membres au moment de la dissolution. L’Etat, sur le territoire duquel se trouvera le siège de l’Organisation à ce moment, sera responsable de la liquidation et l’actif sera réparti entre les Etats Membres de l’Oragnisation au moment de la dissolution, au prorata des contributions effectivement versées par eux depuis qu’ils sont parties à la presente Convention. En cas de passif, celui-ci sera pris en charge par ces mêmes Etats au prorata des contributions fixées pour l’exercice financier en cours.’

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The complete dissolution of an international organisation is a rare phenomenon. In most cases, dissolution is accompanied by the reassignment of part or all of the organisation’s functions to other existing or new organisations, a form of succession. The dissolution of certain organisations also means the cessation of their functions.3 In this context, types of dissolution and succession of international organisations may be classified as:4 a) dissolution pure and simple, which terminates the organisation without succession;5 b) replacement of one organisation by another;6 c) absorption of one organisation by another;7 d) merger of two pre-existing organisations into a single entity;8 e) separation of a former organ of an organisation into a new organisation;9 and f) transfer of specific functions by one organisation to another.10 Due to ever-increasing activities of many international organisations with other entities, such as contracts with private corporations or agreements with states or other international organisations, the probability of legal disputes arising from the activities of an international organisation is higher today than in the past, as external innocent third parties may be affected adversely. In this context, a controversial question is, when an international organisation commits a wrongful act, does the blame fall on the international organisation only, or do the member states of the international organisation also shoulder the responsibility in one way or another?11 It follows that, should an international organisation be dissolved, legal problems arising due to such dissolution will be more complicated.

3 See P Sands and P Klein, Bowett’s Law of International Institutions (London, Sweet & Maxwell, 2001) 526–27; HG Schermers and NM Blokker, International Institutional Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2003) 1033–70; JM Sorel, Droit des Organisations Internationales (Lyons, L’Hermès, 1997) 52–54; CF Amerasinghe, Principles of the International Law of International Organizations (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) 467–81. 4 See also PR Myers, Succession between International Organizations (London, Kegan Paul International, 1993) 15. 5 eg, East African Community (1977), COMECON and the Warsaw Pact (1991), the International Bureau for Informatics (1991). 6 eg, the International Commission for Air Navigation, ICAO (1944). 7 eg, the absorption of the International Bureau of Education by UNESCO (1969). 8 eg, European Space Research Organization + European Organization for the Development and Construction of Space Vehicle Launchers = European Space Agency (1975). 9 eg, UNIDO (1979). 10 eg, the transfer of the social and cultural functions of the WEU to the Council of Europe (1960). 11 The litigation surrounding the insolvency of the International Tin Council (ITC), launched by the ITC creditors, proceeded in England and other countries: Maclain Watson & Co Ltd v International Tin Council (1988) 3WLR 1033; Western Helicopters Ltd v Arab Organization for Industrialization et al (1984) 23 ILM 1071. In 1995, the Institut de droit international adopted a resolution entitled the ‘Legal Consequences for Member States of the Non-fulfillment by International Organizations of their Obligations toward Third Parties’. Session of Lisbonne (1995) 66-I Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 249; Accountability of International Organizations Committee, ‘Accountability of International Organizations – Final Report’ in International Law Association Report of the Seventy-First Conference (Berlin, 2004) (International Law Association, London, 2004) 164; Draft Article 29 of ‘Responsibility of International Organizations’ which was adopted provisionally by the ILC stipulates as follows: ‘1. Without prejudice to draft article 25 to 28, a State member of an international organization is responsible for an internationally wrongful act of that organization if: (a) It has accepted responsibility for that act; or (b) It has led the injured party to rely on its responsibility. 2. The international responsibility of a State which is entitled in accordance with paragraph 1 is presumed to be subsidiary.’: ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 58th Session’(1 May–9 June and 3 July–11 August 2006) UN Doc A/61/10.

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Legal problems which may arise in the event of the extinction and dissolution of an international organisation are, for example: a) how and where to transfer the functions taken by the dissolved organisation, which may include finding an adaptable institution among existing organisations to fill in the gap or substitute for the mandates carried by the organisation; b) how to minimise the side effects which may impact an international society; c) how to protect the vested interests of member states and the archives and documents of the organisation; d) how to deal with potential disputes between member states, possibly entailing formulation of plans for a dispute-resolution procedure; e) how to deal with credits and debts in relation to the organisation’s financial obligations, including matters in regard to disposal of property and real property; and f) the status of personnel and payment of pensions. If the international organisation has engaged in business, additional legal problems may include: g) how to implement incomplete contractual obligations and terminate contracts or transactions with relevant corporations; and h) how to retrieve the investment and come up with relevant procedures for the liquidation of the organisation. In cases where the constituent instruments have no specific provisions regarding dissolution or liquidation of an international organisation, finding suitable procedures for the dissolution may also be questioned. Moreover, if there exist injured individuals in third-party states, matters related to finding appropriate reparation would raise complicate legal disputes regarding the recognition of the ‘subjective legal personality’ of an international organisation by third parties.12 What makes the problem more complicated is that the extent to which rules governing state immunity, inter alia the distinction between acta jure imperii versus acta jure gestionnis, may also apply with regard to international organisations in the case, in which legal disputes with third parties have not been ascertained. Consequently, we should try to find reasonable solutions for those innocent third parties who deal with dissolving international organisations that are presumed to be protected by judicial immunity. Although there have been a few instances of international organisations dissolving recently, the termination of the major activities of KEDO in North East Asia provides a good and interesting example for international lawyers. Thus, major issues in relation to KEDO will hereafter be examined in this article. CHRONICLE OF KEDO

Features of KEDO The principal features of KEDO can be described as follows. First of all, KEDO can be classified as a regional international organisation whose mission was to realise ‘the project of light water reactors (LWR)’ in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The relationship between the DPRK and KEDO was framed in 12 Concerns regarding the ‘subject legal personality’ of an international organisation will be discussed in detail later in this paper.

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reciprocal and mutual obligations of freezing and ultimately dismantling the nuclear programme in the DPRK, in return for the construction of two LWRs; thereby realising the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region of North East Asia by preventing the development of nuclear weapons in the DPRK. Secondly, KEDO, which was based in New York, was joined by member states, some of which constituted the Executive Board that holds authority on decisions, with other member states supporting the purpose of the organisation and offering assistance with activities undertaken by KEDO.13 Thirdly, membership in KEDO was also offered to international organisations, and thus EURATOM (European Atomic Energy Community) participated in the Executive Board of KEDO.14 Fourthly, KEDO conducted commercial business (acta jure gestionnis) through designated subcontractors, ie construction of nuclear energy facilities including the provision of financial support.15 Fifthly, KEDO was created in 1995, but unfortunately it officially terminated its function in May 2006 without achieving its goals, due to the emergence of the DPRK’s secret nuclear weapons development programme.

Birth of KEDO Until the 1970s, there were a number of states categorised as ‘divided states’, including Germany and Vietnam as well as Korea. In the twenty-first century, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the DPRK in the Korean Peninsula remain the only divided states, which share the same culture and language. Following the historical gaining of independence following Japanese occupation, in 1945, two divided governments were established in the Korean Peninsula—two Koreas— characterised by extremely opposed features, not only economically, but also in military terms.16 During the 1990s, the DPRK’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons brought about a series of nuclear crises, especially with South Korea, 13 Executive Board states: EU, Japan, Republic of Korea, USA. Member states: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Indonesia, New Zealand, Poland, Uzbekistan. 14 ‘Agreement on terms and conditions of the accession of the European Atomic Energy Community to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization’ [1998] OJL 070 pp 0010–22 (KEDO-EU Accession Agreement). 15 The Executive Board members of KEDO adopted in 1998 a resolution on cost-sharing for the LWR Project. A budget estimated for the project was agreed at $4.6 billion. With regard to specific funding for the LWR Project, South Korea has agreed to provide 70% of the project’s actual cost, while Japan has agreed to contribute 116.5 billion yen (approximately $1 billion). The EU has agreed to contribute 75 million euros equally over five years to help fulfil KEDO’s financial needs, and the US has reconfirmed its commitment to seek funding for the supply of heavy fuel oil to DPRK and for other KEDO needs, as appropriate. For the Japanese government’s cost-sharing, KEDO concluded a 116.5 billion yen loan agreement with Japan Bank for International Cooperation on 31 January 2000. 16 During the 1980s, South Korea turned from authoritarianism to democracy and a market economy with burgeoning high-tech industries. Today South Korea ranks 13th in the list of GDP and has membership of the OECD. Comparably, in the DPRK, decades of isolation under communist regimes have left millions of North Koreans impoverished and the DPRK is now recognised as one of the ‘failed states’ in the world, while its serious situation of human rights violations as well as economic failure is notorious.

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Japan and the United States. Consequently, the first Agreed Framework adopted in 1994 between the DPRK and the United States framed the comprehensive resolutions for this issue.17 Consequently, KEDO was established in 1995 for the purpose of freezing and ultimately dismantling the DPRK’s nuclear programme. The following table describes the relevant events surrounding the establishment and the works of KEDO, in chronological order. Year

Events

Jan 1992

Safeguards Agreement between the DPRK and the IAEA.18

Jan 1992

South Korea-DPRK, Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula: ‘Not to test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons’.19

May-June 1993

Announcement by the DPRK regarding its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), followed by agreement not to withdraw from the NPT in June 1993.

Sept 1993

Reports from the IAEA inspection team to the United Nations on the impossibility of determining whether the DPRK was complying with the NPT, due to the government restrictions placed on its inspectors.

Oct 1994

Agreed Framework between USA and the DPRK.20

Mar 1995

Agreement on the Establishment of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).21

Dec 1995

Agreement on Supply of a Light-Water Reactor Project (Supply Agreement) between KEDO and DPRK.22

Dec 1999

Turnkey Contract between KEDO and the Korean Electric Power Company (KEPCO).23

Oct 2002

DPRK’s public acknowledgement of its highly enriched uranium (HEU) programme.24

Oct 2002

KEDO’s suspension of shipments of heavy fuel oil to the DPRK.

17 Agreed Framework between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (signed 21 October 1994) 34 ILM 603. 18 Agreement between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (signed 30 January 1992, entered into force 10 April 1992) IAEA Doc INFCIRC/403 www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/inf403.shtml (Safeguards Agreement). 19 North–South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula(North Korea—South Korea) (signed 20 January 1992, entered into force 19 February 1992) IAEA Doc GOV/INF/660; 33 ILM 569 20 The Agreed Framework (n 17) had four main points: (1) the DPRK would agree to replace its graphite-based nuclear reactors with light-water reactors (LWR); (2) the DPRK would remain a party to the NPT; (3) the parties would work toward eventual diplomatic representation in their respective capitals; and (4) the United States would give some form of security assurance to the DPRK. 21 ibid. 22 ‘Agreement on Supply of a Light-Water Reactor Project to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ (16 October 1995) www.kedo.org/pdfs/SupplyAgreement.pdf. 23 A turnkey contract is an agreement under which a contractor agrees to complete a product so that it is ready for use when delivered to the other contracting party. 24 The DPRK acknowledged its secret HEU programme when Mr James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of

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Jan 2003 Nov 2003 Nov 2004 Jan 2006 May 2006 Oct 2006

DPRK’s withdrawal from the NPT and expulsion of IAEA inspectors.25 KEDO’s suspension of the LWR Project from 1 December 2003 (Decision of the Executive Board, Nov 21, 2003). KEDO’s renewed decision to suspend construction of the LWR for an additional year (Decision of Executive Board, Nov 26, 2004). KEDO’s withdrawal of all workers from DPRK. KEDO’s termination of the LWR Project (Decision of the Executive Board, May 31, 2006). DPRK’s testing of a nuclear weapon and missile tests and Security Council’s resolution (UN SC Res 1718).

Measures Taken by KEDO KEDO began constructing two light-water reactors in the DPRK in 1997 under the terms of the Agreed Framework (1994) and Supply Agreement (1995). Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) was designated as a principal subcontractor of the LWR Project; consequently, it subcontracted a ‘turnkey contract’ for the construction of two LWRs in the DPRK, which was signed between KEDO and KEPCO on 15 December 1999.26 Thereafter, implementation of the contract was suspended in 2003 after revelations that the DPRK had started a secret uranium enrichment programme in 2002. In this context, KEDO took a series of actions, including suspension and termination of LWR Project.27 Analysis and evaluation of measures taken by KEDO should be grounded on the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organisations or between International Organisations (1986 VC), which has not yet entered into force.28 For the most part the provisions articulated in the 1986 VC reiterate clauses of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969 VC), which again reflects customary international law.29 Accordingly, the failure of the DPRK to comply with the agreement obligations amount to the ‘material breach’ the US Department of State, visited Pyongyang in October 2002. This led to the second North Korean nuclear crisis. The US has persistently demanded complete, verifiable and irreversible dismenantlement (CVID) of the DPRK nuclear programmes, both plutonium and HEU-based. 25 The DPRK issued a statement on 10 January 2003 declaring an automatic, immediate and effectual withdrawal from the NPT on which it declared a moratorium. This text was sent to Mohamed El-Baradei, Director General of the IAEA. The DPRK joined the NPT in 1985. 26 See general information provided by the official KEDO website at www.kedo.org/. 27 Total amount invested in the LWR Project by 1 December 2003 was $114.6 million and $41 million, by South Korea and Japan respectively, out of the total amount of $157.5 million. The construction progression as of of 31 May 2005 was 34.5%. Y Takeda, ‘KEDO Adrift’ (2005) 6 Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 123. 28 ‘Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations’.(done on 21 March 1986, not yet in force) Official Records of the United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations II (United Nations Publication, Sales No E 94 V 5) (1969 VC). 29 See PE Boehm, ‘Decennial déjà vu: Reassessing a Nuclear North Korea on the 1995 Supply Agreement’s Ten-Year Anniversary’ (2006) 14 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 81.

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articulated in the 1986 VC, which justifies the termination or suspension of the operation of treaty on that ground.30 Moreover, countermeasures recognised in ‘the law of the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts’ may be adopted in the case of international organisations;31 this has generally been suggested in the context of current discussions of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations at the International Law Commission (ILC).32 Even though the ILC’s draft articles concerning countermeasures taken by an international organisation has not yet been drafted (as of 2007), there is no doubt that the wrongfulness of an action by an international organisation is precluded if it constitutes a countermeasure taken against the internationally wrongful act of a state.33

CURRENT STATUS OF KEDO

Termination of Essential Activities: ‘Hibernation’ of KEDO The Executive Board of KEDO decided on 31 May 2006 to terminate the LWR Project. KEDO proclaimed that taking the decision was inevitable because of the continued and extended failure of the DPRK to perform the steps that were required in the Agreement Framework between the United States and the DPRK, which was a foundation of the Supply Agreement between KEDO and the DPRK in 1995. The legal basis of this decision can be found in Article XI(c) of the KEDO Establishment Agreement, which stated: This Agreement may be amended, terminated, or suspended by written agreement of all Executive Board Members, or, if such agreement is not achievable by written agreement of a majority of the Executive Board Members.34

The decision was also based on Article XVI(a) of the Supply Agreement allowing that actions may be taken in the event of non-compliance, which stated:

30 See 1969 VC (n 28) Article 60 (Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty as a consequence of its breach) (1) ‘A material breach of a bilateral treaty by one of the parties entitles the other to invoke the breach as a ground for terminating the treaty or suspending its operation in whole or in part’. 31 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, (28 September 2001) UN Doc A/56/49(Vol I)/Corr 4; see Part Two fContent of the International Responsibility of a State, and Part Three Implementation of the International Responsibility of a State, eg Chapter II for the countermeasures. 32 ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 56th session’ (3 May–4 June and 5 July–6 August 2004) UN Doc A/56/10 chp IV E1. 33 ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 59th session’ (7 May–8 June and 9 July–10 August 2007)UN Doc A/62/10 191; up to a discussion in 2007, Article 19 for “Countermeasures” has been postponed its discussion. See in detail, ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 58th session’ (1 May–9 June and 3 July–11 August 2006)UN Doc A/61/10, commentary of Article 19, 268. 34 ‘Agreement on the Establishment on the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization’ (signed 9 March 1995) www.kedo.org/pdfs/EstablishmentKEDO.pdf (KEDO Establishment Agreement).

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KEDO and the DPRK shall perform their respective obligations in good faith to achieve the basic objectives of the Agreement.35

According to the decision taken by the Executive Board of KEDO, KEDO would maintain its minimal existence so long as it should be necessary to settle financial and legal obligations stemming from the termination of the LWR Project, including, in particular, those related to the termination of the Turnkey Contract for the supply of the LWR Project to the DPRK. Therefore, KEDO currently maintains an executive office in New Jersey which is represented by a single Secretary-General delegate who conducts the remaining business.36 His main activities are: a) preparing the eventual claim for compensation against the DPRK (KEDO is of the view that the LWR Project has been suspended as a result of the breach of agreements, especially the LWR Supply Agreement, by the DPRK); b) maintenance of the rights of possession over the assets within the Kumho site in the DPRK (KEDO continues to demand the return of the assets, such as heavy construction equipment and other movables, which the DPRK has resisted); and c) management of documents, etc.37

Conclusion of a Termination Agreement between KEDO and KEPCO As mentioned earlier, KEPCO entered into a subcontract arrangement, the ‘Turnkey Contract’ with KEDO on 15 December 1999 to construct two LWRs in the DPRK. Following the KEDO Executive Board’s decision on the termination of the LWR project, KEDO and KEPCO negotiated a Termination Agreement.38 The process of the negotiation proved a difficult one, lasting for six months, but finally the Agreement was concluded on 12 December 2006. Japan and the European Union (EU), which took the view that a lump sum payment would excessively benefit KEPCO, questioned several legal issues at the drafting stage of the Termination Agreement: for example, eventual claims by KEPCO’s business partners, future use of mechanical equipment which remained both inside and the DPRK and elsewhere, and disposition of KEPCO’s eventual excessive interests, if any.39 Especially Japan, which was a member of the KEDO Executive Board and was not ready to shoulder additional expenses of the liquidation process, stressed that KEPCO’s liquidation expenses and claim management by KEPCO’s business partners should be administered in an open and clear manner. It was further noted that KEDO should be involved in the claim

35

Supply Agreement (n 22). The operating expenses for the executive office are financed by the interests from the Security Funds (a total amount of $19,000,000) that had been offered by Japan at the preliminary stage of the LWR Project. 37 Supply Agreement (n 22). 38 Here ‘termination’ does not mean a termination of Agreement on the Establishment of the KEDO (1995) but a termination of Turnkey Contract (1999). 39 Also it was underlined that KEDO should be able to take care of the excessive interest, if ever, in case the liquidation process leaves KEPCO with the disposition of mechanical equipment which originally cost more than $700 millions. 36

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management process of KEPCO, and the final result should only be drawn on the basis of a ‘Common Understanding’ between KEDO and KEPCO. On the other hand, KEPCO, a principal subcontractor of the LWR Project, didn’t agree on KEDO’s initial proposition concerning claim management and disposition of mechanical equipment. KEPCO brought up the need for a balanced text which would also take into account the possibility of KEPCO’s excessive losses. KEPCO continuously stated that an unfairly drafted text could not be acknowledged for it would need the consent of its board of directors, including outside directors, internal and external auditors and stockholders. Under these circumstances, the government of South Korea came up with an arbitration which considered both KEDO and KEPCO’s positions. According to the Termination Agreement, which was concluded in December 2006, KEPCO mainly accepted all the rights and obligations related to the LWR Project outside of the DPRK from KEDO. In exchange, KEPCO waived the right to claim any expenses incurred and any potential claims by subcontractors to KEDO. At the same time, KEPCO was obliged to report its disposal or reuse of the LWR equipment, to negotiate with KEDO for the settlement of the disposal profit occuring. Also, in the event of KEPCO earning more than double the liquidation cost borne by KEPCO by disposing of mechanical equipment, KEDO and KEPCO would mutually address the issue. The following is a summary of six major points of the Termination Agreement of the LWR Project. General Obligations

1) KEDO assigns to KEPCO all the rights and duties concerning mechanical equipment of the LWR project which are outside the territory of the DPRK. 2) KEPCO waives all the expenses and claims, except for the unpaid maintenance expenses (for between August and November, 2005).

Claim Management Procedure and Reporting Procedure

1) KEPCO may agree with business partners on claim, without KEDO’s recognition on the scale of it. If KEDO decides that the final scale of claim is appropriate, it confirms the fact for KEPCO. 2) KEPCO periodically reports to KEDO on the use of mechanical equipment. If, as a result, KEPCO’s interest exceeds two times of liquidation expenses, that should be further negotiated.

Ownership of Construction Site Asset

KEPCO assigns to KEDO the ownership of KEPCO and its business partners’ facilities and assets situated in Kumho Area, DPRK.

Responsibilities and Duties pertinent to Mechanical Equipments

1) KEPCO assumes KEDO’s ownership of and Responsibilities and Duties to mechanical equipment. 2) KEDO and KEPCO understand that Executive Board Members take appropriate measures according to export control statute for mechanical equipment to be transferred overseas.

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Ki Gab Park 1) KEPCO accords KEDO immunity from any third party’s request for compensation arising out of KEPCO’s violation of duty of care relevant to the Termination Agreement and Turnkey Contract. 2) KEPCO accords KEDO immunity from a third party’s request for nuclear liability and compensation. 1) KEDO accords KEPCO immunity from a third party’s claim towards KEDO (except for the claims related to Turnkey Contract or cooperation contracts). 2) KEPCO accords KEDO immunity from a third party’s claim towards KEPCO (except for the claims raised by KEDO’s creditors, DPRK or KEDO’s contractors).

KEPCO’s Obligation to Exempt and Nuclear Indemnity Responsibility Responsibility for the Third Party

REMAINING QUESTIONS

Subjective Legal Personality of KEDO Fortunately, to date, no legal conflicts or claims have arisen with respect to terminating the work of KEDO among relevant entities: KEDO, member states and subcontractors. Reasons for this could be found in the ‘equitable and fair’ features of the Termination Agreement between KEDO and KEPCO, as well as close political cooperation among the member states of KEDO concerning the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons in the DPRK. Nevertheless, potential legal problems should not be excluded from our discussion. This doubt increased when we considered the fact that KEDO had terminated its essential project abruptly due to the impossibility of fulfilling the reciprocal obligation as well as the fact that KEDO itself had engaged work which demanded vast amount of investments in constructing the LWR.40 Therefore, in due course of liquidation, there still remains a certain necessity to consider potential disputes among related entities.41 Hypothetical legal problems may arise in regard to the contention of the ‘objective/ subjective legal personality’ of KEDO. KEDO proclaims its ‘internal legal personality’ and ‘international legal personality’ as may be necessary for achieving the purposes and the functions of the organisation in Article III of the KEDO Establishment Agreement.42 This Agreement articulates the immunity of member states in Article XIII(b), which states:

40

Supply Agreement (n 22). One of the outstanding legal issues at the beginning stage of LWR Project was the question of liability and compensation for nuclear damage. A purely hypothetical scenario is as below: ‘suppose KEDO’s LWR Project came to a successful end; an accident occurs while DPRK operates one of its LWR, and it causes damage to neighbouring countries. Due to its economic woes, DPRK may not be able to pay appropriate reparation. Would it be possible, then, for the injured parties to claim reparation vis-a-vis KEDO? Also, should South Korea, Japan, and the United States, and the EU and other member states of KEDO, be jointly and separately liable?’ See KG Park, ‘Responsibility of International Organizations’ (2007) 2 Korea University Law Review 67, 68. 42 KEDO Establishment Agreement (n 34) Article III: ‘In carrying out these purposes, the Organisation may do any of the following: (a) Evaluate and administer projects designed to further the purposes 41

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No Member shall be liable, by reason of its status or participation as a Member, for acts, omissions, or obligations of the Organization.43

Therefore, in the case of KEDO, certain legal problems related to reparation and compensation for certain damages resulting from its activities may be invoked toward KEDO itself, rather than the member states, as the agreement exempts member states from responsibility.44 However, the immunity of member states obstructed in relation to this matter may still raise controversy regarding the ‘objective legal personality’ asserted by KEDO itself. Indeed, when an international organisation has not reached universality in its existence, by reason of having a small number of members, or being limited to act on regional matters, the validity of granting ‘objective legal personality’ to the organisation would be in doubt. An international organisation which has a subjective legal personality holds rights to claim toward its own member states, non-member states and other entities that have recognised its existence, even though it has not reached the point of having universal legal personality or opposability towards all other third parties. However, of the Organization; (b) Receive funds from members of the Organization or other states or entities for financing projects designed to further the purposes of the Organization, manage and disburse such funds, and retain for Organization purposes any interest that accumulates on such funds; (c) Receive in-kind contributions from members of the Organization or other states or entities for projects designed to further the purposes of the Organization; (d) Receive funds or other compensation from the DPRK in payment for the LWR project and other goods and services provided by the Organization; (e) Cooperate and enter into agreements, contracts, or other arrangements with appropriate financial institutions, as may be agreed upon, for the handling of funds received by the Organization or designated for projects of the Organization; (f) Acquire any property, facilities, equipment, or goods necessary for achieving the purposes of the Organization; (g) Conclude or enter into agreements, contracts, or other arrangements, including loan agreements, with states, international organizations, or other appropriate entities, as may be necessary for achieving the purposes and exercising the functions of the Organization; (h) Coordinate with and assist states, local authorities and other public entities, national and international institutions, and private parties in carrying out activities that further the purposes of the Organization, including activities promoting nuclear safety; (i) Dispose of any receipts, funds, accounts, or other assets of the Organization and distribute the proceeds in accordance with the financial obligations of the Organization, with any remaining assets or proceeds therefrom to be distributed in an equitable manner according to the contributions of each member of the Organization, as may be determined by the Organization; and (j) Exercise such other powers as shall be necessary in furtherance of its purposes and functions, consistent with this Agreement.’ 43

KEDO Establishment Agreement (n 34). The legal personality of international organisations had already been recognised in terms of having rights and duties under international law in the 1949 advisory opinion, ‘Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations’ [1949] ICJ Rep 1949, 174, 185. Accordingly, an international organisation may have certain responsibilities per se. This is even supported by customary international law and also stipulated in several international legal instruments. For example, the agreement that Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg, and Italy each has concluded with the UN for the damage resulting from the UN Peacekeeping operations in Congo; and UN Office for Legal Affairs, ‘Question of the responsibility of the United Nations for activities conducted by one of its organs in the territory of a State’ (UN Juridical Yearbook, 1975, 153 et seq); Convention on International Responsibility for Damage Caused by Space Objects (opened for signature 29 March 1972, entered into force 1 September 1972) 961 UNTS 187 Art 22, para 3; UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (10 December 1982) 1833 UNTS 396 Art 263; and the ECU’s own system of responsibility for reparation. See Park (n 26), 91–93; Indeed, the issue of responsibility of member states has been discussed in the ILC, and Art 29 of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organisation sets forth several criteria that can be considered when a member state’s responsibility for the organisation’s internationally wrongful act is not clearly stipulated in the constituent charter. Therefore, it would primarily be considered whether the constituent charter has explicit clauses for the responsibility of member states. 44

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we should note that some scholars consider that a distinction between ‘subjective legal personality’ and ‘objective legal personality’ is not meaningful in reality.45 As has been seen, KEDO is not a universal international organisation and has a small number of participating states.46 Therefore, if certain wrongful acts are undertaken by KEDO, and an injured third-party attempts to invoke responsibility upon the member states, this would raise problems regarding the international legal personality of KEDO. In this situation, even the immunity clause of members in Article XIII as stipulated in the Establishment Agreement may not be effectively applied toward third parties, ie non-member states of KEDO. There is still ongoing discussion over whether the immunity from contentious jurisdiction should be granted to all international organisations; the existence of an obligation under general international law to grant immunity to international organisations has been asserted by several domestic courts, while the scope and conditions have varied. Whether an organisation may be granted absolute immunity or conditional immunity, and whether the determination should be based on the general principle of international law or special agreements are controversial issues and still discussed at the ILC.47 In the case of KEDO, unfortunately, we cannot yet find meaningful implications for studying the matter in this regard. However, analysing and implementing the ‘Termination Agreement’ of the LWR Project, we can assume eventual potential disputes arising in the process of liquidation between KEDO, DPRK, member states, third-party states, KEPCO and other subcontractors. Also, matters of responsibility and immunity of member states of KEDO provide a useful area for discussion; and it certainly is an interesting issue to be considered in the context of the Draft Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations. Rethinking the Meaning of the Decision taken by the Executive Board of KEDO As has been mentioned, the Executive Board of KEDO terminated the LWR Project in May 2006. This was a clear decision, but ironically gave rise to some complicated questions. According to the announcement of the Executive Board, the intention of the decision was to terminate the LWR Project, while the Supply 45 Eg, D Akande explains: ‘In practice, no recent instances are known of a non-member State refusing to acknowledge the personality of an organization on the ground that it was not a member State and had not given the organization specific recognition. [Amerasinghe (n 3) 86]. Furthermore, domestic courts of non-member states do acknowledge the international personality of international organizations.’ D Akande, ‘International Organisations’ in M Evans (ed), International Law, 1st edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) 276. 46 There are 13 members which participated in KEDO, including four Executive Board members and nine member states; see n 14. 47 The Report of the ILC considered as a relevant issue ‘a study on the jurisdictional immunity of international organizations would not simply involve ascertaining the extent to which rules governing State immunity may also be applied with regard to international organizations. Immunity of the latter has to be studied in the context of remedies that are available for bringing claims against an organization, according to the rules of that organization or to arbitration agreements. However, there is a need to avoid the risk of a denial of justice.’ ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 58th Session’ (1 May–9 June and 3 July–11 August 2006) UN Doc A/61/10 Annex B: Judicial Immunity of International Organizations 455–56 para 4–7.

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Agreement would continue to exist.48 This would be grounded on the fact that the Supply Agreement had not been abrogated by either party, the DPRK or KEDO. Nevertheless, one who considers the LWR Project as an essential part of the Supply Agreement may still ask for clarification whether the decision of termination restricted itself to the LWR Project, or whether KEDO terminated ipso facto the Supply Agreement as a whole. In this respect, we can consider KEDO to be in a stage of ‘hibernation’. Indeed, two essential pillars of KEDO—the LWR Project, and providing heavy fuel oil to the DPRK as an alternative energy supply—have collapsed. Also as a result of the failure of the DPRK to fulfil its obligation to freeze and ultimately dismantle the development of its nuclear weapons programme, KEDO has lost its raison d’être. This in turn reflects the failure of the establishment of KEDO in its mandate and functioning. Therefore, we can see the current status of KEDO as a state of hibernation and in a process of proceeding towards dissolution, and consequently, the Supply Agreement has also terminated de facto. Indeed, the current activities of KEDO are limited to those for liquidation and aforementioned activities, including the maintenance and exercise of the right to claim for compensation to the DPRK and the maintenance of the right of possession of assets within the Kumho site in the DPRK. All facts considered, we can predict that the Executive Board states will convene in the near future to shut down KEDO definitely and de jure.49 However, this conclusion may indeed be seen as a mere formality, since de facto dissolution of KEDO and termination process of the essential parts of the agreements has already been completed. CONCLUDING REMARKS

This paper has briefly examined the creation, transformation and termination of the LWR Project, which was a vital mandate of KEDO. The existence of KEDO presents us with various interesting legal questions. Notable features of KEDO include the participation of the European Union as a member of the Executive Board, a series of treaties that were concluded between the DPRK and KEDO,50 and problems that may arise in the process of liquidation between KEDO, states 48

Supply Agreement (n 22). See KEDO Establishment Agreement (n 34) Article XIV: (c) This Agreement may be amended, terminated, or suspended by written agreement of all Executive Board Members, or, if such agreement is not achievable by written agreement of a majority of the Executive Board Members. 50 There are six main Agreements and eight Protocols: ‘Agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization’ (signed 18 December 2001) www.kedo.org/pdfs/EURenewal.pdf (KEDO–European Union (EU) Renewal Agreement); KEDO–EU Accession Agreement (n 14); Supply Agreement (n 22); ‘Joint US–DPRK Press Statement’ (Kuala Lumpur, June 13 1995) www.kedo.org/pdfs/KualaLumpur.pdf; KEDO Establishment Agreement(n 34); Agreed Framework (n 17); ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Quality Assurance and Warranties for the Implementation of a Light-Water Reactor Project’ (signed 3 December 2001) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ProtocolQAW.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Training for the Implementation of a Light-Water Reactor Project’ (signed 20 October 2000) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ ProtocolTraining.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and 49

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and other entities which participated in the project for KEDO’s purposes. This brief presentation shows that KEDO merits a hypothetical case study, considering relevant questions on the completion of responsibility of an international organisation. Moreover, we should ask ourselves whether the general theory of state responsibility and state immunity might apply to the relations between states and international organisations. However, we should admit that the efforts undertaken by KEDO for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons of the DPRK came to nothing, consequently there is no further raison-d’être for KEDO. Even though the Executive Board of KEDO declared its minimal existence, there seems little chance of resuscitating KEDO in the near future. While no legal disputes have been raised from terminating the mandate of KEDO so far, it is still necessary to consider the potential possibility of legal disputes in the foreseeable future. Hence, this paper reviewed related issues such as the subjective personality of KEDO and the meaning of the decision taken by the Executive Board of KEDO. In doing so, a noticeable difference has been identified in the case of KEDO, compared with those used to be seen in the general types of dissolution of international organisations. Consequently, we can temporarily conclude that KEDO presents an exceptional stage for the dissolution of an international organisation, which might be described as ‘hibernation’ or de facto dissolution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books CF Amerasinghe, Principles of the International Law of International Organizations (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). PR Myers, Succession between International Organizations (London, Kegan Paul International, 1993).

the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the Event of Nonpayment with Respect to Financial Obligations’(signed 24 June 1997) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ProtocolNonPayment.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Site Take-Over, Site Access and Use of the Site for the Implementation of a Light-Water Reactor Project’ (signed 8 January 1997) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ ProtocolSiteTakeover.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Labor, Goods, Facilities and Other Services for the Implementation of a Light–Water Reactor Project’ (signed 8 January 1997) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ProtocolLabor.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the Juridical Status, Privileges and Immunities, and Consular Protection of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’ (signed 11 July 1996) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ ProtocolPrivImmun.pdf; Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Communications for the Implementation of a Light-Water Reactor Project’ (signed 11 July 1996) www.kedo.org/pdfs/ ProtocolCommunications.pdf; ‘Protocol between the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Transportation for the Implementation of a Light-Water Reactor’; thus 14 legal instruments made by KEDO.

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P Sands and P Klein, Bowett’s Law of International Institutions (London, Sweet & Maxwell, 2001). HG Schermers and NM Blokker International Institutional Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2003). JM Sorel, Droit des Organisations Internationales (Lyons, L’Hermès, 1997).

Chapters in Edited Volumes D Akande, ‘International Organisations’ in M Evans (ed), International Law, 1st edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003). P Daillier, ‘La disparition de la CECA le 23 juillet 2002: des problèmes de succession d’organisations internationales?’ in J Andriantsimbazovina et al (eds), Les Dynamiques du droit européen en début de siècle: études en l’honneur de Jean-Claude Gautron (Paris, Pedone, 2004). RA Wessel, ‘Dissolution and Succession: the Transmigration of the Soul of International Organizations’, in J Klabbers (ed), Research Handbook on the Law of International Organizations (Chichester, Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming in 2009).

International Documents International Law Association (2004) Accountability of International Organisations (Final Conference Report Berlin) www.ila-hq.org/en/committees/ index.cfm/cid/9.

Journal Articles PE Boehm, ‘Decennial déjà vu: Reassessing a Nuclear North Korea on the 1995 Supply Agreement’s Ten-Year Anniversary’ (2006) 14 Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 81–126. KG Park, ‘Responsibility of International Organizations’ (2007) 2 Korea University Law Review 67–105. Y Takeda, ‘KEDO Adrift’ (2005) 6 Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 123–32.

Website Sources Joint US-DPRK Press Statement (Kuala Lumpur, 13 June 1995) www.kedo.org/ pdfs/KualaLumpur.pdf.

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Countermeasures by International Organisations: The Decentralised Society in the Heart of the Institutionalised Society FRÉDÉRIC DOPAGNE *

INTRODUCTION

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IKE STATES, though to a lesser extent, international organisations resort to countermeasures with a view to ensuring the cessation (and reparation) of internationally wrongful acts committed by other subjects of international law. This paper aims at providing some insight into that specific practice and the main legal issues it raises. In the first section, I will make a few remarks about the very concept of countermeasures taken by international organisations. In the second section, I will concentrate on the question of the standing of international organisations to adopt countermeasures in the face of a breach affecting the interests of the international community as a whole. Drawing upon that, I will conclude that countermeasures by international organisations highlight the persistence of the decentralised international society.

THE CONCEPT OF COUNTERMEASURES TAKEN BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

Countermeasures Countermeasures are usually referred to as acts that are intrinsically contrary to international law, whose wrongfulness is nevertheless precluded as they constitute a reaction to a previous violation of international law.1 Their purpose is to ensure the cessation of this previous violation as well as, where appropriate, the reparation of the injury, which the latter may have caused.2 In that sense, countermeasures amount to a form of decentralised sanction, or, to put it differently, to an instrument of implementation of international responsibility. * Lecturer in Public International Law, University of Louvain (UCL). 1 See ILC Articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, annex to UNGA Res 56/83 (12 December 2001) UN Doc A/RES/56/83, Art 22. 2 See ibid Art 49 para 1.

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To date, countermeasures have been dealt with by scholars—and codified by the International Law Commission (ILC)—in interstate relations only.3 It is submitted here that there is no reason why international organisations (endowed with an international legal personality distinct from that of their members) should not be allowed, as a matter of principle, to take countermeasures within the above meaning.4 Indeed, in their capacity as subjects of international law, they seem to be entitled to partake in the general mechanisms of international responsibility, in the same way as states.5 This is underpinned by the ICJ advisory opinion in the Reparation for injuries case with respect to the invocation of responsibility.6 Arguably, this also encompasses the adoption of countermeasures, for countermeasures are the necessary complement of the invocation of responsibility. In sum, as soon as international organisations are capable of possessing rights under international law, they must be deemed to have access to the coercive means which, within the international legal order, are designed to protect those rights.7

Against Non-Member States International organisations can resort to countermeasures against non-member states. In this regard, the bulk of the relevant practice is to be found in the so-called ‘restrictive measures’ adopted by the EU/EC in the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to the extent that they do not merely purport to implement UN Security Council resolutions.8 Indeed, some of these measures, while infringing the international obligations incumbent upon the EU/EC, are expressly justified by the alleged unlawful conduct of the targeted state.9

3 See especially B Dzida, Zum Recht der Repressalie im heutigen Völkerrecht (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 1997); D Alland, Justice privée et ordre juridique international. Étude théorique des contre-mesures en droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 1994); C Focarelli, Le contromisure nel diritto internazionale (Milan, Giuffrè, 1994); L Boisson de Chazournes, Les contre-mesures dans les relations économiques internationales (Paris, Pédone, 1992); L-A Sicilianos, Les réactions décentralisées à l’illicite. Des contre-mesures à la légitime défense (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1990); OY Elagab, The Legality of Non-Forcible Counter-Measures in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988); E Zoller, Peacetime Unilateral Remedies: An Analysis of Countermeasures (Dobbs Ferry, NY, Transnational Publishers, 1984). 4 See generally P Klein, La responsabilité des organisations internationales dans les ordres juridiques internes et en droit des gens (Brussels, Bruylant, 1998) 396–409. 5 See C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique dans le système du droit des gens’ in J Makarczyk (ed), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century. Essays in Honour of Krzysztof Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1996) 162. 6 Reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) 1949 ICJ Rep 174, 177–79. 7 For the assumption of a legal capacity to take countermeasures ‘inherent’ to the international legal personality, see F Dopagne, Les contre-mesures des organisations internationales (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Brussels, Anthémis, 2010), forthcoming. 8 See generally E Paasivirta and A Rosas, ‘Sanctions, Countermeasures and Related Actions in the External Relations of the EU: A Search for Legal Frameworks’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The European Union as an Actor in International Relations (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2002) 207–18. 9 See eg Council Common Position 98/326/CFSP of 7 May 1998 OJ L 143/1 and Council Regulation (EC) 1295/1998 of 22 June 1998 OJ L 178/33 imposing the freezing of funds held abroad by

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Or Against Member States Countermeasures can be taken against member states as well. At first glance, this hypothesis may seem more bewildering. It should not however be ruled out. The special relationship between (personified) international organisations and their members can also be seen as a mundane relationship between independent subjects of international law. In that sense, that relationship remains governed by general and particular international law. As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) pointed out, international organisations ‘occup[y] a position in certain respects in detachment from [their] members.’10 Indeed, international organisations and their members conclude international agreements. Likewise, they enter into relations akin to diplomatic relations. Against such a backdrop, there is no reason why the rules on international responsibility, including the circumstances precluding wrongfulness (and notably countermeasures), should not be applicable to the relationship between international organisations and their members. Such a conclusion is buttressed by contemporary practice. Several instances of countermeasures adopted by international organisations against their members can indeed be discerned. For example, the Universal Postal Union expelled South Africa in 1979, without any legal basis in the rules of the organisation: the exclusion was predicated on the determination that the apartheid policy was contravening both the UN Charter and the fundamental principles of the Union.11 By the same token, in 1982 the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference rejected the credentials of the Israeli delegates, in the aftermath of Israel’s bombing raid on the Osiraq reactor in Iraq:12 there again, the Agency could not rely upon a special provision in its Statute (an attempt to resort to Article XIX.B of the Statute, which contemplates the suspension of the privileges and rights of membership, had failed previously). In the same vein, and once more in the absence of an express authorisation stemming from the rules of the organisation, Myanmar was deprived of the International Labour Organisation’s technical cooperation in 1999 as a result of its continuous violation of the Convention concerning forced labour.13 In each of these instances,14 it turns out that an international organisation reacts to an alleged wrongful act of a member state, and that, in so doing, failing an appropriate sanctioning power flowing from its internal rules (see hereinafter as regards statutory sanctions), this international organisation breaches its own international obligations (in the examples cited, either its obligation not to affect the membership the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia: the freezing infringes the FRY immunity of execution, but in the opinion of the European institutions it is justified by the human rights violations committed by that state. 10 Reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) 1949 ICJ Rep 174, 179. 11 UPU, ‘Expulsion of the Republic of South Africa from the Universal Postal Union’ Resolution C 6 [1979] UNJY 90. 12 IAEA, Resolution GC (XXVI)/RES/404 (24 September 1983) Resolutions and Other Decisions of the General Conference (26th Regular Session) 11. 13 International Labour Conference (87th session) Resolution on the Widespread Use of Forced Labour in Myanmar (Geneva, 17 June 1999). 14 Further examples could be cited: see Dopagne (n 7).

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and the privileges linked to it, or its obligation to supply certain forms of assistance to the member states). In sum, in each of the above cases, it turns out that an international organisation has taken countermeasures against one of its member states. Different from Statutory Sanctions Countermeasures taken by international organisations should not be conflated with statutory sanctions, namely the specific sanctions against member states that are normally provided for in the constituent instruments of international organisations (suspension of privileges, etc). As long as the conditions set out in the rules of the organisation are fulfilled, the adoption of such statutory sanctions is indeed per se lawful. Having said this, countermeasures and statutory sanctions need to be adequately articulated, when both are likely to be triggered by the initial wrongful act. In this respect, there exists arguably no self-contained regime stemming from the presence of statutory sanctions within the legal system of international organisations (of regional economic integration):15 although statutory sanctions enjoy priority, the reacting organisation may always fall back upon countermeasures, if the statutory sanctions have been duly adopted and have proved inefficient.16 Different from Treaty-Based Sanctions Countermeasures taken by international organisations cannot be put in the same category as treaty-based sanctions either. Provided that the conditions laid down in the treaty are met, these sanctions are, again, per se lawful. For example, the measures of ‘suspension of concessions or other obligations’ adopted by the EC in the WTO framework17 are not countermeasures, despite the misleading terminology which at times is used by the EC itself. Quite to the contrary, they merely represent the implementation of what the contracting parties have agreed on.18 Once more, the core question rather relates to the proper way of joining such 15 See generally B Simma and D Pulkowski ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self-contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) European Journal of International Law, 483. 16 See Dopagne, Les contre-mesures des organisations internationales (n 7). 17 See the WTO case, United States—Tax Treatment for ‘Foreign Sales Corporations (30 August 2002) WT/DS108/ARB; Council Regulation (EC) 2193/2003 of 8 December 2003 establishing additional customs duties on imports of certain products originating in the United States of America OJ L 328/3, and another WTO case, United States— Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (31 August 2004) WT/DS217/ARB, Council Regulation (EC) 673/2005 of 25 April 2005 establishing additional customs duties on imports of certain products originating in the United States of America OJ L 110/1. 18 See Understanding on rules and procedures governing the settlement of disputes, Annex 2 of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (15 April 1994) Art 22, especially paras 2, 5 and 6. In this respect, it makes little sense to speak of ‘special countermeasures’ on the basis of a lex specialis (see ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (n 1) Art 55): a ‘special countermeasure’, corresponding to what the parties have agreed on, is no longer a countermeasure, but a treaty-based sanction.

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sanctions and possible countermeasures when both are likely to be triggered by the initial wrongful act. On this point, the aforementioned solution should, in my opinion, apply:19 the treaty-based sanctions enjoy priority, but the possibility of a fall-back on countermeasures must be preserved in case the treaty-based sanctions prove inefficient.

COUNTERMEASURES BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND GENERAL INTEREST OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

On the whole, countermeasures by international organisations, as they have just been briefly defined, are subject to a legal regime very similar to that relating to countermeasures by states. This is particularly reflected in the Sixth Report of the ILC Special Rapporteur on responsibility of international organisations,20 as well as in the Draft Articles on countermeasures that the ILC Drafting Committee has provisionally adopted on 16 July 2008.21 Indeed, these Draft Articles provide for conditions and limits quite analogous to those of the corresponding provisions of the Articles on State responsibility (obligations not affected by countermeasures, proportionality, prior sommation and notification, suspension of countermeasures pendente lite, etc). As regards the standing of international organisations to resort to countermeasures, the Draft Articles nonetheless depart, to some extent, from (what seems to be) the regime applicable to state countermeasures. It is worth dwelling somewhat on that point as it is undeniably one of the thorniest issues the Commission is currently facing. It may confidently be asserted that, like states,22 an international organisation is entitled to take countermeasures when it is injured by the initial wrongful act, and that it can be considered injured when (a) the obligation breached is owed to it individually, or (b) the obligation breached is an erga omnes (partes) obligation and the breach specifically affects the organisation.23 19 In that sense, see also M Garcia-Rubio, ‘Unilateral Measures as a Means of Forcible Execution of WTO Recommendations and Decisions’ in L Picchio Forlati and L-A Sicilianos (eds), Les sanctions économiques en droit international/Economic Sanctions in International Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2004) 469–70. 20 UNGA ‘Sixth Report on the Responsibility of International Organizations, by Mr Giorgio Gaja, Special Rapporteur’ (1 April 2008) UN Doc A/CN4/597. It must be stressed that, as such, the topic addressed by the ILC is confined to countermeasures taken by international organisations or states against international organisations and that countermeasures against states are accordingly not covered. See, however, the Draft Article 19 submitted by the Special Rapporteur, Mr Giorgio Gaja, in UNGA ‘Seventh Report on the Responsibility of International Organizations’ (27 March 2009) UN Doc A/CN4/610. 21 UNGA ‘Responsibility of International Organizations—Addendum’ (16 July 2008) UN Doc A/CN.4/L.725/Add.1 (Draft Articles 54–60). The ILC has ‘t[aken] note’ of these Draft Articles on 4 August 2008 (ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its 60th session’ (5 May–6 June and 7 July–8 August 2008) UN Doc A/63/10, para 134). 22 See ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (n 1) Art 42 and 49, para 1. 23 See ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its 60th session’ (5 May–6 June and 7 July–8 August 2008) Doc A/63/10, para 165 Draft Art 46 adopted by the ILC and UNGA ‘Responsibility of International Organizations—Addendum’ (16 July 2008) UN Doc A/CN.4/L.725/Add 1 Draft Art 54, para 1, provisionally adopted by the Drafting Committee.

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The situation of non-injured international organisations is more controversial. In particular, one may wonder whether non-injured international organisations are allowed to adopt countermeasures when a breach of an erga omnes (partes) obligation occurs.24 As is well-known, the rules on countermeasures by states are themselves far from being clear in this respect.25 These uncertainties should however not be overstated. The problematic ‘saving clause’ in Article 54 of the ILC Articles on state responsibility, and its confusing reference to ‘lawful measures’, must henceforth be read in conjunction with more recent developments, namely the Resolution on ‘Obligations and rights erga omnes in international law’ adopted by the Institut de Droit International at its 2005 session.26 It is noteworthy that, unlike Article 54, Article 5(c) of that Resolution does not shy away from speaking of countermeasures when stating the action that non-injured states may take following a ‘widely acknowledged grave breach’ of an erga omnes (partes) obligation. Arguably, this sheds new light on the right of non-injured states to adopt countermeasures in the face of infringements of erga omnes (partes) obligations.27 In this regard, the required ‘gravity’ of the breach seems to be consistent with the practice of states.28 Turning to non-injured international organisations, it must be underlined that, according to the Draft Articles provisionally adopted by the ILC Drafting Committee, a non-injured international organisation is entitled to take ‘lawful measures’ to respond to a breach of an erga omnes obligation upon the condition that ‘safeguarding the interest of the international community underlying the obligation breached’ is included among the ‘functions’ of that organisation.29 The problem, here, is not the reference to ‘lawful measures’: it is posited that, once again, such a saving clause must be read in conjunction with the Resolution of the Institut on erga omnes obligations. The problem is rather that, assuming that the Draft Articles refer to genuine countermeasures, the right of non-injured international organisations to take these countermeasures is limited through the invocation of the functions of the reacting international organisation.

24 Another issue concerns the right of non-injured international organisations to take countermeasures when the obligation breached is owed individually to one of their member states. In this respect, see UNGA ‘Sixth Report on the Responsibility of International Organizations, by Mr Giorgio Gaja, Special Rapporteur’ (1 April 2008) UN Doc A/CN4/597 Draft Art 57, para 2, proposed by the Special Rapporteur. 25 See generally C Hillgruber, ‘The Right of Third States to Take Countermeasures’ in C Tomuschat and J-M Thouvenin (eds), The Fundamental Rules of the International Legal Order: Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2006) 265–293; M Dawidowicz, ‘Public Law Enforcement Without Public Law Safeguards? An Analysis of State Practice on Third-Party Countermeasures and their Relationship to the UN Security Council’ (2006), British Year Book of International Law 333. 26 Institut de Droit International, ‘Obligations and rights erga omnes in international law’ (27 August 2005) www.idi–iil.org/idiE/resolutionsE/2005_kra_01_en.pdf. 27 See C Dominicé, ‘À la recherche des droits erga omnes’ in N Angelet et al (eds), Droit du pouvoir, pouvoir du droit. Mélanges offerts à Jean Salmon (Brussels, Bruylant, 2007) 365. 28 See eg CJ Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 231 and 250. 29 UNGA ‘Responsibility of International Organizations—Addendum’ (16 July 2008) UN Doc A/CN 4/L 725/Add 1 Draft Art 60 provisionally adopted by the Drafting Committee, referring to ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its 60th session’ (5 May–6 June and 7 July–8 August 2008) UN Doc A/63/10 para 165 Draft Art 52 para 3, adopted by the ILC.

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This restriction had been advocated by several states30 and some international organisations,31 in their comments relating to the work of the ILC on the responsibility of international organisations. In that sense, it is no surprise that it was endorsed by the ILC. Such a conception is, however, not convincing. By my account, it rests on a confusion of the legal standing of the organisation to resort to countermeasures— which is a question of general international law—with the competence of the organisation to take a particular countermeasure—which is a question pertaining to the rules of that organisation. There can be no doubt that every international organisation must comply with its own ‘internal’ rules when adopting countermeasures, and that the subject of the countermeasures (ie the very content of the sanction) has hence to come within the limited scope of competence afforded to the reacting organisation. It is nevertheless submitted that the latter’s standing to resort to countermeasures is independent from the rules governing competence. For example, it would make no sense to contend that a (non-injured) international organisation may take countermeasures to respond to violations of human rights only if that organisation is competent in the field of human rights protection. This parenthetically would be at odds with established practice. As the few instances cited above demonstrate, (non-injured) international organisations not entrusted with specific functions or competence in the field of human rights (notably certain UN specialised agencies) have indeed not refrained from taking countermeasures following violations of human rights. To all appearances, the fact that an erga omnes obligation was at stake, and the membership of the reacting organisations of the international community as a whole, were regarded as a sufficient basis.

THE PERSISTANCE OF THE DECENTRALISED SOCIETY

This being said, non-injured international organisations should not be allowed to resort to countermeasures in the event that an erga omnes obligation is infringed, unless the breach is ‘grave’. This is required by the Resolution of the Institut with respect to countermeasures by non-injured states. In the light of the aforementioned practice, where undisputedly the breaches were ‘grave’, it seems that this also applies to countermeasures by non-injured international organisations. Basically, there is no reason why (non-injured) international organisations might take countermeasures dedicated to the safeguarding of common interests under conditions less stringent than those binding upon (non-injured) states.32 30 See the intervention before the Sixth Committee of the delegates of Argentina (A/C6/62/SR18, para 64), Denmark, on behalf of the Nordic countries (ibid, para 100), Italy (A/C6/62/SR19, para 40), Japan (ibid, para 100), the Netherlands (A/C6/62/SR20, para 39), the Russian Federation (A/C6/62/SR21, para 70) and Switzerland (ibid, para 85). Not all these interventions however relate specifically to the adoption of countermeasures. 31 See the observations made by the OPCW and the EU Commission, UNGA ‘Responsibility of International Organizations—Comments and Observations Received from International Organizations’ (31 March 2008) UN Doc A/CN 4/593. Only the latter’s observations relate specifically to the adoption of countermeasures. 32 See generally Dopagne (n 7).

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Admittedly, some authors have pinpointed alleged peculiarities of the decisionmaking process and functioning of international organisations (objectivity, coordination, centralisation, etc), which, they posit, water down the justice privée nature of countermeasures by international organisations, and accordingly provide these countermeasures with an enhanced legitimacy.33 Against this backdrop, international organisations would be in a better position than states to react to breaches affecting the interests of the international community as a whole. It is however submitted that, notwithstanding the way they are portrayed in the mainstream literature, international organisations should not be cast too quickly as the embodiment of some kind of institutional order doomed to ultimately replace the traditional inter-subjective society.34 Quite to the contrary, the proven existence of countermeasures taken by international organisations tends arguably to highlight the persistence of the decentralised pattern in contemporary international law, in the very heart of the activity of these entities. Moreover, this is probably the most interesting conclusion that can be drawn from a study on the topic of countermeasures taken by international organisations. In the light of the mainstream conception of international organisations, usually referred to as an instrument of centralisation and sophistication of the international legal order, one might have expected a strong ‘allergy’ of international organisations to countermeasures, since countermeasures constitute by their very nature a salient feature of the traditional ‘anarchical’ society. Nevertheless, a careful survey of contemporary practice shows that, basically, international organisations are open to countermeasures, on the same footing as states. In this respect, countermeasures against members are particularly striking, as normally international organisations have statutory sanctions at their disposal in order to deal with breaches within their internal legal system. Not even in the vertical relationship with their member states do international organisations qualify as genuine ‘institutions’ truly estranged from the decentralised international society. Definitely, there are good times ahead for the latter.

33 See É Cujo, ‘Les réactions décentralisées à l’illicite de l’Union européenne’ (Thesis, Paris X, 2002) 635–37. 34 For the view that the international legal order is in a process of ‘constitutionalization’, see generally C Walter, ‘International Law in a Process of Constitutionalization’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 191–215 ; E de Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (2006) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 51; A Peters, ‘Compensatory Constitutionalism: The Function of Potential of Fundamental International Norms and Structure’ (2006) Leiden Journal of International Law 579; C Tomuschat ‘International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century. General Course on Public International Law’ (1999) 281 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 13.

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Books D Alland, Justice privée et ordre juridique international. Étude théorique des contre-mesures en droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 1994). L Boisson de Chazournes, Les contre-mesures dans les relations économiques internationales (Paris, Pédone, 1992). É Cujo, ‘Les réactions décentralisées à l’illicite de l’Union européenne’ (Thesis, Paris X, 2002). F Dopagne, Les contre-mesures des organisations internationales (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, Brussels, Anthémis, 2010), forthcoming B Dzida, Zum Recht der Repressalie im heutigen Völkerrecht (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 1997). OY Elagab, The Legality of Non-Forcible Counter-Measures in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988). C Focarelli, Le contromisure nel diritto internazionale (Milan, Giuffrè, 1994). P Klein, La responsabilité des organisations internationales dans les ordres juridiques internes et en droit des gens (Brussels, Bruylant, 1998). L-A Sicilianos, Les réactions décentralisées à l’illicite. Des contre-mesures à la légitime défense (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1990). CJ Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005). E Zoller, Peacetime Unilateral Remedies: An Analysis of Countermeasures (Dobbs Ferry, NY, Transnational Publishers, 1984).

Chapters in Edited Volumes C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique dans le système du droit des gens’ in J Makarczyk (ed), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century. Essays in Honour of Krzysztof Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1996). C Dominicé, ‘À la recherche des droits erga omnes’ in N Angelet et al (eds), Droit du pouvoir, pouvoir du droit. Mélanges offerts à Jean Salmon (Brussels, Bruylant, 2007). M Garcia-Rubio, ‘Unilateral Measures as a Means of Forcible Execution of WTO Recommendations and Decisions’ in L Picchio Forlati and L-A Sicilianos (eds), Les sanctions économiques en droit international/Economic Sanctions in International Law (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2004). C Hillgruber, ‘The Right of Third States to Take Countermeasures’ in C Tomuschat and J-M Thouvenin (eds), The Fundamental Rules of the International Legal Order : Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2006).

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E Paasivirta, and A Rosas, ‘Sanctions, Countermeasures and Related Actions in the External Relations of the EU: A Search for Legal Frameworks’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The European Union as an Actor in International Relations (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2002). C Walter, ‘International Law in a Process of Constitutionalization’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007).

International Documents Institut de droit International (2005) Obligations and rights erga omnes in international law, www.idi-iil.org/idiE/resolutionsE/2005_kra_01_en.pdf. International Law Commission (2001) Articles on responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts, Annex to UNGA Res 56/83 – UN Doc A/RES/ 56/83 (United Nations).

Journal Articles M Dawidowicz, ‘Public Law Enforcement Without Public Law Safeguards? An Analysis of State Practice on Third-Party Countermeasures and their Relationship to the UN Security Council’ (2006) British Year Book of International Law 333–418. E de Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (2006) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 51–76. A Peters, ‘Compensatory Constitutionalism: The Function of Potential of Fundamental International Norms and Structure’ (2006) Leiden Journal of International Law 579–610. B Simma, and D Pulkowski, ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self-contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) European Journal of International Law 483–529. C Tomuschat, ‘International Law: Ensuring the Survival of Mankind on the Eve of a New Century. General Course on Public International Law’ (1999) 281 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 13–438.

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Meeting the Challenges of Global Governance Administrative and Constitutional Approaches EUAN MACDONALD * AND ERAN SHAMIR-BORER **

INTRODUCTION

T

HIS PAPER CONTRASTS, very briefly, two approaches to global regulatory governance—those of global administrative law and global constitutionalism—and makes the claim that the former is better suited to meeting the challenges raised by the shift of regulatory power and authority from the state to extra-state norms and processes. While both approaches share the goal of subjecting public power exercised outwith the state to public control, we argue here that global administrative law is better calibrated to confront the conditions of radical institutional, structural and normative plurality and fragmentation that currently characterise global regulatory governance. We evaluate global administrative law and global constitutionalism from the perspective of three fundamental challenges presented by the currently prevailing conditions of global governance. The first is the institutional diversity that characterises this field. While previously regulation was reserved to national regulatory bureaucracies, it is increasingly carried out today at the global level, through a myriad of institutional forms and actors, ranging from national regulatory bureaucracies, through networks of national regulators and inter-governmental organisations, to hybrid public-private and even purely private bodies. A second challenge is that of the radical fragmentation of global governance, characterised by a heterarchical multiplicity of sites in which regulatory (ie public) power is exercised. Lastly, in the absence of broad global agreement over values and moral norms, the value diversity of global governance presents a third challenge. With respect to each of these challenges we argue that global administrative law ultimately provides a better framework— functionally, conceptually, and normatively—than that offered by global constitutionalism in any of its varied forms.

* Lecturer, Univeresity of Sydney. E-mail: [email protected] ** Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD), New York University School of Law. E-mail: [email protected]. The authors would like to thank Eyal Benvenisti, Benedict Kingsbury, Nico Krisch and Richard Stewart for helpful comments and criticisms on the larger paper of which this paper is a summary, and the participants in the Third Biennial Conference of the European Society of International Law and the Hauser Globalization Colloquium at NYU School of Law at which this paper was presented.

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From a global administrative law perspective, much global governance appears as ‘administrative action’, a significant—and increasing—amount of which is organised and shaped by principles, mechanisms and practices of an administrative law character. Put simply, in viewing the institutions of global regulatory governance as public administrative actors, global administrative law puts the focus immediately on the ‘second order’ rules and principles that constrain and guide their activities, in particular by ensuring that they meet adequate standards of transparency, participation, rationality, accountability and legality, and by providing effective review of the rules and decisions that they make.1 Global administrative law is thus concerned with the governance of global governance. Far more challenging, indeed scarcely possible, is to define clearly the contours of a ‘global constitutionalist project’, given the diversity of global constitutionalist literature and the terminological ambiguity that more often than not characterise it.2 The terms ‘constitutionalism’ and ‘constitutionalisation’ are often used both descriptively, for instance to analyse the structural changes in inter-governmental organisations, and normatively, as a strategy to enhance the legitimacy of international law and inter-governmental organisations; and their scope of application has ranged from the entire global domain to specific types of international institutions, primarily inter-governmental organisations or regimes (mainly the UN, WTO and EU). We do not, however, seek to discuss in detail the entire body of global constitutionalist literature here; rather, we focus primarily on that strand of global constitutionalism that is truly ‘global’ in scope, advocating a single constitutional framework for the exercise of public power within the entire global community. This community, whose membership varies according to different scholars but includes primarily states, inter-governmental organisations and to a certain extent private individuals, is characterised by a relatively high level of consensus on basic normative, political and economic issues. Effective mechanisms to enforce these shared values are critical. Broadly speaking, among the prominent scholars who understand global constitutionalism in this way we can include Bardo Fassbender,3 Erika de Wet,4 and Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann.5

1 B Kingsbury, N Krisch and RB Stewart, ‘The Emergence of Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 15, 17. 2 On the diverse use and ambiguity of the terms ‘constitutionalisation’ and ‘constitution’ in the international context, see, eg, DZ Cass, ‘The “Constitutionalization” of International Trade Law: Judicial Norm–Generation as the Engine of Constitutional Development in International Trade’ (2001) 12 European Journal of International Law 39, 40–41, 47–49; T Cottier and M Hertig, ‘The Prospects of 21st Century Constitutionalism’ (2003) 7 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 261, 271–82; B Fassbender, ‘The Meaning of International Constitutional Law’ in N Tsagourias (ed), Transnational Constitutionalism: International and European Models (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 307, 309, 311. 3 See, eg, Fassbender, ibid; B Fassbender, ‘The United Nations Charter As Constitution of The International Community’ (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 529. 4 See, eg, E de Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 51; E de Wet, ‘The Emergence of International and Regional Value Systems as a Manifestation of the Emerging International Constitutional Order’ (2006) 19 Leiden Journal of International Law 611. 5 See, eg, EU Petersmann, ‘How to Reform the UN System? Constitutionalism, International Law, and International Organizations’ (1997) 10 Leiden Journal of International Law 421.

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There are good reasons to compare—and contrast—global constitutionalism and global administrative law. Both approaches have developed against the background of increasing globalised interdependence, and the subsequent shift of previously governmental functions to the global level. They share the concern over the resulting erosion in the effectiveness of domestic public law control mechanisms, and purport to offer both a general framework of analysis for responding to the challenges posed by the increasing exercise of public power in the global setting, and a set of conceptual and practical tools for doing so. The goal of correcting the legitimacy deficit from which global regulatory governance suffers is a recurring theme in both approaches; and both rely upon discourses and institutions of public law developed at the national level and seek to translate them into the global setting. It is therefore perhaps no wonder that these approaches have been regarded as interrelated, even as engaged in the same basic enterprise, which has led some to assume that they will progress by the same means to the same ultimate ends. Moreover, it has been assumed by some that global administrative law will ultimately develop towards a unified and coherent system, as part of the more general project of global constitutionalism in which administrative law elements are a necessary complement. As this paper seeks to show, however, the relations between the two approaches are decidedly more complex than such accounts seem to suggest. These similarities aside, there are also a number of important structural, conceptual and rhetorical differences between global administrative law and global constitutionalism that require us to distinguish between the two, and, as we argue in this paper, render the former better suited to meeting the challenges of contemporary global regulatory governance. We discuss these differences in the following sections. The second section makes the claim that global administrative law enjoys functional superiority over global constitutionalism, as it takes better account of the entire range of forms, actors and practices that together constitute global regulatory governance. Next we argue that the constitutional and administrative approaches radically depart, both conceptually (third section) and normatively (fourth section), in their perception of—and vision for—global governance. While global constitutionalists espouse the ideals of unity, hierarchy and coherence, the framework of global administrative law acknowledges the structural and normative pluralism of global governance. Rather than the single international community recognised (or envisioned) by global constitutionalism, a global administrative legal framework acknowledges—and accommodates—the multiplicity of heterarchically structured sites in which public power is exercised, and provides tools for enabling the relatively stable interaction between them and with national and regional administrative bodies, without seeking to synthesise them within an overarching constitutional framework. In this sense, together with its emphasis on formal and procedural rather than substantive norms, global administrative law pays greater respect to the legitimate—and radical—value diversity that currently characterises the global realm. The concluding section briefly highlights some of the limitations and dangers of a global administrative law perspective.

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INSTITUTIONAL DIVERSITY IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The Institutional Topology of Contemporary Global Governance Any attempt to formulate a general framework capable of regulating global governance must take account of the full range of institutional forms and actors through which public functions are exercised at the global level. More specifically, such a framework must take into consideration three elements that characterise contemporary global governance. The first is the (increasing) institutional diversity evident amongst global regulatory bodies themselves. In general terms, and drawing on the typology outlined by Kingsbury, Krisch and Stewart in their article that framed and launched the global administrative law project,6 we can identify four main types of global regulatory bodies through which public power is exercised at the global level. Firstly, there is administration by formal inter-governmental organisations. Examples include the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its work in carrying out refugee status determinations7 and the World Bank setting ‘good governance’ standards for specific developing countries as a condition for financial aid. Secondly, we can identify administration based on collective action by transnational networks of cooperative arrangements between national regulatory officials. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which operates as a vehicle for policy coordination and standard-setting outwith any formal treaty structure, provides an example in point,8 as do the networks of regulators brought together under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).9 Thirdly, a number of important administrative functions are today carried out by hybrid intergovernmental–private arrangements, such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN),10 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)11 and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).12 Lastly, there are also a wide range of formally private bodies that perform public governance functions, such as the International Olympic Committee (IOC),13 and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).14 6

Kingsbury, Krisch and Stewart, ‘The Emergence of Global Administrative Law’ (n 1). See, eg, M Pallis, ‘The Operation of the UNHCR’s Accountability Mechanisms’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 869. 8 See, eg, M Barr and G Miller, ‘Global Administrative Law: The View from Basel’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 15, 25. 9 See, eg, J Salzman, ‘Decentralized Administrative Law in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 189. 10 See, eg, B Carotti and L Casini, ‘A Hybrid Public–Private Regime: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Governance of the Internet’ in S Cassese et al (eds), Global Administrative Law: Cases, Materials, Issues (Rome, Institute for Research on Public Administration, 2008) 29 www.iilj.org/GAL/documents/GALCasebook2008.pdf. 11 See, eg, E Shamir-Borer, ‘The Evolution of Administrative Law-Type Principles, Mechanisms and Practices in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)’ (paper presented at the Viterbo II Global Administrative Law Conference, June 2006) www.iilj.org/GAL/ViterboII.asp. 12 See, eg, L Casini, ‘Hybrid Public–Private Bodies within Global Private Regimes: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’ in S Cassese et al, Global Administrative Law (n 10), at 37. 13 See, eg, ibid, 37–39. 14 See, eg, E Meidinger, ‘The Administrative Law of Global Private–Public Regulation: the Case of Forestry’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 47. 7

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A second, related, element is the use of traditional bodies for novel purposes. Certainly, this is in evidence in the extended scope offered to inter-governmental organisations—an often-discussed example is the use of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions upon specific individuals, rather than entire states.15 It is at its clearest, however, when we consider the new role that domestic state agencies play in administering global regimes.16 The best example of this is given by the international trade regime, which is overseen by the WTO but which requires—as many global regimes do—the use of state administrative actors as intermediaries for its effective implementation. It is worth stressing here that there exist almost no developed global governance regimes that do not implicate—at some stage at least—the traditional administrative agencies of nation-states. Lastly, any attempt to furnish a general framework for comprehending and regulating global governance must also be able to account for the complex and myriad interactions between the diverse forms and novel activities outlined above. On occasion, these appear to be fairly straightforwardly hierarchical: there are by now innumerable examples of national administrative actors that are bound to follow rules established by global regulatory regimes, and whose activity is then reviewed for compliance by the oversight bodies of those regimes (a central example here is, of course, the WTO; others can be found, for instance, in areas as diverse as the UNESCO World Heritage Convention17 and the Aarhus Convention on decision-making in environmental matters, and their respective compliance committees). However, instances of less clearly vertical interactions than this abound: take, for example, the reference in the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) to the standards generated by external bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission or the International Office of Epizootics, and their role in establishing a presumption of WTO-compatibility in the adoption of trade-restrictive measures; not to mention the myriad other cases in which the norms of one institution or regime have an impact or influence that is not formally constituted upon the activities of another. Here, we want to argue that, because the concept of global administrative law better confronts the three elements outlined above—the diversity and novelty of, and interactions between, institutional forms and activities—it provides a general framework that is, functionally speaking, relatively well calibrated to achieving the goal of subjecting public power exercised outside the state to public control.

15

See below for further discussion. This is, in essence, the category referred to by Kingsbury, Krisch and Stewart (n 1) as ‘distributed administration’, at 21–22. 17 For detailed case-studies of the WTO controversy surrounding genetically modified organisms involving the EU and the US, and of the Baikal and Cologne Cathedral affairs before the World Heritage Committee, see generally S Battini, Amministrazioni nazionali e controversie globali (Milan, Giuffrè, 2007). 16

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Global Governance as Administration A central insight of the global administrative law approach is that much of global governance can be understood and analysed as administrative action: rule-making that is not strictly legislative in nature, administrative adjudication that is not strictly judicial, and other forms of regulatory and administrative decision and management.18 It is suggested that these regulatory and adjudicative processes are now both widespread and dense enough to conclude that the basic object of a global administrative law—global administration, however fragmented and variegated—is already largely in existence: Trade, finance, the environment, fishing, exploitation of marine resources, air and maritime navigation, agriculture, food, postal services, telecommunications, intellectual property, the use of space, nuclear energy, and energy sources are all subject to global regulation. But global regulation involves many other sectors as well, such as the production of sugar, pepper, tea, and olive oil. It can be said that there is no realm of human activity wholly untouched by ultra-state or global rules.19

Admittedly, the task of identifying administrative action at the global level is not without its conceptual difficulties. In the domestic setting, administrative action is often defined by the organisational identity of the actor (an administrative agency or another arm of the executive branch), or in the negative, as public acts that are neither legislative nor judicial in character. The idea of separation of powers at the global level is, of course, at best only loosely applicable. This notwithstanding, however, it can clearly be argued that, in addition to traditional international law-making (by states, and legitimated by their status as representatives of sovereign peoples) and judicial decision-making (by judges, arguably legitimated by their independence and adherence to the norms of judicial reasoning and propriety), there is now a third—and hugely important—category for the exercise of public power at the global level; a category that cannot plausibly draw on the same putative sources of legitimacy as the other two. As in the domestic sphere, then, global ‘administrative’ action (whether decision-making, rule-making or adjudicatory) can be identified as the residual category for those sites of public power that are neither legislative nor judicial in nature.20 However, even if accepted, this negative definition—public, but not legislative or judicial—only carries out half of the task; particularly for a framework that seeks to encompass certain private actors, a robust definition of ‘administrative’ would require also drawing a line between what is properly viewed as public action, even when carried out by private actors, and what remains within the private sphere (eg,

18

Kingsbury, Krisch and Stewart, (n 1) at 17. S Cassese, ‘Administrative Law Without the State? The Challenge of Global Regulation’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 663, 671. 20 For instance, the determination of applicable standards for refugee status determination proceedings by the UNHCR can be distinguished from functions of legislative nature in the form of inter-state negotiations over amendments to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol; just as the actual conduct of such proceedings by the same organisation can be distinguished from the dispute settlement functions carried out, for example, by the International Court of Justice. 19

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how should the generation of private standards for eco-labelling, which have no government endorsement but still generate important trade-distorting effects, be conceptualised?).21 These definitional problems are important, and will have to be confronted sooner rather than later; nonetheless, they are beyond the scope of this paper, and the existence of these ‘hard cases’ should not blind us to the fact that much of global governance would be entirely uncontroversially regarded as administrative in nature were it to appear within a purely national context. The existence of hard cases at the periphery need not distract us here from the existence of a relatively unproblematic core.

The Institutional Inclusiveness of Global Administrative Law Having acknowledged that significant portions of global governance can be accurately understood as administration, it can be further observed that such global administration is often organised and shaped by principles of an administrative law character. The shift of public power to the various global administrative bodies has given rise to concerns as to their legitimacy, accountability, and responsiveness to different societal and private interests. These concerns are often framed in administrative law terms, and are thus often countered through the application of administrative law-type mechanisms, such as increased requirements of transparency, consultation, and participation; a requirement to furnish reasoned decisions; and the establishment of review mechanisms, either administrative or judicial in nature.22 To adopt a global administrative law perspective is to affirm that the pattern that is emerging, although still embryonic and not (as yet) coherent, should be understood as part of a common, growing trend towards the use of administrative law-type mechanisms for ensuring that global regulatory governance is responsive to the interests upon which it impacts, and holding it to account in that regard.23 The capacity of global administrative law to apply to such a broad range of regulatory forms and actors—whether public or private, formal or informal, rooted at the domestic, international, or transnational levels—is exactly where its functional virtue lies. The emergence and increasing importance of administrative law mechanisms and procedures can be empirically verified—to varying degrees in different contexts, admittedly—in relation to all four types of global administrative bodies outlined above. It is neither surprising nor particularly controversial to affirm that such is the case within traditional inter-governmental organisations: a

21 See, eg, SR Gandhi, ‘Voluntary Environmental Standards: The Interplay Between Private Initiatives, Trade Rules And The Global Decision-Making Processes’ (paper presented at the Viterbo III Global Administrative Law Conference, June 2007) www.iilj.org/GAL/documents/Ghandienvironment.pdf. 22 B Kingsbury, N Krisch, RB Stewart and JB Wiener, ‘Foreword: Global Governance as Administration—National and Transnational Approaches to Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 1, 2. 23 B Kingsbury and N Krisch, ‘Introduction: Global Governance and Global Administrative Law in the International Legal Order’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 1, 1–2.

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large number of these have, for example, reasonably long traditions of administrative tribunals ensuring review of internal staff disputes;24 and more recent innovations, such as the World Bank Inspection Panel,25 take this a stage further. Even within the informal setting of transnational networks, however, such mechanisms are beginning to emerge: the Basel Committee, for example, instituted a rudimentary ‘notice and comment’ procedure in the process of formulating its recent Basel II Accord;26 and even within the OECD networks, a range of different administrative law models have been employed.27 Lastly, some hybrid and private bodies already display highly developed use of administrative law principles and procedures: the WADA Anti-Doping Code, for example, contains detailed provisions ensuring that athletes suspected of drug use have the opportunity to be heard and to contest any decision taken against them, and to have such decisions reviewed by an independent body;28 whilst ISO’s own Code of Ethics proclaims explicitly that ISO Members are committed to ‘ensuring fair and responsive application of the principles of due process, transparency, openness, impartiality and voluntary nature of standardisation’.29 While important questions can undoubtedly be raised as to the specifically legal nature of particularly the last of these examples, what it does serve to demonstrate well is the in-principle applicability of this type of framework to that type of institution. Moreover, a global administrative law framework provides us with the necessary conceptual tools to grasp the novelty of many of the activities in which traditional administrative actors are now implicated. Conceiving global governance as a novel form of public administration enables us to account, at least descriptively, for the new role accorded to state agencies in administering global regimes and to global bodies in taking decisions that directly affect individuals, in ways that the traditional conceptual categories of international law seem ill-equipped to emulate. In this regard then, global administrative law is first and foremost pragmatic, acknowledging and confronting the currently prevailing realities of globalisation. It recognises the structural nature of global governance ‘as is’, and seeks to work from within. In doing so, however, it also accommodates the flexibility necessary in global governance if we are to capture the regulatory gains that have accompanied the rise of new institutional forms and techniques. The use of informal means of regulatory coordination (such as the Basel Committee) or formal but non-legally binding institutions (such as the Financial Action Task Force, which sanctions violations by specific countries of its anti money-laundering policies) is often presented as the source of the success of these forms of global administration in

24 A Reinisch, ‘The Immunity of International Organizations and the Jurisdiction of Their Administrative Tribunals’ (Institute for International Law and Justice/New York University School of Law, International Law and Justice Working Paper—Global Administrative Law Series no 11, 2007) www.iilj.org/publications/2007–11Reinisch.asp. 25 See, eg, M Circi, ‘The World Bank Inspection Panel: The Indian Mumbai Urban Transport Project Case’ in S Cassese et al (n 10) at 129. 26 See Barr and Miller, ‘Global Administrative Law’ (n 8). 27 See Salzman, ‘Decentralized Administrative Law in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’ (n 9). 28 See Casini, ‘Hybrid Public–Private Bodies within Global Private Regimes’ (n 12). 29 ISO Code of Ethics (2004) www.iso.org/iso/codeethics_2004.pdf.

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terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The same is true for global administration through hybrid public-private or purely private bodies (such as the FSC, a private body that relies on the market for the effectiveness of its standards for sustainable forest use). Whether or not such claims are, in fact, true must of course be established in each individual case. The framework provided by global administrative law is relatively well calibrated to respect this structural diversity without significantly compromising its effectiveness.30 Global administrative law thus has a modular quality: it provides a toolkit that allows us to pick and choose the mechanisms that best suit the particular regulatory structure in question. In addition to its pragmatism and flexibility, global administrative law is capable of encompassing those sites of administrative action that are largely beyond the reach of national administrative law. The advisory warnings issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), which can have grave economic consequences for states involved, are a case in point. Domestic administrative law is simply incapable of guaranteeing that all those potentially affected by such warnings are provided a fair opportunity to be heard, and national courts have no jurisdiction in terms of which they could find the WHO negligent and order compensation.31 Global administrative law can also be important in cases in which domestic administrative law is insufficient or could have distorting effects because it addresses only segmented parts of the whole administrative process.32 The litigation in domestic courts and before the European Court of Justice of decisions of the UN Security Council to freeze assets of individual suspects illustrates this point.33

The Institutional Bias of Global Constitutionalism In contrast to the elements of global administrative law outlined above, global constitutionalist discourse—even when explicitly decoupled from its traditional association with the nation-state and applied to the field of global governance— tends to focus on a relatively limited range of public actors (largely, if not exclusively, those structured around basic statal forms) and overlooks, or at least 30 This assertion regarding the structural flexibility of global administrative law should, however, be qualified in at least two respects. Firstly, it may be that its effectiveness in subjecting public power to public control will vary between different types of global administrative practices. Administrative law as we know it from the domestic context seems to function more effectively in formal institutional environments; and the adoption of a global administrative law framework does carry some risks of exerting pressures on, or creating incentives within, the institutions of global governance towards greater formalisation. Secondly, we do not ignore the fact that, on occasion, the move to non-traditional forms of regulation is motivated precisely by the desire of the participants involved to evade public control, to ‘pass below the radar screens of international [and domestic] law’. E Benvenisti, ‘“Coalitions of the Willing” and the Evolution of Informal International Law’ in C Calliess, G Nolte and PT Stoll (eds), Coalitions of the Willing: Avantgarde or Threat? (Cologne, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2007) 1. Informality and ‘soft’ mechanisms should not always be celebrated; and the application of elements of global administrative law can, in principle at least, also assist in countering this phenomenon when appropriate. 31 B Kingsbury, ‘Omnilateralism and Partial International Communities: Contributions of the Emerging Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 104 Journal of International Law and Diplomacy 98, 105. 32 Ibid, 106. 33 Ibid,106–107.

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downplays, the reality that significant portions of global regulatory governance are carried out through non-traditional institutional forms. What represents only one form of relevant administration from a global administrative law perspective—that carried out by inter-governmental organisations—seems to largely exhaust the landscape of global governance for global constitutionalists. Bearing in mind that both global constitutionalism and global administrative law share the basic goal of subjecting public power to public control, the former appears to neglect many of the important sites in which public power is exercised. The sites offered as putatively concerning ‘constitutionalisation’ are almost exclusively intergovernmental organisations (primarily the UN, the EU and the WTO).34 To the extent that the notion of international or global community has been developed, the evidence adduced in favour of such a claim remains thoroughly statist in nature, focusing on recent developments in, or proposed changes to, the structures of inter-state relations and/or major inter-state institutions.35 The common emphasis on the UN and its Charter as the cornerstones of the international constitutional order,36 or at least as the main connecting factor of the international community,37 also illustrates the central place that state and inter-governmental structures occupy within global constitutionalist framework. Moreover, it is not only that current global constitutionalist discourse does not take account of the entire range of global administration, but also that what global constitutionalists most often conceptualise as evidence for or elements of constitutionalisation simply could not be found in many important sites of global governance as currently instituted. There is, of course, no single list of indicators of constitutionalism or constitutionalisation. The number of such lists found in the literature is (at least) equal to the number of authors writing in the field. But it could be plausibly argued that the various indicators used by global constitutionalists are largely irrelevant to many, if not most, global administrative bodies. As a result, this approach falls short of the capacity—even at an abstract level—to subject many of the forms of global administration to public control. De Wet, for

34 This is, indeed, readily evident when we consider the ‘post-national’ variant of global constitutionalist discourse (referring only to the constitutionalisation of particular organisations or regimes, and not of global governance in its entirety), which focuses very heavily on European arrangements and the WTO. Amongst a great many possibilities, see, eg, N Walker, ‘The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism’ (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 317, 334; N Walker, ‘The EU and the WTO: Constitutionalism in a New Key’ in G de Búrca and J Scott (eds), The EU and the WTO: Legal and Constitutional Issues (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2001) 31; JH Jackson, The World Trade Organization: Constitution and Jurisprudence (London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998); and Cass, ‘The “Constitutionalization” of International Trade Law’ (n 2). For a critical recent look from the WTO perspective, see J Dunoff, ‘Constitutional Conceits: The WTO’s “Constitution” and the Discipline of International Law’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 647. 35 See, eg, de Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (n 4) at 55. Fassbender seems to espouse a broader membership of the international community, as encompassing ‘all subjects of international law’, but admits that the UN Charter, which he holds as the constitution of that community, appears incomplete, as no community members but sovereign states are considered. Fassbender, ‘The UN Charter as Constitution’ (n 3) at 532, 562–64, 577. 36 See Fassbender, ibid; Petersmann, ‘How to Reform the UN’ (n 5); PM Dupuy, ‘The Constitutional Dimension of the Charter of the United Nations Revisited’ (1997) 1 Max Plack Yearbook of United Nations Law 1. 37 De Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (n 4) at 54, 56.

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instance, conceives of the global constitutional order as standing on the three pillars of an international community, an international value system, and structures for its enforcement (referring primarily to structures that fulfil and protect the ‘international value system’, such as the UN organs, international tribunals, states, and national and regional tribunals).38 Fassbender identifies a set of features of an ‘ideal constitution’ that appear to have been selected on the basis of their conformity to the characteristics of the UN Charter, rather than the other way around (which include such criteria as a ‘constitutional moment’; an ‘aspiration to eternity’; the drafting of ‘a Charter’ and the existence of a ‘constitutional history’; and the establishment of a hierarchy of norms).39 For Petersmann, on the other hand, basic constitutional principles include such principles as the rule of law and primacy of constitutional rules, separation of powers and ‘checks and balances’, human rights and market freedoms, necessity and proportionality of governmental restrains, democratic participation in the exercise of public power, and social or redistributive justice.40 To put the point even more generally, it seems difficult to overstate the importance of the development of effective and compulsory dispute settlement mechanisms to the emergence of a plausible postnational constitutional discourse. It is extremely doubtful whether these notions would have gained the academic currency that they have today without the advent of the ECJ and the ECHR in Europe, or the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding; neither the European Coal and Steel Community nor the pre-1994 GATT were characterised as ‘constitutional’ regimes. Only if sites of global governance were to re-organise around specific institutional characteristics—powerful review courts, clearly defined legislative capacities, hierarchies of norms and separation of institutional powers— might they manifest signs of emerging constitutionalisation. Yet, this might be at the expense of losing their idiosyncratic form and associated virtues. It is questionable whether, for example, an informal network of public regulators, or a hybrid governance partnership such as that of the Global Fund, could develop such mechanisms whilst retaining the comparative advantage that its original structure bestowed. Therefore, even if a global constitutionalist approach is adopted, the institutional bias of the discourse means that something more, something at the very least complementary, is required if global constitutionalism is to confront the general task of subjecting public power to public control in the currently prevailing conditions of global governance. Regardless of the progress made by constitutional approaches to the challenges of global governance in the years and decades to come—and barring a radical rewrite of the concept itself—something like a global administrative law, capable of encompassing the institutional forms to which constitutional discourse is effectively blind, must figure as a necessary complement to the constitutionalist project, in a manner largely analogous to the way in which administrative law complements its constitutional counterpart domestically.

38 39 40

Ibid, 64–71. Fassbender, ‘The UN Charter as Constitution’ (n 3) 573 et seq. Petersmann, ‘How to Reform the UN’ (n 5) 425–37.

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FRAGMENTATION, UNITY AND PLURALISM IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Fragmentation and Unity in Global Constitutionalist Discourse Global governance—or what we are contending here is best viewed as global administration—is currently characterised by conditions of profound fragmentation, both functionally (manifested in a plethora of different sectoral regimes), institutionally (manifested in a wide range of different bodies now exercising recognisably public governance functions in the global sphere), and across different levels of governance (from genuinely global, through inter-, trans- and supranational, regional and finally domestic and even local spheres). A central element of the notion of ‘constitution’, however, appears to be its need for unity, with ‘constitutionalisation’ almost always representing a tendency, or a drive, towards such unity. As Fassbender openly affirms, [t]hose who oppose the relevance of constitutionalism to international law correctly note that the concept is meant to describe or promote a legal integration of states which is more intense than the traditional one … The idea of a constitution is summoned as a symbol of (political) unity which eventually will be realised on a global scale.41

Global constitutionalist discourse thus postulates a dichotomy between fragmentation, on one hand, and (constitutional) unity on the other. This putative dichotomy is presented as essentially exhausting the possibilities of debate, and then used to inscribe the audience within a particular progress narrative, in terms of which any evidence of a move away from fragmentation is ipso facto a move towards constitutionalism. Within such a framework, when the abandonment of fragmented modes of governance can be presented as a part of a general trend, then the suggestion that a constitutional unity is emerging can begin to appear both plausible and, indeed, almost inevitable (not to mention desirable—an issue that will be dealt with in the next section). This style of argumentation is bolstered by one of what might be termed the ‘constitutive ambiguities’ of the term ‘constitution’ itself: the fact that it can be—indeed, often is—used to refer to both a thing (existing in space) and a process (developing over time). When combined with a rhetoric of ‘emergence’, it allows the idea of a ‘global constitution’ to function, as it does, as at once premise and telos in the work of each of its proponents. This, in turn, has at least two main consequences. Firstly, it enables those writing in the field to set a relatively low standard of proof in identifying whether or not it already exists. In this regard, those many aspects of current global governance that do not support their thesis, where they are addressed at all, can be dismissed as merely evidence of the ‘rudimentary’ or ‘embryonic’ nature of the global constitution; they are usually not confronted as possible proof that such, be it thing or process, does not exist.42 Secondly, not only can potential counter-elements be ignored, they can actually be criticised in the light of their non-conformity with the 41

Fassbender, ‘The UN Charter as Constitution’, (n 3) 552. See Fassbender, ibid, for perhaps the most pronounced example of this form of argumentation at work. 42

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idea of the global constitution qua telos, as obstacles that must be overcome if we are to move away from the (clearly undesirable) conditions of radical fragmentation. Aspects of global governance that could easily have been considered as empirical evidence against global constitutionalism are presented as normatively or logically flawed because of it.43 Towards a Genuinely Pluralist Approach to Global Governance? We suggest, however, that the original framing dichotomy postulated by global constitutionalists is false, and the progress narrative that it encourages misleading. Instead, adopting a global administrative law perspective opens up new possibilities for conceiving of the whole of global governance in a manner that escapes the poles of fragmentation and unity. It allows us to imagine, and indeed bring about, a genuine and sustainable pluralism at the level of global regulatory governance, characterised by relative stability of legal norms and relations, founded both on a willingness to pursue pragmatic accommodation between overlapping sites of public power and on the general application of certain formal (and largely procedural) legal principles.44 If the pluralism of global administration is to be distinguished from fragmentation on the basis of its capacity to maintain relatively stable relations between competing sites of public power, then global administrative law can play a key, indeed crucial, role in fostering the conditions under which this is likely to occur. It is in this sense, indeed, that—referring back to the tripartite institutional topology outlined at the outset—global administrative law demonstrates most clearly its capacity to account not merely for the diverse institutional forms and novel administrative activities in contemporary global governance, but also for the manner in which these interact with each other. In particular, if there can be established a relative homogeneity of administrative law principles in each of these sites, then the processes of inter-site cooperation and accommodation will be facilitated and thus progressively stabilised, as actors in one regime become increasingly prepared to recognise the decisions of another where they acknowledge that proper procedures have been followed, and all relevant interests taken into consideration. These principles and rules of the emerging global administrative law may be complemented—where appropriate—by constitutionalist frameworks for analysis, either in the ‘thick’ sense of political community (such as states, and 43 This technique is, again, undoubtedly most clear in Fassbender’s work. For example, he considers the judgment of the ICJ in the Nicaragua case to be simply wrong, on the basis that, if the UN Charter is properly viewed as the constitution of the international community, there cannot be a body of law (‘customary constitutional international law’) that runs parallel to the Charter, deals with the same issues, but is not exhausted by it. Fassbender goes so far as to simply assert that ‘there is no parallel existence of customary constitutional rules and Charter rules’, and that the ICJ was only able to decide to the contrary because it ‘[overlooked] the special case of constitutional rules expressly or implicitly codified in the Charter’. Ibid, 586–88. 44 For a reading of the European human rights regime in precisely these terms, see N Krisch, ‘The Open Architecture of European Human Rights Law’ (2008) 71 Modern Law Review 183; see also N Krisch, The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 247.

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perhaps the EU), and in the ‘thinner’ sense justifiable in relation to certain ‘partial’ communities that display the key indices of ‘post-national constitutionalism’ (such as the WTO).45 The most striking illustration of the ways in which global administrative law can foster and sustain relative stability of global governance is, we think, to be found in what Stewart has defined as ‘bottom-up’ approaches to global administrative law;46 particularly as expressed in the increasingly prevalent adoption by national and regional courts of variations of what might be termed the ‘Solange stance’.47 In essence, this stance is adopted wherever a court is prepared to either accept the decisions or apply the rules of a global administrative body (or recognise as legitimate a domestic decision implementing these) only where and to the extent that the body in question provides certain administrative law protections (typically things like participation rights, reason-giving and transparency obligations, and rights to impartial hearings and review) ‘equivalent to’ those guaranteed by the legal system within which they operate. An example in point is the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) recent judgment in the Kadi case.48 This case involved a challenge to the legitimacy of an EU measure implementing a UN Security Council Resolution, itself passed on the basis of a decision of the Sanctions Committee to list the appellants as suspected of funding terrorist groups, and thus to freeze all of their assets. In his Opinion on the case, Advocate General Maduro made plain his view that the Court should adopt a Solange stance in the case: Had there been a genuine and effective mechanism of judicial control by an independent tribunal at the level of the United Nations, then this might have released the Community from the obligation to provide for judicial control of implementing measures that apply within the Community legal order. However, no such mechanism currently exists.49

In broad outline, the Court agreed, conducting a brief examination of the delisting procedure currently in place with regards to the Sanctions Committee, and finding it wanting in particular due to the fact that it ‘didn’t offer guarantees of judicial protection’; that the procedure was diplomatic, rather than a matter of individual

45 See N Walker, ‘Postnational Constitutionalism and the Problem of Translation’ in JHH Weiler and M Wind (eds), European Constitutionalism Beyond the State (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 27. 46 See generally RB Stewart, ‘US Administrative Law: A Model for Global Administrative Law?’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 63. 47 This is a reference to the Solange judgments of the German Constitutional Court (Internationale Handelsgesellschaft v Einfuhr und Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel BVerfGE 37, 271 (1974) [Solange I]; Wünsche Handelsgesellschaft BVerfGE 73, 339 (1987) [Solange II]) in which it effectively held that the transfer of powers by Germany to the EC was constitutional ‘as long as’ (‘solange’) European institutions provided the same level of individual rights protection as did the German Basic Law. 48 Joint Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, [2008] ECR-I-00000. 49 Opinion of the Advocate General Poiares Maduro, Case C-402/05 P, Yassin Abdullah Kadi v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities (16 Jan 2008), paras 51, 53. For a reading of this as analogous to the Solange position, see A Sandulli, ‘Rapporti tra diritto europeo ed internazionale. Il caso Kadi: un nuovo caso Solange?’ (2008) 5 Giornale di diritto amministrativo 1.

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right; that the Committee’s own guidelines make it clear that the suspect may not invoke any rights of defence during the procedure; and that there is no requirement to provide either reasons or evidence for the decision to list an individual, nor to give reasons as to any decision to refuse delisting.50 This case is of real relevance here for a number of reasons. First, in conducting the above evaluation of the UN procedure, the Court was clearly intimating that improved rights protection at that level could lead it to adopt a more deferential attitude towards Community implementing legislation—the very essence of the Solange stance. Second, and relatedly, the Court’s focus on the administrative law rights, combined with its open invitation to the Security Council to improve its procedures, can—and, we suggest, should—be read as an attempt to establish an inter-jurisdictional dialogue in the language of global administrative law, which, if reciprocated, would allow for a more accommodating, less conflictual result in any future controversy. It is thus illustrative of the way in which the application of global administrative law can help create the conditions in which different, overlapping sites of public power can begin to form relations based on cooperative dialogue rather than simple ignorance or intransigent belligerence, and thus help in the formation of an order that is pluralistic rather than fragmented. Finally, the Kadi case demonstrates how global administrative law provides us with a framework in which we can contemplate the subjection of public power to public control at the global level as a realistic possibility; indeed, in many cases, the rules and mechanisms are already in place, or at least are under serious discussion. By comparison, global constitutionalism fares rather badly. Unlike global administrative law, which already has an object—global administration—to which it can attach, most accept that there is as yet no equivalent, fully-formed global constitution—and nor is any concerted political will to create one apparent.51 Indeed, the Kadi judgment itself represents a significant blow to those who would maintain that the UN Charter is the ‘constitution’ of the global legal order. GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND VALUE PLURALISM

The previous section sought to sketch, at a conceptual level, a way to problematise the idea that the dichotomy between fragmentation and unity implied by global constitutionalism, and the progress narrative leading from the former to the latter, exhausts the field of possibilities for responding to the challenges posed by global regulatory governance. Here, we want to further cast doubt on the claim that— under current conditions at least—the type of unity presumed in much global constitutionalism is a normatively appropriate response to the fact of widespread and irreducible disagreement over ethical and moral norms. Global administrative law, even as it is better suited to a plurality of sites of public power (a functional and conceptual advantage), appears also better adapted to confront and respect 50

Kadi (n 48) at paras 322–26. Even Fassbender, who is perhaps the boldest of all global constitutionalists in proclaiming that such is already in existence, accepts at points that it is as yet only rudimentary. See Fassbender, ‘The UN Charter as Constitution’ (n 3) at 576, 607. 51

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value pluralism (a normative advantage). We argue that the pluralism facilitated by global administrative law framework is, under current conditions, a normatively preferable alternative to the type of unity implied in global constitutionalist discourse.

Global Constitutionalism’s Appeal to Universal Values The importance of a set of substantive values—in particular jus cogens and human rights—that are shared universally to most current conceptions of global constitutionalism, and in particular to the (often implicit) assumption that their preferred telos is an ethically justifiable one under current conditions, cannot really be doubted. Fassbender, for example, argues that the ‘universal recognition of fundamental human rights, including the dignity of the individual human being’ is a ‘cornerstone of constitutionalism’.52 De Wet goes so far as to define ‘constitutionalism’ as entailing: a system in which the different national, regional and functional (sectoral) constitutional regimes form the building blocks of the international community (‘international polity’) that is underpinned by a core value system common to all communities and embedded in a variety of legal structures for its enforcement.53

The appeal to universal values is—when successful—one of the most powerful ways in which an author can seek to gain the adherence of her audience to her claims.54 The abstract agreement over universal values lasts, however, ‘only so long as we remain on the level of generalities’; instead, the moment that we begin to concretise and apply these values, they become immediately controversial.55 Consider, for example, the following suggestion from Petersmann, which illustrates well the move from the accepted general to the contested particular: The limitation of all government powers through inalienable fundamental rights has become the foundation stone of constitutional democracies … The limitation of government powers through legal guarantees of freedom and non-discrimination is also the major purpose of the international GATT/WTO and IMF guarantees of liberal trade in goods and services and of non-discriminatory conditions of competition.56

52

Ibid, 554. De Wet, ‘The Emergence of International and Regional Value Systems’ (n 4) at 612. 54 The philosopher Chaïm Perelman defined such values as those that are the subject of agreement in the ‘universal audience’, normally because their abstract desirability is included in the definition of the word itself: terms such as, for example, ‘good’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘just’. See Chaïm Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its Applications, (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1979) 26–27. 55 Chaïm Perelman, Justice, Law and Argument: Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning (Dordrecht, D Reidel Publishing Company, 1980) 66. 56 Petersmann, ‘How to Reform the UN’ (n 5) at 428. Indeed, the very idea that the global trade regime is a simple instantiation of international human rights norms would be surprising to most; however, it is precisely this impression that Petersmann seeks to convey time and again, in particular through the frequent equation of human rights to trade norms: ‘From a citizens perspective, international guarantees of freedom, non-discrimination and rule-of-law (eg in human rights conventions, 53

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If, as seems to be the case, agreement on a core set of substantive values is presented as central to the existence of a global constitution, then it seems plausible to suggest that some authoritative mechanism for interpreting and applying those values in concrete situations is required. It is useful, in this regard, to refer back to the European setting: it is difficult to imagine that the constitutionalist discourse would have emerged at all in that setting without the compulsory and binding jurisdiction of both the European Court of Human Rights and the ECJ in dealing with human rights controversies. However, a comparable authoritative interpretative body or mechanism for concretising the putatively ‘universal’ values expressed in human rights norms is conspicuous only in its absence at the global level. And this, moreover, should not be taken as merely another rendition of the time-honoured ‘unenforceability’ lament so common to international lawyers; it is much more important than that. The absence of authoritative interpreters points strongly to the absence of the unitary ‘interpretative community’57 of the type presented as necessary to the existence of a constitutional polity. The fact that neither such bodies nor the will to create them exists (outwith the regional setting) points strongly to the fact that agreement on ‘core values’ remains confined to generalities that can be imbued with a vast array of different and very often opposing contents, thus undermining the claim that they are ‘common’ in any concrete sense. Nonetheless, global constitutionalists accept the existence of widespread agreement at the most general level as sufficient: [T]here is a significant overlap in content between the international and domestic value systems. This is particularly the case in the area of human rights norms where most modern constitutions in various parts of the world—and notably those drafted by democratically elected constitutional assemblies—contain human rights standards closely resembling those of the international and regional human rights instruments. The fact that this overlap exists despite the lack of democracy on the international level, would defy arguments that a representative value system can only be produced within a democratic process.58

Here, the fact that the vast range of different possible interpretations of these norms and ways of balancing between them has not yet been entrusted by states to a single body with universal jurisdiction is treated as simply proof of the ‘embryonic’ nature of the international or global constitution; and the existence of an ever-increasing plethora of regional and sectoral tribunals and other ‘compliance’ mechanisms, each with its own—often overlapping—sphere of jurisdiction and competence, is enlisted in support of, rather than considered as contrary to, this position. It is in this sense that simple affirmations of widespread agreement on a set of basic rights seem inadequate to the task of confronting the very real, indeed apparently irreducible, value pluralism that characterises the global sphere; and it is thus in this sense that the spectres of cultural imperialism and of hegemonic

GATT/WTO law and IMF law) serve ‘constitutional functions’ for extending and protecting individual freedom and non-discrimination across frontiers’. Ibid, 442–43. 57 58

Fassbender, ‘The UN Charter as Constitution’ (n 3) 597. De Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (n 4) 74.

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domination continue to loom large over the global constitutionalist project. Consider, for example, Petersmann’s proposal that the UN Charter should be renegotiated from scratch, following the example set by the development of the WTO, with all of those not prepared to sign up to the new obligations eventually barred from any Charter protections.59 These are to become not global, but rather ‘club’ benefits,60 with this itself functioning as one of the main ‘carrots’ to encourage reluctant states to sign up to the new regime.61 Moreover, Petersmann insists, it is the wealthy Western states that must, as with the reform of the international trading system, take the lead in forcing through—and directing—the negotiations on a new Charter. Why we might trust these states to do so in a manner that reflected the interests of all, rather than merely entrenching their own already-dominant positions over others (a criticism that has, of course, been frequently levelled at Petersmann’s model, the WTO), is left largely unaddressed. Within global constitutionalist discourse, then, the putative ‘consensus’ on a set of shared substantive values appears to be largely discursively created rather than empirically verified at the level of practice; and the desirability of that discursive act is ultimately justified only by reference to the desirability of the outcome—a global constitution—itself. It is extremely doubtful, however, whether this type of essentially circular argumentation is sufficient to the task of overcoming value pluralism in the name of unity, however central to the overall project that might be. The key point here is that, as things currently stand, global constitutionalist rhetoric ultimately enacts an image of community in which fundamental differences are elided and hidden, rather than confronted and respected.

Contrasting Global Administrative Law As we illustrated in the previous section, global administrative law contains no inherent tendency to unity (at least in the strong sense implied in constitutionalist rhetoric). Indeed, unlike global constitutionalism, the ends of global administrative law are not contained within its own discourse; rather, it can be harnessed to a whole host of different—and not always compatible—projects. In this sense, global administrative law is best viewed as essentially instrumental; it can, for the most part, only be as ‘good’ as the ends it is intended to serve, be they constitutional, democratic, rights-based or, indeed, efficiency-enhancing. From this perspective, in ideal terms at least, global administrative law provides both a site and a language for active and ongoing political contestation in each and every site of global governance over which interests should be represented to what extent, and to the degree of responsiveness thereto required of the regulatory body in question. In addition, global administrative law can provide sets of procedural rules for constraining and directing the interactions of global administrative bodies with each other, and with national and regional administrative agencies. This, in turn, 59 60 61

Petersmann, (n 5) 451–52, 455–56. Ibid, 468. Ibid, 456.

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can contribute to the creation of a regulated pluralism of public sites, in which the dangers of fragmentation, such as the potential for individual bodies to ‘overreach’ or to ‘underachieve’ in the fulfilment of their respective mandates,62 can be confronted through the use of different mechanisms that encourage cooperation and coordination between the relevant sites. This is not to suggest, of course, that the establishment and application of global administrative law principles, rules and mechanisms is in itself entirely devoid of normative content; or that it cannot have unforeseen effects that either enhance, or detract from, some other goals. Global administrative law presupposes some values of its own: the desirability of accountability, participation, transparency, even the rule of law itself—these are all normative questions, the answer to which is simply assumed within the global administrative law project. By remaining only very lightly sketched in the abstract, however, and rejecting the conceptual necessity (or practical desirability) of anything like an ‘Administrative Procedures Act’ at the global level,63 the particular configuration of these in each concrete governance sector (trade, security, environment, etc) remains very much up for grabs. Furthermore, global administrative law—for the most part at least—focuses largely on formal and procedural, rather than substantive, requirements. These are intended not to definitively condition any substantive regulatory outcome, but rather to ensure, to the greatest degree possible, that all affected by public power have a say in the manner in which it is exercised, and that no interests—and in particular those of weaker or more marginalised actors—are disregarded in the process.64 Having said that, global administrative law does contain the conceptual space for more substantive requirements to be developed (through, for example, the application of standards of reasonableness, fairness, equity and proportionality) should they be appropriate to the particular governance regime in question. The current, general focus on procedural rules is emphatically not, however, intended as an expression of any crude hope that they can function in a manner somehow ‘objective’ or ‘apolitical’; and neither is it based upon any kind of crude version of Habermasian proceduralism in which the creation of proper formal rules and structures will automatically generate substantively ‘good’ outcomes. In many ways, it is much less ambitious than either, justified instead on the basis of an ethical (and thus never absolute) commitment to proceduralism in law as one realistically available means of increasing the (public) legitimacy of global regulatory governance while responding to the stark realities of value pluralism in an age of ethical post-foundationalism.

62

See Kingsbury, ‘Omnilateralism and Partial International Communities’ (n 31) 98. For an account rejecting a move towards a global Administrative Procedures Act, see DC Esty, ‘Good Governance at the Supranational Scale: Globalizing Administrative Law’ (2006) 115 Yale Law Journal 1490. 64 As a number of scholars have pointed out, however, there are no guarantees that procedural mechanisms will alone be equal to this task; a constant vigilance is thus necessary. See, eg, BS Chimni, ‘Co-option and Resistance: Two Faces of Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 799; C Harlow, ‘Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 187. 63

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CONCLUDING REMARKS: SOME LIMITATIONS AND DANGERS OF A GLOBAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAW FRAMEWORK

Having discussed in the foregoing the potential virtues of a global administrative law framework, a few words of caution are in order with respect to both the conceptual limitations of global administrative law as well as its normative dangers. Global administrative law is, of course, no simple panacea to the complex and difficult challenges posed by contemporary global governance . It is, for example, limited to administrative activity, and so cannot speak to the vitally important issue of how to regulate the behaviour of states when they act, in negotiating treaties or in formulating custom, in their primary capacity as international legislators. It is here, indeed, that the potential complementarity between global administrative law and an eventual global constitutionalism presents itself most clearly. However, excepting discussion of a relatively vague and heavily circumscribed set of jus cogens norms, constitutionalist discourse does not yet appear to confront this issue in any great detail. Contrary to the national setting, administrative law at the global level is preceding any constitutional counterpart; and, moreover, will continue to operate even if the latter does not—ever—materialise. Nor is global administrative law any kind of a normatively unproblematic solution. Its basic instrumentality and procedural nature, which we have underscored in support of its relative normative desirability in the face of the apparently irreducible value pluralism of global governance, also create an—at least—equal potential for harm: its very advantages of flexibility and adaptability themselves imply that it can be flexed and adapted in thoroughly inappropriate—not to mention unethical—ways. The risks are many, and readily evident: that, for example, the focus on procedural rather than substantive rules may well be insufficient to compel the powerful to respect the interests of the marginalised; and that providing a legitimating discourse to institutions that are already structured around vast inequalities in wealth and power may only serve to entrench existing relations of domination, rather than providing a means for subverting them.65 In this sense, global administrative law might simply provide new tools for the pursuit of hegemonic interests. Moreover, before embracing the plurality of different sites of public power, we should bear in mind that often the move to non-traditional forms of regulation is motivated precisely by the desire of powerful actors to evade public control,66 and that it may grant the powerful more opportunities to shop for a forum that will best further their own interests.67 These two important caveats—the conceptual limitations and the normative dangers—must be constantly borne in mind by those seeking to advance and to

65

These first two critiques, amongst others, can be found in Chimni, ibid. See n 30. 67 On this point, see generally E Benvenisti and G Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stanford Law Review 595. 66

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operationalise the emerging global administrative law. The former seem unavoidable if we are to approach realistically the task in hand; the latter speak to the extremely hard, but equally unavoidable, task of moving from the abstract yet contingent potential of global administrative law to a normatively justifiable practice. In this sense, the really hard work has only just begun.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books S Battini, Amministrazioni nazionali e controversie globali (Milan, Giuffrè, 2007). JH Jackson, The World Trade Organization: Constitution and Jurisprudence (London, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1998). C Perelman, The New Rhetoric and the Humanities: Essays on Rhetoric and Its Applications (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1979). C Perelman, Justice, Law and Argument: Essays on Moral and Legal Reasoning (Dordrecht, D Reidel Publishing Company, 1980).

Chapters in Edited Volumes E Benvenisti, ‘“Coalitions of the Willing” and the Evolution of Informal International Law’ in C Calliess, G Nolte and PT Stoll (eds), Coalitions of the Willing: Avantgarde or Threat? (Cologne, Carl Heymanns Verlag, 2007). B Carotti and L Casini, ‘A Hybrid Public-Private Regime: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Governance of the Internet’ in S Cassese et al (eds), Global Administrative Law: Cases, Materials, Issues (Rome, Institute for Research on Public Administration, 2008), available at www.iilj.org/GAL/documents/GALCasebook2008.pdf. B Fassbender, ‘The Meaning of International Constitutional Law’ in N Tsagourias (ed), Transnational Constitutionalism: International and European Models (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). N Walker, ‘The EU and the WTO: Constitutionalism in a New Key’ in G de Búrca and J Scott (eds), The EU and the WTO: Legal and Constitutional Issues (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2001). N Walker, ‘Postnational Constitutionalism and the Problem of Translation’ in JHH Weiler and M Wind (eds), European Constitutionalism Beyond the State (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Journal Articles E Benvenisti and G Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stanford law Review 595–631.

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DZ Cass, ‘The “Constitutionalization” of International Trade Law: Judicial NormGeneration as the Engine of Constitutional Development in International Trade’ (2001) 12 European Journal of International Law 39–75. S Cassese, ‘Administrative Law Without the State? The Challenge of Global Regulation’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 663–94. BS Chimni, ‘Co-option and Resistance: Two Faces of Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 799–827. T Cottier, and M Hertig, ‘The Prospects of 21st Century Constitutionalism’ (2003) 7 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 261–328. J Dunoff, ‘Constitutional Conceits: The WTO’s “Constitution” and the Discipline of International Law’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 647–75. PM Dupuy, ‘The Constitutional Dimension of the Charter of the United Nations Revisited’ (1997) 1 Max Plack Yearbook of United Nations Law 1–33. DC Esty, ‘Good Governance at the Supranational Scale: Globalizing Administrative Law’ (2006) 115 Yale Law Journal 1490–562. B Fassbender, ‘The United Nations Charter As Constitution of The International Community’ (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 529–619. C Harlow, ‘Global Administrative Law: The Quest for Principles and Values’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 187–214. B Kingsbury, ‘Omnilateralism and Partial International Communities: Contributions of the Emerging Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 104 Journal of International Law and Diplomacy 98–124. B Kingsbury and N Krisch, ‘Introduction: Global Governance and Global Administrative Law in the International Legal Order’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 1–13. B Kingsbury, N Krisch and RB Stewart, ‘The Emergence of Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 15–61. B Kingsbury, N Krisch, RB Stewart and JB Wiener, ‘Foreword: Global Governance as Administration – National and Transnational Approaches to Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 1–13. N Krisch, ‘The Open Architecture of European Human Rights Law’ (2008) 71 Modern Law Review 183–216. N Krisch, ‘The Pluralism of Global Administrative Law’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 247–78. E Meidinger, ‘The Administrative Law of Global Private–Public Regulation: the Case of Forestry’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 47–87. M Pallis, ‘The Operation of the UNHCR’s Accountability Mechanisms’ (2005) 37 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 869–918. EU Petersmann, ‘How to Reform the UN System? Constitutionalism, International Law, and International Organizations’ (1997) 10 Leiden Journal of International Law 421–74.

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J Salzman, ‘Decentralized Administrative Law in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 189–224. A Sandulli, ‘Rapporti tra diritto europeo ed internazionale. Il caso Kadi: un nuovo caso Solange?’ (2008) 5 Giornale di diritto amministrativo 513–20. RB Stewart, ‘US Administrative Law: A Model for Global Administrative Law?’ (2005) 68 Law and Contemporary Problems 63–108. N Walker, ‘The Idea of Constitutional Pluralism’ (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 317–59. E de Wet, ‘The International Constitutional Order’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 51–76. E de Wet, ‘The Emergence of International and Regional Value Systems as a Manifestation of the Emerging International Constitutional Order’ (2006) 19 Leiden Journal of International Law 611–32.

Working Papers A Reinisch, ‘The Immunity of International Organizations and the Jurisdiction of Their Administrative Tribunals’ (Institute for International Law and Justice/ New York University School of Law, International Law and Justice Working Paper no 11, 2007).

Websites Sources Gandhi, SR (2007) ‘Voluntary Environmental Standards: The Interplay Between Private Initiatives, Trade Rules And The Global Decision–Making Processes’ (paper presented at the Viterbo III Global Administrative Law Conference) www.iilj.org/GAL/documents/Ghandienvironment.pdf. Shamir-Borer, E (2006) ‘The Evolution of Administrative Law-Type Principles, Mechanisms and Practices in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)’ (paper presented at the Viterbo II Global Administrative Law Conference) www.iilj.org/GAL/ViterboII.asp.

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The Rapprochement between the Supremacy of International Law at International and National Levels ANDRÉ NOLLKAEMPER *

INTRODUCTION

I

N THIS PAPER, I will review whether domestic courts can duly refrain from giving effect to an international obligation, on the ground that performance of that obligation would contravene a fundamental right, recognised by the domestic law of that state. The problem that is considered here can be illustrated by the judgment of the European Court of Justice in Kadi v Council of the European Union.1 The ECJ refrained from giving effect to Security Council Resolution 1333 (2000) on the ground that performance of the obligations contained in the Resolution would conflict with fundamental rights under EU law. While the first reactions to the judgment suggest that many international lawyers feel compelled by the Court’s resolution of the conflict, the question is whether and how international law can accommodate such challenges. Non-performance of international obligations with reference to fundamental rules of national law, or internal rules of international organisations, sits uneasily with the supremacy of international law. While claims that domestic law should be supreme are by no means unusual, such claims have received a new impulse due to the nature of modern international law-making. Two developments in particular are critical: the dynamics of international law-making and the internal focus of much of modern international law. First, challenges to the supremacy of international law in the performance of international obligations are especially likely to occur when an obligation acquires, through dynamic interpretation, a meaning that differs from the meaning as it was

* Professor of Public International Law and Director, Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam. Parts of earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Law of the Future Conference, The Hague, 26–27 October 2007, the Jean Monnet Conference The European Union at 50: Assessing the Past: Looking Ahead, Macau, 27–28 May 2008, and at the ESIL 2008 in Heidelberg. I thank Catherina Brölmann, Jean d’Aspremont, Tom Eijsbouts, Warda Henning, Hege Kjos, Jan Herman Reestman for comments on earlier drafts. 1 Joint Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, [2008] ECR-II 3649.

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understood by states at the time of the conclusion of the treaty, or when treaties are embedded in institutional structures that lead to normative development beyond the initial consent.2 Second, as international law becomes more regulatory in nature, and more directly governs domestic matters, including legal rights and obligations of private persons,3 domestic actors will expect it to conform to equivalent standards of rule of law and protection of fundamental rights that apply at the domestic level.4 It is a plausible argument that international law should, in those areas where it prescribes or supervises domestic law, be sensitive to domestic (constitutional) law.5 The criterion of equivalent protection in the ECHR’s judgments in cases such as Bosphorus6 is just a manifestation of a much wider phenomenon. As long as that standard cannot be met (both in terms of the applicability of human rights protection against acts of international institutions and in terms of procedural remedies against such acts), backlashes at the domestic level are likely to emerge. It is against this background that this article will review whether, and on what basis, international law can accommodate challenges to the supremacy of international law based on the protection of fundamental rules of domestic law.7 I will first

2 See eg T Gehring, ‘Treaty-Making and Treaty Evolution’ in D Bodansky et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 466–99. See for an example of domestic resistance to the domestic legal force of decisions of international institutions after the expression of the initial consent: Natural Resources Defense Council v Environmental Protection Agency et al Appeal Judgment 464 F3d 1; ILDC 525 (US 2006); 373 US App DC 223; 63 Environment Reporter (BNA) 1203; 36 Environmental Law Report 20181 (DC Cir 2006); ILDC 525 (US 2006), 29 August 2006 (holding that decisions by the parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol were not judicially enforceable in the United States). 3 See generally on the increasing role of international law in this area: JHH Weiler, ‘The Geology of International Law: Governance, Democracy and Legitimacy’ (2004) 64 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 547; M Kumm, ‘The Legitimacy of International Law: A Constitutionalist Framework of Analysis’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 907. 4 J Crawford, ‘International Law and the Rule of Law’ (2004) 24 Adelaide Law Review 3, 10. Cf D Bodanksy, ‘The Legitimacy of International Governance: A Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?’ (1999) 93 American Journal of International Law 596, 606 (noting that the more international law resembles domestic law, the more it should be subject to the same standards of legitimacy). 5 J Crawford, ‘International Law and Australian Federalism: Past, Present and Future’ in BR Opeskin and DR Rothwell (eds), International Law and Australian Federalism (Victoria, Melbourne University Press, 1997) 325, 333; Crawford, ‘International Law and the Rule of Law’ (n 4); A Bianchi, ‘International Law and US Courts: The Myth of Lohengrin Revealed’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 751, 781. 6 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret Anonim S¸irketi v Ireland (App no 45036/98) ECHR 2005-VI 107. 7 The prime focus of the article is the principle of supremacy of international law over domestic law. To some extent, the analysis will also apply to the relationship between international law and the internal law of international organisations; the Kadi case (n 1) is a case in point. See generally on this relationship: G Arangio-Ruiz, ‘International Law and Interindividual Law’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 15, 39–43. However, in several respect the latter category raises distinct questions, a full analysis of which lies beyond the scope of this article. In its work on responsibility of international organisations, the International Law Commission (ILC) recognised the different nature of these issues; see eg ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its 55th Session’ (5 May–6 June and 7 July–8 August 2003) UN Doc A/58/10, paras 9–10 of the Commentary to draft Article 3.

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summarise the principle of supremacy and its formal nature that prevents international law from accepting domestic challenges to international obligations. I then discuss whether a solution may be found in the international nature of fundamental rights that are invoked as justification for non-compliance with an international obligation. The last section contains brief conclusions.

THE FORMALITY OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUPREMACY

Gerald Fitzmaurice wrote that the principle of supremacy is ‘one of the great principles of international law, informing the whole system and applying to every branch of it’.8 In general terms, the principle of supremacy of international law seeks to subordinate the sovereignty of states to international law.9 One of its specific manifestations is that international law is supreme over, and takes precedence in the international legal order, over national law.10 In the event of a conflict between international law and domestic law, international law will have to prevail in the international legal order, domestic law being considered a fact from the standpoint of international law. This aspect is at the heart of the law of treaties11 and the law of international responsibility.12 The principle of supremacy of international law thus is key to the international rule of law, which, if anything, requires that states exercise their powers in accordance with international law, not domestic law.13 Allowing states to prioritise fundamental rules of domestic law over international law would undermine the efficacy of international law and indeed the international rule of law as such. It even can be said that the principle that international law is supreme over domestic law, and the international rule of law,

8 G Fitzmaurice, ‘The General Principles of International Law Considered from the Standpoint of the Rule of Law’ (1957) 92 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1. 9 ibid 6. 10 See for a comprehensive treatment of this aspect of the principle of supremacy: D Carreau, Droit International, 8th edn (Paris, Pedone, 2004) 43–97; Fitzmaurice, The General Principles (n 8) 68–94. See also C Santuli, Le Status International de L’Ordre Juridique Étatique (Paris, Pedone, 2001) 427. 11 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (signed 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331 Arts 27 and 46. 12 ILC Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, annex to UNGA Res 56/83 (12 December 2001) UN Doc A/RES/56/83 (Articles on State Responsibility) Arts 3 and 32. The Articles are reproduced in J Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). A comparable principle is contained in Art 35 of the Draft Articles of the ILC on the Responsibility of International Organizations, UN Doc A/CN4/L270. On the other hand, the Draft Articles of the ILC on the Responsibility of International Organizations do not contain an Article comparable to Art 3 of the Articles on State Responsibility; see discussion in ILC ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its 55th Session’ (5 May–6 June and 7 July–8 August 2003) UN Doc A/58/10 paras 9–10 of the Commentary to draft Art 3. 13 I Brownlie, The Rule of Law in International Affairs. International Law at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1988) 213–14. See also G Fitzmaurice, The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice Vol II (Cambridge, Grotius Publications, 1986) 587 (noting that the principle is generally accepted as ‘a sine qua non of the efficacy and reality of international obligation’).

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have a common denominator as there cannot be any rule of law without the precedence of some principles over others deemed of a lesser importance.14 Of course, the principle of supremacy of international law does not mean that international law is insensitive to domestic law. Such sensitivity may be reflected in the substance of the law, in the fact that many international obligations contain a renvoir to domestic law and in use of a margin of appreciation by supervisory mechanisms.15 However, it is one thing to say that primary rules or supervisory mechanisms should reflect particular sensitivities of domestic law, and quite something else that international law should accept a general exception to the principle of supremacy in the international legal order based on the protection of fundamental norms of domestic law. In principle, defects in terms of rule of law quality of international law do not affect the application of the principle of supremacy. After all, the principle is a formal one. It requires that international law prevails over domestic law, whatever the contents of international law and whatever the nature of the decision-making process through which international obligations have come into existence. Whether or not a particular rule that would be set aside because of the principle of supremacy is a fundamental rule does not make a difference. It is for this reason that Sir Arthur Watts noted that the supremacy of law is not, by itself, a sufficient indication of what the rule of law involves. He wrote that since the law which is to enjoy supremacy may itself be unjust and oppressive, ‘the supremacy of such a law is not what is meant by the rule of law.’16 Supremacy is, as a formal principle, blind to substance and effect—the rule of law, bare in its most minimalist definition, is not. Indeed, it is difficult to see how, without further benchmarks, it is possible to qualify the general principle of supremacy without fundamentally undermining the cause of international law. Notwithstanding many common elements in national constitutions, there are significant differences in constitutions across the world. Allowing rules of domestic (constitutional) law, without further qualification, to justify non-compliance with international obligations could fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of international law. Limiting this power to an undefined category of ‘fundamental constitutional norms’ will not help, as what is fundamental will differ from one state to another. This may be different, however, in the EU context. In Europe, there is wide support for the proposition that supremacy of EC law should not be understood as

14 Fitzmaurice, ‘The General Principles of International Law’ (n 8) 69 (equating the principle that the sovereignty of states is subordinated to the supremacy of international law with the rule of law in the international field). See also (more critically) A Watts, ‘The International Rule of Law’ (1993) 36 German Yearbook of International Law 15, 22–23; 15 E Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards’ (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 843; Y Shany, ‘Toward a General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?’ (2006) 16 European Journal of International Law 907, 912; cf Kumm, The Legitimacy of International Law (n 3) 927. 16 Watts, The International Rule of Law (n 14) 22–23.

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blind precedence over fundamental constitutional rules of the member states.17 The relative homogeneity arguably would make it possible to accept an exception on the principle of supremacy.18 Among European states there is some unanimity on what the fundamental constitutional norms are—especially since most of them have been enshrined in EU law—and there would accordingly be less controversy as to the situations where courts could decline to give supremacy to international law for incompatibility with these standards. At the international level, such an exception would be much more difficult to accept as the risks for instability in treaty performance would be much greater. Allowing states to escape compliance with their obligations based on fundamental rules of domestic law would entail serious risks. Recognition, at the international level, of a power of states (or international organisations like the EU) to prioritise domestic law over binding international obligations might obliterate boundaries of legality, and ‘might reinforce perceptions of international law as non-law (or quasi-law) – i.e., a loose system of non-enforceable principles, containing little, if any real constraints on state power.’19 Of course, the fact that international law will be unable to accept an exception to the principle of supremacy at the international level by allowing states a right to invoke fundamental rules of domestic constitutional law does not mean that states will change their practice at the domestic level. As indicated above, the number of instances in which states (or courts) may give priority to domestic law can be expected to increase rather than to decline. The result may be that in terms of descriptive analysis, we may well see an increasing collision between the international and the domestic legal order, with neither system recognising the internal effects of the claim to supremacy of the other legal order. At the same time, however, both systems in some respects can complement defects in rule of law protection of the other system.20 The European Court of Human Rights, or other international courts, may compensate for defects in the rule of law at domestic level, by determining a violation of the Convention and obliging the state to cure the defect. On the other hand, domestic courts may provide redress against decisions of international organisations where no such redress is available at international level. However, the descriptive and perhaps explanatory power of the model of two colliding yet sometimes complementary systems does not easily translate into a norm that international law can accept.

17 eg C Joerges, ‘Rethinking European Law’s Supremacy’ (2005) European University Institute Working Paper Law No 2005/12 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=838110. 18 L Besselink, A Composite European Constitution (Groningen, Europa Law Publishing, 2007) 10–11 (arguing on the basis of Art 5 of the Treaty on the European Union that ‘European acts which do no respect … fundamental values do not take precedence over national rules and acts which express that national identify and the common values of the democratic rule of law.’). 19 Shany, Toward a General Margin of Appreciation (n 15). 20 A von Bodgandy, ‘Pluralism, Direct Effect, and the Ultimate Say: On the Relationship between International and Domestic Constitutional Law’ (2008) 6 International Journal of Constitutional Law 397. See for the notion of complementary between international and national legal orders A Nollkaemper, ‘Multilevel accountability in international law: a case study of the aftermath of Srebrenica’ in Y Shany and T Broude (eds) The Shifting Allocation of Authority in International Law: Considering Sovereignty, Supremacy, and Subsidiarity (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008) 345–67.

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André Nollkaemper SUBSTANTIVE QUALIFICATIONS TO THE PRINCIPLE OF SUPREMACY

It may be possible to take a narrower approach and to identify a more specific criterion for qualifying the principle of supremacy. This criterion is the conformity of a rule of domestic law to international law. Decisions to refrain from giving effect in domestic legal orders to international law may be based on rules of domestic law that conform to or give effect to another rule of international law. In effect, they thus may protect values that international law itself seeks to protect as well. For instance, where domestic law gives effect to international obligations for the protection of fundamental rights, it is not obvious that an international obligation, particularly when adopted in a forum with limited accountability, should always prevail over such a domestic law. Domestic constitutional, legislative and judicial challenges21 to the full application of international law need not then be characterised as nationalistic reflexes that seek to undermine the international rule of law. Rather, they may be seen as legitimate responses that are necessary to preserve the rule of law—not only at the domestic level but also at the international level. The larger point here is that the distinction between these two levels cannot always easily be made. This approach shows similarities with what in European law has come to be known as the Solange II doctrine,22 as well with the approach adopted by the ECtHR in regard to its relationship to other international courts.23 It is equally relevant to the relationship between domestic law and international law. There are a seemingly increasing number of cases in domestic courts that may be explained and justified from this perspective. One example is the Görgülü decision, in which the German Bundesverfassungsgericht declined to give effect to a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which would have restricted the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights under the Constitution. The Court held that, while it normally should give effect to a judgment of the European Court, that would not be so when to do so would ‘restrict or reduce the protection of the individual’s fundamental rights under the Constitution.’24 The Court noted that the commitment to international law takes effect only within the democratic and constitutional system of the Basic Law. Significantly, it referred in this context to a joint European development of fundamental rights.25 As to the effects on third parties, it stated that it is the task of the domestic courts to integrate a decision of the ECtHR into the relevant partial

21 Of course, the effect of (a lack of) legitimacy of international law is not only or not even primarily a matter for appreciation by the courts. A perceived lack of legitimacy will manifest itself primarily in decisions of (constitutional) legislatures to disallow their courts to apply international law. 22 Solange II, The German Constitutional Court (Karlsruhe, 22 October 1986) [1986] 37 BVerfGE 3. See on comparable cases in other states: A Peters, ‘The Globalization of State Constitutions’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 266–67. 23 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret Anonim S¸irketi v Ireland (App no 45036/98) ECHR 2005-VI 107. 24 Görgülü, The German Constitutional Court (Karlsruhe, 14 October 2004) [2004] 111 BVerfGE 307, para 32 (emphasis added); see also para 62. 25 ibid, para 62.

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legal area of the national legal system by balancing conflicting rights, and that the ECtHR could not aim to achieve such solutions itself.26 Likewise, challenges in domestic courts of decisions of the Security Council Sanctions Committee that impose restrictions on individual human rights, which would score low on most indicators of the international rule of law, may be seen as justifiable attempts to preserve individual rights, and indeed the rule of law.27 In some respects this also holds for the Kadi judgment of the European Court of Justice. The Court protected fundamental rules of Community law, which in substance overlapped and indeed were informed by international (ECHR) standards.28 It might be argued that in at least some of these cases, courts do not and indeed cannot present the conflict in terms of a conflict between two international norms. In ‘dualistic’ states like Germany or Italy, the conflict will generally be phrased in terms of a conflict between two domestic (often constitutional) norms, or between a domestic norm on the one hand and a competing international obligation on the other. An example of the former approach was the Von Hannover case;29 examples of the latter are the judgment of the Bundesverfassungsgericht in Görgülü and the judgment of the Court of Justice in Kadi. Also courts in monist states may phrase such questions in terms of an international–domestic law conflict or, as a middle way, as a conflict between an international obligation and international public policy. An example of the latter is a decision of the French Court of Cassation in a dispute pertaining to the immunity from suit of the African Development Bank. The Court of Appeal of Orleans had denied the immunity, on the ground that no administrative tribunal had been established by the Bank; allowing the Bank to rely on immunity would be in breach of the right of access to court under Article 6 of the ECHR.30 Though France is a ‘monist’ state, like the Netherlands, and thus could have referred to international law, the Court of Cassation held that granting immunity would violate the right to a court which, in France, is part of the international public order.31 However, while in such cases, it may be said that at the domestic level we are concerned with a conflict between international law and domestic law, at the international level a parallel conflict may exist between two international norms. For the domestic law in question might be nothing else than the implementation of

26

ibid, para 58 E de Wet and A Nollkaemper, ‘Review of Security Council Decisions by National Courts’ (2002) 45 German Yearbook of International Law 166. 28 Kadi v Council (n 1). In para 283 the Court recalled that ‘according to settled case-law, fundamental rights form an integral part of the general principles of law whose observance the Court ensures. For that purpose, the Court draws inspiration from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States and from the guidelines supplied by international instruments for the protection of human rights on which the Member States have collaborated or to which they are signatories. In that regard, the ECHR has special significance.’ 29 Von Hannover v Germany (App no 59320/00) ECHR 2004-VI 1. 30 P Callé, ‘L’acte authentique établi à l’étranger—Validité et execution en France’ (2005) 94 Revue Critique de Droit International Privé 377, 405. 31 African Development Bank v Mr X (25 January 2005) Appeal No 04–41012 ILDC 778 (2005). 27

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an international obligation, or even a domestic norm that pre-existed and separately exists from an international obligation, yet in substance is largely identical. In such cases, the conflict between an international and a domestic norm may, at the international level, be transformed into a conflict between two international norms. An example of such a transformation of domestic constitutional rights into international rights is provided by Von Hannover v Germany, decided by the ECtHR.32 Princess Caroline of Monaco had brought a claim against the publication of certain photos in newspapers, arguing before the Bundesverfassungsgericht that there had been an infringement of her personality rights under Article 2(1) of the German Basic Law. The Bundesverfassungsgericht found that Germany had violated the rights of Princess Caroline, in regard to some photos, but dismissed the claim in regard to other photos, based inter alia on the principle of freedom of the press in Article 5(1) of the Basic Law.33 When Princess Caroline petitioned the ECtHR, the parties and the Court construed the legal issue in terms of a conflict between Article 8 and Article 10 of the European Convention. The conflict between these two rights thus is resolved (in this case, in favour of the applicant) at the international level. Likewise, though in cases such as Görgülü and Kadi the conflict was not exclusively expressed as a conflict between international obligations, the international dimension of the constitutional principles that were invoked lurked in the background. In the hypothetical situation where the state (or organisation) that allegedly fails to comply with an obligation is required to justify itself at the international level, it may well build its defence in such terms. It may be that the Court of Justice in Kadi understated its case, and perhaps limited its acceptability at the international level, by not putting more emphasis on the commonality between the European standards it sought to protect, on the one hand, and the human rights standards under the UN Conventions and customary law that were relevant to the exercise of powers by the Security Council, on the other.34 The approach proposed here thus is based on a substantive overlap between international law and domestic law and a commonality of constitutional values at the international and the domestic level.35 That commonality presents us with a criterion to distinguish these cases from, say, Medellin or from challenges to international law based on sharia.36

32

Von Hannover v Germany (n 29). Caroline von Monaco II, The German Constitutional Court, (Karlsruhe, 15 December 1999) [1999] 101 BVerfGE 361. 34 Charter of the United Nations (signed 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945) 1 UNTS XVI Article 24(2); see further discussion in De Wet and Nollkaemper, Review of Security Council Decisions by National Courts (n 27). 35 See further discussion in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper, ‘Beyond the Divide’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 341–60. 36 Though obviously not all such challenges would necessarily violate international law, see discussion by J Rehman, ‘The Sharia, Islamic Family Laws and International Human Rights Law: Examining the Theory and Practice of Polygamy and Talaq’ (2007) 21 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 108–27. 33

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For that reason, a distinction should be drawn between attempts to prioritise domestic law that conforms to international obligations and other justifications for non-performance of obligations. A hard core, and a relatively safe common ground, seems to be international human rights law. Indeed, the cases cited above (Görgülü, IPGRI and Kadi) all revolve around human rights. It also is not insignificant that many states restrict the precedence of international law in domestic legal order to cover solely international human rights treaties.37 There thus may be reciprocity between, on the one hand, states’ acceptance of domestic supremacy for fundamental human rights and, on the other hand, the acceptance that states may restrict the application of international law where to do so would violate such fundamental human rights. It is doubtful whether the international legitimacy endowed on qualifications of the principle of supremacy advocated here should go much beyond this category of fundamental human rights. At a global scale, international law could for instance not accept the argument that international decisions suffer democracy deficits that would justify non-compliance.38 It is in respect to those domestic values that correspond to international law that, at the domestic level, the supremacy of international law does not need not be understood as blind formalism, but can be construed in substantive terms. It cannot be presumed; it has to be earned on substance. The strength and persuasive power of the principle of supremacy at the domestic level depends on its ability to conform to rule-of-law requirements and to the values that international law itself proclaims.39

SUPREMACY AND CONFLICTS OF NORMS AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

It may be said that the issue need not be presented as a conflict between international law and domestic law, but can be construed as a conflict between international legal obligations that can be wholly dealt with at the international level. The usual rules governing conflict between international norms then may lead to the priority of one norm, without any question of supremacy arising.40 However, a conflict between an international obligation and a competing fundamental right cannot always be resolved at the international level—at least not in a manner that would conform to the way that domestic courts would solve the problem. Even if a domestic court were to view a dispute in terms of a conflict between two international norms, its solution would not necessarily be identical to the solution that an international court would propose. For one thing, a domestic 37 Peters, The Globalization of State Constitutions (n 22) 260, 269–70. But see the Görgülü case (n 24), in which the BVerfG said that ECHR only enjoys the rank of a federal act and needs to be applied within the confines of the Basic Law (para 30, 35). 38 T Cottier and D Wüger, ‘Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf das Verfassungsrecht: Eine Diskussionsgrundlage’ in B Sitter-Liver (ed), Herausgeforderte Verfassung: Die Schweiz im globalen Konzert (Freiburg,Universitätsverlag, 1999) 263–64; cited in Peters (n 22) 267. 39 ibid. 40 See ILC, ‘Report of the Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law, finalized by Martti Koskeniemmi’ 56th session (3 May–4 June and 5 July–6 August 2004) UN Doc A/CN4/L628.

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court might seek to balance two obligations binding on the forum state (such as the ECHR and an extradition treaty), whereas an international court might not have that power, for instance because one of the parties before the international court was not a party to the ECHR. Consider the example of the judgment of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands in Short v Netherlands. The Court had to resolve a conflict between an obligation under a bilateral extradition treaty and the ECHR, arising from the fact that the US had requested extradition of a US soldier who might have faced the death penalty in the United States.41 The Court found that the obligation under the ECHR prevailed on the basis of a balance of interests. A similar approach was taken by the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic in respect of an extradition request from Thailand.42 If such a conflict were to be adjudicated by an international court that only had jurisdiction in respect to the extradition treaty, the outcome obviously might be different. Moreover, even if an international court were to have jurisdiction in respect of all relevant treaties, it might apply a different conflict rule than a domestic court would. The weighing of interests and obligations applied in the Dutch and Czech extradition cases referred to above, does not easily conform to international principles for the reconciliation of competing obligations.43 The same would hold for a hypothetical scenario where an international court reviewed the international responsibility of member states of the EU following the Kadi judgment.44 An international court might for instance find that it could not, like a state, give precedence to international human rights law, in view of the effects of Article 103 of the Charter at the international level—a principle that would not come into play domestically.45 Indeed, the ECtHR decisions in Behrami and Saramati46 show that that the European Court is likely to arrive at a different balance of interest. The few hierarchies that international law does establish, such as Article 103 of the UN Charter, need not be recognised domestically. Conversely, domestic courts may establish a hierarchy of norms (with fundamental rights on top), or come to a balance of interests, that international courts need not follow. This situation is significantly different from the situation addressed by the traditional principle of supremacy, which, in its practical manifestations, means that a state cannot plead provisions of domestic law as a ground for nonobservance of international obligations. If the reason for non-observance is a rule of domestic law that conforms to an international obligation, the conflict is not

41 CDS v The State of the Netherlands Netherlands Supreme Court, (The Hague, 30 March 1990) [1991] 22 Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 432 42 Recognition of a Sentence Imposed by a Thai Court, Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic (Brno, 21 February 2007), I ÚS 601/04, International Law in Domestic Courts 990. 43 See the various principles governing the conflict of norms discussed in ILC, Report of the Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law, finalised by Martti Koskeniemmi (United Nations, UN Doc A/CN4/L628, 2004). 44 Kadi v Council (n 1). 45 Unless it would find that the Council would have acted ultra vires; see de Wet and Nollkaemper (n 27) 375, or the Council would have violated a rule of ius cogens; see A Orakhelsashvili, Peremptory Norms in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006) 465. 46 Behrami and Behrami v France (App no 71412/01) and Saramati v France, Germany and Norway (App no 78166/01) ECHR 2 May 2007.

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between international law and domestic law, but between a (possible) international determination of how a conflict between two obligations should be resolved and a domestic determination of how such a conflict should be resolved. It is debatable whether this conflict should be construed in terms of the principle of supremacy. On the one hand, it may not be a problem of supremacy in the narrow sense of the term, as for instance codified in Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). On the other hand, if we use the concept of supremacy in a broad meaning, as referring to the subordination of the sovereignty of states to international law, it still may be possible to construe such a conflict between an international and a domestic interpretation as a problem of supremacy. The subordination of the sovereignty of states to international law may be said to include the supremacy of international over purely domestic decisions on how to reconcile two competing obligations. In either case, the normative conflict discussed here is of an essentially different nature to traditional international law–domestic law conflicts. First, there is a difference of principle. Rather than seeking to prioritise domestic law over international law, states seek to contribute to the effective performance of international obligations. We are thus not concerned with nationalistic solutions that undermine the cause of international law, and that for this reason are principally rejected at the international level. Rather, courts seek to give effect to what they perceive as (domestic translations) of fundamental rules of international law. It seems that the international legal order should treat such cases differently to attempts to prioritise domestic law over international law. Second, the fact that a state seeks to justify non-compliance with an international obligation by reference to another international obligation, rather than to a rule of domestic law, changes the parameters of the dispute. Rather than being analysed in a black and white manner (domestic law can never trump international law), the conflict is now subjected to rules of international law pertaining to conflicts between two or more international norms.47 While these rules do establish some parameters, they are much more flexible and the outcome is much less straightforward than the application of the principle of Article 27 of the VCLT. The difference may be illustrated by the proceedings instituted by Germany against Italy for failing to respect the jurisdictional immunities of Germany.48 The dispute may be framed as a conflict between the rights of jurisdictional immunity vis-à-vis the Italian argument that in cases of international crimes, no such right exist. If the conflict were to be presented purely in terms of a dispute ofinternational law versus domestic law, Germany’s argument could be endorsed by the court by simple reference to the principle of supremacy and to Article 3 of the Articles on State Responsibility. If however the conflict is presented, as seems likely, in terms of two opposing rules of international law, that argument would be immaterial. The question then becomes one of interpretation of the law of

47

See the comprehensive discussion of conflict rules in ILC (n 43). See Respect of the Jurisdictional Immunity as a Sovereign State (Germany v Italy) (Pending) ICJ Press Release 2008/44 www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/143/14925.pdf (last accessed 24 May 2009). 48

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immunities and the rules governing the resolution between competing international obligations—a question that leaves room for a wider analysis. It is true that in those rare instances in which a case reaches an international court, such as the case now brought by Germany against Italy, this court eventually would have to come up with a single answer as to which interpretation should prevail. In the event of the international court not accepting the hierarchy of norms as interpreted by the state, the outcome might be identical to the situation where the state relies on domestic rather than international law. An international court is likely to reject the attempt of a state to justify non-performance by reference to a fundamental obligation that is not recognised as being hierarchically superior.49 However, two qualifications are in order. First, there is a good argument to be made that domestic decisions on balancing of international obligations are entitled to a deference that gives states a wide margin of appreciation in the definition, interpretation and balancing of fundamental rights. That obviously is true in cases concerning a conflict between two norms, each covered by the ECHR and the ICCPR, as was the case in the von Hannover case.50 In that respect also Article 53 of the ECHR is relevant, providing that ‘Nothing in this Convention shall be construed as limiting or derogating from any of the human rights and fundamental freedoms which may be ensured under the laws of any High Contracting Party or under any other agreement to which it is a Party.’51 Arguably it also may apply when a domestic court balances a fundamental right with a substantive right of another state. For the question would be which state should incur the costs of normative ambiguity caused by the conflict between two international norms.52 Leaving no deference to the state in question ‘marks a questionable policy preference for inaction (i.e., the prevailing status quo), even when action is legitimized by international law.’53 In effect, it would freeze the law, precisely in an area where emerging practice at national level can change hierarchies at the international level. Second, in the majority of cases, no claim is brought to an international court. In such cases the situation will be that a domestic court, which in a normative ambiguous situation prioritises fundamental rights over other state rights, will have a credible claim of legitimacy. The case of Short is illustrative. Even though the

49 This is indeed suggested by the Judgment of the ECHR in Al-Adsani v the United Kingdom (App no 35763/97) ECHR 2001-XI 79. 50 Von Hannover v Germany (n 29). 51 See for an application: Decision regarding the scope of the fundamental right to protection of personality rights pursuant to Article 2.1 in conjunction with Article 1.1 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz—GG) in respect of photographs of celebrities within the context of entertaining media reports concerning their private and everyday life,Bundesverfassungsgericht (26 February 2008) 1 BvR 1602/07 para 52 (holding that ‘Gewährleistungen der Konvention und die Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte dienen darüber hinaus auf der Ebene des Verfassungsrechts als Auslegungshilfen für die Bestimmung von Inhalt und Reichweite von Grundrechten, sofern dies nicht zu einer - von der Konvention selbst nicht gewollten (vgl Art 53 EMRK) - Einschränkung oder Minderung des Grundrechtsschutzes nach dem Grundgesetz führt’). 52 Shany, ‘Toward a General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?’ (n 15) 925. 53 ibid.

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choice to abide by the ECHR, and not the extradition treaty, caused the Netherlands to violate an international obligation towards the United States, few would contest the legitimacy of the balance struck by the Dutch court.54 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

With the increase of decisions of international organisations and perhaps also treaty obligations that may not satisfy requirements that have been set at domestic level in terms of protection of the rule of law and fundamental rights, we seem likely to witness a growing reluctance of domestic courts to give supremacy to international law in their domestic legal order. From one perspective, this leads to international law and domestic law complementing each other in the protection of the rule of law and fundamental rights. However, without further benchmarks, international law will not be able to accept domestic challenges to the performance of international obligations based on a conflict with domestic law, and will assert the supremacy of international law. The benchmark on which acceptance by international law may be based can only be found in international law itself. In a substantial and probably increasing number of cases, challenges based on domestic fundamental rights overlap with and thus can also be based on international norms. The substantive overlap and interdependence between international law and domestic law leads to a qualification of the principle of supremacy as states may acquire more power to assert domestic/international norms to justify non-performance of international obligations. This is not necessarily an apologetic move that sacrifices the normative ideals of international law and its supremacy. Paradoxically, by bringing the (application of the) principle close to domestic practice, the ideals of international law may be better served. Recognising a substantive qualification of supremacy may help solve the opposition, and resulting paralysis, between the supremacy of international law and the supremacy of domestic law. States may be more willing to allow international law into their domestic legal orders, if they can be relatively certain that they will have a final check that international law does not upset their fundamental rights. This would be in line with the practice of states that allows for domestic precedence of international human rights law.55 It has the advantage of bringing the principle of supremacy at the international level and the principle of supremacy at the domestic level closer together.56 A related asset of this perspective is that it allows us to recognise the role that domestic courts can play in upholding the international rule of law by scrutinising whether international acts (in particular acts of international organisations, but also treaties) are compatible with fundamental rights. Determining whether or not such international acts of law-making conform to fundamental rights ideally would be a 54

CDS v The State of the Netherlands (n 41). Peters (n 22). 56 cf for a similar argument in the context of EU law Besselink, A Composite European Constitution (n 18). 55

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task of international courts. But in the absence of such courts with adequate jurisdiction, national courts can provide the missing link by assessing international acts against fundamental rights, either ‘as international norms’ or in the form of domestic constitutional rights. Rather than seeing domestic filters as an unwarranted barrier to the full effect of international law, such filters may be complementary to the ambitions of international law itself. Rather than being faithful but blind enforcers of international law, domestic courts may have to fulfil a role as a safety-valve or ‘gate keepers’.57 Thereby, they also can put pressure on international decision-makers to get it right, much in the same manner as the Solange case law in Germany put pressure on decision-makers in the EC to recognise and protect fundamental rights. Similarly, the Kadi case may put pressure on the Security Council to adjust the procedures, assuming that the Council is concerned about the effects of its resolutions in the European Union and that the defects in terms of rule-setting cannot be resolved at the European level. The substantive approach to supremacy advanced here does not at all solve or prevent normative conflicts—it just may relocate them. The approach advanced here also is not entirely risk-free. But it is grounded in attempts to give effect to international obligations, rather than to deny such effect. Whatever concerns remain, may be outweighed by the defects in the rule of law quality of international law, which needs to be solved at the international level.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books L Besselink, A Composite European Constitution (Groningen, Europa Law Publishing, 2007). I Brownlie, The Rule of Law in International Affairs. International Law at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1988). D Carreau, Droit International, 8th edn (Paris, Pedone, 2004). J Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). G Fitzmaurice, The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice Vol II (Cambridge, Grotius Publications, 1986). A Orakhelsashvili, Peremptory Norms in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). C Santuli, Le Status International de L’Ordre Juridique Étatique (Paris, Pedone, 2001). 57 F Kratochwil, ‘The Role of Domestic Courts as Agencies of the International Legal Order’ in R Falk, F Kratochwil and S Mendlovitz (eds), International Law, A Contemporary Perspective, Studies on a Just World Order 2 (Boulder, Westview, 1985) 237; Peters, ‘The Globalization of State Constitutions’ (n 22) 267.

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Chapters in Edited Volumes G Arangio-Ruiz, ‘International Law and Interindividual Law’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds) New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). T Cottier and D Wüger, ‘Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf das Verfasungsrecht: Eine Diskussionsgrundlage’ in B Sitter-Liver (ed), Herausgeforderte Verfassung: Die Schweiz im globalen Konzert (Freiburg, Universitätsverlag, 1999). J Crawford, ‘International Law and Australian Federalism: Past, Present and Future’ in BR Opeskin and DR Rothwell (eds), International Law and Australian Federalism (Victoria, Melbourne University Press, 1997). T Gehring, ‘Treaty-Making and Treaty Evolution’ in D Bodansky et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). F Kratochwil, () ‘The Role of Domestic Courts as Agencies of the International Legal Order’ in: R Falk, F Kratochwil and S Mendlovitz (eds), International Law, A Contemporary Perspective, Studies on a Just World Order 2 (Boulder, Westview, 1985). J Nijman and A Nollkaemper, ‘Beyond the Divide’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). A Nollkaemper, ‘Multilevel accountability in international law: a case study of the aftermath of Srebrenica’ in Y Shany and T Broude (eds) The Shifting Allocation of Authority in International Law: Considering Sovereignty, Supremacy, and Subsidiarity (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008). A Peters, ‘The Globalization of State Constitutions’ in J Nijman and A Nollkaemper (eds), New Perspectives on the Divide between International and National Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). International Documents International Law Commission (2001) Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Annex to UNGA Res 56/83 – UN Doc A/RES/56/83 (United Nations). International Law Commission (2006) Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, A/CN 4/L 682 (United Nations). Journal Articles E Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards’ (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 843–54. A Bianchi, ‘International Law and US Courts: The Myth of Lohengrin Revealed’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 751–81.

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D Bodanksy, ‘The Legitimacy of International Governance: A Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?’ (1999) 93 American Journal of International Law 596–624. P Callé, ‘L’acte authentique établi à l’étranger—Validité et execution en France’ (2005) 94 Revue Critique de Droit International Privé 377–412. J Crawford, ‘International Law and the Rule of law’ (2004) 24 Adelaide Law Review 3–12. E de Wet and A Nollkaemper, ‘Review of Security Council Decisions by National Courts’ (2002) 45 German Yearbook of International Law 166–202. G Fitzmaurice, ‘The General Principles of International law Considered from the Standpoint of the Rule of Law’ (1957) 92 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1–227. M Kumm, ‘The Legitimacy of International Law: A Constitutionalist Framework of Analysis’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 907–31. J Rehman, ‘The Sharia, Islamic Family Laws and International Human Rights Law: Examining the Theory and Practice of Polygamy and Talaq’ (2007) 21 International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 108–27. Y Shany, ‘Toward a General Margin of Appreciation Doctrine in International Law?’ (2006) 16 European Journal of International Law 907–40. A von Bodgandy, ‘Pluralism, Direct Effect, and the Ultimate Say: On the Relationship between International and Domestic Constitutional Law’ (2008) 6 International Journal of Constitutional Law 397–413. A Watts, ‘The International Rule of Law’ (1993) 36 German Yearbook of International Law 15–45. JHH Weiler, ‘The Geology of International Law: Governance, Democracy and Legitimacy’ (2004) 64 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 547–62.

Working Papers C Joerges, ‘Rethinking European Law’s Supremacy’ European University Institute Working Paper Law No 2005/12 (2005) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=838110.

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Natural Law and the Possibility of Universal Normative Foundations BEBHINN DONNELLY-LAZAROV *

INTRODUCTION

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UR WORLD IS heterogeneous; its cultures differ, its territories and their resources are unevenly formed and, fundamentally, each of its individual citizens is unique. Unsurprisingly, the normative orders that regulate these aspects of being, not just discretely but as interacting phenomena, differ too. Legal systems exist in what may be shifting territories with shifting cultural populations, unstable natural resources, against the challenges of political and popular pressure, and in evolving international normative structures. The role of international law is a particularly complex one; normatively to represent and/or reconcile heterogeneity where it is legitimate to do so. There is not much in this picture that appears to be universal, fundamental, or unshifting, and in seeking to determine which norms should be recognised universally, if any, it seems that there is little in the world of fact to assist. The analysis that follows will propose that certain norms are based on universal grounds and deserve universal recognition. Despite heterogeneity, it will be suggested that the world of fact, in particular our specifically human nature, can inform our account of what these norms may be. The suggestion is not that there are norms that should apply without exception and without consideration for their impact on other norms (universality at the level of norm application is not argued for) but, rather, that certain features of human nature give rise to rights that should be recognised universally.1 A natural law perspective will be used in an attempt to ascertain how grounds for universal norms may be discerned in a heterogeneous world.

* Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Swansea University 1 The task here may usefully be distinguished from the task that Bogdandy and Dellavalle set themselves in recent work. Their aim is meticulously to analyse the paradigms of universalism and particularism as responses to the question ‘how far truly public order can reach.’ ‘Is it confined to the borders of the homogeneous political community (particularism) or does it potentially include all societies and human beings (universalism)?’ See A von Bogdandy and S Dellavalle, Universalism and Particularism as Paradigms of International Law (Institute for International Law and Justice/New York University School of Law, International Law and Justice Working Paper no 3, 2008) 1. Here the aim is to consider whether there are norms that warrant universal recognition. There is little attempt to discern whether global public order is the appropriate legal mechanism to secure such recognition, though the issue is touched upon.

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Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov WHAT MAKES NATURAL LAW, NATURAL ‘LAW’?

According to natural law, all entities, including human beings, have ends or goods that fulfil and govern their nature; to become an oak tree, for example, is an end for an acorn; it is the fulfilment of its capacity to grow and it is the only end that the growth ultimately can lead to. Whilst human beings are deemed to have ends, just like the acorn, there are, of course, important ways in which human beings differ, normatively, from other entities. These differences are attributable to our possession of reason. The acorn, by nature, just becomes or fails to become an oak tree; it does not have any choice in the matter. The absence of choice can be seen to have two implications. First it establishes that non-rational entities, in so far as they are active at all, must (rather than ought to) pursue their ends. Second it can be said that an entity without a rational nature must pursue its ends. The acorn cannot, at least without very substantial human intervention, grow to become a sycamore tree, for example. To have ends, then, is first to be compelled to pursue one’s own nature and second to be constrained by that same nature; natural law is natural law in that entities are deemed to be governed by their nature. Our possession of reason substantially complicates this story. Reason, unlike growth, does not simply happen or fail to happen; rather, it is constituted by deliberative qualities like, reflection, analysis, prudence, principle, coherence and consistency. In a way, therefore, reason is precisely the opposite of a ‘natural’ quality. However, in the natural law account, the ability to pursue our nature in these reason-based ways is precisely our nature and the aspect of our being that makes us moral. Like the acorn, we are constrained by our nature—we cannot be other than the (human) entity that we actually are—but, because reason defines our nature, we are to work, morally, at becoming fully who we are, in a way that the acorn does not. The burden of morality arises, in the natural law schema, precisely because this specifically human type of action is capable of being comprised of consciousness and does not merely happen.2 Human goods can of course be pursued in a number of ways; through irrationality, through desire and animalistic qualities, or through arbitrariness. Yet, the possibility of pursuing our ends in an unreasoning way (the possibility of the ‘unnatural’) is precisely the context that allows the natural lawyer to claim that man ‘ought’ to pursue his ends. Morality arises from man’s ability to pursue his ends according to reason and from the lack of necessity in the same. A key natural law insight emerges from the interaction that is to occur between reason and other ‘essential’ elements of human nature which is that the dissonance between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ at the origins of normativity disappears. Fundamentally what we ought to be and do, by this account, derives its meaning and its force from the ‘is’, from the kind of being that we are. 2 Korsgaard acknowledges that for human beings, natural ‘law’ takes on a peculiar meaning: ‘According to the teleological ethics of the ancient world, to be virtuous is to realize our true nature, to be the best version of what we are. So it is to let our own nature be a law to us.’ C Korsgaard, ‘Reflective Endorsement’ in C Korsgaard (ed), The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) 66.

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In the somewhat idiosyncratic interplay that occurs between nature and reason, natural law can be seen to appeal for existential reflection to accompany the deliberative process that is central to many accounts of the foundation of human rights. This is where the specificity of natural law is most clearly evidenced; deliberation is to take place against a context that is given, ie, our nature as human. The deliberative process will involve not merely a forward thinking account of what values human beings should pursue and how, therefore, but this same account in the context of a reflective consideration of who we are; by discovering who really we are we bring rights to the deliberative table and deliberation thenceforth is not about what rights there should be but about how the rights that ‘are’ (and hence ‘are’ universal) by nature, should be pursued. Proper pursuit will no doubt produce an important role for heterogeneity at the level of norm application but never to the extent that recognition of certain basic rights is denied.

UNIVERSALITY AND DIFFERENCE AS NON-CONTRADICTORY ‘CARRIERS’ OF VALUE

From a natural law perspective, the apparent tension between universality and difference is not a basic tension but a representation of the more fundamental apparent dichotomy between ‘ought’ and ‘is’. At this fundamental level, difference makes no difference for the questions are not those of relativism: ‘does cultural context determine in part what ought to be?’; ‘does the concept of nationhood have a special role?’; ‘what is the role of individuality and how can it be reconciled with communality?’ Rather there is a single question that forms the basis of these and many others, namely ‘how does what “is” relate to what “ought to be”?’ This question is an unavoidable one in understanding normativity (and consequently in beginning to understand the grounds of law and its legitimacy), but it is important for two incidental reasons that bear upon the grounds of legitimacy of international law: (1) it encourages us to worry about who I am/we are as much as about who ‘the different is’ (to consider not only whether a particular normative tradition should set the standard for other cultures but also whether ‘we’ are setting our own standards well) and (2) by respecting the individuality of natures as such (the ‘is’), it may allow a clearer understanding of the role of difference as a ‘carrier’ of value to emerge. Any attempt to understand the normative relevance of difference and universality and the relationship between the two by considering just these concepts will prove fruitless. In the abstract, we may think it is a good thing to value ‘difference’ for example, but a bad thing to validate what ‘is’ just in virtue of its ‘being’; to value difference for the sake of difference. The abstract attempt very quickly produces norms that point in opposite or at least different directions. This is unsurprising for the value of an action or a practice is found in its nature as such and in the implications it has and rarely, if at all, in its nature as different or universal. For example, a language will be worth protecting, because it assists in preserving the identity of a particular culture or because we can learn something about the history of human evolution through studying its historical development but hardly just

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because it is different to some other language. Likewise, the fact that a particular practice is universal—imagine that a certain form of torture comes to be commonplace—is hardly the reason either to prohibit or allow it. What should matter in the legal response to the act is that it amounts to torture, not that it is universal. Assuming one law-maker, difference and universality are not the point, the point is whether and how the law-maker is to censure, permit and protect certain actions and practices. There is another sense in which difference of itself seems to be relevant which relates precisely to the question of whether there should be one ‘law-maker’. If value judgements are to be made about human actions and practices, then maybe certain groups are better equipped than the law-maker to determine what those judgements should be; at least those groups should be in a position to insist that the law-maker modifies its norms to suit the particular group.3 In this sense, normative autonomy represents the entitlement of the ‘different’ to set its own values relative to its context. But again, here it may quickly be seen that the value of normative autonomy is not in virtue of the group’s difference to other groups but, say, in virtue of its ability most effectively to meet or mirror the particular needs, expectations and traditions of its members and to represent the features that contribute to the group’s sense of its own value. Difference is a condition of much of what may be good about normative autonomy here, but it is not the reason for it being good. One could not, for example, easily sustain the claim that people with brown hair deserve an element of normative autonomy; there would be negligible value in that, other than difference itself. For just the same reason it would be nonsensical to argue that we all ought to be subject to the same rules all the time, just because we are all human, and to give a value to universality itself. The value in difference, like the value in universality, both at the level of practices and norm-setting comes from what these conditions offer human beings not from the conditions alone. Difference and universality may be seen as carriers of value rather than values in themselves. What needs to be determined is whether it is a good thing for certain norms to be recognised universally—whether there is value for human beings in the same—and

3 Assuming an international legal order, it may be supposed, for example, that the state is nonetheless best positioned to posit certain aspects of its citizens’ normative entitlements and duties. Bogdandy and Dellavalle note that it is the particularist paradigm which reflects this vision of nationhood at its strongest: ‘In the traditional understanding the nation State is seen as the highest form of realisation of a people bound in solidarity. It is the source of all law and the foundation and framework of the national economy. Only through the nation State can the national language, the national literature, the national system of science and arts, the national culture in general realise their full potential.’ See Bogdandy and Dellavalle, Universalism and Particularism as Paradigms of International Law (n 1) 12. Interestingly, the notion of realising potential as the ‘thing’ in question is in keeping with the natural law position which seeks fulfilment of the ‘is’ within moral confines. However, natural law does not, of necessity, lead to particularism. Its premises suggest that the form of order that does in fact better instantiate the fulfilment of the individual, the culture, the state, etc, is the form of order that should be preferred. It may turn out that over a certain realm of human affairs, global public order is to be preferred to an exclusively national order. A degree of fusion of national realms may, by this understanding, be desirable, although it may be considered unlikely that global law could ever be capable of being adequately attuned to, or sufficiently flexible to accommodate, all (legitimate) appeals to normative-distinctiveness.

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according to natural law there is. The natural law perspective also tends to suggest that the universal norms that are capable of possessing such value do not have the effect of creating homogeneity and do not pose a threat to the benefits that may accrue to human beings from difference. Indeed, using a natural law model, the role of universality is not to universalise. It is rather to allow any form of existence to pursue its fulfilment as such (this is entailed by the normative foundations of natural law) albeit within the confines of universal, definitive boundaries that themselves are taken to contribute to individual fulfilment. Universality at this normative level and in this sense does not stand in contradiction to difference; rather it will, inter alia, contain the criteria to determine the extent to which heterogeneity in human action should be mirrored at the level of norm-application. It is not, of course, that natural law argues against any substantively universal norms, but rather that the type of substantively universal norms that are argued for are sufficiently receptive to difference in human affairs to permit an appropriate degree of heterogeneity at the level of norm application.

‘UNIVERSAL’ NATURES

If normativity is understood to be conditioned by our essential nature, it follows that we need to reflect on ‘who essentially we are’ in order to know ‘how we ought to be.’ Recognition of our unique possession of reason and an understanding of reason’s uniquely normative force did not, of itself, establish, for natural lawyers, any substantive principle of action. Indeed a key natural law claim is that neither the ‘existence’ of normativity nor our knowledge of it can be attributed to pure reason alone. Instead it was the attachment of reason to the creature in which reason belonged that was of crucial importance; to recognise reason’s authority was to recognise in the first place that there is an entity, the human being, in which reason belongs, whose specific nature is formed by reason. Other essential elements of the nature of the being in which reason existed defined how reason could be applied to it and in effect what reason could mean practically in that world. Aquinas makes clear the sense in which nature has a priority to ‘reason’ in determining human norms: The will is master of its actions, and its proper mode of causing is over and above that which goes with nature, in which there is a determinism to one effect. All the same, because it is grounded on nature, it needs must share in the natural working of its subject, and to this extent, that an element which belongs to an early causal stage of development remains in a later stage. Basically we are what we are by our nature and accordingly act as we do, and that comes before our voluntary acting.4

Pure reason, in so far as it can bear upon my action, is, after all, my pure reason; it is attached to me and ‘I’ am something. This is why natural lawyers understood that to act in accordance with reason just was to act in accordance with nature.

4 T Aquinas and T McDermott (ed) Summa Theologiae (Notre Dame, IN, Ave Maria Press, 1989) 1a2ae 10, 1.

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There are ends that constrain my reason as practical, by virtue of its attachment to me, and these ends in natural law formed the substance of the laws which govern us naturally. The other ends which are taken to constitute the basis of our essential natures are surprisingly simple, and the authoritarian caricature of natural law should fall away in this light. We are to act according to reason in pursuit of the natural ends of reason itself, life and community.5 These fundamental ends are taken to correspond to the natural law, because they do not depend on being chosen; they make me what I am, whether I want them to or not. The goods of reason, life and community are to be the foundation for legal norms; most immediately it is rights doctrines by which we may expect to recognise the force of these three basic human goods which, by a natural law understanding, are the source of the legitimacy of human rights. It is not surprising that the conditions that establish our normative nature are central to an understanding of the substantive principles of normativity; take these conditions away (or to put it substantively, breach these ends), and the basis for believing that there is any sense to normativity—anything normative to inquire into—falls away too. Kant’s analysis of the moral status of suicide reflects the necessity of certain essentials to normativity; ‘to annihilate the subject of morality in one’s own person is to root out the existence of morality itself from the world’.6 Korsgaard makes a similar point about the implications for normativity of rejecting life: If value is the fact of life, then a rejection of all value takes the form of a rejection of life. The most straightforward expression of complete practical normative scepticism would therefore be a form of suicide.7

In keeping with these insights, traditional natural law takes the condition of life to be essential to morality but it is essential alongside, community and reason too. These three were the conditions that, for natural lawyers, made man moral and to deny any one was to annihilate the subject of morality and to deny morality any place in the world. There is, of course, much dispute about whether natural law does identify human goods well and certainly in new natural law a different set of such goods is identified. Finnis identifies (by a markedly different methodology) life, knowledge, friendship, practical reasonableness, play, aesthetic experience and religion. There is

5 There are many ways to conceptualise the ends of traditional natural law theory. Those referred to here represent an interpretation of the Thomistic laws of nature presented in Summa Theologiae. 6 I Kant and M Gregor (translator and ed), The Metaphysics of Morals, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) 547. 7 Korsgaard points out that of course not every act of suicide has this meaning: ‘I believe that there can be good reasons for committing suicide. … Most people would rather die than completely lose their identities, and there are various ways to do that. Violating your own essential principles, failing to meet your deepest obligations, is … one, but there are others over which we have less control. The ravages of severe illness, disability and pain can shatter your identity by destroying its physical basis, obliterating memory or making self-command impossible. Suicide, in such cases, may be the only way to preserve your identity, and to protect the values for which you have lived.’ Korsgaard, ‘Reflective Endorsement’ (n 2) 161.

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a strong kinship with the scholastic origins, however; along with Grisez and Boyle, Finnis claims that the basic goods are ‘aspects of the fulfilment of persons’ that ‘correspond to the inherent complexities of human nature’.8 The substantive goods that emerge from a particular natural law perspective may be thought to provide a sound basis for universal recognition of certain human rights; these goods are to represent our nature as human, a nature that we share, whoever we are, whatever we have become. Where a connection to this essence is missing in the justification for rights provisions we ought to question whether the rights at issue are really rights at all and ought to be particularly wary of imposing such ‘rights’ (particularly with a high degree of universality in application) in heterogeneous contexts. Likewise where specific human activities, however commonplace, appear to offend basic rights, we ought similarly to be careful not to validate what ‘is’ in virtue of its being. In this way, we are encouraged to trust our account of the ‘right’ above any value we may tend to give an activity or practice in virtue of it being universal.

UNIVERSALITY AND LAW’S REACH

From a natural law perspective, the overriding normative requirement that underlies human existence is to pursue humanity to its most complete extent. For the individual, this translates into a requirement to do so in the manner befitting his capabilities. This is true of the individual as an individual and as a member of groups. As an athletic, artistic Christian, John, for example, is to be these things well, and that means relative not only to the goods specific to athleticism, art and Christianity, but also in pursuit of the overriding goods of reason, community and life. In the natural law tradition, becoming good involves a narrowing of the gap between incomplete and complete forms of actuality, whatever type of actuality is in question, but always for the overriding complete actuality of humanity itself. As soon as we, at an individual level or through our societies and institutions, enter into relationships or develop the potential to have relationships with others, these others are part of our normative world,9 and the capacity to perfect these normative relations (which may sometimes, but need not, mean creating institutional legal norms) becomes one that, according to natural law reasoning, we ought to act upon. To fail to do so is to fail to fulfil our nature as normative for it is to leave the good of community in a stage of actuality which our potentiality, in respect of how best to satisfy evolving needs, has surpassed. As Luhman observed some time ago, the world is fully globalised; the potentially relevant normative context for ‘complete actuality’ is a global one.

8 G Grisez, J Finnis and J Boyle, ‘Practical Principles, Moral Truth and Ultimate Ends’ (1987) 32 American Jorunal of Jurisprudence 99, 107. 9 Plato, Aristotle, the Old Stoics, Aquinas and Grotius represent a tradition in so far as each takes the natural evolution to institutions and institutional laws as being founded on man’s nature as sociable/communicative. The concept of man as a political animal represents the most celebrated account of this evolution.

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The fact that normative relations are global does not of necessity mean that such normative relations are best ‘perfected’ by global legal practices. The good of community may be breached by the failure at least to conceive of the global in a consideration of how far law’s domain legitimately may extend. Such a failure may at some point leave the community in a stage of development that falls far behind our capacity and/or need to provide for, recognise and protect each other’s needs, interests and values. However, this is not the place to provide a full account of whether and to what extent an element of globality in law is legitimate or desirable. The argument could be made, for example, that although, as suggested here, certain rights ought to be recognised universally, the proper mechanism for such recognition and the most effective way to secure rights globally, is via state law or through cosmopolitan legal orders.10 Here, the more modest suggestion is that in so far as law does operate at the global level (or at any other level, for that matter) it ought to do so in pursuit of and through protection of basic human goods/rights that warrant universal recognition.

AUTONOMY AND TOLERANCE IN UNIVERSALITY

Global normativity is not, of course, a movement to sameness. Should it come to be the case that rights, which warrant universal recognition, receive such recognition at a global level, it must, of course, be understood that at the level of norm application a significant variation should be permitted. Indeed, it may be expected that the more global law’s reach, the greater the need will arise for variation, flexibility, and discretion at the level of norm application to secure the effective implementation of universal, highly abstract and general rights in obviously and necessarily heterogeneous contexts. Laws protect basic human goods, but for the benefit of those whose goods these are, ie individually constituted human beings whose institutions and cultures are unique. The governing requirement of natural law is that all things ought to be what they are; ‘I’ am not only a member of the community (most widely constituted in the entirety of global existence). I am first an individual; I am also a member of a culture, a religion, a sporting organisation, a nation etc. The individual and the associations to which they belong will seek self-creation according to their own natures. These forms of being ought not to act against the goods that warrant universal recognition, but we may consider that in pursuit of basic goods they ought to have the autonomy that befits their natures. Finnis emphasises the respect for individual autonomy in the Thomistic tradition, found in the concept of the common good: So, although there is no [type of] virtue the acts of which cannot be prescribed by law, human law does not make prescriptions about all the acts of all the virtues, but only about those acts which are relatable {ordinabiles} to the common good, whether immediately (as when things are done directly for the common good) or mediately (as when things are 10 See HP Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) for an account of how such legal orders may be thought possible.

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regulated {ordinantur} by the legislator as being relevant to the good education {perninentia ad bonam disciplinam}) by which citizens are brought up to preserve the common good of justice and peace.11

In the natural law scheme, the personal and the political are best reconciled where, so far as there is no impact on the community, the choice of how to be active remains with the individual. By analogy, in the international context, the choice of how to be constituted as a culture or in any other way should remain with that culture so long as the wider goods of the international community are not infringed and so long as the goods of those subject to the individual culture (ie individual members of the international community) are respected too.12 There is a multitude of ways to seek to secure/protect basic goods and the choice of how to secure human rights in a particular context should be an autonomous one. In addition, room for error should be allowed; no state can ever reach ends that by definition are perfective; it can only, at best, seek to do so. It follows that the basic natural law principle that all things ought to be what essentially they are, in fact contains a fundamental contradiction. Human beings, and their institutions, are necessarily imperfect; to ask us to attain perfection is actually to contradict the principle that each thing ought to be what essentially it is. Imperfection is an essential element of the thing that we are. Since the attainment of the perfective end is impossible, it can represent a conceptual end only. This brings into view the important role not only of autonomy but also of tolerance; tolerance, in this sense, asks us to accept that it may be appropriate to respect autonomy even when the opportunity for human fulfilment is not as advanced in one context as it is in another. Western liberal democracies may be expected to exhibit, in their legal systems, a level of protection for human rights that many other societies have not yet attained. Yet it cannot be assumed either that all states, given their particular circumstances and restraints, should be expected to have a similar level of protection now or that Western liberal democracies are doing enough. The question that naturally arises, from framing the debate in this way, is, ‘how far must any form of existence go toward reaching its conceptual end?’ We can say with certainty that human beings and their institutions can go no further than their capacities allow; the most we can do is: seek absolutely to attain the conceptual end. This commitment represents our real as opposed to our conceptual end. Part of the pursuit of conceptual ends will include overcoming circumstances that operate as restraints on one’s capacities, but it remains true that not all states,

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J Finnis, Aquinas (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998) 225 This latter qualification is important for the community of people is affected not only when a state directly offends the goods in an international context but also when it offends the goods of its own citizens. The normative context is international; each individual citizen is a member of a global normative order and ought to be able to command protection at the outermost reaches of that order where only a globally instituted level of protection is sufficient to secure human rights. Rights are claimed not in virtue of our individuality as some sort of discrete phenomenon (if such a notion could be sustained at all), but only in virtue of the actual and potential effects of mutual existence both for the individual and groups of individuals. Such mutual existence takes place now at a global level. It may follow that protection for basic human rights may be adequate only at that same level. 12

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cultures and institutions will have the capacity to secure human goods in advance of conceptual ends to the same degree as others. The notion of self-defence can illustrate how it may be legitimate to allow a particular action even where the conceptual end (say life) is missed completely. A system of law that permits a defence of self-defence recognises that there are real limits on our ability to protect life as a basic good. One significant limit is that others, for whatever reason, will in fact actively aim to take life away. That negative aim will impact on our ability to meet the target good of preserving life because it may necessitate a response of self-defence that results in depriving the offender of his life. The point of importance is that by killing in self-defence, the deliberative response to life as a good has not altered; the respect for life as a basic good has not been diminished. By killing in these circumstances, it is undeniable that we have factually missed our conceptual target of preserving life. The miss may be legitimised by law, however, in recognition of the existence of a factual/real barrier to achieving the end of life. Finnis attributes a similar type of reasoning to Aquinas: Have I then no right to resist the vicious or insane killers attack? On the contrary, I can rightly resist the attack, preserving myself (or one or more others) by using whatever means are reasonably necessary for, and part and parcel of, repelling it. I do not lose this right just because I can foresee that these means will probably or even certainly have as their side-effect the assailant’s death. For in doing what I do, I need not – and must not – be intending to kill (or indeed to harm). I can – and should – be intending and choosing no more than to do what it takes to stop the attack {repellendi iniuriam}. That is the object {obiectum: finnis} or purpose of my acting; and the effect on my assailants life is a sideeffect, outside the intention {praetor intentionem} or set of intentions from which the action gets its per se character as a morally assessable act.13

A self-defence analogy may be useful in the context of international intervention and in making a contribution to debate over the justification for war. Where the international community responds to a breach of basic rights, it should do so only after careful consideration of whether the permissible level of discretion has been breached. For this to occur, it will minimally be necessary that the offending action is either (a) deliberately contrary to a conceptual end (ie where the offender aims against a conceptual end and breaches a real end therefore) or (b) represents an inadequate attempt at reaching the conceptual end given the particular and general context in which the action takes place (ie where the offender aims in advance of a conceptual end but does so inadequately and breaches the real end therefore).14 Once it is determined that a permissible level of discretion has been breached, only a proportionate response to the breach occasioned is, by this account, legitimate. Finnis indicates the importance of proportionality: … If my assailants attack, though utterly unjust, threatens only some rather slight injury or invasion of my rights, and I respond with lethal violence, I may well be violating the

13

Finnis, Aquinas (n 11) 276. None of this considers the further complication of incommensurability (in values within, and among traditions) that will need to be considered in determining precisely how any conceptual end can be pursued and in seeking the accommodations that are necessary to facilitate the problem of competing ends. 14

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Golden Rule even if I have no motive of hatred or revenge and so no intent to kill or even to harm: my response will not have been proportionate to its legitimate purpose, its proper intention {portionatus fini}.15

It will be rare that killing is a proportionate response to any act, as really only the threat of imminent death will risk depriving us of goods in such a way and to such an extent that only killing can preserve them. In the international context, it will be rare that anything other than imminent, direct aggression (to citizens internally or externally) will be a barrier to the ability of the responder itself to preserve life. Even if there is such aggression, there is no barrier to life preservation, if the aggression can be halted by means other than the taking of life. The natural law tradition as evidenced in elements of Platonic thought through to the present day provides a limited justification for war. Hans Kelsen, because of his unwillingness to admit a distinction between ‘non-contingent’ natural truths and the entirety of the empirical world, wrongly concludes that natural law reasoning leads us to validate all war: The moral systems which are at the basis of the positive legal orders of our time recognise war as a legitimate action and, hence, do not pre-suppose that the life of human beings belonging to the enemy ought to be preserved and promoted. If all these social orders are or have been actually effective, how could they be considered to be against human nature, if human nature is taken as it actually is and manifests itself in the social life of men; and where else could human nature manifest itself if not in the way the overwhelming majority of men actually behave in their mutual relations, and in the way they morally evaluate their behaviour.16

Traditional natural law seeks to show that the contingent world is escapable and that what remains after contingencies are stripped aside determines our nature as normative. In the essentials of our nature, there can be discerned goods (conceptual ends) that can and ought to be pursued to the maximum of our capacities. War can be said to be valid only when it is entered into to as a consequence of real barriers to man attaining his conceptual end (eg where there is an imminent threat to life that necessitates the taking of life as a response) and only in so far as conceptual ends are missed by no more than the degree represented by that barrier. CONCLUSION

The analysis here is no more than a framework to suggest (a) that certain rights deserve universal recognition, (b) that such a level of universality must allow for varying degrees of heterogeneity in norm-application, and (c) that heterogeneity in application will involve sensitivity to context. Central to this framework is a challenge to see the problem of the legitimacy of international law as not being one of heterogeneity versus universality. Difference itself is not significant; what is significant is the general determination of how what ‘is’ bears upon what ‘ought’ to be. Whether the ‘is’ relates to ourselves and to 15 16

Finnis, Aquinas (n 11) 227. H Kelsen, What is Justice? (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1957) 197.

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traditions that we are comfortable with, or to the unfamiliar and culturally specific, makes no difference. Difference or universality are to be respected and protected (most fundamentally via norms that warrant universal recognition) in so far as they carry value and are capable of better securing goods for human beings than alternative arrangements. Very difficult and substantive questions about whether and how such a standard can be satisfied become unavoidable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books Aquinas, T and McDermott, T (ed) Summa Theologiae (Notre Dame, IN, Ave Maria Press, 1989). J Finnis, Aquinas (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998). HP Glenn, Legal Traditions of the World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). I Kant and M Gregor, (trs and ed) The Metaphysics of Morals, The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). H Kelsen, What is Justice? (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1957). Chapters in Edited Volumes C Korsgaard, ‘Reflective Endorsement’ in C Korsgaard (ed), The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Journal Articles G Grisez, J Finnis and J Boyle, ‘Practical Principles, Moral Truth and Ultimate Ends’ (1987) 32 American Jorunal of Jurisprudence 99–151.

Working Papers A von Bogdandy and S Dellavalle, ‘Universalism and Particularism as Paradigms of International Law’ International Law and Justice Working Paper 2008/3 www.iilj.org/publications/2008–3Bogdandy–Dellavalle.asp.

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Legitimacy, Blind Spots and Paradoxes of Personality RUSSELL A MILLER *

INTRODUCTION

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ERDI’S ROMANTIC tragedy La Traviata tells the story of the doomed affair between Violetta Valéry and Alfredo Germont.1 It is clear from the start that their romance is ill-fated: could anything but calamity await ‘a courtesan, dying of tuberculosis’ and a ‘young poet’? And, indeed, it all goes terribly wrong. Violetta forswears the lavish but indifferent conditions in which she is kept by the Baron Duophol, risking her secure position as the Baron’s mistress on Alfredo’s earnest expressions of love. But Alfredo’s father wrecks the young couple’s bliss. In a secret visit to Violetta, during which he demands that she end the affair because of the ruin it is bringing to the family’s reputation, the senior Germont explains that ‘the youth whom my daughter loves dearly, and who loves her so much in return, was disgusted by all of this scandal, and has cancelled the marriage.’ Desolate and powerless, Violetta obliges Alfredo’s father and leaves Alfredo to return to the Baron. No doubt, La Traviata has much to teach us about illegitimate love. But I find myself reflecting on the opera because it also is a useful window onto questions relevant to international law’s legitimacy. The tragedy of La Traviata, after all, is imposed on Alfredo and Violetta by unseen forces, by a character that never makes an appearance in the drama. Certainly Alfredo’s father is to be condemned for giving voice to the prevailing mores of the day,2 but ultimately it is the sharp edge of the social code of mid-nineteenth century France, enforced by Alfredo’s sister’s fiancé, that dooms the affair.3 Herein lay the questions that fuel this essay. First, * Associate Professor, Washington & Lee University School of Law. Co-Editor-in-Chief, German Law Journal (www.germanlawjournal.com). This essay draws on my contribution to the book Progress in International Law (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff Press, 2008). 1 See G Verdi, La Traviata (EMI Classics, 1982). 2 ‘How outrageous are Gorgio Germont’s demands, really? Well, can there be any doubt that the marriage he is anxious to see take place between his daughter and the youth she “loves dearly, and who loves her so much in return” is a marriage he has arranged for strictly financial reasons? I have no real evidence to support this theory, except to point out that in the 1840s love matches between children of upper-class families in France were virtually unknown.’ P Zweifel, La Traviata, by Giuseppe Verdi (Notes by Paul Zweifel www.pzweifel.com/notes/laTraviata2001.htm. 3 As Paul Brians explains in a review of a Zeffirelli-directed film of the opera, ‘The story is a quintessential romantic attack on conventional bourgeois morality, arguing that a good heart is more important than propriety, that the social distinctions which split the beau monde (high society) form the demimonde (the world of illicit sex) are cruel and hypocritical, and that true love must triumph over all. … In mid-19th-century France, almost as much as in England, sexual hypocrisy was widespread.

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there is the question of the legitimacy of a social code that has been so thoroughly assimilated that it operates beyond the characters’ critical inquiry. Their blind spots and biases, it turns out, evade even the searching power of love! Second, there is the question of the legitimacy of the authority to enforce the paradigm. In the opera this power is wholly spectral, inanimate and assumed; we are never given the chance to confront Alfredo’s sister’s fiancé on stage. But who is he to wield such authority? How does his power displace the power of the other characters? These interlocking concerns have equal force in international law and they demand our attention if we truly hope to maximise the field’s legitimacy: What ‘routine blind spots and biases’4 cast a shadow over international law, and who do they empower to dictate international law’s unfolding narrative? In this essay I argue that international law’s legitimacy is undermined by a powerful, unexamined bias against business interests. This has had the paradoxical effect of privileging non-governmental organisations as participants in international law, while marginalising and excluding transnational corporations (TNCs). To establish these broad claims about international law, I rely on an example from the discrete sub-field of human rights law. Hope for international law’s enhanced legitimacy, I argue, first requires us to become aware of this blind spot. Doing so will allow us to pursue broader inclusivity, which is necessary to greater legitimacy. Moving beyond this critique, I offer a model for this more inclusive international law that draws on an adaptation of Habermas’s discourse theory of democracy as exemplified by the International Labor Organisation’s tripartite corporatism.

THE PARADOX OF NON-STATE ACTORS’ STATUS IN INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS

Exposing International Law’s Anti-Business Bias An anti-business bias seems to have gained such currency in scholarly consideration of globalisation that it has shaped international law’s nexus with globalisation.5 Prostitution and gambling were extremely popular and widespread even as they were being publicly condemned on every hand. Men were expected to have mistresses whom they supported financially; but they were expected to conceal that fact, and they were not to fall in love with them. … Any woman who slept with a man before marriage was thought to be “ruined” (i.e., rendered unfit to be wed), and should be shunned as a social leper.’: P Brians, Study Guide for Giuseppi Verdi (1813–1901): La Traviata, http://wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/traviata.html. 4

D Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue xviii (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004). ‘There has been strong resistance to including entities such as transnational corporations in a discussion about the subjects of international law, and, until recently, it was hardly ever suggested that corporations have international legal personality.’ A Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006) 76. Clapham noted that DA Ijalaye made the following appeal as early as 1978: ‘Since the participation of private corporations at the level of international law would now seem to be a fait accompli, international lawyers should stop being negative in their approach to this obvious fact. They must realise that as a result of these new arrivals in the international scene, the commercial law of nations, more than ever before, now constitutes a formidable challenger to international and comparative lawyers alike.’ Ibid 76–77 fn 69 (quoting DA Ijalaye, The Extension of Corporate Personality in International Law (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publishing, 1978) 245). 5

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Has international law been enlisted to the service of the following, constructed narrative: behind the scenes of political, social and economic globalisation, while ever-diminishing states continue to ‘strut and fret their hours upon the stage’,6 profit-mongering transnational corporations are dictating the world’s fate with the direst consequences for human rights and the environment?7 Josselin and Wallace suggested that international lawyers across the spectrum of political and theoretical views are in the service of this narrative, explaining that: ‘Realists and Idealists come together in their ambivalence about transnational economic actors – banks and multinational companies (MNCs) ….’8 Larry Backer also worried that international humanitarians had been ideologically captured. ‘[A]cademics and segments of global culture’, he argued, embraced ‘Marxist’ and other ‘progressive’ ideologies which were, at their heart, anti-capitalist/consumerist and which saw the [transnational corporation] as the latest stage in the march toward monopoly capitalism or as the vanguard of capitalist consumerism.9

Backer concluded that this is not a perspective only advanced by the extreme left, but also by ‘high-status Western academics.’10 The dark view of the informal but insidious global influence of transnational corporations widely shared among international lawyers has its roots in two facts about the contemporary international order. The first fact is that ‘many multinational corporations have become at least as powerful as some of the states in which they function.’11 This has allowed them to evade or manipulate the regulatory authority of states in the relentless pursuit of profit. The second confounding fact is that ‘the principal subjects of international law are nation states.’12 Thus, multinational corporations often operate beyond the control of domestic and international law.13 Do these facts mandate the marginalisation and vilification of multinational corporations in international law? Is the present doctrinal landscape, which largely

6 W Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, sc 5, ln 32. See F Hoffmann, ‘In Quite a State: The Trials and Tribulations of an Old Concept in New Times’, in R Miller and R Bratspies (eds), Progress in International Law (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2008) 263. 7 ‘If we turn to another category of [non-state actor], that of business enterprises, then the picture is equally mixed. It is easy to write the history of contemporary international relations in terms of activities of business groups – you do not have to be a Marxist to do so. … Thus, Susan Strange has argued, in the area not only of growth and investment, but of standard-setting and legal change, banks and other commercial enterprises are making the running.’ F Halliday, ‘The Romance of Non-State Actors’ in D Josselin and W Wallace (eds), Non-State Actors in World Politics (Houndsmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) 21, 31 (citation omitted). 8 D Josselin and W Wallace, ‘Non-state Actors in World Politics: A Framework’, in Josselin and Wallace (eds), Non-State Actors in World Politics (n 7) 1. 9 LC Backer, ‘Multinational Corporations, Transnational Law: The United Nations’ Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations as a Harbinger of Corporate Social Responsibility in International Law’ (2006) 37 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 287, 315. 10 ibid. 11 F Johns, ‘The Invisibility of the Transnational Corporation: An Analysis of International Law & Theory’ (1994) 19 Melbourne University Law Review 893, 903–904. 12 MN Shaw, International Law, 5th edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 1. 13 ‘Social change advocates have a particularly difficult time addressing the transboundary problems created by multinational corporations, as these entities operate in a largely unregulated space at the

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excludes transnational corporations from international legal personality, a consequence of international humanitarians’ anti-business bias? As always, the task of answering these questions requires self-reflection and criticism; what David Kennedy termed ‘analytic vigilance and scepticism about the forms [our] purposes have come to take.’14

International Personality Brownlie summarised the classic definition of a subject of international law, and the classic criticism of that definition. ‘A subject of the law’, Brownlie explained, is an entity capable of possessing international rights and duties and having the capacity to maintain its rights by bringing international claims. This definition, though conventional, is unfortunately circular since the indicia referred to depend on the existence of a legal person.15

This looping definition has almost exclusively referred to states. States have these capacities and immunities, and indeed the incidents of statehood as developed under the customary law have provided the indicia for, and instruments of personality in, other entities.16

Thus, using the state-template for personality, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognised that some international organisations may also be subjects of international law.17 But Brownlie could only conclude that ‘[i]t is states and organisations (if appropriate conditions exist) which represent the normal types of legal person on the international plane. … [And] it is as well to remember the primacy of states as subjects of law.’18 This state-centric model no longer matches our international reality.19 International Relations scholars have proved better able to describe and theorise the pluralistic and transnational globalised landscape.20 ‘We live in a messy world,’ James Rosenau said, further explaining that: World affairs can be conceptualized as governed through a bifurcated system – what can be called the two worlds of world politics – one an interstate system of states and their international level.’ J Mertus, ‘Considering Nonstate Actors in the New Millenium: Toward Expanded Participation in Norm Generation and Norm Application’ (2000) 32 New York University Journal of International Law & Policy 537, 549. 14

Kennedy, The Dark Side (n 4) xxi. I Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, 6th edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) 57. 16 ibid. 17 Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174, 179. 18 Brownlie, Principles (n 15) 58. 19 ‘Only the most determined “Realist”, however, would deny that the balance between states and non-state actors has shifted, over the past 30–40 years – at least within the community of advanced democracies.’ Josselin and Wallace, Non-state actors (n 8). 20 PJ Spiro, ‘Nonstate Actors in Global Politics’ (1998) 92 American Journal of International Law 808, 811. 15

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national governments that has long dominated the course of events, and the other a multicentric system of diverse types of other collectivities that has lately emerged as a rival source of authority with actors that sometimes cooperate with, often compete with, and endlessly interact with the state-centric system.21

The state’s emboldened rivals include the apparent authority exercised by global market forces, by private market institutions engaged in setting of international standards, by human rights and environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), by transnational religious movements, and even by mafias and mercenary armies in some instances.22

It has become clear that, if international law is to enjoy its much-hoped-for legitimacy, then it must make room for these established and emerging international actors as well as international organisations, individuals and terrorist movements. In recognition of this changed reality, international lawyers have raised normative challenges to international law’s state-centric tradition. Christoph Schreuer was an early advocate for a ‘functionalist’ approach to international legal personality. ‘[W]hat matters,’ Schreuer argued, ‘is not the formal status of a participant (province, state, international organization) but its actual or preferable exercise of functions.’23 Schreuer’s work stirred considerable attention to the rising influence of non-state actors after the end of the Cold War. An impressive conference was held on the subject in Kiel, Germany in 1998.24 The American Society of International Law (ASIL) convened a plenary panel at its 1998 Annual Meeting around the topic ‘The Challenge of Non-State Actors.’25 Both efforts, however, seemed able to do no more than conclude that ‘ritualized models of state-to-state interaction will no longer do. The new maps may still place non-state actors on the periphery, but if so, hic cave dragones!’26 Among others, Philip Alston,27 Andrew Clapham,28 Jan Klabbers,29 Jessica Mathews,30 Julie Mertus31 and Peter Spiro32 have taken up the

21 JN Rosenau, ‘Governance in a New Global Order’ in D Held and A McGrew (eds) Governing Globalization (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002) 70, 72–73. 22 RB Hall and TJ Biersteker, ‘The Emergence of Private Authority in the International System’ in RB Hall and TJ Biersteker (eds) The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 3, 4. 23 C Schreuer, ‘The Waning of the Sovereign State: Towards a New Paradigm for International Law’ (1993) 4 European Journal of International Law 447, 453. 24 R Hofmann and N Geissler (eds) Non-state Actors as New Subjects of International Law: International Law – From the Traditional State Order Towards the Law of the Global Community (Berlin, Dincker & Humblot, 1999). See M MacLaren, ‘Book Review – Like Blind Men Feeling an Elephant: Scholars’ Ongoing Attempts to Ascertain the Role of Non-State Actors in International Law’ (2002) 3 German Law Journal www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=201. 25 Plenary Theme Panel, ‘The Challenge of Non-State Actors’ (1998) 92 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 20. 26 ibid 36. ‘[T]he participants were essentially unable to agree on how the legal norms governing the interaction between international actors, old and new, are being renegotiated in light of globalization.’ MacLaren, Book Review (n 24) para 39. 27 P Alston (ed), Non–State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). 28 Clapham, Human Rights Obligation (n 5). 29 J Klabbers, ‘The Concept of Legal Personality’ (2005) 11 IUS Gentium 35. 30 JT Mathews, ‘Power Shift’ (Jan/Feb 1997) Foreign Affairs 50. 31 Mertus, Considering Nonstate Actors (n 13). 32 Spiro, Nonstate actors (n 20).

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challenge. Building on this earlier work, Guido Acquaviva offered his ‘power-based analysis’ of personality as a response to the ‘uncertainties … posed by those entities that do not fulfil the traditional criteria of “states” but nevertheless act in the international arena with all the rights and duties they effectively possess.’33 Acquaviva’s solution, with an obvious debt to Schreuer’s functionalism, was to acknowledge that ‘the main feature of subjects of international law has been their ability to assert that they are not subordinates to other authorities’.34 Acquaviva argued that sovereignty and ‘effective authority’, not legal formalisms, have always and now more explicitly should determine whether an entity is a subject of international law. This approach might free us to understand that ‘[t]he addition of new subjects to the international community … even if true, would be only an “environmental change,” not a “systemic change”’.35

The Paradox of Personality: The Norms While international law has been slow to adapt to the emerging multiplicity of actors in an increasingly privatised global order, this hesitance has been neither uniform nor unyielding. Particularly in the field of human rights, international law has begun to flirt with, if not fully embrace, discrete non-state actors as subjects or quasi-subjects of international law. Most prominently, NGOs play an ever-greater and more formalised role in the formation and enforcement of international human rights norms. Paradoxically, a parallel development in the field has been to seek to bring international human rights norms to bear on the actions of TNCs as objects of international human rights law, while denying them the status of independent subjects or quasi-subjects enjoyed in some degree by NGOs.36 This paradox, at least partly a product of international humanitarians’ bias against business interests, is at its plainest when international law enlists one non-state actor—NGOs—to the cause of forming and enforcing human rights norms against another non-state actor—TNCs. This is precisely the case with respect to the abandoned United Nations ‘Norms on the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’ (‘the Norms’). The Norms were promulgated with great fanfare by the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the summer of 2003.37 They were intended to bind TNCs within the framework of international human rights rules. Since 2003, however, the Office of the High 33 G Acquaviva, ‘Subjects of International Law: A Power-Based Analysis’ (2005) 38 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 345, 386. 34 ibid 380–81. 35 ibid 387. 36 The Third Restatement of Foreign Relations Law notes that the transnational corporation, while an established feature of international life, ‘has not yet achieved special status in international law.’ Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law § 213(f) (1986). 37 United Nations Economic & Social Council [ECOSOC]/Sub-Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (UN Doc E/CN 4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev 2, Aug 13, 2003) (hereinafter ‘Norms’).

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Commissioner on Human Rights has significantly eroded and downgraded the status of the Norms to little more than another among the Commission’s ‘existing initiatives and standards on business and human rights, with a view to their further consideration’.38 Still, I agree with Larry Backer that, ‘whatever the immediate fate of the Norms, it is unlikely that the ideas represented by the Norms, as originally submitted, will disappear.’39 For my purposes, it is most relevant that NGOs feature prominently, over and against TNCs, in the history of the formation of the Norms and in the Norms’ enforcement provisions. The Norms Introduced The Norms are the most recent manifestation of a decades-long effort by states, international organisations and NGOs to regulate the power of TNCs. This effort grows from a concern that TNCs wield vast power, and often do so in a fashion that violates international human rights standards. Fleur Johns, in her survey of the question, concluded: TNCs have shown themselves to be able and willing to violate individuals’ … right to work (and to do so in just and favourable conditions); to form and join trade unions; to life and to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.40

Thus, there has been a steady roll-out of codes-of-conduct, guidelines, declarations and compacts since the 1970s.41 This proliferation of international instruments produced little in the way of concrete results. Most spectacularly, the Norms were meant to succeed where these previous efforts had failed because they sought to impose binding, as opposed to voluntary, duties on TNCs.42 Human rights NGOs played a not insignificant role in the formation of the Norms, and it should be no surprise that the Norms assign NGOs a not 38 United Nations Economic & Social Council [ECOSOC]/Sub-Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Report of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Related Business Enterprises With Regards to Human Rights, P 52(d) (UN Doc E/CN 4/2005/91, Feb 15, 2005). 39 Backer, Multinational Corporations (n 9) 332. 40 Johns, The Invisibility (n 11) 909. 41 ‘Prior to the Sub-Commission’s action in August 2003, several other prominent international bodies had considered these issues in either unsuccessful or voluntary initiatives. For example, the United Nations unsuccessfully attempted to draft an international code of conduct for businesses in the 1970s and 1980s. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) undertook a similar effort in 1976 when it established its first Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises to promote responsible business conduct consistent with applicable laws. In 1977 the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted its Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises, which calls upon business to follow the relevant ILO conventions and recommendations. Further, in January 1999, the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed a “Global Compact” of shared values and principles at the World Economic Forum … These various initiatives, however, failed to bind all businesses to follow minimum human rights standards.’ D Weissbrodt and M Kruger, ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’ (2003) 97 American Journal of International Law 901, 902–903. 42 ibid 903 (‘the Norms represent the “first nonvoluntary initiative accepted at the international level.’); CF Hillemanns, ‘UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’, (2003) 4 German Law Journal 1065, 1068 (‘[T]he Norms overturn two paradigms that have to date dominated the discourse on corporate social responsibility: namely that all initiatives should be voluntary …’).

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insignificant role in their enforcement scheme. This combination of competences— norm creation and enforcement—is central to any assertion of international legal personality and they are fundamental characteristics of a subject of international law.43 NGOs and the Formation of the Norms It has been asserted that the ‘process leading to the adoption of the Norms was inclusive and the consultation was broad.’44 David Weissbrodt served as a member of the Sub-Commission’s working group tasked with considering ‘the working methods and activities of transnational corporations,’45 and he prepared the initial draft of the Norms. In his report on the Norms (with Muria Kruger) in the American Journal of International Law’s ‘Current Developments’ from October 2003, Weissbrodt echoed this claim: [M]embers of the working group organized a seminar in March 2001 at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The participants included members of the working group; representatives of NGOs interested in corporate responsibility, human rights, development, and the environment; representatives of companies and unions; and several scholars.46

However, as the working group’s efforts advanced, the broad and balanced constituency in place in 2001 gave way to the paradoxical prioritisation of NGOs over TNCs. Weissbrodt reported that, by March 2003, the process had come to be dominated, if not captured, by human rights NGOs. Ultimately, NGOs were afforded a unique opportunity to influence the final shape of the working group’s draft: Several NGOs organized a seminar in which they provided the working group’s members with detailed comments on the Norms. During that seminar, the working group received and responded to each issue raised by the NGOs in attendance. Immediately following the seminar, meeting in a private session, the working group considered all the comments received from the seminar …. The working group then agreed on a draft of the Norms to present at the fifty-fifth session of the Sub-Commission in July-August 2003.47

The NGOs then brought their influence to bear on the Sub-Commission as it considered the adoption of the working group’s proposal: At the 2003 meetings of both the working group and the Sub-Commission, many NGOs and others made public statements in support of the Norms, including Amnesty International; Christian Aid; Human Rights Advocates; Human Rights Watch; the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights; the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Hommer; Forum Menschenrechte (Human Rights Forum); Oxfam; the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum; World Economy, Ecology and Development; and the World Organization Against Torture. Additionally, Amnesty International submitted a 43 44 45 46 47

Shaw, International Law (n 12) 176, 245. Hillemanns, UN Norms (n 42) 1069. Weissbrodt and Kruger, Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations (n 41) 904. ibid. ibid 906.

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list of fifty-eight NGOs confirming their support for the Norms, and Forum Menschenrechte presented another list of twenty-six NGOs joining its statement of support.48

This quasi-formal involvement of NGOs in the formation of international law, whether as the suppliers of technical expertise or in the more blunt form of lobbyist or pressure group, is a hallmark of the increasing power of NGOs.49 The role of NGOs in the drafting of the Norms resembles the nearly determinative role NGOs played in the negotiation of the Framework Convention for Climate Change and the Convention Prohibiting Landmines.50 As Jessica Mathews noted regarding the former effort: NGOs set the original goal of negotiating an agreement to control greenhouse gases long before government were ready to do so, proposed most of its structure and content, and lobbied and mobilized public pressure to force through a pact that virtually no one else thought possible when the talks began.51

NGOs and Enforcement of the Norms Where the involvement of NGOs in the formation of the Norms was substantial but informal, the Norms formally integrated NGOs in the process of enforcement. Besides requiring TNCs to adopt ‘internal rules of operation in compliance with the Norms’,52 implementation of the Norms was to be achieved by: periodic monitoring and verification by United Nations, other international and national mechanisms already in existence or yet to be created, regarding application of the Norms. This monitoring shall be transparent and independent and take into account input from stakeholders (including non governmental organizations) … 53

This is a remarkable parenthetical. It formally incorporates NGOs in the enforcement of the Norms against TNCs, codifying the monitoring and reporting role NGOs have assumed in many international human rights regimes. The Commentary on the Norms, which was recognised in the Preamble to the Norms as a ‘useful interpretation and elaboration of the standards contained in the Norms,’54 disposed of any qualification on the enforcement authority of NGOs that might be asserted because they are mentioned only in a parenthetical. Indeed, the commentary to paragraph 16 urged the Sub-Commission and its interested working group to rely 48

ibid. Mathews, Power Shift (n 30) (‘Increasingly, NGOs are able to push around even the largest governments.’). 50 As well as, inter alia: the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (adopted 27 June1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) 1520 UNTS 217 (Banjul Charter); the COE ‘European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment’ (concluded 26 November 1987, entered into force 1 February 1989) 1561 UNTS 363; the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3; and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90 (Rome Statute). See MT Kamminga, ‘The Evolving Status of NGOs under International Law: A Threat to the Inter-State System?’, in P Alston (ed) Non-State Actors and Human Rights (n 27) 93, 101–104. 51 Mathews, ‘Power Shift’ (n 30). 52 Norms (n 37) para 15. 53 ibid para 16 (emphasis added). 54 ibid, preamble. 49

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upon information received from NGOs in their monitoring and development of best practices regarding the Norms.55 Furthermore, the commentary to paragraph 16 encouraged NGOs to ‘use the Norms as the basis for their expectations of the conduct of the transnational corporation or other business enterprise and monitoring compliance.’56 It is as if the parentheses were meant to underscore the important, rather than the marginal, role NGOs were expected to play, among the relevant ‘stakeholders’, in the enforcement of the Norms.57 To facilitate, and further formalise the enforcement function that the Norms cede to NGOs, the Sub-Commission subsequently issued a Resolution ‘calling for the creation of a mechanism for NGOs and others to submit information about businesses that are not meeting the minimum standards of the Norms’.58 This is reflective of the enforcement capacity explicitly extended to NGOs by other human rights regimes,59 some of which grant NGOs standing before interpretative and enforcement bodies, including both commissions and courts.60 The message was not lost on NGO advocates of human rights. David Weissbrodt reported that: immediately upon adoption of the Norms, many … NGOs … issued a press release welcoming the Sub-Commission’s action. A few NGOs have already indicated their intent to begin using the Norms as standards for reporting on the human rights activities of businesses.61

55 United Nations Economic & Social Council [ECOSOC]/Sub–Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Commentary on the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (United Nations, UN Doc E/CN 4/Sub.2/2003/38/Rev 2, Aug 13, 2003) ¶ 16 (hereinafter “Commentary”). 56 ibid. 57 S Deva, ‘UN’s Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations and Other Transnational Business Enterprises: An Imperfect Step in the Right Direction?’ (2004) 10 ILSA Journal of International & Comparitive Law 493, 516. 58 Weissbrodt and Kruger, ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations’ (n 41) 906. 59 ‘On the contrary, in an apparent acknowledgement of the importance of NGO input, the conventions often provide NGOs with a formal role in their implementation and follow–up.’ Kamminga, The Evolving Status of NGOs under International Law (n 24) 93, 105. 60 See, eg Art 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted April 11, 1950) 213 UNTS 222 (‘The Court may receive applications from any person, non-governmental organisation or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the protocols thereto’); American Convention on Human Rights (signed 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123 (Pact of San José). (‘Any person or group of persons, or any nongovernmental entity legally recognized in one or more member states of the Organization, may lodge petitions with the Commission containing denunciations or complaints of violation of this Convention by a State Party.’) 61 Weissbrodt and Kruger, ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations’ (n 41) 906–907. See eg, Human Rights Watch, Nongovernmental Organizations Welcome the New U.N. Norms on Transnational Business, http://hrw.org/press/2003/08/un-jointstatement.htm#ngos; Press Release, Human Rights Watch, The UN Norms: Towards Greater Corporate Accountability (Sept 30, 2004), http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/09/30/global9446.htm; Amnesty International USA, UN Norms for Business: Taking Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights to the Next Level!, www.amnesty usa.org/Business_and_Human_Rights/Legal_accountability/ page.do?id=1101637&n1=3&n2=26&n3=1243.

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Critiquing the Paradox International humanitarians typically justify their preference of NGOs over TNCs,62 and consequently the different status these non-state actors are accorded in international law, by arguing that TNCs are capable of violating human rights and, at the same time, are unaccountable for the exercise of their power. The first point is beyond doubt. As for the second claim regarding the accountability of TNCs, two criticisms emerge. First, TNCs, although formally denied international personality, nonetheless use their great power informally and sometimes illegally in order to manipulate states in a fashion that advances their interests at the expense of the state. Of course, NGOs also exercise their influence in a similarly informal manner. This criticism, thus, may be a matter of degree rather than of form. Second, the more familiar refrain in the context of globalisation commentary is that, by their nature, TNCs transcend any single state and are able to evade the control of states and popular accountability by moving their management and production centres to more favourable locations. In this wholly undemocratic fashion, TNCs influence the normative landscape by shopping for preferred regulatory environments.63 Without exploring the complexities of these criticisms, but with a view more narrowly towards the paradoxical preferencing of NGOs over TNCs in human rights regimes, it is important to note that similar questions about an accountability deficit have been raised around NGO activities. Out of a generalised concern for the importance of accountability and transparency in international governance Paul Wapner has raised fundamental questions about the increasing authority of NGOs. Wapner explained that: [c]ritics are right to point out the lack of legitimacy, undemocratic character, and weak responsiveness of NGOs. NGOs deserve such critical scrutiny and … will benefit from it … [as do] all institutions of political organization, including the state.64

The central elements of this view are the simple facts that there are many NGOs that pursue abhorrent goals; that the basis on which NGOs purport to understand/ embody global public interest is unclear; and that the constituencies to which NGOs are accountable are often narrow (issue-oriented), intransparent and selfselecting. Thus, Wapner concluded that ‘Global civil society [unlike States] has no formal, cross-cutting institutional checks on activity, nor do the internal dynamics of NGOs express clear democratic characteristics.’65

62 Paul Wapner captured the generally positive view of NGOs among international humanitarians in these terms: ‘most people like most NGOs most of the time.’ P Wapner, ‘Introductory Essay: Paradise Lost? NGOs and Global Accountability’ (2002) 3 Chicago Journal of International Law 155, 156. 63 See A Sinden, ‘The “Preference for Pollution” and other Fallacies, or Why Free Trade Isn’t “Progress” Absent Harmonization of Environmental Standards’ in R Miller and R Bratspies (eds) Progress in International Law 771 (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2008); R Bratspies, ‘Reconciling the Irreconcilable: Progress Toward Sustainable Development’, in ibid. 64 Wapner, Paradise Lost (n 62) 159. 65 ibid 157.

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David Held endorsed Wapner’s concern about democracy and accountability in describing a kind of market failure in civil society. NGOs’ representative character can be questioned, he concluded: when background conditions prevent access to such associations or when they are ordered internally in a manner which systematically distorts opportunities or outcomes in favour of particular sectional interests or groups.66

In fact, most NGO leaders are appointed, and, if elected, only by the narrow membership base of the organisation. To the degree that checks, like advisory committees and boards, exist, their authority is often subverted by the fact that these watchdog institutions regularly share the viewpoint of the respective NGOs they monitor. Held explained that organisations can: take on a ‘life of their own’ which may lead them to depart from the wishes and interests of their members. Such may be the case when they generate oligarchic tendencies ….67

Finally, there are only weak international checks on NGOs. Consultative status at the UN, for example, is conditioned on the soft requirements that NGOs support and respect the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and provide an audited annual financial statement. The question of NGO accountability led to a charged exchange between Peter Spiro and Phillipe Sands at the 1998 ASIL plenary panel dedicated to ‘The Challenge of Non-State Actors.’68 Spiro questioned the accountability of Sands’ NGO named FIELD,69 particularly in its representation of small island states in standard-setting institutions. Spiro concluded: ‘This leads to the question of whether that organisation is fully accountable to the governments of the small island states or whether FIELD may have agendas of its own.’70 Anne-Marie Slaughter, moderating the panel, followed up by asking: ‘Professor Sands, are you accountable?’71 To this, Sands exclaimed: ‘Absolutely I’m accountable!’72 But how, and to whom or what, Sands did not explain. That silence on the part of NGO advocates, and the reality that such silence suggests, led Kenneth Anderson to conclude that ‘[i]t is no exaggeration to regard … international NGOs … as not merely undemocratic, but as profoundly antidemocratic.’73 It is not necessary for me to go so far. The point of an NGO accountability deficit is made only to suggest that they may suffer, to some degree, from the same pathologies that international humanitarians regularly invoke when justifying the denial of international personality to TNCs.

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

D Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995) 181 ibid. Plenary Theme Panel (n 25) 30. Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development. Spiro, ‘Nonstate Actors in Global Politics’ (n 20). Plenary Theme Panel (n 25) 30 ibid. Wapner, Paradise Lost (n 62) 157–58.

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Besides the accountability critique, one might also question NGOs’ lack of independence from states, a concern that is embedded in the much more complicated challenge confronting the traditional notion of a public/private divide in the law. At a superficial level, it is important to note that NGOs are closely linked to states, whose aid initiatives they increasingly facilitate and serve. The Economist reported in 2000 that ‘[a] growing share of development spending, emergency relief and aid transfers passes through [NGOs]. … [W]estern governments have long been shifting their aid towards NGOs.’74 The affinity that should develop from such synergies has been exacerbated by direct government subsidisation of NGOs. ‘[T]he principle reason for the recent boom in NGOs’, The Economist explained, ‘is that western governments finance them.’75 This trend had only deepened several years later when The Economist reported on the dependency that has emerged between the European Commission, EU member states and NGOs: ‘Many of the NGOs that Brussels likes to consult,’ The Economist explained, ‘are directly financed by the commission itself.’76 Involving large amounts of money, The Economist summarised the perversity of the situation in these terms: The spectacle of organizations that receive EU money using their money to campaign for more EU money is only one example of this looking-glass world. It is a world in which so-called NGOs are actually dependent on government for cash; and one in which the European Commission, itself directly financed by Europe’s national governments, finances ‘autonomous’ organizations that campaign for more power and money to be handed to the commission itself.77

Delving more deeply than shared financing and expertise, David Held concluded that: there is a profound sense in which civil society and civic associations are never separate from the state; the latter, by providing the overall legal framework of a society, to a significant degree constitutes the former.78

At a more theoretically complex level, the dependency between states and NGOs is symptomatic of an epochal shift in our jurisprudence. Peer Zumbansen described the broader phenomenon of dependency as the ‘hybrid interaction of public and private actors’ or the ‘contractualization of public governance’ in his insightful critique of the stubborn formalism of ‘public’ and ‘private’ legal spheres.79 For him, the hybridisation was occurring across the public boundary between states and both non-profit and for-profit non-state actors in equal measure. The paradoxical international treatment of NGOs and TNCs, it seems, is justifiable only if the

74 ‘Sins of the Secular Missionaries’, The Economist (London, 27 June 2000), www.economist.com/ world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_NSGJPT. 75 ibid. 76 ‘A Rigged Dialogue with Society’, The Economist (London, 21 October 2004), www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_PPDRJRG. 77 ibid. 78 Held, Democracy (n 66) 181. 79 P Zumbansen, ‘Sustaining Paradox Boundaries: Perspectives on Internal Affairs in Domestic and International Law’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 197, 201.

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ever-less persuasive distinction between the two as non-profit and for-profit entities is sustained. In practical terms, as the reporting of The Economist makes clear, sustaining that distinction is difficult. On the one hand, NGOs are … looking more and more like businesses themselves. … Now a whole class of them have, even if not directly backed by businesses, have taken on corporate trappings. Known collectively as BINGOs, these groups manage funds and employ staff which a medium-sized company would envy.80

On the other hand, Corporations are governments. … They exercise power in a political sense [in that they have the] capacity to make or influence decisions that shape the values of others. … [T]he corporation has effective control over much of the routine affairs of human governance.’81

What if, as these circumstances suggest, the distinction between the public and the private itself is unsustainable? In describing Claire Cutler’s work, Zumbansen concluded that, in the face of the increasing illogic of the traditional public/private distinction in law, ‘the dividing lines … between public and private,’ like the line which lies at the heart of my critique, ‘can only be drawn by an act of paradox.’82 As early as 1971, Arthur Selwyn Miller agonised over the perpetuation of the public/private formalism in the face of the great power wielded by TNCs. Presciently, he wrote about the emerging global economy, fully recognising the challenges it would pose for the state-centric tradition of international law and the public/private dogma on which it depended. At the centre of these challenges to the accepted dogma, Miller explained, was the ‘age of international production, the instrument for which is the global corporation’.83 The challenge TNCs posed to states’ traditional dominance, for Miller, was so thorough as to undermine tired distinctions of public and private law. ‘All law is public law’ he declared.84 He went on: Is GM private or public? How about IBM? Or Standard Oil of New Jersey? Or Olivetti? Or Unilever? Surely one is hard put to determine where the private character of Lockheed—the largest defense contractor—leaves off and the public character of the Department of Defense begins. … What is being suggested is that, when one views the giant corporations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain where the line between public and private is to be drawn.85

The foregoing points merely serve to cast light on the possibility that bias and ideological acculturation explain the paradoxical treatment these non-state actors are given in human rights regimes. Certainly, the reality of the role played by TNCs in international affairs and foresighted shifts in jurisprudence that are sensitive to that reality, make it difficult to justify the distinction.

80

Sins of the Secular Missionaries (n 72). AS Miller, ‘The Global Corporation and American Constitutionalism: Some Political Consequences of Economic Power’ (1971/72) 6 Journal of International Law & Economics 235, 240. 82 Zumbansen, Sustaining Paradox Boundaries (n 77) 206. 83 Miller, The Global Corporation (n 81) 236–37. 84 ibid 243. 85 ibid 244. 81

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DISCURSIVE DEMOCRACY AND AN INCLUSIVE APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

If TNCs are as powerful as is feared by international humanitarians, then the continued efficacy, relevance and legitimacy of international law depends on the exposure and correction of the paradox I have identified. As Jordan Paust explained: the efficacy, predictability and stability of international law ultimately rest upon real processes of power and authority in which all participate, however indirectly. When all the various voices are heard or represented, it is more likely that the law will be effective, predictable and more stable.86

Paust’s argument for an inclusive approach to personality, with some adaptation, resonates with Habermas’s discourse theory of law. Collective Discursive Democracy Habermas’s discursive democracy typically characterises the conditions for just relations between individuals; leading to the creation of governing institutions and the norms those institutions apply. But, with some adaptation that embraces the social identity theory,87 it may be possible to extend Habermas’s theory of discursive democracy to interactions between collectives like TNCs, NGOs and states. Thus, the interactions between collectives would be held to the standard of Habermas’s discursive democracy, consisting of a complementary relationship between political actors—here TNCs and NGOs as collectives, on the one hand, and the interested states, on the other. This would be a relationship characterised by discourse and guided by a consensual ideal of the common good that comes to define the norms of justice. This application of Habermas’s discourse theory to collectives is an innovation I have urged elsewhere with regard to indigenous people’s self-determination claims against states.88 Focused as he is on the primacy of individual autonomy, I suspect that Habermas would reject the transposition of his principles of discourse theory to the interactions between collectives such as TNCs.89 In fact, Habermas wrote to challenge the moral and legal validity of group rights, focusing on their illiberal potential for 86 JJ Paust, ‘The Reality of Private Rights, Duties, and Participation in the International Legal Process’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 1229, 1246. 87 See, eg W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995); A Buchanan, ‘The Role of Collective Rights in the Theory of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights’ (1993) 3 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 89; RN Clinton, ‘The Rights of Indigenous Peoples as Collective Group Rights’ (1990) 32 Arizona Law Review 739. 88 RA Miller, ‘Collective Discursive Democracy as the Indigenous Right to Self-Determination’ (2007) 31 American Indian Law Review 341. 89 Habermas builds his theories of communicative action and discursive democracy on assumptions of individual intersubjectivity: ‘If we construe the universalist claim of the moral principle intersubjectively, then we must relocate ideal role taking, which, according to Kant, each individual undertakes privately, to a public practice implemented by all persons in common.’ J Habermas and W Rehg (trans), Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, Polity, 1996) 109–10. The discourse principles are meant to be applied by citizens for themselves. Ibid 126. Habermas aligns himself with the ‘Classical liberalism,

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limiting individual self-realisation in the broader society.90 Habermas disparagingly refers to institutions like states (and probably TNCs) as ‘systems’,91 by which he means vacuous structures, remote and detached from the ‘life world’ of the individual and the autonomous expression of her will in society.92 Collectives, he argues, are artificial constructions, unable to justify an inherent interest in their own will.93 For Habermas a collective entity is less than the sum of its parts. In a variety of legal contexts, however, we accept that collectives are capable of expressing will and invoking rights.94 Most prominently, in the United States, corporations are credited as legal persons. Of equal relevance to this discussion is the fact that international lawyers generally accept that states, acting in the international legal order, address matters of their ‘will’, ‘interest’ and ‘rights’, and are responsible for duties.95 And, central to the paradox I have identified, there is the impulse from international humanitarians to attribute personality to another collective, namely, NGOs. going back to Locke,’ which, he argues, sought to use ‘the mechanisms and concepts of modern law to tame political power and put it at the service of the pre-eminent goal of protecting the pre-political freedom of the individual member of society.’ Habermas concludes that ‘[t]he core of a liberal constitution is the guarantee of equal individual liberties for everyone.’ J Habermas, ‘Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism’ (2005) 13 The Journal of Political Philosophy 1. 90 Habermas begins by suggesting that ‘… collective rights are not suspicious per se. … [T]he principle of equality is not violated as long as member are not barred from showing their dissent by exiting the group or mobilizing couter–forces within the organization itself.’ Habermas, Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism (n 89) 19. But, he goes on to explain that ‘[a] potential oppression internal to the group is sheltered by collective rights that strengthen a group, not only in the service of the cultural rights of its individual members, but also directly serving, over their heads, the continued existence of the cultural background of the collective.’ Ibid 21. Habermas particularly notes that collective rights particularly expose women and children to the risk of losing their individual liberties. Ibid 19. 91 ‘The process that has brought the communicative rationalization Habermas identifies has, at the same time, produced a state and economy that operate on other principles—and in ways that may be dysfunctional for what Habermas calls the lifeworld.’ H Baxter, ‘Habermas’s Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy’ (2002) 50 Buffalo Law Review 205, 234. 92 ‘In interpreting their situations and pursuing their plans, [Habermas] says, communicative actors in “lifeworld” situations proceed consensually. Their actions presuppose, or are directed toward establishing, ‘common situation definitions.’ Ibid 224 (citing J Habermas and T McCarthy (trans), Theory of Coummunicative Action: Lifeworld and System (Cambridge, Polity, 1987) 121, 127. 93 ‘A culture is not suited to be a legal subject as such, because it cannot meet the conditions for its reproduction with its own power; instead, it depends upon the constructive appropriation by autonomous interpreters who say “yes” or “no”.’ Habermas, Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism (n 87) 22. 94 Martin Blanchard argues: ‘An implicit premise of [Habermas’s argument against collective rights] stipulates that the soundness of holding a right is determined by the ability of its holder to justify its own interests. This premise is plainly false. For instance, business corporations hold rights, but no one would argue that they are able to justify their own interests. A “legal person” is a legal fiction that enables certain rights for business entities. This fiction is justified regarding its aims: it confers legal status to a collective actor for reasons that are (arguably) justified in our society; that is, in our interest. Another example of rights–holders that do not possess the ability to justify their own interests are infants and seriously handicapped persons; yet I do not believe Habermas would argue that they do not possess rights.’ M Blanchard, Recognition and the Case of Indigenous Reparation: A Habermasian Critique of Habermas (Centre de recherché en éthique de l’Université de Montréal (CREUM)) – Working Paper, www.creum.umontreal.ca/IMG/pdf/Habermas_and_Recognition.pdf 4. 95 See JL Goldsmith and EA Posner, The Limits of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 6 (‘By state interest, we mean the state’s preferences about outcomes. State interests are not always easy to determine, because the state subsumes many institutions and individuals that obviously

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Habermas, in his writings on the federalist dynamic in the evolution of Europe, seems to concede that states might be will-forming collectives.96 And Habermas has written to endorse the will-forming impact and potential of broad cultural movements, sometimes loosely referred to as ‘civil society’. In this sense, he too may be susceptible to favouring ‘civil society’ groups over others, like business interests. Indeed, Habermas may have recognised the relevance of his discourse theory for ‘intercultural’ relations between collectives. Tensions between such groups, he explained, are the result of: distortion in communication, from misunderstanding and incomprehension, from insincerity and deception. . . . The spiral of violence [between cultures as between individuals] begins as a spiral of distorted communication that leads through the spiral of uncontrolled reciprocal mistrust, to the breakdown of communication.97

The matter is undoubtedly more complicated when addressed to groups. Habermas noted that: cultures, ways of life, and nations are at a greater distance from and, thus, are more foreign to one another. They do not encounter each other like members of a society who might become alienated from each other through systematically distorted communication.98

But, if the source of dissonance, whether between individuals or more remote cultures and groups, is the same erosion of genuine discourse, Habermas explained that ‘it is possible to know what has gone wrong and what needs to be repaired.’99 In that spirit, I propose that international humanitarians might hold collectives, like TNCs and NGOs, to the same standard of discourse that Habermas prescribes for individuals. Nayef Samhat also urged the application of the principles of Habermasian discursive democracy to the interactions between collectives. In mapping the discursive democratic potential of regimes, Samhat noted that ‘international regimes are the means through which state and non-state actors regulate areas of global life ….’100 He regarded non-state actors operating in this capacity as ‘group oriented’101 and referred specifically to ‘global civil society actors such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements ….’102 In answering scepticism about the ability of NGOs and social movements to function as will-forming entities in Habermasian democratic discourse, Samhat explained that ‘NGOs and social movements can be representative agents … in world politics,

do not share identical preferences about outcomes. Nonetheless, a state – especially one with well-ordered political institutions – can make coherent decisions base upon identifiable preferences, or interests,’). 96

J Habermas, ‘Why Europe Needs a Constitution’ (2001) 11 New Left Review 5. G Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2003) 35. 98 ibid. 99 ibid. 100 NH Samhat, ‘International Regimes and the Prospects for Global Democracy’ (2005) 6 The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 179, 180. 101 ibid. 102 ibid 182. 97

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implementing tasks and aggregating interests and voices for segments of the global polity ….’103 TNCs are an obvious parallel to the kinds of collectives that interest Samhat. They, too, are non-state groups, exercising a definable will in relationships with states as relevant social agents.104

Discursive Democracy Applied between states, TNCs and NGOs as the basis for ascribing international personality, Habermas’s discourse theory of democracy conceives of: an ideal procedure for deliberation and decision making. Democratic procedure, which establishes a network of pragmatic considerations, compromises, and discourses of self-understanding and of justice, grounds the presumption that reasonable or fair results are obtained insofar as the flow of relevant information and its proper handling have not been obstructed.105

The resulting system is one in which: [T]he only regulations and ways of acting that can claim legitimacy are those to which all who are possibly affected could assent as participants in rational discourses. In light of this ‘discourse principle,’ citizens test which rights they should mutually accord one another. As legal subjects, they must anchor this practice of self-legislation in the medium of law itself; they must legally institutionalize those communicative presuppositions and procedures of a political opinion- and will-formation in which the discourse principle is applied. Thus the establishment of the legal code, which is undertaken with the help of the universal right to equal individual liberties, must be completed through communicative and participatory rights that guarantee equal opportunities for the public use of communicative liberties. In this way, the discourse principle acquires the legal shape of a democratic principle.106

The theory is dependent on Habermas’s expansive claims for the normative potency of communicative action, which maximises the effective force of reason by procedurally limiting the influence of the elements of strategic action, including wealth and power.107 Simone Chambers has explained: Discourse is an idealized and formalized version of communicative action. In communicative action participants search for mutual understanding by offering arguments that could command assent … in communicative action, participants are interested in bringing about a genuine understanding.108

103

ibid 186. Habermas, Theory of Coummunicative Action (n 92) 95. 105 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (n 89) 296. 106 ibid at 458. 107 ‘Communicatively acting subjects commit themselves to coordinating their action plans on the basis of consensus that depends in turn on their reciprocally taking positions on, and intersubjectively recognizing, validity claims. From this it follows that only those reasons count that all the participating parties together find acceptable.’ Ibid 119. 108 S Chambers, ‘Discourse and Democratic Practices’ in SK White (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995) 233, 237. 104

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The success of the theory, indeed, of democracy itself, is measured by the discourse promoting quality of the institutionalised procedures and conditions of communication operating between the relevant subjects,109 in this case between TNCs, NGOs and states as collectives. Thus, Habermas demands that legal subjects become the democratic authors of their legal order via ‘[b]asic rights to equal opportunities to participate in processes of opinion- and will-formation in which [subjects] exercise their political autonomy.’110 Habermas favourably invoked Robert Dahl’s five postulates for an appropriate democratic procedure,111 but insisted that, in its essence: … the principle of democracy should establish a procedure of legitimate lawmaking. Specifically, the democratic principle states that only those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent (Zustimmung) of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation …’112

Habermas’s ‘more open and dynamic conception of democratic deliberation’ could resolve even such latent and pervasive discursive dissonance as international humanitarian’s anti-business bias. Extending personality to TNCs would, in this theory, strengthen the international normative regime. Valdez explained that Habermas: Maintains that the range of acceptable reasons [operating in the discourse] may be broadened by the inclusion of more diverse perspectives, and that the interpretive perspectives of the participants themselves will be enlarged by including more voices in the dialogue . . .. He thus emphasizes the changing, dynamic character of public deliberation in which participants achieve mutual respect and greater understanding as they reflexively interpret and accommodate different perspectives.113

For this approach to international personality to become discursive, however, it is necessary that we turn our attention to ‘the terms and dynamics of [the] relational aspects’ between TNCs, NGOs and states. First and foremost in that effort is the need to invite TNCs in from the exile imposed by international humanitarians.

THE ILO AS A MODEL FOR A DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Harvard Professor Manley O Hudson outlined the uniquely inclusive character of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in his book Progress in International Organization. He explained:

109

Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (n 89) 298. ibid at 123. 111 Including: ‘(a) the inclusion of all those affected; (b) equally distributed and effective opportunities to participate in the political process; (c) an equal right to vote on decisions; (e) an equal right to choose topics and, more generally, to control the agenda; and (e) a situation that allows all the participants to develop, in the light of sufficient information and good reasons, an articulate understanding of the contested interests and matter in need of regulation.’ Ibid 315 (quoting RA Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985) 59). 112 ibid 110. 113 ibid 61. 110

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Each member … is entitled to be represented by four delegates, of whom two are so-called government delegates, freely chosen by the government, one is a so-called employers’ delegate, chosen by the government in consultation with its most representative organization of employers, and one is a so-called workers’ delegate, chosen by the government in consultation with its most representative organization of workers. Thus constituted, it does not cease to be an intergovernmental conference; but the delegates are not plenipotentiaries, and those named by a government do not necessarily vote en bloc nor work in unison. National lines are all but ignored at the sessions of the Conference, and divisions usually find the employers’ delegates and the workers’ delegates of all countries united in the respective groups.114

This tripartite structure seems particularly responsive to Habermas’s demand that norms be enacted following rational discourse in which all who are possibly affected could assent as participants. Hudson acknowledged that the ILO’s formal embrace of non-state actors was revolutionary for its time. ‘For the first time in history,’ he concluded, ‘international co-operation [was] organized with some reference to other than national interests.’115 But more than this innovation, the legitimacy, and now the longevity, of the ILO must be attributable to the balanced manner in which it reached beyond the state-centric tradition of international law to engage with NGOs and TNCs on equal terms. In this respect, Hudson credited the ILO with achieving ‘a unity among employers and employed which is not organized along state lines.’116 The ILO, at the very least, has not been a vehicle for the paradoxical treatment that international humanitarians are determined to give NGOs and TNCs today. In this more representative landscape debate at ILO Conferences over proposed conventions (what Hudson insisted on calling ‘legislation’) blossomed into an almost ideal Habermasian discourse. Labour issues, Hudson explained: are extensively debated … by the representatives …. Silk gloves are not worn while that debate is in progress, and many a delegation in the Conference has heard the frankest criticism of its government’s action; nor do the employer’s and workers’ delegates refrain from castigation of each other on positions taken in the Conference itself.117

The ILO’s corporatism has been praised by others for both breaking down the state-centric model of international personality118 and facilitating the legitimacy and success of its initiatives. Klaus Samson explained, in nearly Habermasian terms,

114 MO Hudson, Progress in International Organization (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1932) 47–48. 115 ibid 48. 116 ibid 51–52. Menno T Kamminga, in a more contemporary work, also singled-out the ILO’s inclusive structure. See MT Kamminga, The Evolving Status of NGOs under International Law (n 24) 93, 100. 117 Hudson, Progress in International Organization (n 114) 51. 118 ‘In the matter of adoption of Conventions … the final decision rests with the Governments. However, any action on their part in this direction depends on the initiative of the Conference, in which State representatives constitute only one-half of the total number of delegates. The Constitution of the Organisation thus signifies a limited but important departure from the principle generally obtaining in International Law, namely, that States only may take part in the process of creating new rules of International Law and that only the interests of States as such are entitled to direct representation in the International sphere.’ H Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, Volume I, 8th edn (Harlow Longman, 1955) 731–32.

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that ‘the tripartite structure of the organization’s deliberative bodies … enhances the authority of its decisions and their impact on policy discussions at the national level.’119 EA Landy especially noted the importance of the participation of non-state actors in the ILO’s efforts to supervise the implementation of its standards. ‘It seems hardly surprising,’ he concluded, ‘that the tripartite system … should have exercised a profound influence in a sector of [the ILO’s] work [supervision] where governmental action comes under scrutiny.’120 E. Osieke concluded that, without tripartism, ‘the ILO would certainly be less effective ….’121 Critics of the ILO cast its more recent record in less favourable light. Laurence Helfer reported: A widely held perception that the organization is powerless to combat the workplace abuses that globalization can engender …. Numerous studies deride the ILO as a ‘90-pound weakling of UN agencies’, a ‘toothless tiger’, whose only tools of influence are the sunshine of public scrutiny and the shame of public censure, and whose feeble enforcement mechanisms render all but nugatory its efforts to improve global labor conditions.122

The ILO’s structure, especially including its particular brand of tripartite corporatism, has come in for some of the blame. Undoubtedly, the ILO is a product of the unique political and economic forces operating at its founding.123 The flaw, however, is not in the broader principles of corporatism and discourse. Instead, it is its too narrow application in the ILO. If the ILO is out of sync with the prevailing pluralistic political and economic reality, then a more inclusive governing structure is the solution offered by Helfer. Sean Cooney agreed. In terms that would be regarded as irreverent in international humanitarians’ discussions of corporate social responsibility and human rights, Cooney urged the expansion of employerside participation at the ILO at the same time as he urged the expansion of employee-side participation. He explained: Similar issues of inclusion and exclusion arise on the employer side. What is the commonality between a small business-person, a transnational corporation, a mediumsized enterprise which is a member of a national employer federation, and a self-employed person? Which of these groups is deemed ‘most representative’ of employers? Is this any longer an appropriate criterion for determining who gets to vote in the ILO?124

119 KT Samson, ‘International Labour Organization,’ in Max Planck Institute for Comparitive Public Law and International Law/R Bernhardt (ed), Encyclopedia of Public International Law Volume 2 (Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1995) 1150, 1155. 120 EA Landy, The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of I.L.O. Experience (London, Stevens, 1966) 180. 121 E Osieke, Constitutional Law and Practice in the International Labour Organisation (Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1985) 54. 122 LR Helfer, ‘Understanding Change in International Organizations: Globalization and Innovation in the ILO’ (2006) 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 649, 652. 123 S Cooney, ‘Testing Times for the ILO: Institutional Reform for the New International Political Economy’ (1999) 20 Comparitive Labor Law & Policy Journal 365, 369 (‘The formative period of the ILO was distinguished not only by the dominance of particular states, but also by a particular economic form.’). 124 ibid 372.

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The answers to his rhetorical question are obviously ‘no’ and ‘let’s conceive of a way for a broader cross-section of business interests to participate so that all interested parties have a place at the table.’ Held urged that ‘[c]ompanies … be conceived as real entities or “legal persons” with legitimate purposes of their own.’ He explained that ‘a democratic legal order must, therefore, recognize enterprises as well as individual citizens as part of its constitutive domain.’125 Along with DA Ijalaye’s early effort,126 Kinley and Tadaki also argued for the investment of TNCs with ‘sufficient international legal personality to bear obligations, as much as to exercise rights.’127 Johns’ call for extending international personality to TNCs was stronger still: Ultimately it is submitted that if international law is to fulfill any or all [of its descriptive or prescriptive] roles and more importantly, if it is to have a continuing and positive impact upon daily human endeavour, its processes must be opened up to all groups (including, but by no means limited to TNCs) with direct involvement in any field of human affairs with which these legal processes purport to deal.128

Only this way do we approach Habermas’s promise of legitimacy resulting from broadly inclusive discourse.

CONCLUSION

My question, urged on by Kennedy’s work in The Dark Sides of Virtue, has been: How much of the doctrine formally precluding TNCs from enjoying the same degree of personality as NGOs in international human rights law is a ‘deformation introduced by the training of an international lawyer’129 that reflects international humanitarians’ encoding that TNCs operate as a powerful and corrupting force in the international order, while NGOs do not?130 A straight answer to this question is fundamental to any hopes for the enhanced legitimacy of international law? A critical engagement with the ideological biases that prevent international humanitarians from welcoming TNCs to the table won’t come easily. Presently, regulatory efforts like the UN Norms and the overwhelming weight of the literature favour increasing the international responsibility of TNCs as objects of a human rights regime that, at the same time, extends NGOs ever more international legal personality as subjects. I have argued that the tripartite corporatism at the core of the ILO project offers a hopeful model, one that closely approximates Habermas’s 125

Held, Democracy and the Global Order (n 66) 252. DA Ijalaye, The Extension of Corporate Personality in International Law (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publishing, 1978). 127 Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (n 5) 77 (citing D Kinley and J Tadaki, ‘From Talk to Walk: The Emergence of Human Rights Responsibilities for Corporations at International Law’ (2004) 44 Virginia Journal of International Law 931, 947). 128 Johns, ‘The Invisibility of the Transnational Corporation’ (n 11) 894. 129 Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue (n 4) 112. 130 Fleur Johns put it in these terms: ‘The transnational corporation … does not have a concrete presence in international law. Rather it is an apparition, reappearing in many different forms and contexts – its actuality sifted through the grid of state sovereignty into an assortment of secondary rights and contingent liabilities.’ Johns, ‘The Invisibility of the Transnational Corporation’ (n 11) 893. 126

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theory of discursive democracy as adapted for application amongst collectives. Pursuit of the ILO model and insisting upon Habermas’s discourse theory would greatly enhance the legitimacy of efforts to regulate the human rights impact of TNCs. La Traviata offers its own inspiration. It was only by critically engaging with and ultimately rejecting the biases enforced by Alfredo’s sister’s fiancé that redemption—legitimacy—is achieved in the opera. Alfredo’s father, ashamed of his own actions in wrecking the relationship, and realising Violetta’s noble character and genuine love for Alfredo, is able to reconcile the young lovers just as Violetta dies with these words on her lips: Se una pudica vergine Degli anni suoi sul fiore, A te donasse il core – Sposa ti sia—lo vo’. Le porgi quest’ effigie; Dille che dono ell’é Di chi nel ciel fragli angeli Prega per lei, per te.131

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books P Alston (ed), Non-State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). G Borradori, Philosophy in a Time of Terror (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003). Brownlie, I Principles of Public International Law, 6th edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003). A Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). JL Goldsmith and EA Posner, The Limits of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). J Habermas and T McCarthy (trans), Theory of Coummunicative Action: Lifeworld and System (Cambridge, Polity, 1987). J Habermas and W Rehg (trans), Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, Polity, 1996). D Held, Democracy and the Global Order (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995).

131 ‘If some young girl/in the flower of life/Should give her heart to you/Marry her/I wish it. Then give her this portrait:/Tell her it is the gift/Of one who, in heaven among the angels,/Prays for her and for you.’ G Verdi, Prendi, quest’è l’immagine, on La Traviata (EMI Classics 1982).

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R Hofmann, and N Geissler (eds), Non-state Actors as New Subjects of International Law: International Law—From the Traditional State Order Towards the Law of the Global Community (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 1999). MO Hudson, Progress in International Organization (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1932). Ijalaye, DA (1978) The Extension of Corporate Personality in International Law (Dobbs Ferry, Oceana Publishing). D Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004). W Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). EA Landy, The Effectiveness of International Supervision: Thirty Years of I.L.O. Experience (London, Stevens, 1966). H Lauterpacht, Oppenheim’s International Law, Volume I, 8th edn (Harlow, Longman, 1955). E Osieke, Constitutional Law and Practice in the International Labour Organisation (Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1985). MS Shaw, International Law, 5th edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Chapter in Edited Volumes R Bratspies, ‘Reconciling the Irreconcilable: Progress Toward Sustainable Development’, in R Miller and R Bratspies (eds) Progress in International Law (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2008). S Chambers, ‘Discourse and Democratic Practices’, in SK White (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995). RB Hall and TJ Biersteker, ‘The Emergence of Private Authority in the International System’, in RB Hall and TJ Biersteker (eds) The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). F Halliday, ‘The Romance of Non-State Actors’, in D Josselin and W Wallace (eds) Non-State Actors in World Politics (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). F Hoffmann, ‘In Quite a State: The Trials and Tribulations of an Old Concept in New Times’, in R Miller and R Bratspies (eds) Progress in International Law (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2008). D Josselin and W Wallace, ‘Non-state Actors in World Politics: A Framework’, in D Josselin and W Wallace (eds) Non-State Actors in World Politics (Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). JN Rosenau, ‘Governance in a New Global Order’, in D Held and A McGrew (eds) Governing Globalization (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002) 70, 72–73. A Sinden, ‘The “Preference for Pollution” and other Fallacies, or Why Free Trade Isn’t “Progress” Absent Harmonization of Environmental Standards’, in R Miller and R Bratspies (eds) Progress in International Law (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2008).

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KT Samson, ‘International Labour Organization’, in Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law/R Bernhardt (ed) Encyclopedia of Public International Law – Vol 2 (Amsterdam, North-Holland, 1995). International Documents United Nations Economic & Social Council/Sub-Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Commentary on the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, UN Doc E/CN 4/Sub.2/2003/38/Rev 2 (United Nations, 2003). Journal Articles G Acquaviva, ‘Subjects of International Law: A Power-Based Analysis’ (2005) 38 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 345–96. American Society of International Law ‘Plenary Theme Panel: The Challenge of Non-State Actors’ (1998) 92 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 20–36. LC Backer, ‘Multinational Corporations, Transnational Law: The United Nations’ Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations as a Harbinger of Corporate Social Responsibility in International Law’ (2006) 37 Columbia Human Rights Law Review 287–389. H Baxter, ‘Habermas’s Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy’ (2002) 50 Buffalo Law Review 205–340. AE Buchanan, ‘The Role of Collective Rights in the Theory of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights’ (1993) 3 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 89–108. RN Clinton, ‘The Rights of Indigenous Peoples as Collective Group Rights’ (1990) 32 Arizona Law Review 739–47. S Cooney, ‘Testing Times for the ILO: Institutional Reform for the New International Political Economy’ (1999) 20 Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 365–99. S Deva, ‘UN’s Human Rights Norms for Transnational Corporations and Other Transnational Business Enterprises: An Imperfect Step in the Right Direction?’ (2004) 10 International Law Students Association: Journal of International & Comparitive Law 493–523. J Habermas, ‘Why Europe Needs a Constitution’ (2001) 11 New Left Review 5–26. J Habermas, ‘Equal Treatment of Cultures and the Limits of Postmodern Liberalism’ (2005) 13 The Journal of Political Philosophy 1–28. LR Helfer, ‘Understanding Change in International Organizations: Globalization and Innovation in the ILO’ (2006) 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 649–726. CF Hillemanns, ‘UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’ (2003) 4 German Law Journal 1065–80.

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F Johns, ‘The Invisibility of the Transnational Corporation: An Analysis of International Law & Theory’ (1994) 19 Melbourne University Law Review 893–923. J Klabbers, ‘The Concept of Legal Personality’ (2005) 11 IUS Gentium 35–66. M MacLaren, ‘Book Review – Like Blind Men Feeling an Elephant: Scholars’ Ongoing Attempts to Ascertain the Role of Non-State Actors in International Law’ (2002) 3 German Law Journal No 10. J Mertus, ‘Considering Nonstate Actors in the New Millenium: Toward Expanded Participation in Norm Generation and Norm Application’ (2000) 32 New York University Journal of International Law & Policy 537–66. AS Miller, ‘The Global Corporation and American Constitutionalism: Some Political Consequences of Economic Power’ (1971/72) 6 Journal of International Law & Economics 235–64. RA Miller, ‘Collective Discursive Democracy as the Indigenous Right to SelfDetermination’ (2007) 31 American Indian Law Review 341–73. JJ Paust, ‘The Reality of Private Rights, Duties, and Participation in the International Legal Process’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 1229–49. NH Samhat, ‘International Regimes and the Prospects for Global Democracy’ (2005) 6 The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 179–91. C Schreuer, ‘The Waning of the Sovereign State: Towards a New Paradigm for International Law’ (1993) 4 European Journal of International Law 447–71. PJ Spiro, ‘Nonstate Actors in Global Politics’ (1998) 92 American Journal of International Law 808–11. P Wapner, ‘Introductory Essay: Paradise Lost? NGOs and Global Accountability’ (2002) 3 Chicago Journal of International Law 155–60. D Weissbrodt, and M Kruger, ‘Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’ (2003) 97 American Journal of International Law 901–22. P Zumbansen, ‘Sustaining Paradox Boundaries: Perspectives on Internal Affairs in Domestic and International Law’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 197–211.

Newspaper Articles JT Mathews, ‘Power Shift’ Foreign Affairs (Palm Coast, Jan/Feb 1997). The Economist, ‘Sins of the Secular Missionaries’ The Economist (London, 27 June 2000). The Economist, ‘A Rigged Dialogue with Society’ The Economist (London, 21 October 2004).

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Working Paper M Blanchard, ‘Recognition and the Case of Indigenous Reparation: A Habermasian Critique of Habermas’ (Centre de recherché en éthique de l’Université de Montréal—CREUM/Working Paper, 2005).

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The Doctrinal Illusion of the Heterogeneity of International Law-Making Processes JEAN D’ASPREMONT *

I

HAVE ARGUED elsewhere that the development of heterogeneous international legal instruments (especially through the idea of soft legal instruments) reflects an attempt by international legal scholars to redefine the ‘rules of recognition’ of the international legal system with a view to poaching new materials of study in areas which are intrinsically outside the realm of international law and which would have originally fallen within the expertise of scholars of other disciplines.1 It is the aim of this paper to develop this argument further and to apply it to the idea of the heterogeneity of international law-making as a whole. More precisely, this paper will try to demonstrate that the contemporary assertion that international law-making has become more heterogeneous is less the result of an actual practice, than the outcome of an inclination of scholars to expand their material of study.2 While the aspiration for the import of new legal materials into the ambit of international legal scholarship can provide a rational explanation of the proneness of international scholars to depict international law-making processes as diverse and heterogeneous, it is not sufficient to explain all the underlying motives of such a leaning. It is submitted here that, in a few circumstances, the tendency to play down the state-centrism of international law-making processes and the magnification of their heterogeneity can also be traced back to a more general and fundamental endeavour of international legal scholars to convey a cosmopolitan vision of international law with a view to fostering the legitimacy of their object of study. This paper also explains the attraction of scholars to these heterogeneous representations of international law-making as an attempt by international legal

* Associate Professor of International Law, Amsterdam Centre for International Law (ACIL), University of Amsterdam. 1 J d’Aspremont, ‘Softness in International Law: a Self-Serving Quest for New Legal Materials’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 1075. For a different approach, see A Boyle and C Chinkin, The Making of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) especially ch 5, 210–62. 2 On the general tendency of academic lawyers to expand and extend changes, see the remarks of J Dugard, ‘The Future of International Law: A Human Rights Perspective – With Some Comments on the Leiden School of International Law’ (2007) 20 Leiden Journal of International Law 729, 731. See also the questions raised by E Jouannet, ‘Regards sur un siècle de doctrine française du droit international’ (2000) XLVI Annuaire français de droit international 1, 3 or E Jouannet, ‘Le même et l’autre’ in E Jouannet, H Ruiz-Fabri and JM Sorel (eds), Regards d’une génération sur le droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 2008) 220–22.

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scholars to preserve the importance of their expertise and that of their discipline in areas where they have been subject to the competition of other social sciences. For the sake of this paper, the heterogeneity of law-making processes refers to the idea of a diversification and a multiplication of the actors formally taking part in the making of international law. In that sense, this paper only deals with the ratione personae dimension of heterogeneity: heterogeneity is associated here with the alleged rise of non-state actors as law-makers besides states and international organisations with legal personality and, to some extent, with the somewhat similar idea of transnational law.3 The heterogeneity of law-making processes is thus not construed here as including the diversification of legal instruments to which states resort to make international law.4 Before expounding on the three above-mentioned motives encouraging scholars to create (or be tempted by) the illusion of the heterogeneity of international law-making processes, it is necessary to briefly recall the extent to which international law actually remains state-centric despite the diversification of the actors involved in international law-making processes. A BRIEF SKETCH: THE ABIDING STATE-CENTRISM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW-MAKING PROCESSES

The alleged ratione personae heterogeneity of international law-making processes is commonly attributed to the growing involvement of non-state actors in international law-making besides the classical role already played by states and international organisations. It is beyond doubt that over the two last decades non-state actors have been expending their say in international law-making processes. They also potentially wield some influence in the review5 and amendments6 procedures of conventional instruments. While the extent of their influence is probably new, the role of non-state actors can not in any way be considered as unprecedented. Steve Charnovitz has shrewdly demonstrated that NGOs have been involved in international law-making for more than 200 years.7 In fact, NGOs have aroused the initiative or have been granted a formal participatory role in various international law-making conferences as early 3 On the idea of transnational law, see E Rindskopf Parker, ‘Why do we Care about Transnational Law?’ (2006) 24 Penn State International Law Review 755–61; W Friedmann, L Henkin, and O Lissitzyn (eds), Transnational law in a changing society: essays in honor of Philip C Jessup (New York, Columbia University Press, 1972). See generally PC Jessup, Transnational law (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1956). 4 This is precisely the object of the abovementioned article, J d’Aspremont, ‘Softness in International Law’ (n 1). 5 See Art 12 of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 36 International Legal Materials 1507 and the Dublin Convention on Cluster Munitions (adopted 30 May 2008, not yet in force) CCM/77. 6 See Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or AntiPersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction (n 5), Art 13. 7 S Charnovitz, ‘Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance’ (1997) 18 Michigan Journal of International Law 183. See also the brief outline of Boyle and Chinkin, The Making of International Law (n 1) 42–43.

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as the nineteenth century. To name but a few, this is well illustrated by the role of the American Peace Society in the first plan for the Permanent Court of Arbitration;8 the role of the Geneva Public Welfare Society in the adoption of the 1864 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field;9 the role of all the peace societies which sent representatives to the First and Second Hague Peace Conferences;10 the role of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the World Court League in the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice11 and the occasional role of NGOs in the committees and conferences of the League of Nations.12 In the same period, a similar role was played by the private sector on several occasions, as is illustrated by the meetings of the International Telegraph Union,13 the annual conferences of the International Labour Organisation14 or the Pan American Conferences.15 Although the role of non-state actors in international law-making processes is not entirely new, it must be acknowledged that the extent of their contribution has undergone a noteworthy increase.16 For instance, their formal presence and participation in international law-making processes has swollen, as is demonstrated by their (potential) involvement within the framework of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),17 the UN Global Compact,18 the UN Human Rights Council,19 the UN Security Council20 (to a very limited extent),

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Charnovitz, ‘Two Centuries of Participation’ (n 7) 193. A Bennett, The Geneva Convention: the Hidden Origins of the Red Cross (Stroud, Sutton, 2005). S Rosenne (ed), The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and international arbitration: reports and documents (The Hague, TMC Asser, 2001) and especially the reproduction of the account of J Brown Scott, 1–20. 11 MO Hudson, The Permanent Court of International Justice, 1920–1942: a Treatise (New York, Macmillan, 1943). 12 See generally A Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935, 2nd edn (London, Macmillan, 1939) 329; G Scelle, Une Crise de la Société des Nations (Paris, Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1926) 142. 13 P Myers, ‘Representation in Public International Organs’ (1914) 8 American Journal of International Law 81, 102; GA Codding Jr, The International Telecommunication Union: An Experiment in International Cooperation (Leiden, Brill, 1952) 25–26. 14 Art 7.1 of the ‘Constitution of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’ Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919–21 January 1921) (28 June 1919) (ILO Constitution). See also CW Jenks, ‘The Significance for International Law of the Tripartite Character of the International Labour Organisation’ (1937) 22 Transactions of the Grotius Society 45–47. 15 J Crawford, ‘The International Law Association from 1873 to the present’ (1997) 2 Uniform Law Review, 68–86; for a specific example, see CB Bourne, ‘The International Law Association’s contribution to international water resources law’ in S Bogdanovic (ed), International Law Association rules on international water resources (London, Kluwer, 1999) 3–71. 16 See generally T Weiss (ed), Non-governmental Organisations, the United Nations and Global Governance (Providence, Brown University Press, 1995); M Bettati and PM Dupuy, Les ONG et le droit international (Paris, Economica, 1986). 17 See Art 71 of the Charter of the United Nations (signed 6 June 1945) 1 UNTS XVI. See generally, M Merle, ‘Article 71’ in JP Cot, A Pellet and M Forteau (eds), La Charte des Nations Unies, Commentaire article par article, 3rd edn (Paris, Economica, 2005) 1729–1737 (who however plays down their role in practice). 18 A Judge, ‘The Global Compact with Multilateral Corporations as UN Final Solution’ (2000) 6 Transnational Association. 19 UN General Assembly (UNGA) Res 60/251 (3 April 2006) UN Doc A/RES/60/251. 20 This is the so-called Arria formula devised in 1993 whereby Security Council members are allowed to invite other members to an informal meeting which they chair with a view to receiving information 9

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the WTO21 and within the cooperation policies of the European Community with the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries (ACP countries).22 Some notorious recent convention-making conferences have also weathered a renewed NGO involvement, as is illustrated by the conferences leading to the adoption of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction,23 the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions24 or the well-known examples of the processes leading to the adoption of 1984 Torture Convention,25 the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child,26 and the 1999 Rome Statute of the International Criminal

from the NGO concerned on a specific issue. For an example, see UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1325 on Women and Peace and Security (31 October 2000) UN Doc S/RES/1325. See the comments of Boyle and Chinkin (n 1) 78–79. 21 See Art V(2) of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (adopted 15 April 1994) 33 International Legal Materials 1125; see also the Guidelines for Arrangements on Relations with Non-Governmental Organisations (23 July 1996) WTO Doc WT/L/162. See the critical comments of Boyle and Chinkin (n 1) 93. 22 See Art 4 of the Partnership Agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States of the one part, and the European Community and its member States, of the other part (signed in Cotonou 23 June 2000) [2000] OJ L317. The ACP states shall determine the development principles, strategies and models of their economies and societies in all sovereignty. They shall establish, with the Community, the cooperation programmes provided for under this Agreement. However, the parties recognise the complementary role of and potential for contributions by non-state actors to the development process. To this end, under the conditions laid down in this Agreement, non-state actors shall, where appropriate: – be informed and involved in consultation on cooperation policies and strategies, on priorities for cooperation especially in areas that concern or directly affect them, and on the political dialogue; – be provided with financial resources, under the conditions laid down in this Agreement in order to support local development processes; – be involved in the implementation of cooperation project and programmes in areas that concern them or where these actors have a comparative advantage; – be provided with capacity–building support in critical areas in order to reinforce the capabilities of these actors, particularly as regards organisation and representation, and the establishment of consultation mechanisms including channels of communication and dialogue, and to promote strategic alliances. 23 See Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer or AntiPersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction (n 5) Preamble: ‘Stressing the role of public conscience in furthering the principles of humanity as evidenced by the call for a total ban of anti-personnel mines and recognizing the efforts to that end undertaken by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and numerous other nongovernmental organizations around the world’. On this convention and the role of non-state actors, see K Anderson, ‘The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role of International Non-Governmental Organizations and the Idea of International Civil Society’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 91. See also M Cameron, R Lawson and B Tomlin (eds), To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1998). 24 See Convention on Cluster Munitions (n 5) preamble: ‘Stressing the role of public conscience in furthering the principles of humanity as evidenced by the global call for an end to civilian suffering caused by cluster munitions and recognising the efforts to that end undertaken by the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Cluster Munitions Coalition and numerous other non-governmental organisations around the world’. 25 See Boyle and Chinkin (n 1) 67. 26 See CP Cohen, ‘The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations in the Drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (1990) 12 Human Rights Quarterly 137.

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Court.27 In these situations, it can hardly be denied that non-state actors, through their formal role, have left their imprint in the substance of the rules finally adopted. The major role of non-state actors in international law-making is not limited to treaty-making procedures. They can also be instrumental in the tentative codification of new rules of customary international law as is exemplified by the International Committee of the Red Cross’ (ICRC) study on Customary International Humanitarian Law28 and the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.29 While the potential impact of the latter still remains unclear and subject to deep questioning,30 the role of the former has been particularly remarkable, however controversial its methodology may have been.31 The above-mentioned developments, while undeniably important, do not however suffice to suggest a major upheaval of the entire international law-making system. There is no doubt that, whatever the influence of these non-state actors may be, states remain the exclusive international law-makers. The upstream influence wielded by some non-state actors can help ignite new law-making initiative or orientate ongoing law-making undertakings but this is insufficient to elevate these actors to the status of law-makers. Indeed, no formal international law-making powers have been bestowed upon these actors,32 and states always retain the final word.33 It is true that, besides internationally personified international organisations, some of these non-state actors may have been endowed with international legal personality. However, it is essential to highlight at this stage that the likelihood that some of them have acquired international legal personality34—albeit to an extent

27 See for instance the role of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, www.iccnow.org/ ?mod=icchistory (last accessed 22 June 2009). For some general remarks, see Boyle and Chinkin (n 1) 71–74. 28 JM Henckaerts, ‘Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law: a Contribution to the Understanding and Respect for the Rule of law in Armed Conflict’ (2005) 87 International Review of the Red Cross 175–212. 29 G Evans and M Sahnoun, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Vol I (2001) UN Doc A/57/303 Annex. 30 See the Proceedings of the Société Française pour le Droit International, La responsabilité de protéger – Colloque de Nanterre (Paris, Pédone, 2008). See also C Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm’ (2007) 101 American Journal of International Law 99–120. 31 For a criticism of the methodology of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), see below. 32 Even within the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the status and the role of NGOs remain entirely determined by states. See Merle, ‘Article 71’ (n 20) 1732. 33 On this controversy, see the various contributions in J d’Aspremont (ed.), Non-State Actors in the International Legal System: Theoretical Perspectives (London, Routledge, 2011). 34 Reparations for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174. See also La Grand (Germany v United States) [2001] ICJ Rep 466 paras 77 and 89. According to the Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the Responsibility of International Organisations Giorgio Gaja, this approach could lead the Court to even assert some day the legal personality of non-governmental organisations (UN ILC, ‘First Report on Responsibility of International Organizations’ UN Doc A/CN.4/532, para 17). For a forceful opinion argument about extending legal personality, see F Green, ‘Fragmentation in Two Dimensions: The ICJ’s Flawed Approach to Non-State Actors and International Legal Personality’ (2008) 9 Melbourne Journal of International Law 47.

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that may be more limited than some have claimed35—is less the result of a direct conferral of international legal personality upon non-state actors. Rather it is an indirect consequence stemming from their rights and duties.36 That means that these actors may well now have a formal international legal personality derived from their rights and duties, but that has not endowed them with any formal and actual law-making powers.37 Moreover, it must be understood that the rights and duties that non-state actors may now hold remain the result of a state-centric law-making process. The question of the international legal personality of these actors should accordingly be seen as separate to the question of their law-making status. Likewise, individuals and non-governmental organisations38 are sometimes entitled to institute proceedings against a state before regional courts. The standing that

35 A lot of controversy has been swirling around the question of the legal personality of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), especially following the decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Prosecutor v Simic et a. (Decision on the Prosecution Motion Under Rule 73 for a Ruling Concerning the Testimony of a Witness) ICTY-95–9-PT, para 72l. It is worth noting that the unique character of the ICRC has been incidentally recognised in the ILC, First report on responsibility of international organizations (United Nations, A/CN.4/532, 2003) para 21. A majority of authors seems to concur with the idea that the ICRC is endowed with international legal personality. See for instance MT Kamminga, ‘The Evolving Status of NGO’s under International Law: A Threat to the Inter–State System’ in P Alston (ed), Non–State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 98); C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique internationale du CICR’, in C Swinarski (ed), Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles in Honour of Jean Pictet (The Hague-Geneva, Nijhoff/ICRC, 1984) 663; P Reuter, ‘La personnalité juridique internationale du Comité international de la Croix–Rouge’, ibid., 783; A Lorite Escorihuela, ‘Le Comite international de la Croix Rouge comme organisation sui generis? Remarques sur la personnalité juridique international du CICR’ (2001) 105 Revue générale de droit international public 581; G Di Stefano, ‘Le CICR et l’immunité de juridiction en droit international contemporain: fragment d’investigation autour d’une notion centrale de l’organisation international’ (2002) 12 Revue suisse de droit international 355; F Bugnion, The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Protection of War Victims (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003) 954; G Abraham, ‘Yes, . . . but does it have Personality?: The International Committee of the Red Cross and Sovereign Immunity’, (2007) 124 South African Law Journal 499. See contra G Barile, ‘Caractère du Comité International de la Croix Rouge’, (1979) 62 Rivista di DirittoIinternazionale 111. 36 See generally, C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique dans le système du droit des gens’ in J Makarczyk (ed), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of K. Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer, 1996) 147–72; In the context of the debate about the responsibility of Transnational Corporations, see O De Schutter, ‘The Challenge of Imposing Human Rights Norms on Corporate Actors’ in O De Schutter (ed), Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Studies in International Law 12 (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006) 33. This has led scholars to deem that the question of international legal personality was described as ‘circular’, ‘sterile’ and boiling down to an ‘intellectual prison’. See A Reinisch, ‘The Changing International Legal Framework for Dealing with Non-State Actors’ in P Alston (ed), Non-State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 72. A Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006) 60. 37 G Abi-Saab, ‘Cours général de droit international public’ (1987) 207 Collected Courses of the Academy of International Law 9, 444. See also P Weil, ‘Le droit international en quête de son identité: cours général de droit international public’ (1992) 237 Collected Courses of the Academy of International Law 9, 118–22. 38 See for instance Art 34 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) 213 UNTS 222 or Arts 5(3) and 34(6) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights (adopted 10 June 1998, entered into force 25 January 2004) Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Doc OAU/LEG/EXP/AFCHPR/PROT (III).

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individuals and non-governmental organisations may have before these judicial bodies does not confer upon them any law-making power. At most, their initiative can encourage some judges to engage in some form of law-making.39 But their influence in the institution of the proceedings stands apart from the question of whether they can actually make law. The inaccuracy of the claim that international law-making processes have proven more diverse and heterogeneous ratione personae because of a growing role of non-state actors is also underpinned by the exact opposite phenomenon. Indeed, while the role of non-state actors has swollen, we simultaneously witness that states have reinforced their grip over global lawmaking processes.40 This reinforced state dominance may take various forms. First, it is the result of a more intensive law-making activity through the classical state-centric convention-making system41. This is also manifest in the light of the unprecedented resort to existing institutional law-making mechanisms within international organisations where states still wield a sweeping clout and, in particular, a more frequent use by states of the UN Security Council to create wide-ranging and binding rules.42 The renewed dominance of states over international law-making processes is not only the upshot of a greater use of the classical channels of law-making. The emergence of new forms of law-making outside the normal above-mentioned blueprints also contributes to reinforcing the dominance of states. For instance, the development of the so-called ‘governmental networks’43 illustrates how the power of states has been thriving outside traditional law-making frameworks. It is true that the state itself may be undergoing an internal diversification of its organisation and of the allocation of powers within its machinery.44 In that sense, the state is in the midst of a process of disintegration.45 However, this segregation of the state can essentially be seen as a reinforcement of its powers, for it allows the state to be even more present and influential, even in areas traditionally adverse to it. These

39 See F Raimondo, General Principles of Law in the Decisions of International Criminal Courts and Tribunals (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2008). 40 A similar feeling is shared by Clapham, Human Rights Obligations (n 36) pp 5–6 (‘Whether globalisation is really leading to the demise of nation State is still open to question. It may be argued that, in at least some contexts, the globalisation of certain decision-making processes is actually leading to a greater role for the State, and for international law, and international decision-making processes’). 41 See for instance the area of international economic law (eg the overhaul of the international economic order through the final Act of the 1986–1994 Uruguay Round of trade negotiations or the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 1771 UNTS 107). 42 See eg, UNSC Res 1373 (28 September 2001) UN Doc S/RES/1373. On this issue, see generally S Talmon, ‘The Security Council as World Legislature’ (2005) 99 American Journal of International Law 175. 43 AM Slaughter, ‘Global Government Networks, Global Information Agencies, and Disaggregated Democracy’ (2002–2003) 24 Michigan Journal of International Law 1041; AM Slaughter, ‘Accountability of Government Networks’ (2000–2001) 8 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 347; AM Slaughter, ‘The Real New World Order’ (1997) 76 Foreign Affairs 183. 44 See for instance in the area of trade, D Patterson and A Afilalo, The New Global Trading Order. The Evolving State and the Future of Trade (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008). 45 See Slaughter, ‘Global Government Networks, Global Information Agencies, and Disaggregated Democracy’ (n 43).

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developments do not accordingly lead to a multiplication of law-makers. They only show that, if a diversification ratione personae is truly taking place, it is within the state machinery. In sum, the assertion that international law-making is turning more heterogeneous ratione personae because of the multiplication of non-state actors is not entirely convincing from an empirical perspective—and, hence, the concerns for the excessive role of non-state actors, which have occasionally been expressed, seem undue.46

THE DOCTRINAL TEMPTATION OF HETEROGENEITY

Legal scholars have been very prompt to see in some of the aforementioned developments the emergence of a new international law-making framework, within which non-state actors enjoy a fledging status of law-maker.47 Others, while acknowledging that contemporary law-making processes are still fundamentally state-centric, have come to the conclusion that granting a law-making status to non-state actors should be at least advocated and promoted.48 To a lesser extent, it has also been asserted that the behaviour of non-state actors should be taken into account for the sake of customary international law,49 as is underpinned by the methodology used in the above-mentioned study of the ICRC on the customary rules of international humanitarian law.50 And even when legal scholars back away from this idea and stand by the daily reality of state-centrism, they remain somehow attracted by this image. Many international legal scholars thus prove, in 46 See the opinion of Gilbert Guillaume, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 266; J Bolton, ‘Should We take Global Governance Seriously’ (2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 205. 47 G Teubner, ‘Global Bukowina: Legal Pluralism in the World Society’ in G Teubner (ed), Global Law Without a State (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1997) 3–28; M Reisman, ‘Unilateral Action and the Transformation of the World Constitutive Process: The Special Problem of Humanitarian Intervention’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 3, 18; MT Kamminga, ‘The Evolving Status of NGOs under International Law: A Threat to the Inter-State System?’ in P Alston (ed), Non-State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 100–105. See also A Boyle and C Chinkin who remain slightly ambiguous on the characterisation of the role of non-state actors: while recognising that States do in any case retain the final word, they assert that ‘it would be myopic to insist on the classical view of states as the sole makers of international law; rather we must recognise the multi-layered, multi-partite nature of the international law-making enterprise’ (Boyle and Chinkin, (n 1) 97). 48 AC Arend, Legal Rules and International Society (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999) 176–85. See also the proposal of R Falk and A Strauss of a standing Global Peoples Assembly (R Falk and A Strauss, ‘On the Creation of a Global Peoples Assembly: Legitimacy and the Power of Popular Sovereignty’ (2000) 36 Stanford Journal of International Law 191; For a forceful opinion argument about extending legal personality, see Green, ‘Fragmentation in Two Dimensions’ (n 34) 70–76. 49 See for instance I Gunning, ‘Modernizing Customary International Law: The Challenge of Human Rights’ (1991) 31 Virginia Journal of International Law 211. 50 See Henckaerts, ‘Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law’ (n 29). See the critique of Boyle Chinkin (n 1) 36. See also the critique expressed by JB Bellinger and WJ Haynes, ‘A U.S. Government Response to the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Customary International Humanitarian Law Study’ (2007) 46 International Legal Materials 514, also available at www.defenselink.mil/home/pdf/Customary_International_Humanitiarian_Law.pdf; see the reaction of JM Henckaerts, ‘Customary international humanitarian law – a response to US comments’ (2007) International Review of the Red Cross 473.

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one way or another, amenable to the idea of a law-making role of non-state actors.51 It is therefore of great interest to embark on an examination of the reasons explaining why the heterogeneity ratione personae of international law-making constitutes such a powerful temptation. There are probably many reasons underlying the above-mentioned inclination of scholars. It would be too ambitious to attempt to describe them all. Although such a choice condemns the argument developed here to offering only a partial explanation, this paper will expound on what I see as the three main reasons explaining why legal scholars are enticed to embrace the image of a heterogeneous and diverse international law-making. Firstly, mention will be made of the need of scholars to find new legal materials and new objects of study for the sake of their own scholarship. Secondly, it will be explained that the representation of international law-making as heterogeneous conveys a cosmopolitan image of law-making processes, thereby reinforcing the legitimacy and the acceptance of the rules that are adopted therein. Lastly, it will be argued that these portrayals of international law-making as heterogeneous boil down to a means to preserve the relevance of the expertise of international legal scholars in fields where other disciplines have been overshadowing international legal scholarship.

The Quest for an Expansion of the Objects of International Law The introduction of non-state actors in the scheme of international law-making through their elevation to the status of law-maker provides a great advantage in that it allows scholars to extend the limits of international law. Firstly, the law-making status granted to non-state actors enables scholars to create a new object of study as such. In that sense, the role of non-state actors itself becomes the object of scholarly examination. By including non-state actors in their representations of international law-making procedures, international scholars also increase the number of processes that can be deemed to yield international legal rules. In other words, by including non-state actors in the making of international law, they simply multiply the number of international law-making processes. This possibility ultimately allows them to stretch the limit of international law and to include non-legal materials into the scope of their study.

51 See generally, C Thomas, ‘International Financial Institutions and social and economic rights: an exploration’ in T Evans (ed), Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998) 161, 163; this is also well illustrated by the fact that we have witnessed the creation of a special law journal devoted to the question (Non-State Actors and International Law – published by Brill until 2005) or that of a book series (Non-State Actors in International Law, Politics and Governance published by Algate). AM Slaughter is not far from recognising such a law-making role to individuals Slaughter, ‘The Real New World Order’ (n 43). See also E Beigzadeh, ‘L’évolution du droit international public’ in E Jouannet, H Ruiz-Fabri and JM Sorel (eds), Regards d’une génération sur le droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 2008) 78.

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The Role of Non-state Actors as a New Object of Study Leaving temporarily aside the question of whether this constitutes a relevant topic for a legal analysis, there is little doubt that the question of the role of non-state actors is a wide-ranging one, simply because there is a broad, rich, diverse and complicated practice. The inclusion of this complex practice in the fields that allegedly fall within the expertise of international legal scholars provides them with a spacious ‘new’ area of study. For those scholars that are interested in how law is made, the role of non-state actors thus becomes a new issue in the same vein as questions pertaining to treaty-making or the formation of customary international law. But the benefit of granting non-state actors a law-making role for scholars interested in the procedural aspects of law-making is even greater than that. It not only makes the role of non-state actors a new object of study in itself, it also brings into the scope of legal scholarship new processes that would have classically been deemed alien to the making of international law. Indeed, once endowed with an international law-making role, non-state actors interacting with one another can be considered as involved in an international law-making process. This means that granting a formal law-making role to non-state actors can help transform non-legal processes into international law-making processes, which, in turn, can become new objects of study. The Introduction of New Legal Materials Awarding a law-making role to non-state actors is not solely tempting for legal scholars interested in the study of law-making. It can also benefit legal scholars interested in the substance of the law. Indeed, granting a law-making role to non-state actors not only leads to a transformation of non-legal processes into international law-making processes but also makes the product of these new law-making processes legally relevant. In that sense, it provides legal scholars with new ‘legal’ material that allegedly falls within the ambit of their expertise and the scope of their study. The argument of the heterogeneity of law-making processes is thus also a means to capture non-legal material and shroud them with the trappings of a legal object.

The Quest for a Cosmopolitan Representation of International Law It is contended here that the portrayal of international law-making as more heterogeneous than it actually is, also originates in the attempt of many legal scholars to convey a more cosmopolitan image of international law. This is especially true with respect to those authors that have tried to magnify the participation of individuals and NGOs in international law-making processes. This move rests on the assumption that those international law-making processes where states and international organisations have yielded to a greater role of individuals and NGOs would be more cosmopolitan and more democratic—to the extent that

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this latter concept is applicable to the global forms of governance.52 This attitude also draws upon the belief that regulations produced by such participatory processes would be seen as more legitimate.53 Even though it is far from certain that this assumption is empirically true,54 it certainly constitutes one of the reasons why international legal scholars are so enticed by the idea of the heterogeneity ratione personae of international law-making processes.

The Quest for the Continuous Relevance of International Legal Scholarship While widening the field of international legal research and giving some cosmopolitan clothing to international law, a representation of contemporary international law-making as being diverse and heterogeneous can eventually help international legal scholars preserve their authority in an area where it has been jeopardised. Indeed, globalisation has created normative spaces that are detached from all forms of the state’s grip55 for which legal categories have proven insufficient. This is especially true with respect to the substantive and factual influence of non-state actors, which legal scholars can hardly grasp and identify with formal legal concepts. This means that the expertise of international legal scholars does not extend beyond the formal and procedural role of non-state actors.56 In that sense, it is not certain that international legal scholars are well-equipped to engage in the analysis of the factual and substantive role of non-state actors in international law-making. From the perspective of international law, non-state actors can only be mere ‘participants’,57 endowed with a few participatory rights.58 This means that, even though international legal scholars can probably contribute to clarification of the formal and procedural roles of these non-state actors, their technical expertise is of no avail as to the determination of the substantive influence of non-state actors. Against that backdrop, the idea of the heterogeneity of law-making processes can be seen as a means to alleviate the unease of international legal scholars towards 52 JHH Weiler, ‘The geology of international law – governance, democracy and legitimacy’ (2004) 64 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 547. 53 See K Anderson and D Rieff, ‘Global Civil Society: A Skeptical View’ in H Anheier, M Glasius and M Kaldor (eds), Global Civil Society (London, Sage, 2005) 26. 54 For some general and critical remarks about the legitimacy of international law-making, see Boyle and Chinkin (n 1) 24–35. 55 P Alston, ‘The Myopia of Handmaidens, International Lawyers and Globalization’ (1997) 8 European Journal of International Law 435; see also the remarks of E Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism: The True–False Paradox of International Law’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 379, 395. 56 At least for the purpose of a study of the sources of international law. See DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters – Non-State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley Journal of International Law 137. 57 This has famously been advocated by R Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use it (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994) 50. See also R Higgins, ‘Conceptual Thinking about the Individual in International Law’ (1978) 4 British Journal of International Studies 1, 5. See also K Knop, Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 4. 58 On this question, see the insightful analysis of C Chinkin, ‘Human Rights and the Politics of Representation’ in M Byers (ed), The Role of Law in International Law Politics (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) 131–47.

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their inability to gauge the substantive influence of non-state actors beyond their formal and procedural role. The idea of heterogeneous international law-making proves very useful in sustaining the belief that international legal scholars could engage in an analysis of this phenomenon despite the uncertainties pertaining to the relevance of their expertise in that area.59 In that sense, the idea of the heterogeneity of international law-making and the correlative law-making ‘status’ granted to non-state actors may seem to guarantee the relevance of the legal expertise and, hence, the authority of legal scholars for subject-matters where the usefulness of their role is anything but certain.

FINAL REMARKS

Contemporary practice shows that the image of international law-making as a diverse and heterogeneous process—understood in terms of the multiplicity of the actors involved—is mostly an illusion. Despite contrary empirical evidence, many scholars have been lured by this idea or have tried to promote it. This paper has addressed three reasons explaining why international legal scholars are so inclined (or tempted) to defend the heterogeneity ratione personae of international lawmaking processes. There are surely other explanations, which are left for further research and discussion. The three factors examined here should, however, suffice to make us realise how amenable we are towards the idea of the heterogeneity of international law-making, and help us rein in that powerful temptation. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books AC Arend, Legal Rules and International Society (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999). A Bennett, The Geneva Convention: the Hidden Origins of the Red Cross (Stroud, Sutton, 2005). A Boyle and C Chinkin, The Making of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). F Bugnion, The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Protection of War Victims (Oxford, Macmillan, 2003). M Cameron, R Lawson and B Tomlin (eds), To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Ban Landmines (Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1998). A Clapham, Human Rights Obligations of Non-state Actors (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). GA Codding, Jr, The International Telecommunication Union: An Experiment in International Cooperation (Leiden, Brill, 1952). 59 E Jouannet also hints at this idea in her essay ‘What is the Use of International Law? International Law as a 21st Century Guardian of Welfare’ (2007) 28 Michigan Journal of International Law 815, 854.

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JP Cot, A Pellet and M Forteau, (eds) La Charte des Nations Unies, Commentaire article par article, 3rd edn (Paris, Economica, 2005). J d’Aspremont (ed), Non-State Actors in the International legal System: Theoretical Perspectives (London, Routledge, 2011). W Friedmann, L Henkin and O Lissitzyn (eds), Transnational Law in a Changing Society: Essays in Honor of Philip C Jessup (New York, Columbia University Press, 1972). R Higgins, Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use it (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994). MO Hudson, The Permanent Court of International Justice, 1920–1942: a Treatise (New York, Macmillan, 1943). PC Jessup, Transnational Law (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1956). K Knop, Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). D Patterson and A Afilalo, The New Global Trading Order. The Evolving State and the Future of Trade (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008). F Raimondo, General Principles of Law in the Decisions of International Criminal Courts and Tribunals (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2008). S Rosenne (ed), () The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and International Arbitration: Reports and Documents (The Hague, TMC Asser, 2001). G Scelle, Une Crise de la Société des Nations (Paris, Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1926). Société Française pour le Droit International, La responsabilité de protéger – Colloque de Nanterre (Paris, Pédone, 2008). T Weiss (ed), Non-governmental Organisations, the United Nations and Global Governance (Providence, Brown University Press, 1995). A Zimmern, The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935, 2nd edn (London, Macmillan, 1939).

Chapters in Edited Volumes K Anderson and D Rieff, ‘Global Civil Society: A Skeptical View’ in H Anheier, M Glasius and M Kaldor (eds), Global Civil Society (London, Sage, 2005). E Beigzadeh, ‘L’évolution du droit international public’ in E Jouannet, H Ruiz-Fabri and JM Sorel (eds), Regards d’une génération sur le droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 2008). CB Bourne, ‘The International Law Association’s contribution to international water resources law’ in S Bogdanovic (ed), International Law Association Rules on International Water Resources (London, Kluwer, 1999). C Chinkin, ‘Human Rights and the Politics of Representation’ in M Byers (ed), The Role of Law in International Law Politics (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). O De Schutter, ‘The Challenge of Imposing Human Rights Norms on Corporate Actors’ in O De Schutter (ed), Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Studies in International Law 12 (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006).

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C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique internationale du CICR’, in C Swinarski (ed), Studies and Essays on International Humanitarian Law and Red Cross Principles in Honour of Jean Pictet (The Hague-Geneva, Nijhoff/ICRC, 1984). C Dominicé, ‘La personnalité juridique dans le système du droit des gens’ in J Makarczyk (ed), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century : Essays in Honor of K. Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer, 1996). E Jouannet, ‘Le même et l’autre’ in E Jouannet, H Ruiz-Fabri and JM Sorel (eds), Regards d’une génération sur le droit international public (Paris, Pédone, 2008). MT Kamminga, ‘The Evolving Status of NGOs under International Law: A Threat to the Inter-state System’ in P Alston (ed), Non-State Actors and Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). P Reuter, ‘La personnalité juridique internationale du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge’ in J Makarczyk (ed), Theory of International Law at the Threshold of the 21st Century : Essays in Honor of K. Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer, 1984). G Teubner, ‘Global Bukowina: Legal Pluralism in the World Society’ in G Teubner (ed), Global Law Without a State (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1997). C Thomas, ‘International Financial Institutions and social and economic rights: an exploration’ in T Evans (ed), Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1998).

International Documents JB Bellinger and WJ Haynes, ‘A U.S. Government Response to the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Customary International Humanitarian Law Study’ (2007) 46 International Legal Materials 514, also available at www.defenselink.mil/home/pdf/ Customary_International_Humanitiarian_Law.pdf. G Evans and M Sahnoun, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ Report of the International Commission on Intervention and state Sovereignty, UN Doc A/57/303 Annex (United Nations, 2001). International Law Commission First Report on Responsibility of International Organizations, UN Doc A/CN 4/532 (United Nations, 2003).

Journal Articles G Abi-Saab, ‘Cours général de droit international public’ (1987) 207 Collected Courses of the Academy of International Law 9–463. G Abraham, ‘Yes, . . . but does it have Personality?: The International Committee of the Red Cross and Sovereign Immunity’ (2007) 124 South African Law Journal 499–513. P Alston, ‘The Myopia of Handmaidens, International Lawyers and Globalization’ (1997) 8 European Journal of International Law 435–48.

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K Anderson, ‘The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role of International Non-Governmental Organizations and the Idea of International Civil Society’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 91–120. G Barile, ‘Caractère du Comité International de la Croix Rouge’ (1979) 62 Rivista di DirittoIinternazionale 111–15. J Bolton, ‘Should We take Global Governance Seriously’ (2000) 1 Chicago Journal of International Law 205–21. S Charnovitz, ‘Two Centuries of Participation: NGOs and International Governance’ (1997) 18 Michigan Journal of International Law 183–286. CP Cohen, ‘The Role of Nongovernmental Organizations in the Drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child’ (1990) 12 Human Rights Quarterly 137–47. J Crawford, ‘The International Law Association from 1873 to the present’ (1997) 2 Uniform Law Review 68–86. J d’Aspremont, ‘Softness in International Law: a Self-Serving Quest for New Legal Materials’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 1075–93. G Di Stefano, ‘Le CICR et l’immunité de juridiction en droit international contemporain: fragment d’investigation autour d’une notion centrale de l’organisation international’ (2002) 12 Revue suisse de droit international 355–70. J Dugard, ‘The Future of International Law: A Human Rights Perspective – With Some Comments on the Leiden School of International Law’ (2007) 20 Leiden Journal of International Law 729—39. R Falk, and A Strauss, ‘On the Creation of a Global Peoples Assembly: Legitimacy and the Power of Popular Sovereignty’ (2000) 36 Stanford Journal of International Law 191–220. F Green, ‘Fragmentation in Two Dimensions: The ICJ’s Flawed Approach to Non-State Actors and International Legal Personality’ (2008) 9 Melbourne Journal of International Law 47–77. I Gunning, ‘Modernizing Customary International Law: The Challenge of Human Rights’ 31 Virginia Journal of International Law (1991) 211–47. JM Henckaerts, ‘Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law: a Contribution to the Understanding and Respect for the Rule of law in Armed Conflict’ (2005) 87 International Review of the Red Cross 175–212. JM Henckaerts, ‘Customary international humanitarian law – a response to US comments’ (2007) International Review of the Red Cross 473–88. R Higgins, ‘Conceptual Thinking about the Individual in International Law’ (1978) 4 British Journal of International Studies 1–19. DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters – Non-State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley Journal of International Law 137–74. CW Jenks, ‘The Significance for International Law of the Tripartite Character of the International Labour Organisation’ (1937) 22 Transactions of the Grotius Society 45–47. E Jouannet, ‘Regards sur un siècle de doctrine française du droit international’ (2000) XLVI Annuaire français de droit international 1–57.

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E Jouannet, ‘Universalism and Imperialism: The True–False Paradox of International Law’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 379–407. E Jouannet, ‘What is the Use of International Law? International Law as a 21st Century Guardian of Welfare’ (2007) 28 Michigan Journal of International Law 815–62. A Lorite Escorihuela, ‘Le Comite international de la Croix Rouge comme organisation sui generis? Remarques sur la personnalité juridique international du CICR’ (2001) 105 Revue générale de droit international public 581–616. P Myers, ‘Representation in Public International Organs’ (1914) 8 American Journal of International Law 81–108. M Reisman, ‘Unilateral Action and the Transformation of the World Constitutive Process: The Special Problem of Humanitarian Intervention’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 3–18. E Rindskopf Parker, ‘Why do we Care about Transnational Law?’ (2006) 24 Penn State International Law Review 755–61. AM Slaughter, ‘The Real New World Order’ (1997) 76 Foreign Affairs 183–97. AM Slaughter, ‘Accountability of Government Networks’ (2001) 8 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 347–67. AM Slaughter, ‘Global Government Networks, Global Information Agencies, and Disaggregated Democracy’ (2003) 24 Michigan Journal of International Law 1041–75. C Stahn, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm’ (2007) 101 American Journal of International Law 99–120. S Talmon, ‘The Security Council as World Legislature’ (2005) 99 American Journal of International Law 175–93. P Weil, ‘Le droit international en quête de son identité: cours général de droit international public’ (1992) 237 Collected Courses of the Academy of International Law 9–370.

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Gap-Filling as Law-Making: The Examples of the Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals MIA SWART *

INTRODUCTION The idea of a closed system of laws lasting for all time, and able to solve any imaginable conflict, is a Utopian fantasy which has no foundation to stand upon. In actual fact, every system of law has gaps which are, as a rule, noticed and filled out only when they are brought to light by particular events.1

A

N UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCE of the creation of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia2 (ICTY) and Rwanda3 (ICTR) is the emergence of the Tribunals as significant lawmakers in the field of international criminal law. Although the full impact of their jurisprudence on the emergence of new international rules is still unclear there can be no doubt that they have generated a substantial amount of new law in the form of judge-made law.4 Chinkin and Boyle write that international judicial bodies have emerged as important players in international law-making.5 Since the classic understanding of the role of judges is that judges should declare the law but never make law, the question of judicial law-making is never free of controversy. Henry Abraham recognised this when he described the question of judicial law-making as ‘an endemic can of worms’.6 In spite of international judges routinely making law, it is still common for judges to claim that they do not make law, but merely develop or extend the application of existing law.7 * BA LLB (Cape Town) LLM (Humboldt) PhD (Leiden); Associate Professor; School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand. 1 F Waismann, R Harré (ed), The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London, Macmillan, 1965) 76. 2 The International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the former Yugoslavia since 1991, established by UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 827 (25 May 1993) UN Doc S/RES/827. 3 The International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States between 1 January and 31 December 1995, established by UNSC Resolution 955 (8 November 1994) UN Doc S/Res/955. 4 In this regard see S Trifunovska, ‘Ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals and the issue of Lawmaking’ (2008) 169 Rechtsgeleerd Magazijn Themis 121, 122. 5 C Chinkin and A Boyle, The Making of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 19. 6 HJ Abraham, The Judicial Process, 7th edn (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998) 430. 7 See the section ‘Law-making at the ICJ’ below.

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The topic of law-making can be approached from many different perspectives or angles. One can, for example, focus on the Tribunals’ novel determination of customary international law in making law, or on methods of interpretation (particularly purposive interpretation) to extend the law. This paper will focus on the question of gap-filling in the context of international criminal law. The relationship between the existence of gaps and the doctrine of non liquet will be explored. It will be argued that there are two important reasons for the presence of gaps in international criminal law. Firstly the indeterminacy found in international criminal law can be attributed to the indeterminacy inherent in all law. This is a philosophical argument. Secondly, a ‘historical’ reason for the porous nature of international criminal law is the rudimentary, new nature of international criminal law as a discipline. The historical reason for the presence of gaps gives rise to my argument that law-making in the context of a newly created system of law can be a matter of necessity. It will further be argued that judicial law-making is often desirable and inevitable, but that in certain circumstances, the Tribunals should consider pronouncing a non liquet instead of resorting to illegitimate law-making. Comparisons will be made between the attitudes of judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and of the ICTY. There are many reasons why it is appropriate to make such comparisons. Ginsburg remarks that in spite of the proliferation of international judicial tribunals, there has been little scholarly examination of the law-making emanating from such tribunals.8 This paper will attempt to help fill this gap.

THE MEANING OF LAW-MAKING

What does law-making mean in the context of international law? Defining law-making is as difficult as defining ‘law itself. Although the latter definition remains problematic and to some extent elusive, the abstract term ‘the law’ represents the idea that certain rules of conduct are obligatory.9 Cassese defines international criminal law as the body of international rules designed to both proscribe international crimes and to impose upon states the obligation to prosecute and punish those crimes.10 Law-making refers to the constitutive process which brings about the creation of international norms. In the context of tribunal law-making, it is useful to understand law-making in a broad sense. Law-making has been defined as ‘the imposition of binding legal obligations’ and as ‘the prescription of general rules that are applicable to all, and which are meant to remain in force for an indefinite period of time.’11 Because of the nature of 8 T Ginsburg, International Judicial Lawmaking (University of Illinois College of Law, Law and Economics Working Paper no 26, 2005) http://law.bepress.com/uiuclwps/papers/art26 1. 9 WJ Hosten, AB Edwards et al, Introduction to South African Law and Legal Theory (Durban, Butterworths, 1983) 10. Other important features of law are that law is institutionalised and has a normative character. Ibid, 2. 10 A Cassese, International Criminal Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) 15. 11 See New York University School of Law, Institute for International Law and Justice (International Law Week 2004) ‘The Role of the Security Council in Strengthening a Rules-Based International System’ Panel 1 (4 November 2004).

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international law, law-making will, however, refer to the creation not only of binding norms but also of soft law. The term law-making will also be interpreted widely to include both substantive and procedural law. Substantive law-making defines legal rights, duties and remedies. Procedural law-making is concerned with the proof and enforcement of rights, duties and remedies and includes procedures distinct from procedures to identify or enforce law, such as treaty rules. Judicial law-making takes place when courts cannot find answers in the existing rules. Some believe that a judge makes law every time he or she interprets and applies a legal provision. Others reserve the term ‘law-making’ for instances where the law is extended to new areas of law or to the filling of legal gaps. The term law-making is here understood to refer to instances where tribunals have filled gaps or extended the law. Not every instance of interpretation will constitute lawmaking. Interpretation will only constitute law-making if it fills a gap in the law or extends the law to new areas. Many have interpreted the idea of ‘making law’ as ‘developing the law’. Lauterpacht writes that the indirect purpose of the ICJ is to develop international law. What does developing the law mean in the context of international criminal law? It is argued here that developing international criminal law means extending the application of concepts to areas to which they were previously not applied, and updating international humanitarian law and international human rights law. International judges have referred to guiding values such as justice, equity and considerations of humanity to fill gaps in the law. The ad hoc Tribunals have made law by referring to the Martens Clause12 and ‘the dictates of humanity’. Such values were considered in the Legality of Nuclear Weapons case. In that case Judge Weeramantry considered that ‘public conscience dictates the non-use of nuclear weapons.’13 THE TRIBUNALS AS DELEGATED LAW-MAKERS

Any examination of law-making should be context-specific and context-sensitive. As Boyle and Chinkin observe, any consideration of international law-making must take account of the proliferation of international courts and tribunals ‘and consider the contribution of courts and tribunals in very different sectors of international law’.14 There are many reasons for the recent increase in law-making activity of international courts and tribunals. These include the appearance of non-state actors on the international stage, the increasing variety of instruments used for lawmaking and the increasing number of purposes for which law-making is carried 12 See Preamble to the Convention with respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II) (adopted 29 July 1899, entered into force 4 September 1900) (1901) UKTS 11: ‘Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it is right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilised nations, from the laws of humanity, and the requirements of the public conscience.’ 13 Legality of the Threat of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Reports 266, 487, Dissenting Opinion Judge Weeramantry. 14 Boyle and Chinkin, The Making of International Law (n 5) 266.

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out.15 It is now clear that besides states, international organisations and international judicial bodies also make law.16 Boyle and Chinkin observe: The complexity of contemporary international relations and the changing international environment generated arguments in favour of expansion of law-making processes, as well as of the forms and substance of international regulation.17

According to traditional understandings of international law, only states—and not courts—have the power and ability to make law.18 In recent years, however, there has been widespread recognition of the role of international organisations in international law-making. International organisations have emerged as influential law-makers. The ad hoc Tribunals can be included in the category of ‘international organisations’. Alvarez writes that international organisations have transformed the sources of international law and their content, the principal law-making actors ‘and even our understanding of what “international law” is and what it means to “comply” with its rules.’19 However, when the Security Council established the Tribunals, the Secretary General stated in his Report on the establishment of the ICTY, that the Tribunals could not and should not make new law.20 The Secretary General explained that: in assigning the International Tribunal the task of prosecuting persons responsible for serious violations of international law, the Security Council would [thus] not be creating or purporting to ‘legislate’ that law. The Tribunals would rather have the task of applying existing international humanitarian law.21

The law applied by the Tribunals must come from existing international criminal law or the national law of the situs of the conduct alleged to be criminal.22 The judges in Delalic stated that ‘[t]he Statute does not create substantive law, but provides a forum and framework for the enforcement of existing international humanitarian law.’23 In view of the prodigious law-making by the ad hoc Tribunals, it can be said that a tension exists between the original intentions of the Tribunals and the jurisprudence of the Tribunals, which contain many instances of lawmaking. As a result of the statements by the Secretary General and the Tribunals, it has been claimed that the legitimacy of Tribunal law-making seems tenuous.24 Danner 15

Trifunovska, ‘Ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals’ (n 4). ibid 121–21. 17 Boyle and Chinkin, The Making of International Law (n 5) 19. 18 AM Danner, ‘When the Courts Make Law: How the International Criminal Tribunals Recast the Laws of War’(2006) 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1. 19 JE Alvarez, ‘International Organisations: Then and Now’ (2006) 100 American Journal of International Law 324, 326. 20 UNSC, Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993) (presented 3 May 1993) UN Doc S/25704 para 34. Danner, ‘When Courts Make Law’ (n 18). 21 UNSC, Report of the Secretary General (n 20) para 34. 22 MC Bassiouni and P Manikas, The Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY, Transnational Publishing, 1996) 226. 23 Prosecutor v Delalic et al IT-96–21 (6 December 1996), Final Judgment 16 November 1998, para 417 and the discussions at paras 414–17. 24 See Danner, ‘When the Courts Make Law’ (n 18). 16

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argues that although such law-making might appear problematic, it is both politically reasonable and legally justifiable. From the viewpoint of international politics the authority of international courts stems from a delegation of domestic sovereign authority.25 to Ginsburg, the ICTY essentially exercises delegated lawmaking functions. Upon establishing the ad hoc Tribunals, the Security Council delegated law-making authority to the Tribunals.26 The ICTY has filled many gaps in a vague body of law, with little explicit guidance from the Security Council that created it. According to Ginsburg, this forms an instance where the treaty regime explicitly delegates to a third party adjudicator the power to make ‘internal’ though important rules.27 A clear example of such delegation of law-making authority by the Security Council is the delegation of the power to make procedural rules. The ICTY was given explicit authority in its Statute to create rules of evidence and procedure.28 It is well-known that procedural rules can be outcome determinative. Since procedural law-making can affect the substantive rights of an accused, the line between substantive and procedural law-making is therefore not always clear.29

RUDIMENTARY NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

As stated in the introduction, the rudimentary nature of international criminal law serves as a justification for Tribunal law-making. The porous or indeterminate nature of international criminal law necessitates law-making. A ‘historical’ reason for the porous nature of international criminal law is the rudimentary, new nature of international criminal law as a discipline. Cassese writes that international criminal law is a relatively new branch of law—a product of the late nineteenth century.30 It is also a rudimentary branch of law. Cassese suggests at least three reasons for this.31 First, treaties, and to some extent customary rules, originally confined themselves to prohibiting acts without laying down the criminal consequences of these acts. Secondly, when international law did start criminalising certain conduct, it initially relied on national courts to prosecute and punish such crimes. Thirdly, when the international Tribunals were 25 This perspective is often articulated in a theory of rational design, which takes as its initial premise that ‘States use international institutions to further their own goals, and they design institutions accordingly.’ Ibid 182. 26 Ginsburg, International Judicial Lawmaking (n 8). 27 ibid 11. 28 Art 15 of the Statute of the International Tribunal for the prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 states (n 2): ‘the judges of the International Tribunal shall adopt rules of procedure and evidence for the conduct of the pre–trial phase of the proceedings, trials and appeals, the admission of evidence, the protection of victims and witnesses and other appropriate matters.’ See M Swart, ‘Ad hoc Rules for Ad hoc Tribunals? The Rulemaking Power of the Judges of the ICTY and ICTR’ (2002) 18 South African Journal on Human Rights 570. 29 For a good example see Barayagwiza v Prosecutor (Decision on the Prosecutor’s Request for Review or Reconsideration, Appeals Chamber), ICTR-97–19-AR72 ICTR A Ch (31 March 2000) (Barayagwiza Reconsideration Decision). 30 Cassese, International Criminal Law (n 10) 16. 31 ibid 17.

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created, the classes of crimes contained in the respective statutes constituted a specification of jurisdictional authority, rather than a general criminal code. The crimes specified were germane to the courts’ jurisdiction and were not intended to have general applicability.32 In light of the uncertain status of international criminal law, it can be argued that the ICTY and ICTR have to help build a coherent legal system. In the absence of clear codes and written rules, the Tribunals might have to place strong reliance upon customary rules and unwritten general principles. Perhaps Tribunal judges should be understood as builders of a system, rather than fulfilling the more traditional role of arbiters and interpreters of pre-existing laws and rules. Because of the rudimentary and unwritten nature of international criminal law, international criminal law rules are relatively indeterminate and adaptable to new circumstances, and possess a certain malleability and flexibility. This malleability can also make this field easy to manipulate. Because there is less law and less precedent in international criminal law, it seems more appropriate, even necessary to make law. At the same time, the need for law-making should be balanced with fair trial guarantees, respect for individual freedom and respect for the principle of legality. Because of the rudimentary, underdeveloped nature of international criminal law, Tribunals cannot function without some law-making powers. The principle of effectiveness therefore requires that Tribunal judges make law. Law-making in this context is therefore a necessity.

INDETERMINACY

It has often been observed that judicial law-making inheres in the incompleteness of any system of rules.33 Where the judge is confronted with the common situation, where no pre-existing rule exists, the judge must make a new rule. Much of the work of HLA Hart is concerned with the question of what happens when legal rules run out. He wrote that judges must use their discretion to make law when legal rules have ‘open texture’.34 There are a number of ways in which rules may fail to cover factual situations. Hart’s example is the rule ‘No vehicles in the park.’35 Does this rule apply to motor cycles or to roller skates? Hart agued that with all general rules there will be ‘a core of certainty and a penumbra of doubt’ when the application of the rule will be uncertain.36 Because of this open texture of language, it happens that although the vast majority of cases brought before the courts uncontroversially fall within or without the purview of established law, there will remain a number of cases in which judges must go outside authoritative legal

32

ibid. Ginsburg, International Judicial Lawmaking (n 8) 3. 34 HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961) 128. 35 ibid 126–27. 36 HLA Hart, ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ (1958) 71 Harvard Law Review 593, 607. 33

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sources in making their pronouncements. Because of this indeterminacy, a judge cannot be criticised on legal grounds for choosing one of the alternatives. In this sense, the judge has discretion.37 Raz writes that a gap arises in one of two situations: ‘where the law speaks with an uncertain voice’ (indeterminacy or vagueness) or ‘where it speaks with many voices’ (unresolved conflicts).38 But it is important to keep in mind that Hart and Raz’s theory of gaps belongs to the school of legal positivism, and that international lawyers and judges often refer to gaps more freely or loosely and outside of the context of positivism.

GAPS

The indeterminacy of law is often discussed under the doctrine of ‘gaps’ or ‘lacunae’ in the law. Cassese describes international criminal law as a rudimentary body of law and ‘replete with lacunae’.39 Schabas writes of the ‘laconic Statute’ of the ICTY.40 Judges often have the job of filling gaps and resolving ambiguities or conflicts in the law. American Judge Cardozo maintained that a judge ‘legislates only between gaps. He fills the open spaces in the law.’41 Cardozo believed that a judge ‘must respect the bounds set to judicial innovation by precedent and custom.’42 The doctrine of ‘gaps’ is premised on the idea of law as a complete system. Writers as diverse as Koskenniemi and Lauterpacht believed in the existence of a closing rule underlying any legal system.43 According to Lauterpacht, the principle of completeness of international law implies: (a)

that once the parties have agreed to entrust a tribunal with jurisdiction, they cannot avoid their obligation by contending that the dispute is not a legal dispute in the sense that there are no legal rules by reference to which it can be solved; and

(b)

that the tribunal cannot decline to give a decision on the ground of the absence of an applicable rule of law.44

37

For a discussion of the ‘problems of the penumbra’ see ibid, 607–10. J Raz, The Authority of Law–—Essays on the Law and Morality (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979) 77. 39 A Cassese, International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) 158. 40 WA Schabas, ‘Interpreting the Statutes of the ad hoc Tribunals’ in LC Vohrah, F Pocar, Y Featherstone, O Fourmy (eds), Man’s Inhumanity to Man (The Hague, Kluwer, 2003) 848. 41 BN Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1921) 113, 114. 42 ibid. 43 IF Dekker and WG Werner, ‘The Completeness of International Law and Hamlet’s Dilemma’ in IF Dekker and HG Post (eds), On the Foundation and Sources of International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 14, 15. 44 H Lauterpacht, ‘Some observations on the prohibition of non liquet and the completeness of the law’ in International Law: Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht, Vol 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975) 217. 38

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Lauterpacht was of the view that ‘there are no gaps in the legal system taken as a whole’.45 Scholars such as Lauterpacht would then argue that the existence of a closing rule makes international law as a system complete. To Lauterpacht, the completeness of the law has the status of an a priori assumption.46

NON LIQUET

What would be an example of a substantive gap in the law? Bodansky uses the following example.47 Two people who do not know the rules of tennis decide to invent their own rules, and decide that if a ball hits the court inside the line the ball is ‘in’, and if it hits outside the line the ball is ‘out’. They begin playing and after a while a ball hits the line. Is the ball ‘in’ or ‘out’? The rules they agreed upon do not cover this case. Bodansky calls this an ontological non liquet.48 An ontological non liquet, Bodansky argues, could result from a substantive gap in the law, such that the law fails to answer a legal question.49 The inability of the ICJ in the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons to determine whether the use of nuclear weapons in an extreme circumstance of self-defence is lawful is one of the most dramatic examples of the finding of a non liquet in the international context.50 In the Nuclear Weapons Opinion, the majority of ICJ judges eschewed a law-making role when it declined to: conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence in which the very survival of the State would be at stake.51

The reason why the Court may have been reluctant to reach a clear conclusion is that it might have feared that a clear conclusion could undermine its credibility. If it had determined a rule of customary international law in the light of weak evidence,

45 H Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in International Community (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933) 64. See B Desai, ‘Non Liquet and the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: Some Reflections’ (1997) 37 Indian Journal of International Law 201. 46 Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in International Community (n 45) 64. 47 D Bodansky, ‘Non Liquet and the Incompleteness of International Law’ in P Sands and L Boisson de Chazournes (eds), International Law, the International Court of Justice and Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999) 154, 155. 48 Bodansky distinguishes between an ontological non liquet and an epistemological non liquet. Unlike an ontological non liquet, an epistemological non liquet does not presuppose an actual gap in the law. In the case of an epistemological non liquet the law might be complete but still lack the answer to a specific question. Ibid, 154, 155. 49 ibid. 50 ibid, 154. See P Weil, ‘“ The Court Cannot Conclude Definitively…” Non Liquet Revisited’ (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 109. 51 Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226 (Nuclear Weapons Opinion) para 105. Judge Shahabuddeen for example did not agree that the ICJ pronounced a non liquet in this case because he said the question presented to the court does not leave a space unoccupied by the law. See Dissenting Opinion of Judge Shahabuddeen 389, 390.

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it would have undermined its credibility with nuclear states.52 Non-nuclear states would have been critical of the ICJ’s failure to take a stand on the illegality of such weapons.53 In her dissenting opinion in the case, Judge Rosalyn Higgins expressed her regret on the failure of the ICJ in Nuclear Weapons to reach a definitive conclusion. She considered it a failure of the judicial function, which she stated would be ‘to take principles of general application, to elaborate their meaning and to apply them to specific situations.’54 At an earlier point, she stated that unless international law was to remain in a rudimentary state, the judicial function must include ‘developing and applying international law to hitherto untested situations.’55 Similar to the doctrine of gaps, the non liquet doctrine is also premised on the idea of international law as an incomplete system. The literal meaning of non liquet is ‘it is not clear’—referring to an insufficiency in the law.56 The doctrine of non liquet implies that international law as a legal system is incomplete.57 According to this doctrine, states were only subject to the rule of law in so far as they have consented to a certain rule. This means that not all conflicts between states could be resolved through the law, and that international courts could refuse to adjudicate if they found the law to be incomplete.58 Lauterpacht, a strong proponent of the completeness of international law and the inadmissibility of a non liquet, has argued that the defective nature of international law calls for judicial restraint or even the declaration of a non liquet. The ‘defective nature’ can be understood to include the rudimentary, undeveloped character of international law. Lauterpacht observed that in certain circumstances, the apparent indecision [of the ICJ] which leaves room for discretion on the part of the organ which requested the opinion may both as a matter of development of the law and as a guide to action be preferable to a deceptive clarity which fails to give an indication of the inherent complexities of the issue. In so far as the decisions of the Court are an expression of existing international law (whether customary or conventional) they cannot but reflect the occasional obscurity or inconclusiveness of a defective legal system.59

Dekker and Werner distinguish between three different types of gaps in the law: material gaps, jurisdictional gaps and judicial gaps.60 According to the authors the problem of non liquet is related to the third kind of gap: judicial gaps.61 A legal

52

Chinkin and Boyle, The Making of International Law (n 5) 290 ibid. 54 Nuclear Weapons Opinion (n 51), Dissenting Opinion of Judge Higgins para 32. 55 R Higgins, ‘Aspects of the Case Concerning the Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Ltd’ (1971) 11 Virginia Journal of International Law 327, 341. 56 ibid. 57 R Lesaffer, ‘Argument from Roman Law in Current International Law: Occupation and Acquisitive Prescription’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 25, 28. 58 ibid. 59 H Lauterpacht, The Development of International Law by the International Court of Justice (London, Stevens, 1958) 152. See Declaration by Judge Vereschetin in the Nuclear Weapons Opinion (n 51) 281. 60 Dekker and Werner, ‘The Completeness of International Law’ (n 43) 9. 61 ibid. 53

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system has judicial gaps if its Tribunals ‘otherwise endowed with jurisdiction to fill in material gaps by means of interpretation or the creation of new rules and principles’ can refuse to decide a legal question on the ground that the law is insufficient, lacking clarity or non-existent.62 To them, the relevant question is whether a competent legal tribunal is in a position to refuse to answer a legal question on the basis of material gaps in the legal system.63 Lauterpacht states that the question of non liquet only arises when a court refuses to give a decision after it has already assumed jurisdiction, and when the refusal is based ‘on the absence or insufficiency of the applicable substantive law.’64 Some believe that the prohibition of a non liquet says something about the duty of judges. A judge is said to have a ‘duty never to refuse to give a decision on the ground that the law is non-existent or uncertain or controversial and lacking in clarity.’65 In some systems the duty is explicitly stated. The French Civil Code provides that ‘a judge, who refuses to decide a case, on the pretext that the law is silent, obscure or insufficient, may be prosecuted of being guilty of denial of justice.’66 In the context of international criminal law, allowing judges to only apply the law would make a finding of non liquet the rule rather than the exception. But it should be noted that what gives rise to non liquet is not the fact that there are areas and questions which are not regulated or covered by international law. What gives rise to non liquet is the existence of gaps within international law.67 A non-liquet, therefore, only arises when an area, which is already regulated by international law, presents a new, legally unregulated problem. Some believe that international courts are not absolutely prohibited from finding a non liquet, and that finding a non liquet may be a good alternative to accepting the unsatisfactory status quo and undermining the credibility of a court through rampant lawmaking.68 In the context of the ICTY, Nollkaemper has argued that, instead of artificially relying on customary international law to fill gaps, the Tribunal could simply recognise that however reprehensible the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia might have been, the international community has not yet been able to adopt all the necessary rules criminalising such acts.69 Koskenniemi writes that when uncertainty (gaps) arises, there seems to be two ways of salvaging the idea of completeness: a judge may note that the gap is only

62

ibid. ibid. 64 H Lauterpacht, ‘Some Observations on the Prohibition of Non Liquet and the Completeness of the Law’ in FM van Asbeck et al (eds), Symbolae Verzijl–—présentées au Prof JHW Verzijl, á l’occasion de son LXXième anniversaire (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1958). 65 H Lauterpacht, The Functions of Law in the International Community (n 45) 216. 66 Art 4, French Civil Code (1804). See AM Rabello, ‘Non Liquet: From Modern to Roman Law’ (1974) 9 Israel Law Review 63, 64. For more on the position of non liquet in domestic legal systems see MJ Aznar-Gomez, ‘The 1996 Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion and Non Liquet in International Law’ (1999) 48 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 3, 4 et seq. 67 Bodansky, ‘Non Liquet’ (n 47) 157. 68 ibid, 170. 69 A Nollkaemper, ‘The legitimacy of international law in the case law of the case law of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’ in TAJA Vandamme and J H Reestman (eds), Ambiguity in the Rule of Law, the Interface between International and National Legal Systems (Groningen, Europa Law Publishing, 2001) 13–23. 63

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‘spurious’, in which case he may simply note that the law provides no remedy or he may refer to the use of constructive principles which provide a substantive legal decision.70 According to Kennedy, international courts faced with gaps may have recourse to such gap-filling tools as the rules of interpretation, thumb-rules and procedural presumptions.71 Werner and Dekker, however, write that the problem of non liquet is not whether material gaps in the law can be filled or be remedied by extensive interpretation of rules or by resorting to general principles of law.72 Werner and Dekker quote Higgins, who wrote: To accept the possibility of non liquet one has to accept not only that international law has gaps, but that these gaps are not remediable either by a liberal interpretation of the judicial function or by reference to Article 38 (1) (c) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice or the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.73

An example of where the ICTY was confronted with a gap in the law occurred when it had to decide whether Article 3 of the Statute was applicable in both international armed conflicts and internal armed conflicts.74 Article 3 concerns violations of the laws and customs of war and lacks express reference to the kind of conflict required. The Appeals Chamber in the Tadic Jurisdictional Decision made use of purposive interpretation to fill this gap in the law.75 The Tribunals have used purposive interpretation as a gap-filling tool. According to Dekker and Werner, it is beyond doubt that judges can decide any case before them on the basis of unarticulated principles or aims and values underlying the legal system.76 Courts and tribunals will, therefore, in their view always have the ability to avoid a non liquet. In their opinion, the important questions are (a) whether a court should always refrain from pronouncing a non liquet and (b) whether the possibility of a non liquet will be ruled out by a closing rule.77 It is suggested that even though it is difficult to accept that the existence of a closing rule would rule out a non liquet in all circumstances, the practical implications of pronouncing a non liquet will probably prevent Tribunal judges from doing so.78 Pronouncing a non liquet will probably lead to the acquittal of an accused.79 The argument of Nollkamper that the Tribunals should sometimes state that there is no law, rather than resort to weak reasoning or reach for general principles to find or create law, might have intellectual appeal but it is highly unlikely that the Tribunals would acquit on this basis.

70 According to Koskenniemi a gap is spurious if it refers to an evaluative preference. For a strong preference for the second option see Lauterpacht, The Function of Law (n 45) 196–221. See also M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia (Helsinki, Lakimiesliiton Kustannus, 1989) 24, n 78. 71 D Kennedy, A Critique of Adjudication (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2001) 25. 72 Dekker and Werner, ‘The Completeness of International Law’ (n 43) 10. 73 R Higgins, ‘Policy Considerations and the International Judicial Process’ (1968) 17 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 58, 67. 74 Prosecutor v Tadic (Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, Appeals Chamber) IT-94–1-AR 72A (2 October 1995) (Tadic Jurisdictional Decision). 75 ibid. 76 Dekker and Werner, ‘The Completeness of International Law’ (n 43) 10. 77 ibid. 78 ibid. 79 Ginsburg, International Judicial Lawmaking (n 8) 12.

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Ginsburg argues that when states leave detail vague, international adjudicators become delegated law-makers. Parties that have left an issue vague can argue that the intention was that there is no rule, so that courts ought to declare a non liquet. LAW-MAKING AT THE ICJ

There are many reasons why it is appropriate to compare the work and institutional culture of the ad hoc Tribunals with that of the ICJ. Similar to the Tribunals, the ICJ is a judicial body and organ of the UN. Another important similarity is that both the ICTY and the ICJ have the responsibility to develop international law. Some judges such as Judge Shahabuddeen, Judge Abi Saab and Judge van den Wyngaert have served as both ICJ judges and Tribunal judges. The important difference between the ICTY and ICJ, of course, is that the ICJ decides disputes between states, whereas the Tribunals prosecute individuals. Neither the ICJ nor the ad hoc Tribunals are bound by precedent, nor are they bound by each other’s decisions.80 Judge Shahabuddeen has given the question of law-making the most extensive academic attention. In addressing ‘the old quarrel’ of whether decisions of the ICJ create law, he makes a number of observations relevant to law-making at the ad hoc Tribunals.81 He presents the views of several ICJ judges (such as Judges Krylov82 and Tanaka83) on the question of whether the Tribunal is a law-making body. He concludes that the passages in question do not necessarily exclude the view that the court has a limited power of creativity.84 Shahabuddeen points out that whereas a legislature can enact legislation where no relevant law existed, the court cannot do this, and: … must proceed on the basis that the law which it lays down is somehow implicit in the existing legal system. However when it has done so, it may well appear that, contrary to the asserted mode of operation, new law has in fact been made.85

He summarises the dilemma of judicial law-making in international law as a question of whether and at what point a process of development of the law eventuates in the creation of law.86 Shahabuddeen concludes that even though the ICJ, if it ever had to answer the question of whether it makes law, would give a 80 See Prosecutor v Zladko Aleksovski (Judgement, Appeals Chamber) IT–95–14/1–A (24 March 2000) para 89 et seq. 81 M Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court (Cambridge, Grotius Publications, 1996) 90. 82 In Judge Krylov’s view, ‘the Court can only interpret and develop the international law in force; it can only adjudicate in conformity with international law.’ Reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Krylov, 219; quoted in Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court (1996) 84. 83 ‘Undoubtedly a court declares what is the law, but does not legislate. In reality, however, where the borderline can be drawn is a very difficult and delicate matter. Of course judges declare the law, but they do not function automatically. We cannot deny the possibility of some degree of creative element in their judicial activities.’ South West Africa (Ethiopia v South Africa) (Second Phase Judgement on 18 July 1966) [1966] ICJ Rep 277, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Tanaka. 84 ibid. 85 ibid. 86 ibid, 91.

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negative answer, it nevertheless has a power of ‘limited creativity’.87 Much of the rhetoric of international tribunals is devoted to limiting their decisions to the scope of the particular compromise or norms at issue: many judges have appeared to internalise a limited conception of their law-making rule. Just as it would be an exaggeration to say that the court is a legislator, so it would be an exaggeration to assert that it cannot create any law at all. Shahabuddeen is of the view that the Tribunals can play an important role in the progressive development of international law.88 According to Shahabuddeen, it does not accord with reality to suggest that the ICJ may develop the law only in the limited sense of bringing out the true meaning of existing law in relation to particular facts. The development of the law is not limited (as in domestic law) to determining, for example, whether a statutory reference to ‘domestic animal’ includes a particular animal.89 Shahabuddeen believes that another way of asking whether development of law results in the creation of law is to ask whether decisions of a court can serve as sources of law.90 But it does not follow from the fact that judicial decisions are not primary sources of international law that judges do not create law. In spite of the absence of a system of precedence at the Tribunal, ICTY decisions are increasingly cited by domestic and international courts, and are expected to form an important source of authority for future International Criminal Court (ICC) decisions.91 Examples include the Bouterse decision of the Court of Appeals of Amsterdam92 and the Jorgic decision in which the German Constitutional Court relied on Akayesu in its interpretation of destructive intent as an element of genocide.93 Lauterpacht acknowledged the law-making function of judges. He writes that ‘the fact remains that judicial law-making is a permanent feature of administration of justice in every society’.94 According to Lauterpacht, judicial caution or judicial hesitation has been a characteristic feature of the ICJ. The understanding has been that, while judges can cautiously shape or alter the law, it is not within their province to make law. According to Lauterpacht, one reason for the restraint is the importance of the subject matter on which an international court has to decide. The judges cannot experiment or innovate as easily in matters in which states have an interest as those involving private individuals.95 This reason does not apply as easily to the work of the Tribunals. Whereas states may have direct and indirect interests in the work of 87

ibid. M Shahabuddeen, ‘Does the Principle of Legality Stand in the Way of Progressive Development of Law?’ (2004) 2 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1007. 89 Dissenting Opinion of Judge Shahabuddeen (n 51) 68. 90 ibid, 69. 91 See eg Vuckovic, Mitrovice District Court CC 48/01 (25 October 2002) (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia); Ford v Garcia and Vides-Casanova, US Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, 289 F 3rd 1283 (30 April 2002) (United States); Niyonteze, Tribunal Militaire d’ Appel (26 May 2000) 1A (Switzerland). See also The State v Wouter Basson, South African Constitutional Court (9 September 2005) CCT 30/03. 92 Bouterse, Hof Amsterdam NJ 2000/51 (20 November) (Netherlands). 93 Jorgic, The German Constitutional Court, (Karlsruhe,12 December 2000) 2 BvR 1290/99, 23. 94 Lauterpacht, The Development of International Law (n 59) 155. 95 ibid, 75. 88

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the Tribunals, the Tribunals are primarily concerned with individual criminal responsibility which gives rise to different reasons for practicing restraint—one such reason is the fact that severe sentences can be imposed. Another reason for restraint is the importance of the principle of legality. Lauterpacht provided a third reason for the advisability of restraint: If governments are not prepared to entrust with legislative functions bodies composed of their authorized representatives, they will not be allowed to allow or tolerate the exercise of such legislative activities by a Tribunal enjoined by its Statute to apply existing law.96

In the context of the Tribunals, it can be asked whether the drafting of their Statute and Rules (which was authorised by governments) does not amount to the authorisation of some measure of legislative activity. Lauterpacht distinguishes between five ways in which judicial legislation takes place at the ICJ: first, judicial legislation takes place when an appearance of legislative novelty has been created as the result of the application of a general principle of law.97 Secondly, judges have made law by relying on principles which might seem novel but have merely drawn consequences from parallel developments in other spheres of international law.98 Thirdly, in some decisions, the court has proceeded on the assumption that there is no generally accepted rule on the subject and has laid down principles governing the matter.99 Fourthly, it has allowed what it considers to be the flexibility of international law to serve as a basis for decisions of a legislative character.100 Fifthly, it has made an attempt to regulate the interests involved in the dispute to go beyond the interpretation of the existing law.101 The ad hoc Tribunals have made law in similar ways. They have applied general principles of law and have drawn from parallel developments in international humanitarian law and human rights law. The Tadic Appeals Chamber’s decision that the principle of competence de la competence gives an international body the jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction,102 is an example of the ICTY’s reliance on a general principle of law and an example of Tribunal law-making. The ICTY decided that it was empowered to decide the question of whether it had validly been established by the Security Council (the ICTY Statute was silent on this question). Gaeta has supported the view of the Appeals Chamber that the Tribunal, being a self-contained system, has inherent jurisdiction to determine certain matters unregulated by statute.103 In Gaeta’s view, the doctrine of inherent powers enables international judicial bodies to fill the lacunae in the constitutive instruments.104

96

ibid, 76. Lauterpacht, The Development of International Law (n 59) 157. 98 ibid. 99 ibid. 100 ibid. 101 ibid. 102 Prosecutor v Tadic (Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, Appeals Chamber), IT-94–1-AR72 A (2 October 1995) (Tadic Jurisdictional Decision) para 19. 103 P Gaeta, ‘Inherent Powers of International Courts and Tribunals’ in LC Vohra, F Pocar, Y Featherstone, O Fourmy (eds), Man’s Inhumanity to Man (The Hague, Kluwer, 2003) 356. 104 ibid, 366, 367. 97

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The Tribunals have often relied on the flexible character of international criminal law. When there has been no generally accepted rule of international law (such as the definition of rape, for example) the Tribunals have gone beyond the interpretation of existing law to create new law. The Tadic Appeals Chamber went beyond the interpretation of existing law when it decided to abandon the literal definition of protected persons by focusing more on the factor of allegiance than formal nationality in determining the protective regime.105 By finding that the Bosnian Serbs acted as de facto agents of another state (the FRY), the Appeals Chamber expanded the scope of protection of humanitarian law.106 In order to try Tadic for grave breaches, such a finding was crucial for both the Trial and Appeals Chambers.107

CONCLUSION

The Report of the Secretary General was unambiguous on the subject of judicial law-making. It stated that the ICTY can apply only lex lata, existing law.108 This is consistent with how the Tribunals have interpreted their mandate. It was argued in Tadic that the Secretary General could not create criminal liability on the part of individuals.109 Since the Tribunals were created by the Security Council, the Tribunals could similarly not create such liability. If one, however, interprets law broadly, as including both written and unwritten law, substantive and procedural law, hard law and soft law, it is difficult to maintain that Tribunal judges have not made law. If moreover one compares the function and position of Tribunal judges to ICJ judges and if one interprets the mandate and role of Tribunals liberally, one has to allow for some judicial creativity. The need for judicial law-making has long been recognised by the ICJ. To repeat the words of Judge Tanaka: We cannot deny the possibility of some degree of creative element in their judicial activities. What is not permitted to judges, is to establish law independently of an existing legal system, institution or norm.110

Since the ad hoc Tribunals, similar to the ICJ, are judicial organs of the United Nations, what is true for the ICJ must be true for the ad hoc Tribunals, who face the additional obstacle of having to apply the underdeveloped system of international criminal law. There seems to be general agreement that the largely unwritten, rudimentary nature of international criminal law allows for a certain amount of law-making. The development of international criminal law since the Second World War has 105 Prosecutor v Tadic (Decision on the Prosecutor’s Motion Requesting Protective Measures for Victims and Witnesses, Trial Chamber), IT-94–1-T (10 August 1995) para 2. 106 ibid. 107 ibid. 108 Report of the Secretary General (n 20) para 34 109 Prosecutor v Tadic (n 105), para 2. 110 Ethiopia v South Africa (South West Africa) (Second Phase Judgement of 18 July 1966) [1966] ICJ Rep 277, Dissenting Opinion of Judge Tanaka.

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been described as ‘ad hoc, piecemeal and somewhat chaotic’.111 Schabas has gone as far as too say that it is the task of Tribunal judges to transform the ICTY Statute from ‘an incomplete shopping list of crimes’ into a coherent and progressive codification.’112 That goes further than what is advocated. The judges of the ad hoc Tribunals can, therefore, be seen as builders of a system. I argue that the underdeveloped nature of international criminal law makes law-making a necessity—without the authority to make law the ad hoc international criminal tribunals would simply not have been able to function. I argue that the indeterminate nature of law and specifically international criminal law and its new, rudimentary character are strong reasons to allow for judicial law-making. This is the case in spite of rhetoric of judges protesting that they do not make law. The statement by Lauterpacht that it is the indirect purpose of the ICJ to develop international criminal law indicates that international judges themselves understand law-making to be part of their duty. Although the Secretary General stated in his Report that the Tribunals could not and should not make new law, many authors are of the view that the Security Council has delegated law-making power to the Tribunals. The debate has shifted from whether Tribunal judges can make law to question of the most legitimate way in which this law-making power can be exercised.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books HJ Abraham, The Judicial Process, 7th edn (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998). BN Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1921). A Cassese, International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). A Cassese, International Criminal Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003). C Chinkin and A Boyle, The Making of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). D Kennedy, A Critique of Adjudication (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2001). HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961). WJ Hosten, AB Edwards et al, Introduction to South African Law and Legal Theory (Durban, Butterworths, 1983). M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia (Helsinki, Lakimiesliiton Kustannus, 1989). H Lauterpacht, The Function of Law in International Community (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933).

111 112

Schabas, ‘Interpreting the Statutes of the ad hoc Tribunals’ (n 40) 848. ibid.

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H Lauterpacht, The Development of International Law by the International Court of Justice (London, Stevens, 1958). J Raz, The Authority of Law—Essays on the Law and Morality (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1979). M Shahabuddeen, Precedent in the World Court (Cambridge, Grotius Publications, 1996). F Waismann, and R Harré (ed), The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (London, Macmillan, 1965).

Chapters in Edited Volumes IF Dekker and WG Werner, ‘The Completeness of International Law and Hamlet’s Dilemma’ in IF Dekker and HG Post (eds), On the Foundation and Sources of International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). P Gaeta, ‘Inherent Powers of International Courts and Tribunals’ in LC Vohra, F Pocar, Y Featherstone, O Fourmy (eds), Man’s Inhumanity to Man (The Hague, Kluwer, 2003). H Lauterpacht, ‘Some Observations on the Prohibition of Non Liquet and the Completeness of the Law’ in FM van Asbeck et al (eds), Symbolae Verzijl— présentées au Prof JHW Verzijl, á l’occasion de son LXXième anniversaire (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1958). H Lauterpacht, ‘Some observations on the prohibition of non liquet and the completeness of the law’ in International Law: Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht, Vol 2 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975). A Nollkaemper, ‘The legitimacy of international law in the case law of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’ in TAJA Vandamme and J H Reestman (eds), Ambiguity in the Rule of Law, the Interface between International and National Legal Systems (Groningen, Europa Law Publishing, 2001). W Schabas, ‘Interpreting the Statutes of the ad hoc Tribunals’ in LC Vohrah, F Pocar, Y Featherstone (eds), Man’s Inhumanity to Man (The Hague, Kluwer, 2003).

International Documents New York University School of Law, Institute for International Law and Justice (International Law Week 2004) ‘The Role of the Security Council in Strengthening a Rules-Based International System’ Panel 1 (4 November 2004). UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to Paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993) (presented 3 May 1993) UN Doc S/25704.

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Journal Articles JE Alvarez, ‘International Organisations: Then and Now’ (2006) 100 American Journal of International Law 324–47. MJ Aznar-Gomez, ‘The 1996 Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion and Non Liquet in International Law’ (1999) 48 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 3–19. AM Danner, ‘When the Courts Make Law: How the International Criminal Tribunals Recast the Laws of War’ (2006) 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1–65. B Desai, ‘Non Liquet and the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: Some Reflections’ (1997) 37 Indian Journal of International Law 201–18. HLA Hart, ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’ (1958) 71 Harvard Law Review 593–629. R Higgins, ‘Policy Considerations and the International Judicial Process’ (1968) 17 International and& Comparative Law Quarterly 58–84. R Higgins, ‘Aspects of the Case Concerning the Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Ltd’ (1971) 11 Virginia Journal of International Law 327–43. R Lesaffer, ‘Argument from Roman Law in Current International Law: Occupation and Acquisitive Prescription’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 25–58. AM Rabello, ‘Non Liquet: From Modern to Roman Law’ (1974) 9 Israel Law Review 63–84. M Shahabuddeen, ‘Does the Principle of Legality Stand in the Way of Progressive Development of Law?’ (2004) 2 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1007–17. M Swart, ‘Ad hoc Rules for Ad hoc Tribunals? The Rulemaking Power of the Judges of the ICTY and ICTR’ (2002) 18 South African Journal on Human Rights 570–89. S Trifunovska, ‘Ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals and the issue of Lawmaking’ (2008) 169 Rechtsgeleerd Magazijn Themis 121–28. P Weil, ‘“The Court Cannot Conclude Definitively…” Non Liquet Revisited’ (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 109–20.

Working Paper T Ginsburg, International Judicial Lawmaking (University of Illinois College of Law, Law and Economics Working Paper no 26, 2005) http://law.bepress.com/ uiuclwps/papers/art26.

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Norm Conflict in International Law:Whither Human Rights? MARKO MILANOVIC *

INTRODUCTION

T

WO INCONTESTABLE FEATURES of modern international law—the multiplicity of its law-making processes and the ever-increasing variety of the subject-matter that it seeks to regulate—have one invariable consequence: the increasing likelihood of norm conflict, part of the phenomenon of fragmentation of international law. Much work has been devoted to this topic, and, as is well-known, it has already been the object of a comprehensive study by the International Law Commission (ILC).1 Unlike much of the theoretical work on the subject, however, this paper will attempt to deal with the practicalities of norm conflict. Like the ILC Study, it will try to further develop the toolbox that lawyers have at their disposal when dealing with cases involving a collision of norms.2 It will do so by focusing on situations in which one of the conflicting rules is a rule of human rights law. Moreover, it will focus on norm conflicts in which some other international rule attempts to prevail over, or is at the very least equal to a human rights norm. There are several reasons for this emphasis on human rights. First, human rights norms operate not only between states, but also between states and individuals. One must hasten to add that this does not mean that human rights law is not about inter-state obligations, but that it is not reducible to synallagmatic bargains between states.3 Secondly, because of the community interest and values that human rights norms enshrine, norm conflict situations involving human rights are, as we shall see, frequently considered to be of constitutional importance, even though human * LLB (Belgrade), LLM (Michigan), PhD candidate (Cambridge); Associate, Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. E-mail: [email protected]. I would like to thank Vera Gowlland-Debbas, Francesco Messineo, Tobias Thienel and Michael Wood, as well as all participants at the forum at the Third Biennial Conference of the European Society of International Law, for their most helpful comments. All errors remain my own. An expanded version of this article appears in (2009) 20 Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law. 1 ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, (UN Doc A/CN 4/L 682) (ILC Study). 2 ibid, para 20. 3 See generally J Crawford, ‘Multilateral Rights and Obligations in International Law’ (2006) 319 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 325; B Simma, ‘From Bilateralism to Community Interest in International Law’ (1994) 250 Receuil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 221; B Simma, ‘International Human Rights and General International Law: A Comparative Analysis’ (1993) IV-2 Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law 153.

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rights norms are per se not hierarchically superior to other norms of international law. These conflicts inspire the use of the language of constitutionalism—very fashionable these days4—which can be observed in most of the cases that we will examine. Thirdly, a focus on human rights is useful since, for public international lawyers, human rights (and human rights lawyers) are one of the principal culprits of fragmentation.5 From a generalist perspective,6 the human rightist penchant for special solutions is deeply troubling, since it disrupts the (at the very least aspirational) systemic quality of general international law. Human rights norm conflicts thus expose not only the various constitutionalist agendas and projects, but also the universalist agenda espoused by general international lawyers. As stated above, this article will further narrow its focus by examining those normative conflicts where a putatively hierarchically superior norm attempts to override or prevail over a conflicting human rights norm. Both in practice and in the literature, the posture is usually the other way around—it is human rights that (supposedly) override other rules, not vice versa. One concept in particular is often invoked in that regard, especially by scholars—jus cogens, the body of peremptory norms of international law, most of which deal with human rights.7 However, even a casual survey of the jurisprudence would show that jus cogens is used rarely, if ever, to invalidate supposedly conflicting norms. On the contrary, courts generally exhibit a tendency to do what they can to avoid norm conflicts. Jus cogens much more frequently figures as a rhetorical device or as a ‘weapon of deterrence’,8 an incentive to courts to avoid a conflict through interpretation, instead of resolving it on the basis of normative hierarchy. Thus, as we will see, in regard to conflict resolution based on hierarchy, Article 103 of the Charter, stipulating the primacy of state obligations under the Charter over their other international obligations, is of much greater practical relevance. The analysis in the following sections of this article must necessarily start from a working framework, which will be explained here and defended as much as space allows. What first needs to be defined is the very notion of a conflict of norms, norms themselves being seen as legally binding rules establishing certain rights and obligations between subjects of international law. The notion of conflict will be 4 M Wood, ‘First Lecture: The Legal Framework of the Security Council’ Lauterpacht Lectures, University of Cambridge (7 November 2006) www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/Media/lectures/pdf/ 2006_hersch_lecture_1.pdf para 17. 5 See M Koskenniemi and P Leino, ‘Fragmentation of International Law? Postmodern Anxieties’ (2002) 15 Leiden Journal of International Law 553, 567 et seq. See also AN Pronto, ‘“HumanRightism” and the Development of General International Law’ (2007) 20 Leiden Journal of International Law 753. 6 It should of course be noted that labels such as ‘generalists’, ‘human rights lawyers’ or ‘European lawyers’ are nothing more than very broad generalisations, and are used in this article simply as convenient shorthand. 7 For perhaps the most far-reaching example, see A Orakhelashvili, Peremptory Norms in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). To the present author, at least, Prosper Weil’s warning against ‘seeking to create today the law of tomorrow’s international society’ is as cogent as ever. See P Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law?’ (1983) 77 American Journal of International Law 413, 442. 8 P Weil, ‘Le droit international en quête de son identité’ (1992) 237 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 266, 278 (referring to jus cogens as an ‘arme de dissuasion—l’arme nucléaire, en quelque sorte, du système international’).

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defined broadly: a relationship of conflict exists between two norms if one norm constitutes, has led to, or may lead to, a breach of the other.9 A further distinction that must be made is between apparent and genuine norm conflicts, and consequently between conflict avoidance on the one hand, and conflict resolution on the other. An apparent conflict is one where the content of the two norms is at first glance contradictory, yet the conflict can be avoided, most often by interpretative means. There is a powerful force behind international law that tends toward harmonisation and systemic integration that abhors conflicts and seeks to avoid them. Presumptions against conflict and techniques of harmonious interpretation are thus often used by courts, explicitly10 or implicitly.11 Yet there are instances in which all techniques of conflict avoidance will fail, and a genuine, as opposed to an apparent, conflict will emerge.12 These true norm conflicts are those that cannot be avoided, but which it might be possible to resolve. Unlike avoidance, which interprets away any incompatibility, resolution requires for one conflicting norm to prevail or have priority over another. Moreover, for a genuine conflict to be truly resolved it is necessary not only for one norm to have priority over another, but also for the wrongfulness on the part of the state for failing to abide by the displaced norm to be precluded as a matter of state responsibility. It is only if the state bears no legal cost for disregarding one of its commitments in favour of another that a norm conflict has truly been resolved. With this basic framework in mind, let us now turn to Article 103 of the Charter, and the first cases of human rights norm conflict to be discussed in this article. ARTICLE 103 OF THE CHARTER, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE POWERS OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

Scope and Effects of Article 103 Article 103 of the Charter reads as follows: In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail.13

Article 103 is unique in international practice. It is not limited merely to prohibiting inter se agreements between member states, or the conclusion of conflicting treaties,

9 J Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms in Public International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 176. 10 See eg, Al-Adsani v United Kingdom [GC] (App No 35763/97) ECHR 2001-XI 79 para 55: ‘The Convention should so far as possible be interpreted in harmony with other rules of international law of which it forms part, including those relating to the grant of State immunity.’ 11 See ILC Study (n 1) para 37; Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms (n 9) 240–44. The sole dissenting view seems to be that of Orakhelashvili, who argues that no such presumption exists, at least not as a rule of interpretation. See A Orakhelashvili, ‘State Immunity and Hierarchy of Norms: Why the House of Lords Got It Wrong’ (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 955, 958. 12 See Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms (n 9) 272. 13 Charter of the United Nations (signed 6 June 1945) 1 UNTS XVI.

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as was the case, for example, with Article 20 of the League of Nations Covenant.14 It is distinct in three respects that jointly make it the only truly meaningful prospective conflict clause. First, under its terms a Charter obligation will prevail over any conflicting obligation. That does not mean that the conflicting norm is invalidated, as with conflicts involving norms of jus cogens. The conflicting norm remains valid and continues to exist, albeit in suspended animation—the state is merely prohibited from following it.15 Secondly, though other prospective conflict clauses can be extinguished simply by the fact that all of the contracting parties to the treaty conclude another treaty, an agreement concluded by some or even all UN members would not prevail over the Charter, without amending Article 103 through the Charter’s amendment procedure.16 Indeed, Article 30(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) explicitly subjects the application of the lex posterior rule to Article 103 of the Charter.17 Finally, Article 103 is not a simple rule of priority—it also precludes or removes any wrongfulness due to the breach of the conflicting norm.18 In other words, a State cannot be called to account for complying with its obligations under the Charter, even if in doing so it must violate some other rule—any rule, that is, except a rule of jus cogens.19 Even though Article 103 of the Charter is strictly speaking not a rule of hierarchy, such as jus cogens, since it does not result in the invalidation of a conflicting lower norm, it still largely resembles such a rule. Many authors consequently see in Article 103 a confirmation of the constitutional character of the Charter as the founding instrument of the post-Second World War international legal order.20 This is the first of several constitutionalist agendas that we will encounter. It should also be noted that Article 103 does not merely say that the Charter itself will prevail over conflicting obligations, but that member states’ obligations under the Charter will so prevail. This formulation is broader, as it encompasses state obligations arising from binding decisions of UN organs, primarily the Security Council (UNSC), pursuant to Article 25 of the Charter, as in the example given above.21 That the primacy effect of Article 103 also extends to binding Security

14

See ILC Study (n 1) para 328. ibid, paras 333, 334. See also R Liivoja, ‘The Scope of the Supremacy Clause of the United Nations Charter’ (2008) 57 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 583, 597. 16 Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms (n 9) 339. 17 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) (opened for signature 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331, Art 30(1). 18 There is no provision in the ILC Articles on State Responsibility that explicitly gives such preclusive effect to Art 103. However, Art 59 of the ILC Articles provides that they are without prejudice to the UN Charter. The ILC commentary to this article makes it clear that this provision was inserted precisely to cover Art 103. UN ILC, ‘Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts’(2001) UN Doc A/56/10, chap IV E 2, 365. 19 See ILC Study (n 1) paras 333–40. 20 See R Bernhardt, ‘Article 103’ in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1292; B Fassbender, ‘The United Nations Charter as Constitution of the International Community’ (1998) 36 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 529. 21 See Liivoja, ‘The Scope of the Supremacy Clause’ (n 15) 585–89. 15

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Council resolutions has been confirmed by both doctrine and practice,22 as well as by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Lockerbie case.23 With these preliminary remarks on Article 103 out of the way, we now turn to examining the actual cases in which it played a key role. The first cases to be analysed will be Al-Jedda before the House of Lords24 and Behrami and Saramati before the European Court of Human Rights.25 In both of these cases a grant of authority from the Council to certain member states was interpreted by these states as inter alia allowing them to engage in preventative detention without judicial review, in Iraq and Kosovo respectively. We will then move on to cases before EU courts that concern targeted sanctions by the Council against individuals suspected of financing terrorism.

Al-Jedda and Behrami In June 2004 the Security Council adopted Resolution 1546 (2004), which was to provide the legal framework for the continued presence of the coalition or multi-national forces (MNF) in Iraq after the occupation of the country came to an end.26 In particular, the resolution independently granted to these forces some of the rights that they enjoyed as occupiers under the law of armed conflict. The specific right that concerns us here is the occupier’s power to preventatively detain persons for security reasons, stipulated in Article 42(1) of the Fourth Geneva Convention:27 ‘The internment or placing in assigned residence of protected persons may be ordered only if the security of the Detaining Power makes it absolutely necessary’, as well as in Article 78 thereof: ‘If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.’ Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council decided: that the multinational force shall have the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq in accordance with the letters annexed to this resolution expressing, inter alia, the Iraqi request for the continued presence of the multinational force and setting out its tasks, including by preventing and deterring terrorism.28

22

See ILC Study (n 1) para 331. Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United States of America) (Provisional Measures) [1992] ICJ Rep 114, 126, para 42. 24 R (Al-Jedda) v Secretary of State for Defence [2007] UKHL 58, [2008] 1 AC 332, [2008] 2 WLR 31 (Al-Jedda). 25 Behrami and Behrami v France, Saramati v France, Germany and Norway [GC] (App Nos 71412/01 and 78166/01) 2 May 2007 (Behrami). 26 UN Security Council (SC) Res 1546 (8 June 2004) UN Doc S/RES/1546. 27 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 6 UST 3516, 75 UNTS 287 (Geneva Convention IV). 28 UNSC Res 1546 (8 June 2004) UN Doc S/RES/1546, para 10 (emphasis added). 23

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The letters referred to by the Council were sent to it by the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, and the then interim Prime Minister of Iraq, Dr Ayad Allawi. Both letters emphasised the ongoing security threats in Iraq and the need to put them to an end. In particular, Mr Powell in his letter outlined the duties of the MNF forces, stating that these ‘will include combat operations against members of [insurgent] groups, internment where this is necessary for imperative reasons of security, and the continued search for and securing of weapons that threaten Iraq’s security.’29 Under this authority, in October 2004 British troops of the MNF detained Mr Al-Jedda as a security threat.30 The detention was authorised and periodically reviewed by senior officers of the British army. Mr Al-Jedda challenged his detention before British courts, relying on Article 5(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (the ECHR rights being reproduced in English law by virtue of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA)), which enshrines the right to liberty of person and does not allow for internment on security grounds.31 The British Government opposed his challenge on two main grounds—first, that in this particular situation, the ECHR and the HRA did not apply extraterritorially, and second, that even if they did, his internment was authorised by a binding resolution of the Security Council, which prevailed over Article 5(1) under the terms of Article 103 of the Charter. The Government desisted from its first argument after the House of Lords decided the Al-Skeini case, in which it established that the HRA and ECHR do apply to persons detained by British forces in Iraq.32 However, both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, and ultimately the House of Lords, found against Mr Al-Jedda on the basis of Article 103. Let us now examine their Lordships’ ruling in detail. Lord Bingham, who delivered the lead opinion, first dealt with Mr Al-Jedda’s argument that Article 103 was inapplicable, since Resolution 1546 merely authorised the UK to detain persons considered to be security threats, but did not oblige it to do so. He did not find that argument persuasive. He considered that both state practice and academic opinion clearly favoured the applicability of Article 103 to Council authorisations, as the importance of maintaining peace and security in the world could scarcely be exaggerated, and since authorisations have effectively replaced the system of collective security that was envisaged by the drafters.33 Lord Bingham then rejected the argument that Article 103 should not apply to the ECHR, due to the latter’s special character as a human rights treaty, as Article 103

29

Emphasis added. Al-Jedda (n 24) (Lord Bingham) paras 1–2. 31 Human Rights Act 1998 s 1(1)(a). 32 R (Al-Skeini and others) v Secretary of State for Defence [2007] UKHL 26, [2007] 3 WLR 33, [2007] 3 All ER 685. For commentary on the decision, see T Thienel, ‘The ECHR in Iraq’ (2008) 6 Journal of International Criminal Justice 115. On the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties, see generally M Milanovic´ , ‘From Compromise to Principle: Clarifying the Concept of State Jurisdiction in Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 8 Human Rights Law Review 411; F Coomans and M Kamminga (eds), Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (Antwerp, Intersentia, 2004). 33 Al-Jedda (n 24) (Lord Bingham) paras 33–34; (Lord Rodger) para 115 (concurring). 30

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refers to all international agreements, thus allowing for no exceptions except in cases of conflict with a jus cogens norm.34 For Lord Bingham, the conflict between two fundamental interests—that of protecting international peace and security on the one hand, and that of protecting human rights on the other—was truly acute, since it was difficult to see how any exercise of the power to detain preventatively, however necessary for imperative reasons of security, and however strong the safeguards afforded to the detainee, could do otherwise than breach the detainee’s rights under Article 5(1).35 Lord Bingham concluded that there was a genuine norm conflict between a Charter obligation of the UK and Article 5(1) of the ECHR, and that the Charter obligation must prevail: Thus there is a clash between on the one hand a power or duty to detain exercisable on the express authority of the Security Council and, on the other, a fundamental human right which the UK has undertaken to secure to those (like the appellant) within its jurisdiction. How are these to be reconciled? There is in my opinion only one way in which they can be reconciled: by ruling that the UK may lawfully, where it is necessary for imperative reasons of security, exercise the power to detain authorised by UNSCR 1546 and successive resolutions, but must ensure that the detainee’s rights under article 5 are not infringed to any greater extent than is inherent in such detention.36

Though Lord Bingham affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal on the issue of Article 103, his opinion introduces an element of subtlety lacking in that of the court below, evident in the somewhat cryptic italicised phrase in the quotation above. Yes, Mr Al-Jedda cannot complain solely because his detention was on preventative grounds, but his rights must not be infringed to any greater extent than is inherent in such preventative detention. The exhaustive list of grounds of detention from Article 5(1) of the ECHR might have temporarily disappeared by virtue of Article 103 of the Charter, yet not only does a kernel of Article 5(1) remain in that the detention must not be unreasonable, but security detainees have other rights under Article 5—to be informed of the reasons behind their arrest (Article 5(2)), to be able to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a court (Article 5(4)) and to be compensated for any unlawful detention (Article 5(5)). Judicial review of detention in particular would be a major departure from the internment regime under the law of occupation, which allows for review by mere administrative boards.37 This is of course all between the lines of Lord Bingham’s opinion—he says none of this explicitly, as the issue raised in the case was solely under Article 5(1) of the ECHR, not Article 5(4),38 but other Law Lords gave similar hints.39 In Al-Jedda we can clearly see the presumption against norm conflict at work. Even though Resolution 1546 did prevail over Article 5(1) of the ECHR by virtue 34

Al-Jedda (n 24) (Lord Bingham) para 35. ibid para 37. 36 ibid para 39 (emphasis added); (Lord Roger) para 118; (Baroness Hale) paras 125–26; (Lord Carwell) para 131 (concurring). 37 See Art 43 of the Geneva Convention IV (n 27). 38 See also Al-Jedda (n 24) (Lord Rodger) para 46. 39 Al-Jedda (n 24) (Baroness Hale) para 126; (Lord Carwell) paras 130 and 136. 35

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of Article 103 of the Charter, it did so only to the extent inherent in preventative detention. Even in cases of genuine norm conflict, especially those involving human rights, the scope of the conflict will be minimised through interpretation. Other methods of conflict resolution and avoidance could have been applied by the House in Al-Jedda, but they were either not relied on by the parties or were not to their Lordships’ liking. We will come to some of these below, but first we must turn to the Behrami and Saramati case before the European Court of Human Rights.40 This case was in effect Al-Jedda’s sibling, not only because they raised much the same issues, but also as the litigation in the two cases ran in parallel: the lower courts in Al-Jedda ruled first, then the European Court decided Behrami, and finally the House of Lords delivered its own judgment in Al-Jedda. Behrami and Saramati were two joined cases filed against several states participating in KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.41 In Behrami, the applicants were the family of a boy who had died while playing in an unmarked field saturated with undetonated cluster bombs. They alleged that the respondent state had the positive obligation to secure the right of the victim, which it failed to fulfil. The Saramati case is of more interest to our present discussion, as its facts closely follow Al-Jedda. The applicant was preventatively detained by the KFOR commander, as a security threat to the international presence in Kosovo, without recourse to judicial review of his detention. KFOR based its power to detain on Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999), which authorised ‘Member States and relevant international organisations to establish the international security presence in Kosovo … with all necessary means to fulfil its responsibilities.’42 As in Al-Jedda, the applicant based his claim on Article 5 of the ECHR. The European Court’s approach to the case was completely different from that of British courts in Al-Jedda. The Court said nary a word about norm conflict, and mentioned Article 103 of the Charter only in passing,43 even though it was extensively relied on by the respondent states.44 It disposed of the case on grounds of attribution, ruling that the impugned acts could not be attributed to the respondent states, but solely to the United Nations. It first reasoned that the Security Council was, by Resolution 1244: delegating to willing organisations and members states … the power to establish an international security presence as well as its operational command. Troops in that force would operate therefore on the basis of UN delegated, and not direct, command.45

That notion of delegation would prove to be crucial in the Court’s attribution analysis:

40 See also the later case of Beric´ v Bosnia and Herzegovina (App Nos 36357/04 et al) ECHR 16 October 2007 where a Chamber of the Court ruled, relying on Behrami, that the acts of the international High Representative in Bosnia were attributable to the UN. 41 Case noted in P Bodeau-Livinec, GP Buzzini and S Villalpando, ‘Behrami and Behrami v France; Saramati v France, Germany and Norway—International Decisions’ (2008) 102 American Journal of International Law 323. 42 UNSC Res 1244 (10 June 1999) UN Doc S/RES/1244 op para 7. 43 Behrami (n 25) paras 26 and 147. 44 ibid, paras 97, 102, 106, 113. 45 ibid, para 129.

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While Chapter VII constituted the foundation for the above-described delegation of UNSC security powers, that delegation must be sufficiently limited so as to remain compatible with the degree of centralisation of UNSC collective security constitutionally necessary under the Charter and, more specifically, for the acts of the delegate entity to be attributable to the UN.46

Hence, in the Court’s view, attribution depended upon ‘whether the UNSC retained ultimate authority and control so that operational command only was delegated.’47 After examining the conditions it thought were necessary for a lawful delegation of the Council’s power the Court found this test to be met,48 and concluded that KFOR ‘was exercising lawfully delegated Chapter VII powers of the UNSC so that the impugned action was, in principle, “attributable” to the UN.’49 Since the violations in question were not attributable to the respondent states, but to the UN, which is not itself a party to the ECHR, the Court found that the applications were incompatible with the Convention due to lack of jurisdiction ratione personae.50 The attribution issue in Behrami was, in my view, clearly wrongly decided. A detailed account of why this is so is for elsewhere.51 For our present purposes, suffice it to say that the Court mixed up two entirely separate questions—the delegation of powers by the Security Council and that of State responsibility. The Council may or may not have delegated some of its powers to KFOR, but it is its effective control over KFOR (or, indeed, the lack thereof) that is dispositive for attribution.52 The Court, moreover, found some support for its attribution analysis solely in the work of a single author,53 and it failed to discuss or even acknowledge the otherwise unanimous contrary authorities, ranging from the legal opinions of the UN itself, to those of the ILC and of numerous scholars, to the effect that the UN cannot be responsible for the acts of troops over which it does not have operational control.54 Finally, the Court’s decision produces unacceptable results as a matter of policy, as it allows States to retain control over their armed forces in 46

ibid, para 132. ibid, para 133. 48 ibid, paras 134–40. 49 Behrami (n 25) para 141. 50 ibid, paras 144–52. 51 See M Milanovic´ and T Papic´ , ‘As Bad As It Gets: The European Court of Human Rights’ Behrami and Saramati Decision and General International Law’ (2009) 58 International and Comparative Law Quarterly.267. 52 See Draft Art 5, UN ILC ‘Draft Articles on Responsibility of International Organizations’ (2004), UN Doc A/59/10, chap V at 99. 53 See D Sarooshi, The United Nations and the Development of Collective Security: The Delegation by the UN Security Council of its Chapter VII Powers (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1999) 163–66. 54 See eg, European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), ‘Opinion on Human Rights in Kosovo: Possible establishment of review mechanisms’ (11 October 2004) No 280/2004, CDL-Ad (2004) 033, at 18 para 79; R Wolfrum, ‘International Administration in PostConflict Situations by the United Nations and Other International Actors’ (2005) 9 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 649 ; A Paulus, ‘Article 29’ in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 542, MN 9; J Frowein and N Krisch, ‘Article 42’ in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 759 MN 29; cf Amerasinghe, Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations, Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law 36, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 403; J Cerone, ‘Minding the Gap: Outlining KFOR Accountability in Post-Conflict Kosovo’ (2001) 12 European Journal of International Law 469, 486. 47

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peacekeeping operations, instead of putting them at the disposal of the UN, and at the same time allows them to blame the UN for any of their actions.55 There can thus be little doubt that the Court’s attribution reasoning in Behrami is untenable.56 Yet, how can we explain the very obviousness of the flaws in the Court’s decision? In my view, there is at least one possible explanation—what the Court said in its decision is conditioned above all by the things that it did not want to say. The issue that it wanted to avoid the most was precisely that of norm conflict and the pre-emptive effect of Article 103 of the Charter. It did not, it would not, say that Resolution 1244 prevailed over Article 5 of the ECHR, as the British courts did in Al-Jedda. For the European Court, the ECHR is the ‘constitutional instrument of European public order’,57 of which the Court itself is the ultimate guardian. Accepting in Behrami that fifteen States sitting in the Security Council could whisk away this ‘constitutional instrument’ on the basis of Article 103 would have created a precedent capable of abuse in a not-so-distant future. On the other hand, the Court also did not want to openly defy the Council or interfere with the Chapter VII system and peacekeeping operations such as Kosovo—sympathise with the applicants it might, but rule in their favour it would not. And so the Court came up with its strained attribution to the UN rationale, which solved its immediate problems—it not only avoided a norm conflict, but also what the Court saw as a conflict of constitutional importance.

Kadi We now turn to the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (CFI), which decided several cases on sanctions imposed by the Security Council against suspected terrorists and their supporters. The most notable of these cases was Kadi.58 The background to the case concerns the sanctions originally established by the Security Council in its Resolution 1267 (1999) against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The sanctions regime was expanded by subsequent resolutions to the Al-Qaeda network and persons associated with it.59 The Council set up a Sanctions Committee as its subsidiary body to monitor the implementation of sanctions, 55 The issue of attribution was also raised in Al-Jedda (n 24) before the House of Lords, after Behrami (n 25) was decided. The House refused to follow Behrami, inter alia because it would produce simply absurd consequences in the Iraq context, as it would for example be the UN, instead of the US, who would bear responsibility for the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. The House managed to avoid relying on Behrami not by holding that it was wrongly decided, but by (not entirely persuasively) distinguishing it on the facts. See more Milanovic´ and Papic´ , ‘As Bad As It Gets’ (n 51). 56 See also P Bodeau–Livinec, GP Buzzini and S Villalpando, ‘Behrami and Behrami v France; Saramati v France, Germany and Norway—International Decisions’ (n 41) 325–31; A Sari, ‘Jurisdiction and International Responsibility in Peace Support Operations: The Behrami and Saramati Cases’ (2008) 8 Human Rights Law Review 151, 162–65; B Knoll, ‘Rights Without Remedies: The European Court’s Failure to Close the Human Rights Gap in Kosovo’ (2008) 68 Heidelberg Journal of International Law 431; K Mujezinovic Larsen, ‘Attribution of Conduct in Peace Operations: The “Ultimate Authority and Control” Test’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 509. 57 Behrami (n 25) para 145. 58 Case T-315/01 Kadi v Council and Commission [2005] ECR-II 3649 (Kadi CFI). 59 See generally C Lehnardt, European Court Rules on UN and EU Terrorist Suspect Blacklists, ASIL Insight (31 January 2007) www.asil.org/insights/2007/01/insights070131.html.

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which did so by maintaining lists of suspected terrorists. Member states were obliged to enforce sanctions against these listed individuals. Having this sanctions regime in view, the member states of the European Union (EU)60 decided that instead of implementing this regime individually in their respective domestic legal systems, they should do so through the mechanisms of the EU. The EU Council thus adopted several common positions, as well as Regulation No 881/2002 implementing the sanctions regime.61 Annexed to the Regulation was the list of persons whose funds were to be frozen, on the basis of the lists made by the Sanctions Committee of the Security Council.62 As Community law, the Regulation had direct effect in the legal orders of the member states, and took precedence over any contrary domestic legislation. The assets of the applicant in Kadi were frozen in this manner. He complained to the CFI, asking the Court to annul the implementing Regulation on the grounds that it violated his fundamental human rights, as protected by primary EU law (that, under long-standing jurisprudence, protects as general principles a corpus of fundamental rights, including the rights enshrined in the ECHR), including the right to a fair hearing, the right to property and the right to judicial review.63 One of his key arguments was that: [T]he Security Council resolutions relied on by the [EU] Council and the Commission do not confer on those institutions the power to abrogate those fundamental rights without justifying that stance before the Court by producing the necessary evidence. As a legal order independent of the United Nations, governed by its own rules of law, the European Union must justify its actions by reference to its own powers and duties vis-à-vis individuals within that order.64

The import of this argument cannot be overemphasised, as it challenges the most fundamental operating assumption of Article 103 of the Charter. Like any rule of hierarchy (or something closely resembling one), it can only prevail over a norm which is a part of the same legal order. As the US Constitution is the supreme law only in the US legal system, but not in the legal orders of France or China, so is Article 103 of the Charter superior law only in the international legal system. According to Kadi’s argument, however, he was entitled to human rights protections under EU law, and that legal order ‘was independent of the United Nations.’ The Security Council resolution could not prevail over these rights, as it could not penetrate this independent legal order. This, as we shall see, was one of the main themes of the Advocate-General’s opinion in Kadi, as wells as the decision on appeal of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), to which we will turn shortly.

60 Purely as a matter of convenience, the terms European Union and European Community (EC) are used interchangeably throughout this paper, as will EU law, EC law and Community law. 61 Council Regulation (EC) 881/2002 imposing certain specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities associated with Usama bin Laden, the Al-Qaida network and the Taliban, and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 467/2001 prohibiting the export of certain goods and services to Afghanistan, strengthening the flight ban and extending the freeze of funds and other financial resources in respect of the Taliban of Afghanistan [2002] OJ L139. 62 Annex to Council Regulation (EC) 881/2002 (n 61). 63 Kadi CFI (n 58) para 59. 64 Kadi CFI (n 58) para 140.

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Thus, before the Court was a much more fundamental question than the resolution of a single norm conflict—that of the relationship between general international law and EU law.65 Only if the Court found that the two legal orders were one, even though to a great extent autonomous, could it entertain the Article 103 argument. It went on to do just that, finding that obligations under the UN Charter prevail over any other obligations under EU law.66 The Court then proceeded to examine the lawfulness of the contested Regulation. It found that the Regulation was merely implementing Security Council resolutions, and that neither the member states nor the EU institutions had any autonomous discretion in that regard.67 In particular, they could neither directly alter the content of the resolutions at issue, nor set up any mechanism capable of giving rise to such alteration.68 If the Court were to review and annul the Regulation as violative of human rights, that would necessarily mean that the resolutions, which the Regulation was implementing, were so violative, and that the Court would be exercising indirect review of a Security Council decision, a competence that both member states and EU institutions denied it had.69 The Court agreed, with the proviso, however, that it could indirectly review: the lawfulness of the resolutions of the Security Council in question with regard to jus cogens, understood as a body of higher rules of public international law binding on all subjects of international law, including the bodies of the United Nations, and from which no derogation is possible.70

If the Council’s resolutions failed to observe the norms of jus cogens, however improbable that might be, ‘they would bind neither the Member States of the United Nations nor, in consequence, the Community.’71 The Court then proceeded to conduct this limited form of review, which unsurprisingly ended up being deferential to the Security Council.72 Although the Court—with very little support—gave a very broad reading to jus cogens and considered that human rights such as the right to property or the right of access to a court fall within that category, the limitations on the applicant’s rights were justified, as they were inherent in the rights themselves as guaranteed by jus cogens.73 If anything, the judgment demonstrates the limited utility of jus cogens as a mechanism for conflict resolution, even in instances in which a court is prepared to broadly construe this body of norms.

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

ibid, ibid, ibid. ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid, ibid,

para 178. paras 181–95. paras 213–14. paras 216–17. para 226. para 230. para 231. paras 231, 238.

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Specific Methods of Avoidance and Resolution As we have seen, the cases presented above either employ or hint at several methods of norm conflict avoidance and resolution in addition to Article 103 of the Charter. As with jus cogens, Article 103 creates incentives for courts to avoid norm conflicts (and reliance on Article 103 itself) when they can, especially when ‘constitutional’ values are implicated, such as the protection of human rights. Even when a genuine conflict truly exists, as in Al-Jedda, courts will attempt to minimise its impact through interpretative means. In Kadi, we have witnessed both the application of Article 103 and what can be termed the testing of the external validity of a Security Council resolution, ie the review of its compatibility with the one body of international law that the Council cannot override, jus cogens. Surely there is no great controversy in saying that a Security Council resolution ordering states to torture suspected terrorists would be void, due to a conflict with a peremptory norm. But the Security Council would never adopt such a resolution. States can be subtle, even if, or particularly if they wish to limit the rights of individuals, and the likelihood of them being foolish enough to openly adopt norms contrary to jus cogens is nil. We have thus learned in Kadi that such review of external validity as exercised by the CFI is of little practical use, as the Council resolution will survive this review even when the court (wrongly) reads the content of jus cogens expansively.74 Or, if we take Al-Jedda as an example, if the House wished to review the external validity of Resolution 1546,75 it could have come to no other conclusion than that the resolution is valid, since the prohibition of preventative detention certainly does not qualify as jus cogens, if for no other fact than that internment is expressly allowed in armed conflict.76 It is only if the concept of jus cogens is stretched to the breaking point that it could potentially be used to invalidate a Security Council resolution. In my view, this neither should nor is very likely to happen.77 Yet, there is no cogent legal reason to test Security Council decisions solely on their external validity. The Council is not some sort of global sovereign, a prince who is legibus solutus. It is an organ of an international organisation, the UN, and its powers are necessarily limited by that organisation’s constitutive instrument, the

74 As ICJ President Higgins recently stated in relation to jus cogens, ‘[t]he examples [of such norms] are likely to be very, very few in number.’ R Higgins, ‘A Babel of Judicial Voices? Ruminations from the Bench’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 791, 801. For a much more expansive take on the role of jus cogens in limiting the Security Council, see A Orakhelashvili, ‘The Impact of Peremptory Norms on the Interpretation and Application of United Nations Security Council Resolutions’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 59. 75 Lord Bingham did indeed briefly mention that Security Council resolutions could not override rules of jus cogens—see Al-Jedda (n 24) (per Lord Bingham) para 35. 76 See also M Wood, ‘Second Lecture: The Security Council’s Powers and their Limits’, Lauterpacht Lectures, University of Cambridge (8 November 2006) www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/Media/lectures/pdf/ 2006_hersch_lecture_2.pdf (last accessed 30 June 2009) para 50. 77 As one author put it, ‘one of the major threats posed to the concept of jus cogens is the tendency by some of its most fervent supporters to see it everywhere.’ See A Bianchi, ‘Human Rights and the Magic of Jus Cogens’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 491, 506.

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Charter.78 That treaty cannot be plausibly interpreted as granting the Council the power to do whatever it wishes. There can be no doubt that, as a matter of substantive law, a decision of the Council, which is ultra vires and contrary to the Charter has no binding force.79 Thus, the internal validity of a Council resolution against the Charter can also be tested. When it comes to human rights in particular, a persuasive argument can be made that the Council is Charter-bound to conform to certain human rights norms, which are not limited just to those norms belonging to jus cogens. A textual argument would be that Article 24(2) of the Charter requires the Council to act ‘in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations’, while Article 1(3) provides for ‘promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’ as one of the purposes of the UN.80 That there is no principled reason for rejecting review of the internal validity of Council decisions does not mean that there are not severe practical difficulties in doing so. First, the Charter does not specify in any way the human rights that could serve as a check on the Council’s power.81 Secondly, any review of a Council decision, especially in the context of Chapter VII, would have to be deferential, both as to the Council’s determination that a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression exist, and as to what measures are appropriate to deal with this situation. Finally, and most importantly, the main problem is not with the substantive position that an ultra vires resolution of the Council is invalid, but with the claim of authority to exercise judicial review. In other words, the fundamental question is who will be the judge of whether a Security Council resolution is in accordance with the Charter.82 The Charter itself does not say that the ICJ or any other court, international or domestic, has the power to do so. On the other hand, the Charter does not say either that the Security Council only and exclusively will be the judge of its own powers. Though Council resolutions cannot be subjected as such to a specific action for annulment, they could still be challenged incidentally in other judicial proceedings. This dilemma is of course familiar to any student of constitutionalism. The US Supreme Court, for example, was faced with the exact same question in Marbury v

78 See D Bowett, ‘The Impact of Security Council Decisions on Dispute Settlement Procedures’ (1994) 5 European Journal of International Law 89, 92–93 (stating that ‘[t]he Council decisions are binding only in so far as they are in accordance with the Charter.’) 79 See ILC Study (n 1), para 331: ‘Since obligations for Member States of the United Nations can only derive out of such resolutions that are taken within the limits of its powers, decisions ultra vires do not give rise to any obligations to begin with.’ 80 See generally D Akande, ‘The International Court of Justice and the Security Council: Is there Room for Judicial Control of Decisions of the Political Organs of the United Nations?’ (1997) 46 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 309; A Boyle and C Chinkin, The Making of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 230. 81 See J Schott, ‘Chapter VII as Exception: Security Council Action and the Regulative Ideal of Emergency’ (2007) 6 Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights 24, 119–22. 82 See more TM Franck, ‘The “Powers of Application”: Who Is the Ultimate Guardian of UN Legality?’ (1992) 86 American Journal of International Law 83; JE Alvarez, ‘Judging the Security Council’ (1996) 90 American Journal of International Law 1.

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Madison.83 The Court there asserted its power to review the constitutionality of the acts of the other branches of the US government, without any explicit basis in the Constitution’s text.84 That does not mean that the mere assertion of such a power by the Court was enough to actually establish it—what truly mattered was that this claim to authority was accepted by the other actors concerned, and gradually became an entrenched and uncontested (if not uncontroversial) feature of the system. The same could eventually happen in the international system, yet that is by no means a certainty. The ICJ or some other court might assert its authority to decide on the validity of Security Council resolution, but that does not mean that this claim will be accepted by states and by the Council. So far, the ICJ, in particular, has refrained from attempting such a Marbury moment.85 In two cases—Lockerbie and Genocide—the parties’ arguments presented it with an opportunity to review a Security Council resolution. In both cases the Court gave this opportunity a pass,86 though in their individuals opinions some judges expressed their views both for and against judicial review.87 The closest we have come to Marbury before any international court was in the Tadic´ case88 before the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), established by a Chapter VII resolution of the Security Council. In that case, the first ever decided by the ICTY, the defendant challenged the Tribunal’s legality, claiming that the Council did not have the legal power to establish a judicial body.89 The Trial Chamber held that it did not have jurisdiction to pronounce on the legality of the ICTY’s establishment, as it could not review a decision of the Council.90 The Appeals Chamber, on the other hand, ruled that as a part of its inherent compétence de la compétence it did have the power to enquire about its own legality, and (unsurprisingly) found that the Council did indeed have the authority under the Charter to establish the ICTY.91 Yet, Tadic´ did not provoke a Marbury moment. The Appeals Chamber was dealing with a very specific issue, a challenge to its own legality. No other court so far has reviewed the internal validity of any Council resolution. Though Tadic´ remains an important precedent, whether it will be followed or not remains to be seen. Courts will generally find arguments based on the internal validity of a

83

Marbury v Madison, 5 US (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). ibid, para 7. 85 See S Chesterman, ‘An International Rule of Law?’ (2008) 56 American Journal of Comparative Law 331, 351–54. 86 See more B Martenczuk, ‘The Security Council, the International Court and Judicial Review: What Lessons from Lockerbie?’ (1999) 10 European Journal of International Law 517; Alvarez, ‘Judging the Security Council’ (n 82). 87 See Lockerbie (n 23) [1998] ICJ Rep 115; Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro); Order of 8 April 1993 [1993] ICJ Rep 3; Order of 13 September 1993 [1993] ICJ Rep 325 88 Prosecutor v Tadic´ (Appeal on Jurisdiction) ICTY IT-94–1-AR72 (2 October 1995). See also Prosecutor v Kanyabashi (Decision), ICTR 96–15-T (8 June 1997). 89 ibid. 90 Prosecutor v Tadic´ (Decision on the Defence Motion on Jurisdiction in the Trial Chamber of the International Tribunal) ICTY IT-94–1-AR72 (10 August 1995). 91 Tadic´ (n 88) paras 18–22. 84

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resolution unattractive, and that especially goes for domestic courts. To take Al-Jedda as an example, if the appellants had actually made such an argument (as they had not) and contested the validity of Resolution 1546, it would still have been most unlikely for national judges to become the avant-garde of international law by assuming for themselves the power to review Chapter VII decisions of the Security Council. Moreover, it should also be noted that the review of Council resolutions by domestic, as opposed to international courts, would in essence amount to the review of UN acts by its individual member states. Though in principle unobjectionable, this could still in practical terms potentially spell disaster for the system of collective security established by the Charter.92 The possibility that courts will start reviewing decisions of the Council relatively soon is not to be excluded. The more the Council impinges on human rights and the more invasive it becomes, the greater the temptation for courts will be.93 Yet, because of the very limited scope of jus cogens, because of the lack of specificity of human rights constraints on the Council in the Charter itself, and because of the large deference that would be due to the Council in any case involving the maintenance of international peace and security, even if a court was willing to entertain a challenge to the external or internal validity of a Council resolution, it would be most unlikely that such a challenge would succeed.94 The review of external validity of Council resolution against jus cogens and the review of their internal validity vis-à-vis the Charter are at the same time tools of both conflict avoidance and of conflict resolution. An apparent conflict between a resolution and some other norm of international law is avoided, because a second conflict between the resolution and either the Charter or jus cogens is resolved in the latter’s favour. Now, however, it might be helpful to advance another interpretative mechanism of conflict avoidance. This mechanism has thus far not been explicitly used by courts, though this may change, since it provides more practical avenues for the effective protection of human rights than theories of judicial review. As we have seen above, some Security Council resolutions use exceptionally broad language. For example, Resolution 1546 at issue in Al-Jedda gave the MNF ‘the authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq’, while Resolution 1244 at issue in Behrami and Saramati authorised ‘Member States and relevant international organizations to establish the international security presence in Kosovo … with all necessary means to fulfill its responsibilities.’95 Should Article 103 of the Charter truly attach to these kinds of vague phrases, with the effect of prevailing over contrary treaties and denying individuals some of their basic rights? Should open language such as ‘all

92

See Wood, ‘The Security Council’s Powers and their Limits’ (n 76) para 64. In a similar vein, see A Bianchi, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of the UN Security Council’s Anti-Terrorism Measures: The Quest for Legitimacy and Cohesion’ (2006) 17 European Journal of International Law 881, 912–14. 94 See also Wood, (n 76) para 6 (stating that ‘it would be difficult to conceive of circumstances arising in practice that could raise serious doubts about the legality of the Council’s actions.’) But see M Happold, ‘Security Council Resolution 1373 and the Constitution of the United Nations’ (2003) 16 Leiden Journal of International Law 593, 607 (arguing that Resolution 1373 is ultra vires). 95 UNSC Res 1244 (10 June 1999) UN Doc S/RES/1244 op para 7. 93

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necessary measures’ and ‘all necessary means’ be read as encompassing everything and anything that the authorised states might want—say preventative detention without recourse to judicial review—thus trumping the very clear and detailed provisions of human rights treaties, like Article 5(1) of the ECHR? Surely not. It is one thing to say that the phrase ‘all necessary means’ has in practice developed as the appropriate diplomatic euphemism for the use of military force, but it cannot be plausibly read as an absolution from all human rights constraints that do not qualify as jus cogens.96 The Charter may give the Council the power to override legally valid treaties, and even custom, but this power is by definition exceptional. If, in other words, the Council truly wishes to derogate from otherwise applicable human rights guarantees, it must do so clearly and explicitly, and it and its members must consequently bear the political responsibility for such an action. What I am advocating, therefore, is for the creation of a rebuttable interpretative presumption supported by a clear statement rule—Security Council resolutions should be interpreted as far as possible to be compatible with human rights, as well as with other rules of general international law, in the absence of a clear statement by the Council to the contrary. Such a presumption is warranted by several considerations of policy and principle. First and most generally, by the presumption against norm conflict in international law.97 Secondly, by the indisputable fact that the Security Council was not created as a global legislator,98 a quick and dirty substitute for the ordinary international law-making process via treaty or custom.99 It is a body with the singular and extremely important mission of safeguarding international peace and security, but despite its apparent omnipotence and the broad exercise of its powers, as for instance in the quasi-legislative Resolution 1373,100 its role is limited. The legally binding norms that it may create and to which the Charter grants priority are still conditioned upon that mission of maintenance of peace.101 Important as that mission undoubtedly is, it is not a licence to the Council to ignore the rest of international law. Thirdly, reading the Council’s resolutions so that they are compatible with states’ human rights obligations is consistent with the Council’s own statements on the matter. For example, in Resolution 1456 (2003), the Council, working at the level of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, affirmed that ‘States must ensure that any measure taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, in particular human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.’102 The Council

96

See Liivoja (n 15) 589. See generally Pauwelyn, (n 9) 240–44. 98 See generally M Fremuth and J Griebel, ‘On the Security Council as a Legislator: A Blessing or a Curse for the International Community?’ (2007) 76 Nordic Journal of International Law 339; B Elberling, ‘The Ultra Vires Character of Legislative Action by the Security Council’ (2005) 2 International Organizations Law Review 337. 99 See also I Johnstone, ‘Legislation and Adjudication in the UN Security Council: Bringing Down the Deliberative Deficit’ (2008) 102 American Journal of International Law 275, 299–300; Boyle and Chinkin, The Making of International Law (n 80) 113–15. 100 UNSC Res 1373 (28 September 2001) UN Doc S/RES/1373. 101 See also Wood, ‘The Legal Framework of the Security Council’ (n 4) para 23 et seq. 102 UNSC Res 1456 (20 January 2003) UN Doc S/RES/1456 op para 6. 97

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should not be taken to have departed from a commitment that it itself has promulgated without clear evidence to the contrary. Fourthly, as important as are peace and security,103 they are not a priori more important than human rights (and vice versa). These rights are not gifts or privileges granted to individuals by generously disposed states, but rights which are inherent in the individuals’ own dignity as human beings that cannot easily be sacrificed at the altar of security by overly eager states. Finally, states to which an authority is given by the Council will naturally tend to interpret that authority broadly, as is the case with preventative detention. There is no indication, for example, that the Council truly wished to authorise unreviewable military detentions in Kosovo by Resolution 1244, as was argued by KFOR member states. A presumption can help curtail this tendency, thought it cannot eliminate it altogether. Interpretative presumptions of this sort are ubiquitous in domestic law and they have a pride of place in the human rights sphere. Perhaps the best examples can be had in the public law of the United Kingdom. Not only is a presumption favouring compatibility of legislation with human rights now laid down by statute, in section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998,104 but courts have for constitutional reasons applied such presumptions independently of the HRA and the ECHR. As Lord Hoffmann put it: Parliamentary sovereignty means that Parliament can, if it chooses, legislate contrary to fundamental principles of human rights. The Human Rights Act 1998 will not detract from this power. The constraints upon its exercise by Parliament are ultimately political, not legal. But the principle of legality means that Parliament must squarely confront what it is doing and accept the political cost. Fundamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous words. This is because there is too great a risk that the full implications of their unqualified meaning may have passed unnoticed in the democratic process. In the absence of express language or necessary implication to the contrary, the courts therefore presume that even the most general words were intended to be subject to the basic rights of the individual. In this way the courts of the United Kingdom, though acknowledging the sovereignty of Parliament, apply principles of constitutionality little different from those which exist in countries where the power of the legislature is expressly limited by a constitutional document.105

Note that it has been an axiomatic assumption of English constitutional law that Parliament is sovereign and capable of doing as it pleases with human rights,106 but

103 See, eg, Behrami (n 25) paras 148–49, where the European Court affirms the ‘imperative’ aim of the UN of safeguarding international peace and security. 104 On the strength of which see especially Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza [2004] UKHL 30, [2004] 2 AC 557 paras 44 et seq (Lord Steyn). 105 R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115 at 131 (Lord Hoffmann). 106 See A Dicey, An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (London, Macmillan, 1959) 39–40: ‘The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament … has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.’

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that the interpretative presumption exists notwithstanding Parliamentary sovereignty.107 All the more reason to apply such a presumption to the Security Council, which is, most certainly, not a sovereign in the likeness of Parliament.108 Similarly, in the United States, the Supreme Court recently had the opportunity to decide on the habeas corpus rights of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Inter alia, it invoked a clear statement rule, holding that ‘Congress should “not be presumed to have effected such denial [of habeas corpus relief] absent an unmistakably clear statement to the contrary”.’109 The foregoing discussion should not be taken as a facile application of some domestic law analogy to international law. As well noted, such analogies can be ‘more misleading than enlightening’.110 In this case, however, the basic ideas are the same. A rebuttable interpretative presumption of this type can clearly be a useful method for avoiding conflicts of norms arising from competing (constitutional) considerations—the Charter and peace and security on the one hand, and human rights on the other.111 To take the facts of Behrami and Saramati as an example, it would have been a much better tool of avoidance for the European Court than its misguided theory of attribution. Why should, after all, the phrase ‘all necessary means’ be read as authorising preventative detention without any judicial review? Al-Jedda, on the other hand, is more difficult. Though the Council again used vague language of authorisation, it did tie it to the two letters annexed to Resolution 1546, which did expressly mention internment on security grounds.112 Thus it could be plausibly asserted that the presumption has been rebutted and that the clear statement rule is satisfied. On the other hand, as we have seen above, the House of Lords nonetheless narrowly interpreted this authorisation, in essence reading it as dispensing solely with the exhaustive numeration of grounds of detention in Article 5(1) of the ECHR. In conclusion, a clear statement rule is not a magic bullet. It will not be able to avoid all situations of conflict—for instance, it would have been of little use in Kadi, where the Council made its intentions perfectly clear. It is, however, necessary for channelling through law the great powers that the Security Council rightly has, and advancing the (at the moment undoubtedly aspirational) international rule of 107

See also R v Secretary of State ex p Pierson [1998] AC 539, 575D (Lord Browne-Wilkinson). The House of Lords likewise employs a clear statement rule in instances of apparent norm conflict between UK law and EU law, with priority being given to the latter in absence of an express statement of Parliament to the contrary. See Macarthys Ltd v Smith [1979] 3 All ER 325, 329 (Lord Denning). 109 Boumediene v Bush No 06–1195, 553 US (2008), slip op at 7, citing Hamdan v Rumsfeld, 548 US 557 (2006) 575. See also Kent v Dulles 357 US 116 (1958) (narrowly interpreting a statute relied on by the Executive to refuse issuing a passport to a suspected Communist, finding that Congress can curtail the constitutionally protected right to free movement only if its does so in explicit terms). 110 See Wood (n 76) para 58 (quoting E Lauterpacht, ‘The Legal Effect of Illegal Acts of International Organizations’, in Cambridge Essays in International Law—Essays in honour of Lord McNair (London, Stevens, 1965) 88 ). 111 See also Bianchi, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of the UN Security Council’s Anti-Terrorism Measures’ (n 92) 916: ‘[R]arely would one need to construe human rights obligations as conflicting with SC anti-terror measures. A presumption of consistency of the latter with human rights obligations, and—one may add—all the more so with regard to peremptory norms, seems a perfectly viable interpretive tool to guarantee the required degree of consistency of SC resolutions with the international legal order.’ 112 UNSC Res 1546 (8 June 2004) UN Doc S/RES/1546 Annex p 11. 108

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law.113 If the Council truly intends to derogate from human rights, that intent must be manifested in the language of the resolution, and the reasons for doing should be explained openly, not left to backroom dealings between diplomats as they are now.114

CONCLUSION

If there is one thing that the cases presented above make obvious, it is that courts generally do what they can to avoid norm conflicts. The most common are the instances of harmonious interpretation used in numerous cases before the European Court, such as Al-Adsani,115 Prince of Liechtenstein,116 and Maumousseau.117 To these we can add the equivalent protection cases in their intra-systemic, purely conflict-avoiding variant, as represented by Bosphorus,118 as opposed to their inter-systemic, Solange119 variant, which presupposes the existence of two separate legal systems. Rarer are the cases where norm conflict is genuine and unavoidable. Rarer still are those situations in which norm conflict is both unavoidable and. For example, the famous Soering case120 could be taken as an example of an unresolvable conflict between the non-refoulement component of Article 3 of the ECHR and a valid extradition treaty which recognised no such exception.121 Likewise, if the applicant’s argument in Al-Jedda that Article 103 of the Charter does not apply to Security Council authorisations had been accepted by the House of Lords, there would still have been a valid Chapter VII resolution conflicting with the equally valid ECHR.

113

See Chesterman, ‘An International Rule of Law?’ (n 85) 360–61. See Johnstone, ‘Legislation and Adjudication in the UN Security Council’ (n 99) 305–06 (emphasising the need for the Council to justify its actions publicly). 115 Al-Adsani v United Kingdom [GC] (App No 35763/97) ECHR 2001-XI 79 (holding that the jus cogens prohibition of torture did not conflict with the law of state immunity). See also Jones v Ministry of Interior Al-Mamlaka Al-Arabiya AS Saudiya (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) [2006] UKHL 26, [2006] 2 WLR 1424. 116 Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein v Germany [GC] (App No 42527/98) ECHR 2001-VIII 1 (holding that the right of access to court in Article 6 of the ECHR did not conflict with the Convention on the Settlement of Matters Arising out of the War and the Occupation, prohibiting German courts to entertain claims arising out of confiscations of German property in the name of reparations for damages in World War II). 117 Maumousseau and Washington v France (App No 39388/05) ECHR 6 December 2007 (holding that the ECHR does not conflict with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction). 118 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret Anonim S¸irketi v Ireland (App no 45036/98) ECHR 2005-VI 107. 119 Solange I, The German Constitutional Court, (Karlsruhe, 29 May 1974) [1974] 37 BVerfGE 271; Solange II, The German Constitutional Court, (Karlsruhe, 22 October 1986) [1986] 73 BVerfGE 339. 120 Soering v United Kingdom Series A no 161 (1989) 11 EHRR 439 (holding that under Art 3 of the ECHR a state cannot extradite a person to another state where that person is at a substantial risk of being subjected to cruel or inhuman treatment of punishment). 121 See T Thienel, Can the Security Council Displace Human Rights Treaties?, Opinio Juris Weblog (16 January 2008) http://opiniojuris.org/2008/01/16/can-the-security-council-displace-human-rightstreaties-al-jedda-part-2/. 114

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Perhaps the most important insights from examining the practicalities of norm conflict can be gained in relation to Article 103 of the Charter. There, the tension between the integrationist commitment to general international law and the potentially fragmentationist commitment to human rights is the most palpable. Even the most dedicated adherent of the UN Charter can appreciate the potential for abuse inherent in the Security Council’s wide discretion. That discretion might or might not get reviewed by courts in the future. More importantly, it can be curtailed through the use of interpretative presumptions, without stretching the relationship between general international law and human rights to a breaking point. There is nothing extravagant or earth-shattering in requiring the Council to derogate from human rights clearly and unambiguously if and when it wishes to do so. If such a request is good enough for democratically elected legislatures such as Congress or Parliament, surely it must be good enough for the Security Council. When it comes to Kadi, while some general international lawyers have applauded the CFI’s ruling that EU law is part of a unified international legal order,122 the reaction of most EU lawyers,123 as well as that of the ECJ itself, has been quite different. Both the opinion of Advocate General Maduro124 and the appellate judgment of the ECJ in Kadi125 held that EU law is a constitutional legal order independent from international law and the UN Charter, and that only this constitutional order can define how the norms of other legal orders can enter it. The ECJ has thus resorted to the ultimate form of norm conflict avoidance—the denial that the two potentially conflicting norms actually operate within the same legal system.126 Of course, the ECJ in Kadi never explains what exactly in its view makes the EU legal order distinct and independent from international law, even if though it was created by treaties between states. At best, its reasoning is conclusory, even solipsistic—it says that EU law is constitutional, therefore it is constitutional, and therefore it is not international. Nonetheless, from the perspective of EU law, the ECJ can also be said to have defended what it sees as its own values and its own legal system from the aggressive intrusion into that order by the Security Council. In that regard, general international lawyers must realise that justifying the primacy of the Charter simply on the basis that Article 103 says so might not be reason enough for courts and lawyers who have a commitment to some other system, especially if they perceive that system as somehow being constitutional in character.127 If one shares the generalist agenda, as the present author does—and it must be said that the universality or general applicability of international law is nonetheless just that, an agenda, a project, if perhaps one less ambitious than the

122

See, eg, C Tomuschat, ‘Note: Kadi v Council’ (2006) 43 Common Market Law Review 537, 551. See, eg, M Claes and WT Eijsbouts, ‘Editorial—The Difference’ (2008) 4 European Constitutional Law Review 1, 5. 124 Case C-402/05 P Kadi v Council (Opinion of Advocate General Poiares Maduro) 16 January 2008, esp paras 21 and 24. 125 Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P Kadi & Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission (Judgment) 3 September 2008, esp paras 281–82, 285, 316–17. 126 ibid, paras 2, 4–6, 81, 202. 127 See in that regard Koskenniemi and Leino, ‘Fragmentation of International Law?’ (n 5) 559, who argue that: ‘[e]ven as Article 103 may seem like a constitutional provision, few would confidently use it to uphold the primacy of Security Council decisions over, for example, human rights treaties.’ 123

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various constitutional ones out there—then it must also be said that it is quite naïve to think that general international law will always prevail over fragmentationist impulses, or even that it should prevail simply by virtue of being general, or because the Charter says so, or that there is a clearly correct position. In the final analysis, the debate about fragmentation has always been about competing political, ideological and institutional interests, not about coherence in the abstract.128 General international law will thus prevail only if it accommodates, as far as possible, the concerns of these other actors, be they ‘constitutional’ or not.129 If pushed hard enough by the Security Council, for example, even the European Court of Human Rights will be sorely tempted to declare independence from general international law. In accordance with one of the persistent themes of this article, such a conflict can and should be avoided.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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See Koskenniemi and Leino, (n 5) 578. After all, international law has always had ‘the object of assuring the co-existence of different interests which are worthy of legal protection.’ Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law’ (n 7) 419 (quoting Max Huber in Island of Palmas (Netherlands v US) 2 Reports of International Arbitral Awards 831). 129

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Website Sources C Lehnardt, ‘European Court Rules on UN and EU Terrorist Suspect Blacklists’, ASIL Insight (31 January 2007) www.asil.org/insights/2007/01/ insights070131.html. T Thienel, ‘Can the Security Council Displace Human Rights Treaties?’ Opinio Juris Weblog (16 January 2008) http://opiniojuris.org/2008/01/16/can-thesecurity-council-displace-human-rights-treaties-al-jedda-part-2/. M Wood, ‘First Lecture: The Legal Framework of the Security Council’, Lauterpacht Lectures, University of Cambridge (7 November 2006) www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/Media/lectures/pdf/2006_hersch_lecture_1.pdf.

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Strategic Use of Litigation to Influence Negotiations: The WTO, the EU and the UN Use of Litigation to Influence Negotiations MARKUS W GEHRING * INTRODUCTION

I

N CURRENT PUBLIC international law, normative regimes generally develop as the result of states’ common interests. Various institutions are involved in the interplay of the multilateral processes and diplomatic practices which largely contribute to the development of legal regimes. Among those institutions, dispute settlement bodies play the vital role of interpreting and applying the relevant treaty law, customs, and agreements which are the outgrowth of previous negotiations. However, the less-studied opposite might also be true: in some cases, judicial recourse and dispute settlement decisions can be used to influence treaty negotiations. As this chapter demonstrates, states can use a variety of institutions in order to attempt to influence and/or influence the outcome of treaty negotiations. Indeed, states can and have used dispute settlement mechanisms within, for example, the WTO, to influence the negotiation of WTO-based treaties in the same policy areas. Thus, states can use and have used the dispute settlement mechanism and the treaty negotiation function of the same institution as part of an overall policy to advance their treaty negotiation strategies. If there is indeed a link between dispute settlement-based litigation and ensuing or concurrent negotiations, we should be able to observe it in the dispute settlement cases themselves from facts, from declarations by parties, and from the opinions of the deciders. This paper will first state reasons for linking international disputes to treaty negotiations, then analyse briefly the application of this dynamic within the dispute settlement and treaty negotiation settlement mechanisms of the UN and the EU, before delving into the relationship between litigation and negotiation at the * Dr Markus Gehring is Lecturer in European and International Law at the University of Cambridge and associated as Professor of Law with the University of Ottawa. He also serves as Lead Counsel for Trade at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL). This chapter shares thoughts with my work in A Narliar’s Deadlocks in Multilateral Negotiations book. The author wishes to thank Alexandra R Harrington, Doctor of Civil Law Candidate, McGill University and Associate Fellow, Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, for their valuable research assistance, editing and helpful comments. Some of the research has been done with the trade programme of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) and with Martin Endicott in particular.

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WTO level. The goal of discussing and comparing the relationship between dispute settlement mechanisms and treaty negotiations within these institutions is to both examine these especially important institutions and to compare these relationships in the regional and multilateral settings. The cases discussed in this chapter were selected because they occurred parallel to negotiations involving some or all of their subject matter, thus allowing an analysis of the impact of litigation on negotiation. As a particularly illustrative example, this chapter will focus on the WTO case of US Cotton.1 The US Cotton case is not included as a case study; rather, it is used to illustrate the potential uses of the relationship between litigation and treaty negotiation in the context of the WTO’s ongoing attempts to finalise an outcome to the Doha rounds of negotiations. In so doing, this chapter emphasises that the lessons of the US Cotton case are more than purely practical from a legal or political viewpoint; rather, they form a theoretical foundation upon which future WTO disputes and treaty negotiations may become intertwined, especially given the ongoing nature of the Doha rounds of negotiation. In this sense, the cases discussed in this chapter highlight the importance of law in the setting of international political economy by demonstrating the importance of legal frameworks to international negotiations. The chapter concludes by providing examples of WTO policy area in which the relationship between litigation and negotiation can be used in the future in order to advance the goals of sustainable development in trade.

REGIME DEVELOPMENT: LINKING INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES TO TREATY NEGOTIATIONS

In the existing international framework, the presence of judicial institutions such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the World Trade Organisation Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) plays a normative role in interpreting treaty law based on the existing conventions, customs and agreements. Although disputes before these institutions might be brought in an individual or case-by-case setting, the role of the judiciary in these institutions should not be underestimated, as it has a direct impact—negative or positive—on the future of the treaty regime it enforces and, additionally, on the future of negotiations within the overall institutional body that gave rise to the dispute settlement mechanism. On the other hand, it can be argued that, due to the individual and issue-specific nature of disputes brought before these institutions, the lessons to be learned from them are extremely limited within the context of the institution itself and the broader context of other treaty regimes which have created similar mechanisms for dispute settlement. However, this paper is grounded in the working hypothesis that states launch dispute settlement cases strategically within the framework of the institution in which they are operating. This paper argues that states bring dispute settlement cases strategically for three reasons: to improve their bargaining position; to resolve 1 United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Appellate Body Report (adopted 3 March 2005) WT/DS267/AB/R.

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deadlocks and influence negotiations; and to change the rules of the broader institutional regimes themselves. If the dispute settlement mechanisms of international institutions—which can be said to be litigation functions in themselves—are considered as a remarkable step forward to a pacific conflict resolution regime from a power-based dynamic, it must be realised that the power-based relations between states are still an important factor within these institutions. The very institutions that are meant to resolve conflicts peacefully and lawfully are themselves susceptible to the shockwaves of power-play between states.

STRATEGIC LITIGATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE

The European Union as an institution itself has been shaped by many negotiations and forms of judicial construction. Its negotiations have been punctuated by several instances of litigation to remove diplomatic deadlocks and impasses;2 these have been productive in developing an international law regime that has come to form the core of the European Union’s understanding of its own functions and boundaries. It could thus be said that, without the interplay between negotiations and litigation, the European Union as a whole would not be the same entity that it has evolved into. Indeed, with regard to the enforcement of the Treaty of Rome by the ECJ, it has been asserted that: The establishment of the ECJ therefore can be understood as an institutional response to the incomplete contract, that is, as a solution to a set of general commitment problems. Each contracting party to it has an interest in seeing that the other parties honour their obligations, and will be punished for failure to do so. The job of the Court, then, is to clarify, over time, the meaning of the contract, and to monitor and punish noncompliance.3

It is true that, in terms of jurisdiction and structure, the EU regime and the WTO share only a few similarities; however, some important lessons can be learned by comparing and contrasting the dispute settlement mechanisms used by these institutions, as well as the relationship between these mechanisms and treaty negotiations within the overall institutional framework. The authority of the European Court of Justice has influenced the legal system and integration process in the European Union and its constituent member states. Unlike the WTO, disputes brought before the ECJ are largely driven by private litigants, removing some of the political and institutional boundaries to litigation which are associated with the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism. However, an analysis of ECJ case law and its impact on legislation, or the negotiation thereof, finds several substantive areas in which member states have incorporated the rulings of the ECJ as a matter of law. In some instances, member states used ECJ

2 One of the best examples is the case of Cassis de Dijon which arguably overcame the impasse of positive integration legislation. 3 A Stone Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) 25.

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case law as a basis for negotiations and/or enacted legislation following important ECJ cases, often simply codifying case outcomes as a matter of domestic law. Furthermore, ECJ case law is followed by member states even in instances where the ECJ decided against stated preferences of member states in regards to the legal question at issue. This was most obviously the issue in the area of free movement of goods, where traders used the Article 234 EC Treaty preliminary reference procedure to strike down barriers4 to trade erected by their own member states. As such, in the Cassis de Dijon case, Germany argued strongly against liberalisation in cases where domestic and foreign producers faced indistinctly applicable rules. The ECJ however decided against the stated member state preference and allowed traders to litigate against national laws even without having to prove discrimination. As such it can rightly be argued that prior to the Single European Act, the ECJ had replaced the Council as a force for positive integration regarding the free movement of goods.5 Similar tendencies can be identified in the areas of environmental policy6 and sex discrimination.7 Another good example is the case of Danish Bottles,8 again a case where one member state supported the Commission, which argued against recognition of environmental protection as a ground to restrict trade above and beyond the protection of human life and health within the application of what is now Article 30 EC Treaty. This case was launched (in December 1986) after the Single European Act had been agreed (in December 1985) and signed (in February 1986), but before the SEA entered into force (1 July 1987). The SEA introduced environmental protection as an area of competence for the European Community but did not include any changes to Article 30 EC Treaty. The ECJ however again decided against the stated preference, this time of the Commission and the UK, by recognising a general mandatory requirement of environmental protection which could serve as a basis to erect barriers to community trade. Finally, it is probably fair to say that member states, particularly Belgium, were surprised to find that Article 119 EEC Treaty was not only directly applicable as found in the Defrenne case,9 but also horizontally directly applicable. The Court referred to extensive negotiations between the Commission and several of the original member states concerning their failure to give proper effect to the provision through national negotiations of the industrial partners: The information provided by the Commission shows that several of the original Member States have failed to observe the terms of that Resolution and that, for this reason, within the context of the tasks entrusted to it by Article 155 of the Treaty, the Commission was led to bring together the representatives of the governments and the two sides of industry

4 ECJ, Case C-120/78, Rewe Zentral AG v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein – Cassis de Dijon [1979] ECR 649. 5 See M McCown, ‘The Free Movement of Goods’, in Stone Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (n 3) 109. 6 See M Gehring, ‘Environmental Protection’, in Stone Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (n 3), 199. 7 See R Cichowski, ‘Sex Equality’, in Stone Sweet, The Judicial Construction of Europe (n 3), 147. 8 ECJ, Case C-302/86, Commission v Denmark [1988] ECR 4607. 9 ECJ, Case C-43/75, Defrenne II [1976] ECR 455.

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in order to study the situation and to agree together upon the measures necessary to ensure progress towards the full attainment of the objective laid down in Article 119.10

In other words, this preliminary reference procedure allowed the Commission to adopt a strategic position, pointing out the failure of member states to comply with previous agreements. It shows that in the European context, strategic positions that have the potential to influence negotiations can also be adopted for cases launched by private parties under the Article 234 EC Treaty preliminary reference procedure.

STRATEGIC LITIGATION IN THE UN: THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

Given the access difficulties to the jurisdiction of the ICJ, its use for strategic litigation is less frequent. Indeed, the issue of whether the ICJ had appropriate jurisdiction to hear the below referenced cases was one which constantly occupied the ICJ, which resulted in extensive portions of these decisions justifying the ICJ’s decision to exercise jurisdiction. Many of the arguments advanced against the ICJ exercising jurisdiction were procedural, but a constant theme was that there were already ongoing negotiations between the parties or in regards to the question that would be harmed by the ICJ rendering an opinion on the fundamental issues of the case. This was a particular concern where the ICJ was asked to render advisory opinions for the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council. An interesting example of the relationship between negotiations and litigation is the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros case.11 This case was brought by Hungary against Slovakia—as the relevant successor state to Czechoslovakia—in regards to Hungary’s ability to abrogate a treaty which required both states to work together on the water system of the River Danube.12 Much of the deadlock in this case stemmed from the nature of the treaty which established the joint project, in that it was silent on issues relating to the withdrawal of a party from the agreement.13 Initially, Hungary tried to bring the dispute to the ICJ, but there were arguments regarding the ICJ’s jurisdiction, and the Commission of the European Communities offered to mediate the dispute.14 After first accepting this offer of assistance, the parties then agreed to accept ICJ jurisdiction over the dispute, due to stalled mediation.15 Although the ICJ accepted jurisdiction of the case and issued an opinion in which it made findings of law regarding fault and entitlement to compensation, what is interesting for the purposes of this paper is that the ICJ then ordered the parties to submit to further negotiations regarding many issues of the case, stating that negotiation was the proper forum for these issues to be resolved.16

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

ibid para. 49. Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (Judgement) [1997] ICJ Rep 7, 92. ibid para 15. ibid. ibid para 24. ibid para 25. ibid para 83.

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Among litigation cases at the ICJ level, advisory opinions, in particular, are used to overcome impasses in international treaty law. The Palestine Wall case can be seen as one of the clearest attempts to urge one party to the negotiation table,17 albeit with little success and considerable public relations costs on all sides. Although the ICJ’s opinion in the Palestine Wall case18 might be viewed as largely unsuccessful, it too has importance to the topic of this chapter, in terms of its findings regarding attempts at negotiation and arbitration which occurred concurrent to the ICJ litigation. Specifically, the ICJ opinion stated that the existence of a ‘negotiating framework’ between the parties did not preclude its ability to exercise jurisdiction over the case.19 The ICJ also reframed the core issues involved as not being solely within the purview of the two parties, but rather as being of global interest.20 The Namibia case and the Nuclear Weapons case can also be seen as attempts to advance UN negotiations from an impasse. In the Namibia case, the UN Security Council had requested an advisory opinion as to ‘the legal consequences for States of the continued presence of South Africa in Namibia’.21 This was a particularly difficult question for the UN itself to answer, given the role of the international community in originally having allowed Namibia to come under South African rule, through the mandate system.22 The ICJ rendered an opinion in which it explicitly explained that states—regardless of their membership in the UN—incurred obligations not to assist South Africa in its continued occupation of Namibia while, at the same time, not to take actions which would harm Namibia.23 In the Nuclear Weapons case, the ICJ was asked by the UN General Assembly to provide an advisory opinion on the question of whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would ever be legal under international law.24 The ICJ examined a number of human rights treaties and the UN Charter before addressing the issue.25 Ultimately, the ICJ stressed to the international community that, while it might render an advisory opinion on the issue, the best course of action for those wishing for an answer to the question was to promulgate a nuclear non-proliferation treaty.26 Similarly, the ICJ’s efforts following the recent dispute between Georgia and Russia can be analysed as an effort to influence diplomatic negotiations away

17 Although it might just be one of several aims of the parties, see commitment to negotiations while calling for compliance with ICJ ruling in PLO Negotiations Affairs Department ‘Anniversary of the ICJ’s Ruling on the Illegality of Israel’s Wall’ (8 July 2009) www.nad-plo.org/inner.php?view=newsupdates_080709. 18 Legal Consequences cf the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,(Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136. 19 ibid para 53. 20 See generally ibid. 21 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) (Advisory Opinion) [1971] ICJ Rep 16. 22 ibid. 23 ibid. 24 See Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226. 25 See generally ibid. 26 See generally ibid.

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from an impasse.27 Such cases have a strategic importance in treaty negotiations, but also influence the development of the broader United Nations itself, as an international regime. STRATEGIC LITIGATION IN THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION: DISPUTE SETTLEMENT MECHANISM

Structure of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body The WTO’s dispute settlement body exists to assist WTO member states in seeking a settlement of their trade-related grievances with each other.28 While it encourages negotiation and conciliation between the parties, this mechanism is also capable of rendering judicial decisions from the panel convened to hear them, and of hearing appeals and issuing appellate decisions through its appellate body. For WTO litigants, the dispute settlement body’s decisions can be binding; however, these decisions have no binding quality for future litigants.29 Many decisions do take on a role similar to decisions in a stare decisis system, at least in terms of subsequent decisions rendered by panels and the appellate body groups.30 Important for litigants—and the purposes of this chapter—it should be noted that panel decisions rarely deviate from previous, relevant appellate body decisions; indeed, panel decisions tend to refer constantly to such appellate body decisions and follow them closely.31 Although it is possible that a party to a dispute will not comply with the decision of the dispute settlement body, the rule of negative consensus leads to the adoption of or adherence to WTO dispute settlement body decisions by the parties involved. This can, however, be a lengthy process, especially when domestic legislation must be enacted to effect the required change in state policy or practice. Currently, there is an increasing debate surrounding the concept of WTO ‘judicialisation’.32 The concerns inherent in this concept are that the role of the diplomat at the WTO level, which was formerly the primary place of diplomatic activity, is now being replaced by that of trade lawyers. This heralds many potential shifts in institutional 27 See Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation) (ICJ, 14 August 2008) www.icj-cij.org/docket/ index.php?p1=3&p2=1&code=GR&case=140&k=4d. 28 See MW Gehring, J Hepburn and MC Cordonier Segger, World Trade Law in Practice, (London, Global Business Publishing, 2006). 29 See DT Blackmore, ‘Eradicating the Long Standing Existence of a No-Precedent Rule in International Trade Law—Loooking Toward Stare Decisis in WTO Dispute Settlement’, (2004) 29 North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation 487. 30 See RH Steinberg, ‘Judicial Lawmaking at the WTO: Discursive, Constitutional and Political Constraints’, (2004) 98 The American Journal of International Law 247. For further arguments advocating the creation of a stare decisis system in WTO dispute settlement jurisprudence, see JH Jackson, ‘International Law Status of WTO Dispute Reports: Obligation to Comply or Option to “Buy Out”?’, (2004) 98 The American Journal of International Law 109. 31 See RE Hudec, ‘The New WTO Dispute Settlement Procedure: An Overview of the First Three Years’, (1999) 8 Minnesota Journal on Global Trade 1 (1999). 32 See Steinberg, ‘Judicial Lawmaking at the WTO’ (n 30); K van der Borght, ‘The Review of the WTO Understanding on Dispute Settlement: Some Reflections on the Current Debate’, (1999) 14 American University International Law Review 1223.

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functioning and philosophy, not least in regards to the possibility that issues regarding the effectiveness of judges and/or judicial activism in WTO dispute settlement proceedings might become a characteristic of the system. WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism and Litigation Strategies Despite its increased prominence, the success of the WTO dispute settlement body can still be questioned in terms of its ability to solve or avoid conflicts. The WTO dispute settlement body still interprets and makes declarations of institutional agreements. In 2001, the Doha Ministerial Declaration influenced various dispute settlement body decisions, such as Mexico—Measures Affecting Telecommunications Services.33 While not formally a ‘legal’ text, the 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration provides the framework for agreed negotiations on future WTO treaty law. It is precisely this dynamic that links disputes to current WTO negotiations. Such a built-in agenda can be observed in trade law negotiations on issues related to services and agriculture, among others. The ‘peace clause’, Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture, expired on 13 December 2003, and due restraint has not always been exercised by WTO members, as illustrated by the US Cotton case. In such cases, the potential avenues to move forward include political negotiations, bringing another case in the WTO dispute settlement body, or trying to shape negotiations in the shadow of the trade law. Regardless of the particular trade issue involved, there are some important reasons for bringing a dispute before the WTO dispute settlement body which do not always pertain solely to the possibility of winning the dispute. Essentially, there are two primary reasons for engaging in litigation at the WTO dispute settlement level in conjunction with engaging in negotiations on the same or a related issue elsewhere within the framework of the WTO.34 One such reason is strategic and another is tactical. Disputes launched strategically will work in conjunction with ongoing or future trade-related negotiations in the hope of influencing the outcome of the negotiation either by obtaining a decision from the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (and thereby cementing the validity of a particular legal position taken in the negotiation process) or to pressure other states involved in both the dispute and the negotiation to make concessions in order to avoid protracted litigation and the possibility of a negative outcome from the WTO Dispute Settlement Body. Disputes pursued tactically can serve a variety of functions and advance a variety of state positions. Tactically launched disputes before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body include disputes launched because of strong domestic political and public opinion-based pressure on a government, such as in the EC Asbestos case brought by Canada.35 Tactical disputes may also involve disputes of dubious merit which 33 In this case, Mexico claimed that some issues which were raised at Doha precluded elements of US claims and the Dispute Settlement Panel explicitly rejected this argument (‘In the Doha round, the main issue for Members with respect to the Understanding has been whether it should be maintained and not what its scope might be’). 34 The author is indebted to Prof Alan Boyle for suggesting this important distinction. 35 See European Communities—Measures Affecting Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos, Panel Report (adopted 12 March 2001) WT/DS135/AB/R, see also MW Gehring and MC Cordonier

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are brought by one state to punish another state for having commenced a dispute before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body regarding a completely different traderelated claim or when the state launching the dispute is certain that it will lose the case, but secretly has an interest in a negative outcome for itself by thus creating an advantageous position for future disputes.36 The WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism37 Year Complaints

1995 25

1996 39

1997 50

1998 41

1999 30

2000 34

2001 23

2002 37

2003 26

2004 19

2005 12

2006 20

50 40 30 Complaints

20 10 0

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

A Case Study: WTO US Cotton Case Litigation Background In February 2003, Brazil initiated a formal complaint against support subsidies to US cotton producers.38 The members had established provisions for further negotiations on the progressive opening of agricultural markets in the Agreement on Agriculture.39 It was also their intention to limit future legal recourses on agricultural measure during the initial implementation period, which was nine years from 1995.40 It was called a ‘Due Restraint’, or the ‘Peace Clause’ Article 13.41 The

Segger, ‘The WTO Asbestos Case and Precaution: Sustainable Development Implications of the WTO Asbestos Dispute’, (2003) 15 Oxford Journal of Enviromental Law 289; MW Gehring and MC Cordonier Segger (eds), Sustainable Development in World Trade Law (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2005). 36 See AW Wolff, ‘Problems with WTO Dispute Settlement’ (2001) 2 Chicago Journal of International Law 417. 37

From K Leitner and S Lester, ‘WTO Dispute Settlement 1995–2006, A Statistical Analysis’ (2007) 10 Journal of International Economic Law 165, 166. 38 See United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton (27 September 2002 – 2 June 2008) WT/DS267—Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds267_e.html. 39 Art 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (signed 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 410: ‘Recognizing that the long-term objective of substantial progressive reductions in support and protection resulting in fundamental reform is an ongoing process, Members agree that negotiations for continuing the process will be initiated one year before the end of the implementation period . . ..’ 40 See ibid. 41 See ibid.

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initial negotiations were not very fruitful until the launch of the Doha round in November 2001. Paragraph 13 (‘Agriculture’) states (in relevant part): We recognize the work already undertaken in the negotiations initiated in early 2000 under Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture, including the large number of negotiating proposals submitted on behalf of a total of 121 members. We recall the long-term objective referred to in the Agreement to establish a fair and market-oriented trading system through a programme of fundamental reform encompassing strengthened rules and specific commitments on support and protection in order to correct and prevent restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets. We reconfirm our commitment to this programme. Building on the work carried out to date and without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations we commit ourselves to comprehensive negotiations aimed at: substantial improvements in market access; reductions of, with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies; and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support.42

The last two clauses of the final sentence of this excerpt are the most important in relation to the cotton negotiations. They record the members’ 2001 commitment to reduce ‘with a view to phasing out, all forms of export subsidies’ and to make ‘substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support’. Export subsidies have traditionally been employed by the EU.43 They are considered the most tradedistorting category of subsidies and are therefore a high priority for elimination in the pursuit of freer trade. Before the legal process, in September 2001 the Government of Brazil requested consultations to discuss the subsidies provided to US producers and exporters of cotton.44 According to Brazil, these subsidies were prohibited under WTO law, making them actionable before the WTO dispute settlement body.45 Initially, a few consultations between the parties took place; however, they did not settle the dispute.46 During this consultative period, other interested states began to join the dispute as third parties; eventually, the number of third party states rose to 13.47 Subsequently, Brazil requested and the dispute settlement body agreed to the establishment of a Panel; the Panel was established specifically to adjudicate the issue of US domestic support and export subsidies to cotton producers.48 At the Panel level, Brazil’s allegations against US measures affecting cotton producers can be grouped into seven broad categories.49 The US in turn rejected each of these allegations in its own filings with the Panel.50 The Panel submitted its

42

See ibid. The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Doha Round Briefing Series—Developments Since the Cancun Ministerial Conference – Agriculture (December 2004) http://ictsd.net/downloads/2008/06/v3_02.pdf 4. 44 United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Summary of Dispute (n 38). 45 See ibid. 46 ibid. 47 ibid. 48 United States – Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Panel Report (adopted 8 September 2004) WT/DS267/R. 49 ibid, 28–30. 50 ibid. 43

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interim report to the parties on 26 April 2004 and its 377-page final report on 18 June 2004.51 The following section summarises the Panel’s major findings. The Peace Clause Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture (entitled ‘Due Restraint’, also known as the ‘Peace Clause’) provided that signatory states would refrain from challenging agricultural subsidies until the end of 2003, as long as they satisfy certain conditions.52 Brazil claimed that Article 13 did not exempt the impugned US measures from actions based on the SCM Agreement and Article XVI:1 of the GATT 1994.53 The US argued that, pursuant to Article 13(a)(ii) of the Agreement on Agriculture, direct payments under the 2002 Farm Security and Regional Investment Act (FSRI) and expired production flexibility contract payments under the 1996 Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR) ‘conform fully to the provisions of Annex 2 to [the Agriculture] Agreement’ such that they should be treated as exempt from actions under Article 13.54 The US also argued that, pursuant to Article 13(b)(ii) of the Agreement on Agriculture, US domestic support measures that fully conformed to Article 6 of the Agreement on Agriculture, including the marketing loan programme (involving marketing loan gains and loan deficiency payments), user marketing (known as step 2) payments, direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, and crop insurance payments, for marketing year 2002, as well as payments made during each of marketing years 1999–2001, ‘do not grant support to a specific commodity in excess of that decided during the 1992 marketing year’ and were ‘exempt from actions based on paragraph 1 of Article XVI of GATT 1994 and Articles 5 and 6 of the Subsidies Agreement.’55 Rejecting the US position, the Panel found that production flexibility contract (PFC) payments, direct payments, and the legislative and regulatory provisions which established and maintained the direct payment programme, did not satisfy the condition in paragraph (a) of Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture and were ‘non-green box measures covered by paragraph (b) of Article 13.’56 It also held that the United States domestic support measures at issue: ‘grant support to a specific commodity in excess of that decided during the 1992 marketing year and, therefore, do not satisfy the conditions in paragraph (b) of Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture and, therefore, are not exempt from actions based on paragraph 1 of Article XVI of the GATT 1994 or Articles 5 and 6 of the SCM Agreement.’57

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

ibid, 372–76. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid, 144, para 7.414 ibid.

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Export Credit Guarantee Programmes Brazil argued that certain export credit guarantee programmes operated by the US constituted export subsidies within the meaning of the Agreement on Agriculture that violated Article 10.1 of the Agreement on Agriculture by circumventing and threatening to circumvent the US export subsidy commitments.58 Accordingly, it was the Brazilian position that the three programmes also violated Article 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture.59 Further, Brazil argued that they constituted prohibited export subsidies within the meaning of item (j) of the Illustrative List of Export Subsidies, and within the meaning of Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement. The US rejected all of these claims.60 The Panel found that in respect of exports of upland cotton and other unscheduled agricultural products, and in respect of one scheduled product (rice), the United States export credit guarantee programmes at issue: are export subsidies applied in a manner which results in circumvention of United States’ export subsidy commitments, within the meaning of Article 10.1 of the Agreement on Agriculture and they are therefore inconsistent with Article 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture.61

These programmes, the Panel held: do not conform fully to the provisions of Part V of the Agreement on Agriculture, they do not satisfy the condition in paragraph (c) of Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture and, therefore, are not exempt from actions based on Article XVI of the GATT 1994 or Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the SCM Agreement.62

The Panel further determined that these programmes: are provided by the United States government at premium rates which are inadequate to cover long-term operating costs and losses of the programmes within the meaning of item (j) of the Illustrative List of Export Subsidies in Annex I of the SCM Agreement, and therefore constitute per se export subsidies prohibited by Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement.63

Extraterritorial Income Act 2000 Brazil alleged that the FSC Repeal and Extraterritorial Income Act of 2000 (ETI) was inconsistent with Articles 10.1 and 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture, and with Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement.64 The US maintained that Brazil had failed even to make a prima facie case to support these claims.65 The Panel agreed with Brazil and found that, by relying on findings made in a separate WTO case, the US had not made a prima facie case that the ETI Act of 2000 and 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid.

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alleged export subsidies provided thereunder were inconsistent with Articles 10.1 and 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture in respect of upland cotton.66 Step 2 Export Payments Brazil complained that section 1207(a) of the FSRI mandated Step 2 export payments, in violation of Articles 3.3 and 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture, and Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement.67 The US denied these claims.68 The Panel held that section 1207(a) of the FSRI providing for user marketing (Step 2) payments to exporters of upland cotton was an export subsidy, listed in Article 9.1(a) of the Agreement on Agriculture, provided in respect of upland cotton, an unscheduled product.69 It was therefore inconsistent with the United States’ obligations under Articles 3.3 and 8 of the Agreement on Agriculture, and prohibited by Articles 3.1(a) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement.70 Furthermore, the Panel stated that as it did not conform fully to the provisions of Part V of the Agreement on Agriculture, it did not satisfy the condition in paragraph (c) of Article 13 of the Agreement on Agriculture and, therefore, was not exempt from actions based on Article XVI of the GATT 1994 or Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the SCM Agreement.71 Step 2 Domestic Payments Brazil alleged that section 1207(a) of the FSRI mandated the payment of Step 2 ‘domestic’ payments in violation of Articles 3.1(b) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement, and in violation of Article III:4 of the GATT 1994.72 The Panel found that section 1207(a) of the FSRI Act of 2002 providing for user marketing (Step 2) payments to domestic users of upland cotton was an import substitution subsidy, prohibited by Articles 3.1(b) and 3.2 of the SCM Agreement.73 Price Suppression Causing Serious Prejudice to Brazil Brazil claimed that US subsidies provided during Marketing Year 1999–2002 caused and continued to cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil, by suppressing prices in the US, world and Brazilian markets for upland cotton, in violation of Articles 5(c) and 6.3(c) of the SCM Agreement, and that they continued to cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil by resulting in the United States having a more than equitable share of world exports of upland cotton, in violation of Articles XVI:1 and XVI:3 of the GATT 1994.74 Brazil further claimed that US subsidies provided during the Marketing Year 1999–2001 caused and continued to 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid.

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cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil by increasing the US share of the upland cotton world market in violation of Articles 5(c) and 6.3(d) of the SCM Agreement.75 Further, Brazil argued that US subsidies mandated to be provided in the Marketing Years 2003–2007 threatened to cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil, by suppressing upland cotton prices to an extent that would be significant in the US, world and Brazilian markets, in violation of Articles 5(c) and 6.3(c) of the SCM Agreement; that the US subsidies mandated to be provided during the Marketing Years 2002–2007 threatened to cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil by increasing the US share of the upland cotton world market in violation of Articles 5(c) and 6.3(d) of the SCM Agreement; and that the US subsidies mandated to be provided during the Marketing Years 2003–2007 threatened to cause serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil by resulting in the United States having a more than equitable share of world exports of upland cotton, in violation of Articles XVI:1 and 3 of the GATT 1994.76 The Panel held that the effect of the mandatory price-contingent United States subsidy measures (marketing loan programme payments, user marketing (Step 2) payments, MLA payments and CCP payments) was significant price suppression in the same world market, within the meaning of Article 6.3(c) of the SCM Agreement, constituting serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil within the meaning of Article 5(c) of the SCM Agreement.77 Direct Payments, Counter-Cyclical Payments, Marketing Loan Payments, Step 2 Payments and Crop Insurance Payments Brazil argued that direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, marketing loan payments, Step 2 Payments and crop insurance payments under the relevant US legislation violated, as such, Articles 5(c), 6.3(c), 6.3(d) of the SCM Agreement and Articles XVI: 1 and 3 of the GATT 1994 to the extent that they related to upland cotton.78 The US argued that US direct payments, expired production flexibility contract payments, counter-cyclical payments, and expired market loss assistance payments were no more than minimally trade- or production-distorting, and that Brazil’s claims under Articles 5(c) and 6.3 of the SCM Agreement and Article XVI of the GATT 1994 therefore failed.79 The Panel found, however, that Brazil had not established that the effect of PFC payments, DP payments and crop insurance payments constituted significant price suppression in the same world market within the meaning of Article 6.3(c) of the SCM Agreement, constituting serious prejudice to the interests of Brazil within the meaning of Article 5(c) of the SCM Agreement; or that the effect of the United States’ subsidy measures referred to by Brazil was an increase in the United States’

75 76 77 78 79

ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid.

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world market share within the meaning of Article 6.3(d) of the SCM Agreement, constituting serious prejudice within the meaning of Article 5(c) of the SCM Agreement.80 In closing its report, the Panel noted that ‘Under Article 3.8 of the DSU, in cases where there is an infringement of the obligations assumed under a covered agreement, the action is considered prima facie to constitute a case of nullification or impairment’ and recommended pursuant to Article 19.1 of the DSU that the United States bring its measures into conformity with the Agreement on Agriculture and withdraw the prohibited subsidies without delay, at the latest within six months of the date of adoption of the Panel report or 1 July 2005 (whichever was earlier).81 Following the Panel’s decision, both the US and Brazil filed appeals.82 The Appellate Body upheld all of the Panel’s major findings in its decision.83 The Appellate Body’s decision was adopted by the DSB on 21 March 2005, so bringing to an end the core part of the legal process that had commenced in February 2003.84 However, subsequent hearings regarding the implementation of the Panel and Appellate Body decisions indicate that the United States has not fully implemented the decision requirements, signalling that, although the litigation portion of the US Cotton case is over, the compliance portion is far from being settled.85 Given the impact of the Panel and Appellate Body decisions on the United States and Brazil themselves, it is perhaps best to examine how each side reacted to the process, before examining the overall impact of the litigation and negotiation processes. In the US view, there was a stated preference for ‘negotiation, rather than litigation, as the most effective way to address distortions in agricultural trade.’86 The United States also expressed displeasure with the methodology used by the Panel in its decision-making system, and argued that, beyond its own issues with the outcome of the Panel’s findings, there were serious flaws in the overall methodology used by the Panel which called into question the system used by the WTO.87 For its part, Brazil was pleased with the Panel and Appellate Body decisions. Brazilian officials stressed that the decision to bring the US Cotton case when it was brought ‘was not initiated with the aim of impacting WTO talks or to seek relevant

80

ibid. ibid. 82 See United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Summary of Dispute (n 38). 83 United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Appellate Body Report (n 1). 84 ibid. 85 See United States—Subsidies on Upland Cotton, Summary of Dispute (n 38). 86 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, ‘WTO Members Adopt Panel and Appellate Body Decisions in Cotton Dispute’, (2005) 9 Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest http://ictsd. net/i/news/bridgesweekly/6092/. 87 ibid. 81

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jurisprudence in this area.’88 However, the Brazilian point of view was that, unless such cases were brought before the WTO, the EU and United States ‘would never change their policies.’89 Separate Treaty Negotiations In April, 2003, the states of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali submitted a proposal to the WTO to eliminate export subsidies on cotton over three years, and the removal of production-related domestic support over three years, to the end of December 2006.90 The proposal also included a transitional compensation mechanism for loss caused by subsidies, and was put forward at the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico.91 The Cancún Conference ended without producing an agreement on the issues addressed during the conference proceedings, including the cotton proposal. After Cancún, the G-20 group of developing countries, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa, emerged as major players in international trade negotiations. The new position of prominence enjoyed by the G-20 significantly undermined the former ability of ‘the Quad’ (comprised of the US, EU, Japan and Canada) to dominate negotiations. This change in power relationships between state groups was demonstrated by the fact that, leading up to the agreement on the July Package was the ‘Group of Five’, comprised of the US, EU, India, Brazil and Australia.92 In the course of these negotiations, the United States agreed that while cotton should be integrated into the agricultural negotiations, it would be guided by a devoted sub-committee. This would ‘ensure appropriate prioritization of the cotton issue independently from sectoral initiatives.’93 Post US-Cotton In 2005, the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration asserted that: without prejudice to Members’ current WTO rights and obligations, including those flowing from actions taken by the Dispute Settlement Body, we reaffirm our commitment to ensure having an explicit decision on cotton within the agriculture negotiations . . . all forms of export subsidies for cotton will be eliminated by developed countries in 2006.94 88 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, ‘WTO Panels Confirm Victory for Brazil in Cotton, Sugar Cases’, (2004) 8 Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest http://ictsd.net/i/news/ bridgesweekly/7458/. 89 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Agricultural Negotiations at the WTO: The July Package and Beyond (16 June 2005), 13. 90 See WTO—Committee on Agriculture, WTO Negotiations on Agriculture—Poverty Reduction: Sectoral Initiative in Favour of Cotton – Joint Proposal by Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali (TN/AG/GEN/6, 4 August 2003). 91 WTO Ministrial Conference—Fifth Session, Poverty Reduction: Sectoral Initiative in Favour of Cotton—Joint Proposal by Benin, Burkino Faso, Chad and Mali (WT/MIN(03)/W/2, Cancun 10–14 September 2003) and Addendum (WT/MIN(03)/W/2/Add.1). 92 ICTSD, Doha Round Briefing Series (n 43) 1. 93 ibid, 4. 94 WTO Ministerial Declaration—Doha Work Programme (WT/MIN(05)/DEC, Hong Kong 22 December 2005), www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min05_e/final_text_e.htm para 11.

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In this passage, the Declaration states an express intention to follow the dispute settlement body’s decisions. What becomes clear from an examination of negotiations over the initial period is that while activity in relation to general reform of the agricultural section began in 2000, cotton had not yet arisen as a distinct negotiating item. Indeed, a survey of ICTSD’s regular agricultural negotiation reports reveals no mention of specific negotiations on the cotton sector for the first three years of agricultural negotiations, that is, between November 2000 and October 2003.95 In the period following Brazil’s initiation of the legal process, cotton became a key issue in WTO agricultural negotiations, but the connection between that development and the legal process is far from clear. Although the final Panel decision on the cotton subsidies complaint was still some way off, it is important to remember that, by the time the July Package was settled on, the parties involved in its negotiation had received the interim and final reports of the Panel.96 In other words, by this stage, the United States would have been aware of the high likelihood of findings by the dispute settlement body that its cotton-related measures violated the relevant WTO agreements. Of course, recourse to the Appellate Body was still possible, but it is not clear to what extent the respondent entertained real hope that the Panel decision would be overruled. Perhaps the most interesting point to be observed is that the great weight of the available commentary during this period seems to focus on the Cotton Initiative, a political negotiating tool used within the context of the WTO trade negotiations, rather than on Brazil’s ongoing case against the United States before the WTO dispute settlement body. This perception that the political initiative rather than the legal process was of overwhelming importance is supported by a memorandum produced by the Assistant Director of the Tanzanian Department of Trade, which, while making no mention of the legal process, concludes that: The primary lesson emerging from the cotton initiative is the power of concerted analysis to enable even small poor countries to take the issues of primary interest to their economies to the center stage in the MTS and to benefit from the rules-based system. Clearly there is advantage to be gained and apparent inherent strength for small countries in focusing on highly specific issues of interest compared to former initiatives that focused on generalities on broad areas concerning the major WTO agreements such as AoA. . . . The Cotton initiative points to the way that LDCs have to travel in adopting such a strategy for enhancing negotiations capacity and building on the outcome to enhance performance on implementation.97

By spring 2005, the legal process had yielded clear results and it is noteworthy that each of the negotiation coalitions referred to above made specific reference to the dispute settlement body’s decision, suggesting that it was regarded as significantly

95

Reports from November 2000 to April 2005 www.agritrade.org/Publications/. The Interim Report was issued on 26 April 2004 and the Final Report was circulated on 8 September 2004. 97 B Lyimo, LDCs and the Agreement on Agriculture: The Cotton Analogy, prepared for Business For Development Initiative, Challenges and Options for Government and Business After the WTO Conference in Cancun Nairobi, Kenya, 30–31 March, 2004. 96

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strengthening the legitimacy of the calls to abolish subsidies that had risen to prominence with the Cotton Initiative. Thus, within the parameters of the hypotheses which are examined in this paper, the US Cotton case and the Doha and associated WTO agriculture negotiations demonstrate the importance of institutional structure. The US Cotton case came to a judicial conclusion because the structure of the dispute settlement body required one, and decisions of the dispute settlement body are generally given weight by those who are bound by them. By contrast, the negotiating framework within which the WTO’s agriculture negotiations—especially in regards to cotton—took place did not provide for the same type of structure, and broke down along the way. Although the WTO agriculture negotiations have not come to fruition, it is important to note that they have been influenced by a changing balance of power among member states. This also reflects a policy shift to fairness in cotton trading for developing states and in the reframing of the issues involved in the negotiations as more than purely economic terms.

FUTURE RESEARCH AGENDA—LIST OF RELEVANT CASES

Many post-Doha cases brought before the WTO dispute settlement body are of similar negotiation relevance across a variety of trade policy areas. The goal of the following discussion is to highlight those dispute settlement cases which can be seen as having importance within the larger framework of the post-Doha negotiations as well as between the parties in the particular disputes. In the agriculture trade policy area, several cases are of note. In Canada Wheat Exports and Grain Imports, the United States, later joined by Australia, Chile, China, Taiwan, the EC, Japan and Mexico, requested consultations with Canada regarding Canadian treatment of domestic and imported wheat.98 Ultimately, both the Panel and Appellate Body issued a limited holding against Canada.99 In the EC Export Subsidies on Sugar dispute, numerous states brought claims against the EC regarding its allotment and subsidisation practices for imported and exported sugar. The Panel and Appellate Body found that the EC had violated provisions of WTO law; however, it was only during the post-Appellate Body decision arbitration that the parties began to engage in fruitful negotiations regarding implementation of the Panel decisions.100 A slightly different variant is provided in the EC Regime for the Importation of Bananas case.101 Here, the charge brought by Panama is that the EC uses a different standard to govern the importation of bananas from ACP and MFN

98 See Canada—Measures Relating to Exports of Wheat and Treatment of Imported Grain (17 December 2002–30 August 2004) WT/DS 276 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/ dispu_e/cases_e/ds276_e.htm. 99 ibid. 100 See European Communities—Export Subsidies on Sugar (14 March 2003—28 October 2005) WT/DS283 – Summary of Disputes, DS 283 www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds283_e. htm. 101 See European Communities—Regime for the Importation of Bananas (22 June 2007) WT/DS364 – Summary of Disputes, DS 364 www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds364_e.htm.

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states.102 Thus, the arguments on both sides centre not only on the fairness of the trade policies at issue per se, but also on the attempts by the EC to incorporate its concepts of justice into its trade policy by providing certain benefits to developing states.103 Finally, another example is US Subsidies and Other Domestic Support for Corn and Other Agricultural Products, in which Canada, joined by several other states, contests US policies regarding corn subsidies and other forms of subsidies.104 The US Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services case, involving issues related to GATS, stemmed from the inability of the parties to implement a previous decision of the dispute settlement body.105 On the other hand, EC Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products demonstrates that, in the post-decision WTO dispute settlement mechanism, the institutional pressure of implementing a decision facilitates negotiation and can break a deadlock.106 A similar conclusion can be reached from the EC Tariff Preferences,107 EC Sardines (which highlighted fishery subsidies),108 and EC Commercial Vessels109 cases. However, later cases, such as EC Trademarks and Geographical Indications, support the idea that the institutional structure of the post-decision WTO dispute settlement body can lead to a negative atmosphere for breaking deadlocks as well.110 Additionally, cases such as US Continued Existence and Application of Zeroing Methodology111 demonstrate an institutional weakness in breaking deadlocks between the parties during the initial consultative period of the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism. It is possible that, where a decision was rendered by the dispute settlement body, these cases played the role of settled jurisprudence and affected the outcome of subsequent negotiations. In some of them, the litigants express an intention to use the dispute settlement process to influence ongoing or future negotiations. For instance, in EC Selected Customs Matters, it was stated

102

ibid. ibid. See United States—Subsidies and Other Domestic Support for Corn and Other Agricultural Products (8 January 2007) WT/DS357 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/ cases_e/ds357_e.htm. 105 See United States—Measures Affecting the Cross–Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services (13 March 2003—21 December 2007) WT/DS285 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/ tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds285_e.htm. 106 See European Communities—Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products (14 May 2003—29 September 2006) WT/DS293 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/ tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds293_e.htm. 107 See European Communities—Conditions for the Granting of Tariff Preferences to Developing Countries (5 March 2002—20 September 2004) WT/DS246 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/ english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds246_e.htm. 108 See European Communities—Trade Description of Sardines (8 November 2004—16 October 2008) WT/DS231 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds321_e.htm. 109 See European Communities—Measures Affecting Trade in Commercial Vessels (3 September 2003—22 April 2005) WT/DS301 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/ cases_e/ds301_e.htm. 110 See European Communities—Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs (17 April 2003—15 March 2005) WT/DS290 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds290_e.htm. 111 See United States—Continued Existence and Application of Zeroing Methodology (2 October 2006—4 February 2009) WT/DS350 – Summary of Dispute www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/ cases_e/ds350_e.htm. 103 104

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that ‘the United States has also not contested that one of its essential motives behind the present case is to influence the Doha Trade Facilitation Negotiations.’112

CONCLUSION

This chapter has examined the relationship between litigation and negotiation in two multilateral institutions—the ICJ and the WTO—and one regional institution—the EU. Through this examination, several trends have emerged. The first trend is that framing issues in litigation and negotiation within the terms of fairness and justice opens the dialogue within the institutional framework. Reframing the ideas of what is at stake and how to judge victory and defeat will also allow the parties and the institutions involved to work towards different, and often less-polarising, goals. The overall importance of the institution as an entity within which litigation and negotiation occur has been demonstrated as critical in the relationship between litigation and negotiation. Balance of power considerations, and the issue of legal uncertainties, are also lessons which can be learned from the studies conducted in this chapter. There are, however, fundamental questions which still remain unanswered and which will be the goal of future work. Such questions include: will WTO disputes be used to shape future Doha negotiations? Which disputes could lead to what strategic outcomes? How might this affect current impasses? What effect would such behaviour have on the future development of the WTO legal regime? Answering these questions may shed light on the present use of international dispute settlement bodies in relation to strategic negotiation processes and furthermore, to the interplay of international public law regimes and states’ interests. Beyond law, the answers to these questions will impact on a wide variety of disciplines and assist in understanding how to break deadlocks. Additionally, this chapter tells us that there is an established link between litigation and negotiation, particularly within the framework of the WTO. Given the impasse which has been reached regarding the conclusion of a concrete settlement to the issues raised in the Doha negotiation rounds, now is the time to consider areas in which sustainable development law could be advanced through the initiation of Doha-related cases at the WTO Dispute Settlement Body level. There are, of course, myriad examples of areas in which such cases could be brought. Some initial suggestions include challenges to agricultural subsidies and other protections on products such as rice—the importance of which was demonstrated during 2008, when rice supplies decreased and some governments were forced to provide food to their otherwise starving citizens. These challenges could take the form of challenges to the tariff and domestic support measures imposed by developed countries on agricultural products and also challenges between developing states regarding tariffs and market access, as this was a key component of the rice scarcity issue. Since the elimination of export subsidies has long been a 112 See European Communities—Selected Customs Matters (adopted 16 June 2006) WT/DS315/R, para 4.396.

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contentious item on the Doha agenda, developing states could also bring cases— preferably in a concerted and coordinated fashion—against those states that steadfastly use export subsidies, in order to at least reframe the debate at future Doha rounds and assert the potential power of developing states acting in concert at both the litigation and negotiation levels. Another area in which the WTO dispute settlement system could be used to promote the achievement of Doha-related issues is anti-dumping and countervailing duties. At the various Doha rounds, a group of predominantly developing and LDC states has advanced the argument that tight controls on anti-dumping and countervailing duties are required in order to create a marketplace in which development of industry—and thus state economy—can fully occur. However, these arguments have not been adopted, and have been countered by the arguments of many developed countries and some LDCs that tighter control of anti-dumping and countervailing duties would harm development. Thus, in order to challenge arguments against tighter control of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, states advocating such controls could bring claims before the WTO dispute settlement body in order to obtain opinions regarding the legality of less restrictive measures under WTO law. While these suggestions are purely illustrative, they do illustrate the powerful potential of litigation as a force for change in the WTO negotiation process.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books MW Gehring and MC Cordonier Segger (ed), Sustainable Development in World Trade Law (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2005). MW Gehring, J Hepburn and MC Cordonier Segger, World Trade Law in Practice (London, Global Business Publishing, 2006). A Stone Sweet (ed), The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004).

Chapter in Edited Volumes R Cichowski, ‘Sex Equality’, in A Stone Sweet (ed), The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). MW Gehring, ‘Environmental Protection’, in A Stone Sweet (ed), The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). M McCown, ‘The Free Movement of Goods’, in A Stone Sweet (ed), The Judicial Construction of Europe (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004).

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Journal Articles DT Blackmore, ‘Eradicating the Long Standing Existence of a No-Precedent Rule in International Trade Law—Loooking Toward Stare Decisis in WTO Dispute Settlement’ (2004) 29 North Carolina Journal of International Law & Commercial Regulation 487–519. K van der Borght, ‘The Review of the WTO Understanding on Dispute Settlement : Some Reflections on the Current Debate’ (1999) 14 American University International Law Review 1223–43. MW Gehring and MC Cordonier Segger, ‘The WTO Asbestos Case and Precaution: Sustainable Development Implications of the WTO Asbestos Dispute’ (2003) 15 Oxford Journal of Environmental Law 289–321. RE Hudec, ‘The New WTO Dispute Settlement Procedure: An Overview of the First Three Years’ (1999) 8 Minnesota Journal on Global Trade 1–53. JH Jackson, ‘International Law Status of WTO Dispute Reports: Obligation to Comply or Option to “Buy Out”?’ (2004) 98 American Journal of International Law 109–23. K Leitner and S Lester, ‘WTO Dispute Settlement 1995–2006, A Statistical Analysis’ (2007) 10 Journal of International Economic Law 165–79. RH Steinberg, ‘Judicial Lawmaking at the WTO: Discursive, Constitutional and Political Constraints’ (2004) 98 American Journal of International Law 247– 75. AW Wolff, ‘Article and Response: Problems with WTO Dispute Settlement’ (2001) 2 Chicago Journal of International Law 417–26.

Website Sources International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, ‘WTO Panels Confirm Victory for Brazil in Cotton, Sugar Cases’, (2004) 8 Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/7458/. International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, ‘WTO Members Adopt Panel and Appellate Body Decisions in Cotton Dispute’, (2005) 9 Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/6092/. International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Doha Round Briefing Series ‘Developments Since the Cancun Ministerial Conference – Agriculture’ (December 2004) http://ictsd.net/downloads/2008/06/v3_02.pdf 4.

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Le Droit International Post-Sovietique en Quête de son Identité dans un Monde Hétérogène RIMA TKATOVA *

INTRODUCTION

Q

UE SERA LE droit international du XXIe siècle?—s’interrogeait Prosper Weil dans son célèbre cours Le droit international en quête de son identité donné à l’Académie de la Haye.1 Après un siècle du droit international dans un monde divisé,2 de nouvelles perspectives, semble-t-il, se dessinent pour le monde actuel qui reste néanmoins profondément hétérogène. Il est incontestable que la doctrine soviétique de droit international marqua la division du monde au XXe siècle, et par conséquent le démembrement de l’URSS suscita la révision de l’ordre mondial, la recherche de nouveaux équilibres et de nouvelles doctrines en droit international. Dans les écrits abondants de l’après-guerre froide, certains auteurs parlent du droit international dans un monde déséquilibré ou en mutation,3 ou encore du droit international à l’ère de la transition historique,4 d’autres du droit international de co-progressivité,5 du droit international providence6 et du droit international dans une perspective transcivilisationnelle.7

* Doctorante au CDI de l’Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. 1 P Weil, ‘Le droit international en quête de son identité. Cours général de droit international public’ (1992) 237 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 11–370. 2 Le droit international de la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle a été marqué par la conception du monde divisé: OJ Lissitzyn, ‘Le droit international dans un monde divisé’ (1965) 69 Revue général de droit international public 917–76.; R Higgins, Conflict of interests: international law in a divided world (London, The Bodley Head, 1965); A Cassese, Le droit international dans un monde divisé (Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1986); II Dore, International law and the superpowers: normative order in a divided world (New Brunswick, NJ Rutgers University Press, 1984). 3 M Saˇhovic´ , ‘Le droit international dans un monde déséquilibré’ dans M Rama-Montaldo (éd), El derecho internacional en un mundo en transformación: liber amicorum en homenaje al profesor Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, tome 1 (Montevideo: Fundación de cultura Universitaria, 1994) 165–72. 4 E McWinney, ‘Shifting paradigms of international law and world order in an era of historical transition’ dans S Yee et T Wang (éds) International law in the post-Cold War world: essays in memory of Li Haopei (Routledge, London, 2001) 3–17. 5 S Yee, ‘Towards a Harmonious World: the Role of the International Law of Co-Progressiveness and Leader States’ (2008) 7 Chinese Journal of International Law 99–105. 6 E Jouannet, ‘A quoi sert le droit international? Le droit international providence du XXIe siècle’ (2007) 40 Revue belge de droit international 5–51. 7 Y Onuma, ‘A Transcivilizational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the Twenty-first Century: a Way to Overcome West-centric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thoughts’ (2006) 8 International Community Law Review 29–63.

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Dans l’espace post-soviétique, la question de la succession d’États issus de l’URSS étant résolue8 et le processus de la reconnaissance par la communauté internationale étant effectué,9 le droit international dans cet espace se trouva, pour paraphraser Prosper Weil, en quête de son identité.10 Cette quête aussi progressive que douloureuse oscille entre l’application par ‘inertie’ de la conception soviétique du droit international et les difficultés de l’adaptation des modèles occidentaux. À l’heure de la démocratisation, de l’internationalisation des droits de l’homme et de l’hégémonie de l’État de droit,11 chacun des douze États composant l’espace de la Communauté des États indépendants construit son avenir sur la scène internationale. Dans la recherche de leur propre chemin, ces derniers se sont d’abord précipités afin d’entrer dans le camp des démocraties occidentales par l’intermédiaire des organisations internationales comme le Conseil de l’Europe et l’OSCE. Ces États ont également introduit la notion de l’État de droit dans leurs Constitutions montrant que le juridique prime désormais sur le politique. Dans la pratique des États post-soviétiques, on découvre la volonté d’agir et de se comporter différemment, laissant penser à la possibilité de naissance d’une nouvelle doctrine, sinon à la rénovation des anciens principes. Sans écarter l’interdépendance entre le juridique et le politique dans le droit international hérité de l’ancien régime, on est en mesure de constater que ce droit international n’est plus le même qu’à l’époque de l’URSS. C’est sur le changement de la tradition soviétique de droit international que l’on porte toute notre attention en s’interrogeant sur sa nature et son intensité. Peut-on prétendre que le droit international des États post-soviétiques constitue un phénomène complètement nouveau? Le fantôme de l’URSS n’est-il toujours pas présent dans les pratiques respectives de ces États? Parle-t-on de renouvellement, de rupture ou de continuité? Pour répondre à ces questions, il serait judicieux de s’adresser tout d’abord au passé afin de comprendre les particularités historiques du développement du droit international dans l’espace post-soviétique. Dans un deuxième temps, on se penchera sur le renouvellement du droit international dans l’espace post-soviétique dans un monde hétérogène.

8 cf une thèse intéressante à cet égard de H Hamant, Démembrement de l’URSS et problèmes de succession d’États (Bruxelles, Bruylant et Édition de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2007) ainsi que M Bothe et C Schmidt, ‘Sur quelques questions de succession posées par la dissolution de l’URSS et celle de la Yougoslavie’ (1992) 96 Revue général de droit international public 811–42; M Koskenniemi et M Lehto, ‘La succession d’États dans l’ex-URSS, en ce qui concerne particulièrement les relations avec la Finlande’ (1992) 38 Annuaire Français de Droit International 179–219. 9 J Charpentier, ‘Les déclarations des Douze sur la reconnaissance des nouveaux États’ (1992) 96 Revue général de droit international public 343–55; J Salmon, ‘Reconnaissance d’États’ (1992) 25 Revue belge de droit international 226–39. 10 On prend en compte ici les douze États post-soviétiques faisant partie de la Communauté des États indépendants, les États baltes restant hors notre analyse. 11 cf R Tkatova, ‘Les particularités du développement de l’État de droit dans la Communauté des États indépendants’ dans Société française pour le droit international (SFDI) (éd), L’État de droit en droit international, colloque de Bruxelles, 5, 6 et 7 juin 2008 (Paris, Pedone, 2009).

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LES PARTICULARITES HISTORIQUES DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DU DROIT INTERNATIONAL DANS L’ESPACE POST-SOVIETIQUE

Afin de comprendre la spécificité du droit international tel qu’il s’est développé dans l’espace post-soviétique, il faut se rapporter aux conditions de son émergence à l’époque de l’Empire russe, pour ensuite cerner les particularités du développement d’une doctrine soviétique de droit international en tant que doctrine à part dans un monde divisé.

L’émergence du droit international dans l’Empire russe Il est généralement admis que le droit international est apparu en Russie à l’époque du règne de Pierre le Grand12 quand les premiers traités russes dans le domaine du droit de la guerre et de la paix furent signés lors de la guerre du Nord (1700–1721).13 Quant à la science du droit international, l’école allemande du droit naturel eut une grande influence en Russie, le droit international fut enseigné initialement en allemand à l’Académie des sciences fondée par Pierre le Grand en 1725 et à l’Université germanique de Dorpat,14 l’établissement le plus renommé de l’époque. Le premier ouvrage dans le domaine du droit international en langue russe, bien que de caractère non officiel, fut écrit en 1716 par le diplomate de Pierre le Grand, P.P. Chafirov, intitulé Rassuzhdenie o pritchinakh voïny (Le traité sur les 12 Pierre le Grand désirant surmonter l’arriération économique, technologique, militaire, culturelle et juridique de la Russie, a joué un grand rôle dans la modernisation de l’organisation étatique russe à l’époque d’une administration chaotique et obsolète. La réforme territoriale, la création du Sénat, l’instauration de la fonction du Procureur général — toutes ces innovations, bien que renforçant l’absolutisme, donnaient un caractère ordonné à l’État russe. Cela étant, Pierre le Grand emprunta l’expérience de plusieurs pays européens, en enrichissant le droit russe, dont le développement était influencé tout au long de l’existence de l’Empire russe par le droit byzantin, romain, tatar, polonais, suédois, allemand, français, italien, danois, lithuanien; WE Butler, Russian law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) 14; VS Nersesânc, ‘Konstitucionnaya model’ rossijskoj pravovoj gosudarstvennosti: opyt prochlogo, problemy i perspektivy’ (‘Le modèle constitutionnel de l’organisation étatique juridique russe’) dans NII pravovoi politiki I problem pravoprimeneniya (éd), Pravovoe gosudarstvo, litchnost, zakonnost (L’État de droit, l’individu, la légalité) (Moscou, 1997) 4. 13 M Lebedev, De l’évolution de la doctrine soviétique et russe de droit international public (thèse de doctorat, Université Paris I, 2004) 40; Toutefois, certains auteurs estiment que le droit international apparut en Russie bien avant, à l’époque de la formation de l’État russe (IXe–Xe siècles). C’est ainsi que l’auteur russe Michel de Taube affirme qu’avant même la création de la Russie unie, les principautés indépendantes la composant concluaient déjà plusieurs traités internationaux aussi bien avec des États étrangers (Grèce, Byzance), qu’entre elles. Il est intéressant de noter que Taube était frappé par l’indifférence des auteurs occidentaux à l’égard de l’histoire internationale des peuples slaves, qui d’après Hegel restaient exclus de toute analyse ‘parce qu’ils ne forment qu’un phénomène intermédiaire entre l’esprit européen et l’esprit asiatique’; M de Taube, ‘Études sur le développement historique du droit international dans l’Europe orientale’ (1926) 11 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 341, 346; Un autre internationaliste éminent VE Grabar considère que ce n’est que vers le XVe siècle que le droit international émergea en Russie avec l’élaboration du Règlement militaire dans les années 20 du XVe siècle, l’apparition de la doctrine de Maxime Grek et du traité politique de Yurii Krijanitch et la création de Posol’skii prikaz (le département d’ambassadeur); VE Grabar, Materialy k istorii literatury meždunarodnogo prava v Rossii (Documentation se rapportant à l’histoire de la littérature de droit international en Russie) (Moscou, Izd–vo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1958). 14 K Grzybowski, Soviet public international law: Doctrines and diplomatic practice (Leyden, AW Sijthoff, 1970) 1.

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raisons de la guerre), portant sur certains aspects du droit international dans la guerre avec la Suède.15 Toutefois, on ne peut pas parler d’existence du droit international russe à cette époque, tant il était imprégné de la conception européenne du droit international, étudiée de surcroît dans la langue d’origine. Seuls un petit nombre de travaux furent traduits en russe au XVIIIe siècle: De jure belli ac pacis de Grotius et Juris naturae et gentium de Puffendorf,16 Systema elemantare universae iurisprudentiae naturalis de Netteldlandt, le Projet de paix perpétuelle de l’Abbé de Sainte Pierre de Jean Jacques Rousseau,17 les œuvres de Vattel restant inconnues au public ne maniant pas la langue française jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle.18 L’enseignement du droit international fut introduit dans les universités russes par le Statut universitaire de 1804 sous le nom de ‘droit des gens’, divisé en droit naturel et droit positif. Cela étant, seul le droit naturel était perçu comme le droit universel, le droit positif étant défini par les traités. La matière fut ensuite renommée en ‘droit international’ par le Statut de 1863.19 On peut supposer que la naissance véritable du droit international en Russie se situe au milieu du XIXe siècle quand un grand nombre d’ouvrages apparaît en russe, tels que le premier manuel russe intitulé ‘Cours de droit international’ du professeur DI Katchenovski (1863), suivi par les cours de MN Kapoustine, LA Kamarovski, II Ivanovskii, SA Kotlyarevski, NM Korkunov Néanmoins, le premier internationaliste russe qui acquiert une renommée européenne et laisse une trace dans l’histoire russe de droit international fut FF Martens. En 1882, il publia son cours monumental intitulé Le droit international moderne des nations civilisées qui fut traduit en allemand, français et espagnol.20 Martens fut un architecte majeur21 dans le processus de codification du droit international lors de la Conférence de la paix de La Haye de 1899—la fameuse clause de Martens22 reste à ce jour ancrée dans l’histoire du droit international humanitaire. Martens, étant un ‘prooccidental’ par excellence, affirmait que le droit international était un projet de l’Europe occidentale des nations ‘civilisées’ auxquelles la Russie, d’après Martens, appartenait.23 En effet, le discours juridique des internationalistes russes à cette époque était imprégné par le concept des ‘peuples civilisés’, décrits le plus souvent

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Grabar, Materialy k istorii literatury mezhdunarodnogo prava v Rossii, (n 13) 70–75. Ces traductions de Grotius et Puffendorf n’ont jamais été publiées, restant à l’état de manuscrits. 17 Grabar (n 13) 110–13. 18 L Mälksoo, ‘The History of International Legal Theory in Russia: a Civilizational Dialogue with Europe’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 211, 219. 19 Lebedev, De l’évolution de la doctrine soviétique et russe de droit international public (n 13) 41. 20 ibid, 42. 21 VV Pustogarov et WE Butler (éd et translateur), Our Martens: F.F. Martens, international lawyer and architect of peace (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2000). 22 Cette clause contient une référence explicite au droit coutumier de la guerre, d’après laquelle il doit être fait appel à la coutume pour compléter le cas échéant, les règles écrites. Dans son avis consultatif sur la Licéité de l’utilisation des armes nucléaires par un État dans un conflit armé (avis consultatif) [1996] CIJ Rec 66 la CIJ a confirmé que la clause Martens reste un principe valide du droit international; E Myles, ‘L’«humanité», la «civilisation» et la «communauté internationale» dans la perspective de la fin du régime impérial russe: trois concepts «si pertinents de nos jours»’ (2004) 50 Annuaire Français de Droit International 24, 31. 23 FF Martens et VA De Tomsinov (éd), Sovremennoe meždunarodnoe pravo civilizovannyh narodov (Le droit international moderne des nations civilisées), tome 1 (Moskva, Zertsalo, 2008) partie III; Après la mort de Martens, un grand nombre de juristes suivirent son chemin: MA Taube, le successeur de 16

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comme les peuples européens et les États fondés sur la règle de droit24 qui respectent leurs obligations internationales. Il faut noter que tous les débats intellectuels russes de cette époque étaient marqués par l’antagonisme slavyanofily—zapadniki (slavophiles—pro-occidentaux), presque tous les internationalistes appartenant au camp des pro-occidentaux à l’exception de Nezabitovski, Kazanski, Danilevski. Le thème central du dialogue entre les slavophiles et les pro-occidentaux fut le rôle et le destin historique de la Russie dans le monde, ainsi que la place spécifique et particulière qu’elle occupe entre le monde occidental et oriental.25 C’est ainsi que le philosophe russe NA Berdyaev, auteur de L’idée russe et Les sources et le sens du communisme russe, expliqua ce particularisme: ‘La contradiction de l’âme russe fut conditionnée par la collision des éléments oriental et occidental, du paganisme primitif, de la spontanéité et l’infini de la terre russe et de l’ascétisme orthodoxe’.26 Ainsi, malgré le fait que l’Empire russe fut un État autocratique, sa doctrine du droit international et sa vision des rapports au sein de la communauté internationale furent paradoxalement profondément libérales et humanistes. On peut en partie expliquer cet élan par le ‘messianisme orthodoxe’ de la ‘Sainte Russie’, sa volonté d’incarner sa vision d’un ordre international harmonieux et de paix universelle. Si, théoriquement, la doctrine russe de droit international n’a pas apporté de grandes nouveautés, la Russie a grandement contribué dans le domaine pratique de la codification et l’élaboration du droit international: c’est à l’instigation de la Russie qu’un certain nombre d’États signèrent en 1868 la Déclaration de Saint-Pétersbourg interdisant les armes qui causeraient des souffrances humaines excessives, c’est également à l’initiative du tsar Nicolas II que la Conférence internationale de la paix fut convoquée en 1899 à La Haye, et c’est encore sur la proposition de FF

Martens à la chaire de droit international de l’Université de Saint-Pétersbourg, BE Nolde, professeur à l’Université polytechnique de Saint-Pétersbourg, FF Vitte, VE Grabar et d’autres; Grabar, (n 13) 365–69. 24 A la fin du XIXe siècle, le terme ‘État gouverné par le droit’ (pravovoe gosudarstvo) apparaît en Russie, importé d’Allemagne et traduit littéralement du terme allemand Rechtsstaat et les premiers travaux des juristes allemands sur le Rechtsstaat ont été traduits en russe dans la période de 1860 à 1870. Le terme pravovoe gosudarstvo n’apparaît dans les travaux des juristes russes que vers 1880, c’est le grand publiciste AS Alekseev qui présente ce concept d’une manière plus systématique lors de ses cours à l’Université de Moscou en 1883–1884; H Oda, ‘The Emergence of Pravovoe Gosudarstvo (Rechtsstaat) in Russia’ (1999) 25 Review of Central and East European Law 373, 384. Un certain nombre de juristes russes tant publicistes qu’internationalistes se sont penchés sur l’analyse de la notion de pravovoe gosudarstvo: NN Alekseev, NA Berdyaev, GF Cherchenevitch, VM Gessen, NI Kareev, BA Kistyakovskii, NM Korkunov, PI Novgorodtsev, LI Petrajitskii, BN Tchitcherin et d’autres; SF Udarcev, ‘Pravovoe gosudarstvo smyslovye grani doktriny (iz istorii filosofii prava)’ (‘L’État de droit: les facettes sémantiques de la doctrine [de l’histoire de la philosophie de droit]’) (2001) 9 Naucˇ nye trudy ‘Adilet’ (Les travaux scientifiques ‘Adilet’) 21–31. 25 WE Butler, Russian law (n 12) 58–59. Cet antagonisme très caractéristique à la Russie fut inauguré par Petr Chaadaev, le philosophe libéral russe du XIXe siècle qui prônait la fin du séparatisme russe de l’Église catholique et la réunification avec l’Europe estimant que l’arriération de la Russie était liée à son appartenance au monde byzantin; P Chaadaev, Filosoficˇ eskie pis’ma (Les lettres philosophiques) (1829–1831), www.vehi.net/chaadaev. 26 NA Berdyaev, Istoki i smysl russkogo kommunizma (Les sources et le sens du communisme russe) (Paris, YMCA–Press, 1955), disponible sur www.vehi.net/berdyaev. ‘Le peuple russe est un peuple oriental par la structure de son âme’, disait Berdyaev. ‘La Russie est un Orient chrétien, qui au cours de 200 ans était exposé à la forte influence de l’Occident et dans la couche superficielle de sa culture a assimilé toutes les idées occidentales’.

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Martens que la Convention concernant les lois et coutumes de la guerre sur terre comportant la célèbre ‘clause de Martens’ fut adoptée lors de la deuxième Conférence à La Haye en 1907.

Le droit international soviétique: une doctrine à part dans un monde divisé L’arrivée du régime communiste tant rêvé par Berdyaev a quelque peu changé le visage de la doctrine russe du droit international. Beaucoup de juristes remarquables ont émigré à l’étranger car, dans la majorité des cas, les chaires universitaires où ils travaillaient furent abolies par les bolcheviks, c’est le cas de BS MirkineGuetzevitch, BE Nolde, NN Alekseev, L Baïkov, AM Gorovtsev, IuV Klyutchnikov, VA Ovtchinnikov, MA Taube, AN Mandelchtam, PG Vinogradoff et d’autres.27 En période de transition dans les années 20 du XXe siècle, le droit international se trouve au cœur de la période la plus perturbée de l’édification du système soviétique quand les observateurs insistent sur la fragilité du nouvel État soviétique et l’improbabilité de sa survie. A cette époque, les internationalistes soviétiques fondent le droit international sur l’équilibre entre la puissance de l’URSS et celle des États capitalistes et attendent le dépérissement inévitable de l’État.28 Ainsi, pour EA Korovine, internationaliste de l’époque transitoire, ‘le droit international de la période de transition n’est pas seulement un droit provisoire, mais il est un droit de compromis, il emprunte à la fois au droit traditionnel et à des sources nouvelles; il est un lien non seulement entre passé et futur, mais entre deux systèmes actuellement coexistants’.29 EB Pašukanis,30 le premier critique de Korovine, modifie la

27 WE Butler, ‘Russian International Lawyers in Emigration: the First Generation’ (2001) 3 Journal of the History of International Law 235–41. 28 Ce sont les idées de deux internationalistes reconnus à l’époque: AE Korovine et EB Pachoukanis. L’auteur russe émigré Mirkine-Guetzevitch caractérise le droit soviétique en ces termes: ‘les formes du droit soviétique excellent en monstruosités morales et frappent par leur imperfection technique …, le droit et la jurisprudence soviétiques sont basés sur une logique juridique toute différente [de la logique européenne]. … L’idée de la valeur intrinsèque du droit est entièrement étrangère au régime des Soviets. En Russie soviétique, il n’a qu’une valeur «instrumentale», subordonnée et technique’; BS MirkineGuetzevitch, ‘La doctrine soviétique du droit international’ (1925) 32 Revue général de droit international public 313, 313–14. Il faut dire qu’après la Révolution d’octobre, le gouvernement révolutionnaire n’a été lié par aucune loi, car toutes les lois de l’époque tsariste furent abolies et, en attendant le dépérissement de l’État, la dictature du prolétariat fut instaurée. Cette volonté d’aboutir au dépérissement de l’État a contribué à la négation des véritables normes et institutions juridiques étatiques qui étaient remplacées par les prikaznye akty (actes ayant le caractère d’injonction) et par les institutions punitives. La nouvelle organisation étatique a reçu le nom de ‘système de commandement administratif’. Le rôle dirigeant du Parti communiste excluait toute possibilité de séparation des pouvoirs et le nihilisme juridique traditionnel d’avant la Révolution s’est renforcé amenant à ‘l’annihilation communiste du droit’; VS Nersesânc, Konstitucionnaya model’ rossijskoi pravovoi gosudarstvennosti: opyt prochlogo, problemy i perspektivy (n 12) 19. 29 J-Y Calvez, Droit international et souveraineté en URSS (Paris, Armand Colin, 1953) 89; Voir également E Korovine, ‘La République des Soviets et le droit international’ (1925) 32 Revue général de droit international public 292 et seq. 30 Pašukanis fut le commissaire du Peuple Adjoint à la Justice de l’URSS à partir de 1936. Présumé être ‘l’ennemi du peuple‘ il fut fusillé à l’époque des purges staliniennes en 1937.

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théorie du compromis en théorie de la lutte des classes en faisant du droit international l’une des formes de la lutte des deux systèmes.31 La pratique de l’État soviétique fut, toutefois, plus ambiguë que les théories des juristes. Malgré ses conceptions radicales rejetant l’organisation étatique de la société et les rapports de territorialité et de nationalité dans l’espoir de la révolution universelle sans frontières, l’Union soviétique fut néanmoins contrainte d’avoir des contacts avec le reste du monde. Mais, au lieu d’être un droit interétatique, le droit international soviétique de première heure fut une sorte de ‘droit entre systèmes‘, se limitant aux relations économiques et sociales. De surcroît, l’État n’étant plus un sujet de droit aux yeux des auteurs soviétiques, ces derniers cherchent à substituer les relations entre classes internationales aux relations entre États nationaux.32 Cependant, cette attitude ne fut pas partagée par d’autres États et l’URSS se trouva isolée, accentuant cet isolement par le mépris de la reconnaissance des États et par l’évocation de la situation particulière d’une nation socialiste.33 Les relations internationales entre l’Union soviétique et le reste du monde commencèrent à se normaliser lors de la création officielle, le 30 décembre 1922, de l’Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques.34 Du temps où l’URSS n’était pas encore membre de la Société des Nations, la doctrine soviétique avait une attitude négative à l’égard de celle-ci. Lorsqu’en septembre 1934, l’Union soviétique fut admise dans cette organisation, la doctrine changea son attitude avant de revenir à ses anciennes positions après l’exclusion de l’URSS de cette dernière en 1939. Ainsi Korovine écrivait en 1924: On connaît cette position négative de principe qui, dès le début, a été adoptée par le gouvernement de la RSFSR à l’égard de la Société transformée par la volonté de ses créateurs en une coalition conservatrice-réactionnaire des États vainqueurs de la guerre mondiale et de leurs satellites politiques.35

31 EB Pašukanis, Ocˇ erki po meždunarodnomu pravu (Les essais de droit international) (Moskva, Gosizdat, 1935) 14. 32 Ainsi, le 16 décembre 1917, Trotzky, commissaire du peuple aux affaires étrangères, s’adresse aux Travailleurs d’Europe sans passer par la voie diplomatique pour les inviter à lutter pour la cessation de la guerre; Calvez, Droit international et souveraineté en URSS (n 29) 9. 33 En même temps, l’Union soviétique soutient tous les mouvements de libération nationale dans les diverses parties du monde: elle reconnaît le véritable gouvernement du ‘peuple’ turc dans la Turquie de Khemal, signe le premier traité avec l’Afghanistan et son mouvement national, soutient le Kouo Ming Tang chinois; Calvez (n 29) 10. Malgré son isolement, l’Union soviétique admit la participation à l’activité de la Commission des Épidémies de la Société des Nations, ne voulant pas toutefois dépasser la coopération technique. L’État bolchevik se trouva également obligé de signer avec les puissances centrales les Traités de Paix de 1918, ainsi que de nombreux traités sur l’échange des prisonniers de guerre et la délimitation des frontières. Ainsi, les premiers traités d’après–guerre furent conclus par l’URSS en 1918 avec la Suède et le Danemark concernant le commerce et le crédit; JN Hazard ‘Soviet Republics in International Law’ dans R Bernhardt (éd), Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Vol 4 (Amsterdam, North–Holland Elsevier, 2000) 525, 526. 34 Issu du traité réunissant la République socialiste fédérative soviétique de Russie et les trois républiques d’Ukraine, de Biélorussie et de Transcaucasie, l’URSS subit plusieurs remaniements territoriaux. Ainsi, entre 1924 et 1929, il y eut la scission de la Transcaucasie en trois républiques (Arménie, Géorgie et Azerbaïdjan) et la formation des républiques de l’Asie centrale (Kazakhstan, Ouzbékistan, Kirghizstan, Turkménistan et Tadjikistan). 35 Cité dans I Lapenna, Conceptions soviétiques de droit international public (Paris, Pedone, 1954) 285–86.

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A l’époque stalinienne, le droit international soviétique subit des changements en devenant de plus en plus influencé par la politique étrangère de l’URSS. Il est important de noter que la Seconde Guerre mondiale a joué un rôle très important dans la transformation du droit international soviétique: pour renforcer son statut sur la scène internationale et ne pas se trouver complètement isolée face à la menace fasciste, l’Union soviétique s’est vue obligée d’accepter les règles du droit international. Cela étant, comme l’a remarqué le juriste soviétique Vyshinski36 dans le rapport à la Deuxième Conférence de la science juridique soviétique (16–19 juillet 1938), ce n’était pas toutes les règles du droit international qui étaient obligatoires pour l’URSS mais seulement celles que l’Union soviétique avait reconnues.37 Vyshinski rejetait définitivement la force supérieure du droit international sur l’ordre interne. ‘La théorie du primat du droit international’, disait-il, ‘présuppose le rejet de l’idée de la souveraineté des États’.38 ‘on ne peut admettre que le droit international soit en quelque manière le fondement du droit national’. Ainsi, Vyshinski se montra moniste insistant sur le primat du droit national, qui n’est rien d’autre que le primat de la politique, car le droit et la politique ne sont pas séparés à l’intérieur de l’État. Tous les auteurs de cette période étaient conscients de l’importance de la coexistence obligée de deux sociétés hostiles: capitaliste et socialiste.39 C’est pourquoi les auteurs soviétiques admettent à l’époque d’après-guerre qu’il n’existe pas deux systèmes de droit international, mais seulement des tendances différentes au sein d’un seul et unique droit international,40 dans lequel l’URSS a même introduit certains éléments nouveaux. Au sujet de ces nouveaux éléments, SB Krylov évoqua le fait qu’ ‘à partir de 1917, avec l’apparition de l’URSS en qualité de sujet du droit international, l’ancien droit international a perdu de son caractère absolu, et le nouvel État socialiste a provoqué et provoque toujours la formation d’une série de normes nouvelles dans le droit international, reflétant les principes du droit soviétique reconnus par les États bourgeois’.41 En effet, la tâche principale de la doctrine soviétique du droit international, conformément aux principes de la politique internationale lénino-stalinienne, était de rejeter et de critiquer tous les concepts du droit international qui étaient contraires à la politique de l’URSS. C’est ainsi que le droit international est devenu

36 Vyšynskij Andrej Ânuar’evicˇ (1883–1954), juriste soviétique, membre de l’Académie des sciences de l’URSS, Ministre des affaires étrangères de 1949–1953, représentant permanent de l’Union soviétique auprès de l’ONU à partir de 1953. 37 En effet, l’Union soviétique ne reconnaissait pas certaines institutions de droit international, tels que les traités inégaux, les capitulations, mais en acceptait certaines autres (le droit diplomatique et consulaire, le droit des traités internationaux, le droit du désarmement et la sécurité collective). 38 Reproduit dans J-Y Calvez, ‘L’influence des conceptions soviétiques du droit des gens sur la politique étrangère de l’Union soviétique’ (1954) dans Association française de Science Politique et J–B Duroselle (éds) La politique étrangère et ses fondements (Paris, Librairie Armand Collin) 291, 306. 39 De plus, le feu vert leur a été donné par l’attitude de Staline, qui a évoqué la possibilité et même la nécessité de l’existence de ‘certains liens entre le système du socialisme et celui du capitalisme’. 40 Lebedev, (n 13) 111. 41 S Krylov, ‘Les notions principales du droit des gens. La doctrine soviétique du droit international’ (1947) 70 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 407, 432–33. Krylov Serguej Borisovicˇ (1888–1958) fut un juriste soviétique, délégué de l’URSS aux Conférences de Dumbarton Oaks (1944) et de San Francisco (1945) et juge de la Cour internationale de Justice de 1946 à 1952.

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l’instrument de la politique soviétique.42 La vision soviétique du droit international de l’époque stalinienne peut être résumée en ces termes utilisés par Kojevnikov: ‘parmi les institutions du droit international, l’URSS reconnaît et applique celles des règles qui lui servent à atteindre ses buts et rejette celles qui, de quelque manière, font obstacle à cette tâche’.43 Même en devenant membre de l’ONU, l’URSS le fit non par conviction mais par accommodement44—Staline, n’étant pas sûr que la sécurité de l’Union soviétique soit assurée par les Nations Unies, se préoccupa plutôt d’empêcher la formation d’une coalition anti-soviétique au sein de cette organisation. Les questions de la paix et la sécurité internationales, ainsi que de la souveraineté et l’égalité des États, furent considérées par Staline comme une œuvre essentielle de l’URSS et la consécration internationale du Décret sur la paix lancé par Lénine en 1917. Par conséquent, l’empreinte des conceptions soviétiques apparaît dans diverses déclarations des grandes puissances qui fixent les principes fondamentaux de l’ONU (Déclaration de Moscou du 30 novembre 1943, de Téhéran de décembre 1943, Conférences de Dumbarton Oaks et de Yalta d’août/septembre 1944 et février 1945, Conférence de San Francisco de juin 1945). La Charte des Nations Unies à l’élaboration de laquelle l’Union soviétique prit une part déterminante, est entrée en vigueur le 24 octobre 1945, après ratification par la majorité des signataires, dont l’URSS.45 Dès la première session des Nations Unies en janvier 1946, la bipolarité du système international s’est manifestée, commençant par l’antagonisme de l’URSS et des États-Unis sur la question de l’occupation soviétique des provinces du Nord de l’Iran. Durant l’époque stalinienne, l’URSS pratiqua systématiquement la diplomatie de blocage à l’ONU: le droit de veto est utilisé une douzaine de fois, les efforts des Nations Unies pour mener les opérations dans les pays de l’Europe de l’Est sont paralysés, toutes les constatations de violation des droits de l’homme sont démenties comme de la propagande de l’Occident. Tout en soutenant les principes de souveraineté et d’égalité des États, l’URSS annonce en 1950 un boycott du Conseil de sécurité et de tous les autres organes des Nations Unies se proclamant contre la non-représentation du gouvernement de Mao Tsé-Toung au siège de la Chine à

42 ‘Politique et droit qui sont intimement liées à l’intérieur de l’État, présentent la même cohérence dans les relations extérieures. Aux théories moniste et dualiste traditionnelles, l’URSS oppose ainsi à la fois le primat de la politique sur le droit et son corollaire immédiat, la soumission du droit international au droit interne’; Lebedev (n 13) 112. 43 Reproduit dans Lissitzyn, Le droit international dans un monde divisé (n 2) 929. 44 Selon les termes utilisés par AZ Rubinstein dans ‘Moscow’s Diplomacy in International Organisations‘ dans R Clark, F Feldbrugge et S Pomorski (éds) International and National Law in Russia and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of George Ginsbourgs (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 2001) 341: ‘The Soviet Union became a founding member of the United Nations as an act of accommodation, not conviction’. 45 Les Républiques socialistes soviétiques de Biélorussie et d’Ukraine sont aussi membres des Nations Unies à la suite du principe adopté lors de la Conférence de Yalta et consistant en une réduction de l’écart entre la puissance réelle de l’URSS et sa faiblesse juridique relative au sein des Nations Unies; R Charvin, Les États socialistes aux Nations Unies (Paris, Armand Colin, 1970) 13.

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l’ONU, et contre la nécessité d’organiser la riposte militaire à l’agression Nordcoréenne en Corée du Sud.46 C’est l’époque de la guerre froide47 qui durera jusqu’à 1962, se traduisant: par une situation intermédiaire entre la paix véritable, qui fait que l’on se sent en sécurité, et la guerre chaude, celle au cours de laquelle parlent les armes; elle est caractérisée par la peur, la tension permanente entre les blocs qui fait que nul ne se sent durablement en paix.48

Concernant l’attitude soviétique à l’égard du règlement juridictionnel des différends, cette dernière y a toujours été hostile, maintenant, en effet, son attitude négative de principe à l’égard de l’arbitrage en général.49 Bien que l’Union soviétique soit partie au Statut de la Cour internationale de Justice et qu’un juge soviétique fasse toujours partie de la Cour, la diplomatie soviétique a toujours soutenu que la compétence de la Cour devait être limitée par certains cadres. Cette position est bien illustrée par Korovine, écrivant à propos de l’avis consultatif de la Cour du 30 mars 1950 que: ni les principes universellement reconnus de droit international, ni les principes de la légalité internationale ne sont obligatoires pour la conscience «marshallisée» de la plupart des juges de La Haye . . . Nous sommes en présence d’un nouvel acte arbitraire du bloc anglo-américain qui, d’organe appelé à être le gardien de la légalité internationale, transforme la Cour internationale de Justice en arme de la «guerre froide» contre l’Union soviétique et les pays de démocratie populaire.50

La diplomatie soviétique se construisait autour d’une affirmation telle que ‘l’incompatibilité entre les systèmes politiques, économiques et sociaux en présence, était telle qu’il ne pouvait pas y avoir de juge réellement impartial dans un monde divisé.’51 Ce n’est qu’après le XXe congrès du Parti communiste soviétique en 1956, que le nouveau dirigeant de l’URSS Nikita Khrouchtchev annonça un changement de la politique intérieure en lançant la déstalinisation, ainsi qu’un changement de la politique extérieure en proclamant la coexistence pacifique.52 Ce changement 46 Finalement, la résolution 82 du 25 juin 1950 demandant la cessation des hostilités et le retrait des troupes nord-coréennes a été adopté grâce à neuf votes favorables et une abstention (celle de la Yougoslavie), l’absence de l’URSS étant assimilée à une abstention. 47 Cold war, l’expression utilisée pour la première fois en 1947 par le politologue américain Walter Lippmann. 48 J Tercinet, Relations internationales — Tome 1 La scène internationale contemporaine (Grenoble, Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2006) 57. 49 Ainsi, Korovine écrit en 1924: ‘La Russie soviétique est l’ennemie systématique de l’arbitrage; elle n’en accepte l’application qu’exceptionnellement et seulement dans des conflits d’ordre technique et dans les litiges de droit privé’; Calvez, L’influence des conceptions soviétiques (n 38) 296; A l’époque de la Société des Nations, l’URSS avait refusé d’être partie au statut de la CPJI, parce que, d’après l’expression de Litvinov, ‘seul un ange pourrait être impartial dans l’examen judiciaire d’affaires russes’; P Bretton, ‘L’URSS et la compétence de la Cour internationale de Justice en matière de protection des droits de l’homme‘ (1989) 35 Annuaire Français de Droit International 262. 50 Cité dans Lapenna, Conceptions soviétiques (n 35) 298. 51 Bretton, L’URSS et la compétence de la Cour internationale de Justice (n 49) 262. 52 Le programme du Parti communiste de 1961 déclare: ‘La coexistence pacifique suppose la renonciation à la guerre comme moyen de règlement des questions litigieuses entre les États, leur règlement par la négociation; l’égalité de droits, la compréhension et la confiance réciproques entre les

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permit aux juristes soviétiques, et notamment à GI Tunkin,53 de formuler la ‘doctrine de coexistence pacifique’ en insistant sur le caractère universel du droit international: ‘les conceptions du monde capitaliste et du monde socialiste ne peuvent être conciliées. Mais la coexistence pacifique des deux systèmes ne l’exige pas non plus’54. Il ajoute: la coexistence pacifique sert de base pour une compétition pacifique entre le socialisme et le capitalisme à l’échelle international; elle est une forme spécifique de la lutte de classes entre ces deux systèmes.55

Dans son cours présenté à l’Académie de La Haye, Tunkin exposa sa thèse du système de coexistence pacifique qui gouverne les relations de la communauté internationale.56 Ce cours représente le nouveau style de la doctrine soviétique du droit international, car, à la différence du cours de Krylov imprégné par les conceptions de l’époque stalinienne, celui de Tunkin semble plus professionnel et plus élaboré scientifiquement. En 1957, voit le jour le Soviet Yearbook of International Law, publié par l’Association soviétique de droit international, devenue membre de l’International Law Association. L’Union soviétique commence à participer plus activement aux processus de codification et de développement du droit international (prenant part aux Conférences des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer de 1958 et 1960 et à la Conférence des Nations Unies de 1961 sur les relations diplomatiques) et aux travaux de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU. En ce qui concerne la pratique de l’URSS à l’ONU, elle devient plus active en portant une attention particulière à la décolonisation, au désarmement, aux questions financières et aux opérations de maintien de la paix.57 Le développement rapide des technologies des armements dans les années 50 et l’antagonisme persistant entre l’URSS et les États-Unis conditionnent l’époque de la dissuasion nucléaire. En 1961, la Conférence du Comité du désarmement, co-présidée par l’URSS et les États-Unis, est créée avec l’approbation de l’Assemblée générale de

États, le respect des intérêts mutuels; la non-ingérence dans les affaires intérieures, la reconnaissance du droit de chaque peuples de résoudre lui-même toutes les questions concernant son pays; le strict respect de la souveraineté et de l’intégrité territoriale de tous les pays; le développement de la coopération économique et culturelle sur la base de l’entière égalité et de la réciprocité des avantages’; Lissitzyn, (n 2) 931. 53 Tunkin Grigorij Ivanovicˇ (1906–1993), juriste soviétique, président de l’Association soviétique du droit international, chef des Services Juridiques du Ministère des Affaires étrangères de l’URSS, membre du comité de rédaction de la revue Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo (L’État soviétique et le droit), membre de la Commission du droit international de l’ONU, membre du curatorium de l’Académie de droit international de La Haye, dès la fin des années 1950, la plus haute autorité en matière du droit international en URSS. 54 GI Tunkin, ‘Mirnoe sosusˆestvovanie i meždunarodnoe pravo‘ (‘La coexistence pacifique et le droit international’) (1956) 7 Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo 3–13. 55 ibid, 12. 56 GI Tunkin, ‘Coexistence and International Law’ (1958) 95 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1, 5–78. 57 L’URSS a joué un rôle important dans le processus de décolonisation, en obtenant de l’Assemblée générale en 1960 l’adoption de la résolution 1514 (XV) dénommée ‘Déclaration sur l’octroi de l’indépendance aux pays et aux peuples coloniaux’.

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l’ONU.58 Entretemps, les soviétiques s’efforcent de systématiser la théorie de la coexistence pacifique au sein des Nations Unies. Les Occidentaux ne sont pas en désaccord sur les principes impliqués, mais ils ne veulent pas que soit employée l’expression de coexistence pacifique. La question fut mise à l’étude à l’Assemblée générale en 1962 et déboucha sur l’adoption par consensus de la résolution 2625 (XXV) du 24 octobre 1970 intitulée ‘Déclaration relative aux principes du droit international touchant les relations amicales et la coopération entre les États conformément à la Charte des Nations Unies’. Il faut remarquer qu’en théorie, la politique extérieure de l’URSS était basée sur les principes de l’égalité souveraine, de la renonciation mutuelle à l’emploi de la force, de l’inviolabilité des frontières, de l’intégrité territoriale des États, du règlement pacifique des différends, de la non-intervention dans les affaires intérieures, du respect des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales et de la coopération entre les États. Néanmoins, en pratique, la politique de l’URSS fut fortement critiquée par d’autres États, caractérisant les soviétiques comme étant de mauvaise foi.59 En effet, la violation des traités fut relativement importante dans la politique extérieure de l’URSS, alors que les principes que l’Union soviétique défendit le plus—ceux de la souveraineté, de l’inviolabilité du territoire, de la non-agression, de la non-intervention, de la libre disposition60—furent le plus souvent négligés. L’intervention de l’URSS en Hongrie en 1956 suscita la naissance de la fameuse ‘doctrine Brejnev’,61 énoncée explicitement par les dirigeants soviétiques lors de l’invasion de la Tchécoslovaquie par les troupes du pacte de Varsovie, en août 1968.62 Cette doctrine, connue également sous le nom de la ‘doctrine de la souveraineté limitée’,63 justifiait l’intervention dans les affaires intérieures d’un pays membre du bloc soviétique dans le cas où le socialisme y serait menacé.64 Il y a eu néanmoins dans la pratique soviétique de cette époque une tentative pour démontrer la prééminence de la politique internationale. C’est ainsi que, lors de l’adoption de la nouvelle Constitution soviétique en 1977, Brejnev affirma que c’était la

58 Au sein de cette Conférence ont été élaborés les traités de non-prolifération des armes nucléaires, les accords sur les fonds marins, les armes biologiques. Ainsi les traités multilatéraux les plus célèbres en ce domaine sont: le traité de Moscou de 1963 interdisant des explosions expérimentales d’armes nucléaires dans l’atmosphère, l’espace et sous l’eau, le Traité de non-prolifération des armes nucléaire (TNP) signé en 1968. En ce qui concerne les traités soviéto-américains, il y a eu trois traités sur la limitation des armes stratégiques: ce sont les SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) (1969), les SALT I (1972) et les SALT II (1977). 59 Ainsi, par exemple aux yeux de la Chine, ‘the history of Soviet social–imperialism is one of aggression, expansion, intervention and subversion’; JN Hazard, ‘Editorial comment — Foreign Policy and the 1977 Soviet Constitution‘ (1978) 72 American Journal of International Law 350, 355. 60 Les principes qu’elle a le plus souvent laissés de côté dans ses relations avec des États comme la Finlande, les États baltes, la Pologne, la Hongrie, la Tchécoslovaquie, l’Afghanistan; Lissitzyn (n 2) 936. 61 Léonid Brejnev prend la place de Nikita Khrouchtchev en 1964 et l’occupera jusqu’à sa mort en 1982. 62 G Fisher, ‘Quelques problèmes juridiques découlant de l’affaire tchécoslovaque’ (1968) 14 Annuaire Français de Droit International 15–42. 63 Ch Zorgbibe, ‘La doctrine soviétique de la «souveraineté limitée»’ (1970) 4 Revue général de droit international public 872–905. 64 Un autre cas d’application pratique de la ‘doctrine Brejnev‘ fut l’entrée en décembre 1979 des troupes soviétiques en Afghanistan (considéré après la ‘révolution d’Avril‘ de 1978 comme une partie du bloc soviétique)—afin d’asseoir au pouvoir un gouvernement proche de l’URSS; Lebedev, (n 13) 20.

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première fois dans l’histoire du droit constitutionnel soviétique que la politique internationale était placée dans la loi suprême de l’État, alors qu’avant les principes généraux de la politique extérieure étaient annoncés seulement dans le Programme du Parti communiste.65 Toutefois, le système politique de l’URSS des années 80 souffrant de ne pas pouvoir se renouveler, connaît les bouleversements considérables de la Perestroïka, ce qui fait qu’en 1991, le géant URSS disparaît avec une rapidité et une facilité presque déconcertante par rapport au poids qu’elle a pesé depuis sa création officielle le 30 décembre 1922.66 C’est à partir de ce moment que le New Thinking apparaît dans la doctrine désormais post-soviétique et le droit international essaie de prendre sa revanche sur la politique.

LE RENOUVELLEMENT DU DROIT INTERNATIONAL DES ÉTATS POST-SOVIÉTIQUES DANS UN MONDE HÉTÉROGÈNE

Après le démembrement de l’URSS, de nouvelles approches se développent dans la doctrine et la pratique dans les États post-soviétiques, et ce, dans un contexte nouveau de démocratisation. Le droit international post-soviétique se transforme au fur et à mesure des changements internes et de l’évolution de la politique extérieure. En même temps, l’héritage de la culture juridique commune et les processus d’intégration dans l’espace post-soviétique servent de prémisses pour la formation du nouveau modèle post-soviétique du droit international.

Les nouvelles approches dans la pratique et la doctrine internationales des États post-soviétiques La transformation du droit international dans l’espace post-soviétique passe par trois grandes phases: elle commence avec la Perestroïka, processus visant à surmonter la stagnation de la société soviétique et à démocratiser le système, continue avec la ‘westernisation’ et l’imitation du modèle européen du droit international après la chute de l’URSS dans les années 1990, et se poursuit avec le façonnement de nouveaux modèles et la formulation d’une vision indépendante du droit international jusqu’à nos jours. En février 1986, Mikhaïl Gorbatchev proclama au XXVIIe congrès du Parti communiste de l’Union soviétique (PCUS) la ‘nouvelle pensée politique’,67 dont l’essence ‘jusnaturaliste’ et libérale marquait une rupture avec la vision réaliste et marxiste du monde. Un des objectifs de la Perestroïka était alors de construire un 65 En effet, le Programme du Parti était pour le droit soviétique ce que la Constitution des États-Unis représente pour les américains et le code Napoléon pour les français et, par conséquent, avait toujours plus de force obligatoire. On peut déduire que l’introduction de ce principe dans la Constitution ne visait pas le peuple soviétique, mais le monde extérieur pour montrer à la communauté internationale quelle importance l’URSS donnait à sa politique étrangère; Hazard, Foreign Policy and the 1977 Soviet Constitution (n 59) 355. 66 Tercinet, Relations internationales (n 48) 104. 67 cf livre de M Gorbatchev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (London, Collins, 1987).

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‘État de droit socialiste’ afin de constituer avec tous les États du monde une ‘Communauté mondiale d’États de droit’. La thèse de la primauté du droit international dans le domaine des relations internationales est devenue un des fondements de la nouvelle pensée politique.68 Le changement fut marqué par un événement sensationnel: en 1989, l’URSS a décidé de retirer les réserves qu’elle avait antérieurement faites aux traités portant sur les droits de l’homme et a déclaré reconnaître la compétence obligatoire de la Cour internationale de Justice. Cette action démontra la nouvelle attitude de l’URSS à l’égard du droit international, se caractérisant par la primauté du droit sur la politique, la supériorité du droit international sur le droit interne et l’importance de tous les moyens de règlement pacifique des différends.69 Dans le Soviet Yearbook of International Law de 1986, le premier ouvrage de droit international influencé par la Perestroïka, son créateur GI Tunkin70 abandonne l’idée de lutte entre le socialisme et le capitalisme et développe une conception du système intergouvernemental universel incluant tous les acteurs de la scène internationale.71 C’est le New Thinking en droit international qui fut lancé en URSS:72 deux juristes représentant le nouveau courant, VS Vereschetine et RA Müllerson, se sont joints aux thèses de la Perestroïka en mettant l’accent dans leur travail conjoint, La nouvelle pensée et le droit international, sur l’interdépendance dans le monde et la nécessité de la création d’un système universel de sécurité internationale.73 Concernant la doctrine soviétique, RA Müllerson affirmait que, contrairement à la perception occidentale du droit international soviétique en tant que doctrine proche de l’école du droit naturel ou de l’approche politique du droit international, la doctrine soviétique a plus de choses en commun avec le positivisme

68 VS Vereschetine et RA Müllerson, ‘The Primacy of International Law in World Politics’ dans A Carty, G Danilenko et A Carter (éds), Perestroika and International Law: Current Anglo-Soviet Approaches to International Law (Edinburgh University Press, 1990) 6; GI Tunkin, ‘Remarks on the Primacy of International Law in Politics’ dans Le droit international au service de la paix, de la justice et du développement: mélanges Michel Virally (Paris, Pedone, 1991) 55–463. 69 Toutefois, la portée de cette action s’est avérée limitée, car, premièrement, seulement six conventions ont été visées (convention de 1948 pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide, convention de 1949 pour la répression et l’abolition de la traite des êtres humains et de l’exploitation de la prostitution d’autrui, convention de 1952 sur les droits politiques de la femme, convention de 1965 sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination raciale, convention de 1979 sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l’égard des femmes, convention de 1984 contre la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains et dégradants) et, deuxièmement, la saisine de la Cour par voie de requête ne vaut que pour les litiges qui se produiraient après la date à laquelle l’URSS a informé le Secrétaire général du retrait de ces réserves; Bretton (n 49) 261–75. 70 Cet annuaire fut d’ailleurs consacré aux 80 ans de GI Tunkin. 71 GI Tunkin, ‘Sozdanie vseobiemlûsˆej sistemy meždunarodnoj bezopasnosti i meždunarodnoe pravo’ (‘La création du système universel de la sécurité internationale et le droit international’) (1986) 27 Sovetskij ežegodnik meždunarodnogo prava 11–32. 72 E McWinney, ‘The “New Thinking” in Soviet International Law: Soviet Doctrines and Practice in the Post-Tunkin Era’ (1990) 28 The Canadian Yearbook of International Law 309–37. 73 VS Vereschetin et RA Müllerson, ‘Novoe myšlenie i meždunarodnoe pravo’ (1988) 29 Sovetskij ežegodnik meždunarodnogo prava; Le professeur II Loukachouk va dans le même sens en arguant que les obligations conventionnelles contraires au jus cogens et à la Charte des Nations Unies ne doivent pas être appliquées; II Lukašuk, ‘The Principle Pacta sunt servanda and the Nature of Obligation under International Law’ (1989) 83 American Journal of International Law 513.

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juridique. Il souligna que, malgré l’existence de plusieurs écoles du droit international dans le monde, il existe une seule science du droit international universelle.74 Toutefois, le New Thinking soviétique, enivré par la fin du régime communiste et la liberté de pensée, élabora une vision quelque peu romantique du droit international. Les idées de création d’un espace juridique européen commun s’étendant de l’Atlantique à l’Oural75 ou de l’Europe en tant que ‘maison commune’,76 bien qu’utopiques, marquaient l’attachement de la doctrine soviétique à la vision européenne du droit international et la volonté d’en faire partie. Le démembrement de l’URSS n’a fait que renforcer cette aspiration à faire corps avec la civilisation occidentale et à partager ses valeurs. Les États post-soviétiques cherchèrent à entrer dans la ‘société des nations civilisées’ et à définir leur place au sein de la communauté internationale. La Russie occupa son siège à l’ONU en tant qu’État continuateur de l’URSS, l’Ukraine, le Belarus en tant que membres originaires des Nations Unies, neuf autres anciennes républiques de l’URSS étant devenues de nouveaux membres de l’ONU.77 C’est à partir de ce moment-là qu’on observe la volonté des États post-soviétiques d’entrer dans l’espace européen en acceptant sans réserves la vision européenne du droit international. L’objectif de la nouvelle diplomatie des États post-soviétiques des années 1990 fut de créer une ceinture de bon voisinage avec les États se situant géographiquement au-delà de la zone tampon formée par l’ancienne URSS,78 et de promouvoir la protection des droits de l’homme, la démocratie et l’État de droit. Les États post-soviétiques ont énergiquement soutenu la création de la fonction de Haut commissaire des droits de l’homme et activement participé à la Conférence mondiale sur les droits de l’homme de 1993,79 les uns étant devenus membres de

74 RA Müllerson, ‘Agora: New Thinking by Soviet Scholars. Sources of International Law: New Tendencies in Soviet Thinking’ (1989) 83 American Journal of International Law 494, 495; D’autres travaux de cet auteur confirment l’ouverture de la pensée soviétique au monde extérieur et la formation de la vision cosmopolite et humaniste du monde; cf RA Müllerson, ‘Human Rights and the Individual as Subject of International Law: A Soviet View’ (1990) 1 European Journal of International Law 33–43; ibid, Prava tcheloveka: idei, normy, real’nost’ (Les droits de l’homme: les idées, les normes, la réalité) (Moskva, Iurid lit, 1991). 75 VS Vereschetine, ‘«Obsˆee pravovoe pole» sovremennogo mira’ (Le champ juridique commun du monde actuel) (1991) 30 Sovetskij ezhegodnik mezhdunarodnogo prava 1, 3–17. Il faut remarquer que VS Vereschetine a était le juge à la Cour internationale de justice dans la période 1995–2006. 76 L’expression que les dirigeants et les auteurs soviétiques ont empruntée à l’écrivain et poète vietnamien Thanh Hay, qui a utilisé cette expression pour souligner l’unité de civilisation entre le Nord et les Sud alors divisés; R Charvin, ‘Le concept de l’humanité et la doctrine soviétique du droit international’ dans Humanité et droit international: Mélanges Réné-Jean Dupuy (Paris, Pedone, 1991) 455. 77 cf Hamant, Démembrement de l’URSS ( n 8). 78 Plusieurs accords bilatéraux de bon voisinage, d’amitié et de coopération ont été conclus par les États post-soviétiques dans les années 1990 avec l’Allemagne, l’Italie, la France, la Grande-Bretagne, l’Italie, l’Estonie, la Lituanie, la Hongrie, la Bulgarie, la Finlande, la Pologne, la Turquie, la Chine, la Corée, le Japon. 79 La Fédération de Russie a fait une déclaration lors de l’adoption de la Déclaration et du Programme d’action de Vienne dans laquelle on lit: ‘the idea of the universality of human rights–—I should say rather the idea that the law stands outside politics or, if you like, above politics — has nevertheless been confirmed at this Conference. The final document has confirmed that every individual belongs to the human family in general and is neither the property nor an instrument of the State and that human rights are therefore not the internal affair of any one country’. La délégation du Kirghizstan a exprimé sa position en ces termes: ‘the delegation of Kyrgyzstan is greatly satisfied with the results of

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l’OSCE et du Conseil de l’Europe,80 les autres seulement de l’OSCE.81 Les États post-soviétiques ont également ratifié ou adhéré aux Pactes internationaux relatifs aux droits civils et politiques et aux droits sociaux, économiques et culturels82 et d’autres instruments internationaux relatifs aux droits de l’homme.83 Sous la pression européenne, les États post-soviétiques ont pris l’engagement d’abolir la peine de mort.84 Ainsi, la vision eurocentriste et la conception occidentale du droit international semblent être admises et suivies dans l’espace post-soviétique dans les années 1990. Cependant, les années 2000 marquent un tournant dans la perception du droit international par les États post-soviétiques. L’euphorie de la ‘westernisation’ étant passée, ces États commencent à façonner leur propre vision du monde et du droit international. Trois conceptions différentes se dégagent de l’analyse de la pratique internationale des États post-soviétiques dans les années 2000: 1) la position de la Russie et du Belarus, fondée sur la nécessité de créer un monde multipolaire comme réponse au monde unipolaire dominé par la puissance américaine; 2) l’attitude pro-occidentale de l’Ukraine et de la Géorgie après les ‘révolutions colorées’ et 3) les aspirations des États de l’Asie centrale à prendre en compte le multiculturalisme et la spécificité eurasienne dans les relations internationales. (1) ‘La conception de la politique extérieure de la Fédération de la Russie’ du 28 juin 2000 se base sur la création d’un ordre mondial sûr, stable, démocratique et multipolaire, qui refléterait la diversité des intérêts du monde actuel à multiples faces. Le rôle essentiel de l’ONU dans la formation de ce nouvel ordre

the Conference and especially with the positive decision in regard to the post of High Commissioner on Human Rights. It is our deep conviction that the Vienna Declaration provides a lot of possibilities to make a breakthrough in the field of human rights and we hope that the follow-up to the Conference will be fruitful and constructive’; www.unhchr.ch/french/html/menu5/wchr_fr.htm (26.06.2009). 80 La Russie est devenue membre du Conseil de l’Europe le 28 février 1996, l’Ukraine le 9 novembre 1995, la Moldavie le 13 juillet 1995, l’Arménie et l’Azerbaïdjan le 25 janvier 2001, la Géorgie le 27 avril 1999, le processus d’adhésion du Belarus au Conseil de l’Europe étant gelé. Quant à l’OSCE, la Russie occupa la place de l’URSS en tant que continuateur, la Géorgie fut admise le mars 1992, les autres États de la CEI le 30 janvier 1992. 81 Bien que le Conseil de l’Europe affirma que ‘les frontières géographiques de l’Europe ne peuvent être fixées’ et que ‘l’Europe du Conseil de l’Europe s’étend aussi loin que les principes de cette Organisation—démocratie pluraliste, État de droit et droits de l’homme—peuvent être appliqués’, les États de l’Asie centrale sont restés à l’écart du Conseil de l’Europe, ayant été admis seulement à l’OSCE; Conseil de l’Europe, Assemblée parlementaire, Rapport d’information sur l’élargissement du Conseil de l’Europe, 16 juin 1992, doc 6629, Annexe III, par 1, disponible sur http://assembly.coe.int/; Voir aussi J-F Flauss, ‘Les conditions d’admission des pays d’Europe centrale et orientale au sein du Conseil de l’Europe’ (1994) 5 European Journal of International Law 401–22. 82 La Fédération de Russie, le Belarus et l’Ukraine, ayant un statut particulier au sein de l’ONU, ont ratifié les deux Pactes depuis 1976, l’Arménie et la Moldavie ont adhéré aux Pactes en 1993, l’Azerbaïdjan en 1992, la Géorgie et le Kirghizstan en 1994, l’Ouzbékistan en 1995, le Tadjikistan et le Turkménistan en 1999, le Kazakhstan était le dernier État de la CEI ayant ratifié les Pactes en 2003. 83 Comme, par exemple, la Convention contre la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants de 1984, la Convention sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l’égard des femmes de 1979, la Convention sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination raciale de 1965, la Convention relative aux droits de l’enfant de 1989. 84 cf D Chalus, ‘Les difficultés constitutionnelles de l’abolition de la peine de mort dans la Communauté des États indépendants’ (2002) 79 Revue de Droit International et de Droit comparé 367–99; A ce jour, dans huit États de la CEI, la peine de mort est abolie, trois États ont choisi le moratoire (la Russie, le Kazakhstan et le Tadjikistan) et seul le Belarus a conservé cette peine.

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mondial, fondé sur la résolution collective des conflits, la priorité du droit et la démocratisation des relations internationales est fortement mis en exergue dans cette conception et confirmé dans la déclaration du président Vladimir Poutine lors du Sommet mondial de l’ONU en 2005.85 Lors de ce même Sommet, le président du Belarus Alexandre Loukachenko a affirmé: nous devons tous comprendre que le monde unipolaire est un monde unilinéaire [et] unidimensionnel. Nous devons prendre conscience que la variété des chemins menant au progrès est une valeur intrinsèque de notre civilisation. La liberté de choix du chemin de développement est une condition essentielle de l’ordre mondial démocratique.86

Le concept de multipolarité fut à maintes reprises évoqué par le nouveau président Dmitri Medvedev lors du conflit russo-géorgien en Ossétie du Sud en août 2008,87 ‘la première guerre du monde multipolaire’.88 (2) La démocratisation, devenue semble-t-il l’impératif du droit international,89 a eu ses effets dans l’espace post-soviétique: la vague des ‘révolutions de velours’, dite quatrième vague de démocratisation,90 amena aux révolutions ‘des roses’ 85 Kontceptciya vnechnei politiki Rossijskoj Federatsii, adopté par le président de la Fédération de Russie Vladimir Poutine le 28 juin 2000; www.ln.mid.ru/ns-osndoc.nsf/osndd; Déclaration faite par le président de la Fédération de Russie Vladimir Poutine lors de la séance plénière de haut niveau de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU (60ème session de l’Assemblée générale), 15 septembre 2005; www.un.org/webcast/summit2005/statements15.html (26.06.2009). 86 Déclaration faite par le président de la république de Belarus Alexandre Loukachenko lors de la séance plénière de haut niveau de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU (60ème session de l’Assemblée générale), www.un.org/webcast/summit2005/statements15.html (26.06.2009). 87 Dans son interview aux chaînes télévisées russes le 31 août 2008 Dmitri Medvedev affirma que ‘le monde doit être multipolaire’, car ‘l’unipolarité est inacceptable’ et ‘la domination est inadmissible‘; voir le texte de l’interview disponible sur www.kremlin.ru/appears/2008/08/31/1917_type63374type63379_ 205991.shtml. 88 P-E Thomann, ‘Russie-Géorgie: première guerre du monde multipolaire’ (octobre 2008) 64 Défense nationale et sécurité collective 34–40. 89 cf R Burchill (éd), Democracy and International Law (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006); L-A Sicilianos, L’ONU et la démocratisation de l’État, systèmes régionaux et ordre juridique universel (Paris, Pedone, 2000); MI Mbadinga, Démocratisation des États et droit international (thèse de doctorat, Lille, Atelier National de Reproduction des Thèses, 2003); R Mehdi (éd) La contribution des Nations Unies à la démocratisation de l’État, Dixièmes Rencontres internationales d’Aix-en-Provence organisées par l’Institut d’études politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, le centre d’eétudes et de recherches internationales et communautaires (CERIC-CNRS UMR 6108) de la faculteé de droit et de science politique d’AixMarseille et le centre d’information des Nations Unies aè Paris (Paris, Pedone, 2002); II Lukašuk, ‘Princip demokratii v meždunarodnom prave’ (Le principe de la démocratie en droit international) dans Boutros Boutros–Ghali amicorum discipulorumque liber paix, développement, démocratie, peace, development, democracy, tome 2 (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1998) 1195–223. 90 Selon Samuel P Huntington, la première vague s’était déroulée de 1828 à 1926, la deuxième a eu lieu de 1943 à 1962 marquée par la décolonisation de l’Afrique et de l’Asie, la troisième a débuté en 1974 avec la ‘révolution des œillets’ et s’est terminée en 1991 (la fin d’apartheid en Afrique du Sud, la dislocation de l’URSS et de la Yougoslavie). Les révolutions en Géorgie, en Ukraine et au Kirghizstan entrent dans la catégorie des ‘révolutions de velours’; V Avioutskii, Les révolutions de velours, (Paris, A Colin, 2006) 3; Ces révolutions sont devenues un enjeu important dans les relations interétatiques tant à l’intérieur de la CEI, qu’entre les États de la CEI et les pays occidentaux (notamment les États-Unis et l’Union européenne) caractérisé par le rôle actif des ONG financées par les États-Unis (comme Freedom House, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, National Endowment for Democracy, Open Society Foundation, Soros Foundation) essayant de répandre leur modèle démocratique dans le monde, la volonté des ‘révolutionnaires’ de rejoindre l’Union européenne et de se rapprocher des États–Unis et la peur de la Russie de perdre ses zones d’influence.

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en Géorgie (2003), ‘orange’ en Ukraine (2004) et ‘des tulipes’ au Kirghizstan (2005).91 Les conceptions des politiques extérieures de ces pays ‘démocratisés’ ont une priorité unique—la coopération avec l’Union européenne et les États-Unis. Toute la politique extérieure de l’Ukraine se construit autour de la participation souhaitée à l’intégration européenne (UE) et euro-atlantique (OTAN).92 De même, la Foreign Policy Strategy 2006–2009 de la Géorgie a comme but d’établir Georgia’s place in the common European family by deepening integration with the EU and joining NATO,93 sans oublier toutefois l’objectif de participer activement dans les mécanismes régionaux comme la CDC (Community of Democratic Choice),94 le GUAM (Organisation for Democracy and Economic Development)95 et l’OBSEC (Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation).96 (3) Quant aux pays de l’Asie centrale, ne faisant pas géographiquement partie de l’Europe, l’intégration eurasienne devient la priorité de leurs politiques extérieures respectives. Le fonctionnement de la Communauté économique eurasienne,97 de la Conférence pour l’interaction et les mesures de confiance en Asie98 et la création possible de l’Union des États centrasiatiques99 devraient renforcer la formation de la conception centrasiatique des relations internationales. Les républiques d’Asie centrale ayant une population majoritairement musulmane

91 Cependant, les résultats de cette démocratisation ne sont pas toujours satisfaisants: les troubles politiques du 7 novembre 2007 en Géorgie, la persistance de l’instabilité politique en Ukraine due au refus systématique des gouvernements ukrainiens successifs d’instaurer des politiques cohérentes étayées par de profondes réformes juridiques, administratives et économiques ou encore l’état d’urgence introduit suite aux élections présidentielles en Arménie en février 2008 ont sérieusement entaché la crédibilité des gouvernements et leur volonté de bâtir un État fondé sur les règles de la démocratie et de la primauté du droit. Faut–il encore constater qu’il est important que la démocratisation s’effectue par le droit comme le proclame la Commission de Venise, dont la majorité des États de la CEI sont membres. 92 Voir le site du Ministère des affaires étrangères (MAE) de l’Ukraine www.mfa.gov.ua (26.06.2009). A la différence des sites des Ministères des affaires étrangères des autres États de la CEI, le site du MAE ukrainien ne contient ni la conception générale de sa politique extérieure, ni l’adhésion et pratique relative aux organisations internationales. 93 The Georgian Foreign Policy Strategy 2006–2009, www.mfa.gov.ge. 94 Organisation internationale créée à Kiev le 2 décembre 2005 par neuf États (Estonie, Géorgie, Lituanie, Lettonie, Macédoine, Moldavie, Roumanie, Slovénie, Ukraine). 95 Organisation régionale regroupant quatre des États de la CEI (Géorgie, Ukraine, Azerbaïdjan, Moldavie) dont la Charte fut signée en juin 2001. 96 Organisation régionale créée le 1er mai 1999 regroupant Albanie, Arménie, Azerbaïdjan, Bulgarie, Géorgie, Grèce, Moldavie, Roumanie, Russie, Turquie, Ukraine. 97 Les membres de cette organisation créée en 2000 sont le Kazakhstan, l’Ouzbékistan, le Kirghizstan, le Tadjikistan, la Russie, le Belarus. Il faut dire que la Communauté économique eurasienne a subi plusieurs changements: l’Union centrasiatique créée en 1994 par le Kazakhstan, l’Ouzbékistan et le Kirghizstan a été transformée en Communauté économique centrasiatique en 1997, réformée en 2001 en Organisation de la coopération centrasiatique pour être liquidée en 2005 afin de fusionner avec la Communauté économique eurasienne. 98 L’initiative de sa convocation fut exprimée par le Kazakhstan à la 47ème session de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU en 1992. Le premier sommet a eu lieu en 2002. 99 C’est à l’initiative du président du Kazakhstan Noursoultan Nazarbaev que les négociations concernant la création de l’Union des États centrasiatiques ont été entamées en avril 2008. L’idée de cette intégration fut exposée en 2005 dans la Déclaration faite par le ministre des affaires étrangères de la république du Kazakhstan K.K. Tokaev lors de la séance plénière de haut niveau de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU (60ème session de l’Assemblée générale); www.un.org/webcast/summit2005/ statements15.html.

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ont opté également pour la participation à l’OCI (Organisation de la conférence islamique)100 et à l’OCE (Organisation de coopération économique).101 La diplomatie des États d’Asie centrale au sein de l’ONU se base sur la contribution active au désarmement global et à la non prolifération des armes nucléaires (l’adoption le 8 septembre 2006 de la Convention sur la zone exempte des essais nucléaires en Asie centrale en est la preuve éloquente)102 et sur la lutte contre le terrorisme international et le trafic des stupéfiants. Certains États d’Asie centrale se rapprochent également de la vision islamique du monde103—le ministre des affaires étrangères de l’Ouzbékistan affirma à la 62ème session de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU: The announcement by the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO) of the capital of Uzbekistan—the city of Tashkent as the World capital of Islamic Culture has become the recognition of the role and significance of Uzbekistan in Islamic civilisation. For over the span of centuries Uzbekistan had been one of the centers of enlightened Islam . . .. Indeed, this is why we are seriously concerned about some negative interpretations of the historical role of Islam …. We resolutely stand against that the counterterrorism transforms into Islamophobia and acquires the form of open or hidden standoff with the Islamic world.104

En ce qui concerne la doctrine post-soviétique du droit international, l’appel au renouvellement a été lancé par le professeur Tunkin, qui a proposé de renoncer définitivement au principe de la coexistence pacifique et de le remplacer par la notion de ‘coopération internationale élargie’.105 Dans son dernier article écrit peu avant de sa mort en août 1993, il souligne la nécessité urgente de poursuivre le développement progressif du droit international et se prononce pour un nouvel ordre international basé sur le règne du droit.106 C’est ainsi que la figure la plus importante du droit international soviétique passe le relais à la nouvelle génération des internationalistes post-soviétiques. La nouvelle école russe du droit international comprend deux approches essentielles: ‘souverainetiste traditionnelle’ et ‘universaliste et globaliste novateur’. Stanislav Cˇernicˇ enko107 (Académie diplomatique du MAE) et Yourii Kolossov (ancien directeur de la chaire de droit international du MGIMO) représentant le premier courant, Guénnadii Danilenko 100 Cinq États de l’Asie centrale et l’Azerbaïdjan sont devenus membres de l’OCI (l’Azerbaïdjan en 1991, le Kirghizstan, le Tadjikistan et le Turkménistan en 1992, le Kazakhstan et l’Ouzbékistan en 1995). 101 Organisation créée en 1985 par l’Iran, la Turquie et le Pakistan. Tous les États de l’Asie centrale plus l’Azerbaïdjan sont membres de cette organisation. 102 www.un.org/News/fr-press/docs/2006/AGDSI3337.doc.htm. 103 Déclaration faite par le Ministre des affaires étrangères de la république d’Ouzbékistan Vladimir Norov lors du débat général à la 62ème session de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU, 2 octobre 2007. 104 Déclaration faite par le Ministre des affaires étrangères de la république d’Ouzbékistan Vladimir Norov lors du débat général à la 62ème session de l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU, 2 octobre 2007. 105 Voir l’ouvrage collectif avec la participation de Grigory Tunkin: McWhinney, E, Ross, D, Tunkin, G et V Verershchetin (éds), From Coexistence to Cooperation: International Law and Organisation in the Post-Cold War Era (Dordrecht, M Nijhoff, 1991). 106 G Tunkin, ‘Is General International Customary Law Only?’ (1993) 4 European Journal of International Law 534. 107 S Cˇernicˇ enko n’abandonne pas complètement la théorie soviétique de droit international, conservant la méthode conservatrice de la perception du droit international en tant que produit

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(Institut de l’État et du Droit de l’Académie des sciences de la Russie), Igor Loukachouk108 (Institut de l’État et du droit de l’Académie des sciences de la Russie), Vladlen Vereschetin (juge russe à la CIJ (1996–2005))—caractérisent le second. D’autres juristes éminents sont apparus dans le domaine du droit international en Russie—KA Bekyachev (Académie juridique d’État de Moscou), BR Touzmoukhamedov (Académie diplomatique du MAE de Russie), AKh Abachidzé (Université russe de l’amitié des peuples), AL Kolodkin (président de l’Association russe pour le droit international) et dans les autres États de la Communauté des États indépendants (CEI) — Rustam Mamedov (directeur de la chaire de droit international de l’Université d’État de Bakou), MA Sarsembaev (ancien directeur de la chaire de droit international de l’Université Nationale Kazakh Al-Farabi), NN Gnatovskii (Institut des relations internationales de l’Université Nationale de Kiev Taras Chevtchenko), O Moukhamedzhanov (Institut juridique d’État de Tachkent), S Radjabov (Université d’État russo-tadjik), LV Pavlova (Université d’État de Belarus) et d’autres. Entre l’adoption des thèses et modèles occidentaux et l’affirmation des spécificités historiques, on ne voit cependant pas à ce jour de modèle du droit international russe, kazakh, azéri, moldave, arménien, ouzbek, ukrainien, géorgien clairement défini. On peut déceler seulement certaines tendances qui se dessinent dans la science du droit international dans les États post-soviétiques: le développement du droit de la mer en Azerbaïdjan, au Kazakhstan et en Russie, conditionné par les problèmes de délimitation de la mer Caspienne, et l’avancée russe en Arctique, l’inclusion du droit européen dans le domaine du droit international en Russie et en Ukraine. En revanche, ce que l’on peut affirmer en définissant la culture juridique en tant qu’: ensemble de principes, de valeurs et de concepts communs, un discours et une pratique partagés, entretenus par les modes d’enseignement et de pensée de chaque pays ou région du monde de telle sorte qu’ils inscrivent bien dans une certaine tradition de pensée,109

c’est que les États de la CEI partagent la même culture juridique. Malgré le fait que les systèmes juridiques de ces États se rapprochent de la famille romanogermanique, ils gardent des éléments d’originalité qu’ils doivent à la ‘période socialiste’110 et pourraient constituer une famille juridique à part. Le nihilisme

d’interaction entre des sociétés socialement homogènes ou hétérogènes les unes par rapports aux autres; SV Cˇernicˇ enko, Teoriâ meždunarodnogo prava (Théorie du droit international), tome 2 (Moskva, NIMP, 1999). 108 I Lukašuk adopte une attitude plus ouverte et novatrice par rapport à la doctrine soviétique en rompant avec la vision ‘souverainiste’ et consacrant la vision ‘globaliste’ et ‘universaliste’ du droit international; II Lukašuk, Globalizaciâ. Gosudarstvo. Pravo. XXI vek (La globalisation, l’État, le droit. XXI siècle) (Moskva, Spark, 2000). 109 E Jouannet, ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international: cultures juridiques et droit international’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd) Droit international et diversité des cultures juridiques, Journée franco-allemande (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 49. 110 R Legelais, Grands systèmes de droit contemporains: approche comparative (Paris, Librairie de la Cour de cassation, 2004) 192; R David et C Jauffret-Spinosi, Les grands systèmes de droit contemporain (Paris, Dalloz, 2002) 125–202.

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juridique caractérise et rapproche ces États, faisant partie des mentalités.111 Faut-il ajouter encore que la langue commune à travers laquelle les internationalistes s’expriment est encore un facteur d’existence d’une perception commune du droit international.112 Il est intéressant de noter que la science des relations internationales dans la période post-soviétique apporta plus de nouveautés que la science du droit international. C’est ainsi que l’ancien clivage entre les slavophiles et les prooccidentaux s’est transformé dans les États de la CEI en antagonisme entre ‘atlantistes’ et ‘eurasistes’, les uns proclamant le rapprochement avec l’Occident, les autres, la recherche du chemin propre à la culture eurasienne.113 D’autres conceptions des relations internationales se sont répandues: le réalisme, basé sur la défense des intérêts nationaux, et l’interaction conflictuelle entre les pôles de pouvoirs dans le monde. Par exemple, les réalistes russes représentés par ‘derzhavniki’ perçoivent le monde unipolaire en tant que problème et non en tant que bien et accordent à la question de la sécurité nationale une importance majeure. L’idéalisme libéraliste met l’accent sur la globalisation et le développement des institutions et régimes multilatéraux en tant que garantie de la stabilité de l’ordre international. Le néo-marxisme est représenté par les partis communistes hérités de l’URSS et les sociaux-démocrates, les premiers soutenant l’idée de l’État fort et multiethnique, les seconds, les principes démocratiques et les valeurs humaines en espérant la réalisation du projet kantien de la paix perpétuelle.114

111 Le nihilisme juridique fait historiquement partie intégrante de la mentalité russe et soviétique. Le philosophe russe Herzen a remarqué à juste titre que l’on cherche en Russie les moyens pour contourner la loi et non pour l’appliquer. En effet, il existe deux types de nihilisme juridique dans l’espace post-soviétique. Le premier type que l’on peut appeler ‘ordinaire’ s’explique par le niveau faible de la culture juridique de la population, ainsi que par le non respect, la méfiance et une attitude sceptique par rapport au droit. Le deuxième type, le nihilisme ‘bureaucratique’, est caractérisé par la situation dans laquelle les agents mêmes de l’État (surtout du système du pouvoir exécutif) utilisant ‘le droit du coup de téléphone’ et refusant de voir dans le pouvoir judiciaire un partenaire égal, n’ont pas une attitude respectueuse envers le droit; DK Nurpeisov, ‘Pravovoi nigilizm kak prepâtstvie na puti postroeniâ pravovogo gosudarstva’ (‘Le nihilisme juridique en tant qu’entrave à la construction de l’État de droit’) (2006) 33 Vestnik KazNU, seriâ ûridicheskaâ (Le Courrier de KazNU, série juridique) 14; Le nihilisme juridique peut avoir la forme inversée de l’idéalisme juridique, s’exprimant en surévaluation et ‘fétichisation’ du rôle du droit appréhendé comme une solution à tous les problèmes, DN Voronenkov, Pravovoi nigilizm i pravovoi idealizm (Le nihilisme et l’idéalisme juridiques) (thèse de candidat en droit, Kolomna, 1999). 112 E Jouannet, ‘Regards sur un siècle de doctrine française du droit international’ (2000) 46 Annuaire Français de Droit International 1, 2. 113 L’eurasisme fut d’abord développé en 1920 par des intellectuels russes de l’émigration (N Troubetskoy, P Savitsky, N Alexeiev, etc). Ceux–ci affirmaient que l’identité russe est née d’une fusion originale entre les éléments slave et turco-musulman, que la Russie constituait un ‘troisième continent’ situé entre l’Occident (dénoncé comme matérialiste et décadent) et l’Asie. Le modèle eurasien de droit international pourrait devenir un modèle alternatif dans le cadre post-soviétique. Les projets d’élaboration de la Charte eurasienne des droits de l’homme dans le cadre de la CEI permettrait éventuellement de prendre en compte les spécificités régionales où la sauvegarde des droits collectifs, la cohabitation pacifique et stable entre les peuples et la protection des minorités sont d’une importance majeure; JD Busurmanov, Prava cˇ eloveka v postsovetskom gosudarstve (Les droits de l’homme dans l’Etat post-soviétique) (thèse de doctorat en droit, Almaty, 2006). 114 AA Sergunin, ‘Rossijskie debaty po meždunarodnym otnocheniaˆm v poslekommunisticˇ eskij period’ (‘Les débats russes sur les relations internationales dans la période post-communiste’) dans AP Cygankov et PA Cygankov (éds), Rossijskayâ nauka meždunarodnyh otnošenij: novye napravleniyâ (La science russe des relations internationales: les nouvelles tendances) (Moscou, PER SE, 2005) 97–119.

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L’eurasisme étant la doctrine la plus élaborée dans l’espace post-soviétique, elle a connu une grande évolution en Russie et au Kazakhstan.115 L’eurasisme est fondé sur la spécificité de la civilisation eurasienne qui n’est ni d’Occident ni d’Orient mais entre les deux, c’est-à-dire entre l’occidentalisme en tant que forme de progrès, de liberté, de personnalité, d’organisation rationnelle de la vie et l’orientalisme en tant qu’intérêt à l’ordre et à la stabilité, à la haute spiritualité et aux illuminations mystiques. Outre cet entre-deux géopolitique, on retrouve le mélange entre les Slaves orthodoxes et les Turko-musulmans présent dans la diversité nationale, culturelle et religieuse de la Russie et du Kazakhstan. L’eurasisme comporte l’idée d’une troisième voie économique et sociale: ni Orient, ni Occident, mais également ni capitalisme, ni communisme, ni démocratie parlementaire, ni totalitarisme. Les idées eurasiennes influencent également les internationalistes; c’est ainsi que certains auteurs proposent d’élaborer une Charte eurasienne des droits de l’homme et de créer une Union eurasienne qui remplacerait la CEI amorphe.

Les processus d’intégration dans l’espace post-soviétique et la formation du modèle post-soviétique du droit international Les processus d’intégration dans l’espace post-soviétique se développent d’une manière ‘chaotique’, parfois contradictoire, et se trouvent en quête perpétuelle d’unions stables. Compte tenu du fait qu’à l’époque soviétique, les républiques de l’URSS faisaient partie d’un État unitaire dans un contexte général de formation de la communauté soviétique polyethnique, il s’est avéré d’autant plus difficile de construire de véritables identités nationales sans parler de la réintégration dans les conditions nouvelles entraînées par le démembrement de l’URSS. En même temps, les forces d’attraction restent encore suffisamment importantes pour que l’intégration ait lieu dans l’espace post-soviétique. On peut expliquer cela par le facteur historique de l’existence au sein d’un État unique ainsi que par le développement de la civilisation eurasienne dans cet espace géographique, ou encore par la mentalité et l’utilisation de la langue commune.116

115 Les lignes officielles de la politique extérieure de ces deux pays sont les conceptions réalistes avec la vision multipolaire du monde. Il faut noter que les conceptions du réalisme diffèrent dans l’espace post-soviétique: on distingue les réalistes avec une vision unipolaire du monde sous la domination américaine, les réalistes qui affirment que le monde est multipolaire et ceux qui défendent l’idée de l’‘unipolarité pluraliste’, où les États du G8 sont le pôle dominant; TA Šakleina et AD Bogaturov, ‘Mesto realisma v rossijskih issledovaniâh MO’ (‘La place du réalisme dans les études russes des relations internationales’) dans AP Cygankov et PA Cygankov (éds), Rossijskayâ nauka meždunarodnyh otnošenij: novye napravleniyâ, (La science russe des relations internationales: les nouvelles tendances) (Moscou, PER SE, 2005) 123–43. 116 OV Yurov, Predposylki politicˇ eskoj integracii postsovetskogo prostranstva (Les prémisses de l’intégration politique de l’espace post-soviétique) (thèse de candidat en sciences politiques, Saratov, 2005); I Valestani, Problemy integracii i formirovaniâ regionalnoj sistemy na postsovetskom prostranstve (Les problèmes d’intégration et de formation du système régional dans l’espace post-soviétique) (Moscou, Epikon, 2002).

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La nature de la Communauté des États indépendants, organisation régionale créée en 1991 regroupant douze anciennes républiques soviétiques,117 reste toujours un sujet de débats entre les auteurs post-soviétiques et occidentaux. D’aucuns estiment que c’est une quasi-confédération, voire une confédération, d’autres affirment que la CEI est incontestablement une organisation internationale régionale.118 Il existe des qualifications plus pessimistes pour la CEI—un ‘transitorium’ ou une ‘organisation amorphe’,119 ce qui confère à cette organisation un caractère ambivalent. Née en tant qu’instrument de ‘divorce civilisé’ entre les ex-républiques de l’Union soviétique, la CEI n’est ni un État, ni une entité supranationale mais une organisation internationale sui generis120 ayant un caractère soft d’intégration.121 Plus de 1700 documents ont été signés et quelques 87 institutions ont été établies au sein de la CEI.122 Toutefois, la question de l’efficacité de la CEI en tant qu’organisation internationale reste au cœur des débats et le conflit opposant la Géorgie et la Russie en août 2008 a confirmé les doutes sur les difficultés du fonctionnement de cette organisation. L’intégration économique restant le volet le plus fort de l’intégration, les domaines politique, militaire, juridique, financier, humanitaire et culturel demeurent les directions importantes de la coopération entre les États postsoviétiques. La faiblesse de la CEI, la peur d’être dominé par une organisation supranationale, les facteurs religieux et ethniques provoquent une intégration à vitesse et géométrie variables. C’est ainsi que plusieurs entités sub-régionales ont été créées dans l’espace post-soviétique: l’Union Russie–Belarus, la Communauté économique eurasienne (CEEA), l’Organisation du traité de sécurité collective (OTSC), le GUAM, l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai (OCS). L’Union Russie–Belarus fut créée par le traité signé le 2 avril 1997 remplaçant la Communauté Russie–Belarus créée elle-même en 1996 afin de construire l’espace commun économique, militaire et humanitaire.123 Le 25 décembre 1998, une Déclaration sur le rapprochement ultérieur entre la Fédération de Russie et la République de Belarus fut signée portant sur l’intensification de l’intégration dans ces domaines.124 L’Union Russie–Belarus est une confédération qui est censée

117 Les trois Républiques slaves (Russie, Belarus, Ukraine) l’instaurent le 8 décembre 1991, huit autres y adhérent le 21 décembre. 118 EG Moiseev, Meždunarodno-pravovye problemy deâtel’nosti Sodružestva Nezavisimyh Gosudarstv, (Les problèmes du fonctionnement de la CEI à la lumière du droit international) (thèse de doctorat en droit, Moscou, 2006) 81–92. 119 K Malfliet, ‘The Commonwealth of Independent States: Towards Supranationalism?’ dans Ferdinand Feldbrugge (éd) Law in Transition [selected papers on legal topics from the VI World Congress of ICCEES, the International Council for Central and East European Studies, which took place at Tampere, Finland, from 29 July to 3 August 2000] (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2002) 110. 120 R Yakemtchouk, ‘La Communauté des États indépendants’ (1995) 41 Annuaire Français de Droit International 245–280. 121 R Dragneva, ‘Is “Soft” Beautiful? Another Perspective on Law, Institutions and Integration in the CIS’ (2004) 29 Review of Central and East European Law 279–324. 122 Information sur www.cis.minsk.by. 123 Voir le site informatique de l’Union Russie-Belarus www.soyuz.by/ru/. 124 La Déclaration sur le rapprochement ultérieur entre la Fédération de Russie et la République du Belarus du 25.12.1998, www.soyuz.by/ru/?guid=10445.

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devenir une confédération avec l’élaboration d’une Constitution unique, la nomination du président et du parlement et l’introduction d’une monnaie unique. La Communauté économique eurasienne est née de l’aspiration à intégrer les économies des pays post-soviétiques. La CEE a subi plusieurs métamorphoses: l’Union centrasiatique créée en 1994 par le Kazakhstan, l’Ouzbékistan et le Kirghizstan fut transformée en Communauté économique centrasiatique en 1997, réformée en 2001 en Organisation de la coopération centrasiatique pour être liquidée en 2005 afin de fusionner avec la Communauté économique eurasienne créée le 10 octobre 2000 par la Russie, le Kazakhstan, le Kirghizstan, le Tadjikistan et le Belarus.125 Cette organisation a pour but de créer un espace économique commun, supposant la formation d’une zone de libre échange et d’union douanière. L’organisation est assez efficace mais il existe plusieurs incertitudes quant à la création de l’union douanière qui se complique avec l’entrée ultérieure de ces États membres à l’OMC.126 L’Organisation du traité de sécurité collective, organisation à vocation politicomilitaire, se base sur le Traité de sécurité collective signé le 15 mai 1992 par les représentants de la Russie, de l’Arménie, du Kazakhstan, du Kirghizstan, du Tadjikistan et de l’Ouzbékistan. Ce traité prévoit l’obligation de mettre en marche un mécanisme de consultations communes en cas d’apparition d’une menace pour la sécurité et l’intégrité territoriale de l’un ou plusieurs États membres, ainsi que pour la paix et la sécurité internationales.127 Parmi les objectifs de l’organisation, on peut mentionner la lutte contre le terrorisme, les mafias, la migration illégale, le trafic des stupéfiants, ainsi que la création éventuelle de mécanismes de maintien de la paix. Aujourd’hui, avec le déclin de la CEI, l’OTSC se montre active en Asie centrale et apparaît comme le complément politico-militaire de la Communauté économique eurasienne. Malgré tout cela, le fonctionnement de cette organisation reste purement formel: c’est ainsi qu’après le déclenchement du conflit russogéorgien en août 2008, les États membres se sont limités à émettre une déclaration prudente soutenant le rôle de la Russie dans la pacification du conflit et condamnant les actions géorgiennes à l’égard de l’Ossétie du Sud.128 Les bases de l’organisation GUAM, l’acronyme de l’union de la Géorgie, de l’Ukraine, de l’Azerbaïdjan et de la Moldavie, ont été jetées en 1997 quand le forum consultatif fut établi. Le 7 juin 2001, l’organisation GUAM fut créée par la Charte de Yalta pour ensuite se transformer en Organisation pour la démocratie et le développement économique GUAM le 23 mars 2006 lors du sommet de Kiev. Après avoir quitté le Traité de sécurité collective, l’Ouzbékistan adhéra au GUAM en 1997 le transformant en GOUAM pour ensuite se retirer en juin 2002. Les buts de l’organisation concernent la consolidation des valeurs démocratiques, la garantie de la primauté du droit, du respect des droits de l’homme, du développement durable,

125

Voir le site officiel de l’organisation www.evrazes.com/ru/main/faqpage/5/. La création de cette union ne sera possible qu’après l’entrée des États membres à l’OMC; AY Nevskij, Opyt sotrudnichestva stran EvrAzES v uslovijah vstuplenija v VTO (L’expérience de la coopération des États de la Communauté économique eurasienne dans les conditions de l’entrée à l’OMC) (thèse de candidat en économie, Moskva, 2007). 127 Voir le site officiel de l’organisation www.dkb.gov.ru/start/index.htm. 128 www.interfax.ru/politics/txt.asp?id=31196. 126

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le renforcement de la sécurité internationale et régionale, ainsi que l’approfondissement de l’intégration européenne dans le but de création d’un espace commun de sécurité.129 L’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai est une organisation régionale qui a un grand potentiel et qui fonctionne d’une manière très active. Elle a été créée à Shanghai les 14 et 15 juin 2001 regroupant la Russie, la Chine, le Kazakhstan, le Kirghizstan, le Tadjikistan et l’Ouzbékistan. Les objectifs principaux de l’organisation sont le renforcement de la confiance mutuelle et du bon voisinage entre les États membres, la collaboration effective dans les domaines politique, économique, scientifique et culturel, le maintien commun de la paix, la sécurité et la stabilité dans la région, ainsi que l’avancée vers la création d’un ordre international politique et économique démocratique, juste et rationnel.130

CONCLUSION

Pour conclure, on peut souligner que la diversité des processus d’intégration témoigne de la quête continuelle d’identité des États post-soviétiques dans le monde actuel et qu’à ce jour, la doctrine du droit international post-soviétique garde les vestiges de la tradition soviétique. Cette attitude fait de la doctrine du droit international un instrument de l’action politique131 qui ne relève pas du domaine juridique et dépend de la conjoncture politique. Toutefois, le légalisme et le formalisme caractérisent également les systèmes juridiques des États de la CEI. A l’heure actuelle, on peut arguer que le modèle post-soviétique du droit international est un modèle légaliste et formel tout en étant instrumentaliste, se rapprochant à la fois des traditions française et américaine du droit international,132 ce qui fait le particularisme de ce modèle dans un monde hétérogène. Cela étant, l’intégration à géométrie variable dans l’espace post-soviétique, la rivalité continuelle entre l’application des théories occidentales et la recherche de son propre chemin témoigne de la quête d’identité du droit international post-soviétique. Il reste à signaler que de l’évolution de la conception du droit international dans l’espace de la CEI et de l’intensité de la formation du droit international propre à l’espace post-soviétique dépendra le degré de l’hétérogénéité du monde.

129

Voir le site officiel de l’organisation http://guam–organization.org/. Voir le site officiel de l’organisation http://www.sectsco.org/. 131 cf Nguyen Quoc Dinh, P Dallier et A Pellet, Droit international public, 7ème édn (Paris, librairie générale de droit et de jurisprudence, 2002). 132 E Jouannet ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international: cultures juridiques et droit international’ (n 109). 130

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Articles d’ouvrages collectifs J-Y Calvez, ‘L’influence des conceptions soviétiques du droit des gens sur la politique étrangère de l’Union soviétique’ dans Association française de Science Politique et J-B Duroselle (éds) La politique étrangère et ses fondements (Paris, Librairie Armand Collin, 1954). R Charvin, ‘Le concept de l’humanité et la doctrine soviétique du droit international’ dans Humanité et droit international: Mélanges Réné-Jean Dupuy (Paris, Pedone, 1991). JN Hazard, ‘Soviet Republics in International Law’ dans R Bernhardt (éd), Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Volume 4 (Amsterdam, NorthHolland Elsevier, 2000) 525–29. E Jouannet, ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international: cultures juridiques et droit international’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd) Droit international et diversité des cultures juridiques, Journée franco-allemande (Paris, Pedone, 2008). II Lukašuk, ‘Princip demokratii v meždunarodnom prave’ (‘Le principe de la démocratie en droit international’) dans Boutros Boutros-Ghali amicorum discipulorumque liber paix, développement, démocratie, peace, development, democracy, tome 2 (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1998). K Malfliet, ‘The Commonwealth of Independent States: Towards Supranationalism?’ dans Ferdinand Feldbrugge (éd) Law in Transition [selected papers on legal topics from the VI World Congress of ICCEES, the International Council for Central and East European Studies, which took place at Tampere, Finland, from 29 July to 3 August 2000] (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 2002). E McWinney, ‘Shifting paradigms of international law and world order in an era of historical transition’ dans S Yee et T Wang (éds), International Law in the post-Cold War world: essays in memory of Li Haopei (Routledge, London, 2001). VS Nersesânc, ‘Konstitucionnaya model’ rossijskoj pravovoj gosudarstvennosti: opyt prochlogo, problemy i perspektivy’ (‘Le modèle constitutionnel de l’organisation étatique juridique russe’) dans NII pravovoi politiki I problem pravoprimeneniya (éd), Pravovoe gosudarstvo, litchnost, zakonnost (L’État de droit, l’individu, la légalité) (Moscou, 1997). AZ Rubinstein, ‘Moscow’s Diplomacy in International Organisations‘ dans R Clark, F Feldbrugge et S Pomorski (éds), International and National Law in Russia and Eastern Europe: Essays in Honor of George Ginsbourgs (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 2001). M Saˇhovic´ , ‘Le droit international dans un monde déséquilibré’ dans M RamaMontaldo (éd), El derecho internacional en un mundo en transformación: liber amicorum en homenaje al profesor Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, tome 1 (Montevideo: Fundación de cultura Universitaria, 1994). TA Šakleina et AD Bogaturov, ‘Mesto realisma v rossijskih issledovaniâh MO’ (‘La place du réalisme dans les études russes des relations internationales’) dans AP

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Cygankov et PA Cygankov (éds), Rossijskayâ nauka meždunarodnyh otnošenij: novye napravleniyâ (La science russe des relations internationales: les nouvelles tendances) (Moscou, PER SE, 2005). AA Sergunin, ‘Rossijskie debaty po meždunarodnym otnocheniaˆm v poslekommunisticˇ eskij period’ (‘Les débats russes sur les relations internationales dans la période post–communiste’) dans AP Cygankov et PA Cygankov (éds), Rossijskayâ nauka meždunarodnyh otnošenij: novye napravleniyâ (La science russe des relations internationales: les nouvelles tendances) (Moscou, PER SE, 2005). R Tkatova, ‘Les particularités du développement de l’État de droit dans la Communauté des États indépendants’ dans Société française pour le droit international (SFDI) (éd), L’État de droit en droit international, colloque de Bruxelles, 5, 6 et 7 juin 2008 (Paris, Pedone, 2009). GI Tunkin, ‘Remarks on the Primacy of International Law in Politics’ dans Le droit international au service de la paix, de la justice et du développement: mélanges Michel Virally (Paris, Pedone, 1991). VS Vereschetine, et RA Müllerson, ‘The Primacy of International Law in World Politics’ dans A Carty, G Danilenko et A Carter (éds), Perestroika and International Law: Current Anglo-Soviet Approaches to International Law (Edinburgh University Press, 1990).

Articles de périodiques WE Butler, ‘Russian International Lawyers in Emigration: the First Generation’ (2001) 3 Journal of the History of International Law 235–41. M Bothe et C Schmidt, ‘Sur quelques questions de succession posées par la dissolution de l’URSS et celle de la Yougoslavie’ (1992) 96 Revue Général de Droit International Public 811–42. P Bretton, ‘L’URSS et la compétence de la Cour internationale de Justice en matière de protection des droits de l’homme’ (1989) 35 Annuaire Français de Droit International 262–75. D Chalus, ‘Les difficultés constitutionnelles de l’abolition de la peine de mort dans la Communauté des États indépendants’ (2002) 79 Revue de Droit International et de Droit comparé 367–99. J Charpentier, ‘Les déclarations des Douze sur la reconnaissance des nouveaux États’ (1992) 96 Revue général de droit international public 343–55. R Dragneva, ‘Is “Soft” Beautiful? Another Perspective on Law, Institutions and Integration in the CIS’ (2004) 29 Review of Central and East European Law 279–324. G Fisher, ‘Quelques problèmes juridiques découlant de l’affaire tchécoslovaque’ (1968) 14 Annuaire Français de Droit International 15–42. J-F Flauss, (1994) ‘Les conditions d’admission des pays d’Europe centrale et orientale au sein du Conseil de l’Europe’ 5 European Journal of International Law 401–22.

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JN Hazard, ‘Editorial comment — Foreign Policy and the 1977 Soviet Constitution’ (1978) 72 American Journal of International Law 350–55. E Jouannet, ‘Regards sur un siècle de doctrine française du droit international’ (2000) 46 Annuaire Français de Droit International 1–57. E Jouannet, ‘A quoi sert le droit international? Le droit international providence du XXIe siècle’ (2007) 40 Revue belge de droit international 5–51. E Korovine, ‘La République des Soviets et le droit international’ (1925) 32 Revue Général de Droit International Public 292–312. M Koskenniemi et M Lehto, ‘La succession d’États dans l’ex-URSS, en ce qui concerne particulièrement les relations avec la Finlande’ (1992) 38 Annuaire Français de Droit International 179–219. OJ Lissitzyn, ‘Le droit international dans un monde divisé’ (1965) 69 Revue générale de droit international public 917–76. II Lukašuk, ‘The Principle Pacta sunt servanda and the Nature of Obligation under International Law’ (1989) 83 American Journal of International Law 513–18. L Mälksoo, ‘The History of International Legal Theory in Russia: a Civilizational Dialogue with Europe’ (2008) 19 European Journal of International Law 211–32. E McWinney, ‘The “New Thinking” in Soviet International Law: Soviet Doctrines and Practice in the Post-Tunkin Era’ (1990) 28 The Canadian Yearbook of International Law 309–37. BS Mirkine-Guetzevitch, ‘La doctrine soviétique du droit international’ (1925) 32 Revue général de droit international public 313–27. RA Müllerson, ‘Agora: New Thinking by Soviet Scholars. Sources of International Law: New Tendencies in Soviet Thinking’ (1989) 83 American Journal of International Law 494–512. RA Müllerson, ‘Human Rights and the Individual as Subject of International Law: A Soviet View’ (1990) 1 European Journal of International Law 33–43. E Myles, ‘L’«humanité», la «civilisation» et la «communauté internationale» dans la perspective de la fin du régime impérial russe: trois concepts «si pertinents de nos jours»’ (2004) 50 Annuaire Français de Droit International 24–44. DK Nurpeisov, ‘Pravovoi nigilizm kak prepâtstvie na puti postroeniâ pravovogo gosudarstva’ (‘Le nihilisme juridique en tant qu’entrave à la construction de l’État de droit’) (2006) 33 Vestnik KazNU, seriâ ûridicheskaâ (Le Courrier de KazNU, série juridique) 14–18. H Oda, ‘The Emergence of Pravovoe Gosudarstvo (Rechtsstaat) in Russia’ (1999) 25 Review of Central and East European Law 373–434. Y Onuma, ‘A Transcivilizational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the Twenty-first Century: a Way to Overcome West-centric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thoughts’ (2006) 8 International Community Law Review 29–63. J Salmon, ‘Reconnaissance d’États’ (1992) 25 Revue belge de droit international 226–39. P-E Thomann, ‘Russie-Géorgie: première guerre du monde multipolaire’ (octobre 2008) 64 Défense nationale et sécurité collective 34–40.

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GI Tunkin, ‘Mirnoe sosusˆestvovanie i meždunarodnoe pravo‘ (‘La coexistence pacifique et le droit international’) (1956) 7 Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo 3–13. GI Tunkin, ‘Sozdanie vseobiemlûsˆej sistemy meždunarodnoj bezopasnosti i meždunarodnoe pravo’ (‘La création du système universel de la sécurité internationale et le droit international’) (1986) 27 Sovetskij ežegodnik meždunarodnogo prava 11–32. GI Tunkin, ‘Is General International Customary Law Only?’ (1993) 4 European Journal of International Law 534–41. SF Udarcev, ‘Pravovoe gosudarstvo smyslovye grani doktriny (iz istorii filosofii prava)’ (‘L’État de droit: les facettes sémantiques de la doctrine [de l’histoire de la philosophie de droit])’ (2001) 9 Naucˇ nye trudy ‘Adilet’ 21–31. VS Vereschetine, ‘«Obsˆee pravovoe pole» sovremennogo mira’ (‘Le champ juridique commun du monde actuel’) (1991) 30 Sovetskij ezhegodnik mezhdunarodnogo prava 1–34. VS Vereschetine et RA Müllerson, ‘Novoe myšlenie i meždunarodnoe pravo’ (1988) 29 Sovetskij ežegodnik meždunarodnogo prava. R Yakemtchouk, ‘La Communauté des États indépendants’ (1995) 41 Annuaire Français de Droit International 245–80. S Yee, ‘Towards a Harmonious World: the Role of the International Law of Co-Progressiveness and Leader States’ (2008) 7 Chinese Journal of International Law 99–105. Ch Zorgbibe, ‘La doctrine soviétique de la «souveraineté limitée»’ (1970) 4 Revue Général de Droit International Public 872–905.

Cours M de Taube, ‘Études sur le développement historique du droit international dans l’Europe orientale’ (1926) 11 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 341–556. S Krylov, ‘Les notions principales du droit des gens. La doctrine soviétique du droit international’ (1947) 70 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 407–76. GI Tunkin, ‘Coexistence and International Law’ (1958) 95 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 1–81. P Weil, ‘Le droit international en quête de son identité. Cours général de droit international public’ (1992) 237 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 11–370.

Référence internet Chaadaev, P (1829–1831) Filosoficˇ eskie pis’ma (Les lettres philosophiques), www.vehi.net/chaadaev.

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L’hétérogénéité dans la Justice Internationale Le Cas de la Cour Internationale de Justice SANA OUECHTATI *

L

A COEXISTENCE DES Etats souligne ‘l’hétérogénéité culturelle et idéologique qui marque la société internationale’, selon la description qu’en fait M Virally.1 En effet, c’est la liberté consacrée par le principe d’autonomie constitutionnelle2 qui a généré les différents systèmes politiques, juridiques, économiques, sociaux3 présents sur la scène internationale. Cette particularité de la société internationale rejaillit également sur son droit, qu’à son tour R Kolb qualifie d’‘ordre des plus hétérogènes’.4 Dans cette sphère, l’hétérogénéité a en effet été récemment invoquée notamment dans les analyses formulées pour décrire les conséquences de la multiplication des juridictions internationales. Originellement en effet, le système international ne connaissait qu’une unique juridiction, à savoir la Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale (CPJI) qui a été créée en 1920 en tant qu’institution permanente à compétence universelle compétente pour les différends interétatiques.5 Elle a évolué à l’issue du deuxième conflit * Assistante en droit public à l’Université de Jendouba (Faculté des sciences juridiques, économiques et de gestion de Jendouba, Tunisie); Doctorante en droit international public à l’Université de Carthage (Faculté des sciences juridiques, politiques et sociales de Tunis). Email: [email protected]. L’auteur tient à adresser ses vifs remerciements à Mr Mounir Snoussi pour sa relecture de la première version et ses recommandations. 1 M Virally, ‘Panorama du droit international contemporain, Cours général de droit international public’ (1983) 183 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 41 (c’est l’auteur lui-même qui souligne). 2 Voir à ce sujet Résolution A/2625 (XXV) prise par l’Assemblée Générale le 24 octobre 1970, dite «Déclaration sur les relations amicales entre les Etats». 3 Voire, aux dires de certains, civilisationnels: SP Huntington et J-L Fidel, G Joublain, P Jorland, J-J Pédussaud (traducteurs), Le Choc des civilisations (Paris, Odile Jacob, 1997); auparavant F Fukuyama et D-A Canal (traducteur), La Fin de l’histoire et le dernier homme (Paris, Flammarion, 1992); Contra Y Onuma ‘A Transcivilizational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the Twenty-first Century : a Way to Overcome Westcentric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thoughts’, dans RSJ McDonald et DM Jonston (éds), Towards world constitutionalism : issues in the legal ordering of the World Community (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 2005) 151–89. 4 R Kolb, Réflexions de philosophie du droit international Problèmes fondamentaux du droit international: théorie et philosophie du droit international (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003) 8. 5 Le règlement pacifique des différends internationaux précédait toutefois cette date: la Convention de La Haye de 1907 invitait déjà les États à ‘employer tous leurs efforts pour assurer le règlement pacifique des différends internationaux’ (article 1er de la Convention), les invitant pour cela à recourir aux négociations, aux bons offices, à la médiation, et même ‘le cas échéant, à l’arbitrage’ (article 37). D’autres moyens ont été mis en œuvre et utilisés depuis, notamment la conciliation, les enquêtes, et

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armé mondial pour devenir la Cour internationale de Justice (CIJ), organe judiciaire principal de l’ONU.6 Toutefois, de manière plus récente, de nouvelles instances juridictionnelles sont apparues: ainsi, en 1982, un Tribunal international du droit de la Mer (TIDM)7 a été institué par le biais de la Convention de Montego Bay. Par la suite, en 1993 puis en 1994, le Conseil de Sécurité a mis en place des tribunaux internationaux ad hoc compétents en matière pénale.8 L’année suivante, un Organe de règlement des différends (ORD) a également été créé au sein de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce. Enfin en 1998, la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) permanente a été instituée.9 Or cette multiplication d’organes juridictionnels, parfois décrite comme une ‘prolifération’ afin d’en faire ressortir le caractère jugé nuisible,10 soulève des questions délicates. Si ces juridictions sont effectivement créées en vue de résoudre les litiges dans des domaines différents, et sont, dans cet objectif, dotées de compétences ratione materiae spécifiques, toutefois, il n’existe pas de hiérarchie entre elles. Dans cette mesure, chaque organe produit sa propre jurisprudence, sans nécessairement considérer le droit produit par les autres.11 Il arrive ainsi, à certaines occasions, que ces juridictions prennent des décisions sur des matières similaires, contribuant donc concomitamment à nourrir le développement d’ordres juridiques particuliers (lex specialis) au sein du droit international public. Cette hétérogénéité juridique internationale est ce qui fait craindre pour l’unité de l’ordre international le risque réel ou supposé de sa fragmentation.12

l’expertise. Se référer au Projet de Cour permanente de Justice internationale, pris sous forme d’‘Acte Général d’Arbitrage pour le règlement pacifique des différends internationaux’, adopté par l’Assemblée de la Société des Nations le 13 décembre 1920, entré en vigueur le 16 août 1929. 6 Son Statut a en effet été annexé à celui de la Charte de l’ONU en vertu de l’article 92, qui déclare qu’il en fait ‘partie intégrante’. 7 Convention de Montego-Bay, 10 décembre 1982, instituant le TIDM. 8 En ce qui concerne le Tribunal pénal international pour l’Ex Yougoslavie (TPIY), il s’agit de la résolution du Conseil de Sécurité 808 du 22 février 1993, et pour le Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda (TPIR) de la résolution 955 du 8 novembre 1994. 9 Statut de Rome du 17 juillet 1998, instituant la Cour pénale internationale, entré en vigueur le 11 avril 2002. Il faut ajouter à cela les multiples Cours régionales compétentes dans des domaines variés (souvent les droits de l’homme, telle que la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme et la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l’homme) fréquemment appelées à se prononcer sur des points faisant intervenir des éléments de droit international public, ainsi que la Cour de Justice des Communautés Européennes. 10 B Kingsbury ‘Is the Proliferation of International Courts and Tribunals a Systemic Problem?’ (1999) 31 New York University Journal of International Law & Politics 679- 686; cité par J Fourest, M Prost ‘La multiplication des juridictions internationales : de la nécessité de remettre quelques pendules à l’heure’ (2002) 15–2 Revue québécoise de droit international, sur internet à l’adresse www.sqdi.org. 11 . De surcroit, la multiplication des organes juridictionnels incite les justiciables au forum shopping. Cf H Ruiz Fabri (éd), Procès équitable et enchevêtrement des espaces normatifs, Travaux de l’atelier de droit international de L’UMR de droit comparé de Paris (Paris, Société de Législation comparée, 2003; en partie disponible sur le site web de l’Unité Mixte de Recherche en Droit Comparé); Voir également S Karagiannis, ‘La multiplication des juridictions internationales : un système anarchique?’dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd), La juridictionnalisation du droit international, colloque de Lille (Paris, Pedone, 2003) 7–161. 12 Déclaration de l’ancien Président de la CIJ S Schwebel, Communiqué no 99/46 (26 octobre 1999), www.icj-cij.org; également: G Guillaume, ‘L’unité du droit international public est-elle aujourd’hui en danger ?’ (2003) 55 Revue internationale de droit comparé 23–30; Voir également Commission du droit international, ‘Conclusions du Groupe d’étude de la fragmentation du droit international: difficultés

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Toutefois, l’ensemble des juridictions aujourd’hui présentes sur la scène internationale n’ont pas la même importance symbolique. En particulier, la Cour internationale de Justice a acquis une large autorité morale auprès des États, depuis sa création en 1945. Celle-ci se concerne tant le nombre d’États parties devant elle, que les matières extrêmement diversifiées abordées par les différends qui y sont résolus, ainsi que l’importance de ces derniers. Ils recouvrent des questions aussi fondamentales que la délimitation de l’ensemble d’une frontière terrestre et maritime s’étendant sur plus de 2000 kilomètres,13 le recours à la force sur une grande échelle,14 ou la perpétration et l’attribution d’actes de génocide.15 Ceci lui confère un succès non démenti jusque de nos jours, dans le contexte actuel de multiplication des juridictions internationales.16 Cependant, la CIJ elle-même s’est trouvée à certaines occasions confrontée à la jurisprudence de ces juridictions internationales, qui ont pris des décisions manifestant une contrariété avec sa jurisprudence antérieure.17 Ainsi en a-t-il été à l’occasion de l’affaire Tadic, jugée par la Chambre d’Appel du Tribunal Pénal ad hoc pour l’ex-Yougoslavie,18 où le tribunal s’est trouvé amené à se prononcer sur l’étendue du contrôle exercé par un État sur une entité non étatique armée par lui, afin de déterminer l’étendue de sa responsabilité à l’égard des actes qu’elle commet sur le territoire d’un autre État. Le TPIY a ainsi retenu une définition plus large que celle de la Cour dans l’arrêt des Activités militaires et paramilitaires au Nicaragua (1986), mais, ne s’arrêtant pas à établir un principe différent du sien, il a également

découlant de la diversification et de l’expansion du droit international’ (2006),untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/ instruments/francais/projet_d’articles/1_9_2006_francais.pdf. Contra voir P-M Dupuy, ‘Fragmentation du droit international ou des perceptions qu’on en a ?’ (2006) EUI Working Paper LAW No 2006/14 1–12, qui soutient l’idée que le droit international est fondé sur une dynamique structurée par un double ressort, formel et matériel, excluant ainsi communément toute remise en question de son unité. Cette analyse est également celle de J Combacau dans son article ‘Le droit international, bric-à-brac ou système?’ (1986) 31 Archives de Philosophie du Droit 85–105. 13 Frontière terrestre et maritime entre le Cameroun et le Nigéria (Cameroun c/ Nigéria) (Exceptions préliminaires) [1998] CIJ Rec 275. 14 Voir Activités militaires et paramilitaires au Nicaragua et contre celui-ci (Nicaragua c. Etats-Unis d’Amérique) [1986] CIJ Rec 1986; ainsi que l’affaire Activités armées sur le territoire du Congo (République démocratique du Congo c. Rwanda) [1986] CIJ Rec 1986. 15 Affaires relatives à l’Application de la convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (Bosnie Herzégovine et Croatie c. Yougoslavie), [1993] CIJ Rec 1993. 16 Le volume de sa jurisprudence en témoigne: voir à ce sujet S Laghmani, Répertoire élémentaire de jurisprudence internationale (Tunis, Centre d’études, de recherches et de publications, 1993); G Distefano et GP Buzzini, Bréviaire de jurisprudence internationale, Les fondamentaux du droit international public (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2005); P-M Eisemann et P Pazartzis (éds), La jurisprudence de la Cour internationale de Justice (Paris, Pedone, 2008). 17 Il est à signaler que les dissonances jurisprudentielles surviennent également du fait des Cours régionales. De manière notable une contradiction entre la CIJ et la CEDH s’était également manifestée dans l’affaire Loizidou c. Turquie, où la CEDH avait été amenée à donner une interprétation de la Convention de Vienne sur le droit des traités différente de celle conférée par la CIJ (Loizidou c/ Turquie(Exceptions préliminaires) (CEDH) Série A No 310). Cette contradiction manifeste de jurisprudence s’est renouvelée avec la CJCE et elle a failli se produire à nouveau avec la Cour américaine des droits de l’homme; voir à ce sujet M Kamto ‘Les interactions des jurisprudences internationales et des jurisprudences nationales’, (2003) La juridictionnalisation du droit international, p. 455; ainsi que G Bastid-Burdeau, ‘Le pouvoir créateur de la jurisprudence internationale à l’épreuve de la dispersion des juridictions’ (2006) 49 Archives de Philosophie du Droit 289–304. 18 Voir Le Procureur c. Dusko Tadic, Jugement de la Chambre d’Appel du TPIY, du 15 juillet 1999.

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critiqué son procédé de travail.19 Cette situation n’a toutefois pas été jugée préoccupante par l’ancien Président de la CIJ lui-même, Mr Bedjaoui, qui a considéré que la multiplication des instances juridictionnelles représente ‘ autant d’occasions fécondes de faire reculer le domaine fauve de la jungle internationale.’20 Cette analyse est également justifiée par la pratique, à certains égards. Dans d’autres domaines, en effet, la juridiction dont les compétences rejoignaient celles de la CIJ s’est librement inspirée de sa jurisprudence. Ainsi en a-t-il été en matière de droit de la mer, où le Tribunal International pour le Droit de la Mer a consacré des développements préalablement générés par la Cour.21 De même, l’Organe de règlement des différends, en matière de droit du commerce international, a à son tour pris en compte plutôt révérencieusement sa jurisprudence.22 Selon la doctrine, l’audace même dans l’expression de la diversité jurisprudentielle, passant par les critiques, pourrait permettre d’inciter la Cour à renoncer à son ‘narcissisme jurisprudentiel.’23 tout en adoptant un rôle plus efficace sur la scène juridique internationale. Mais l’hétérogénéité en tant que caractéristique peut dans le même temps décrire la Cour Internationale de Justice elle-même. Le Statut en prévoit effectivement diverses modalités, marquant ainsi de jure la Cour. Composée de quinze juges, dont la désignation répond à la prise en compte ‘des grandes formes de civilisation et des principaux systèmes juridiques du monde’,24 elle se caractérise par une hétérogénéité constitutive. Cette diversité des cultures juridiques est à nouveau présente dans les modalités des éléments de procédure. Elle se manifeste également, sous des

19 Le TPIY avait estimé que sa jurisprudence ‘not always follow a straight line of reasoning’ et est même ‘at first sight somewhat unclear’ (op. cit. § 108). Le Tribunal n’en était pas à son coup d’essai, ayant déjà souligné dans son arrêt de 1995 (Le Procureur c. Dusko Tadic, no 17 para 108) qu’un juge international appelé à faire application d’une résolution du CS devrait pouvoir en vérifier par lui-même la validité juridique, ce que la CIJ s’était refusée à faire lors de l’examen de la demande en indication de mesures conservatoires liées aux Questions d’interprétation et d’application de la convention de Montréal de 1971 résultant de l’incident aérien de Lockerbie (Lybie c. Etats-Unis), ordonnance du 14 avril 1992 [1992] CIJ Rec 126, para 43. 20 M Bedjaoui, ‘Conclusions générales: La Multiplication des tribunaux internationaux ou la bonne fortune du droit des gens’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd), La juridictionnalisation du droit international, colloque de Lille (Paris, Pedone, 2003) 529–45, 535. 21 En recevant de la Convention des Nations Unies de 1982 une compétence spécifique dans le domaine maritime, qui relevait déjà de la compétence générale de la Cour permanente, soulevant des questions de conflits de compétence. Toutefois, le Tribunal s’est aligné sur la jurisprudence de la Cour, retenant ‘les considérations élémentaires d’humanité’ ou encore ‘la proportionnalité’, TIDM/ITLOS, Affaire du ‘juno trader’ (Saint-vincent-et-les grenadines c/ Guinée-bissau) (Demande de prompte mainlevée) (arrêt) TIDM affaire No 13 (18 décembre 2004). 22 Opérant ainsi ‘un rattachement explicitede ses décisions’ au droit international général, à travers la méthode de l’interprétation évolutive des traités, ou l’adoption du régime des preuves au cours de la procédure, toutes deux préalablement retenues par la jurisprudence de la Cour, en 1971 dans l’affaire Conséquences juridiques pour les États de la présence continue de l’Afrique du Sud en Namibie (Sud-Ouest africain) nonobstant la résolution 276 (1970) du Conseil de sécurité (avis consultatif) [1971] CIJ Rec 16; et à nouveau en 1997, dans l’affaire Project Gabcˇ íkovo-Nagymaros (Hongrie/Slovaquie) [1997] CIJ Rec 7, para 140; voir G Marceau, ‘A call for coherence in International Law — Praises for the Prohibition against “Clinical Isolation” ’ (1999) 33 Journal of World Trade 87–152. 23 M Kamto (n 17), 415. 24 Article 9 du Statut.

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formes juridiques ou idéologiques, dans les décisions prises, ainsi qu’à travers l’expression des opinions séparées des juges. Ces éléments représentent matériellement l’hétérogénéité. Or par sa nature d’organe juridictionnel, la CIJ se heurte foncièrement aux caractéristiques de l’hétérogénéité. En effet, cette notion, fondée sur les racines grecques ‘autre’ et ‘genre’,25 décrit des éléments d’une nature multiforme, insaisissable, parfois non dépourvue d’antagonisme. En effet, ils sont insusceptibles de se fondre en une entité uniforme. Dans la lecture la moins optimiste, cette absence de coordination peut même les amener à s’exclure mutuellement. Le caractère qui définit l’hétérogénéité contrarie ainsi la nature collégiale, ordonnée, et solennelle, inhérente à la fonction judiciaire, y compris lorsqu’elle s’exerce dans le domaine international. Toutefois, la Cour est à la fois l’émanation directe, ainsi que l’autorité juridictionnelle de la société internationale.26 Ainsi, le juge, tout en réalisant son rôle de dire le droit, ne peut faire autrement que tenir compte de ses différentes manifestations politiques, juridiques, économiques, culturelles. Il oscille ainsi constamment entre les éléments rigides de la juridiction et la recherche d’une légitimité internationale.27 De ce fait, le règlement des différends dans le cadre d’une telle hétérogénéité apparait comme une équation à géométrie variable, qui conjugue la responsabilité de la justice, avec la gestion délicate de la diversité de la société internationale, sans jamais perdre de vue les antagonismes inhérents à cette dernière. Malgré les remous dont elle est la cause, y compris au sein de la Cour, l’hétérogénéité internationale juridique ou politique ne constitue toutefois pas une négation de la cohésion générale qui lie les juges et caractérise leur activité. La mission commune de réaliser la justice internationale, mue par les compétences élevées ainsi que la conscience professionnelle des juges, parvient à l’emporter sur les divergences de travail conjoncturellement introduites par cette hétérogénéité. Il est remarquable néanmoins de relever que l’hétérogénéité internationale a imprégné les modalités de travail au sein de la Cour Internationale de Justice, où elle apparait dans ses éléments de composition, de procédures et du fonctionnement, ainsi que dans la prise de la décision, où elle va jusqu’à ouvrir la voie à l’expression ouverte des désaccords que les juges entretiendraient avec tout ou partie de celle-ci. Cependant, en énonçant la règle de la représentativité des juges, et en formalisant juridiquement ses diverses modalités, le Statut a encadré 25

E Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 2ème édition (Paris, Hachette, 1877). L’hétérogénéité semble nier ainsi la dimension harmonieuse que renferme l’expression de ‘société internationale’, ce qui conduit à conforter les critiques d’une partie de la doctrine au sujet de l’existence d’une ‘communauté internationale’: voir à ce sujet Humanité et droit international public: Mélanges René-Jean Dupuy (Paris, Pedone, 1992) et tout particulièrement: G Abi-Saab, ‘‘Humanité’ et ‘communauté internationale’ dans la dialectique du droit international’ dans ibid, 1–12, ainsi que M Lachs, ‘Quelques réflexions sur la communauté internationale’ dans ibid, 349–357. La communauté internationale n’est finalement, selon l’expression de P-M Dupuy, qu’une ‘fiction . . . juridique . . . constituante’: P-M Dupuy ‘L’unité de l’ordre juridique international: cours général de droit international public’ (2000) 297 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 454. 27 ‘Rendre la justice . . . entre Etats est infiniment . . . ardu . . . parce qu’il faut savoir apprivoiser, à tous les instants, sans faiblir, dans une veille épuisante, la souveraineté ombrageuse de ces sujets singuliers du droit international’. La phrase est de l’ancien Président de cette Cour, M. Bedjaoui, Conclusions, (no 29) 532. 26

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l’hétérogénéité de la Cour, la dépouillant ainsi de son caractère ‘non-ordonné’.28 Elle y est en effet organisée de manière à favoriser les échanges entre les juges et les Parties de manière générale, et l’activité de la Cour, sans que les différences culturelles ou juridiques ne soient un facteur de trouble ou de désordre. La régulation juridique établie par le Statut instaure donc l’hétérogénéité dans la CIJ en tant que diversité assumée, au sens le plus positif du terme.29 Sur le plan de la composition de la Cour et par la suite, quant à ses procédures, il contient ainsi formellement l’hétérogénéité. Toutefois, par des considérations que le Statut n’a pas prévues, ou sur lesquelles il a fermé les yeux, la dimension antagoniste que comporte l’hétérogénéité internationale réapparaît, rattrapant ainsi la juridiction qui en subit les effets. En ce qui concerne la contribution des juges dans leur diversité personnelle à l’élaboration de la décision, ainsi que la possibilité qui leur est indirectement ouverte de contester celle-ci, l’hétérogénéité de la société internationale et de son droit refait surface dans le travail de la Cour, formulant ainsi une hétérogénéité matérielle

L’HÉTÉROGÉNÉITÉ ORGANIQUE DE LA COUR

L’hétérogénéité de la société internationale se reflète au cœur de son organe judiciaire universel. Ainsi, telle qu’établie par le Statut, la Cour internationale de Justice est diversifiée sur le plan organique et celui des procédures.

La composition de la Cour Aux termes de l’article 9 du Statut, ‘les personnes appelées à faire partie de la Cour . . . assurent dans l’ensemble la représentation des grandes formes de civilisation et des principaux systèmes juridiques du monde.’30 En prenant ainsi en compte les divers courants juridiques, politiques, culturels existants, la Cour institutionnalise une représentativité internationale. Elle imprime ainsi à la juridiction, ‘sa qualité essentielle et primordiale qui est l’universalité.‘31 Depuis sa création, la Cour a effectivement réuni des juges d’origine géographique, politique, juridique, culturelle diverses. De surcroit, la répartition géographique des juges est sensiblement équitable, dans la mesure où les différents continents ainsi que les aires de civilisation ont été successivement représentés par un juge à la CIJ. Toutefois, il faut reconnaitre que les cinq membres permanents du 28 Sur le plan du droit, l’hétérogénéité décrit, dans son acception extrême, un ‘dés-ordre’, c’est-à-dire une exclusion des ordres juridiques entre eux, ou l’exclusion d’éléments au sein d’un même ordre juridique. La pratique de la Cour va ainsi laisser voir des tensions fondées sur des antagonismes de cultures juridiques (voir infra, I-B, II-A) Sur la coordination des ordres juridiques, voir M Delmas-Marty, Les forces imaginantes du droit — Tome 2 Le pluralisme ordonné (Paris, Seuil, 2006). 29 ‘The presumption is that diversity [. . .] is good if and when it can be successfully mediated by . . . international lawyers’ O Korhonen, International law situated: an analysis of the lawyer instance towards culture, history and community (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2000). 30 Article 9 du Statut. 31 [1982] CIJ Rec.

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Conseil de sécurité ont eu de manière constante un juge national à la Cour depuis sa création.32 Par ailleurs, les dispositions relatives à la composition de la Cour sont restées inchangées depuis l’adoption du Statut. Ainsi, l’augmentation du nombre d’Etats sur la scène internationale suite à la décolonisation, n’a pas conduit à une révision à la hausse du nombre de juges à la Cour.33 L’hétérogénéité de la Cour est renforcée par la procédure de sélection des juges, qui la souligne de manière tangible. D’après les dispositions du Statut, ils sont choisis sur une liste élaborée par des groupes nationaux, désignés par leurs gouvernements,34 parmi les juristes jouissant dans leurs États respectifs de la plus haute considération morale et exerçant une fonction juridique éminente avant leur désignation à la Cour.35 Cette liste doit être remise au Secrétaire Général des Nations Unies, qui la communique à l’Assemblée générale et au Conseil de sécurité, où se fait le vote.36 Il ne peut toutefois se faire lors d’une séance jointe des deux organes, mais de manière séparée, ainsi que le précise l’article 8. En outre, selon le Statut il ne peut être désigné plus d’un juge par État.37 Les magistrats sont ainsi élus pour un mandat de 9 ans renouvelable,38 et le Président de la Cour est élu par ses pairs. Un choix souverain préside ainsi à la désignation des juges internationaux, ils paraissent ainsi rester politiquement rattachés à leur État. Cette interrogation est appuyée par une autre disposition du Statut, qui introduit une modalité supplémentaire de reconnaissance, sur le plan juridique, du lien existant entre un juge et son État. Selon l’article 31, ‘les juges de la nationalité de chacune des parties conservent le droit de siéger dans l’affaire dont la Cour est 32 ‘With the exception of China before 1984 all the permanent members of the Security Council have always managed to elect their own nationalities to the Court’ E McWhinney The International Court of Justice and the Western tradition of international law (1987); cité par A G Koroma ‘International Law and Multiculturalism’ S Yee, J-Y Morin (eds.) Multiculturalism and International Law, Essays in honour of Edward Mc Whinney (Brill, 2009) 79–94. 33 La plupart des auteurs soulignent qu’un équilibre a été trouvé: G Guillaume ‘De l’indépendance des membres de la Cour internationale de justice’, 1 Boutros Boutros Ghali – Amicorum Discipulorumque Liber, Paix, développement, démocratie (Bruylant Bruxelles,1998) 475–487; contra: A Gros ‘La Cour internationale de justice 1946–1986. Les réflexions d’un juge’, in International law at a time of perplexity : Essays in honour of Shabtai Rosenne, (Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1989). Aujourd’hui la composition se présente comme suit: Afrique: 3, Amérique latine: 2, Europe occidentale et Amérique du Nord: 5, Europe orientale: 2, Asie: 3; voir le détail de la composition qui est disponible sur le site web de la Cour: www.icj-cij.org. 34 Article 4 du Statut; et Article 5 du Statut: ‘Chaque groupe ne peut, en aucun cas, présenter plus de quatre personnes dont deux au plus de sa nationalité. En aucun cas, il ne peut être présenté un nombre de candidats plus élevé que le double des sièges à pourvoir’. 35 Ils doivent soit préalablement réunir dans leurs États respectifs les conditions requises pour l’exercice des plus hautes fonctions judiciaires, soit être à l’échelle internationale des jurisconsultes notoires en matière de droit international (Article 2 du Statut). 36 Article 10 du Statut: ‘1. Sont élus ceux qui ont réuni la majorité absolue des voix dans l’Assemblée générale et dans le Conseil de sécurité. 2. Le vote au Conseil de sécurité, soit pour l’élection des juges, soit pour la nomination des membres de la commission . . ., ne comportera aucune distinction entre membres permanents et membres non permanents du Conseil de sécurité. 3. Au cas où le double scrutin de l’Assemblée générale et du Conseil de sécurité se porterait sur plus d’un ressortissant du même État, le plus âgé est seul élu’. 37 Selon l’article 3:‘La Cour . . . ne pourra comprendre plus d’un ressortissant du même Etat. . . . Celui qui pourrait être considéré comme le ressortissant de plus d’un Etat sera censé être ressortissant de celui où il exerce habituellement ses droits civils et politiques’. 38 Les élections ont lieu tous les trois ans, les juges étant renouvelés par tiers, en vue d’assurer une certaine continuité de jurisprudence.

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saisie.’ Autorisant ainsi un juge à siéger à l’instance dans la situation où il partage avec un État partie sa nationalité,, le Statut met explicitement en avant l’élément personnel lié à la nationalité, en tant que marque distinctive entre un juge et un autre. En contrepartie, par souci d’équité, le Statut accorde la même faveur à l’autre Partie, à qui il est aussi permis de ‘disposer d’un juge de sa nationalité, considéré comme mieux à même de comprendre les arguments développés et s’en faire l’interprète au sein de la Cour’.39 Dans la même lignée, le Statut autorise également les deux parties au différend qui n’auraient pas de juge national à désigner chacune ‘leur’ juge. Ce juge ad hoc siégera de manière temporaire, pour la durée de l’affaire.40 Est-ce à dire que le Statut consacre les disparités nationales fondées sur l’élément politique au sein de la Cour? Pareilles concessions à la logique souverainiste du système international, à travers l’évolution de sa composition, amènent la Cour à une ‘lecture singulière de l’égalité’41 entre États parties au litige, ce qui peut paraitre contraire avec la nature juridictionnelle de l’organe. Toutefois, pour sa part, l’ancien Président G Guillaume estime que la mise en avant de l’élément national procède plutôt d’une facilitation de la saisine de la Cour par les États.42 En outre, il constate que ‘les statistiques ne relèvent aucun alignement significatif des positions sur une base régionale, politique ou économique.’43 En principe, l’hétérogénéité de la Cour est consacrée au cours de l’instance, où siègent nécessairement onze juges,44 mais également au cours de la procédure sommaire où doivent être impérativement présents cinq juges, dont deux pour remplacer d’autres juges.45 En outre, le vote doit se faire à la majorité, avec une voix prépondérante au Président, ce qui permet d’assurer la représentation constante des différents courants présents au sein de la Cour. Ceci assure ainsi de la

39 C Colard-Fabregoule, A Muxart et S Parayre, ‘Le procès équitable devant la Cour internationale de Justice’ dans H Ruiz Fabri (éd), Procès équitable et enchevêtrement des espaces normatives, Travaux de l’atelier de droit international de L’UMR de droit comparé de Paris (Paris, Société de Législation comparée, 2003) 243. 40 Article 31 ‘Les juges de la nationalité de chacune des parties conservent le droit de siéger dans l’affaire dont la Cour est saisie. Si la Cour compte sur le siège un juge de la nationalité d’une des parties, toute autre partie peut désigner une personne de son choix pour siéger en qualité de juge . . .. Si la Cour ne compte sur le siège aucun juge de la nationalité des parties, chacune de ces parties peut procéder à la désignation d’un juge’. 41 Colard-Fabregoule, Muxart et Parayre, Le procès équitable (n 39). 42 G Guillaume, De l’indépendance (n 33). 43 ibid. Il cite l’étude de Mme E. Brown Weiss parue dans The International Court of Justice at a Crossroads Damrosch, L (ed.), (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1987) :‘En règle générale ces juges nationaux s’étaient prononcés plus souvent en faveur de leur pays d’origine que la moyenne des juges. Mais [l’étude] notait en même temps que cette tendance était plus nette pour les juges ad hoc que pour les juges permanents. Bien plus, elle relevait que ces derniers avaient voté dans diverses circonstances contre leur propre pays’. 44 Selon les dispositions de l’article 25, ‘Sous la condition que le nombre des juges disponibles pour constituer la Cour ne soit pas réduit à moins de onze, le Règlement de la Cour pourra prévoir que, selon les circonstances et à tour de rôle, un ou plusieurs juges pourront être dispensés de siéger. Le quorum de neuf est suffisant pour constituer la Cour’. 45 Article 29 ‘En vue de la prompte expédition des affaires, la Cour compose annuellement une chambre de cinq juges, appelés à statuer en procédure sommaire lorsque les parties le demandent. Deux juges seront, en outre, désignés pour remplacer celui des juges qui se trouverait dans l’impossibilité de siéger’.

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collégialité de la Cour, gage de bonne administration de la justice. Bien que le Statut ne fasse pas mention du genre, il faut relever que la parité n’est pas acquise au sein de la Cour, où dans leur quasi majorité les juges sont des hommes.46 Dans un contexte où le différend interétatique est indissociable de la notion de souveraineté, le Statut prévoit dans le même temps en amont l’intervention directe des États dans le choix de ces juges, et en aval toutes les modalités de leur indépendance. Celle-ci est ainsi annoncée par l’article 2 du Statut. Il établit également que les juges doivent avant d’entrer en fonction, proclamer par un engagement solennel en séance publique, leur intention d’exercer leurs attributions ‘en pleine impartialité’.47 Ce serment est prêté au cours de la première audience publique par les juges titulaires mais également par les juges ad hoc, désignés pour siéger dans le cadre d’une affaire déterminée. Si un juge craint de faillir à son impartialité, il est invité à en faire part au Président de la Cour,48 qui peut amener le juge à renoncer à son siège jusqu’à la terminaison de cette affaire.49 En outre, les membres de la Cour ne peuvent exercer aucune activité professionnelle annexe, et ne peuvent participer au règlement d’aucune affaire où ils sont antérieurement intervenus, à quelque titre que ce soit.50

Les procédures et le droit applicable devant la Cour Témoignant de l’institutionnalisation de la Cour, les procédures et le droit applicable devant la juridiction permanente sont fixés par le Statut et précisées dans le Règlement adopté par elle. Elles soulignent à leur tour la prise en compte de l’hétérogénéité par le Statut, qui reflète notamment la diversité des cultures juridiques présentes sur la scène internationale.51 En matière de saisine, l’article 36 du Statut dispose que ‘la compétence de la Cour s’étend à toutes les affaires que les Parties lui soumettront.’ Ainsi un État ne peut se voir imposer la compétence de la Cour, à moins d’un consentement exprimé. Le principe fondamental du consentement à la juridiction a aussi été rappelé à de maintes reprises par la Cour elle-même,52 impliquant que le caractère de juridiction 46

A l’exception de l’actuelle Présidente, Rosalyn Higgins. Article 20 du Statut, ainsi que les articles 4 et 8 du Règlement de la Cour. 48 Articles 16 et 17. Sans toutefois que le Statut n’indique quelles conséquences doivent en être attendues ni ne prévoit expressément de procédure de récusation. 49 Il est à relever que ces éventuels litiges au sujet de la partialité des juges sont de la compétence de la Cour elle-même. Toutefois il n’a guère été fait usage par la juridiction de cette modalité. 50 Il prévoit cela: ‘Les membres de la Cour ne peuvent exercer aucune fonction politique ou administrative, ni se livrer à aucune autre occupation de caractère professionnel en général, et en particulier, exercer ou avoir exercé les fonctions d’agent, de conseil ou d’avocat dans aucune affaire le dernier mot en la matière revenant à la Cour, qui peut les relever de leurs fonctionssi, au jugement unanime des autres membres, ils ont cessé de répondre aux conditions requises’ (articles 16 et 17). 51 E Jouannet relève ainsi ‘l’importance et l’intérêt qu’a pu présenter – et que présente encore – le formalisme [du] droit international [pour] la coexistence et la coopération entre de multiples entités politiques, culturellement différentes, ayant des objectifs, des valeurs et des conceptions . . . profondément différents’ E Jouannet et H Ruiz Fabri (éds), Impérialisme et droit international en Europe et aux États-Unis, mondialisation et fragmentation du droit, recherches sur un humanisme juridique critique; première journée d’étude (Paris, 22 novembre 2006) (Paris, Société de Législation Comparé, 2007) 21. 52 Ainsi en est-il dans l’affaire Timor Oriental (Portugal c. Australie) [1995] CIJ Rec 105. 47

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permanente ne signifie pas que les États puissent à tout moment se diriger vers la Cour. En pratique, les États qui choisissent la CIJ recourent le plus souvent à une saisine par voie de clause compromissoire, présente dans la convention conclue entre eux, et par laquelle ils s’entendent pour soumettre à la CIJ le différend qui pourrait les opposer pour en obtenir un règlement définitif. Il existe toutefois une autre modalité qui constitue une exception à ce principe, consacrant l’hétérogénéité des modes de saisine de la Cour: la clause facultative de juridiction obligatoire, en vertu de laquelle un État peut ‘reconnaitre comme obligatoire de plein droit et sans convention spéciale la juridiction de la Cour.’53 A l’issue de ces procédés déjà éminemment respectueux de la souveraineté étatique, un État conserve la possibilité de contester la compétence de la CIJ, en présentant une exception préliminaire relative à sa saisine. Précisément, le recours aux procédures incidentes s’est développé récemment de manière considérable,54 alors même que la Cour a manifesté à de nombreuses reprises, une tendance à accepter sa propre compétence qui n’a pas découragé les États soulevant de telles exceptions préliminaires dans l’objectif d’obtenir le résultat contraire. Devant le rejet par la Cour de leur demande, ils ont comparu et ont accepté de participer à la suite de la procédure. L’hétérogénéité internationale marque ainsi le pas face à celle des procédés ouverts par la Cour aux Parties. Les États peuvent également introduire des demandes reconventionnelles. Il est à relever à cet égard que le nombre de demandes en indication de mesures conservatoires s’est également accru, en dépit des incertitudes attachées à l’effet juridique de ces dernières.55 De même ainsi qu’en droit interne, est ouverte aux États la possibilité de formuler des demandes d’intervention, lorsque sans être parties à une instance ils estiment que l’issue de celle-ci pourrait affecter leurs droits. Au cours de la procédure écrite, les parties n’hésitent pas à accumuler toutes les argumentations susceptibles de toucher les juges dans leur diversité constitutive, ce qui contribue à développer le volume des pièces. Ceci a pour conséquence directe de rendre le procès plus complexe, ce qui rejaillit sur la procédure entre les parties, mais également entre les juges, au cours des réunions et des délibérations. Ceci participe également à en allonger la durée.56

53

Article 36 du Statut. M Kdhir, ‘La méthode de travail du juge international’ dans ibid [éd], La méthode de travail du juge international, actes de la journée d’études du 23 novembre 1996 (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1997). Voir également M Kawano ‘The Administration of justice by the International Court of Justice and the Parties’, S Yee J-Y Morin (eds.) Multiculturalism and International Law, Essays in honour of Edward Mc Whinney, Brill, 2009, 285–300. 55 Ainsi peut-on citerles différentes ordonnances survenues dans les affaires suivantes: Passage par le Grand Belt (Finlande c. Danemark) [1991] CIJ Rec 12, Ordonnance du 29 juillet 1991; Ordonnance 14 avril 1992 relative à l’affaire Questions d’interprétation et d’application de la convention de Montréal de 1971 résultant de l’incident aérien de Lockerbie (Lybie c. Etats-Unis) [1992] CIJ Rec 3 et 114; Application de la convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (Bosnie Herzégovine c. Yougoslavie), [1993] CIJ Rec 3–325, Ordonnance des 16 avril et 13 septembre 1993; Frontière terrestre et maritime entre le Cameroun et le Nigéria (Cameroun c/ Nigéria) [1996] CIJ Rec. 13, Ordonnance du 15 mars 1996; LaGrand (Allemagne c. Etats-Unis d’Amérique) [1999] CIJ Rec 9, Ordonnance 3 mars 1999. 56 Ainsi dans l’affaire Libye/Tchad, il est rapporté que les parties ont déposé 22 volumes de près de 300 pages chacun (M Kdhir, ‘La méthode de travail du juge international’no 86 14). 54

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Il faut également noter que, dans le cadre processuel, les magistrats de la Cour utilisent les deux langues officielles, l’anglais et le français.57 Les ambigüités linguistiques apparaissent néanmoins dans les dispositions mêmes utilisées par la Cour. Le Statut nourrit dans certains cas une hétérogénéité gênante. Ainsi en est-il de l’article 41 relatif aux mesures conservatoires, dont l’application a soulevé un problème de signification entre les versions française et anglaise. Or ces différences étaient non dépourvues de conséquences juridiques notables, dans la mesure où la première dispose ‘la Cour a le pouvoir d’indiquer, si elle estime que les circonstances l’exigent, quelles mesures conservatoires du droit de chacun doivent être prises à titre provisoire’, tandis que la version anglaise déclare ‘the Court shall have the power to indicate, if it considers that circumstances so require, any provisional measures which ought to be taken, to preserve the respective rights of the party.’58 Dans l’affaire LaGrand en 2001, la Cour a ainsi dû considérer ‘l’objet et le but’ du Statut pour en conclure que la version la plus contraignante devait être retenue.59 Dans une autre hypothèse, où la Cour s’est trouvée amenée à appliquer la Convention pour la protection et la répression du crime de génocide, elle a choisi de retenir la version anglaise du texte, qui s’avérait plus pertinente en l’espèce. En effet, elle a considéré que: ‘conformément au texte anglais de la Convention, la responsabilité visée est la responsabilité pour ‘génocide’ (le texte français se lisant ‘responsabilité en matière de génocide’), et non la simple responsabilité pour ‘ne pas avoir prévenu ou puni le génocide.’60 Cependant, d’un autre point de vue, l’hétérogénéité de la Cour se retrouve dans les dispositions relatives au droit applicable par elle. En effet, aux termes de l’article 38 de son Statut, la Cour applique ‘les conventions internationales, soit générales, soit spéciales; la coutume internationale; les principes généraux de droit reconnus par les nations civilisées; les décisions judiciaires et la doctrine des publicistes les plus qualifiés des différentes nations, comme moyen auxiliaire de détermination des règles de droit.’ Elle met ainsi en œuvre plusieurs éléments de droit applicable, qui caractérisent à leur tour une diversité dont le type est cette fois-ci juridique. Par delà les dispositions mêmes du Statut et la multiplicité de sources qu’il énumère, la mise en œuvre de cet article a toutefois révélé à son tour des ramifications juridiques développant leur caractère peu uniforme. Ainsi, la Cour peut appliquer les conventions internationales, soit générales, soit spéciales, établissant des règles expressément reconnues par les États en litige. Elle peut également avoir recours à la coutume internationale comme preuve d’une

57 Le Statut de la Cour ne prend en effet pas en compte les quatre autres langues officielles des Nations Unies, réduisant néanmoins ainsi le champ de l’hétérogénéité linguistique et les difficultés prévisibles qu’elle pourrait susciter. 58 La première version comporte donc une dimension obligatoire par rapport à la seconde. 59 ‘Dans la mesure’, dit la Cour, ‘où le pouvoir en question est fondé sur la nécessité lorsque les circonstances l’exigent de sauvegarder les droits des parties et d’éviter qu’il y soit porté préjudice’ Affaire LaGrand (Allemagne c/ États-Unis d’Amérique) [2001] CIJ Rec 466, para 102. 60 CIJ, Affaire relative à l’application de la convention pour la protection et la répression du crime de génocide (Bosnie-Herzégovine c/ Serbie et Monténégro) [2007] CIJ Rec 64, para 169. Sur ces questions et bien d’autres voir P Kovacs, ‘Les langues et le droit international’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd), Droit international et diversité des cultures juridiques — International law and diversity of legal cultures, journée franco-allemande (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 123–52.

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pratique générale, acceptée comme étant le droit Il faut signaler à cet égard que la jurisprudence de la Cour a défini la coutume par ses deux éléments constitutifs et lui a également attribué diverses acceptions.61 L’article 38 du Statut de la CIJ, cite également parmi les sources du droit international public les ‘principes généraux du droit reconnus par les nations civilisées’,62 selon une formule qu’il reprend des dispositions du Statut de la CPJI. La mise en œuvre des principes généraux du droit a conduit la Cour Internationale de Justice à s’intéresser au contenu des principes dégagés au niveau régional. Elle a ainsi pu considérer à ce sujet qu’une pratique régionale pouvait valoir principe de droit international,63 dans la mesure où une thèse aux origines régionales peut acquérir un caractère universel si le juge qui l’applique estime que ce dont est porteuse la thèse est dans son principe généralisable et applicable à une plus grande échelle.64 En considération de l’importance de la jurisprudence interne, les juges internationaux peuvent également, comme les y invite le paragraphe 1-d de l’article 38, se référer aux ‘décisions judiciaires et [à] la doctrine des publicistes les plus qualifiés des différentes nations, comme moyen auxiliaire de détermination des règles de droit.’65 Il demeure toutefois difficile d’établir des liens directs et évidents dans la jurisprudence de la Cour avec des références juridiques internes reprises par les juges.66 Modérément envisagée par la CIJ, comme la CPJI avant elle,67 la prise en compte du droit interne est réservée aux hypothèses particulières où il lui est nécessaire de connaitre ce droit pour parvenir à la résolution du litige.68 En effet, le 61 Celle-ci pouvant avoir un effet déclaratoire d’une convention internationale (simple reprise); un effet de cristallisation de ce traité (pour une coutume en cours de formation), ou un effet constitutif de ses dispositions (lorsque la coutume se forme avant l’entrée en vigueur du traité); sur ce question se référer à Laghmani S (n 16) et plus spécifiquement au chapitre consacré à ‘La coutume’. 62 Si elle figure toujours aujourd’hui dans le droit positif, cette formulation très contestée est considérée comme tombée en désuétude. La CIJ dans certaines circonstances l’évoque tout de même: ainsi est-ce le cas dans son fameux arrêt de 1966 où elle fait allusion à ‘la théorie de la mission civilisatrice’ (Affaire du Sud Ouest Africain (Ethiopie c/ Afrique du Sud; Libéria c/ Afrique du Sud) (Deuxième Phase) [1966] CIJ Rec 6). 63 Affaire Haya de la Torre (Colombie c/ Pérou) [1950] CIJ Rec 266. 64 ‘S’opère un rite purificatoire qui modifie la subjectivité de la thèse’, B Tchikaya, ‘L’entrée historique des pays d’Afrique dans la jurisprudence internationale’ [2004] 1 Miskolc Journal of International 242–58. 65 Notons que le rapport dialectique suscitant la démultiplication et l’enchevêtrement des conceptsclés des deux disciplines du droit international et du droit interne se réalise aussi dans l’autre sens, avec l’ introduction des dispositions du droit international dans l’ordre interne. ‘Les concepts du droit international sont [ainsi] filtrés à travers les ordres juridiques internes. Ils s’y multiplient par les nombreuses réfractions que leur imposent ces ordres internes; ils s’y combinent parfois avec des concepts législatifs particuliers à un État [occasionnant une] kaléidoscopisation du droit international.’ (Kolb, Réflexions (n 4) 81). 66 Ces citations n’apparaissent pas toujours de manière explicite dans la mesure où il existe ‘des emprunts non avoués, que seule une lecture particulièrement soigneuse des arrêts, une lecture entre les lignes et presque soupçonneuse, peut nous permettre de déceler’ B Frydman, ‘Conclusion: Le dialogue international des juges et la perspective idéale d’une justice universelle’ (2007), www.philodroit.be/IMG/ pdf/B._FRYDMAN_-_Conclusion_-_Le_dialogue_international_des_juges_-_30_mars_2007.pdf. 67 CPJI, Affaire Certains intérêts allemands en Haute Silésie Polonaise [1926] CPJI Série A No 7, 19. Elle considère les décisions judiciaires, les mesures administratives ‘au même titre’ que les lois nationales, comme de simples faits, des manifestations de volonté de l’État. 68 ‘La Cour doit tenir le plus grand compte de la jurisprudence nationale, car c’est à l’aide de cette jurisprudence qu’elle pourra déterminer quelles sont vraiment les règles . . . appliquées dans le pays dont

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droit interne peut amener la CIJ à s’introduire dans des champs éminemment difficiles à connaitre. A bon escient, elle s’écarte ainsi du ‘risque juridiquement grand de rupture de l’unité de la jurisprudence internationale’69 ainsi que de subordination de cette dernière à la jurisprudence interne. Au surplus, le juge international n’est pas tenu par la norme interne, même dans le cas où le droit international y fait un renvoi direct. Enfin, introduite notamment de par la formation des juges, la doctrine des publicistes les plus qualifiés des différentes nations comme moyen auxiliaire de détermination des règles de droit représente une source non négligeable. Dans le souci d’une bonne administration de la justice, la Cour peut également, répondant en cela à la volonté des parties, ne pas statuer en droit, mais statuer ex aequo et bono (en équité, dont sa jurisprudence a également contribué à en développer les contours.70 Élargissant en cela les dispositions du Statut, elle a ouvert une nouvelle voie à l’hétérogénéité juridique. Celle-ci est marquée également par l’autorité que le Statut confère aux décisions de la Cour. En effet le différend attrait devant cette juridiction peut se solder par un règlement amiable entre les Parties à la suite d’une première phase de procédure devant la juridiction. Toutefois, une fois la procédure bien entamée, l’État ne peut plus se soustraire aux conséquences d’une décision au fond, la décision de la Cour pouvant aux termes de l’article 94 §2 faire l’objet d’une exécution forcée mise en œuvre par le Conseil de Sécurité.71 Le Statut déploie ainsi tous les procédés pour réguler l’hétérogénéité sans la faire disparaître, modulant les règles en fonction de la diversité des situations susceptibles de survenir devant la Cour.

L’HÉTÉROGÉNÉITÉ MATÉRIELLE DE LA COUR

Si le Statut a ouvert explicitement la voie à l’expression de la différence en posant les règles relatives à l’activité judiciaire internationale, il n’a, sur l’ensemble de l’hétérogénéité, qu’une emprise partielle. En effet, les juges manifestent dans l’exercice de leur travail une hétérogénéité personnelle, qui réapparaît dans le contenu de la jurisprudence, au sein même des décisions ou autour de ces dernières, dans les déclarations et opinions jointes au texte de l’arrêt.

le droit est reconnu applicable en l’espèce’ Affaire relative au paiement en or, des emprunts fédéraux brésiliens émis en France (France c/ Brésil) [1929] CPJI Série A No 21, 124. 69 M Kamto, (n 17) 455. 70 Affaire du Plateau continental de la mer du Nord (République fédérale d’Allemagne c/ Danemark; République fédérale d’Allemagne c/ Pays-Bas) [1969] CIJ Rec 3. 71 Article 94§2: ‘Si une partie à un litige ne satisfait pas aux obligations qui lui incombent en vertu d’un arrêt rendu par la Cour, l’autre partie peut recourir au Conseil de Sécurité et celui-ci, s’il le juge nécessaire, peut faire des recommandations ou décider des mesures à prendre pour faire exécuter l’arrêt’.

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L’hétérogénéité matérielle au sein de la décision Par sa nature collégiale l’instance judiciaire internationale invite les juges à produire une décision commune. Or, l’ancien président de cette Cour, M. Guillaume évoque ‘ la présence de quinze juges provenant de régions . . . diverses du monde, ayant derrière eux des expériences, des cultures, des préoccupations aussi différentes.’72 Ainsi, leurs parcours ne sont pas uniformes.73 Si la réunion de leurs compétences à l’occasion de la prise des décisions favorise les échanges relatifs à l’expression des diverses cultures juridiques et personnelles, cela implique néanmoins qu’il y ait des disparités intellectuelles entre les membres de la Cour. Ils caractérisent donc la décision par l’hétérogénéité. Ces disparités tiennent d’abord au système juridique dans lequel s’est forgée l’expérience professionnelle du juge.74 Il est à relever que deux systèmes juridiques importants sont représentés en permanence au sein de la Cour, le droit romain et la common law -dans la mesure où les cinq États membres permanents du Conseil de Sécurité ont constamment un juge de leur nationalité.75 Cela fait ressortir les différences soulevées par ces deux systèmes juridiques de common law et de droit continental, comme cela est patent dans d’autres juridictions internationales.76 Par l’effet de l’élection périodique et de la représentation élargie, des juges de différents systèmes juridiques sont régulièrement présents au sein de la juridiction universelle. Ils imprègnent ainsi, quoique de manière inégale, la jurisprudence de la Cour. Ainsi consciente des difficultés générées par son hétérogénéité constitutive, ‘dès ses premiers arrêts, [la CPJI a déclaré] n’avoir pas à tenir compte . . . des diverses terminologies juridiques en usage dans les différents pays.‘77 Par un processus historique, la Cour internationale de justice s’est constitué un jargon spécifique et autonome dont le résultat, aujourd’hui, est que ‘[l]e droit procédural de la Cour est

72 Colard-Fabregoule, Muxart et Parayre (n 59), citant G Guillaume, ‘Débats’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd), Le droit international et le temps (Paris, Pedone, 2001). 73 M. Bedjaoui estime toutefois qu‘il est toujours stimulant de pouvoir [les] écouter et interroger’ ‘La «fabrication» des arrêts de la Cour Internationale de Justice’ dans Le droit international au service de la paix, de la justice et du développement, Mélanges Michel Virally (Paris, Pedone, 1991) 98. 74 En effet, ‘il n’y a pas de vision proprement mondialiste ou cosmopolitique du droit international mais au contraire une inévitable multiplicité de visions particulières, nationales, régionales, individuelles, institutionnelles du droit international’: E Jouannet ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international : cultures juridiques et droit international’ dans Société Française pour le Droit International (éd), Droit international et diversité des cultures juridiques — International law and diversity of legal cultures, journée franco-allemande (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 42. 75 Au nombre desquels figure la France (système de droit romain), et le Royaume Uni, ainsi que les Etats Unis (système juridique anglo-saxon) (voir I-A en ce qui concerne la composition de la Cour). 76 Elles ont pu révéler à certains égards ‘une incertitude et une incompréhension mutuelle sur les bases du raisonnement juridique international’, aujourd’hui patentes au sein d’autres juridictions internationales. Le TPIY en a déjà fait l’expérience à l’occasion de l’affaire Erdemovic, ‘Les juges anglo-saxons avancèrent une série de policy reasons qui militaient à leurs yeux pour la position du common law. . . . Le juge Cassese, représentant de la tradition romaniste, réfuta âprement cette approche axée sur des considérations qu’il qualifie d’inappropriées, extra-juridiques’ Affaire Erdemovic jugée par la Chambre d’appel du TPIY (1997) (cf ILR, vol 111, 298 et seq).; citée par R Kolb Réflexions (n 4) 83, qui commente: ‘cela pour dire peu, confine au désordre méthodique’. 77 CD Visscher, Aspects récents du droit procédural de la C.I.J. (Paris, Pedone, 1966) 7, cité par Colard-Fabregoule, Muxart et Parayre (n 39).

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un droit judiciaire qui lui est propre et qui, délibérément, se veut tel.’78 M. Bedjaoui confirme ce sentiment d’harmonisation réalisé par la pratique: ‘après une certaine expérience de la Cour chaque juge à tendance à absorber, par une subtile osmose, le style de la maison, ce qui contribue certainement à limiter les écarts.’79 Toutefois, une étude portant sur les concepts utilisés au sein des décisions de la Cour tend en effet à démontrer que les juges y emploient des références qui renvoient ‘systématiquement à des principes . . . originaires d’espaces juridiques occidentaux’,80 à l’exclusion d’éléments caractérisant les cultures juridiques asiatique, latine, ou africaine, malgré l’élargissement progressif de la Cour aux juges du Tiers Monde.81 Dans l’élaboration même du droit, les juges ont également laissé voir des éléments ‘méta-juridiques.’82 En effet, tout juriste international est ‘consciemment ou inconsciemment influencé par les traditions, cultures, idéologies, écoles, termes, langages, concepts, au sein desquels il a grandi et qu’il s’est appropriés.’83 Ce n’est pas un hasard si le Statut précise que la sélection des juges doit répondre à la représentation des ‘grandes formes de civilisation . . . du monde’,84 et ce avant même d’évoquer leur appartenance à des systèmes juridiques. Les magistrats internationaux témoignent à l’occasion de leur travail de leur appartenance individuelle à un système étatique, avec ses spécificités non seulement juridiques, mais également politiques, et culturelles.

78 Voir R Kolb, qui analyse l’aspect révélateur de la diversité socio-politique résultant des diverses interprétations réalisées par les systèmes juridiques nationaux; Interprétation et création du droit international (Bruylant et Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2006) 63–73. 79 M Bedjaoui (n 73) 99. 80 LV Prott ‘The justification of decisions in the International Court of Justice’ C Perelman et P Foriers (éds), La motivation des décisions de justice (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1978) 345. Sur l’ensemble de cette question, se référer à LV Prott The latent power of culture and the international judge, London, Abingdon Press, 1979. 81 Le juge Amoun tenta cependant, dans son opinion dissidente relative à l’Avis consultatif sur la Namibie, en 1971, d’évoquer des éléments d’histoire et de culture tirés du riche patrimoine africain et susceptibles selon lui d’apporter un éclairage à la résolution du différend amené devant la Cour; ce fut en vain, cette initiative ne fut pas reprise par d’autres juges (cité par LV Prott (n 80) 339). 82 ‘To what extent should a Court be influenced in its judgment by other than strictly legal considerations?’ (13 octobre 1994) discours à l’Assemblée Générale, cité par E Lauterpacht, ‘The juridical and the meta juridical in International Law’ dans J Makarczyk (éd), Theory of International Law at the threshold of the twentieth century, Essays in honour of Krysztof Skubiszewski (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1996) 215. 83 ‘Cet état des choses n’est que partiellement modifié par l’existence de grandes Universités exerçant une fonction de creuset pour des étudiants venus du monde entier. Il faut souvent un grand effort pour se libérer de l’emprise de concepts sédimentés dès la jeunesse pour voir la pensée des autres et tenter de la comprendre dans ses articulations et ses prémisses’ R Kolb, Réflexions, 83. 84 La civilisation comprend ‘l’ensemble des caractères ou traits spécifiques à caractère politique, linguistique, religieux, moral, scientifique, technique, civique, qui définissent ou marquent une société’; voir Y Ben Achour, Le rôle des civilisations dans le système international: droit et relations internationales (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003). Pour indifférent que le droit international passe pour être envers cette notion de culture ou de civilisation, il use plutôt de la seconde, tant elle lui paraît plus facile à appréhender: elle repose en effet sur deux sortes d’éléments, tout d’abord des éléments visibles et quantifiables: ‘les traits extérieurs de l’identité d’un groupe, et en tout premier lieu sa langue, son art, [..] ainsi que le système juridique, qui exprime un arrière-fond de sentiments, de valeurs’ et en second lieu, des éléments invisibles et inquantifiables: ‘un nombre illimité de composantes intellectuelles et de représentations’ Ibid, 4. Voir également, S Ouechtati ‘La culture en droit international ou de l’insaisissabilité appréhendée par le droit’ dans Droits et cultures, Mélanges offerts au Doyen Yadh Ben Achour (Tunis, Centre de Publication Universitaire, 2008).

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Voudrait-il le contraire, que le juge international ne le pourrait sans doute pas, tant l’héritage culturel et idéologique viendrait se rappeler à lui dans l’exercice de ses fonctions. Les juges internationaux néanmoins réfutent généralement toute idée qu’ils puissent être influencés par des facteurs personnels ou culturels.85 Ils se considèrent, en tant que magistrats internationaux, comme des vecteurs d’une culture universelle, ce qui les incite à aller au-delà des cultures individuelles.86 Toutefois, des exceptions retentissantes ont, un temps, fait trembler pour l’impartialité et donc la mission de la Cour internationale permanente. Ainsi, à l’occasion de l’affaire du Sud Ouest Africain dans sa seconde phase en 1966, la Cour s’est abstenue de trancher sur le fond la demande de l’Éthiopie et du Libéria, qui souhaitaient voir reconnaitre que l’Afrique du Sud menait une politique contraire aux obligations que ce pays assumait en tant que mandataire. Elle a invoqué pour ce faire ‘une question relevant du fond mais ayant un caractère prioritaire’ à savoir un ‘défaut de droit ou d’intérêt juridique’ des Parties demanderesses. et ce alors même que quatre exceptions préliminaires concernant la compétence et la recevabilité avaient été déjà examinées en 1962. La Cour s’est abstenue de trancher la question de la légalité, au regard du droit international, de la politique d’apartheid de l’Afrique du Sud.87 Dans un contexte postcolonial récent, l’absence de dénonciation du caractère illégal de l’apartheid par le juge international a été perçue comme l’expression d’un positionnement idéologique s’exprimant au sein de la Cour. Cette décision contraire à ce qui en était attendu par la communauté internationale a ainsi été largement dénoncée à l’Assemblée Générale des Nations Unies,88 et a également fait l’objet de vigoureuses critiques dans la doctrine.89 La Cour a évité 85 AD Renteln, citant l’ouvrage Judging the World: Law and Politics in the World’s Leading Courts, G Sturgess, P Chubb (eds) (Melbourne Heinemann, 1988) déclare : ‘It seems that judges may not be consciously aware of their enculturation, and therefore reject any suggestion that culture or national characteristics shape their reasoning’, Renteln, ‘Clash of Civilizations? Cultural Differences in the Development and Interpretation of International Law, Cultural Bias in International Law’ (1998) 92 American Society of International Law Proceedings 232, 235. 86 ‘Considering that they perceive themselves to be international judges who must be impartial, it is crucial that they reject cultural or national factors as this would likely be considered bias’ AD Renteln (n 85), 235, qui avance une autre explication ‘They perceive themselves as belonging to a global culture, one in which their national cultures cease to matter. They share a presumption of universality with regard to international law, that is, that international standards apply regardless of the cultural context’ (ibid). 87 Affaire du Sud Ouest Africain (Ethiopie c/ Afrique du Sud; Libéria c/ Afrique du Sud) (Deuxième Phase) [1966] CIJ Rec 6. 88 G Fischer ‘Les réactions devant l’arrêt de la Cour internationale de Justice concernant le Sud-Ouest africain’ 12–1 Annuaire français de droit international,(1966) 144–54: ‘[La] surprise . . . est générale . . . le représentant de la Norvège manifeste son découragement et sa consternation . . . le président Senghor dénonce ‘un vrai scandale’ . . . l’URSS condamne la décision qui à son avis, constitue une manifestation de mépris à l’égard du droit international’. 89 O Slchachter commente non sans sévérité: ‘Many of the judges are highly esteemed for their judicial wisdom . . . Exceptions do occur. The 1966 judgment in the case brought by Ethiopia and Liberia against South Africa is a notorious example’, Schlachter, ‘The Nature and Process of Legal Development and International Society’ dans RSJ McDonald et DM Jonston (éds), The Structure and Process of International Law (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 1983) 767–68. Voir aussi: E Gordon ‘Observations on the Independence and Impartiality of the Members of the International Court of Justice’ Connecticut Journal of International Law, 1987, 397-426.

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ainsi de se prononcer sur la délicate question de l’occupation et par suite celle de l’apartheid, pourtant objet de la demande des parties qui se sont vu nier tout intérêt juridique à cela. Or le juge universel s’est abstenu d’y apporter une réponse, choisissant ainsi de figer l’évolution des normes internationales dans une ère dépassée.90 Une telle attitude s’était déjà antérieurement laissé voir au sein de la Cour, à propos de l’Affaire du droit de passage en territoire indien. Dans sa décision, la CIJ avait en effet conforté la souveraineté de l’État colonial portugais plutôt que celle de l’Inde, qui souhaitait voir affirmer son droit à une décolonisation complète.91 Dans ces deux affaires, apparemment le juge international s’est abrité derrière la disposition du Statut selon laquelle la mission de la Cour est de ‘régler conformément au droit international les différends qui lui sont soumis,’92 en considérant que la Cour internationale de justice devait trancher les différends strictement par les dispositions du droit positif. Mais un tel raisonnement se fonde sur des déterminations juridiques, dont les consonances sont politiques.93 La question de l’application stricte du droit ou de son interprétation suivant la conjoncture internationale ne trouve que difficilement et surtout jamais définitivement réponse. En effet, d’une part les dispositions du Statut sont sans ambages, amenant la Cour à réaliser sa mission de ‘dire droit’ (juris dictio94) dans les dispositions explicitement fixées par lui. La juridiction conserve ainsi à bon escient, des distances avec la politique internationale,95 ce qui lui permet de n’appréhender ses évolutions qu’à l’observation d’un collège de juristes expérimentés, connaissant la valeur du temps.96 Il est indéniable qu’en introduisant dans les relations internationales une conception selon laquelle la Cour rendrait des décisions selon ce qu’à chaque occasion la majorité penserait être à la fois juste et opportun, une transformation profonde

90 ‘The Court lacked the political wisdom of opting for an interpretation that was more in accordance with the . . . equality among nations’ Sik (KS) (op cit n 96) 171. 91 Affaire du droit de passage sur territoire indien (Portugal c/ Inde) (Exceptions préliminaires) [1957] CIJ Rec 125. 92 Art 38 du Statut. 93 ‘Ce système est lui-même le reflet de valeurs et d’intérêts du passé, il est la traduction du rapport de forces ancien’ même si ‘sa motivation . . . juridique [s’inscrit] dans une certaine cohésion générale du système juridique’ Salmon, J, Quelques observations sur la qualification en droit international public (n ). 94 Comme le rappelle la chambre d’Appel du TPIY dans l’affaire Le Procureur c/ Tadic TPIY-94–01 (7 mai 1997), ‘jurisdiction is not merely ambit or sphere (better described in this case as ‘competence’); it is basically — as is visible from the Latin origin of the word itself, Juridictio — a legal power hence necessarily power to “state the law” ’. 95 Des tentatives de récupération politique des juges ont ainsi été rapportées par le juge G Fitzmaurice à la suite de l’affaire de la Barcelona Traction, qui dénoncait des tentatives de porter atteinte ‘à la dignité’ de la Cour et à son ‘fonctionnement en tant qu’institution indépendante’ (Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co Ltd [Belgique c/ Espagne] [deuxième phase] [Opinion individuelle du juge Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice] CIJ [1970] Rec 113); citée par Colard-Fabregoule, Muxart et Paraye (n 39), qui soulignent qu’il n’est pas seulement question d’examiner l’attitude des juges, ‘en tant que protagonistes et vecteurs de ce principe d’indépendance’ mais également le omportement des Etats à leur égard. 96 Voir à ce sujet, le colloque de la Société Française de Droit International, La pratique en droit international, (Paris, Pedone, 2004). Cela ressort de la détermination par la Cour des deux éléments constitutifs de la coutume: la pratique internationale (à côté de l’opinio juris) représente l’élément fondamental pour la constitution de la règle de droit international.

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serait opérée’,97 mois le choix de la Cour de s’en tenir à appliquer le droit tel qu’il est, en se gardant d’élargir la portée de ses dispositions, est toutefois risqué. En effet, il l’amène à se situer en porte-à faux vis-à-vis de la sphère internationale. Ainsi, les nouveaux États décolonisés ont remis conséquemment en question l’ordre juridique international dans son ensemble,98 à la création duquel ils n’avaient pas participé.99 Or la Cour ne peut ignorer les soubresauts suscités par l’hétérogénéité de la société internationale. En tant que principale juridiction sur la scène internationale, elle doit donc nécessairement s’affirmer, ce qui ne peut se réaliser qu’en jouant un rôle actif sur le terrain du développement progressif du droit, soit en identifiant la règle applicable ‘de façon très dynamique, au besoin en développant ses potentialités normatives’,100 soit en s’orientant vers la création de nouvelles règles.101 Par ailleurs, la question de la composition politique de la Cour avait été évoquée comme la raison de la décision adoptée par les juges,102 dans la mesure où, à la suite d’un changement de composition survenu en cours de procédure, une majorité de juges d’origine occidentale étaient présents au moment de la prise de décision. A cet égard, le Président ayant dû départager une Cour divisée, c’est cette composition même qui a permis de trancher au moment de la décision finale, avivant d’autant les critiques.103 Cette question de l’influence de la composition de la Cour sur sa décision a également été soulevée dans le contexte de la guerre froide entre les blocs

97 La citation est du Juge Gros, citée par J Salmon, ‘Quelques observations sur la qualification en droit international public’ dans C Perelman et P Foriers (éds), La motivation des décisions de justice (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1978) 345. 98 KS Sik commente sans ambages: ‘the aversion of the so-called new States to the settlement of their disputes by the ICJ, because of the alleged conservative attitude of the Court with regard to the law applied’: KS Sik, ‘The attitude of the Asian States towards the International Court of Justice revisited’ dans N Ando, E McWhinney et R Wolfrum (éds), Liber Amicorum Judge Shigeru Oda, Vol 1 (The Hague, Kluwer Law, 2002) 165–76. 99 Le droit international applicable n’a en effet pas été créé par ces nouveaux Etats: ‘The complaint of the Court’s unwillingness to create new norms and apply them instead of the existing, antiquated ones is explained by the fact that these norms were created without taking into account what later became the interests of the new States’ Sik (n 96) 165–76. Sur cette question L’avenir du droit international dans un monde multiculturel, Colloque Académie de Droit International, La Haye 1984, notamment contributions et débats pp 343–65. 100 ibid (n 95) 364. ‘Ainsi, [International lawyers and many of the great judges themselves recognize the creative (aspect) in the judicial function]. They have made us aware of the discretionary elements in the art of the selection of relevant facts, the need to give specific meanings to undefined concepts, the subtle process of generalizing from past with the uses of analogy and metaphor, the inevitable choices between competing rules and principles’ Schachter ‘The Nature and Process of Legal Development and International Society’ 767–68. 101 G Guillaume ‘Transformation du droit international et jurisprudence de la Cour internationale de Justice’ dans R BenAchour et S Laghmani (éd), Les nouveaux aspects du droit international, colloque du 14, 15 et 16 avril 1994, rencontres internationales de la Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Politiques et Sociales de Tunis (Paris, Pedone, 1994) 175–92. 102 ‘[South West Africa, Second Phase in 1966 was] widely castigated at the UN GA as a ‘ ‘ “white man’s” decision rendered by a Western voting majority within the Court’ E McWhinney, ‘Comparative International Law: regional or sectorial, inter-systemic approaches to contemporary international law’ dans R-J Dupuy (éd), L’avenir du droit international dans un monde multiculturel, colloque La Haye, 17–19 novembre 1983 (La Haye, M Nijhoff, 1984) 231–32. 103 En effet, la décision a été prise par une majorité de 8 voix à 7, avec la voix prépondérante du Président Sir Percy Spender. A la suite de cet arrêt, il a d’ailleurs rédigé la plus longue opinion séparée jamais connue jusque lors dans la pratique de la Cour (voir infra).

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Est et Ouest. Ainsi à l’occasion des deux Avis consultatifs pris par la Cour au sujet de l’affaire de l’Interprétation des traités de paix signés avec la Bulgarie, La Hongrie et la Roumanie,104 l’Union Soviétique a dénoncé une Cour ‘au service de l’impérialisme anglo-américain.’ Toutefois, cette position décrit davantage une interprétation politique que la réalité de l’activité de la Cour.105 En soulevant la question de la composition politique de la Cour, la décision Sud Ouest africain a donc été l’occasion de soulever la question de la représentativité de l’ensemble des États dans la Cour, et plus spécifiquement des États nouvellement décolonisés, afin d’asseoir son caractère réellement universel. Cette décision a en effet incité les pays du Tiers Monde à désigner des juges à même de les représenter, considérant cela comme un moyen d’œuvrer aux rapprochements politiques et idéologiques, et ainsi de prendre part à la formation du droit international au sein de la Cour.106 Elle les a également incités à se réapproprier progressivement le champ du règlement judiciaire international, alors même que les juges du ‘Nord’ y demeurent plus nombreux.107 En effet, historiquement, les parties qui se tournaient vers la juridiction de la Cour Internationale de Justice étaient plus souvent des pays développés que des pays en développement. L’évolution du nombre et de l’appartenance géopolitique des États qui choisissent la juridiction de la Cour peut ainsi témoigner de son universalité acquise. Toutefois, une nouvelle tendance apparue dans la composition de la Cour retenue à l’occasion du traitement de certaines affaires peut faire craindre pour cette universalité. Selon l’observation de Mme B. Stern, il semblerait qu’ait été conjoncturellement mise en place une régionalisation de la composition juridictionnelle, qui tendrait à faire désigner des juges d’une nationalité géographiquement proche de celles des États Parties. Ainsi, pour le litige se rapportant à l’affaire du Golfe du Maine, qui opposait deux pays développés, la Cour ne regroupait elle-même que des juges de pays développés.108 Cette procédure met en place une sorte de régionalisation du règlement des différends internationaux amenant la CIJ à ‘un éclatement en ‘chambres régionales’ [la décomposant] en plusieurs ‘mini-CIJ’, propres aux

104

[1950] CIJ Rec 65 et 221. EA Korovin, ‘Mezhdunarodnii Sud na sluzhbe Anglo-Amerikanskogo Imperializma’ (‘The International Court in the service of Anglo-American Imperialism’) (1950) 5 Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo i Pravo (Soviet State and Law) 56, cité par S Rosenne ‘The Cold War and the International Court of Justice: A Review Essay of Stephen M. Schwebel’s Justice in International law’ (1995) 35 Virginia Journal of International Law 669–682. 106 Selon E McWhinney, cette decision a suscité ‘a new political awareness to the Thirld World of the political possibilities of changing the Court’s membership and hence the dominant legal philosophy of its individual judges through the constitutional processes of the periodic election of judges” (ibid). 107 M Chemillier-Gendreau, ‘La justice, pilier ou béquille de la démocratie? Un champ d’action pour le Sud’ [janvier 2001] Le Monde Diplomatique 24; Voir également M Miyoshi, ‘Equity in a multicultural world’ dans Avancées et confins actuels des droits de l’homme aux niveaux international, européen et national. Mélanges offerts à Silvio Marcus Helmons (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003) 259, 263. En effet les États-Unis, les États européens, ou le Japon, bien que constamment représentés parmi les quinze juges, ne sont pas prompts à se diriger vers la justice internationale. 108 A savoir R Ago, président (Italie), A Gros (France), H Mosler (RFA), SM Schwebel (E-U), M Cohen, juge ad hoc (Canada); Délimitation de la frontière maritime dans la région de Golfe du Maine (Canada c/ États Unis d’Amérique) [1984] CIJ Rec 246. 105

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différents groupes d’États.’109 Susceptible de favoriser les rapprochements de systèmes culturels, à la fois juridiques et personnels, et donc de limiter la complexité et le temps pris par le procès, ce procédé est néanmoins de nature à déformer le caractère universel propre à la juridiction et aux décisions qui en émanent.

L’hétérogénéité matérielle autour de la décision Le Statut a de bout en bout consacré la prise en compte des différences juridiques et éventuellement culturelles entre les magistrats. Cela s’étend jusqu’à la formulation des opinions personnelles au sujet de la décision prise par la Cour dans son ensemble. Ainsi, lorsque leur diversité tend à s’exprimer de manière plus affirmée, les juges ont la possibilité d’émettre une déclaration, une opinion dissidente ou individuelle. D’après l’article 95 §2 du Règlement de procédure et de preuve, elles sont produites à la suite de l’arrêt ou dans un document en marge de la décision collégiale prise par la Cour Internationale de Justice.110 Allant au-delà, Mr Bedjaoui estime que ‘les opinions individuelles et même dissidentes qui sont jointes à l’arrêt font corps avec lui.’111 Elles permettent même d’extraire toute la substance de la décision judiciaire si ‘on laisse ces opinions éclairer en contrepoint la motivation de l’arrêt.‘112 Il autorise ainsi indirectement les juges à exprimer leurs opinions, qui constituent une prise de position individuelle à l’égard des décisions prises collégialement. Ainsi, l’existence de ces opinions séparées démontre l’inclusion de l’hétérogénéité au sein de la Cour, et ce jusque dans la formulation du texte final de la décision, qui est la réponse attendue par les parties au litige. Ces opinions séparées sont de plusieurs types. Elles peuvent constituer une déclaration, une opinion dissidente ou individuelle, selon que son auteur aura voté pour ou contre l’arrêt, ou une partie de l’arrêt. Les opinions individuelles témoignent de l’accord du juge à l’arrêt pris, alors que les opinions dissidentes émanent d’un juge ayant voté en défaveur du dispositif de l’arrêt. De la sorte, un juge ayant pris une opinion individuelle se contentera théoriquement d’exprimer son désaccord avec les motifs de l’arrêt, contrairement au juge qui prend une opinion dissidente. Mais ces distinctions tendent à se limiter dans la pratique, où les magistrats usent communément de l’une pour exprimer l’autre.113 109 B Stern, 20 ans de jurisprudence de la Cour internationale de Justice 1975–1995, The Hague, M Nijhoff, 1998 212. 110 L’article 74 du premier Règlement de procédure et de preuve disposait: ‘Tout juge peut, s’il le désire, joindre à l’arrêt soit l’exposé de son opinion individuelle ou dissidente, soit la simple constatation de son dissentiment’. 111 ‘La “fabrication” des arrêts de la Cour internationale de justice‘ (n 73) 105 112 ibid. 113 Selon l’appréciation de l’ancien président de la Cour, MG Guillaume ‘dans [des] hypothèses, assez nombreuses, la déclaration peut être assimilée à une opinion individuelle atténuée ou déguisée’. Il ajoute qu‘il peut arriver aussi qu’elle soit le fait d’un juge qui a voté pour certaines parties du dispositif et contre d’autres et qui, en déposant une déclaration, évite d’avoir à qualifier une opinion éventuelle d’individuelle ou de dissidente’ dans La CIJ à l’aube du XXIème siècle: le regard d’un juge (Paris, Pedone, 2003) 161–72. Citons comme exemples de cette dernière la déclaration du Président Schwebel et de M. Rezek sous l’arrêt du 25 septembre 1997, Project Gabcˇ íkovo-Nagymaros (Hongrie/Slovaquie); ou

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Cette modalité d’expression de toutes les tendances juridiques, voire des cultures personnelles au sein de la Cour est d’inspiration anglo-saxonne. En effet, les juridictions de droit romano-germanique ne connaissent pas l’expression individuelle et publique du vote d’un juge membre d’un organe collégial, ce qui explique probablement la tendance réduite des juges de tradition romano-germanique à y avoir recours.114 En effet les juristes de la première catégorie admettent sans difficulté la liberté d’expression y compris au sein d’une juridiction caractérisée par la difficulté de sa mission dans l’hétérogénéité de la société internationale, tandis que pour les romanistes ‘qui privilégient l’unité en même temps que l’unicité de la vérité judiciaire, il est un facteur d’affaiblissement de la décision.’115 De plus, les opinions dissidentes, du fait qu’elles émanent d’un seul ‘juge ou d’une petite minorité, s’expriment de façon plus claire et donc de manière plus convaincante que la sentence elle-même. Il est néanmoins indubitable que l’uniformité formelle de la décision, par sa négligence du contenu, n’est pas nécessairement gage de préservation de la sécurité juridique.116 Toutefois, par le recours aux opinions séparées, la motivation ‘se heurte à une motivation concurrente, ‘ce qui amène la doctrine à appeler de ses vœux à envisager cette question ‘dans une perspective plus large de sécurité juridique et de prévisibilité [qui renvoie à une] évaluation de l’impact futur de l’avis minoritaire.’117 Néanmoins, la préservation de l’harmonie de la décision finale est préservée par la nécessité pour le juge de faire entendre ce dissentiment dès le début de la procédure. En effet, s’il souhaite réaliser une déclaration ou une opinion, celui-ci en fait part aux autres membres de la Cour pendant la première lecture. Le comité de rédaction de la décision peut répondre aux arguments juridiques soulevés, ou en modifier son projet d’arrêt de manière à y inclure le passage proposé par le juge auteur de l’opinion ou de la déclaration.118

la déclaration commune de MM. Fleischhauer et Guillaume et la déclaration de M. Herczegh sous les arrêts du 27 février 1998, Questions d’interprétation et d’application de la convention de Montréal de 1971 résultant de l’incident aérien de Lockerbie (Lybie c. Etats-Unis). 114 L’auteur a également fait état de différences dans les techniques judiciaires entre les juges du système légal français et des systèmes liés à ce dernier, et les autres juges dans la mesure où les premiers sont moins enclins à produire des opinions dissidentes. 115 H Ruiz Fabri ‘La motivation des décisions des juridictions internationales’, dans ibid (éd), Procès équitable et enchevêtrement des espaces normatifs, Travaux de l’atelier de droit international de L’UMR de droit comparé de Paris (Paris, Société de Législation comparée, 2003). 116 ‘L’extériorisation des désaccords.. peut conduire, du point de vue de la motivation, à des compromis susceptibles d’altérer sa compréhensibilité (tentation des ambigüités, voire des contradictions), de la rendre artificielle, tout en réduisant la sécurité juridique à une façade’. Ibid. 117 H Ruiz Fabri ibid. 118 L’adoption de la décision, qui intervient à la suite de la seconde lecture du projet présenté par le comité de rédaction, doit inclure la prise en compte des amendements oraux et des projets de déclarations et d’opinions. M Manouvel, Les opinions séparées à la Cour internationale: un instrument de contrôle du droit international prétorien par les États (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005); Thirlway, H ‘The Drafting of ICJ Decisions: Some Personal Recollections and Observations’, (2006) Chinese Journal of International Law 15–28.

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Ainsi, cette technique n’a pas toujours été retenue, la CPJI se montrant au départ ‘ fidèle aux conceptions continentales du secret du délibéré’,119 et estimant qu’une telle mention nominative serait contraire au Statut lui-même. Par la suite, la même solution a été appliquée par la CIJ. Toutefois l’article 57 du Statut de la CIJ dispose non sans ambigüité ‘si l’arrêt n’exprime pas en tout ou partie l’opinion unanime des juges, tout juge aura le droit d’y joindre l’exposé de son opinion individuelle.’120 Il est vraies qu’en vertu des articles 55 et 56 du Statut, les décisions de la Cour sont prises à la majorité des juges présents et mentionnent les noms des juges qui y ont pris part. Cependant, le Statut ne précise pas si le jugement doit ou non préciser les noms des juges ayant formé cette majorité (et par voie de conséquence ceux de la minorité). En ouvrant cette possibilité à ‘tout juge’ de la Cour, par extension des anciennes dispositions de cet article, le Statut introduit l’hétérogénéité dans la formulation même de la décision de la Cour.121 L’évolution du nombre et de l’importance de ces documents a conduit à reconsidérer les choses. Les opinions séparées ont été progressivement couramment jointes aux décisions de la Cour. Ainsi, les déclarations ont pris de l’ampleur, passant de quelques lignes à plusieurs pages en 1966, avec le commentaire apporté par le Président de la CIJ après qu’il eut départagé la Cour dans l’Affaire du Sud Ouest Africain.122 En effet, il y exprime son sentiment au sujet du contenu possible des opinions individuelles et dissidentes, estimant que celles-ci ne sauraient porter sur des éléments de fond alors même que l’arrêt s’est borné à statuer sur la forme (incompétence ou irrecevabilité). En outre, dès 1960, à l’occasion de l’Affaire du Droit de passage en territoire indien cinq juges joignirent à l’arrêt plusieurs déclarations dont certaines nominatives.123 Dans leur contenu, les déclarations et opinions peuvent porter sur des questions diverses, leur auteur pouvant commenter l’avis ou arrêt pris par la Cour en pointant du doigt certains éléments que le juge estime devoir retenir l’attention,124 préciser le

119 Voir ‘Les déclarations jointes aux décisions de la CIJ’, G. Guillaume ‘Les déclarations jointes aux décisions de la CIJ’, Liber Amicorum – In memoriam of Judge José Maria Ruda (Kluwer Law International, 2000) 421–34; du même La CIJ à l’aube du XXIème siècle: le regard d’un juge (Paris, Pedone, 2003) 161–72. 120 Cette disposition reprend et modifie l’ancien article 57 du Statut de la CPJI, ainsi formulé: ‘Si l’arrêt n’exprime pas en tout ou en partie l’opinion unanime des juges, les dissidents ont le droit d’y joindre l’exposé de leur opinion individuelle’ (nous soulignons). 121 De ce fait, une révision du Règlement de procédure est intervenue en 1978, avec pour objectif de réorganiser les modalités de commentaires dévolues aux juges, en proposant explicitement de faire disparaitre les déclarations. Elle précise également à l’article 95 que l’arrêt comprendra désormais l’indication non seulement du nombre, mais encore du ‘nom des juges ayant constitué la majorité’. Dans la pratique celui des juges minoritaires figure également dans le texte. 122 Sud Ouest Africain (Ethiopie et Libéria c. Afrique du Sud) [Deuxième phase] [1966], CIJ Rec 51. 123 Affaire du droit de passage sur territoire indien (Portugal c/ Inde) (Fond) [1960] CIJ Rec 6. Celles-ci étaient au départ brèves et impersonnelles, selon la lecture à la troisième personne qu’en faisait le Président immédiatement après le prononcé de l’arrêt, s’abstenant de mentionner le nom du juge qui d’ailleurs ne signait pas son opinion. 124 A titre d’exemple, la déclaration de MM. Evensen et Ranjeva sous l’arrêt du 14 juin 1993, Délimitation maritime dans la région située entre le Groenland et Jan Mayen, [Déclarations des juges Evensen et Ranjeva] [1993] CIJ Rec 84 et 87; Déclaration du juge ad hoc M. Kreca sous l’ordonnance du 17 décembre 1997, Application de la convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide, Bosnie Herzégovine c. Yougoslavie[1997].

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sens que donne le juge à certains de ses passages,125 ou apporter des éléments qu’il estime devoir faire partie intégrante du contenu de l’arrêt quand il le considère lacunaire.126 Le juge Oda a ainsi fait état d’un tel commentaire au sujet de l’affaire Délimitation de la frontière maritime dans la région du Golfe du Maine, en donnant ses précisions au sujet de l’opportunité et la légalité de la composition fixée par la Cour.127 L’opinion séparée peut également représenter une explication du vote du juge. Ainsi dans l’affaire Délimitation du plateau continental entre la Libye et Malte le juge Al Khani a précisé qu’il a ‘voté pour l’arrêt dans l’espoir qu’il puisse recueillir l’unanimité ou, à défaut, la plus grande majorité possible’ tout en ajoutant qu’à son avis, la délimitation aurait dû favoriser la Libye.128 Toutefois toutes ces déclarations ne sont en désaccord ni avec le dispositif de l’arrêt, ni avec ses motifs. Dans d’autres hypothèses, la déclaration ou l’opinion va jusqu’à critiquer ouvertement les motifs ou le dispositif d’un arrêt, comme ce fut le cas à l’occasion de l’Avis particulièrement divisé de la CIJ du 8 juillet 1996, Licéité de la menace ou de l’emploi des armes nucléaires. Tous les juges ont en effet émis des opinions séparées, qu’il s’agisse d’une déclaration, d’une opinion individuelle, ou d’une opinion dissidente. Or, ‘tout cela, comme la longueur inusitée du délibéré, traduit la profondeur des désaccords, voire des antagonismes que cette question a entraînés au sein de la Cour . . .[l’Avis] a intériorisé et reproduit les profondes divergences que connaît sur ce plan la société internationale.’129 Dans le cas extrême, le juge peut se déclarer en désaccord complet avec l’arrêt rendu, soulevant des interrogations préoccupées au sujet de l’avenir de la Cour.130 Cette technique des opinions séparées consacre ainsi une nouvelle forme d’hétérogénéité, celle qui est présente sur la scène internationale du point de vue du droit et reflétée au sein de la Cour, de manière expresse et juxtaposée à sa décision. Cette hétérogénéité est à la fois plus visible et donc plus à même d’acquérir le statut d’outil de contestation par la communauté internationale, sinon du contenu lui-même, du moins de l’autorité de la décision de la Cour.131 Toutefois, l’opinion séparée n’est pas sans présenter d’avantages. En fait, telle une ‘soupape de sécurité’, elle permet au juge de manifester son avis, sans remettre en cause la décision à laquelle, dans la majorité des cas, il souscrit par ailleurs. Ce fut notamment le cas pour le Président de la Cour, qui a eu recours à ces opinions dans les deux hypothèses où il s’est trouvé amené à départager la Cour.132

125 Déclarations de MM. Bedjaoui, Herczegh, Shi, Vereshchetin, et Ferrari Bravo sous l’avis consultatif du 8 juillet 1996, Licéité de l’utilisation des armes nucléaires par un Etat dans un conflit armé, [1996] CIJ Rec 268. 126 Déclaration de M. Ago sous l’arrêt du 3 février 1994, Différend territorial (Jamahiriya arabe libyenne c. Tchad) [1994], CIJ Rec 43. 127 Voir supra. Voir aussi Affaire Délimitation de la frontière maritime dans la région de Golfe du Maine (Canada c/ États Unis d’Amérique), constitution de chambre, [1982] CIJ Rec 10. 128 Plateau Continental (Jamahirya arabe libyenne/Malte) [1985] CIJ Rec 59. 129 S Sur ‘Préface’ M-P Lanfranchi et T Christakis, La licéité de l’emploi d’armes nucléaires devant la Cour internationale de Justice (Paris, Economica, 1997) 1–7. 130 Notamment voir l’opinion séparée du juge Oda jointe à l’Arrêt Application de la convention pour la prévention.., [Exceptions préliminaires], [1996] CIJ Rec 625. 131 M Manouvel (n 120) 310. 132 En 1966 ce fut le cas du Président Spender, voir l’opinion séparée jointe à l’Affaire Conséquences juridiques pour les États de la présence continue de l’Afrique du Sud en Namibie (Sud-Ouest africain)

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Ainsi, l’hétérogénéité, sous ses multiples aspects, telle qu’elle est présente dans la juridiction internationale, révèle des antagonismes qui ont pu ébranler cette instance. Cependant, la Cour est parvenue à maintenir le cap de la justice internationale contre les vents et marées de l’hétérogénéité politique et juridique internationale, en la transfigurant dans la plupart des situations en une diversité fédératrice à l’adresse de la communauté internationale.133

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Y Onuma, ‘A Transcivilizational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the Twenty-first Century: a Way to Overcome Westcentric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thoughts’, dans RSJ McDonald et DM Jonston (éds), Towards world constitutionalism: issues in the legal ordering of the World Community (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 2005) 151–89. S Ouechtati, ‘La culture en droit international ou de l’insaisissabilité appréhendée par le droit’ dans Droits et cultures, Mélanges offerts au Doyen Yadh Ben Achour (Tunis, Centre de Publication Universitaire, 2008). LV Prott, ‘The justification of decisions in the International Court of Justice’, C Perelman et P Foriers (éds), La motivation des décisions de justice (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1978). H Ruiz Fabri, ‘La motivation des décisions des juridictions internationales’ dans ibid (éd), Procès équitable et enchevêtrement des espaces normatifs, Travaux de l’atelier de droit international de L’UMR de droit comparé de Paris (Paris, Société de Législation comparée, 2003). J Salmon, ‘Quelques observations sur la qualification en droit international public’ dans C Perelman et P Foriers (éds), La motivation des décisions de justice (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1978). O Schlachter, ‘The Nature and Process of Legal Development and International Society’ dans RSJ McDonald et DM Jonston (éds), The Structure and Process of International Law (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 1983). KS Sik, ‘The attitude of the Asian States towards the ICJ revisited’ dans N Ando, E McWhinney et R Wolfrum (éds), Liber Amicorum Judge Shigeru Oda, Vol 1 (The Hague, Kluwer Law, 2002). S Sur, ‘Préface’ dans M-P Lanfranchi et T Christakis, La licéité de l’emploi d’armes nucléaires devant la Cour internationale de Justice (Paris, Economica, 1997).

Document international Commission du droit international (2006) ‘Conclusions du Groupe d’étude de la fragmentation du droit international : difficultés découlant de la diversification et de l’expansion du droit international’, untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/ francais/projet_d’articles/1_9_2006_francais.pdf.

Articles de périodiques G Bastid-Burdeau, ‘Le pouvoir créateur de la jurisprudence internationale à l’épreuve de la dispersion des juridictions’ (2006) 49 Archives de Philosophie du Droit 289–304. M Chemillier-Gendreau, ‘La justice, pilier ou béquille de la démocratie ? Un champ d’action pour le Sud’ (janvier 2001) Le Monde Diplomatique 24. J Combacau, ‘Le droit international, bric-à-brac ou système ?’ (1986) 31 Archives de Philosophie du Droit 85–105.

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G Fischer, (1966) ‘Les réactions devant l’arrêt de la Cour internationale de Justice concernant le Sud-Ouest africain’ 12 Annuaire français de droit international 144–54. J Fourest et M Prost, ‘La multiplication des juridictions internationales: de la nécessité de remettre quelques pendules à l’heure’ (2002) 15–2 Revue québécoise de droit international www.sqdi.org. E Gordon, ‘Observations on the Independence and Impartiality of the Members of the International Court of Justice’ (1987) Connecticut Journal of International Law 397–426. G Guillaume, ‘L’unité du droit international public est-elle aujourd’hui en danger?’ (2003) 55 Revue internationale de droit comparé 23–30. B Kingsbury, ‘Is the Proliferation of International Courts and Tribunals a Systemic Problem?’ (1999) (31) New York University Journal of International Law & Politics 679–86. AD Renteln, ‘Clash of Civilizations? Cultural Differences in the Development and Interpretation of International Law, Cultural Bias in International Law’ (1998) 92 American Society of International Law Proceedings 232–43. S Rosenne, ‘The Cold War and the International Court of Justice: A Review Essay of Stephen M. Schwebel’s Justice in International law’ (1995) 35 Virginia Journal of International Law 669–82. J Salmon, ‘La construction juridique du fait en droit international’ (1987) 32 Archives de Philosophie du Droit : Le droit international (Paris, Sirey) 135–51. AY Seita, ‘Globalization and the convergence of Values’ (1997) 30 Cornell International Law Journal 429–91. B Tchikaya, ‘L’entrée historique des pays d’Afrique dans la jurisprudence internationale’ (2004) 1 Miskolc Journal of International Law 242–58. H Thirlway, (2006) ‘The Drafting of International Court of Justice Decisions: Some Personal Recollections and Observations’, Chinese Journal of International Law 15–28.

Cours P-M Dupuy, ‘L’unité de international public’ International 9–489. M Virally, ‘Panorama du international public’ International 9–382.

l’ordre juridique international : cours général de droit (2000) 297 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit droit international contemporain, Cours général de droit (1983) 183 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit

Référence internet B Frydman, ‘Conclusion: Le dialogue international des juges et la perspective idéale d’une justice universelle’, (2007) www.philodroit.be/IMG/pdf/B._FRYDMAN__Conclusion_-_Le_dialogue_international_des_juges_-_30_mars_2007.pdf.

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Document de travail P-M Dupuy, ‘Fragmentation du droit international ou des perceptions qu’on en a ?’ (2006) EUI Working Paper LAW No 2006/14.

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On Multilingualism and the International Legal Process GLEIDER I HERNÁNDEZ *

INTRODUCTION

S

UBSTANTIAL EFFORT HAS been dedicated to understanding the different cultural and intellectual traditions that, for better or for worse, have infused international law with its contemporary character, and much faith is placed in the capacity for legal texts precisely to reflect human conceptual intention. Yet, the relationship between language and international law, unlike in many of the social sciences and humanities, has rarely formed the subject of thorough study.1 Instead, most research focuses on how legal language can channel norms and values into human behaviour and on problems such as the plurilingual interpretation of treaties.2

* DPhil candidate (Wadham College, Oxford), LLM (Leiden), BCL & LLB (McGill); Associate Legal Officer & Law Clerk to Vice-President Peter Tomka and Judge Bruno Simma, International Court of Justice. It goes without saying that the present piece is a purely personal reflection of the author’s views and does not in any way represent those of the Court. All other standard disclaimers apply. 1 There are exceptions, such as the discussion of language as a method of argumentation and rhetoric, most famously symbolised in Martti Koskenniemi’s work (eg M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: the Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, reissue 2005)); see also M Koskenniemi, ‘International Law in Europe: Between Tradition and Renewal’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 113. See also P Allott, ‘Language, Method and the Nature of International Law’ (1971) 45 British Yearbook of International Law 79. Some other materials which deal with the issue somewhat have been published in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008), in the context of a joint conference between the French and German Societies of international law in Nice, and the International Law as Language for International Relations: Proceedings of the United Nations Congress on Public International Law (13–17 March 1995) (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1996). 2 See, eg M Sibert, Traité du droit international public, Vol II (Paris, Dalloz, 1951) 320; J Hardy, ‘The Interpretation of Plurilingual Treaties by International Courts and Tribunals’ (1961) 37 British Yearbook of International Law 72; A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961) 432–35; S Rosenne, ‘The Meaning of “Authentic Text” in Modern Treaty Law’ in R Bernhardt, WK Geck, G Jaenicke and H Steinberger (eds), Völkerrecht als Rechtsordnung, Internationale Gerichtsbarkeit, Menschenrechte: Festschrift für Hermann Mosler (Berlin, Springer Verlag, 1983) 759. A similar focus exists with regard to the drafting of multilateral treaties: see, eg International Law Commission, ‘Preparation of Multilingual Treaties: Memorandum by the Secretariat’ UN Doc A/CN 4/187, in Yearbook of the International Law Commission Vol II (New York, United Nations, 1966) 104–11. As for the work of international organisations, see, eg UN Secretary General, Multilingualism: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc A/54/478 (New York, United Nations, 1999); E Kudryavtsev and L-D Ouedraogo, Implementation of Multilingualism in the United Nations System JIU/REP/2002/11 (Geneva, United Nations, 2003); and CE King, AS Bryntsev and FD Sohn, The Implications of Additional Languages in the United Nations System JIU/REP/77/5, UN Doc A/32/237 (Geneva, United Nations, 1977). Cf P Reuter, Droit international public (Paris, PUF, 1968), 25–26: ‘[E]n l’absence d’une

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The problématique is as follows. There are murmurs of dissatisfaction in the corridors of New York, Geneva and The Hague to the effect that current linguistic arrangements no longer reflect aspirations for a less Euro-centric, more universal international law. Under this argument, the widespread use of the English language in economic, political and institutional circles has divorced this language from its native speakers and allowed it to become a truly auxiliary international language. Thus, the use of French, historically the second international working language, would be reduced or altogether eliminated. This change would catalyse increased access for individuals who already struggle to master one foreign language, as the perceived ‘barrier’ of having to learn French would be eliminated. Already, that language has begun to be informally marginalised in favour of a unilingual working environment. One can also see this trend in the international academy, where more and more published material is in English alone.3 Two small anecdotes might be of interest here. The European Journal of International Law, originally publishing in both French and English, explains: ‘the decision to publish exclusively in English is based on the fact that it enables us to reach the widest possible readership, in view of the ever-growing number of Europeans and others for whom English is the principal second language.’4 More recently, the French and German Societies of International Law published the proceedings of a colloquium jointly held in Nice, which focused on cultural diversity and international law. The francophone participants presented in French; everyone else, including native German-speakers, presented in English.5 This phenomenon has significant repercussions for international law. It cannot be said that the impact of any change to the current linguistic settlement would not be limited to increasing the universalism of international law; it would in fact engender several concerns, three of which merit mention. First, language does not merely reflect patterns of usage based on economic, political, or social trends, especially in a discipline with the universalist aspirations of international law. The language used by an individual carries the full weight of national traditions, of intellectual histories, and of differing cultural interpretations. Moreover, the interpretation of legal texts rests on epistemic and semantic factors,

langue internationale, les règles internationales sont formulées dans une langue nationale; les termes de celle-ci sont justiciables d’un double lexique, l’un vers le droit national et il y a alors renvoi, l’autre vers le droit international. Le partage entre les deux cas n’est pas toujours effectué une fois pour toutes au départ; on voit souvent par un «développement» du droit international celui-ci édifier progressivement ses notions propres et les substituer à celles du droit national.’ 3 An attempt to counter this was made in producing a French-language commentary to the UN Charter. As its editors explained, their commentary ‘comble une lacune car il constitue le premier commentaire systématique issu de l’école de pensée française . . . Nous disposions jusqu’à présent des analyses en langue anglaise.’ Avant-propos de JP Cot and A Pellet, La Charte des Nations Unies, 3rd edn (Paris, Economica, 2005) ix; see also J Perez de Cuellar, préface in ibid, v. A notable exception to this tendency is O Corten and P Klein (eds), Convention de Vienne sur le droit des traités — Commentaire article par article (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2006), which came out in French first. However, an English version had just been finalised by Oxford University Press as this study went to press. 4 www.ejil.org/about/index.php. 5 At that conference where the presentation leading to this study was delivered, 51 of the 59 panellists presented in English; eight presented in French.

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which requires the translation of a legal idea into language.6 Sometimes the drafting of the legislative or judicial text rests upon the verbalisation of legal concepts that previously had no linguistic expression. Although there is a careful drafting process whereby differing viewpoints are reconciled, international legal processes do not begin and end with the creation of law, but rather, with its interpretation, and it is here where an entirely different facet of the complex relationship between languages and international law comes to the fore. International law, as a forum for the meeting of people from all corners of the globe, must accommodate all of these various phenomena.7 Secondly, specifically with regard to francophone legal thought, it has formed an integral part of the development of international law and structured around a civil law tradition shared with much of the globe. To eliminate any and all use of French would gradually divorce international law from an essential part of its heritage. This is not nostalgia: much like the transition from the Arabic script to the Latin alphabet precluded younger generations of Turkish-speakers from reading the work of their progenitors without translation, so the elimination of French from international legal discourse constitutes a shift, the consequences of which are already being felt. Official marginalisation would only accelerate this tendency. Thirdly, it behoves international society carefully to consider the loss of the pluralist safeguard which multiple languages provide. Multilingualism reduces the temptation of many domestic lawyers to transpose domestic legal principles from their own national legal system. Thus, the substitution or addition of international languages alongside English and French, such as Spanish, Arabic or Chinese, has been suggested. However, much like adding additional members to the Security Council, substitution or addition raise a whole series of issues, which obfuscate the problems with the contemporary arrangement: instead of increasing access to the international legal process to as many participants as possible, it elevates only certain groups and in fact increases the hurdles for others. This reality has the opposite effect of any intended reform, as the challenge remains to re-conceptualise existing structures so as to make them more democratic, as opposed to simply updating international law to better reflect contemporary power structures. International law, by its very nature, requires the interaction of people educated in different legal traditions, hence the importance of language in that framework. The interfacing of these legal traditions,8 coupled with the differences in perception of international law and the role of law more generally, makes an important contribution to debates concerning the role and function of international law. For this reason, this study will focus on a relatively narrow aspect of the field, namely

6 R MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’, (1997) 42 McGill Law Journal 119, 147. MacDonald’s writing specifically relates to the Canadian legal framework. 7 T Kleinlein, ‘The Language of Public International Law’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 199, provides an exhaustive survey of some of the major approaches to law and linguistic theory. 8 By ‘legal culture’, a helpful definition is proffered by AJ Arnaud (ed), Dictionnaire encyclopédique de théorie et de sociologie du droit, 2nd edn (Paris, LGDJ, 1993) 141: ‘les valeurs et les attitudes qui lient le système dans un ensemble, et qui déterminent la place du système juridique dans la culture de la société considérée comme un tout.’

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the languages of international adjudication and legislation, and, when pertinent, the question of languages in the international adjudicative process. It is here that treaty interpretation, as a matter of law and not as a matter of obligation, takes place; it is here that a disproportionate share of the development of the law occurs; and it is here that the specific question of how legal cultures transpose their principles and approaches to the international legal plane arises. This study should therefore be read purely as a response to the movement towards English as a lingua franca of international law.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

A brief history on the emergence of diplomatic languages is in order. As is well known, Latin was the original diplomatic language in the West, even used orally during the Congress of Westphalia, although by that point French had made inroads and was the second language for oral communication.9 By the Congress of Nijmegen, [L]’on s’aperçut du progrès que la langue française avait fait dans les pays étrangers, car il n’y avait point de maison d’ambassadeurs où elle ne fut presque aussi commune que leur langue naturelle. . . . pendant tout le cours des négociations de la paix, il ne parut presque que des écritures françaises, les étrangers aimant mieux s’expliquer en français dans leurs mémoires publics que d’écrire dans une langue moins usitée que le français.10

The language of diplomacy had shifted earlier than the language of treaties, which until the eighteenth century remained—with some exceptions—Latin, when French became ascendant.11 This was an important shift for international law, from the use of a language which enjoyed no connection with a contemporary society towards a language very much attached to a contemporary society (the country of France, as well as, to a certain extent, the upper classes of European society).

The Versailles Conference and the Covenant of the League of Nations, 1919 The shattering of that temporary French linguistic hegemony over international relations came with the Treaty of Versailles, drafted in two ‘equally authentic languages’, English and French, and with the emergence of English as a co-official language of the League of Nations. The question was discussed during the two 9 See generally JB Scott, Le français: langue diplomatique moderne (Paris, Pedone, 1934); R Jennings and A Watts (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law, 9th edn (Longman, London 1992) vol I, 1054–55; see also A Leriche, ‘Les langues diplomatiques à l’Organisation des Nations Unies’ (1953) 31 Revue de droit international de sciences diplomatiques et politiques 45, 45. 10 V Williams, ‘Les méthodes de travail de la diplomatie’, (1924) 4 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 225, 262. 11 Leriche, ‘Les langues diplomatiques’ (n 9), 46. See, eg Treaty of Utrecht, 1715 (Latin); Treaty of Rastatt, 1716 (French); Treaty of Vienna, 1736 (French); Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748 (French); Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, 1815 (French). For the latter two documents, an express reservation was entered to the effect that the use of French for those treaties was not a valid precedent for the future of French as a diplomatic language, although that particular phrase was not found in subsequent treaties.

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sessions of 15 January 1919,12 and only after long debates about the rank and prestige of the two languages could it be agreed upon that both versions would have equal status.13 For the English language, it was a breakthrough of sorts to attain the same level of equality as French in the Covenant of the League, which was the first constitutive instrument of a world-wide international organisation. Pichon, Foreign Minister of France, had suggested French as the sole official language of the Versailles Conference, stressing the need for a common language for all, which could meet the conditions of ‘logique, de clarté et de précision nécessair[e] et couramment intelligible pour toutes les parties’.14 Lloyd George, of Great Britain, opposed this request, not because of any intrinsic problem with the French language itself, but because the proportion of the world’s population which spoke English required that it be given equal rank with French.15 Discussions ended fruitlessly, and in fact the Versailles Conference ended up opening bilingually, with delegates expressing themselves in English and French. By way of a decision of the Supreme Council (Great Britain, France, the United States and Italy), and with no consultation of the plenary Conference, Article 440 of the Treaty of Versailles stipulated that both English and French versions were considered equally authentic. James Brown Scott vehemently criticised the Versailles Conference as ‘la Conférence des Ignorants à Paris, en 1919’ for its use of both English and French,16 and lauded the Conference leading to the French-only Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 as an end to the ‘petit interrègne de l’ignorance . . . le français recommence sa mission intellectuelle.’17 Nevertheless, it was evident that the end of the First World War had led to the abandonment of French as the sole international legal language. In the inter-war period, treaty practice fragmented further, with an emerging trend for states to conclude bipartite treaties in their own language, in a conflicting practice that did not give primacy to either English or French.18

12 See US Department of State, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington, US Government Printing Office, 1943) vol III (15 January 1919), 553–61. 13 M Hilf, ‘Article 111’, in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1379, 1380. 14 US Department of State, The Paris Peace Conference (n 12), 553–61. 15 See ibid 554. He invoked the population of the United States (100 million at the time) and the population of India (over 300 million at the time); the latter were said to ‘all understand’ the language. He invoked the examples of Canada and South Africa as jurisdictions with two official languages to demonstrate that it was indeed feasible. 16 Scott, Le français (n 9), 319, 139. Scott makes an unusual argument, that the use of French as a diplomatic language had become so entrenched in the period leading up to 1919 that its use had acquired the status of a customary norm, ibid 13. This is surely untenable: the opinio juris for this norm was lacking, given the repeated invocation of the article denying the use of French any precedential value, such as that contained in the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna. See also Jennings and Watts, Oppenheim’s International Law (n 9), 1054, where it is stated that the choice of French prior to the 1919 Peace Conferences was a ‘usage of diplomacy only, and not a rule of international law’. 17 ibid. 18 MO Hudson, ‘Languages Used in Treaties’, (1932) 26 American Journal of International Law 368, 370–72. See also H Roumiguière, Le français dans les relations internationales (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1926); S Gaselee, The Language of Diplomacy (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes, 1939).

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The Permanent Court of International Justice, 1922 The first initiatives in international dispute settlement were flexible and granted considerable deference to states.19 It was with the emergence of a permanent standing court where the question of a common language for judges and parties became an issue. At the Tenth Session of the Council of the League, where the question of a permanent Court was discussed,20 Lord Balfour explained the reasoning for having both languages in the following terms: English and French corresponded with two great legal traditions, one of which was founded on Roman law and the other upon the English Common Law . . . A great part of the world to-day employed the English language or made use of English in its foreign relations.21

This suggestion was ignored by the 1920 Advisory Committee of Jurists. After a brief flirtation with the idea that the language of the Court be tied to its seat,22 the Committee proposed in its draft Article 37 for the Statute of the Permanent Court, in conformity with the ‘Five-Power Plan’23 that its official language should be French, while also citing the importance of a common language of communication: [T]he permanence of the language must be an outward sign of the permanence of the Court. It would be absurd to allow each of 15 to 20 judges to express himself in a different language. It would be impossible to allow parties to come before the judges and use a language that they, the judges, did not understand. A Court composed of all the nations of the World would thus become a Court of all tongues.24

The work of the Committee was almost exclusively in French, as can be seen in the preface to the PCIJ procès-verbaux: ‘As all the members of the Committee, with the exception of Mr. Elihu Root, spoke in the French language, the English text of the procès-verbaux is to be looked upon as a translation, except in so far as concerns

19 Both the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conferences conducted their proceedings in French: see Scott, Le français (n 9) 112, and both the resulting Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, 1899 and the Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, 1907, reprinted in S Rosenne, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 and International Arbitration: Reports and Documents (The Hague, TMC Asser Press, 2001), provide that the authoritative text of the Convention is the French version. They differ in how the parties may use language in their arbitrations: Art 38 of the 1899 Convention provides that the tribunal decides on the choice of languages to be used by itself and to be authorised for use before it, whilst Art 52 of the 1907 Convention provides that the compromis between the parties defines, if there is occasion, the language it will use and the languages the employment of which shall be authorised for use before the Tribunals. 20 League of Nations, Procès-verbal of the 10th Session of the Council, League of Nations Doc 20/29/16 (Brussels, 20–28 October 1920), meeting of 27 October 1920, Annexes 118a–18b. 21 League of Nations, Documents Concerning the Action Taken by the Council of the League of Nations under Article 14 of the Covenant and the Adoption by the Assembly of the Statute of the Permanent Court (Geneva, 1921) 42. 22 Advisory Committee of Jurists, Procès-verbaux of the Proceedings of the Committee (The Hague, Van Langenhuysen Brothers, 1920), 732: Beviláqua proposed that ‘the official language of the Court shall be that of the town in which it is situated’. 23 The proposal for a unilingual court was adopted unanimously, ibid 666. Only one of the Five Neutral Powers (Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland) has French as an official language. 24 ibid 99. The 1907 Court of Arbitral Justice project had left the question of language open.

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the speeches and remarks of Mr. Root.’25 However, before the League Council, Lord Balfour forcefully objected to this proposed unilingualism: I do not think that this, quite apart from the merits of the case, could be accepted until America joined the League, and had an opportunity of officially expressing her opinion on the subject. Apart from American opinion, it has to be observed that the Treaty of Versailles puts the two languages on an equality; and that in every instrument issuing out of the Treaty of Versailles this equality is maintained. The League of Nations itself carries on its business in French and English; and the English is not regarded as a mere translation of the French, but is treated as of equal authority. It would seem unfortunate to make an exception in respect to the Permanent Court; and I have no doubt that my Government would regard any such exception with the greatest disfavour.26

Viscount Ishii of Japan supported this view.27 Upon the moment of the Council’s vote on the official languages of the Court, the bilingual proposal of Mr Caclamanos was retained, with Mr Bourgeois (France) abstaining.28 The Treaty of Versailles and the drafting of the PCIJ Statute heralded a new period for international relations, where English and French were to co-exist. The substantial development of international law by the Permanent Court is notable in this regard, as it struggled to maintain independence from either language group. To the extent that its institutional framework was retained for the present International Court, one can say that its experience was a success; however, outside the framework of international adjudication, there was a significant change in how international relations were to be conducted after the Second World War. CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL MULTILINGUALISM

The United Nations and Multilingualism The San Francisco Conference also engendered vigorous debate as to the future working and official languages of the new organisation.29 The French delegate proposed that English and French should be made the two official languages on a ‘base de complète égalité’ for the entirety of the Conference, thereby highlighting the ‘traditional’ role of French as a language of diplomacy and one of the ‘grandes 25

ibid at Préface, iv. Note on the Permanent Court of International Justice submitted by Mr Balfour to the Council of the League of Nations, Brussels, October 1920, contained in League Documents (n 21), 39; League of Nations Documents, Official Records of the First Assembly, Committees, vol I, 512. 27 League, Documents, ibid 42; League Council, 10th session, 20–21. When this proposal was adopted, it was stipulated that, to avoid problems of linguistic concordance, the Court should specify which linguistic version would be authoritative, ibid 44–45. 28 MO Hudson, The Permanent Court of International Justice (1920–1942) (New York, Garland Publishing, 1972) 196. A proposal by Spain that a language expressly consented to by both parties should be accepted in a given case was rejected for the reason that it would be unfair to demand that judges master more than the two official languages: see League of Nations Documents, Official Records of the First Assembly, Commission Sessions, 305–306, 367. 29 See generally United Nations Information Organisations, Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organisation Doc 1 (English) G/1 (1945) vol XXVII, DC/4, 42 et seq (26 April 1945). 26

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langues de la civilisation’. The Chinese delegates advocated that, in the interest of time, English be the sole language of the Conference; conversely, the Honduran delegate declared that if French were given the status of working language, the same status should be accorded to Spanish. A compromise was suggested by the Canadian delegate, relating the experience of Canada’s House of Commons, where delegates could speak in either official language, with bilingual transcripts then issued.30 The impasse was resolved by the Soviet representative, who suggested that Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish be made the official languages (in contradistinction with the working languages, English and French) of the United Nations. This compromise led to Article 111, which did not specify that any languages were to be ‘official’, but designated the versions of the Charter in those languages as equally authentic. While a historical memory, distinction between the UN official and working languages is extremely important. Although documents were translated into the official languages, the idea that French and English would be the only ‘working languages’, thus maintaining their duopoly on international discourse, soon proved to be intolerable. A successful campaign by Latin American states led to the adoption of Spanish as a third working language in 1948;31 by 1973, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic had been added to the list, thereby obliterating the distinction between official and working languages and changing the nature of the debate. What is most interesting is that the Charter is viewed as a juridical whole in those languages, and its interpretation never simply ignores the other official-language versions of the text but favours a multilingual approach.32 Yet, although the United Nations officially has six working languages, and the six UN languages appear to be used consistently in the drafting of multilateral treaties, the overwhelming use of English (and to a lesser extent French) has been noted within the organisation itself,33 even though the six UN languages appear to be used consistently in the drafting of multilateral treaties.34 It is true that, especially in treaty interpretation, the ‘equally authentic’ versions do not give priority to any particular language: the United Nations Charter, which 30 Since the San Francisco Conference, the Canadian legal order has progressively moved towards full legal bilingualism, with most new federal legislation drafted in two original language versions, and bilingual courts and administrative agencies predominant: MacDonald, Legal Bilingualism (n 6), 127 lists a vast body of literature which focuses on the question of legal bilingualism in Canada. Furthermore, its legislative protection is uncontested: s 133 of the Constitution Act 1867, (the ‘British North America Act’) (UK), 30 & 31 Vict, c 3; the Official Languages Act (Canada), RSC 1985, c 31 (4th Supp); and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act 1982 (Canada), being Sch B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK) 1982, c 11. 31 Proposal for the Adoption of Spanish as One of the Working Languages of the General Assembly, UNGA Res 247 (III) (7 December 1948). 32 Hilf, ‘Article 111’ (n 13), 1380–81; but cf Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1984] ICJ Rep 392, 405–06, where only the English and French-language versions of the Charter were considered by the Court. 33 See UN Secretary General, Multilingualism (n 2). 34 See, eg Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (17 July 1998), 2187 UNTS 90, Art 128; United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property (2 December 2004), UN Doc A/59/508 (not yet in force), Art 33; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, (9 May 1992), 1171 UNTS 107, 31.

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was negotiated primarily in English and French, due to technical problems and the lack of simultaneous translation, assigns no particular importance to those two languages as the ‘working languages’ of the San Francisco Conference.35 Moreover, multilingual treaty drafting has not necessarily affected the dominance of English in the organisation’s work; it has been claimed that 90 per cent of the UN Secretariat’s work is in English.36 What is really at issue is not so much which languages are meant to dominate, but the manner in which working languages reinforce a culture, a framework of legal reasoning, and the transposition of legal norms from the national to the international—and the process whereby that is realised, as that transposition is not merely of a concept, but of a message. In that regard, it is instructive to analyse the interpretation of the Charter versus the interpretation of the ICJ Statute in this regard.

Multilingualism and International Adjudication/Dispute Settlement Expanding the official languages of what became the International Court of Justice was controversial, and revealed the ideas and major debates underlying the use of language at the United Nations. Preliminary discussions of the Committee of Jurists hosted by the American Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius Jr, were held exclusively in English,37 and Green Hackworth’s original proposals called for the Committee to work exclusively in English, ‘in order to expedite the Committee’s work’.38 The French delegate, Jules Basdevant, requested that French remain as a working language of the Committee, on the basis that the PCIJ Statute, drafted in both languages, would be the basis of the new Court’s Statute; his proposal, ‘eu égard à la forme spéciale [sic] des statuts’, was unanimously approved by the Committee, especially as the Statute of the Permanent Court was adopted as the working document for the proposed Court.39 Much of the Committee’s work was done in both languages, and in particular, given that the Court’s Statute was to be authentic in both languages, much of the work focused on the harmonisation of the

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S Jaschek, ‘Deutsch als Sprache der Vereinten Nationen’, (1977) 25 Vereinte Nationen 18. See eg J Rios, ‘Les langues du droit international, risque ou avantage?’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 209 [hereinafter ‘Rios, ‘Les langues du droit international’’], 213, who claims that up to 90% of the work published by the Secretariat is in English. Cf with the practice of the European Union, where, despite some 20-odd official languages and three working languages (English, French and German), up to 68% of all its work is conducted in English. In 2008, the GA declared the Official Year of Languages: UN Doc A/61/L 56; see also GA Res 50/11, on Multilingualism in the United Nations, in preamble: ‘that the universality of the United Nations and its corollary, multilingualism, entail for each State Member of the Organization, irrespective of the official language in which it expresses itself, the right and the duty to make itself understood and to understand others.’ Interestingly, this French-led initiative was harshly criticised as ‘extending a current privilege at the expense of other linguistic groups that are currently operating in a situation of even greater hardship’, Delegate of New Zealand, UN Doc A/50/PV 49 (2 November 1995) 9. See also UN Doc A/RES/59/309 (22 June 2005). 37 UNCIO Documents (n 29) vol XIV, 25–40. 38 ibid 53–54. This might have been justified by the fact that on the following day, the US State Department delegates had to take the train to San Francisco to attend that Conference. 39 ibid, 55–60. 36

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texts.40 This bilingual drafting process arguably improved the precision and clarity of the draft;41 what it certainly did was oblige a reconciliation by using the two languages which were the most commonly understood by all members of the Committee; because neither of the languages was completely familiar to all delegates, that bilingual process also encouraged the abstraction of the text from a particular mindset or a specific national legal tradition.42 During the San Francisco Conference, there was no longer any question that French and English would be represented as official languages of the Court; rather, debate centred upon whether they would maintain their duopoly. Roberto Córdova of Mexico proposed the addition of Spanish as the third official language, which was roundly criticised.43 The Soviets worried that it would pave the way for new demands; the Greek delegate, Mr Spiropoulos, expressed his preference for one official language, but as two were already established, there should be no increase or addition. Mr Córdova duly did not insist on his proposal,44 although Ecuador formally proposed its inclusion.45 In an interesting proposal, Sánchez de Bustamante of Cuba proposed two separate chambers for the Court, with one headquartered in Havana and having four official languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, and French.46 That arrangement ultimately also failed, in favour of preserving the two historical languages, an arrangement maintained to the present day.47 Kohen’s appraisal of the situation is succinct and briefly touches upon some of the major questions: The choice of two languages instead of one for a Court of such an international character — being as it is, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations — must also be commended. The fact that those languages are French and English and not others is justified on the basis of tradition, their use as international languages and their recognition as representatives of two different linguistic groups. It was also a wise decision not to

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ibid 72–76, 122–34; 170–74; 187; 201; 219–23. See eg MO Hudson, ‘The New World Court’ (1945) 24 Foreign Affairs 368. 42 As commented in M Tabory, ‘The Addition of Arabic as an Official and Working Language of the UN General Assembly and at Diplomatic Conferences’, (1978) 13 Israel Law Review 391, 391: ‘It has been pointed out that the process of multilingual drafting, or even simple translation, may at times shed added light upon a formulation or raise questions which would not be anticipated if a single language were being used, and thus helps to produce a better text.’ See generally M Tabory, Multilingualism in International Law and Institutions (Alphen aan de Rijn, Sijthoff and Noordhoff, 1980). Indeed, sometimes the clarity of intention cannot be presumed from either legislator or law-making body. When it comes to language, the Vienna Convention rules are singularly useless, as one cannot simply search for the ‘clearest’ meaning or the ‘lowest common denominator’ of overlapping between language versions; nor again can one simply lift the veil of equal authenticity and discard the language in which it was not originally drafted. 43 M Kohen, ‘Article 39’ in A Zimmerman, C Tomuschat and K Oellers-Frahm (eds), The Statute of the International Court of Justice: A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006), 837, 842. 44 UNCIO, Documents (n 29) vol XIV, 171–72. 45 ibid vol III, 413. 46 ibid vol IV, 730; vol XVI, 438. These are the four official languages of the Pan-American Union, ibid vol I, 631. 47 See Military and Paramilitary Activities in and around Nicaragua [1984] ICJ Rep 392, 405–406 (where it used the French version of the Statute because it was the broadest); Conditions of Admission of a State to the United Nations (Article 4 of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1947–8] ICJ Rep 57, 63, 79, 86, and 110 et seq (where only the English and French versions of the Charter were used to establish that the texts could be interpreted together). 41

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recognize other languages used within the UN system as official languages of the Court. This would have required extensive translations from, and into, different languages and would have complicated effective judicial action.48

The approach ultimately adopted by the drafters of the ICJ Statute has broadly been followed by other major international courts, tribunals, and disputesettlement bodies. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Rules of Procedure explicitly designate English and French as their working languages.49 Conversely, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides that English and French are the working languages of that institution,50 despite several efforts to make Spanish or other official languages of the UN its working languages as well.51 Of the major international judicial/arbitral bodies, only the World Trade Organization’s dispute-settlement mechanism includes Spanish also as a working language,52 which is the result of a process which began during the GATT rounds in 1960.53

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Kohen, ‘Article 39’ (n 43) 848. Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, IT/32/Rev 38 (as amended on 13 June 2006), r 3; Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ITR/3/REV 1 (as amended on 5 March 2008), r 3. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the ICTY works almost exclusively in English; the ICTR, in both languages. 50 The ILC’s Draft Statute of 1994 provided for this with little commentary, at its Art 18: see Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 46th Session, 2 May–22 July 1994, Supp No 10, UN Doc A/49/10 (1994), commentary to Art 50, 35. This was enshrined in Art 50, para 2 of the Rome Statute (n 34), and reg 39, sub-reg 1 of which requires that all Court filings must be in one of the working languages of the Court. 51 See D Tolbert and M Karagiannakis, ‘Article 50’ in O Triffterer (ed), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2nd edn (Munich, CH Beck, Hart, Nomos, 2008) 1025, 1026. 52 This is found in the final draft of the Marrakech Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (15 April 1994, 1867 UNTS 3, Art 2(c)(i) of which states that it is authentic in English, French, and Spanish. Under Art XXVI of GATT (pre-Uruguay Round), only English and French were conventionally enshrined. Interestingly, the WTO agreement has specific clauses requiring the harmonisation of the French text and the preparation of an authentic Spanish text. See World Trade Organisation, Analytical Index: Guide to GATT Law and Practice, Vol II (Geneva, WTO Publications, 1995), 915–16. One could also discuss the experience of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights which, albeit regional bodies, exert significant normative influence. However, their very regionality distinguishes them somewhat from the classically international institutions mentioned above, and their particular patterns do not lend themselves to easy comparison. 53 In 1960, during the 17th session, the representative of Uruguay urged, on behalf of the Spanish-speaking contracting parties, that the Spanish language be introduced on a progressive basis: see WTO, Analytical Index, (n 52), 915–16. 1961 saw simultaneous interpretation from Spanish into English and French during plenary meetings, and the beginning of translation of official documents into Spanish. The use of Spanish grew until 1983, at which point Spanish had attained the same status as English and French within GATT negotiations. The status of Spanish has been preserved for the WTO. 49

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ARGUMENTS FAVOURING MULTILINGUALISM—UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF ‘OFFICIAL LANGUAGES’

The Normative Aspects of Language The influence of the official languages of international law is profound, in that it also privileges the transfer of concepts and ideas from municipal legal orders into international law. Where the laws, cases, and scholarly texts in international law are primarily in two languages, they employ the vocabulary and with it, the ideas channelled into international law through those two languages. Thus, because of this ‘vehicular’ status, the transfer of ideas from francophone and anglophone legal orders (especially, France, the United Kingdom and the United States) into international law is accelerated. Moreover, the linguistic proficiency of native speakers of those languages leads to their over-representation in international law-making bodies, especially amongst lawyers, judges, academics and international civil servants. With that representation also comes the infusion of ideas from within these institutions: languages become the ‘voie d’accès aux concepts et normes qu’il[s] véhicule[nt]’.54 For these reasons, the choice of language to employ in legal instruments and even in adjudicatory proceedings has a profound influence on the development of that law: these go far beyond problems of interpretation and precision, but goes straight into the heart of legal analysis. To understand legal bilingualism as mere ‘textual duality’,55 for example, does violence to the concept, as it presumes that all law can be fully expressed through language, and that language itself can act as universal discourse.56 Furthermore, using two languages in tandem adds a new level of precision and clarity even in the original language. This is part of a constant process of reconciliation between both languages in an attempt to transform each official text into its own contribution to the whole, rather than as a mere translation from a primus inter partes. This process also arguably allows those select language versions to shed their tendency to adapt to a national legal tradition,57 which would mitigate some of the problems of using living languages for international legal discourse.

Theories of Language and Communication Language is inherently a tool for the communication of ideas and concepts. Already between two individuals, it is a challenge to employ the correct terms for the expression of such concepts—in many ways, all communication is the translation of 54

Rios (n 36) 214. MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) 128. 56 ibid 128. 57 For a thorough discussion about how national legal culture permeates conceptions of international law, see generally E Jouannet, ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international: cultures juridiques et droit international’, in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 43. 55

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thought into language.58 This also applies to legal language, which harbours its own particularised vocabulary and idioms. This problem is magnified in international legal circles, where the interaction between states requires also the interaction between these individual vocabularies. Some common ground must be chosen, yet it is difficult to speak those ideas in our native tongue, much less translate them on the international plane. That problem of translation goes well beyond linguistic concordance; it is rooted in a problem of vocabulary: [L]e même terme peut être pris dans un sens différent en droit international et dans un droit constitutionnel déterminé. . . . Cette situation peut engendrer certaines confusions et l’idéal serait d’inventer, à l’usage du droit international, un vocabulaire propre. Mais cette voie qui a été suivie (par exemple en inventant sur le plan international des termes nouveaux et neutres comme ‘acceptation’) ne peut garantir la séparation des deux vocabulaires, car au bout d’un certain temps, les règles nationales peuvent recourir à ce même vocabulaire en le déformant.59

It is true that legal culture in this regard depends not on ontological differences between legal orders, but instead on intellectual constructions. A common national legal culture springs from a shared history, intellectual heritage and cognitive structures more than on any inherent trait; this also means that there is a certain autonomy regarding legal culture as distinct from general culture.60 Thus, as imperfect as shared communications are within a legal culture, there is a commonality which can be built upon. This imperfection grows in multi-cultural communities. Ideas, even under the best auspices, are not fully translatable into spoken or written form; reliable multilingual accords are therefore even more difficult to reach, even when removing the problem of translation. The connotative aspects of language entail that words carry implied meanings, often associated with our cultural or national settings. Another theoretical point warranting consideration is the dependence of words on the larger questions of language itself—terminology only has meaning if it is interpreted in a context, as words themselves are not isolated entities. Their meaning depends on their relationship with the linguistic system as a whole, and it is the linguistic system behind a language which determines the value of a word and its place in a vocabulary. This argument is not only about lexicon or grammatical structure, but also about the philosophical, historical, scientific, and political contexts: words often contain unstated valuations or even encapsulate an entire theory: one need only invoke words such ‘normativity’, ‘dialectic’ and ‘essentialism’, to understand clearly that words carry with them cultural and contextual associations going well beyond a plain definition of the words themselves.

58 MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) 123; see also G Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992), preface and passim. 59 P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traités (Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1972), 68–69. 60 D Jutras, ‘Énoncer l’indicible: Le droit entre langues et traditions’, (2000) 52 Revue internationale de droit comparé 781, 788.

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Why Multilingualism over Unilingualism? The value of multilingualism (or even bilingualism) far outweighs that of unilingualism for this reason. For all the comforts of being able to express oneself in one’s own language, linguistic pluralism is important to the very process of communication within international affairs. The use of several equally authentic languages, both in the drafting as well as interpretive processes, ensures that one of the players, or a group of players, is denied the superior status as well as the manifold practical advantages derived from having its language imposed upon other players. Furthermore, it also creates a different discursive context: to engage dialogue in more than one language gives participants a ‘larger toolbox’ of expressive resources, if one will, to draw from when attempting to articulate concepts which transcend words.61 Thus, the question is not of ensuring equality between two or more languages, but rather, about being able to articulate a given concept in any language.62 This method of linguistic interaction can only be of benefit in an internationalised setting.63 These, amongst other reasons, have grounded the fears of scholars with regard to the recent dominance of the English language within international circles.64 This political trend has legal repercussions: it requires a re-casting of international discourse in the language of only one civilisation. Although cultural diversity is certainly important in itself, the focus of this study hinges on the legal and intellectual ramifications of unilingualism. The best guarantor of this diversity, at least from the adjudicatory perspective, is the continued multilingualism of international institutions. It is indisputable that legal norms, especially as expressed in written texts, depend not only on the text itself but also on those who are entrusted with its interpretation. Furthermore, having several authentic versions of documents, all equally accessible and validly so, allows for rules and legal norms of law to be legitimately

61 MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) 124 argues that bilingualism and multilingualism allow us to better engage ‘with the capacities and limitations of human language’. In support of this argument, he marshals K Hakuta, Mirror of Language (New York, Basic Books,1986) ch 9, ‘Reflections on Bilingualism’, in support of an argument that ‘bi- or multi-lingual persons have insights about the connections between knowledge and language and between a symbol and the symbolized that escape unilinguals.’ 62 Jutras, ‘Énoncer l’indicible’, (n 60), 783. 63 In the particular Canadian context, legal bilingualism has been lauded as having improved the quality of the law itself: see generally MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) and N Kasirer, ‘Dire ou définir le droit’, (1994) 28 Revue juridique Thémis 141. 64 J Drohla, ‘The Languages of Public International Law: Power Politics under the Cloak of Cultural Diversity?’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008) 153, who cites the following: R Philippson, Linguistic Imperialism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992); R Philippson, English-Only Europe? – Challenging Language Policy (London, Routledge, 2003); JW Tollefson, Planning Languages, Planning Inequality (London, Longman, 1991); S Wright, Language Policy and Language Planning, From Nationalism to Globalisation (Eastbourne, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004); Francophonie et Mondialisation, Hèrmes 40 (2004); E Jayme, Das Recht der lusophonen Länder, Tagungsreferate, Rechtsprechung, Gutachten (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2000). A more comparative study was undertaken by Y Ben Archour, Le rôle des civilisations dans le système international (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003), esp 188 et seq.

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separated from its material support, namely, the text, the words, and the form. Concepts can continue to emerge from the imperfect vocabulary of language: [L]’expression la plus complète de la norme passé par la combinaison des versions, par les possibilités distinctes qu’offrent les particularités et richesses métaphoriques de chaque langue, ou même par la création de néologismes qui émergent du passage d’une langue à l’autre.65

It is for this reason that multilingualism acquires a legal character and should in this sense be preserved, with the ancillary effect of promoting cultural diversity and the input of diverse groups into the continued development of international law. Legal language is not immune from these phenomena; furthermore, international legal language, dependent as it is on the contact not only between individuals but between societies, rests on the intersection between these processes: [L]e langage technique du droit n’est pas arrivé à un degré d’abstraction et de formalisation comparable à celui des mathématiques. Il conserve des liens étroits avec la langue courante et participe, dans une large mesure, à l’ambiguïté de celle-ci. Par ailleurs, le caractère normatif du droit s’adapte mal à la logique formelle et au calcul logique, conçus plutôt pour des jugements d’existence que pour des normes, qui, en elles-mêmes, ne sont ni vraies, ni fausses.66

It is thus axiomatic that a living language brings with it the connotations and meanings ascribed to it by its native speakers, many of which are not explicit to the non-native speaker but are a part of its interpretation. In many respects, words and sentences lead one to ‘connotations’ of words, which can be understood as intellectual or affective references, extra-notional associations evoked or coloured by the words used.67 This is where the importance of interpretation, and in particular multilingual interpretation, becomes evident, as the role of the techniques of exegesis or interpretation rests precisely in ‘dissipating the myths which colour our language’, and to ‘make audible the silences which all speech and language brings forth.’68 Interpretation, the act of will by which interpreters impose themselves upon their word, is the culmination of what MacDonald calls a ‘tri-lectic’ between author, text, and reader,69 and each interpretive act commits interpreters to a future judgment shaped by past understanding, in so far as it is normative, going far beyond the very limited tri-lectic in question. What is indeed important throughout this interpretive process is the status of the interpreter, whether it is a specialised, administrative agency, or a body with

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Jutras, ‘Énoncer l’indicible’ (n 60) 784. See H Wagner and K Haag, Die Moderne Logik in der Rechtswissenschaft (Bad Homburg, Gehlen Verlag, 1970), 12, 17. 67 L Focsaneanu, ‘Les Langues comme moyen d’expression du droit international’, (1970) 16 Annuaire français de droit international 256, 258. 68 See, eg M Foucault, Les mots et les choses, (Paris, Bibliothèque des Sciences humaines, Gallimard, 1966), 311. At ibid 310, he discusses the linguistic phenomenon of ‘connotations’: ‘Devenu réalité historique épaisse et consistante, le langage forme le lieu des traditions, des habitudes muettes de la pensée, de l’esprit obscur des peuples; il accumule une mémoire fatale qui ne se connaît même pas comme mémoire.’ 69 MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) 141. 66

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objective, general jurisdiction called upon to interpret. The importance of courts and their particular interpretive process is explained by Paul Reuter as follows: [O]n a parfois estimé que les cours de justice s’arrêtaient volontiers à des interprétations littérales, stabilisant le sens des mots au contenu qu’ils pouvaient avoir au moment de l’établissement des règles, retirant finalement aux termes à interpréter toute pertinence, puisque ceux-ci pour la conserver auraient dû suivre l’évolution des faits et de la science.70

The potential audience for international texts goes far beyond the restricted group of judges, lawyers, and legislators in national settings, and bears with it a much more cogent ‘universalist’ pretension than the audience for national legal texts. Furthermore, it is misplaced to speak of ‘clear texts’: legal language, like all language, is laden with ambiguity, obscurity and indeterminacy. All these connotations of natural language continue to apply in legal settings, and therefore, any attempt at interpretation must consider all of these factors. It is one thing to interpret law; it is quite another to proceed with its application.71 Moreover, as Georges Scelle argued, interpretation is inherent in legal thought and cannot be discarded even when a text is ‘clear’: Il ne faut pas confondre l’interprétation de la règle de droit avec son application. Les deux opérations qui paraissent parfois se confondre en pratique, se succèdent et restent logiquement distinctes. Pour appliquer une règle de droit, il faut d’abord en déterminer la portée. Il n’y a donc pas d’application sans interprétation, même lorsque l’énoncé de la règle est si clair que l’interprétation reste virtuelle.72

One can even make the argument that arbitrariness, incoherence and innate indeterminacy of language ‘fatally infects legal discourse’,73 leading to formal statements of law posing as objective norms, confusing language and meaning as one, and assisting in the instrumentalisation of law as a coercive construct.74 Max Weber’s description of discourse as being reducible to ‘formal rationality’ and a possible authoritative standard for (Western) law is therefore somewhat misplaced.75

CONCLUSION [S]i d’un côté la langue exprime l’identité d’un système juridique dans les relations internationales d’un État, le droit international se forme sur la base d’une identité juridique mixte ou intégrée.76

70 P Reuter, ‘Quelques réflexions sur le vocabulaire du droit international’ in Mélanges offerts à Monsieur le doyen Louis Trotabas (Paris, LGDJ, 1970) 423, 428. 71 As is pointed out rather baldly by C Rousseau, Principes généraux du droit international public, vol 1, (Paris, Pedone 1944), 672. 72 G Scelle, Précis de droit des gens, Part II (Paris, Sirey, 1934), 488 (emphasis added). 73 MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (n 6) 125. 74 This is what the Critical Legal Scholars focuses on, and although there an entire sub-discipline in international law is devoted to this argument, it is well beyond the scope of this study. 75 M Weber and M Rheinstein (ed and translator) and E Shils (translator), Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1954). 76 Rios (n 36) 212. See also Focsaneanu, ‘Les Langues comme moyen d’expression’ (n 67) 262.

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The importance of multilingualism in international law does not rest on maintaining cultural diversity, but rather, on the importance of accommodating legal pluralism within international legal discourse. There is far more at stake than cultural diversity and identity politics in ensuring that international law remains international. Besides the ‘loss of creativity in public international law . . . of approaches emanating from national legal orders to address legal problems’,77 there must be limitations on the continued moulding of international law to fit the vision of one particular legal order or group of legal orders. There is an indissoluble link between language and thought which makes consolidation into two languages poor, and into one language a disastrous leap. On a theoretical level, the form and substance inherent in understanding reality are lost by moving to one language. Understanding law through different languages and having them relate and interface with each other allows for diversity, be it cultural, intellectual or otherwise, to thrive. By perceiving international law through different languages and having its interpretation occur in a multilingual context, one can perhaps better grasp the multiplicity of understandings that are lost in a uniformised linguistic setting.78 In a system with the limited heritage but universalist pretensions of international law, these questions acquire heightened importance and consideration; and the multilingual prism, which avoids the elision between a legal norm and the texts of its expression, is perhaps the best method for its interpretation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books AJ Arnaud (ed), Dictionnaire encyclopédique de théorie et de sociologie du droit, 2nd edn (Paris, LGDJ, 1993). Y Ben Archour, Le rôle des civilisations dans le système international (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2003). O Corten, and P Klein (eds), Convention de Vienne sur le droit des traités— Commentaire article par article (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2006). M Foucault, Les mots et les choses (Paris, Bibliothèque des Sciences humaines, Gallimard, 1966). S Gaselee, The Language of Diplomacy (Cambridge, Bowes & Bowes, 1939). K Hakuta, Mirror of Language (New York, Basic Books, 1986). MO Hudson, The Permanent Court of International Justice (1920–1942) (New York, Garland Publishing, 1972). 77

Drohla, The Languages of Public International Law (n 64), 174. Rios (n 36) 209, 211. See also P Legrand, ‘Sens et non sens d’un Code civil européen’, (1996) 48 Revue internationale de droit comparé 779, 805: ‘Imaginons les droits romanistes et ceux de la common law comme deux langages. Est-il si clair que la compréhension du réel serait favorisée si les diverses langues européennes étaient remplacées par une seule langue, fruit d’une union entre l’allemand, l’anglais et le français?’ The article has been translated into English: see P Legrand, ‘Against a European Civil Code’, (1997) 60 Modern Law Review 44. 78

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M Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: the Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, reissue). A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961). P Reuter, Droit international public (Paris, PUF, 1968). P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traités (Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1972). H Roumiguière, Le français dans les relations internationales (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1936). C Rousseau, Principes généraux du droit international public, Volume I, (Paris, Pedone, 1944). G Scelle, Précis de droit des gens, Part II (Paris, Sirey, 1934). JB Scott, Le français: langue diplomatique moderne (Paris, Pedone, 1934). M Sibert, Traité du droit international public, Volume II (Paris, Dalloz, 1951). G Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992). M Tabory, Multilingualism in International Law and Institutions (Alphen aan de Rijn, Sijthoff and Noordhoff, 1980). H Wagner and K Haag, Die Moderne Logik in der Rechtswissenschaft (Bad Homburg, Gehlen Verlag, 1970). M Weber M Rheinstein (ed and translator) and E Shils (translator), Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1954). World Trade Organisation Analytical Index: Guide to GATT Law and Practice, Volume II (Geneva, WTO Publications, 1995). S Wright, Language Policy and Language Planning, From Nationalism to Globalisation (Eastbourne, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004).

Chapter in Edited Volumes JP Cot and A Pellet, ‘Avant-propos’ in JP Cot and A Pellet (eds), La Charte des Nations Unies 3rd edn (Paris, Economica, 2005). J Drohla, ‘The Languages of Public International Law: Power Politics under the Cloak of Cultural Diversity?’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008). M Hilf, ‘Article 111’, in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations : A Commentary, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). R Jennings and A Watts (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law, 9th edn (London, Longman, 1992). E Jouannet, ‘Les visions française et américaine du droit international: cultures juridiques et droit international’, in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008). T Kleinlein, ‘The Language of Public International Law’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008).

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M Kohen, ‘Article 39’ in A Zimmerman, C Tomuschat and K Oellers-Frahm (eds), The Statute of the International Court of Justice: A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006). A Leriche, ‘Les langues diplomatiques à l’Organisation des Nations Unies’ (1953) 31 Revue de droit international de sciences diplomatiques et politiques, 45–65. J Perez de Cuellar, préface in JP Cot and A Pellet (eds), La Charte des Nations Unies, 3rd edn (Paris, Economica, 2005). P Reuter, ‘Quelques réflexions sur le vocabulaire du droit international’ in Mélanges offerts à Monsieur le doyen Louis Trotabas (Paris, LGDJ, 1970). J Rios, ‘Les langues du droit international, risque ou avantage?’ in Societé française pour le droit international (ed), International Law and Diversity of Legal Cultures (Paris, Pedone, 2008). S Rosenne, ‘The Meaning of “Authentic Text” in Modern Treaty Law’ in R Bernhardt, WK Geck, G Jaenicke und H Steinberger (eds), Völkerrecht als Rechtsordnung, Internationale Gerichtsbarkeit, Menschenrechte: Festschrift für Hermann Mosler (Berlin, Springer Verlag, 1983). D Tolbert and M Karagiannakis, ‘Article 50’ in O Triffterer (ed), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 2nd edn (Munich, CH Beck, Hart, Nomos, 2008). Collected Courses V Williams, ‘Les méthodes de travail de la diplomatie’, (1924) 4 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International, 225–91. International Documents International Law Commission ‘Preparation of Multilingual Treaties: Memorandum by the Secretariat’ UN Doc A/CN 4/187, in Yearbook of the International Law Commission, Vol II (New York, United Nations, 1966). CE King, AS Bryntsev and FD Sohn, The Implications of Additional Languages in the United Nations System JIU/REP/77/5, UN Doc A/32/237 (Geneva, United Nations, 1977). E Kudryavtsev and L-D Ouedraogo, Implementation of Multilingualism in the United Nations System JIU/REP/2002/11 (Geneva, United Nations, 2003). UN Secretary General Multilingualism: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc A/54/478 (New York, United Nations, 1999). Journal Articles P Allott, ‘Language, Method and the Nature of International Law’ (1971) 45 British Yearbook of International Law 79–135. L Focsaneanu, ‘Les Langues comme moyen d’expression du droit international’ (1970) 16 Annuaire français de droit international 256–74.

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J Hardy, ‘The Interpretation of Plurilingual Treaties by International Courts and Tribunals’ (1961) 37 British Yearbook of International Law 72–155. MO Hudson, ‘Languages Used in Treaties’ (1932) 26 American Journal of International Law 368–72. MO Hudson, ‘The New World Court’ (1945) 24 Foreign Affairs 75–84. S Jaschek, ‘Deutsch als Sprache der Vereinten Nationen’ (1977) 25 Vereinte Nationen 18. D Jutras, ‘Énoncer l’indicible: Le droit entre langues et traditions’ (2000) 52 Revue internationale de droit comparé 781–96. N Kasirer, ‘Dire ou définir le droit’ (1994) 28 Revue juridique Thémis 141–75. M Koskenniemi, ‘International Law in Europe: Between Tradition and Renewal’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 113–24. P Legrand, ‘Sens et non sens d’un Code civil européen’ (1996) 48 Revue internationale de droit comparé 779–812. R MacDonald, ‘Legal Bilingualism’ (1997) 42 McGill Law Journal 119–67. M Tabory, ‘The Addition of Arabic as an Official and Working Language of the UN General Assembly and at Diplomatic Conferences’ (1978) 13 Israel Law Review 391–410.

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Governing by Measuring:The Millennium Development Goals in Global Governance KERRY RITTICH *

INTRODUCTION

E

RADICATE EXTREME POVERTY and hunger’; ‘Achieve universal primary education’; ‘Promote gender equality and empower women’; ‘Reduce child mortality’; ‘Improve maternal health’; ‘Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases’; ‘Ensure environmental sustainability’; ‘Develop a Global Partnership for Development’. Here, in all their sweeping ambition and apparent simplicity, are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight goals have been further elaborated by the identification of 18 linked targets; progress on each of the targets is then measured by 48 indicators.1 Agreed upon at a UN Summit in 2000, referred to in countless policy and public relations documents both inside and outside the United Nations since that time, the subject of a recent high-level summit in New York, the MDGs are the latest and most visible effort on the international plane to address the social deficit in the global order. Virtually all states have coalesced around the MDGs, accepting them as the template for global progress on an interrelated set of social objectives. Moreover, they have tied themselves to a timeline by committing themselves to achieve the MDGs by 2015. What is perhaps more noteworthy than the high-level support they have garnered is the extent to which the MDGs have permeated the global public sphere and entered public consciousness. An astonishingly wide range of people and organisations now routinely invoke the MDGs; it has become commonplace, for example, to hear someone recite the fact that a billion people live on less than $1 a day. That countless policy and advocacy documents emanating from politicians, global technocrats and civil society groups alike now either cite the MDGs directly or simply take this ‘fact’ as the starting point of discussion about issues ranging from poverty itself to the effects of globalisation writ large reflects the extent to which the MDGs have been internalised, both as an account of the global social deficit and as a programme of action for remedying it. ‘

* Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. 1 United Nations Development Programme, About the MDGs: Basics www.undp.org/mdg/ basics.shtml.

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The commitment to the MDGs continues apace, as the high-level meeting of September 2008 attests.2 Yet despite claims that they have ‘galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the worlds poorest’,3 at the moment the MDGs are a long way from realisation. By some measures—absolute numbers of poor, for example—poverty rates are now worse than before the MDGs were adopted.4 A similarly grim picture emerges in respect of maternal health: more women are dying in childbirth now than in 2000. As the head of the WHO observed, ‘[d]espite two decades of effort … the world has failed to make a dent.’5 Despite claims that the MDGs can still be met by the year 2015 as long as we do not continue with ‘business as usual’,6 it would take an extraordinary, and probably unwarranted, degree of optimism to conclude that their achievement will come to pass. One reason is simply that there is little reason to conclude that ‘business as usual’ is about to be disturbed, at least in ways that are likely to advance the position of the poor. As a recent report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations puts it, there are critical gaps in the follow-through on aid and trade commitments.7 Aid flows have remained well below their target levels since the MDGs were adopted, and have tailed off still further in recent years. Trade negotiations, too, remain mired in disagreements between the North and the South,8 while the failure of the Doha round of trade negotiations at the WTO indicates that it is unlikely that developing countries will see the enhanced access to rich country markets that they seek any time in the near future.9 While high-level proponents of the MDGs point to progress on individual goals such as the treatment of malaria10 and official support for the MDGs still remains intact, it is increasingly hard to sustain the thesis that the MDGs, as a project, are succeeding. Even if it is too soon to pronounce the death of the MDGs tout court, we don’t have to wait until 2015 to know that, on some level, the MDGs have already ‘failed’.11 One possible response is of course to lament the lack of political will that has produced this state of affairs, and to call for redoubled efforts to

2 United Nations, High-Level Event (News Update, 25 September 2008) www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/2008highlevel/. 3 See UN, A Gateway to the UN System’s Work on the MDGs (The UN’s Millenium Development Goals Webpage) www.un.org/millenniumgoals/. 4 B Milanovic, Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005). 5 R Seal and K Manson, ‘Why are Mothers Still Dying in Childbirth?’, Guardian, (London, 28 September 2008) www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/28/sierraleone.internationalaidanddevelopment. 6 ibid. 7 UN, Launching Report by MDG Gap Task Force, Secretary-General Underscores Need for Quantitative, Qualitative Shift in Efforts to Halve Extreme Poverty (News Update, Department of Public Information, 4 September 2008) www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11777.doc.htm. 8 ibid. 9 BBC, ‘World Trade Talks End in Collapse’, BBC News (London 29 July 2008) http://news .bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7531099.stm. 10 See for example the discussion in Bono and J Sachs, MDG Blog (Online Blog) http://blogs.ft.com/ mdg/author/bono/. 11 Any such assertion must remain contestable, if only because the counterfactual is unavailable: it is impossible to know, for example, if things might have been even worse without the MDGs.

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achieve the MDGs. But the fact that donor nations now face both economic crises and increasing pressure on their budgets makes this seem like both a hollow response and an unlikely solution. Yet whatever the fate of the MDGs, myriad pressures will ensure that the concerns and issues they embody continue to surface on the international agenda. There are reasons, moreover, to think that future efforts to address such concerns and issues, as well as to promote other social justice agendas, will partake of some of the salient features of the MDGs. If there is any truth to this latter intuition, then it would be wise, I want to suggest, to start the process of appraisal. Thus, another possibility is to take this prospect of failure to raise some basic questions about the MDGs. Whatever the role of political will or its lack, the stasis on the MDGs may also reflect unresolved tensions or conflicts among the goals; it may even be linked to structural features of the project itself. If so, it may be useful to analyse the terms of reference that are embedded in the MDGs and to probe the mechanics by which the project operates. To put it another way, before we attempt to find solutions, if indeed there are ‘solutions’ to the concerns and issues embodied by the MDGs, we need to better understand what we are doing now. And not only do we need to consider our actions and responses, we need to consider how we conceive of problems in the first place. For example, we may need to consider what is not, as well as what is, contained within the MDGs and we may gain insight from attending to the frame or context in which they operate. Paradoxically, this is particularly important with the MDGs precisely because the project commands such widespread assent and because the initial, even ‘natural’, reaction to it is, ‘of course it is a good idea. Who could be against it?’ With this in mind, what follows is a discussion of two issues: the first is the relationship between the MDGs and development initiatives in the international economic order; the second is the phenomenon that I will call ‘governing by measuring’. The MDGs are described both as a ‘respon[se] to the world’s main development challenges’,12 and are widely accepted as the principal international initiative on the global social deficit. Thus, the relationship of the MDGs to the current path of development seems to be a central question: is economic development part of the problem, part of the solution, or might it be both in different ways? One possibility, of course, is to think of the MDGs as addressing discrete and distinct pathologies and problems that are susceptible to special initiatives. However, the problems the MDGs seek to address may also be symptomatic of a wider malaise, and connected to wider trends in social and economic development. To put it another way, the poverty, inequality, deprivation and disempowerment of the types targeted by the MDGs may be exceptional on the global landscape, confined to particular areas and populations. But what if such concerns belong in the zone of the normal? And what if, rather than merely natural, social or cultural phenomena, they are produced, in part, by the ordinary rules and institutions, both national and

12

UNDP, About the MDGs: Basics (n 1).

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international, through which we now promote economic development and other objectives? This discussion does not attempt to comprehensively analyse, let alone resolve these issues. However, it does aim to indicate how and why any assessment of the MDGs might require an examination of the broader context in which development occurs, as well as an evaluation of initiatives adopted by the key international institutions that work on issues of development, poverty alleviation and social justice. The MDGs partake of the increasingly pervasive strategy of identifying goals and benchmarking progress in order to provoke social transformation. As such, they might be thought part of the trend toward ‘governing by measuring’. In common with other such initiatives in the international order,13 the MDGs are premised on the idea that a focus on specific targets and the identification of measures that can be compared across different jurisdictions give us both a clear picture of the real state of the world’s social development deficit and a means to identify the ‘best practices’ in state policy and regulation that might remedy it. The implicit, if not explicit, claim is that such initiatives will galvanise action and generate positive change in ways that reliance on hard law and conventional state-driven, ‘top-down’ processes of policy and norm generation, including those of international law, have not or will not. Yet problems do not simply identify themselves. Although the official claim is that the MDGs ‘synthesize in a single package, many of the most important commitments made separately at the international conferences and summits of the 1990s’,14 this a somewhat sanitised, if diplomatic, account of their history.15 Instead, the MDGs embody a selective, even idiosyncratic, reading of the international commitments of the previous decades. And rather than simply the global consensus on social development, the MDG goals, targets and indicators reflect other international governance projects too, including some which are, at this point, controversial for either normative or institutional reasons, or both. What is most of interest here are the MDGs as a particular mode of conceptualising and tackling public concerns and issues. A key part of the appeal of the MDGs, I want to propose, lies in their overall structure, in particular their reliance on benchmarks and indicators. The attraction of benchmarks and indicators is that they present as non-ideological: they are just ‘facts’, beyond political dispute and contestation; for this reason they can be used as the basis for disinterested assessment of progress and common action. Yet as much as the MDGs appear to simply marshal facts and indicators as the basis for problem solving, the MDGs should also be understood as an exercise in knowledge production. The MDGs work by placing particular facts and issues in the global spotlight. In so doing, the MDGs operate to standardise the reception of the global social justice deficit and to 13 See for example OECD, Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness: Ownership, Harmonisation, Alignment, Results and Mutual Accountability (2005) www.oecd.org/document/18/ 0,2340,en2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html. 14 See UNDP, About the MDGs: Basics (n 1). 15 For a discussion of the background to their adoption, and the competing agendas of the UN and the other multilateral agencies, see D Hulme, The Making of the Millennium Development Goals: Human Development Meets Results-based Management in an Imperfect World, (Brooks World Poverty Institute, Working Paper 16, December 2007).

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diffuse a particular view of the nature of global problems across states and communities. Important, consequential decisions are also made in the identification of targets and the choice of indicators by which the goals are then pursued and their attainment measured. The corollary is that other conceptions of that deficit, as well as other issues and other dimensions of the identified issues and problems, remain in the shadows. If the claims or forms of knowledge that the MDGs rely upon are themselves linked to particular economic and political projects—economic development , or legal reform projects, for example—and if they work in tandem with some regulatory and policy initiatives and at odds with others, then as the term ‘governing by measuring’ is intended to suggest, the MDGs might themselves be understood as a mode of governance or, at minimum, as an element of other governance projects. These possibilities raise normative and political questions, including questions about how the MDGs are likely to intersect with other modes of rule-making at international and domestic law. They also raise deeply practical questions, including questions about how facts and indicators are identified as relevant and who the actors and institutions are who are involved in the selection process. In short, if the goals, benchmarks and indicators both reflect and influence policy and regulation, if they have potential implications for the manner in which we govern, then the processes by which they are selected and promoted and the effects of the entire enterprise of measuring may be worth considering in more detail. This is particularly true if the MDGs reflect a commitment not only to particular goals but also to particular modes of pursuing those goals.

SITUATING THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS: IDENTIFYING THE ‘PROBLEM’ OF DEVELOPMENT

Assuming development itself can even be thought of as a single issue, what does global development look like at the present moment? How is it best accounted for? Is it a story of general progress marred by persistent but tractable problems? Is it a more nuanced and uneven process, something that varies considerably among states? Or is it a fundamentally dark and troubling narrative? As it turns out, the ‘truth’ and the ‘facts’ surrounding these basic issues are deeply contested; depending on how the data are read and events are characterised, very different pictures of the problem that development aims to solve may be generated. To begin to probe this terrain, let me contrast two recent accounts of global development. Both are by pedigreed, distinguished, and well-situated development economists with long histories of engagement with the central international institution concerned with development research, namely the World Bank. The first is Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion;16 the second is Branko Milanovic’s Worlds Apart.17 Despite the fact that they both tackle basic questions about development, 16 P Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). 17 Milanovic, Worlds Apart (n 4).

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and both do so as ‘insiders’ to the contemporary development project, they tell fundamentally different stories about the trajectory of global economic development. In one sense, the titles themselves give away the general arguments. For Collier, the story of development, and of the persistence of poverty, is one of general economic progress, darkened only by the plight of those at the bottom who have the misfortune to live within states that are persistent laggards. These he identifies as the coterie of nations, largely in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, which have failed to successfully integrate into the global economy because they are beset by identifiable, discrete and recurring problems. For Milanovic, the current story is best captured by the steadily growing distance among states in the global order: what he describes is the divergence in the growth trajectories between the states of the first world and virtually everyone else, certainly if China and India are excluded. As his account reveals in compelling detail, this distance has been widening, not narrowing, since 1980, so much so that we are hard pressed to reach any other conclusion on the evidence than that this gap will simply continue to grow. As is evident, these two accounts diverge over the basic issue: the identification of the problem of development. In simplest form, for Collier the problem is poverty caused by lack of economic growth; for Milanovic, it is the unequal fates and fortunes of states within the global order. However, Collier and Milanovic also diverge over the magnitude of the development deficit, how they identify the root of the deficiency, and where they place the emphasis in the remedy. For Collier, the focus is the specific characteristics of the states that are ‘failing’. Collier’s distinctive contribution to contemporary development policy debates is the identification of four ‘traps’ that, he claims, are in operation in those states on the bottom and that account for their failure to succeed: the conflict trap; the natural resource trap; the ‘landlocked with bad neighbours’ trap; and the ‘bad governance in a small country’ trap.18 For Milanovic, by contrast, the story is fundamentally a relational one: what matters is not simply, or even primarily, the absolute status of the countries themselves, but rather how they are situated in the international order and whether their prospects in relation to other states are advancing or declining. It is the stunning distance between the fortunes of different states to which he draws our attention, and the extent to which the current global order fails to generate economic progress for so many of them that, at the end of the day, he takes to be politically, morally and statistically relevant. Milanovic is less overtly diagnostic about the causes of this growing global inequality than Collier is about the persistence of the ‘bottom billion’. However, the stark contrast that Milanovic draws between the post-WorldWar II era until 1980, a period in which global inequality was receding, and the period from 1980 and 2000, during which inequality spiked sharply higher, invites us to consider possibilities that we are drawn away from considering in Collier’s account. To wit, Milanovic suggests that

18

Collier, The Bottom Billion (n 16).

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broader developments in the international order, including governance practices, rather than merely the internal characteristics of developing states, may be centrally implicated in the problem of growing inequality. Perhaps the introduction of particular trade, investment and development policies during the period in which inequality grew, for example, could have something to do with the problem. What is worth emphasising is that the differences reflected in these two accounts of development are not differences that can be resolved by facts and evidence. Instead, they reflect disagreement on more basic issues: the nature of the problem to be solved and where we should look for its likely sources. Indeed Milanovic’s explicitly relational account raises the question of whether we can appreciate or even recognise a problem outside of the wider (global) context in which it is situated. As it turns out, such questions are also central to the MDGs. Despite the widespread normative commitment to the MDGs, there is an unresolved debate in the international order about the relation between economic growth on the one hand, and poverty reduction, inequality and other social objectives on the other. Since about 1980, the international financial and economic institutions (IFIs) have taken the position that welfare gains are largely coterminous with economic growth, while maintaining that the fundamental condition of poverty alleviation (and the achievement of other social objectives too) is the adoption of policies and rules to facilitate greater private-sector activity. In recent years, ‘pro-poor’ policies have been grafted on to the standard formulation of market reforms, and nods have been made in the direction of greater environmental and labour protections too. However, such innovations have not disturbed the fundamental commitment to market-centred, export-focused and privately-led economic growth.19 Within the IFIs, if not necessarily elsewhere, development is still fundamentally imagined as a process of integrating local and national with global markets through strategies of trade and capital liberalisation and the promotion of stable, rule-based, investorfriendly regulatory regimes.20 The claim is that these strategies will provide the basis of economic growth without which social issues, including those targeted in the MDGs, can never hope to be successfully tackled. Yet even among economists, this is a controversial position.21 There are many indications that orthodox reforms have failed to generate a secure foundation for sustained growth; in the short to medium term, they have sometimes been responsible for pronounced economic downturns. By contrast, states that pursued

19 K Rittich, ‘The Future of Law and Development: Second Generation Reforms and the Incorporation of the Social’, in D Trubek and A Santos (eds), The New Law and Economic Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). 20 This should be understood as the governing regulative ideal, not a description of the global regulatory order itself which, for political and historical reasons, is infinitely more complex and varied in its institutional structure. 21 JE Stiglitz, ‘Is There a Post-Washington Consensus Consensus?’ in N Serra and JE Stiglitz (eds), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).

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heterodox development strategies have sometimes fared better.22 Along with the evidence of increased poverty and widening economic inequality both within and among states, these ‘facts’ have undercut the argument connecting market-centred development to economic growth and welfare gains at a quite basic level. As a number of economists now point out, there are good theoretical foundations, including some within the neoclassical and institutional economic theory, to these observed facts of increased poverty and inequality. While economic openness may lead to greater economic growth, arguments about the benefits of openness are often overstated, and sometimes simply wrong, either in respect of particular states or in respect of specific groups within them.23 For example, financial liberalisation may leave states at risk of sudden investment outflows, while deregulation may simply shift risks and burdens among market participants rather than eliminate costly impediments to economic activity as the dominant regulatory narrative holds.24 Indeed, recurring financial crises seem to confirm that, far from imposing burdens, it is the absence of adequate regulation which may prove to be truly costly. Even states that are now classified as ‘winners’ in the development game may periodically suffer from economic upheaval. But they may also experience widening inequality and persistent poverty even in the midst of economic growth, in part because global economic integration also increases vulnerability to outside forces.25 This (now quite common) disjuncture between growth and improved welfare often arises from the concentration of the gains from economic growth within particular groups, sectors or regions. It may also reflect the fact that the very legal and economic reforms that promote enhanced growth rates can be violently disruptive to existing economic activities and modes of subsistence and/or traditional forms of life. Yet reforms typically leave those who directly experience any associated losses in the process of change to manage them on their own as best they can. For all of these reasons and more, a broad range of critics and interlocutors, including some within other international institutions, maintain that orthodox strategies to promote growth through economic openness and integration have, at best, an ambivalent relation to the achievement of social objectives; at worst, they are part of the problem. For example, they may lead, directly or indirectly, to human rights violations, exacerbate social inequality of various types, or intensify environmental problems. In addition, they typically reduce the scope for democratic decision-making on critical issues of social and economic policy, thus undermining

22 See JKM Ohnesorge, ‘Developing Development Theory: Law and Development Orthodoxies and the Northeast Asian Experience’ (2007) 28 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 219. 23 JE Stiglitz, Is There a Post-Washington Consensus Consensus? (n 21); D Rodrik, ‘Death of Globalisation Consensus’, Emirates Business 24/7 (Dubai 13 July 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ business/7531099.stm. 24 H de Soto and J Abbott (trans), The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (London, IB Taurus, 1989); H de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (New York, Basic Books, 2000). 25 See for example the labour crisis in China occasioned by the global economic slowdown. R Ke, ‘Global Financial Crisis Spills Over China’s Labour Market’, China Features (Beijing, 11 November 2008) http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14795188&VSV=chieco.

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basic norms about economic and political self-determination in the international order.26 Because interventions to implement such policies are disproportionately visited on states in the South but designed and promoted by technocrats and states in the North, they have become a persistent irritant in global diplomatic and political relations, and a source of complaint about the legitimacy of international institutions as well. As a result, standard legal and institutional reforms associated with development remain a source of deep contention among development economists themselves, between development economists and human rights scholars and advocates, between the North and the South, and between those that benefit from liberalising economic reforms and those who perceive themselves to be harmed by them. The relationships between economic growth and both poverty and inequality are complex; any claims about these relationships are, in any event, almost certainly dependent on the specific histories and institutional contexts of different states. What seems important for our purposes is less the resolution of these debates than the fact that the standard view of ‘good’ global governance for economic growth is incorporated into the MDGs themselves. At a practical level, the result of this incorporation is twofold. First, it introduces the possibility of internal conflict within the MDG project itself, as the pursuit of one goal may undercut another. Second, it rules out of consideration a diverse range of heterodox rules, institutions and strategies, no matter how much they might be indicated, either in general or in particular contexts. The incorporation of governance strategies into the goals is clearly evident in the manner in which goal 8—‘Develop a global partnership for development’—is elaborated. The first target that is identified is this: ‘Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and nondiscriminatory.’27 A series of further targets then follows, including: ‘address the special needs of the least developed states’ (Target 8b) and ‘Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term’ (Target 8d).28 These subsidiary targets are designed, albeit vaguely, to create space for the most greatly disadvantaged to benefit from the global economic order. However, they also stabilise the dominant approach to economic development. As the goal of a global development partnership is translated into the objective of a further liberalised and juridified global economic order, we get no inkling of the fact that, far from a secure basis of a global partnership, parts of this rule-based order have been associated with adverse effects for particular regions and groups, and accordingly have provoked resistance on the part of important developing states.29 The significance of the global governance agenda is not limited to the issue of forging a development partnership. It is possible to imagine some of the MDGs as 26 P Alston and M Robinson (eds), Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). 27 UNDP, About the MDGs: Basics (n 1). 28 ibid. 29 A Beattie and F Williams, ‘WTO Chief Drops Plans to Press Ministers for Outline Doha Deal’, Financial Times (London 13 December 2008) 10.

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problems that can be tackled separately and apart from any changes to the basic rules and institutions of the current global regulatory order. It is also possible that progress on economic and social development go together, and that all of the objectives embedded in the MDGs are harmonious, both with each other and with larger governance and development strategies. Weighing against this, however, is the fact that social indicators such as mortality and morbidity have often worsened in the face of fiscal austerity drives, a standard part of the development reform package in the last generation.30 Similarly, while universal primary education is a goal that clearly serves social as well as economic development strategies, particularly those that are premised on participation in a high skill, high velocity economy,31 like access to health care, access to education has often been impeded rather than advanced in the drive toward cost-recovery and the implementation of user fees, both of which have been common feature of contemporary development strategies. Objectives like poverty reduction, gender equality, and environmental sustainability too, all have connections to processes of economic growth that are uncertain at best. India, for example, charts both impressive economic growth rates and increasing levels of economic insecurity for significant parts its population; for this reason, the government of India (among others) is now resisting the reduction of agricultural subsidies, a cornerstone of current trade negotiations, fearing the consequences for the many people whose lives and livelihoods depend on agricultural production.32 The goal of environmental sustainability seems as far away on the horizon now as it was in 1992 when, following the Earth Summit in Rio, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was opened for signature and the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol were first formulated.33 While there are many ways to account for the lack of progress on a better relationship between development and environmental objectives,34 the task has not been assisted either by the presumption against regulation in the global regulatory order35 or by the priority given to the exploitation of natural resources as a strategy to promote economic growth. Similar tensions beset efforts to tackle medical and health objectives. For example, combating HIV/AIDS has been rendered more difficult and

30 Russia still stands as the most dramatic example; life expectancy, particularly among men, fell dramatically in a few short years as a consequence of the harsh economic conditions that surrounded the transition to a market economy. 31 OECD, The OECD Jobs Study: Evidence and Explanations (Paris, OECD, 1994). 32 PG Thakurta, ‘Trade-India: Rare Unity Against West’s Agricultural Subsidies’, Inter Press Service, (Rome, 27 July 2008) http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34116. 33 See Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 10 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) (1998) 37 ILM 32. 34 K Mickelson, ‘South, North, International Environmental Law, and International Environmental Lawyers’ (2000) 11 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 52; JT Roberts and BC Parks, A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2007). 35 IFI Shihata, Complementary Reform: Essays on Legal, Judicial, and Other Institutional Reforms Supported by the World Bank (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1997).

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expensive by the standardisation of trade-related intellectual property rules at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry in 1994 and instituted as part of a shift toward a rules-based trade regime.36 In short, rather than objectives that are inevitably advanced by ‘an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory’, it is not difficult to find evidence that some of the MDGs have been badly served, and some have even been impeded, by aspects of the very rules-based system that is now in place. The possibility that trade and financial liberalisation, for example, may have an adverse effect on social objectives is not news nor was it when the MDGs were formulated in 2000. It has now been more than 20 years since the first systemic analysis of the shortcomings of orthodox economic reforms promoted by the international financial institutions was released.37 The East Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 demonstrated clearly the volatility and risks of contagion inherent in liberalised financial markets. The economic pain that ensued in the region is well-documented, and myriad studies and proposals to reform the architecture of the global economic order have been in circulation since that time, mostly to no avail.38 It has often been observed that trade negotiations, as well as the regimes that have emerged from them, operate to the disadvantage of developing states;39 even within the WTO, it is conceded that the current round of trade talks should be more clearly focused on development goals.40 Nonetheless there is little evidence that such a shift in focus is in fact underway; instead, emerging Third World economic powers such as Brazil and India are exerting their collective muscle to prevent the continued liberalisation of trade.41 Overtly or quietly, states and even entire regions such as Latin America have begun to disengage from relationships with the international development banks; while some are simply no longer in need of funds, others are unwilling to continue the process of subjection to policy and regulatory oversight that accessing funds from the IFIs has come to entail. Despite widespread discussion of such issues in development circles, it is difficult to find any imprint of these concerns, whether on the MDGs themselves or in the debate that surrounds them. For example, at the World Summit held in 2005 where the MDG remained a linchpin of the global agenda, the denunciation of terrorism, support for peace building, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, management reform at the UN, strengthening human rights machinery, a new ‘democracy’ fund and support for the rule of law all appeared on the agenda for action.42 But whether such commitments adequately reflect the concerns of developing countries

36 SK Sell, Private Power, Public Law: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). 37 G Cornia, R Jolly and F Stewart (eds), Adjustment with a Human Face (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987). 38 JE Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (New York, WW Norton, 2002). 39 BL Das, WTO: The Doha Agenda: The New Negotiations on World Trade (London, Zed, 2003). 40 WTO Ministerial Declaration, adopted 20 November 2001, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1, www.wto.org/ english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/mindecl_e.htm. 41 BBC, ‘World Trade Talks End in Collapse’, BBC, (London 28 July 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/business/7531099.stm. 42 UNGA, 2005 World Summit Outcome, UN Doc A/Res/60/1 (United Nations 24 October 2005) http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf?OpenElement.

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is doubtful: commitments on trade centre around further trade liberalisation, and those concerning debt are weak: there is an ‘agreement to consider additional measures to ensure long-term debt sustainability’ and ‘where appropriate to consider’ additional debt relief.43 Apart from a commitment to more aid to fight poverty—a commitment that is already ringing hollow—few demands beyond the open-ended commitment to achieve the goals themselves are placed on the international community. GOVERNING BY MEASURING

The MDGs are the exemplary effort to advance social objectives on a global level. But they are also representative of the turn toward new governance in the international order, a turn marked by the embrace of empiricism and ‘problemsolving’ through benchmarking.44 New governance here refers to a broad array of governance practices and regulatory strategies that eschew reliance on top-down processes of regulation and norm generation that are legislated through formal political channels and enforced by legal institutions. Yet while such initiatives consciously avoid conventional law-making processes, they aim to serve many of law’s purposes. In general, new governance is premised on the idea that identifying goals and quantifiable targets and pursuing those targets with measurable indicators; monitoring progress or regress through peer and external surveillance; diffusing ‘best practices’ from better performers to laggards; and revising those practices on the basis of cumulative gains in knowledge is often the most promising way to generate desired change. New governance emerged in the European Union (EU) in part to address problems of regulatory coordination among the member states and in part to respond to specific regulatory concerns that were not addressed in the ‘hard’ regulatory project of building the common market.45 At about the same time, a convergence of factors—from political deadlocks, to the regulatory vacuum associated with the atrophy and dysfunctionality of the administrative state—generated an impetus for regulatory experimentation outside of conventional rule-making processes in the United States.46 In recent years, new governance has migrated beyond these contexts and entered the lexicon of international development policy47 and, in at least a limited way, become integrated into the governance projects of the international financial and economic institutions. Indeed in the 43

ibid. The MDGs also bear a family resemblance to new public management strategies that have been implemented in many states. 45 J Scott and DM Trubek, ‘Mind the Gap: Law and New Approaches to Governance in the European Union’ (2002) 8 European Law Journal 1. 46 W Simon, ‘Toyota Jurisprudence: Legal Theory and Rolling Rule Regimes’ in G de Búrca and J Scott (eds), Law and New Governance in the EU and the US (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006). 47 See C Sabel, ‘Bootstrapping Development: Rethinking the Role of Public Intervention in Promoting Growth’ in V Nee and R Swedberg (eds), On Capitalism (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2007); R Hausmann, D Rodrik and C Sabel, Reconfiguring Industrial Policy: A Framework with an Application to South Africa (HKS Working Paper No RWP08–031, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1245702, 2008). 44

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world of development policy, governance is not only the product of measurement, it has become the subject of measuring itself, as various divisions within the World Bank, such as the World Bank Institute and the Doing Business project, which purports to measure the ease of transacting, investing and engaging in business in different states, and hence the prospects for development, by evaluating the regulatory constraints upon investors, have embarked on ambitious projects to measure the ‘quality’ of governance within states.48 The result is burgeoning interest in the possibilities of new governance across quite different theatres of regulation. New governance initiatives exhibit both continuities and differences with other global governance strategies, old and new—many regimes are, for example, appropriately thought of as hybrid. Rather than comprehensively describe or analyse the issues they raise,49 the objective here is merely to first, identify some of the processes and properties that are both characteristic of new governance and relevant to the operation of the MDGs and second, explore how, rather than merely solve difficult governance problems, such processes and properties may also serve to mask or avoid them. While these methodological features or characteristics do not determine the fate of the MDGs, the claim here is that some appreciation of the nature of ‘governing by measuring’ may illuminate the extent to which decisions about process may, in turn, drive choices about goals, targets and indicators. It may also serve to problematise the facial equivalence among the different goals. The overall aim is to provoke a more sophisticated and discerning attitude towards the factual and normative claims that are made both in respect of individual targets and indicators and which are marshalled in support of the project as a whole. The discussion raises another caution. Although governing by measuring purports to inject objectivity into otherwise messy and contestable processes of policy formulation, it may in fact produce unwarranted certainty about both the degree of stasis and change as well as the trajectory of progress. When governance itself is subject to measurement, these risks are particularly acute and potentially far-reaching. In brief, governing by measuring suffers from a number of risks. First, problems are not self-evident, and goals may be arbitrarily or contestably identified. They may be contestable at the highest level; however, the potential for disagreement operates at lower levels as well. For example, a bureaucrat or technocrat may have one idea of what the appropriate objective is in respect of environmental regulation; a community member a very different one. Second, specific targets and indicators may be reductively defined in relation to the overall goal or objective to which they are linked. For obvious reasons, targets may be chosen because of their susceptibility to measurement, rather than because 48 The World Bank Group, Doing Business (Various Years) www.doingbusiness.org/Downlo ads/; D Kaufmann, A Kraay and M Mastruzzi, Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4280, www-wds.worldbank.org/ servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/07/10/000016406_20070710125923/Rendered/PDF/ wps4280.pdf, 2007); See also JKM Ohnesorge, ‘Developing Development Theory: Law and Development Orthodoxies and the Northeast Asian Experience’ (2007) 28 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 219. 49 K Rittich, Good Governance and New Governance: Taxonomizing the Relationships (International Law Seminar, International Law Association British Branch and University College London Faculty of Laws, 2008).

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they best instantiate or embody the goal, or because they are the most illuminating indicator of progress or regress toward or from it. To put it another way, we may measure what we can measure most easily rather than what most needs measuring. Targets and indicators may also be ideological, insofar as they are selected to support prior assumptions about what is desirable in the way of policy reform. If goals are at all broad, targets and indicators will inevitably reflect partial visions of the goal, or heighten some dimensions of a problem or phenomenon at the expense of others. As a result, targets and indicators may be poor or simply contestable proxies for the underlying goals they purport to advance. Third, indicators may be misleading, particularly when they are compared across jurisdictions. This risk increases where indicators either reflect or require complex judgments, as is typically the case when regulatory regimes themselves are subject to benchmarks. Sometimes indicators are also simply wrong in the most basic of ways about the facts they purport to measure. Fourth, it is now clear that heavy reliance on monitoring and certification itself entails risks. Monitors may have no particular expertise in the issue they are assessing and either miss, or misevaluate, critical pieces of information as a result; think of the ubiquitous presence of accounting firms such as Price Waterhouse Cooper in monitoring corporate codes of conduct.50 For related reasons, monitors may well overreach, ‘certifying’ facts or conditions that they are in no real position to reliably report upon. Monitors may also be subject to bad incentives, particularly when they are private rather than public and have a stake in the outcome of the monitoring, whether because they are the source of the norms they are measuring and their compensation is implicitly linked to the outcomes they report, and/or because they perform other services for the firm or entity that has retained them. In addition, monitoring and certification may induce others to forgo analyses and assessments that they would otherwise undertake. It is almost certain that certifications will be taken at face value by some, even many, people, whether or not there is any good reason for them to be relied upon; providing information that people can rely upon is in lieu of making their own assessments is, after all, the purpose of certification. Finally, rankings may be of dubious value or actually counterproductive. Rankings may induce competition according to criteria set by outsiders, whether or not they are the best criteria or conducive to the best use of time and resources. Consider, for example, the effects of ranking schools according to test scores on the curriculum that is delivered. Ranking of outcomes may also detract from a relational or structural analysis of issues and, in so doing, may induce confusion about the sources or causes of the variables measured at the end. Far from merely theoretical concerns, the MDGs project appears to exhibit some, if not all, of these problems.51 First, the issue of goal identification. Take poverty 50 M Barenberg, ‘Toward a Democratic Model of Transnational Labour Monitoring’, in B Bercusson and C Estlund (eds), Regulating Labour in the Wake of Globalisation: New Challenges, New Institutions (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008) 37. 51 See also A Heuty and SG Reddy, ‘Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: What’s Wrong with Existing Analytical Models?’ (2006) Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies http://ssrn.com/abstract=802804.

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reduction, the best-known and most widely cited of the MDGs, and arguably the linchpin of the project as a whole. It is hard to be against poverty reduction, and virtually no one, in fact, speaks against it. But as the foregoing comparison of The Bottom Billion52 and Worlds Apart53 discloses, the story of development at the global level can be told in different ways and the principal problem of development is not self-evident: instead, it emerges from different readings of the global order and different perceptions of what is significant about the direction of change. With that in mind, what if we were to question poverty reduction and ask, what if growing inequality and the balance of power and resources—between South and North or between elites and working people both within and across states—were identified as the problem instead? What difference would it make in how we see the issue of development? Might paths of transformation open up that are now closed? Are there specific regulatory strategies that are now off the table that might be back under consideration? What would it mean for the rest of the MDGs, indeed the formulation of the project as a whole? It seems entirely possible, for example, that a focus on inequality rather than poverty reduction might end up having an impact on Goal 8, the global development partnership. We can imagine that at minimum it would alter the chosen targets and indicators. Merely asking these questions, however, raises the possibility that the process might also work in reverse: goals such as poverty alleviation may also be chosen not simply in the air but because they are compatible with other stated goals and other regulatory and policy initiatives. Development, for example, as well as specific initiatives like land reform is now routinely proclaimed to be in the service of both growth and poverty alleviation. At this point, we can begin to observe how, due to the links between the information in circulation and the perception of the problem ‘to be solved’, the MDGs might operate as part of a project of knowledge production. Specifically, the repeated and widespread dissemination of claims concerning the degree and nature of poverty reinforce the perception that poverty itself, rather than something else, is self-evidently the problem that should be addressed. Putting the self-reinforcing nature of the project aside and assuming that quite independent of the MDGs, there were general agreement that poverty reduction is, in fact, the right global objective, what if, at the end of the day, it should turn out that poverty is itself (partly) a function of inequality? Moreover, what if tackling inequality—in its various forms and through a variety of means—were itself the best way to reduce poverty? More to the point, what if bracketing inequality—and the factors and processes that appear to contribute to it—actually prevents the successful reduction of poverty? As the first part of the paper described, these questions are not marginal to the MDGs; rather they are at the heart of contemporary development debates.54 Without trying to answer them, it is useful to reiterate that defining the problem is not as strait forward as it seems. Different

52

Collier, The Bottom Billion (n 16). Milanovic, Worlds Apart (n 4). 54 JE Stiglitz, Is There a Post-Washington Consensus Consensus? (n 21); P Krugman, ‘Inequality and Redistribution’ in N Serra and JE Stiglitz (eds), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). 53

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groups can be expected to have different views on what matters, and these views may very well be linked to other objectives and projects in the international order to which they are committed. If the goals themselves were open to continuous revision, such differences might matter little. But it may be the case that the initial identification or definition of the problem matters a great deal—for example, it may send us down one road versus another; it may involve or implicate some institutions rather than others; it may empower, or disempower, some constituencies rather than others. A related problem concerns omissions from the MDGs and the reduction of goals to specific targets or objectives. As described earlier, the MDGs incorporate a regulatory model that is, at best, ambiguous in its social and distributive effects and, at worst, may pose problems to the achievement of some of the goals. But if the particular focus of the governance agenda in the MDGs raises concerns, so do the governance issues that it neglects or excludes. An international lawyer might, for example, be struck by the absence of any reference to international law in the MDGs. He or she might wonder if ‘good governance’ is foundational to the MDGs, then why not ‘achieving universal respect for human rights’? After all, the official position is that human rights are linked to the success of development goals such as poverty alleviation.55 But similar observations might be made about the role of domestic regulation and even private law in achieving the MDGs. Third world scholars and activists, feminists, indigenous peoples’ advocates and workers’ representatives are all groups with a deep interest in the problems targeted by the MDGs, and all have identified legal reforms as part of their agenda: labour and employment laws, environmental protections, tax policy and property laws, for example, have all been identified as areas of interest and sites of conflict and for this reason, often figure centrally in their aspirations for change. Rather than mere expressions or elaborations of good governance however, their projects almost invariably involve different legal entitlements, different conceptions of human rights, different sources of normativity and different institutional arrangements both domestic and international from those that appear in mainstream accounts of good governance. References to international law, human rights and other legal norms are an obvious omission in goal 3, ‘Promote gender equality and empower women’, for example. Gender equality and empowerment is a broad, encompassing agenda and it, like poverty alleviation, now receives almost universal assent at the normative level. However, the main focus in the MDGs—the target variable for gender equality—is school enrolment rates: ‘Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.’ Apart from the uncertainty of the target—Is the timeline a deadline or a mere preference? Do primary and secondary education have the same status as objectives?—the first thing to observe is that this is a very narrow reading of what the promotion of gender equality might be thought to require. The second is that there is no shortage of alternative visions of gender equality in the international order, many of which 55 UNDP, Human Development Report 1999 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999); The World Bank, World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001); A Sen, Development as Freedom (New York, Knopf, 1999).

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focus on human rights, legal reform and governance issues writ large. Gender equality norms are well entrenched in international law, located in documents ranging from the UN human rights covenants and the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women56 to the more recent ‘soft law’ declarations and Platforms for Action such as those emanating from the UN Fourth World Conference for Women in 1995.57 While equal access to education is an element of all of them, none of these initiatives gives education pride of place in the achievement of gender equality. None, that is, except the gender equality programme now advanced by the World Bank. After years of being on the receiving end of human rights and gender discrimination complaints, in 2001 the Bank explicitly embraced gender equality as a development strategy.58 However, rather than rely upon existing gender equality norms in international law, the Bank generated its own definition of, and strategy for, gender equality. It also provided a new narrative of the relationship between gender equality and development. Far from harming women and impeding gender equality, as critics contended, the Bank asserted that the new opportunities that markets open up will benefit women more than men by inducing families to make new investments in women. They can, it is claimed, even be expected to help redress the well-known disparity in unpaid work between men and women.59 It is not necessary to adjudicate the promise of this market-based strategy for gender equality and empowerment to observe that it is the equal opportunity approach, and from this framework primarily, that makes raising girls’ school enrolment rates look like the obvious or natural starting point. A focus on equality in education closely tracks the gender equality agenda promoted by the Bank, as does the second target identified with the goal of gender equality, raising the share of women in non-agricultural wage employment. Situated within a broader context however, including the frame of international gender equality norms, what most comes to the fore are questions like how such targets are identified, for what reasons, and by whom. Many parties with a stake in the issue would contest the conception of gender equality and empowerment reflected in the MDGs, and it is almost certain that there would be broad disagreement about whether a focus on school enrolment and the promotion of wage labour represent the best line of attack on gender inequality. Despite the claim that the MDGs are drawn from the commitments of the international summits and conferences of the 1990s, elements of the international gender equality agenda with equal, or better, claim to attention are left out of the equation entirely. This, in turn, raises questions about the relative power of different institutions and actors to set the agenda for institutional and

56 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13. 57 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action’ in ‘Report’ Fourth World Conference on Women (17 October 1995) UN Doc A/CONF.177/20, 4. 58 For a discussion of the rationale, see the World Bank, Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). 59 ibid; See also K Rittich, ‘Engendering Development/Marketing Equality’ (2003) 67 Albany Law Review 575.

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regulatory change in the international order. Who exactly was consulted here when the issue of gender equality was on the agenda? The choice of indicators by which targets are measured may be as complex and controversial as the targets themselves, particularly when these indicators are subject to measurement and used as standards of the adequacy of governance. The exemplary case here is the Doing Business report series of the World Bank.60 One of the criteria for the quality of governance according to the parameters defined in the project concerns the ease of hiring and firing workers, and one of the targets of measurement is job security provisions. Under the ‘Employing Workers’ indicator, states that provide security against arbitrary termination of employment, or those that require termination or severance pay for workers when contracts of indefinite term come to an end, are deemed to be less business-friendly than those that allow employers complete latitude in such decisions. Accordingly, states with such rules receive a lower score on the governance assessment than those without them. Two brief observations will suffice to suggest why such a governance measure might be both controversial and problematic. The first is that the establishment of a norm against protection or compensation upon job termination and the treatment of the worker as mere commodity conflicts outright with existing rules and norms in international law, namely those contained in the conventions or treaties of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). These are longstanding norms that are widely subscribed to by states; they are enshrined in various human rights treaties; and they are the subject of promotion by the ILO. They are also commonly found in both industrialised and developing states and, despite fears and claims to the contrary,61 in general appear to generate no adverse consequences for either employment or economic growth.62 Job security is also a matter that directly engages the conflicting interests of workers and employers as well as broader concerns about social welfare and economic security. It is not surprising then that labour advocates and the ILO have objected to the use of such an indicator to measure the adequacy of labour market governance. As this controversy indicates, the choice of indicator may itself be a normatively charged enterprise.63 We can also begin to appreciate how decisions about goals, targets and indicators in the MDGs might engage, in both negative as well as positive ways, the concerns and initiatives of other international institutions. Again, who determines the indicators? What opportunities are there to contest and alter them? There is a deeper problem, however. Because of a failure to distinguish between the form of the law and the substantive entitlements of the parties, the report may draw unsafe or simply faulty assertions about the extent of job security that 60

The World Bank Group, Doing Business (Various Years) www.doingbusiness.org/Downloads/. OECD, The OECD Jobs Study: Evidence and Explanations (Paris, OECD, 1994); IMF, World Economic Outlook: International Financial Contagion (Washington, IMF, 1999); The World Bank, World Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). 62 OECD, OECD Employment Outlook 2006: Boosting Jobs and Incomes (Paris, OECD, 2006). 63 In response to pressure from labour organisations, the World Bank has recently announced that the Employing Workers indicator does not reflect Bank policy and should not be used for policy advice. See Bank Information Center, Frank praises Changes to World Bank ‘Doing Business’ Report, www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11123.aspx. 61

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actually exists in particular jurisdictions. Thus, even assuming the objective were itself uncontroversial, the Employing Workers indicator generates fundamentally unreliable information about the state of labour market governance. For example, on the assumption that employment contracts in common law jurisdictions reflect US norm of ‘employment at will’—that is, an employer is free to fire an employee for good or bad reasons, or for no reason at all— Canada is ranked as having a highly business-friendly employment law regime. However, important job termination entitlements in many common law jurisdictions, including Canada and the UK, exist apart from statutory entitlements and are secured through contract law, through vehicles such as the implied contractual term of reasonable notice.64 While such entitlements typically do not prevent the termination of an employee, they can and often do make it more expensive to do so, and regulatory costs are precisely what Doing Business aims to identify as an impediment to economic activity. Here, we can see the significance of the disciplinary frameworks and assumptions, not only in the choice of indicators but also in how they are interpreted. As most students of law would observe, determining what the law is can be a complex exercise, one not always susceptible to easy resolution or singular answers. Even apart from questions of enforcement, if asked about the state of the law, we might well say, ‘it all depends on the facts’; at minimum, we would want to see how doctrines and statutory provisions have been interpreted, and we would need to consider competing, and perhaps conflicting, lines of jurisprudence in the case law. The risk of failing to do so is clear: any race for progress, at least in respect of governance, risks generating inherently unreliable conclusions about the very thing that is, in theory, being measured. In addition, indicators may alternatively dampen or inflate perceptions of the problem for which they stand as a proxy; a small, but significant, example will illustrate the possibilities here. The Bank recently reported that in fact poverty rates were considerably higher than previously announced, and that progress towards eliminating poverty was therefore slower than expected and less than previously reported. This is because the figure chosen to measure the number of people living in poverty was US$1.25 a day, rather than the US$1.00 a day, which is the measure of poverty adopted in the MDGs.65 It is not, of course, the case that there were many more poor people the day that this was announced than there had been the week before, and it may well be that we might think that the new benchmark is a more accurate measure of ‘real’ poverty than the earlier one. But the new data does challenge a central claim of the MDGs, and it puts the spotlight on the fact that claims about poverty in general are notoriously subject to manipulation or perhaps simply to disagreement—it all depends on the level and standard that is adopted. This, too, raises important questions. Who decides on the benchmarks? By what processes are they determined? Who has input into their determination, how is discretion and judgment exercised when they are decided, and how revisable are they?

64

See eg Machtinger v HOJ Industries Ltd [1992] 1 SCR 831. S Chen, and M Ravallion, The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, but No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No 4703, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1259575, 2008). 65

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Even with agreement on targets and benchmarks, indicators may be misleading —they are when compared across different jurisdictions; they may even be misleading concerning the state of affairs within states. For example, all developing economies are less commodified than industrialised economies; as a result, someone may be much more deprived living on US$1 a day as a slum-dweller in a city than he or she would have been living a more traditional existence and engaging in subsistence activities in a rural area. If we are interested in poverty reduction, it may be less helpful to focus on simply the dollar figure alone than to consider other variables, some of which are likely to require non-quantitative research, in determining what types of poverty are increasing and what types of intervention might be useful. The difficulty may also be approached from the other direction. It is unlikely, for example, that large numbers of people in industrialised countries would be identified as poor according to the criteria adopted under the MDGs. But the actual cost of living, the rise of more precarious employment, and the fact that alternatives to the purchase of goods and services on the market are effectively foreclosed for most people in the industrialised world means that there are growing numbers of people suffering from real material deprivation there too. If we are interested in remedying global poverty, such details and nuances should be of deep interest, particularly if there is any connection between the poor in different locations, something that can no longer be ruled out. A singular fixation on the extent of ‘absolute poverty’, whether defined at US$1 or US$1.25, and even if adjusted for purchasing power parity, may actually be a barrier rather than an aid to perceiving the changing and varied nature of global poverty. Finally, governing by measuring may say both too much and too little about the most important thing—the best way to actually achieve beneficial change in any given context. This critical issue may ultimately rest on things that remain almost entirely outside the MDGs: questions of institutional context; links with broader economic and political issues; the extent of political accountability, both domestic and international; and processes of mobilisation and democratic empowerment.

GOVERNING BY MEASURING: OBSERVATIONS, QUESTIONS, AND UNCOMFORTABLE POSSIBILITIES

The international landscape is now filled with ‘platforms for change’ and ‘programmes of action’ on the environment, gender equality, racism—fill in the blank here—to which all states, and increasingly non-state actors too, have dutifully committed themselves. The MDGs simply take this process to the next stage: we might think of the MDGs as the ‘meta-platform’ for change. Sometimes these initiatives are the catalysts to legal and institutional reform and/or broader structural transformation, but we have enough experience to know that just as often, they are not. The MDGs have attracted unprecedented amounts of scholarly and institutional attention and energy. In a short period of time, they have virtually come to ‘stand in’ for the problem they seek to address. If, however, over halfway to the moment in time at which they are supposed to be achieved, we are actually farther away on some of these goals than we were at the start, perhaps it is time to

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ask some more probing questions, not simply about why we haven’t achieved specific MDGs, but whether the MDGs as a project exemplify the most promising way to either think about or proceed on global issues. The MDGs are symptomatic of an increasingly entrenched trend in the management and regulation of global issues. This is to take the proper goals, policies and institutional structure of the global order as largely given. The result is that the norms, rules, practices and institutions currently identified with good governance come to form the context or matrix in which all other international initiatives and normative projects, including the MDGs, must operate. It is clear that holding these governance norms stable while focusing, laser-like, on specific problems holds a deep attraction. But perhaps targeting a problem is not always as useful as situating a problem. Perhaps, for example, it encourages us to focus on symptoms rather than causes; perhaps it may leave unaddressed, and hence intact, the very source of the problem it seeks to solve or alleviate. The structure of the MDGs suggests that the individual goals are in some sense commensurable and, at minimum, that they can be thought of and tackled at a general level in a roughly similar way. But perhaps this mode of ordering and classifying problems is more confusing than illuminating. How helpful is it to aggregate such a Borgesian list of objectives?66 In what sense is it plausible to think of tackling child mortality, for example, in the same manner as forging a new development partnership? How much does the focus on measurable goals achieve? What if other less measurable, but no less important, goals are displaced? What if some things are just not fundamentally measurable? Can complex endeavours like ensuring environmental sustainability, for example, be reliably reduced to simple indicators? Can the MDGs be disconnected from the wider context—economic, sociological, political, regulatory, ideological, and cultural—from which they emerge and in which they are situated? Divorced and disembedded from context and history, how much can be said about how to tackle them? Once translated from general goals to particular problems and issues, is it safe to say that the MDGs even always refer to the same things? Should we re-evaluate our preoccupation with measuring itself? It has long been observed that information about developing countries is typically gathered for a purpose, and that the relevant measures are not simply chosen through some normatively neutral process.67 Even the designation of large parts of the world as poor is an event that is both recent and controversial.68 Perhaps these insights should be revived in the assessment of the MDGs; perhaps if they were, we would see illuminating continuities with older endeavours. Even if we retain our interest in

66 Foucault’s famous discussion of classification in The Order of Things begins with a reference to a fictional taxonomy of animals drawn from an essay by JL Borges. This taxonomy includes animals ‘belonging to the Emperor’ and ‘that from a long way off look like flies’. See M Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (New York, Vintage Books, 1973), Preface. 67 A Anghie, ‘Time Present and Time Past: Globalization, International Financial Institutions, and the Third World’ (2000) 32 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 243. 68 B Rajagopal, International Law From Below: Development, Social Movements, and Third World Resistance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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the goals, we may then be better equipped to face the following conundrum: whether as conceived, the MDGs assist us in grappling with these complexities or whether instead they serve to obscure them. These are difficult, not easy, issues. But they suggest that below the apparently certain, measurable surface of the MDGs are more questions than answers. If we were to reflect systematically on the structure of the project and the other endeavours to which it is linked, it might change the questions we ask; this, in turn, might affect our perceptions both of the problems and of the modes of conceiving of more just global futures.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books P Alston and M Robinson (eds), Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). P Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). G Cornia, R Jolly and F Stewart (eds), Adjustment with a Human Face (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987). BL Das, WTO: The Doha Agenda: The New Negotiations on World Trade (London, Zed, 2003). H de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (New York, Basic Books, 2000). H de Soto and J Abbott (trans), The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World (London, IB Taurus, 1989). Foucault, M (1973) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences (New York, Vintage Books) B Milanovic, Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005). B Rajagopal, International Law From Below: Development, Social Movements, and Third World Resistance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). JT Roberts and BC Parks, A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy (Cambridge, MIT Press, 2007). SK Sell, Private Power, Public Law: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). A Sen, Development as Freedom (New York, Knopf, 1999). IFI Shihata, Complementary Reform: Essays on Legal, Judicial, and Other Institutional Reforms Supported by the World Bank (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1997). JE Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (New York, WW Norton, 2002).

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Chapter in Edited Volumes M Barenberg, ‘Toward a Democratic Model of Transnational Labour Monitoring’ in B Bercusson and C Estlund (eds), Regulating Labour in the Wake of Globalisation: New Challenges, New Institutions (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2008). P Krugman, ‘Inequality and Redistribution’ in N Serra and JE Stiglitz (eds), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). K Rittich, ‘The Future of Law and Development: Second Generation Reforms and the Incorporation of the Social’ in D Trubek and A Santos (eds), The New Law and Economic Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). C Sabel, ‘Bootstrapping Development: Rethinking the Role of Public Intervention in Promoting Growth’ in V Nee and R Swedberg (eds), On Capitalism (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2007). W Simon, ‘Toyota Jurisprudence: Legal Theory and Rolling Rule Regimes’ in G de Búrca and J Scott (eds), Law and New Governance in the EU and the US (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006). JE Stiglitz, ‘Is There a Post-Washington Consensus?’ in N Serra and JE Stiglitz (eds), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008).

International Documents International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook: International Financial Contagion (Washington, IMF, 1999). Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, The OECD Jobs Study: Evidence and Explanations (Paris, OECD, 1994). Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Employment Outlook 2006: Boosting Jobs and Incomes (Paris, OECD, 2006). United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1999 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999). United Nations Development Programme, About the MDGs: Basics www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml. United Nations General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome, UN Doc A/Res/60/1, (United Nations). The World Bank, World Development Report 1995: Workers in an Integrating World (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995). The World Bank, World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). The World Bank, Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). World Trade Organization Ministerial Declaration, adopted 20 November 2001, WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1 www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min01_e/min decl_e.htm.

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Journal Articles A Anghie, ‘Time Present and Time Past: Globalization, International Financial Institutions, and the Third World’ (2000) 32 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 243–90. K Mickelson, ‘South, North, International Environmental Law, and International Environmental Lawyers’ (2000) 11 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 52–81. JKM Ohnesorge, ‘Developing Development Theory: Law and Development Orthodoxies and the Northeast Asian Experience’ (2007) 28 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law 219–308. K Rittich, ‘Engendering Development/Marketing Equality’ (2003) 67 Albany Law Review 575–94. J Scott, and DM Trubek, ‘Mind the Gap: Law and New Approaches to Governance in the European Union’ (2002) 8 European Law Journal 1–18.

Newspaper Articles Bank Information Center, ‘Frank praises Changes to World Bank “Doing Business” Report’, www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11123.aspx. BBC, ‘World Trade Talks End in Collapse’ BBC News (London 29 July 2008). A Beattie and F Williams, ‘WTO Chief Drops Plans to Press Ministers for Outline Doha Deal’ Financial Times (London, 13 December 2008). R Ke, ‘Global Financial Crisis Spills Over China’s Labour Market’ China Features (Beijing, 11 November 2008). D Rodrik, ‘Death of Globalisation Consensus’ (Emirates Business 24/7, Dubai, 13 July 2008). R Seal, and K Manson, ‘Why are Mothers Still Dying in Childbirth?’ Guardian (London, 28 September 2008). PG Thakurta, ‘Trade-India: Rare Unity Against West’s Agricultural Subsidies’ (Inter Press Service, Rome, 27 July 2008).

Working Papers S Chen, and M Ravallion, The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, but No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No 4703, 2008). R Hausmann, D Rodrik and C Sabel, Reconfiguring Industrial Policy: A Framework with an Application to South Africa (HKS Working Paper No RWP08– 031, 2008). A Heuty and SG Reddy, Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: What’s Wrong with Existing Analytical Models? (Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Working Paper, 2006).

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D Hulme, The Making of the Millennium Development Goals: Human Development Meets Results-based Management in an Imperfect World (Brooks World Poverty Institute, Working Paper 16, 2007). D Kaufmann, A Kraay and A Mastruzzi, Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4280, 2007).

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The MDGs, Archeology, Institutional Fragmentation and International Law Human Rights, International Enviromental and Sustainable (Development) Law ELLEN HEY *

INTRODUCTION

W

HEN CONSIDERING THE Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the first characteristic that struck me was the fact that the goals and targets were not new, when endorsed by world leaders in 2000.1 Upon further consideration, especially of documents related to the implementation of the MDGs, a second characteristic emerged: the integrated approach that relevant documents adopt towards development, often accompanied by the assertion that the MDGs embody basic human rights.2 The first characteristic, that the commitments expressed by the MDGs are not new, prompted me to engage in some ‘archaeological research’.3 The findings of that research led me to the following question. Why have we not done better, given that the MDGs have been part of human rights law for six decades? This paper points to the fragmented nature of the international institutional framework—or the international governance structures—as a factor that has contributed to our failure. This fragmented institutional setting—which is also not new—has led to a * Ellen Hey is Professor and Head of the Department of Public International Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam. I am indebted to the School of Law of Helsinki University for enabling me to extend my stay in Helsinki when I was visiting there for purposes of teaching on their 2008 Annual Seminar on International Law. 1 ‘United Nations Millennium Declaration’, UNGA Res 55/2 (8 September 2000) UN Doc A/RES/55/2. 2 See eg, United Nations Millennium Project, Investing in Development, A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (New York, Earthscan Publications, 2005) (Investing in Development) and United Nations, Committing to Action: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals— Background Note by the Secretary-General for the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (New York, 25 July 2008) www.un.org/millenniumgoals//2008highlevel/pdf/commiting.pdf (Committing to Action). The documents emphasise, among other things, the link between environmental degradation and poverty in the sense that the poor stand to suffer most from environmental degradation; the link between securing access to water and sanitation and the under-participation of girls in education; and emphasise the importance of proper governance, including the rule of law, for attaining economic development. 3 I am indebted to Illeana Porras for the phrase ‘archeological research of the MDGs’. She spontaneously offered the phrase during a conversation about the topic of this essay when we met in Helsinki.

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fragmented approach to international law.4 Finally, this paper considers how international law, despite its fragmented nature, might further the integrated approach evident from the MDGs. In this paper, I assume that the fragmented nature of the international institutional framework is unlikely to undergo significant change in the near future, given the limited outcome of the 2005 World Summit in this respect.5 International law and international governance structures, of course, are only two interrelated factors that determine whether the MDGs will be met. The allocation of financial resources for development by developing and developed states and their effective use,6 linked to proper governance structures at the national level,7 probably are among the most important factors that will determine the fate of the MDGs, and there is reason for concern on these accounts as well. At various world summit meetings, donor countries have pledged to increase aid, from $80 billion in 2004 to $130 billion in 2010 (at constant 2004 prices). The present rate of increase of aid for core development programmes (excluding debt relief) will have to more than double over the next three years if the level of aid committed for 2010 is to be met. As of 2008, only $21 billion of the additional Official Development Assistance’s (ODA) commitments has been delivered or put aside. At the summit meeting of the Group of Eight in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, its members made a commitment to double ODA to Africa by 2010. Preliminary data for 2007 show that, excluding debt relief, bilateral ODA to the region has increased by no more than 9 per cent since 2005.8 The high-level event, held on 25 September 2008, did not change the situation significantly; even so, it resulted in promises of c $16 billion for development.9 Developing states themselves also allocate insufficient financial resources towards development. The water and sanitation sector provides a striking example. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates the benchmark for spending on water and sanitation for low income countries to be 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), however, states in Sub-Sharan Africa on average allocate

4 See, ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (UN Doc A/CN 4/L 682, 2006). 5 ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’, UNGA Res60/1 (16 September 2005) UN Doc A/RES/60/1. On this point see E Hey, ‘The High-level Summit, International Institutional Reform and International Law’ (2005) 2 Journal of International Law and International Relations 5. 6 See eg, the Second High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2 March 2005) www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html #book_1. 7 For the link between good governance and the MDGs see in particular, Investing in Development (n 2) 15–17 and 35–36. 8 Committing to Action (n 2) para 71. Also see United Nations, Delivering On the Global Partnership for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals, MDG Gap Task Force Report (New York, United Nations, 2008) www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Gap%20Task%20Force%20 Report%202008.pdf 6–7 (hereinafter MDG Gap Task Force Report 2008). 9 High-Level Event, www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2008highlevel/.

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only 0.3 per cent of their GDP to these aims.10 In addition, UNDP also estimates that aid for water and sanitation will have to double, rising by $3.6 to $4.0 billion annually, if the MDG-target on water and sanitation is to be met.11 Sufficient financial resources, including aid, its effective use and good governance at national and international levels, thus, are essential elements for attaining the MDGs. In this essay, I explore only one facet of these elements: good governance at the international level and more, in particular, the repercussions of the fragmented international institutional structure for the attainment of the MDGs. Before doing that, however, a bit of archaeological research is necessary.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Delving into the archaeological layers of international law illustrates that most, if not all, MDGs either are implicated in or can be related to existing human rights law. Moreover, some MDGs have found expression in other legally binding or non-binding documents. In addition, some MDGs lag behind earlier commitments endorsed by states. The water-related target, which is target 3 under MDG 7, and MDG 2 on universal primary education, provide pertinent examples. Target 3, under MDG 7, expresses the commitment to halve the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. This target clearly falls short of the right to water endorsed at the 1977 United Nations Water Conference and the goal set at this conference, namely to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to underserved urban and rural areas by 1990.12 In 2002, the right to water, furthermore, was adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR Committee) as part of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to health, respectively Articles 11 and 12 of the ESCR Covenant, adopted in 1966.13 ‘The right to a standard of living adequate for … health and well-being’, moreover, is also included in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Universal Declaration), adopted in 1948.14 Furthermore, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) conceive the right to water as part of other rights, respectively the right to enjoy adequate living conditions for rural women and the

10 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity, Power, Poverty and Global Water Crisis (United Nations, New York, 2006) (Human Development Report 2006) 9. For further information on the financial aspects of providing water and sanitation see the same report at 65–67. 11 ibid, 9. 12 Referred to in para 18.37 of United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Agenda 21 (Rio de Janeiro, 3 to 14 June 1992). 13 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment no 15 [2002]: The Right to Water (Geneva, United Nations, E/C 12/2002/11, 2003). 14 Universal Declaration of Human Rights UNGA Res 217A (III) (10 December 1948) UN Doc A/810.

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right to health.15 Agreeing to reduce by 50 per cent the number of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, evidently means that what was promised in 1977, for delivery in 1990, will not be met in 2015, and that for millions of people the right to water will not materialise. Moreover, the United Nations has expressed doubts as to whether the target for sanitation will be met, estimating that it may be missed by 600 million people.16 Meeting the target is proving to be most difficult for Sub-Saharan Africa, given that between 1990 and 2004 the amount of people without access to sanitation in this region has increased from 335 to 440 million.17 UNDP estimates that, if the target as a whole is to be met, at least $10 billion per year will be required; assuming that low-cost sustainable technologies will be used.18 Alternatively, the World Commission on Dams, in 2000, estimated that to comprehensively address the water crisis that is beyond basic needs, an extra investment of $100 billion annually would be required in developing countries, until 2025, in addition to the $70–80 billion currently invested annually.19 The right to non-discriminatory access to primary education provides another example. The Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), adopted in 1946, makes it one of the organisation’s goals.20 It, moreover, is formulated as the right to free and compulsory primary education in Article 13 juncto Article 14 of the ESCR Covenant and in Article 28(1)(a) of the CRC. It is now reflected in MDG 2, albeit without the proviso that primary education should be free. The link between these two rights, the right to water and the right to primary education, especially for girls, also is pertinent. The task of fetching water is most often carried out by women and children, especially girls. As a result children, girls in particular, do not attend school and women cannot invest in childcare or earning an income.21 Hence, there is also a link between the right to water and MDG 3, on empowering women, and CEDAW.

15 Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (CRC), Art 24(2); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW), Art 14(2). 16 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Millennium Development Report 2007 (New York, United Nations, 2007) 25. Also see E Hey, ‘Distributive Justice and Procedural Fairness in Global Water Law’ in J Ebbesson and P Okowa (eds), Environmental Law and Justice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009) 351. 17 ibid, 25–26. 18 Human Development Report 2006 (n 10) 8. Also see above text at nn 10 and 11. 19 World Water Commission, World Water Vision, Making Water Everybody’s Business (London, World Water Council/Earthscan Publications, 2000) 60. 20 Art 1(2)(b), Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (adopted 16 November 1945) available at http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php– URL_ID=15244&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. 21 World Health Organisation (WHO), The Right to Water (Geneva, WHO, 2003) 23–26 www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/rtwrev.pdf. The WHO estimates that up to 26 per cent of a household’s time in Africa is spent on fetching water.

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As the table available on the website of the High Commissioner for Human Rights illustrates, all MDGs and all targets formulated under them can be related to provisions of the ESCR Covenant and other human rights instruments.22 Linking the MDGs to human rights provisions may be less evident for the targets related to the environment, such as target 2 of MDG 7, which relates to biodiversity, or target 1 of MDG 7, which relates to integrating principles of sustainable development into policies and programmes in order to reduce the loss of natural resources, and includes issues such as deforestation, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the protection of the ozone layer. However, I suggest that Articles 11 (right to an adequate standard of living), 12 (right to health) and 15(1)(b) (the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications) of the ESCR Covenant provide a basis for state duties regarding the protection of the environment. The reasoning used by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its judgment in Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros is relevant in this context.23 In that case, the ICJ found that provisions setting out broad duties to protect the water quality of the Danube, contained in a treaty dating from 1977, could be regarded as ‘evolving provisions’, which required the parties to take into consideration newly developed environmental norms.24 Human rights provisions, including those on the right to an adequate standard of living and health, merit a similar approach with respect to, for example, standards to protect the environment that have been developed since the adoption of the relevant human rights instruments. The ‘living instrument’ doctrine, developed by the European Court of Human Rights, also suggests that such an approach to human rights provisions is warranted.25 MDG 8, requiring, amongst other things, states to cooperate in attaining the MDGs, is reflected in the provisions of the United Nations Charter,26 the Universal Declaration27 and the ESCR Covenant28 as well as the CRC.29 In other words, the inter-state cooperation required by MDG 8 is also not new. What might be regarded as new is the emphasis that MDG 8 places on cooperation with the private sector. However, Articles 29 and 30 of the Universal Declaration, and perhaps also Article 71 of the UN Charter, may be taken to indicate the appropriateness of such cooperation. 22 Website of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/ millenium-development/achievement.htm. 23 Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) [1973] ICJ Rep 18. 24 ibid, para 112. 25 It is settled case law of the ECtHR that the European Convention on Human Rights is ‘a living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions’. In case of environmental protection this has resulted in the ECtHR interpreting Art 8 (right to respect for family and private life) to include the right to a healthy environment, which offers protection against, for example, harmful chemicals and offensive smells. See Joint dissenting opinion of Judges Costa, Ress, Türmen, Zupancˇ acˇ and Steiner (para 2) in Hatton et al v UK [GC] ECHR 2003-VIII 95. For an overview of the case law of the ECtHR regarding the protection of the environment, see D Garcia San José, Environmental Protection and the European Convention on Human Rights (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2005). 26 Art 1 of the Charter of the United Nations (signed 6 June 1945) 1 UNTS XVI, and its para 3 in particular, provides a pertinent example, but other examples abound. 27 See, Preamble, para 6, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (n 14). 28 eg Art 1(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 999 UNTS 3 (ICESCR). 29 Preamble, last paragraph, and eg Art 23(4) Convention on the Rights of the Child (n 15).

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How, then, might we assess the outcome of this bit of archaeological research? Some might point to the many and varied conditions contained in, for example, the provisions of the ESCR Covenant, as well as the fact that many of the relevant provisions formulate not rights, but conditioned obligations for states. Such an analysis might point to the, therefore, doubtful status of the relevant provisions as rights of individuals or groups, or even duties of states. It might, thus, seek to explain non-compliance by pointing to the texts involved and the underlying political tensions. It might, moreover, point to general principles of international law, particularly those contained in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Rules on State Responsibility, as providing a legal framework in which violations of international human rights law can be addressed.30 This essay takes a different path, one in which international human rights law, as well as other bodies of law, such as international environmental law, are placed in the context of the fragmented international institutional framework. It argues that when the potential that law offers is used—meaning processes in which law can work in a context specific, rather than an abstract, manner—compliance with human rights law, and, thus, also with the MDGs and environmental law, may be enhanced. A FRAGMENTED INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

It is a well-known fact that the institutional structure which the United Nations Charter established for purposes of the development of economic and social policies, including human rights and environmental policies, is a disjointed one. Within this structure, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) exercises coordinating powers amongst a myriad of institutions, including specialised agencies, which are autonomous international organisations, though linked to the United Nations through agreements concluded with ECOSOC on the basis of Article 63 of the UN Charter. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) hold a special place in this system. The agreements that the World Bank and IMF have concluded with ECOSOC, contrary to similar agreements concluded with other specialised agencies, explicitly provide for their independence. In contrast, the WTO is not a specialised agency; even though it has concluded an agreement with the United Nations.31 In addition,

30 This approach is taken in ILC, Fragmentation of International Law (n 4), see at 13, para 13, where the choice was made to focus on the substantive issues that may arise as a result of the fragmentation of international law. The study group, moreover, when referring to the institutional aspects of fragmentation of international law focused on the proliferation of courts and tribunals (247, para 489), not the fragmented nature of law- and policy-making as such, which it treats as a given. See at 246, para 486 where it is stated that ‘[A] key point made in this study, is that normative conflict is endemic to international law’. 31 On the World Bank and IMF’s agreements with ECOSOC see M Darow, Between Light and Shadow, The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Human Rights Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003) 124–25. For the text of relevant agreements see http://unsystemceb.org/reference/ system/agreements/. Note that the agreements that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund concluded (UNGA Res 124 (II) (15 November 1947)) explicitly provide that each of these organisations

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other organisations, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), operate outside the UN system. Furthermore, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), through their secretariats, have various ties with a host of organisations, including the United Nations.32 In the words of the High-Level Panel, in its report in preparation of the 2005 World Summit: the institutional problem we face is twofold: first, decision-making on international economic matters, particularly in the areas of finance and trade, has long left the United Nations and no amount of institutional reform will bring it back; and second, the Charter allowed the creation of specialized agencies independent of principal United Nations organs, reducing the role of the Economic and Social Council to one of coordination.33

This fragmented international institutional framework is also reflected in the ESCR Covenant. The Covenant emphasises ECOSOC’s coordinating role by calling on ECOSOC to make arrangements with the specialised agencies for reporting on their activities relevant to the implementation of the Covenant, and to transmit for study and recommendation the relevant information to the Human Right Commission, now the Council, and the possibility to bring to the attention of other UN bodies, including the General Assembly, as well as specialised agencies matters, which arise out of its work and which may assist such bodies in taking measures to further implementation of the Covenant.34 What the ESCR Covenant also illustrates is a cautious attitude when it comes to institutional competences. For example, in the aforementioned provision on specialised agencies and other bodies taking relevant measures, it provides that each institution shall do so ‘within its field of competence’.35 Article 24 of the ESCR Covenant reads as follows: Nothing in the present Covenant shall be interpreted as impairing the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and of the constitutions of the specialized agencies which define the respective responsibilities of the various organs of the United Nations and of the specialized agencies in regard to the matters dealt with in the present Covenant.36

Article 24 of the Covenant thus emphasises that going beyond coordination is neither required nor acceptable. The working methods adopted by the ESCR Committee reflect this approach by emphasising coordination with other human rights bodies and by drawing on the expertise of the specialised agencies for the

‘is required to function, as an independent international organization’ in their Arts I(2). Other agreements such as the one concluded with the WHO (UNGA Res 124 (II) (15 November 1947)) do not contain a similar provision. The relationship between the WTO and the United Nations is governed by the Arrangements for Effective Cooperation with other Intergovernmental Organizations – Relations Between the WTO and the United Nations (signed 15 November 1995)www.wto.org/English/thewto_e/ coher_e/wto_un_e.htm. 32 E Hey, ‘International Institutions’ in D Bodansky, J Brunnée and E Hey (eds), Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 749. 33 United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the High-level Panel (2 December 2004) UN Doc A/59/565 (High-level Panel Report) para 274. 34 Arts 18–22, ICESCR (n 28). 35 ibid, Art 22. 36 ibid, Art 24.

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work of the Committee.37 Little, if anything, is available on how the Committee can cooperate with those agencies in order to ensure an integrated approach to their tasks. In relation to environmental protection, Article 25 of the ESCR Covenant is also of interest. It provides that ‘nothing in the present Covenant shall be interpreted as impairing the inherent right of all peoples to enjoy fully and freely their natural wealth and resources.’ Does this provision entail that measures to protect the environment, for example in the field of biodiversity, could have been adopted on the basis of the Covenant, given that such measures would protect rights of the Covenant, such as the right to health? This was probably not the intention of the drafters, who most likely sought to lay down what would later become known as the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources.38 Be this as it may, it is a fact that international measures to protect the environment have been adopted outside the framework of the ESCR Covenant, by way of MEAs in particular. The fragmented international institutional framework can be traced back to the functionalist thinking that guided the establishment of the United Nations and related institutions. In Mac Darow’s words: The essential premise of functionalism … is that the role of international institutions should be the provision of services (e.g. food, health, employment) rather than fundamental unifying principles such as human rights, and moreover that responsibility for delivery of such services can be allocated in a decentralised or even ‘polycentralised’ fashion.39

Within this functionalist approach to the international institutional setting, cooperation between international institutions, it was thought, did not need to extend beyond coordination, and different interests could be articulated in different international fora. As a result, international institutions operate in relative isolation and, as the MDGs illustrate, services were not delivered, or at least remained under-delivered. The relative isolation, in which international institutions operate, harbours the risk that the policies regarding development of one institution take away from what the policies of another institution provide. For example, the fact that the WTO does not address tariffs, or subsidies for agricultural products, including fisheries, in developed states, may entail that agricultural products from developing states, cultivated with technical cooperation projects financed by or through the FAO, face difficulties accessing world markets.40 Similarly, subsidised fishing activities continue to counteract the efforts undertaken within the Convention on Biological

37

See www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/workingmethods.htm. N Schrijver, ‘Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties in an Interdependent World’ (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Doctoral Dissertation (on file with author), 1995) 53. Published under the same title with Cambridge University Press 1997 and in paperback in 2008. 39 Darow, Between Light and Shadow (n 31) 205. Also see ILC, Fragmentation of International Law (n 4) 10–17. 40 See MDG Gap Task Force Report 2008 (n 8) 21. Also see K Anderson, W Martin and E Valenzuela, ‘The Relative Importance of Global Agricultural Subsidies and Market Access’ (Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No 5569, 2006) http://ssrn.com/abstract=912473. 38

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Diversity to conserve marine biodiversity.41 In addition, within the reconsideration of the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, it has been pointed out that the WTO dispute settlement system, which may ultimately allow a state to impose countermeasures on a non-compliant state, may disrupt the economies of developing states that impose such measures,42 economies which other international institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF, are seeking to strengthen. Whether through lack of opportunities for farmers in developing countries, degrading biodiversity or disrupted economies, it is the poor that suffer most and see their human rights infringed.43 What, then, do the above-mentioned facts imply for international law? They imply that different areas of international law operate in relative isolation. In relation to the ESCR Covenant and other human rights treaties, it implies that the implementation of their provisions are not necessarily part of the equation when, for example, structural adjustment projects are designed and implemented by international financial institutions.44 It also implies that in the field of developing international environmental law, and MEAs in particular, human rights aspects are not necessarily taken into account. The above does not mean that no integration has taken place between different functional areas of international law. A relevant example is the World Bank’s coordinating role in the implementation of MEAs in developing states. That role is achieved through the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and other funds, which are managed by the World Bank and through which financial resources are made available to developing states for the implementation of MEAs. This development, however, entails that the implementation of MEAs, at least to some extent, is subject to the economic policies of the Bank and does not necessarily take into consideration relevant human rights agreements. A typical example is the notion of incremental costs, developed in the context of the World Bank. It entitles developing states to receive financial support for the part of a project that seeks to implement an MEA and which also contributes to the improvement of the global environment, but not for the part that contributes to the improvement of the local or national environment. This manner of proceeding implies that human rights law, eg the right to a healthy living environment, is not necessarily part of the equation when conceiving and implementing such projects. A more integrated approach, as advocated by the Human Development Report 2007/2008, entitled Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World,45 is likely to further human rights and thus the MDGs. The report provides ample evidence of inter-linkages

41 See Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, In-depth Review of the Programme of Work on Incentive Measures (28 April 2008) UN Doc UNEP/CBD/COP/9/12/Add 2, available at www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/cop/cop-09/official/cop-09–12-add2-en.pdf para 38. 42 A Bianchi, L Gradoni and M Samson, Developing Countries, Countermeasures and WTO Law: Reinterpreting the DSU against the Background of International Law (Geneva, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), 2007) http://ictsd.net/i/publications/11294/. 43 See Investing in Development (n 2). 44 See Darow, Between Light and Shadow (n 31). 45 United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/2008: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World (New York, United Nations, 2008).

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between a variety of policy goals, for example, the link between MDG 1, on eradicating poverty and hunger, and climate change policy, part of MDG 7. The specific institutions established for the implementation of the MDGs thus operate in a fragmented institutional and legal framework. The MDG institutions are based on the MDG Task Force, which is an advisory body of the UN Secretary-General. Its members are representatives of key UN offices, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, regional UN commissions and specialised agencies, such as the World Bank and the IMF. Moreover the WTO and the OECD are also represented.46 In addition, relevant institutions have established their own MDG related programs, which illustrate a concerted commitment to achieve the MDGs, and should be seen as strengthening more integrated approaches to development, namely the integration of human rights into other policy areas. What, then, might be the role of international law in achieving the MDGs and the integrated approach reflected in relevant documents?

INTERNATIONAL LAW AND LEGAL MECHANISMS THAT PROMOTE INTEGRATED APPROACHES

Based on a functionalist approach to the establishment of the United Nations and international institutions in general, we are now faced with a fragmented international institutional framework and fragmented international law. While the MDGs themselves do not attempt to address these issues as such, they offer a unique opportunity for developing a more integrated policy as well as legal approaches to the relevant problems. Such opportunities are, for example, evident from the fact that the World Bank, if not the IMF and the WTO, participated in the 2007 dialogue with special agencies, funds and programmes and other entities of the United Nations, organised within the framework of the sixth inter-committee meeting of human rights treaty bodies.47 Such meetings may serve to further more integrated approaches to international policy and law and, thus, further also the implementation of the MDGs. But how can international law contribute to support the rather integrated approach evident from the MDGs and related documents? I suggest that, because rules are in most cases in place, procedures where law can be applied in context are particularly relevant. Such procedures are available, even if their development lags behind the development of substantive law. Relevant examples are the World Bank Inspection Panel as well as inspection panels established by other development banks and the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in

46

For information on the MDG Gap Task Force see www.un.org/esa/policy/mdggap/. Report of the Sixth Inter-Committee Meeting of Human Rights Treaty Bodies, Annex to Report of the Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies on their Nineteenth Meeting (13 August 2007) UN Doc A/62/224 paras 23 et seq. 47

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Environmental Matters.48 Also relevant is the recent adoption of the Optional Protocol to the ESCR Covenant which, when it enters into force, will allow the submission of communications to the ESCR Committee by or on behalf of individuals or groups of individuals alleging to be victims of violations of the rights set forth in the Covenant by a state party that is a party to the Covenant and the Protocol.49 Such procedures typically allow for the consideration of sustainable development in a contextualised manner, in which the interests of individuals and groups in society play an important role. Given that there seems to be an overall agreement that the emphasis should not be on the development of new rules and norms, but on their implementation, it also seems appropriate that we move from more abstract law-making processes to processes that enable law to be applied in context. This is what international law has to offer to the MDGs, even if the legal system remains a fragmented system, it does not need to remain as fragmented as it is today in its application. Other proposals might also be relevant, such as further institutionalised cooperation among human rights committees by, for example, developing joint general comments, a development endorsed during the 20th meeting of chairpersons of human rights treaty bodies in June 2008.50 A pertinent topic for a joint general comment would be the MDGs or sustainable development. Such a general comment could contribute to the development of more integrated approaches to the implementation of the MDGs and of sustainable development in general.

CONCLUSIONS

The links between the MDGs, the Universal Declaration and the ESCR Covenant are striking: in the last six decades, we failed to live up to the provisions of those instruments and of various other instruments. This paper suggests that this development is linked to the fragmented international institutional structure, which is grounded in a politically fragmented world. In this fragmented world, actors are able to use different functionally defined institutions to further their various interests in a fragmented manner. Does this mean that relevant human rights instruments did not matter during this 60-year time span? I doubt it. Rather, I am convinced that human rights instruments have mattered in the sense that they have provided those, whose human rights were infringed, with a voice, also within the legal discourse. For example, in recent years a voice is given to them in the various inspection panels and the Aarhus 48 For information on these mechanisms see D Bradlow, ‘Private Complaints and International Organizations: A Comparative Study of the Independent Inspection Mechanisms in International Financial Institutions’ (2005) 36 Georgetown Journal of International Law 403 and S Kravchenko, ‘The Aarhus Convention and Innovations in Compliance with Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2007) 7 Yearbook of European Environmental Law 1. 49 Arts 1 and 2, Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Report of the Human Rights Council (28 November 2008) UN Doc A/63/453. 50 Report of the Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies on Their twentieth meeting (13 August 2008) UN Doc A/63/280 para 42(s).

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compliance mechanism, where law can and is being contextualised, even if human rights law is not applied directly by such bodies. Proliferation of such bodies leads to the next question, namely how to coordinate their activities? While that question is becoming pertinent, given that complaints concerning a single situation or project have been submitted to various such bodies,51 I suggest that a more important point to make, at present, is that even in a fragmented international institutional and legal order, procedures have been developed that allow for more integrated approaches to the application of different bodies of law relevant to sustainable development, and thus, for the MDGs to emerge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books M Darow, Between Light and Shadow, The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Human Rights Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003). D Garcia San José, Environmental Protection and the European Convention on Human Rights (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2005). N Schrijver, Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties in an Interdependent World (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Chapter in Edited Volumes E Hey, ‘International Institutions’ in D Bodansky, J Brunnée and E Hey (eds), Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). E Hey, ‘Distributive Justice and Procedural Fairness in Global Water Law’ in J Ebbesson and P Okowa (eds), Environmental Law and Justice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009 ).

International Documents Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment no 15 [2002]: The Right to Water (Geneva, United Nations, E/C 12/2002/11, 2003). 51 A relevant example is the Vlora Thermal Power Plant in Albania. Complaints regarding this project have been submitted to World Bank Inspection Panel (see web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/ EXTERNAL/EXTINSPECTIONPANEL/ 0,,contentMDK:21321075~pagePK:64129751~piPK:64128378~theSitePK:380794,00.html) Independent Recourse Mechanisms of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (see www.ebrd.com/about/integrity/irm/register.htm) and twice to the Aarhus Compliance Mechanism against Albania (see www.unece.org/env/pp/compliance/Compliance%20Committee/12TableAlbania. htm) and against the European Community with regards to the European Investment Bank (see www.unece.org/env/pp/compliance/Compliance%20Committee/21TableEC.htm).

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International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (UN Doc A/CN 4/L 682, 2006). United Nations, Committing to Action: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals – Background Note by the Secretary-General (2008) www.un.org/ millenniumgoals//2008highlevel/pdf/commiting.pdf. United Nations, Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the Millenium Development Goals, MDG Gap Task Force Report 2008 (New York, United Nations, 2008) www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Gap%20Task% 20Force%20Report%202008.pdf. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Millennium Development Report 2007 (New York, United Nations, 2007). United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2006: Beyond Scarcity, Power, Poverty and Global Water Crisis (New York, United Nations, 2006). United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2007/ 2008: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World (New York, United Nations, 2008). United Nations Millennium Project, Investing in Development, A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (New York, Earthscan Publications, 2005). World Health Organisation, The Right to Water (Geneva, WHO, 2003). World Water Commission, World Water Vision, Making Water Everybody’s Business (London, World Water Council/Earthscan Publications, 2000).

Journal Articles D Bradlow, ‘Private Complaints and International Organizations: A Comparative Study of the Independent Inspection Mechanisms in International Financial Institutions’ (2005) 36 Georgetown Journal of International Law 403–94. E Hey, ‘The High-level Summit, International Institutional Reform and International Law’ (2005) 2 Journal of International Law and International Relations 5–25. S Kravchenko, ‘The Aarhus Convention and Innovations in Compliance with Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2007) 7 Yearbook of European Environmental Law 1–50.

Website Sources A Bianchi, L Gradoni and M Samson, Developing Countries, Countermeasures and WTO Law: Reinterpreting the DSU against the Background of International Law (Geneva, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), 2007) http://ictsd.net/i/publications/11294/.

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Working Paper K Anderson, W Martin, and E Valenzuela, ‘The Relative Importance of Global Agricultural Subsidies and Market Access’ (Centre for Economic Policy Research Discussion Paper No 5569, 2006) http://ssrn.com/abstract=912473.

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Untying Aid and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Enhancing Aid Effectiveness through the Legal Framework for International Trade ANNAMARIA LA CHIMIA *

INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENT AID AND THE IMPERATIVE TO ENHANCE ITS EFFECTIVENESS

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T THE INTERNATIONAL Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, 2002), aid resources were praised for playing an important part as a complement to other sources of financing for development.1 Development aid is the largest source of external financing and is critical to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.2 It has been recognised that ‘more and more effective aid is needed’ if the eight development goals are to be met.3 Donors have been urged to intensify their aid efforts by increasing the level of aid donated and by maximising the use of existing aid resources.4 According to the World Bank, an additional 40 to 60 billion US dollars a year are needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.5 Aid data for the first five years of the new century (2000–05) have shown a considerable increase on the amount of aid granted by donors—with the European

* Doctor of Law, Lecturer in Law, University of Nottingham. I would like to thank Professor Jutta Brunnee for her comments on a previous draft of this article; any mistakes are my own. 1 United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development (18–22 March 2002) UN Doc A/CONF 198/11, p 2. 2 ibid. 3 World Bank, ‘Interview with Zia Qureshi on Monitoring the Millennium Development Goals’ (26 October 2004) http://discuss.worldbank.org/content/interview/detail/1701. See also World Bank, Global Monitoring Report 2004: Policies and Actions for Achieving the Millenium Development Goals and Related Outcomes (Washington DC, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2004). Aid figures as one of the elements of MDG 8, namely improving global partnership for development. 4 See OECD initiatives on enhancing aid effectiveness www.oecd.org/department/0,2688,en_2649_ 3236398_1_1_1_1_1,00.html. 5 S Devarajan, M Miller and EV Swanson, ‘Development Goals: History, Prospects and Costs’ (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No 2819, 2002) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=636102.

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Union and its member states leading the way.6 The new century has also witnessed the rise of new donors, such as China and India. However, with all major financial systems in 2008 facing one of the worst financial crises in decades, the aid landscape could be drastically different in forthcoming years. In the current economic climate, expecting a significant increase in donors’ aid budgets could be considered unrealistic.7 Concerns for the future of aid-granting and for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) seem justified, especially after the publication of the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on donors’ expenditures which shows that the level of aid granted by OECD members has decreased in the past two years. Given the constrained budget resources, there is growing pressure to make existing aid resources more effective. Regrettably, aid projects are often criticised for not meeting the targeted goals.8 Studies on the effectiveness and efficiency of aid show that ‘a large portion of foreign aid is wasted and only increases unproductive public consumption.’9 The negative consequences of ineffective aid policies are especially emphasised in the case of food aid. As noted by development experts, aid in the form of food has been a popular and often the only way of addressing crucial food (in)security problems in developing countries.10 Unfortunately though, the provision of food aid is often controversial.11 Critics argue that the positive effects of food aid, its lifesaving nature and its capacity of meeting people’s right to food,12 are often

6 More than one half of all official development assistance (ODA) given by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors is granted by the EU and its member states (who also grant aid bilaterally). In 2005, this amounted to over $65 billion. The European Union promised to increase the proportion of its wealth devolved to ODA from 0.32 per cent to 0.39 per cent by 2006. See Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), OECD in Figures: Statistics on the Member Countries (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2005) http://ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publications/doifiles/012005061T030.xls. 7 In the current economic crisis, aid plays a vital role since access to other form of financing such as loans and private investment is difficult (private investments are low and partnership with the private sector is difficult). See OECD, 3rd High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (Accra, 2–4 September 2008) www.oecd.org/document/20/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_41201108_1_1_1_1,00.html. 8 See R Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). See also A Alesina and D Dollar, ‘Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?’ (2000) 5 Journal of Economic Growth 33, L Dudley and C Montmarquette, ‘A Model of the Supply of Bilateral Foreign Aid’ (1976) 64 American Economic Review 132, A Maizels and M Nissanke, ‘Motivations for Aid to Developing Countries’ (1984) 12 World Development 879, R McKinlay and R Little, ‘A Foreign Policy Model of US Bilateral Aid Allocations’ (1977) XXX World Politics 58, cited in HV Milner, ‘The Rise of Multilateralism: Why Delegate the Allocation of Foreign Aid?’ (Princeton University, 14 September 2005) www.princeton.edu/~hmilner/working%20papers/delegation7–05CUP.pdf. 9 Alesina and Dollar, ‘Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?’ (n 8). See also World Bank, Assessing Aid (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998) cited in A Alesina and D Dollar ‘Leaders: Missing the Point’, The Economist (London 16 March 2002) www.economist.com/opinion/ displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TDPQNQP; D Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). 10 See CB Barrett and DG Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting its Role (London, Routledge, 2006). 11 See R Zhang, ‘Food Security, Food Trade Regime and Food Aid Regime’ (2004) 7 Journal of International Economic Law 565, 573. 12 ie the right of all people to have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preference for an active and healthy life, and for the enjoyment of all political and social rights (Art 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 (ICESCR), and

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outweighed by its costs and its detrimental impact on domestic production.13 Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) argue that ‘imported food aid can flood markets, lower prices and put local farmers out of business.’14 Calls for fostering the success of aid policies, both in terms of better allocation of aid15 and more effective instruments used,16 have come from many areas.17 The year 2008 will probably (and hopefully) be remembered as the ‘aid effectiveness year’, as three major initiatives on enhancing aid effectiveness have dominated the ‘eradicating poverty’ debate (the first of the eight MDGs). Namely, the Development Cooperation Forum (30 June—1 July), aimed at ‘reviewing trends in international development cooperation’;18 the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana (2–4 September), where both donors and recipient countries discussed ways of ensuring that development assistance is well-spent;19 and the UN Financing for Development Conference in Doha (29 November—2 December), which was a follow-up to the International Conference on Financing for Development held in Monterrey (in 2002) and was aimed at reviewing the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus.20 These meetings pushed forward the aid effectiveness debate. Donors were asked to ensure coherence and coordination in their development policies, eliminating all

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), Right to Adequate Food (Art 11)–— General Comment 12 UN Doc E/C.12/1999/5 (1999)). See also Art 25 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948) UNGA Res 217 A(III). Many other specific international and regional treaties address the right to food. See TW Pogge (ed), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (New York, Oxford University Press, 2007) chs 1 and 13. 13 CS Clark, Food Aid in the WTO Agricultural Trade Policy (Winnipeg, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, 2002). See also E Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid: Does Tying Matter? (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2005); E Clay and O Stokke (eds), Food Aid and Human Security, EADI Book Series 24 (London, Frank Cass, 2000); CB Barrett, ‘Food Aid: Is it Development Assistance, Trade Promotion, Both or Neither?’ (1998) 80 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 566. 14 ActionAid, Human Security Policy Briefing Note 1: Food Aid, www.actionaid.org/docs/ food_aid_briefing_note.pdf (last accessed 30 June 2009). See also Oxfam, Briefing Paper 71: Food Aid or Hidden Dumping? Separating Wheat from Chaff (2005) www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/ bp71_food_aid.pdf. See Barrett and Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years (n 10). 15 Alesina and Dollar, ‘Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?’ (n 8). 16 J Chinnoch and S Collison, Purchasing Power. Aid Untying, Targeted Procurement and Poverty Reduction (London, ActionAid, 1999) www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/68_1_purchasing_power.pdf (last accessed 12 July 2009). 17 The first call to enhancing aid effectiveness was made in Monterrey (2002) followed by the High Level Forums in Rome (2003) and Paris (2005) which have resulted in a growing consensus on some key principles—embodied in the Paris Declaration On Aid Effectiveness (adopted 2 March 2005) www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/41/34428351.pdf—for effective development policies, namely ownership, partnership, alignment, harmonisation and coordination of donors, management for results and mutual accountability. Peer reviews of donors have been also characterised by a call to foster aid effectiveness, see OECD/DAC, Development Co-Operation Review: European Community (Paris, OECD, 2002) where the DAC welcomed the EC increase of ODA, however, it called for enhanced aid effectiveness and aid untying. 18 The strategies reviewed included policies and financing for development; promoting greater coherence among the development activities. Further information is available at www.un.org/ecosoc/ newfunct/2008dcf.shtml. 19 Further information is available at www.oecd.org/document/31/0,3343,en_2649_34487_ 41165727_1_1_1_1,00.html. Donors set targets for monitoring the implementation of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (n 17). One of the targets is monitoring the level of aid untied. 20 Further information is available at www.un.org/esa/ffd/doha/.

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factors of distortion that affect and reduce the role aid plays in development cooperation policies. Various policy instruments have been suggested to target aid effectiveness.21 As this author has argued elsewhere, these include guaranteeing effective expenditure through the improvement of development aid procurement and the abolition of practices, such as tied aid (where aid is granted to developing countries on condition that goods and services for the aid-financed projects are purchased from the donor country) that significantly undermine aid effectiveness. This paper investigates donors’ practice of tying aid to developing countries and highlights the negative repercussions this practice has on the MDGs. It also provides an up to date account of the international initiatives undertaken by donor countries to untie aid, and investigates dealing with tied aid through the existing international law framework on free trade endorsed by WTO members. The paper focuses in particular on the role that the WTO could play in regulating food aid policies and on the impact of the current WTO negotiations for reforming agricultural trade on tied food aid. The paper argues that untying aid within the WTO framework would help enhance aid effectiveness, which would ultimately help achieve the aims of the Millennium Development Goals. Development aid could play an important role in fostering trade and promoting economic growth in developing countries, especially since in many countries public bodies, and, in particular, aid-financed projects, are often the ‘major and only potential outlets for trade’.22 This is particularly important in the agricultural sector, given that most of developing countries’ trade is related to agriculture. Hence, untied aid could become a major source of export promotion for developing countries, with positive effects on trade and local food production.23 This result would foster the development character of the WTO while demonstrating the capacity of, and the necessity for, international law to deal with politically sensitive topics and its ability to work for development. The paper is arranged as follows: the second part is dedicated to the analysis of tied aid and its repercussions for the fulfillment of the MDGs. This part also analyses the rationale for tying aid to developing countries and offers information on some of the most recent initiatives undertaken at the international and regional level to untying aid. The third part is dedicated to the investigation of tied aid within the WTO legal framework for reforming agricultural trade, providing an overview of the current state of the law and the progress achieved so far in the DOHA round of negotiations to untie food aid. The WTO negotiations on food aid are of great significance for the achievement of the MDGs. They would help the fight for eradicating poverty and hunger (the first MDG), attain higher standards of education and health (Goals 2, 4, 5 and 6, whose success is directly dependent on ensuring an adequate level of nutritional standards) and would promote an effective

21

See n 17. See La Chimia infra n 29. For the importance of trade activities generated by aid donations in sectors other than agriculture and for aid goods other than food aid see further A La Chimia and S Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid: Towards a More Development Oriented WTO’ (2009) 12 (3) Journal of International Economic Law 707–47 23 For the positive effects of partially untied food aid, see Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13). 22

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partnership for development (Goal 8).24 The fourth part concludes that the end of tied aid would lead to a more ‘development’-oriented WTO and, using professor Yong-Shik Lee’s words, would help in ‘bridging the gap between the requirements of the current regulatory system of international trade law and developing countries’ development needs.’25

TIED AID AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION: CONTRADICTIONS AND INEFFICIENCIES OF BENEFACTORS’ DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION POLICIES

Before embarking on the analysis of the legal aspect of tied food aid, it is necessary to indicate what tied aid is, and what its effects on the MDGs are, in order to better understand this practice.

What is Tied Aid? Tied aid is official development assistance (ODA)26 provided on condition that the aid money will be spent in the country providing the aid (the donor country). The aid is partially untied when the goods and services ‘must be procured in the donor country or among a restricted group of other countries, which must however include substantially all developing countries’ (OECD/DAC definition27). When the aid is formally tied, the recipient country, in order to receive the grant or the loan, has no other choice but to fulfill the condition imposed by the donor, even if it would be cheaper and more convenient to purchase the goods or the services from some other country (for instance in a neighbouring developing country which might be able to offer the aid-goods at lower prices because of reduced transportation costs). 24 The correlation between untying aid and MDG 8 is emphasised by the fact that progress achieved towards untying aid to LDCs is followed in the context of the MDGs, target number 35, United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development (18–22 March 2002) UN Doc A/CONF 198/11. This was confirmed in 2005 when it was established that the proportion of official development assistance that is untied is used as one of the indicators for monitoring progress towards the achievement of MDG 8 (indicator 8.3 for goal N. 8.). UN official MDG site at www.un.org/ millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm. See also the 2005 World Summit (Resolution adopted by the General Assembly A/RES/60/1, www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=A/RES/60/1. See also http:// siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/MDGsOfficialList2008.pdf. 25 This expression is used by Y-S Lee, Reclaiming Development in the World Trading System, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 13. For a discussion on international trade law and development, see H-J Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategies in Historical Perspective (London, Anthem Press, 2002). 26 The article refers to aid granted bilaterally since multilateral aid is, by definition, mainly untied or partially tied. 27 OECD Glossary of development terms, http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=2007. However, not all donors agree with this definition. The European Union, for instance, sustains that aid is partially untied when procurement is restricted to a group of countries usually including the donor and some—but not necessarily all—developing countries. See Council and Parliament Regulation (EC) 1905/2006 of 18 December 2006 on establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation [2006] OJ L378/41.

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The tied aid condition is always imposed by the donor country (by either the ministry of foreign affairs or the ministry for development cooperation). The procurement process is carried out by either donors’ or recipients’ development aid agencies which are—or are controlled by—public bodies. Hence, the purchasing activities necessary for acquiring the aid-goods are government procurement activities and fall within the category of ‘development aid procurement’.28 Informal tied aid refers instead to the situation where, although in principle goods can be purchased from any country, in reality goods will be purchased in the donor country, often because of pressures from the donor country and because of the lack of transparency and of effective procedures aimed at ensuring competition between suppliers. Donors usually find many ingenious ways of ensuring, informally, that goods will be purchased in their country only. They can, for instance, write very detailed procurement specifications, in order to ensure that only very few, national, suppliers can offer the aid goods. This situation is aggravated by the lack of international and regional regulation for development aid procurement procedures and the lack of efficient monitoring and complaining mechanisms for suppliers.29

The Effects of Tying Aid and the Negative Impact on the MDGs Increased Costs of Aid OECD studies demonstrate that for non-agricultural products, tying aid induces a price increase of the goods purchased of 15 to 30 per cent, to which higher transportation and administrative costs must also be added.30 As regards food aid, the effects of tying are even more alarming. A study by E Clay has shown that: the actual costs to the donor of providing tied food aid instead of financing commercial imports are estimated to be at least 30% and the actual cost of tied direct food aid transfers is, approximately 50% more than local food purchases and 33% more costly than procurement of food in third countries.31

The higher costs paid for the goods purchased undermine the effectiveness of the aid.32 Moreover, tying aid also leads to the distortion of the nature of the aid itself,

28 The term ‘development aid procurement’ is here used to refer to the procurement process to acquire the goods and services required to implement development aid projects financed by donors. 29 This situation is at odds with international standards and regulation for general government procurement activities, development aid procurement seems to live outside the realms of general public procurement law. See A La Chimia, ‘Effectiveness and Legality Issues in Development Aid Procurement for EU Member States’ (2008) European Current Law: Monthly Digest i–iv. 30 See OECD, Policy Brief: Untying Aid to the Least Developed Countries (July 2001) 2. For an extensive account of the effects of tied aid see CJ Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination and Untying of Aid (Aldershot, Avebury, 1994) and Chinnock and Collinson, Purchasing Power (n 16). 31 Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13). 32 See, for all, Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination (n 30).

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because donors are interested in securing aid towards projects that provide opportunities for their own industries rather than meeting recipients’ development needs.33 There are many examples of aid projects being compromised by their tied status. For example, in the health sector, where projects are linked to Goal 6 of the MDGs (fighting diseases) and to Goals 4 and 5 (reducing child mortality and improving maternal health), Dugger reported that US aid money to Africa designed to fight HIV/AIDS has been tied to purchase American anti-AIDS drugs instead of buying cheaper generic products from South Africa, India or Brazil. As a result, HIV/AIDS drugs were purchased for $15,000 as opposed to £350 annually for generic brands. Equally, after a successful campaign led by US senators, US aid agencies exclusively purchase American-made condoms, despite these being nearly 60 per cent more expensive than Asian-produced ones.34 The increase in costs obviously resulted in a limited number of goods purchased. It is positive to note that since 2006, the European Union allows developing countries’ suppliers and goods to participate in EU aid procurement opportunities in the health sector (ie the aid is partially untied).35 There are also many examples of tied food aid affecting MDG 1 (eradicating poverty and hunger). For example, Hildtch reports that aid totalling 300 million yen was granted to Malawi for the purchase of Argentinian maize by two Japanese companies. Only 79 million yen was actually spent on maize, the rest going towards transportation and insurance costs. If Malawi had been left free to buy maize from the Southern Africa region, it could have bought more than three times as much.36 Several other forms of indirect costs must be added to have an overall picture of the costs of tying aid.37 For instance, transportation and administrative costs are enhanced for the recipient country. Excessive transportation costs could very often be avoided if the beneficiary was allowed to procure from neighbouring countries.38 Administrative costs are higher due to the fact that tied aid discourages donors’ coordination in aid activities and is a disincentive to channelling of aid through multilateral institutions. As far as the distortion effect is concerned, when tied aid is implemented, the recipient country is not free to use the aid in the way it considers to be the most appropriate, and it is excluded from the decision-making process for which the aid is granted.39 This situation undermines and contradicts the principles 33 See, as an example, the Caxiguana field station in Brazil in N Baird, ‘Tied to the Hand That Feeds’ (1996) 2051 New Scientist 12. 34 The information on US aid to fight HIV/AIDS (both examples on purchase of drugs and condoms) were reported in CG Dugger, ‘Condoms Made in US Shape Foreign Aid Policy’ New York Times (New York 29 October 2006) www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/29/news/aid.php. 35 See Art 31 of Council and Parliament Regulation (EC) 1905/2006 of 18 December 2006 establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation [2006] OJ L378/41, covering aid financed out of Community budget which modifies the rules on contractual participation for Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1568/2003 of 15 July 2003 on aid to fight poverty diseases (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria) in developing countries [2003] OJ L224. 36 Reported in L Hilditch, ‘Untied Aid Goes Further’ www.developments.org.uk/articles/untied-aidgoes-further/. 37 Jepma Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination (n 29) 69. 38 See Hilditch, ‘Untied Aid Goes Further’ (n 35). 39 ibid.

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of ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’ on which sound development policies should be based. The proportion of aid that is untied is now officially linked to the achievement of MDG 8 ‘Develop a global partnership for development’ and it is used as one of the indicators for monitoring progress towards achieving this goal (indicator 8.3 for goal N. 8.).40 The Loss of ‘Trade for Aid’41 Another negative effect of tied aid is the ‘loss’ of a possible ‘trade for aid effect’. As La Chimia and Arrowsmith have argued, the aid granted could generate trade between the aid recipient and neighbouring developing countries, who could be able to sell, at cheaper prices, the goods necessary for the implementation of the aid projects42 (for instance, the goods could be cheaper because of reduced transportation costs). When the aid is tied and goods are purchased from the donor country, local producers lose the opportunity to supply the aid goods, wasting the potential trade effect that the aid could generate. The importance of South-South trade is now widely recognised. However debates on South-South trade seem to overlook that trade in developing countries can especially occur with public bodies, whose purchases are often financed through aid. Government procurement in developing countries accounts for more than 16 per cent of GDP, and this is often financed through aid.43 OECD studies show that in Mali, 64 per cent of public expenditures are financed through aid, while in Nicaragua around 45 per cent and in Haiti as much as 70 per cent of government projects are financed by bilateral assistance, much of which is provided on the condition that supplies or services are purchased from the donor country, rather than locally or through international competition.44 As regards food aid, it has been argued that untying aid would allow the purchasing of food aid commodities through local or triangular purchase (ie local purchase are purchases made in the country receiving the aid whereas triangular purchases are purchases made in neighbouring developing countries) with major positive effects on rural development and agricultural trade for local producers in developing countries.45 When aid is tied or is provided in-kind, purchases take 40

See n 24. I have intentionally coined this expression after the WTO initiative ‘aid for trade’ established by the 2005 Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Declaration (adopted 22 December 2005) WTO Doc WT/MIN(05)/DEC www.wto.org/english/theWTO_e/minist_e/min05_e/final_text_e.htm (last accessed 12 July 2009). The Hong Kong declaration called for the expansion and improvement of aid for trade (ie the disbursement of aid aimed at enhancing developing countries’ trade capacities) and set in motion a process to achieve this. 42 See La Chimia and Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid’ (n 22). 43 See OECD/DAC, The Mali Donors’ Public Procurement Procedures: Towards Harmonisation with the National Law—Report Summary (July 2000) 6 www.aidharmonization.org/search/ redir?item_id=354158&url=/download/213265/Mali_Procurement_Harmonization.pdf. 44 ActionAid, ‘The World Trade Organisation and the Seattle Ministerial meeting: Government Procurement’ www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/70_1_wto_procurement.pdf. 45 See E Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round: Building on the Positive (London, Overseas Development Institute Publications, 2006) who suggests partially untied aid would be the best outcome of the current WTO negotiations on food aid as it would allow local and triangular purchases. 41

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place in the donor country.46 Food aid in-kind may meet developing countries’ short-term needs, however, it provides little, if any long-term benefit for the recipient country.47 Aid-funded projects can also be an expedient for new trade relations between countries, and can be followed by other opportunities to trade, such as the maintenance contracts of the original aid contract. Therefore in developing countries—where private investments are low and public bodies are often the only channels for trade development, aid could play an important role in fostering trade and promoting economic growth. Trade has always been recognised as an important factor for enhancing economic growth and eradicating poverty; it is evident that when aid is tied, the opportunity is lost to use aid as a means of enhancing trade while eradicating poverty. It is regrettable that aid donors tend to overlook the potential role of ‘trade for aid’ in enhancing the benefits of existing aid resources.

Data and Rationales for Tying Aid Data provided by the OECD in 2006 show that, excluding food aid and technical cooperation, 58 per cent of total bilateral aid is tied.48 For instance, Canada ties 75.1 per cent of its aid49 and Australia ties more than 40 per cent of its aid. The EU and its member states grant either tied or partially tied aid.50 As regards food aid, the OECD/DAC found that it ‘continues to be overwhelmingly tied’.51 Further, new rising donors, such as China, implement tied aid in almost all sectors, oblivious of any drawbacks this causes.52 Unfortunately, reporting aid-tying status to the OECD/DAC remains optional, and key donors often fail to report.53 46 Development experts believe the best way for granting food aid would be untied, in cash and in grant form only. This would enable developing countries to purchase goods that comply with their nutritional needs and from the country that offers them at the cheapest price. See for all Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13). 47 See Barrett and Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years (n 10). 48 OECD, 2005 Development Co-operation Report, Vol 7, No 1 (Paris, OECD, 2006). 49 Table 23 of the OECD, Development Co-Operation Report 2001—Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2002) (data do not include technical co-operation and food aid). See also EU Donors Atlas (2005) http://ec.europa.eu/ development/icenter/repository/Donor_Atlas_en.pdf. EU data, which exclude Technical Cooperation and food aid, show that Greece has the worst record of aid untied (only 13.9% of untied aid) then Portugal (with 33%). The percentage of tied aid increases considerably when data include Technical Cooperation, see ActionAid, Policy and Research: Untying Aid www.actionaid.org/docs/untying_euro_aid.pdf which show that more than seven EU Countries tie their aid funds more than 50%, namely Greece 99%, Austria 75%, Italy 69%, Germany and Spain 68%, Belgium 58%, and France 52%. 50 The UK and Ireland are exceptional cases, as they have fully untied since April 2001. Data for the US are only partially available because the US often failed to report its tying status to the OECD. Interviews by this author with USAID officials have confirmed that tied aid is widely implemented in the US aid procurement. Further, the US is bound by law to ‘buy national’ (Foreign Assistance Act, Public Law No 87–197 in Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13)). See Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (n 8). 51 Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13). 52 J Anderlini, ‘China insists on “tied aid” in Africa’ Financial Times (London 25 June 2007) http://portal.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=VWPrintVW3&article_id=1462315531&printer=printer&rf=0. 53 Hilditch, ‘Untied Aid Goes Further’ (n 35). For a long time the US has failed to report its tying status, see for example 2001 OECD aid statistics

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Given the drawbacks of tied aid and the data on its implementation, the question must be asked: why do donors tie aid? Donors advance economic and political reasons for justifying the tying of aid.54 The economic rationale is linked to the fact that donors use aid as an instrument of trade policy to step up trade flows with the beneficiary country and to increase and subsidise their exports. However, economists have concluded that it is very unlikely that aid tying produces significant benefits for donor economies.55 The political rationale is that tying aid emphasises the link between the donor and the recipient country and that, by helping national exporters, tying aid helps by ‘buying political support’ for development policy.56 However, it could be argued that tied aid only gains the political support of specific and organised interest groups within the business lobby; whether it gains the support of the public at large is open to question. Indeed, the increasing public awareness of the importance and the need for more effective aid suggests that if details of the actual costs and damaging effects of tying were more widely disseminated, untying policies would likely gain widespread public support.57 A further rationale for tying aid is said to be linked to donors’ fears that if they take the lead by unilaterally reducing tying, their domestic industries would suffer in two respects: first their protection would disappear, and second their foreign competitors whose governments had not abolished tied aid would achieve a better relative position (the so-called ‘prisoner’s dilemma’).58 In this context, multilateral organisations, such as the WTO, have a fundamental role to play. Only if all countries untie their aid at the same instant and if untied aid policies are coordinated at the international level, will countries be put ‘on an equal footing’.59 As Jepma has maintained, ‘tying has became a problem of international policy decision making and of finding the proper juridical bases, rules and procedures.’60

International and Regional Initiatives to Untie Aid In April 2001, the untying debate gained momentum. The UK government was the first donor to announce that it would unilaterally untie all aid granted to developing and least developed countries. In the same year, OECD/DAC members agreed to untie aid to least developed countries (LDCs) and adopted the ‘OECD/DAC Recommendation

54

See Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination (n 30). ibid. See also O Morrissey and H White, ‘How Concessional is Tied Aid’ (University of Nottingham, CREDIT Research Paper No 93/13, 1993) 4. 56 European Commission, Writing Document of the Commission Service, Response to the Challenge of Globalization, A study on the International Monetary and Financial System and on Financing for Development SEC (2002) 185 final 71. 57 Decima Research Limited, (1985) 64 reported in Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination (n 30) 28. See also the Barometro Della Solidarietà Internazionale initiative implemented in two editions— 1999 and 2001—by Volontari nel mondo-Focsiv, with the contribution of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and based on 3,000 samples implemented by Doha Rapports. 58 See Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination (n 30) 16. 59 ibid. 60 ibid. 55

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on Untying Aid to LDCs’ (hereafter the OECD Recommendation).61 However, the OECD Recommendation excludes from its coverage food aid, technical cooperation and all aid granted to developing countries that are not classified as LDCs and, since 2008, as highly indebted poor countries HIPC, (only 52 countries are LDCs and a remaining 8 countries are classified as non-LDC HIPC), covering only 12 per cent of total aid.62 Furthermore, the OECD Recommendation is not legally binding: it does not apply to non-OECD/DAC members and its implementation relies on the goodwill of states, the effectiveness of peer pressure and the OECD/DAC monitoring role.63 Despite its limited coverage, the OECD Recommendation is nonetheless an important step towards untying aid, and it represents the first official endorsement of the untying cause by the donor community.64 Besides, recent OECD studies show that most OECD/DAC countries successfully implement the OECD Recommendation and some diligently use the OECD bulletin board, where the untied aid procurement notices are advertised.65 OECD studies also show that donors have not decreased the level of aid granted as a result of the implementation of the OECD Recommendation.66 This is certainly good news for the untying debate which suggests that coordination of donors’ efforts at the international level has the power to bring about positive results, achieving the target of untying aid while not decreasing the level of aid granted. Unfortunately, however, progress in further untying aid has been disappointing despite some donors arguing that untying aid ‘must go further’.67 Among OECD donors, the European Commission has been especially active in supporting the debate on untying aid. In 2006, the EU enacted regulation 1905/2006 providing, in Article 31, the possibility to untie aid on a regional basis towards developing countries (ie all developing countries’ firms based in a set region will be able to participate to aid procurement opportunities) and on reciprocal conditions towards other donor countries (ie the EU will untie its aid towards other donors on condition that they equally agree to untie).68 The decision to subordinate EU untying to reciprocal conditions is open to criticism. EU officials are of the view that the reciprocity condition is necessary to urge other donors (especially the US) to equally untie and to avoid free-rider behaviours.69 However,

61 OECD/DAC Recommendation on Untying Aid to LDCs (adopted 26 April 2001, entered into force 1st January 2002) (OECD Recommendation). 62 The OECD Recommendation (n 58) coverage in 2008 has been extended to another 8 recipients so as to include all non-LDC HIPC. 63 OECD Recommendation (n 58). 64 For an analysis of the OECD Recommendation (n 58), see A La Chimia, ‘International Steps to Untie Aid: the OECD/DAC Recommendation’ (2004) 13 Public Procurement Law Review 1. 65 www.oecd.org. 66 OECD, Implementing the 2001 DAC Recommendation on Untying ODA to the Least Developed Countries–—2005 Progress Report, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/22/35029066.pdf (last accessed 30 June 2009). 67 Writing Document of the European Commission Service (n 53) 70. 68 Council and Parliament Regulation (EC) 1905/2006 of 27 December 2006 on establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation [2006] OJ L378/41. 69 Interview with EU officials by this author (Brussels, March 2004) on occasion of the EU Commission-funded study, K Outterside, B Vazquez Medina, A La Chimia and A Schneider, Assessment of the Impact of Further Untying European Aid.

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there remains a suspicion that the EU approach to reciprocity is aimed at ensuring that EU suppliers are not disadvantaged on the aid market vis-à-vis foreign suppliers. The reciprocity approach chosen by the EU seems to reaffirm the need for multilateral action to untie aid. However, this is not to say that the OECD should remain the exclusive forum where multilateral negotiations on untying aid take place. Recent developments in the development aid scenario seem to indicate that this would not be an ideal solution; the following passages explain why.

The Rise of New Donors: New Dilemmas for the International Community As said above, new donors such as China are now providing development aid. The emergence of new donors has significant implications in terms of why and how aid is disbursed. The tendency of new donors to grant aid as a means to secure access to natural resources in recipient countries, rather than as a means to eradicating poverty, is alarming. Moreover, some new donors seem inclined to disregard recipient countries’ records on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and make extensive use of tied aid.70 This has raised concerns amongst development experts who fear the progress on development aid regulation made thus far by the donor community will be undermined if new donors are not involved soon in aid policies regulations. This situation is not entirely surprising since new donors are not members of the main international institution responsible for devising aid policies, namely the OECD (the OECD has a very limited membership—only 30 members71—which excludes most new donors and the vast majority of developing countries). Hence, new donors are not required (or expected) to follow any of the OECD policies or recommendations on aid harmonisation or aid effectiveness. For example, no new donor has committed to the OECD Recommendation on untying aid to LDCs. The changing donor landscape calls into question the role played by the OECD as the leading institution for aid regulation. Other international institutions, with larger memberships, could/should play a more proactive role in the design of aid policies and regulations. As far as tied aid policies are concerned, the WTO, for example, has a possible important role to play. A step in this direction has already been made when food aid policies started to be discussed within the WTO framework for reforming agricultural trade and, in light of these negotiations, food aid was not included within the coverage of the OECD Recommendation on untying aid to LDCs. There appear to be further reasons in support of dealing with tied aid in the WTO forum. Firstly, the WTO’s broad membership (to date the WTO accounts for 153 members, two-thirds of which are developing countries) would enable the 70

Anderlini, ‘China insists on “tied aid” in Africa’ (n 49). OECD members are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States. 71

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participation in aid regulation of both new donors and developing countries. The participation of the latter, in particular, would ensure that aid policies are not exclusively donor-driven (respecting the principles of ownership and partnership). The second reason for encouraging stronger WTO participation in the development of (tied) aid policies is related to the important links between aid and trade mentioned above.72 These links need to be taken into account when devising both aid and trade polices, since there could be significant benefits in terms of aid effectiveness. The WTO, the body responsible for international trade policies, seems to be well suited to take into account the aid-trade links. Furthermore, as La Chimia and Arrowsmith have argued, dealing with tied aid at the WTO level could help furthering the WTO’s development objectives. There are, of course also other considerations to take into account when considering whether the WTO would be the adequate forum for aid regulation, for example, whether aid policies are better dealt with by soft law instruments rather than hard law ones.73 These issues are very important and need further analysis and careful consideration. It is worth noting that in the export credits sector (which is a sector often associated with tied aid) the WTO has already endorsed, with considerable success, specific OECD policies with the result of making them indirectly binding on all its member states. This has been the case for the 1978 Arrangement on export credits74—a gentlemen’s agreement on export credits concluded under the auspices of the OECD—whose principles have been indirectly incorporated into the WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Measures agreement (via Letter K, Annex 1 of the SCM itself, which is binding on all WTO members75). Should a similar approach be adopted for the regulation of aid policies? And, if so, is it even possible? The current WTO legal framework does not cover tied aid in a meaningful and substantial way. As regards non-agricultural aid goods, La Chimia and Arrowsmith have argued elsewhere that the scope for applying the non-discrimination principles of GATT to tied aid practices is very restricted because tied aid is linked to government procurement, and Article III.8 of the 72

Further on these, see La Chimia and Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid’ (n 22) An extended analysis of this controversial point is not possible here. Linking aid to legally binding obligations, and to the WTO strong monitoring and compliance mechanisms, lead donors to reduce the level of aid granted. On the other hand, there are also advantages linked to the legally binding nature of WTO obligations, for example an enhanced certainty and clarity of donors’ aid commitments. However, as aid is linked to political motives it is unlikely that donors would stop granting aid if it was linked to WTO legally binding obligations. For a discussion of these issues, see La Chimia and Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid’ (n 22). 74 ‘Arrangement on officially supported export credits’ revisited many times in subsequent years, now called ‘Arrangement on Guidelines for Officially Supported Export Credits–—Ex Ante Guidance Gained Under the “Helsinki” Tied Aid Disciplines’ (revised 2003) OECD Doc TD/PG(2003)13. See A Gurria, The Export Credits Arrangement 1978–2008 (Paris, OECD Publications, 2008) www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/17/24/40594872.pdf (last accessed 13 July 2009). The ‘Arrangement’ is a gentlemen’s agreement, setting minimum standards and conditions for the granting of export credits, aimed at providing a level playing field to exporters so that they would compete on the price and quality of their goods and services, not on the support they receive from their governments (nullifies the ‘subsidy’ element inherent in export credits). 75 Scholars agree that the agreement referred to in Letter K of Annex 1 WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 154 is the OECD Arrangement on Export Credits (n 71). See D Palmeter and P Mavroidis, ‘The WTO Legal System: Sources of Law’ (1998) 92 American Journal of International Law 398, 409. 73

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GATT agreement excludes government procurement from the GATT coverage.76 This de facto restricts the ‘possibility to apply the free trade principles endorsed by the WTO in a sector, development aid, where the need for the best allocation of resources is most felt.’77 The situation is instead (potentially) different as regards food aid, since negotiations are currently taking place within the WTO framework for reforming agricultural trade. Therefore, the possibility exists that changes will be seen in the future. The following section will consider food aid policies within the WTO framework.

TIED AID AND THE WTO DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

In 2001, at Doha, WTO members committed to a more ‘development oriented’ WTO. The new round of trade negotiations was seen as an opportunity to make trade work for development, and to reinforce the commitment already laid down in the preamble of the WTO of ‘promoting development’ in its poorest member countries. Trade negotiations were expected to focus on tackling poverty and to ‘address economic inequality between States’78 ‘Promoting development’ became, after DOHA, the ‘core business of the multilateral trading system’, giving the WTO the opportunity to demonstrate that ‘it was not, after all an organisation devoted to promoting the interests of capitalism.’79 However, the road to development is not paved exclusively with good intentions. Many would agree that little has been achieved in terms of promoting development during the first eight years of the DOHA development round. Calls to ‘reclaim development in the WTO’80 have come from many fronts, and important exponents of the international trade law literature are of the view that WTO rules should be designed to ‘bridge the gap’ between the provisions of the ‘current regulatory framework for international trade and developing countries’ development needs.’81 They believe that development should be encouraged within the WTO system itself by rendering WTO rules more ‘development oriented’.82 This author believes greater involvement of the WTO in aid regulation would represent an important

76 For an analysis of the compatibility of the legality of tied aid non-agricultural commodities with the GATT, see La Chimia and Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid’ (n 22). 77 ibid. 78 P Subedi, ‘The Road from Doha: the Issues for the Development Round of the WTO and the Future of International Trade’ (2003) 52 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 425. See also Preamble of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (n 72). 79 Subedi, ‘The Road from Doha’ (n 75). 80 Lee, Reclaiming Development (n 24) 13. In his book Professor Lee proclaims the necessity to reclaim development in the WTO and expresses the conviction that development should be encouraged within the WTO system itself by rendering WTO rules more ‘development oriented’. Belonging to this same current of thought are exponents such as Moore, Hudec etc. For a discussion on international trade law and development, see Chang, Kicking Away The Ladder (n 24). 81 ibid. 82 ibid. Following this current of thoughts, this paper aims at introducing a new sector, development aid, within the context of the debate on international trade law and development.

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step towards ‘reclaiming development in the World Trading System’,83 helping to legitimise, from a development perspective, the role played by the WTO in the international trade law scenario. The following section focuses on tied food aid within the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and considers the effects that the negotiations undertaken therein could have in terms of the achievement of the first of the MDGs, namely eradicating poverty and halving the number of people suffering from hunger.84

The WTO Agreement on Agriculture: the State of the Law and Proposals for its Reform As has been argued comprehensively elsewhere, when food aid is linked to donors’ self-interests it can have detrimental effects for the aid recipient. Finding the right balance, when regulating food aid, between the many different interests at stake is a real challenge.85 On the one hand there is the need to avoid food aid being used as an export subsidy and, on the other, there is the need to ensure that an adequate level of food aid is granted to LDCs and net food-importing developing countries (NFIDCs).85a Food aid matters are dealt with by Article 10 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, which at paragraph 10.4 requires donors to ensure that ‘the provision of international food aid is not tied, directly or indirectly, to commercial export of agricultural products to recipient countries.’ As Desta has pointed out, article 10 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture recalls Article IX(e)(i) of the 1999 Food Aid Convention (FAC).86 However, the language of the latter is ‘stricter and more detailed’; for instance, it makes explicit reference to ‘direct and indirect’ tied aid and to ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ tied aid.87

83

Lee, Reclaiming Development (n 24). E Clay, ‘The Post Hong Kong Challenge: Building on Developing Country Proposals for a Future Food Aid Regime’ (Overseas Development Institute Background Paper No 2, 2006 www.odi.org.uk/ wto_portal/post_wto/clay_background2.pdf; M Cardwell and C Rodgers, ‘Reforming the WTO Legal Order for Agricultural Trade: Issues for European Rural Policy in the Doha Round’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 805; CA Thacker, ‘Agricultural Trade Liberalization in the Doha Round: The Search for a Modalities Draft’ (2005) 33 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 721; Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round (n 42); J Clapp, ‘WTO Agriculture Negotiations: Implications for the Global South’ (2006) 27 Third World Quarterly 563. 85 Zhang, ‘Food Security’ (n 11). PC Abbott and LM Young, Export Competition Issues in the Doha Round, Invited paper presented at the International Conference Agricultural policy reform and the WTO: Where are we Heading? Capri (Italy 23–26 June, 2003). 85a ibid. 86 Desta, ibid. Food Aid Convention (adopted 13 April 1999, entered into force 1 July 1999) 2073 UNTS 135 (FAC). See M Desta, ‘Food Security and International Trade Law: An Appraisal of the World Trade Organisation Approach’ (2001) 35 Journal of World Trade 449–68 87 Art IX(e)(i) of the Food Aid Convention (n 83) states that members shall ensure that ‘the provision of food aid is not tied directly or indirectly, formally or informally, explicitly or implicitly to commercial exports of agricultural products or other goods and services to recipient countries’. 84

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Regrettably, notwithstanding the obligation endorsed under both the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and the FAC, donors’ practices still lag behind.88 Current negotiations on (tied) food aid are being conducted under Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) within the export competition pillar which also addresses issues related to direct export subsidies, officially supported export credits, and state trading enterprises.89 A first attempt to render operative and explicit the commitment to untie was made in 2003,90 when a proposal for reforming Article 10.4 of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) was put forward by the chairman of the special (negotiating) session of the WTO Committee on Agriculture (CoA).91 The proposals (commonly known as the ‘Harbinson proposals’92) added strengthened terms of untied commitments with the aim of rendering it ‘more difficult to circumvent the obligation of not using food aid as an export subsidy, and committed donors to providing food aid exclusively in the form of untied financial grants.’93 The Harbinson proposals clarified that food aid transactions that were not in conformity with the proposed provisions would be deemed to constitute ‘non-commercial transactions which

88 This is particularly the case of the US, the major food aid donor. See Clark, Food Aid in the WTO Agricultural Trade Policy (n 13), who says: ‘although this [tying] is specifically proscribed by Art 10(4) of the Agriculture Agreement, such allegations are extremely difficult to prove given the proprietary nature of any resulting commercial transactions.’ See also Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid (n 13); WL Hoffman, BL Gardner, RE Just and B Hueth, ‘The Impact of Food Aid on Food Subsidies in Recipient Countries’ (1994) 76 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 733. On the negotiations for reforming the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (n 72), see Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round (n 42). 89 Negotiations on the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (n 85) are built upon three main categories (or pillars): Market Access—aimed at reducing tariffs for agricultural products and reaching agreements on opening up trade in agriculture for products currently not covered by the agreement; Domestic Support–—aimed at the elimination of subsidies to national farmers; and Export Competition—aimed at the elimination of any form of subsidies for the export of national products. 90 See, for instance: Norfolk Genetic Information Network, ‘Stop Putting A GM Gun To The Head Of Hungry Zambians’ http://ngin.tripod.com/231002c.htm, where it is claimed that ‘US food aid is tied . . . and in breach of the food aid convention . . . the US is refusing southern African governments loans that are not tied to the purchase of GM contaminated grain from the US’. See also ‘Food Aid and Food Security’ in the Australian Overseas Aid Program (AusAID), One Clear Objective: Poverty Reduction Through Sustainable Development–—Report of the Committee of Review (1997) 255–57 www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pdf/simons.pdf where it criticised the Australian government practice of accommodating commercial pressures to purchase food aid in Australia. It is there explicitly stated that ‘AUSAID appears in practice to tie nearly all its bilateral food aid purchases to Australian supply.’ 91 WTO Committee on Agriculture, Negotiations on Agriculture—First Draft of Modalities for the Further Commitments—Revision (18 March 2003) WTO Doc TN/AG/W/1/Rev.1 www.wto.org/english/ tratop_e/agric_e/negoti_mod2stdraft_e.htm. 92 ibid, Attachment 6 of Annex 5 ‘Draft for Further Consideration of a Possible Replacement of Paragraph 4 of Article 10 of the Agreement on Agriculture’. For a thorough analysis of the Harbinson proposal see Abbott and Young, Export Competition Issues (n 85). 93 Abbot and Young, ibid. Exceptions are provided when food aid can be provided in kind within the framework of programmes and projects operated by UN agencies or by humanitarian organisations. As commentators have highlighted, the proposal recalled literally at point 4(b)(iv), Art IX (e) of the 1999 Food Aid Convention (n 83) and it added, in para 4(b)(ii), that ‘food aid for other purposes, including under programmes and projects to enhance nutritional standards amongst vulnerable groups in least-developed and net-food importing developing countries, is provided exclusively in the form of untied financial grants to be used to purchase food for or by the recipient country’. see PC Abbott and LM Young, Export Competition Issues (n 85); see also Desta, ‘Food Security’ (n 86).

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circumvent that Member’s export subsidy commitment’, hence, breaching WTO rules on export subsidies.93a Regrettably, the Harbinson proposals have not been adopted. The most recent proposals for reforming Article 10, endorsed on 6 December 2008,94 adopt much softer language and are rather disappointing for all those observers who were hoping to witness a strong endorsement of the untying cause.95 The specific issue of tied aid is addressed by the ‘general disciplines’ in paragraph 2 of the proposed new Article 10 which require that food aid a) is ‘needs-driven’, b) is provided in ‘fully grant form’, c) is not ‘tied directly or indirectly to commercial exports of agricultural products or of other goods and services’ and d) is not ‘linked to the market development objectives of donor Members.’96 Although the opening words of the general discipline seem very promising, unfortunately though, the following paragraph 3 soon lays bare the shortfalls of the new commitments. Paragraph 3 reads: Members shall refrain from providing in-kind food aid in situations where this would cause, or would be reasonably foreseen to cause, an adverse effect on local or regional production of the same or substitute products …. Members commit to making their best efforts to move increasingly towards more untied cash-based food aid (emphasis added).97

Three main observations need to be made. Firstly, the wording of paragraph 3 suggests that WTO members will still be able to grant in-kind tied food aid. Indeed, WTO members are only committing to ‘refrain from’ granting food aid when this would cause an ‘adverse effect on local or regional production.’98 The ‘refrain from’ indicates that no legally binding obligation is endorsed. Besides, the commitment to ‘refrain from’ only occurs when in-kind food aid causes ‘an adverse effect on local or regional production of the same or substitute products.’ Hence, aid could be granted in-kind (and—so—tied) when there is no such risk. Moreover, no indication is provided of how the ‘adverse impact’ will be assessed, nor is any definition given of what criteria will be adopted for individuating what are ‘substitute products.’ The absence of these important definitions leaves open the possibility of broad interpretations of the provisions (with possible misuse and

93a

Abbott and Young (n 85). WTO Committee on Agriculture, Revised Draft Modalities for Agriculture—Sensitive Products: Designation (6 December 2008) WTO Doc TN/AG/W/4/Rev 4, Annex L which reviews the previous version of 10 July 2008 TN/AG/W/4/Rev 3. 95 The new Article 10 starts by stating that ‘Members reaffirm their commitment to maintain an adequate level of international food aid.’ However, the Article does not specify what ‘the adequate level of food aid’ is, maintaining the status quo as regards the lack of specific (enforceable) commitment to grant food aid. Developing countries’ concerns for a reduction on the level of food aid as a consequence of the adoption of the Agreement on Agriculture (n 85) lead in 1994 to the adoption of Marrakesh ‘Ministerial Decision On Measures Concerning The Possible Negative Effects Of The Reform Programme On Least-Developed And Net Food-Importing Developing Countries’ (15 December 1993) www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/35-dag_e.htm. For an excellent analysis of this decision, see M Desta, ‘Food Security’ (n86). 96 Revised Draft Modalities for Agriculture (n 91) Annex L para 2 (d), General disciplines applicable to all food aid transactions. 97 ibid, para 3 (emphasis added). 98 ibid. 94

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abuse of the provisions). Secondly, in reference to untying aid, the strong and explicit language seen in the 2003 Harbinson proposals has been abandoned (for instance, there is no reference to formal and informal tied food aid), with the new modalities WTO members (only) commit to ‘best efforts’ endeavours ‘to move increasingly towards more untied cash-based food aid.’ This also suggests a non-legally binding commitment. Besides, no consequences are associated with a breach of these provisions and with granting tying food aid, as it was instead the case for the Harbison proposals which, as seen above, provided that granting tied food aid would be considered an export subsidy.98a Finally, the new modalities do not foresee any public procurement obligation in respect of purchasing food aid, ie, they do not discipline the process for purchasing food aid. The history of public procurement law regulation at both the international and regional level demonstrates that non-discrimination principles alone are not sufficient to ensure that public entities do not conceal discriminatory practices when purchasing goods and services.99 Indeed, despite the importance of non-discrimination commitments and the possibility of claiming possible breaches of these commitments in front of the WTO dispute settlement body, only if clear and transparent rules on the procurement process are endorsed can any commitment to open up the food aid procurement market to international competition be rendered operative. This is an important lacuna in the new (and the old) modalities on regulating food aid and a major problem yet to be addressed within the WTO negotiations.100 Emergency food aid is exempted from the above discipline. However, the new article provides for stricter discipline in defining when there is an ‘emergency’. In conclusion, the proposed modalities for the new WTO discipline on food aid are not satisfactory because of their many lacunae and their lack of express commitments to untie aid and to provide food aid exclusively in cash form. Progress on reforming the Agreement on Agriculture has been extremely slow and unsatisfactory, especially for food aid. Considering the high development impact of food aid, the question must be asked: where do the obstacles in the negotiations lie? Why has it been so difficult to reach an agreement on untying food aid? WTO Negotiations for Reforming Agricultural Trade: Effects and Consequences on Tied Aid Policies ‘The web of tying food aid is very intricate, even more than that of other categories of aid.’101 Donors’ reticence to untie food aid is not only connected to the implementation of tied aid by other donors, but is also driven by ‘goals of retaliation for the implementation of other agriculture subsidies, such as direct 98a

PC Abbott and LM Young, Export Competition Issues (n 85) and Desta (n 86). For example in the EU despite the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment being endorsed in art 28 and 12 of the EC Treaty, the public procurement market was prone to de facto discrimination (see Cecchini report). Only after the enactment of the public procurement directives was the EU public procurement market effectively open to competition. See for all, Arrowsmith: The Law of Public and Utilities Procurement (2nd edn, Sweet and Maxwell, 2005). 100 The Harbison proposal also did not provide for any rule disciplining the public procurement process when purchasing food aid. 101 La Chimia, ‘International Steps to Untie Aid’ (n 61). 99

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subsidies.’102 For instance, the Committee of Review of Australian Overseas aid programme, although acknowledging the danger associated with the Australian practice of tying food aid, recommends that Australian food aid should be untied only in respect of developing countries, but should not be sourced from those European or Northern American countries which retain either implicit or explicit price support mechanisms for their grain exports.103 As Abbott and Young argued, the WTO negotiations on food aid are closely interrelated with the negotiations taking place in other sectors of the agreement on agriculture, and the latter in particular will be crucial in terms of developing the final solution for food aid.104 As emphasised in the literature (see especially Clapp, Abott and Young, Clay), within these negotiations, there is an ongoing dispute between the United States and the EU in relation to food aid.105 The EU is seeking a reform of food aid that will ensure it is provided to ‘well-defined vulnerable groups and in response to well-recognised emergencies.’106 Moreover, the EU also advocates, with the support of developing countries, that ‘food aid be given only in the form of grant and be purchased, as far as possible, in local/developing countries’ markets.’107 By contrast, the United States rejects the EU proposals and is firm in maintaining its position that negotiations on ‘food aid cannot advance if the EU will not abolish direct subsidies to farm producers.’108 Developing countries, for their part, ‘are concerned that any ‘dispute’ and disagreement on food aid will have damaging repercussions on food security109 and will hamper the capacity of LDCs and NFIDCs to provide for the nutritional needs of their population.’110 The above divergencies have caused a real impasse in the WTO negotiations for reforming agricultural trade, which in turn have had negataive effects on tied aid policies. For example in order to avoid interfering with the WTO negotiations, other international organisations, which traditionally deal with food aid, have held up their own negotiations. This has been the case, for instance, for the discussions for the renewal of the UN Food Aid Convention (negotiations for its renewal were

102

See Abbott and Young Export Competition Issues (n 85). Ch 16 ‘Food Aid and Food Security’ (n 87). 104 Abbott and Young Export Competition Issues (n 85); See also J Clapp, ‘WTO Agricultural Trade Battles and Food Aid’ (2004) 25 Third World Quarterly 1439. See also Clapp, ‘WTO Agriculture Negotiations’ (n 81). 105 Clapp ibid; Abbott and Young Export Competition Issues (n 85) See also Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round (n 42). J Hoddinott and MJ Cohen, Renegotiating the Food Aid Convention: Background, Context, and Issues, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00690 February 2007 to quote just a few. 106 ibid. 107 ibid. 108 ibid, especially p 5. 109 Food insecurity is defined as a situation where people do not have access to sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food and hence do not consume the food that they need to grow normally and conduct an active and healthy life. For an assessment of developing countries’ negotiating position in the WTO negotiations, see Clapp, ‘WTO Agricultural Trade Battles and Food Aid’ (n 98) and ‘WTO Agriculture Negotiations’ (n 81). 110 They ask donor countries to guarantee an adequate level of food aid, to grant food aid on a purely grant form and in cash and to abolish the use of programme food aid and monetisation. See Desta, ‘Food Security and International Trade Law’ (n 92); Clapp, ‘WTO Agriculture Negotiations’ (n 81); Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round (n 42). 103

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supposed to start in 2001111). Similarly, food aid has been excluded from the OECD/DAC Recommendation on untying aid to least developed countries with the result of considerably limiting the scope of the Recommendation. There is a real risk that stopping the negotiations on food aid in the UN and the OECD, while not speeding up negotiations in the WTO, will have negative repercussions on food aid policies, slowing down progress for the improvement of current policies aimed at fulfilling the right to food and ensuring minimum standards of quality and quantity of food aid. This international political impasse threatens those developing countries that are heavily dependent on food aid; it hampers the realisation of developing countries’ right to food and seriously undermines the possibility of achieving the MDGs by 2015. As pointed out during the discussion session of the conference, it could also be asked whether WTO members should make open and explicit reference to the right to food, as endorsed in both Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and whether they should enhance and promote the success of the WTO negotiations in order to fulfill their human rights commitments.112 These are controversial questions that deserve careful consideration, and go beyond the scope and limits of this analysis,113 coherence and coordination of international law (in a heterogeneous world) would suggest that WTO members should fulfill their Human Rights obligations when conducting WTO negotiations.114 There is a perceived need to exhort politicians to abandon their mercantilist positions and to take concrete steps to overcome the obstacles in the WTO negotiations. In a world where poverty affects the lives of one billion people and where 15 million children die of hunger and malnutrition every year, making aid more effective becomes an imperative that cannot wait for the final conclusion of the negotiating process of the Agreement on Agriculture.

111

Hoddinott and Cohen, Renegotiating the Food Aid Convention (n 105). On this issue I am grateful to the very many commentators that during the coonference have raised this very imporntant point with very interesting and important comments 113 See T Pogge, ‘Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation’ in T Pogge (ed), Freedom From Poverty as a Human Right (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). The reference made to the right to food within the WTO negotiations seems still to general and vague. Similar considerations could be made for the right to water. Baird reports that 16 different water pumps were donated by EU MS in Kenya with the results that they could not be used, whose interests does such a problem serve? Baird, ‘Tied to the Hand That Feeds’ (n 32). 114 Regrettably, it remains very uncertain whether human rights obligations could be enforced under the WTO system, or whether a human rights approach could be adopted when interpreting WTO law, See E-U Petersmann, ‘Trade and Human Rights I’ and S Leader, ‘Trade and Human Rights II’ in PFJ Macrory, AE Appleton and MG Plummer (eds), The World Trade Organisation: Legal, Economic and Political Analysis, Vol II (New York, Springer, 2005). See also J Harrison, The Human Rights Impact of the WTO (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007). 112

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Annamaria La Chimia CONCLUDING REMARKS: TIED AID AND THE WTO ‘DEVELOPMENT AGENDA’

International regulation of aid policies is needed to ensure development and to guarantee the attainment of the MDGs. The application of free trade principles to development aid would enable developing countries to take advantage of the trade opportunities that aid can generate. It would help reduce the costs of aid-goods and reduce the distorting effects of tied aid. Regulation is also needed because tied aid hampers the power of self-determination of developing countries. However, it is now recognised that in order to enhance development, and in order to maximise the potentiality of free trade, ‘an appropriate framework for regulation of economic behaviours’115 needs to be constructed. Free trade and the neoclassical theory suffer important limitations in terms of achieving development which need to be kept in mind when devising new strategies in sensitive sectors such as food aid.116 Many conflicting interests are at stake when regulating food aid, and they all need to be taken into account if the international regulatory system on international trade is successfully used for development. For example, donors who are members of the WTO will have to guarantee that an adequate and predictable level of food aid to net food-importing developing countries continues to be granted, while committing to seriously enhance aid effectiveness phasing out tied aid. As seen above, the WTO agreement on agriculture specifically addresses the issue of food aid but, unfortunately, it does so in a very limited and unsatisfactory manner. Although the WTO negotiations on food aid within the AoA represent an open recognition that there is a link, and a tension, between (food) aid and trade, WTO members seem reluctant to take substantial action to resolve this tension. The WTO negotiations on food aid are very important and, in the future, the conclusions reached on the sphere of food aid could be applied to other development aid policies and could be extended to the interpretation of other WTO agreement (such as the GATT, the Subsidy Agreement, and the GPA). The WTO, because of its wide membership and because of the link between aid and trade, has the power to work for development and it can do so also by regulating aid and food aid in particular. The WTO, despite its many critics, could be a suitable forum to enhance aid effectiveness, devise suitable aid policies and ensure that food aid ultimately fulfils its purpose and feeds the hungry.

115 See DM Trubek and A Santos, ‘Introduction: The Third Moment In Law And Development Theory And The Emergence Of A New Critical Practice’ in DM Trubek and A Santos (eds), The New Law And Economic Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006). 116 ibid.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books CB Barrett and DG Maxwell, Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting its Role (London, Routledge, 2006). H-J Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategies in Historical Perspective (London, Anthem Press, 2002). CS Clark, Food Aid in the WTO Agricultural Trade Policy (Winnipeg, Canadian Foodgrains Bank, 2002). E Clay, The Development Effectiveness of Food Aid: Does Tying Matter? (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2005). E Clay, Food Aid and the Doha Development Round: Building on the Positive (London, Overseas Development Institute Publications, 2006). E Clay and O Stokke (eds), Food Aid and Human Security, EADI Book Series 24 (London, Frank Cass, 2000). J Harrison, () The Human Rights Impact of the WTO (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007). CJ Jepma, Inter-Nation Policy Co-ordination and Untying of Aid (Aldershot, Avebury, 1994). Y-S Lee, Reclaiming Development in the World Trading System (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). D Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). OECD Development Co-Operation Report 2001 – Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2002). TW Pogge (ed), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (New York, Oxford University Press, 2007). R Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). World Bank, Assessing Aid (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998). Chapters in Edited Volumes E-U Petersmann, ‘Trade and Human Rights I’ and S Leader, ‘Trade and Human Rights II’ in PFJ Macrory, AE Appleton and MG Plummer (eds), The World Trade Organisation: Legal, Economic and Political Analysis, Volume II (New York, Springer, 2005). T Pogge, ‘Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation’ in T Pogge (ed), Freedom From Poverty as a Human Right (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). DM Trubek and A Santos, ‘Introduction: The Third Moment In Law And Development Theory And The Emergence Of A New Critical Practice’ in DM Trubek and A Santos (eds), The New Law And Economic Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006).

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International Documents Australian Overseas Aid Program (AusAID) (1997) One Clear Objective: Poverty Reduction Through Sustainable Development—Report of the Committee of Review www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pdf/simons.pdf. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), Right to Adequate Food (Art 11)—General Comment 12 UN Doc E/C.12/1999/5 (1999). European Commission, Writing Document of the Commission Service, Response to the Challenge of Globalization, A study on the International Monetary and Financial System and on Financing for Development SEC (2002) 185 final. A Gurria, The Export Credits Arrangement 1978–2008 (Paris, OECD Publications, 2008) www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/24/40594872.pdf. OECD, OECD in Figures: Statistics on the Member Countries (Paris, OECD Publishing, 2005) http://ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publications/doifiles/0120050 61T030.xls. OECD/DAC, Development Co-Operation Review: European Community (Paris, OECD, 2002). OECD/DAC, The Mali Donors’ Public Procurement Procedures: Towards Harmonisation with the National Law—Report Summary (July 2000) 6 www.aidharmonization.org/search/redir?item_id=354158&url=/download/ 213265/Mali_Procurement_Harmonization.pdf. United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development (2002) UN Doc A/CONF.198/11. United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Financing for Development (18–22 March 2002) UN Doc A/CONF.198/11. World Bank, ‘Interview with Zia Qureshi on Monitoring the Millennium Development Goals’ http://discuss.worldbank.org/content/interview/detail/1701 (2004). World Bank, Global Monitoring Report 2004: Policies and Actions for Achieving the Millenium Development Goals and Related Outcomes (Washington DC, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2004).

Journal Articles A Alesina and D Dollar, ‘Who Gives Foreign Aid to Whom and Why?’ (2000) 5 Journal of Economic Growth 33–63. N Baird, ‘Tied to the Hand That Feeds’ (1996) 2051 New Scientist 12–13. CB Barrett, ‘Food Aid: Is it Development Assistance, Trade Promotion, Both or Neither?’ (1998) 80 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 566–71. M Cardwell and C Rodgers, ‘Reforming the WTO Legal Order for Agricultural Trade: Issues for European Rural Policy in the Doha Round’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 805–38. J Clapp, ‘WTO Agriculture Negotiations: Implications for the Global South’ (2006) 27 Third World Quarterly 563–77.

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M Desta, ‘Food Security and International Trade Law: An Appraisal of the World Trade Organisation Approach’ (2001) 35 Journal of World Trade 449–68. L Dudley and C Montmarquette, ‘A Model of the Supply of Bilateral Foreign Aid’ (1976) 64 American Economic Review 132–42. WL Hoffman, BL Gardner, RE Just and B Hueth, ‘The Impact of Food aid on Food Subsidies in Recipient Countries’ (1994) 76 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 733–43. A La Chimia, ‘Effectiveness and Legality Issues in Development Aid Procurement for EU Member States’ (2008) European Current Law: Monthly Digest i–iv. A La Chimia, ‘International Steps to Untie Aid: the OECD/DAC Recommendation’ (2004) 13 Public Procurement Law Review 1–29. A La Chimia and S Arrowsmith, ‘Addressing Tied Aid: Towards a More Development Oriented WTO’ Journal of International Economic Law (forthcoming) A Maizels and M Nissanke, ‘Motivations for Aid to Developing Countries’ (1984) 12 World Development 879–900. R McKinlay and R Little, ‘A Foreign Policy Model of US Bilateral Aid Allocations’ (1977) XXX World Politics 58–86. P Subedi, ‘The Road from Doha: the Issues for the Development Round of the WTO and the Future of International Trade’ (2003) 52 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 425–46. CA Thacker, ‘Agricultural Trade Liberalization in the Doha Round: The Search for a Modalities Draft’ (2005) 33 Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 721–39. R Zhang, ‘Food Security, Food Trade Regime and Food Aid Regime’ (2004) 7 Journal of International Economic Law 565–84. Newspaper Articles A Alesina and D Dollar, ‘Leaders: Missing the Point’ Economist (London 16 March 2002) www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TDPQNQP. J Anderlini, ‘China insists on “tied aid” in Africa’ Financial Times (London 25 June 2007) http://portal.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=VWPrintVW3&article_id=1462 315531& printer=printer&rf=0. CG Dugger, ‘Condoms Made in US Shape Foreign Aid Policy’ New York Times (New York 29 October 2006) www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/29/news/aid.php. Website Sources ActionAid, ‘The World Trade Organisation and the Seattle Ministerial meeting: Government Procurement’ www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/70_1_wto_procure ment.pdf. ActionAid, ‘Human Security Policy Briefing Note 1: Food Aid’, www.actionaid.org/ docs/food_aid_briefing_note.pdf. ActionAid, ‘Policy and Research: Untying Aid’, www.actionaid.org/docs/ untying_euro_aid.pdf.

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J Chinnoch and S Collison, (1999) ‘Purchasing Power. Aid Untying, Targeted Procurement and Poverty Reduction’ (London, ActionAid) www.actionaid. org.uk/doc_lib/68_1_purchasing_power.pdf. Hilditch, L ‘Untied Aid Goes Further’ www.developments.org.uk/articles/untiedaid-goes-further/. Norfolk Genetic Information Network, ‘Stop Putting A GM Gun To The Head Of Hungry Zambians’ http://ngin.tripod.com/231002c.htm. Oxfam (2005) ‘Briefing Paper 71: Food Aid or Hidden Dumping? Separating Wheat from Chaff’ www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp71_food_aid. pdf.

Working Papers P. C. Abbott and L. M. Young, Export Competition Issues in the Doha Round, Invited paper presented at the International Conference Agricultural policy reform and the WTO: where are we heading? Capri (Italy), June 23–26, 2003E Clay, ‘The Post Hong Kong Challenge: Building on Developing Country Proposals for a Future Food Aid Regime’ (Overseas Development Institute Background Paper No 2, 2006) www.odi.org.uk/wto_portal/post_wto/ clay_background2.pdf. S Devarajan, M Miller and EV Swanson, ‘Development Goals: History, Prospects and Costs’ (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No 2819, 2002) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=636102. J. Hoddinott and M. J. Cohen, Renegotiating the Food Aid Convention: Background, Context, and Issues, IFPRI Discussion Paper 00690 February 2007 HV Milner, ‘The Rise of Multilateralism: Why Delegate the Allocation of Foreign Aid?’ (Princeton University, 14 September 2005) www.princeton.edu/~hmilner/ working%20papers/delegation7–05CUP.pdf. O Morrissey and H White, ‘How Concessional is Tied Aid’ (CREDIT Research Paper No 93/13, 1993).

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Application of International Humanitarian Law to Contemporary Peace Operations: Mapping the ‘Grey Areas’ DOMINIKA ŠVARC *

INTRODUCTION

C

ONTEMPORARY PEACE OPERATIONS are frequently deployed in volatile operational settings, where violence is ongoing or hostilities may resume, and where the local authorities are unable effectively to maintain security and public order. As a result, these operations are increasingly granted broad and robust enforcement powers by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in order to defend themselves and the mandate, as well as the local population. This shifting nature of peace operations, particularly the increasing intertwining of traditional peacekeeping and enforcement elements, has reignited the debates on the applicability of international humanitarian law in the context of peace operations. The problems in applying the existing framework of international humanitarian law relate not so much to the content of this body of law, as to the conditions and scope of its formal application to peace operations. Most provisions of international humanitarian law developed before the evolution of peace operations, and those that developed later make no specific reference to peace operations or to the presence or involvement of peace forces in an armed conflict. Moreover, peace operations traditionally have been designed to avoid fighting, ie to prevent resumption of hostilities in the area of operation in a non-aggressive and impartial way, rather than through combat operations or occupation of a certain territory. For all these reasons, peace operations cannot be elegantly covered by the existing concepts and categories of international humanitarian law and it is difficult to determine, in general terms under what conditions and to what degree the principles and rules of international humanitarian law may apply to peace operations and the participating troops.

* PhD Candidate (University of Ljubljana); LLM (LSE); Researcher at the Institute for Comparative Law (University of Ljubljana); Fellow Instructor at the Center of Excellence—Defence Against Terrorism in Ankara. The author would like to thank Professor Marco Sassòli and Mr Brendan Plant for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The responsibility for any errors remains that of the author alone.

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This paper identifies and explores some of the ‘grey areas’ in the application of international humanitarian law to peace operations, particularly in light of their increasingly complex and ‘robust’ nature. In order to set the background for the analysis, the first part of the paper looks at some of the factual developments that characterise contemporary peace operations, most relevant for the debate about the applicability of international humanitarian law. The second part then proceeds to re-examine the relationship between peace operations and international humanitarian law, focusing on some of the most contested issues, such as: the applicability of international humanitarian law to peace operations operating under the command and control of an international organisation; the threshold for application of international humanitarian law to peace operations rationae materiae; the determination of the applicable (international or non-international) legal regime; the applicability of the law of occupation; and the legal status of peace forces in terms of international humanitarian law. At the outset, it is important to clarify the terminology used in this paper as it determines the scope of analysis. First, in this paper the term ‘international humanitarian law’ is used to refer to the totality of the international law of armed conflict or jus in bello, although strictly speaking some of its rules are not considered to be part of international humanitarian law.1 The core of international humanitarian law has been codified in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (hereinafter: GC I, GC II, GC III, GC IV) and their two Additional Protocols of 1977 (hereinafter: AP I and AP II), but its principles and rules can also be found in instruments regulating the means and methods of combat, and in conventions and treaties on the protection of cultural property and the environment during armed conflict. Second, for the purpose of this paper, the term ‘peace operations’2 refers to all military operations (employment of military forces) ranging from traditional peackeeping operations to peace enforcement, carried out within the framework of collective security under the UN Charter in support of the diplomatic and other civilian efforts to establish and maintain peace.3

1 For more on the difference between these concepts see C Greenwood, ‘Historical Development and Legal Basis’, in D Fleck (ed) The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 1, 11. Although the term ‘international humanitarian law’ does not appear in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, it has become widely accepted and used, including by the ICRC and also in discourse at the UN and in the texts of various international agreements. 2 The term ‘peace operations’, or ‘peacekeeping operations’ in UN terminology, or ‘peace support operations’ in NATO terminology, is not used uniformly. For specific doctrinal conceptualisations see eg UN/Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf (New York, United Nations, 2008); NATO/Military Agency for Standardization Allied Joint Publication, Peace Support Operations, AJP-3.4.1 (Brussels, NATO, 2001) (hereinafter: AJP-3.4.1). 3 Compare BF Klappe, ‘International Peace Operations’, in Fleck The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law (n 1) 635, 635. While peace operations in their broad sense involve not only military forces but also diplomatic and humanitarian agencies, this paper focuses on their military dimension.

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THE CHANGING NATURE OF PEACE OPERATIONS

Peace operations were not explicitly foreseen in the UN Charter. They have developed in practice, more as a dynamic reaction to divergent conflict situations, rather than a distinctly designed function of the UN. The terms ‘peacekeeping’ or ‘peace operations’ do not appear in the Charter, and the very concept of nonviolent use of military force to preserve peace differs fundamentally from the enforcement actions described in Chapter VII. That is why it is often said that these operations fall somewhere between the pacific settlement of disputes provided for in Chapter VI and collective military enforcement actions of Chapter VII of the Charter.4 The spectrum of contemporary peace operations is very broad. They can be established and carried out fully under UN command and control (‘UN-led peace operations’),5 but they can also be conducted by other actors, normally with Security Council authorisation.6 These non-UN-led peace operations can be carried out under the command and control of one or more states (‘multinational peace operations’)7 or under the command and control of a regional organisation (‘regional peace operations’).8 Nowadays, UN-led operations frequently operate alongside or in cooperation with other multinational or regional operations in so-called ‘hybrid’ or ‘partner’ operations, such as the integrated AU/UN force in Darfur (UNAMID), authorised by the Security Council in 2007.9 Until the 1990s, most peace operations were limited to ‘traditional peacekeeping’ operations, in which forces are deployed with the consent of the major parties to a conflict and of the authorities in the territory in which they are going to operate. These operations are generally deployed as an interim measure intended to stabilise situations on the ground in a neutral and impartial manner, thus supporting the wider political efforts to resolve the conflict.10 Their tasks are essentially military and limited to observation and monitoring of the implementation of any ceasefire or peace agreements, and interposition between belligerent parties. Traditional peacekeeping operations do not have enforcement powers, and their mandates

4 The legal basis for such operations can be found in Chapters VI (dealing with the pacific settlement of disputes), VII (referring to collective enforcement actions) and VIII (referring to regional arrangements) of the Charter of the United Nations (adopted 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945) 145 BSP 805. 5 Typical examples include UN operations in Somalia (UNOSOM I and UNOSOM II), Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNPROFOR), East Timor (UNTAET), Kosovo (UNMIK), and Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC). 6 It must be noted that the powers to use force beyond self-defence can only be (explicitly) granted by the Security Council in accordance with Chapter VII and Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. 7 For example in Somalia (UNITAF), Haiti (MNF), Rwanda (Operation Turquoise), Kosovo (KFOR), Afghanistan (ISAF), and Iraq (MNF-I). 8 Such as those in Liberia (ECOMOG and later ECOMIL) and Burundi (AMIB). 9 UNSC Res 1769 (31 July 2007). Other past or current examples of hybrid operations include the UN/NATO coordinated operations in Afghanistan and in Kosovo, and the UN/EU/OSCE integrated mission in Kosovo. 10 UN DPKO (n 2) 23.

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exclude large-scale combat operations; their powers to use armed force are limited to self-defence against unlawful attacks.11 However, since the end of the Cold War, the strategic and operational context of peace operations has changed dramatically. Many challenges have arisen, due to the evolving nature of contemporary conflicts, shifting from inter-state wars to primarily civil wars and other internal armed conflicts, as well as cross-border non-state hostilities, almost all of which take place in the developing world. These conflicts are typically fought by relatively small, ill-trained, lightly armed forces that avoid large-scale fighting but frequently recruit child soldiers and target civilians.12 This transformation of the international security environment has led to an evolution of ‘multi-dimensional’ or ‘complex’ peace operations, the purpose and functions of which have expanded significantly beyond those of traditional peacekeeping operations, to include not only securing and stabilising situations on the ground, but also reconstruction and reconciliation missions. The military component in such operations forms only one, albeit important, part of a comprehensive political, diplomatic and humanitaran effort, and the spectrum of military activities itself is getting increasingly broad.13 Such complex operations are often deployed in considerably volatile and bellicose post-conflict environments, where governmental structures have completely collapsed or where the local authorities are too weak to effectively maintain security and public order. In such environments, violence may be ongoing, or clashes could reignite. Large civilian populations and other vulnerable groups are frequently targeted by the belligerent parties, who do not respect the terms of ceasefire or peace agreement(s), or by unpredictable and undeterrable local militias, criminal gangs, terrorist groups and other spoilers. Contemporary peace operations deployed in such unstable and violent operational settings are increasingly granted broad and robust enforcement powers by the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, to use ‘all necessary means’, not only to defend themselves and the mandate, but also to deter forceful attempts to disrupt and undermine the political process, to protect civilians (local civilian population and other civilians, such as humanitarian workers) under imminent threat of physical attack, to assist the local authorities in maintining law and order, and to carry out other tasks under the mandate. A typical example of such ‘robust’ peace operations is the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), authorised by the Security Council in its resolution 1565 (2004) and subsequent, ‘to use all necessary means, within its capacity and in the areas where its armed units are deployed’, to carry out specific tasks of the mandate, inter alia:

11 The concept of which has subsequently expanded in practice to include not only individual (and unit) self-defence, but also the defence of the mission and, occasionally, the defence of the mandate, ie resistance to forceful attempts to prevent the operation from discharging its duties under the Security Council mandate. 12 See also The Human Security Centre, Human Security Report 2005: War and Peace in the 21st Century www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=28 (The University of British Columbia, 2005) 34. 13 See UN DPKO (n 2).

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(a)

to deploy and maintain a presence in the key areas of potential volatility in order to promote the re-establishment of confidence, to discourage violence, in particular by deterring the use of force to threaten the political process, and to allow United Nations personnel to operate freely;

(b)

to ensure the protection of civilians, including humanitarian personnel, under imminent threat of physical violence;

(c)

to ensure the protection of United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, and to ensure the security and freedom of movement of its personnel;

(d)

to monitor the implementation of certain measures imposed by Security Council resolution 1493 (2003);

(e)

to seize or collect, as appropriate, arms and any related materiel whose presence in the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo violates the measures imposed by Security council resolution 1493 (2003) and dispose of such arms and related materiel as appropriate;

(f)

to support operations of the transitional Congolese government to disarm foreign combatants led by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC).14

Similarly broad and robust mandates to use ‘all necessary means’ have been included in many recent peace operations, including the UN operations in UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone (1999–2005),15 UNOCI in Côte d’Ivoire (since 2004),16 UNMIS in Sudan (since 2005),17 ONUB in Burundi (2004–06),18 UNIFIL in Lebanon (since 1978, robust mandate to use force since 2006),19 the Nato-led operations ISAF in Afghanistan (since 2001)20 and MNF-I in Iraq (since 2004),21 the UN-AU hybrid operation UNAMID in Darfur (since 2007),22 and the EU-led operation EUFORChad/CAR (since 2008).23 All these examples reveal a rather consistent trend towards more robust and proactive contemporary peace operations. Although the UN insists on the position that these ‘robust peacekeeping’ operations are to be distinguished from the concept of ‘peace enforcement’ operations with full Chapter VII powers,24 the distinction between such Chapter-VII based ‘peace enforcement’ operations and ‘peacekeeping’ operations stricto sensu is becoming increasingly blurred. Moreover, unexpected de facto transition from the more restrained and benign operation to a more ‘robust’ one, in which the peace forces might get engaged in combat on the 14 Indeed, MONUC is often engaged in large combat operations against rebel forces in its area of responsibility; for reports on such operations see the official website of the operation at www.monuc.org. 15 See UNSC Res 1270 (22 October 1999), and subsequent. 16 See UNSC Res 1528 (24 February 2004), and subsequent. 17 See UNSC Res 1590 (24 March 2005), and subsequent. 18 See UNSC Res 1545 (21 May 2004), and subsequent. 19 See UNSC Res 1701 (11 August 2006), and subsequent. 20 See UNSC Res 1386 (20 December 2001), and subsequent. 21 See UNSC Res 1546 (8 June 2004), and subsequent. 22 See UNSC Res 1769 (31 July 2007), and subsequent. 23 See UNSC Res 1778 (25 September 2007), and subsequent. 24 See UN DPKO (n 2) 34–35.

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level of an armed conflict, cannot be excluded. This qualitative transformation of peace operations has made it more difficult to determine the applicable legal regime and calls for a careful re-evaluation of the relationship between international humanitarian law and contemporary peace operations.

UNCERTAINTIES IN APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW TO PEACE OPERATIONS

Peace Forces Acting Under Command and Control of an International Organisation The question of applicability of international humanitarian law rationae personae to the peace forces operating under the command and control of one or more States does not raise serious difficulties—these forces are individually bound by the relevant provisions of conventional and customary international humanitarian law applicable to their respective sending states.25 However, the question of whether and to what extent forces acting under the command and control of the UN or another international organisation may be bound by the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, remains somewhat contentious. Historically, debates on this issue have been marked by a reluctance of the UN (as the principal international organisation establishing peace operations) to acknowledge the formal applicability of international humanitarian law directly and in toto to forces operating under the UN auspices.26 The main argument in support of this position has been that the UN as an international organisation is not and cannot be a party to the relevant humanitarian conventions, and that the UN peace forces acting on behalf of the international community as a whole when executing their mandate cannot be considered a ‘party’ to an armed conflict in terms of international humanitarian law.27 Nonetheless, the UN has in practice considered the ‘spirit and principles’ of the main humanitarian conventions applicable to the peace forces under its command and control as a matter of 25 However, as will be discussed below, the application of international humanitarian law to multinational peace operations becomes more difficult where different national contingents are subject to different legal regimes. 26 On the other side, the ICRC and other NGOs have been arguing ever since the 1960s that all rules of international humanitarian law should apply to all military operations conducted by all armed forces placed at the disposal of the UN (or a regional organisation), whenever and as long as they are engaged in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict. For more on this disagreement between the UN and the NGOs see eg A Roberts and R Guelff (eds), Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000) 723. 27 It is appropriate to note, however, that ever since the UN-authorised military intervention in the Korean conflict in 1950, it has been assumed that international humanitarian law applies to UN forces participating in ‘pure’ military enforcement actions, with full combat/enforcement powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. This presumption was explicitly confirmed in the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel (signed 9 December 1994, entered into force 15 January 1999) 2051 UNTS 391 (hereinafter: Safety Convention), which states in Art 2(2) that the law of international armed conflict applies to UN-authorised enforcement actions under Chapter VII in which any of the personnel are engaged as combatants against organised armed forces.

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policy.28 This policy has been officially reaffirmed in 1999, when the Secretary General issued a bulletin on the Observance by United Nations forces of international humanitarian law (hereinafter: the bulletin).29 The bulletin states explicitly that: [t]he fundamental principles and rules of international humanitarian law set out in the [bulletin] are applicable to United Nations forces when in situations of armed conflict they are actively engaged therein as combatants, to the extent and for the duration of their engagement.30

In a similar manner, the NATO has also explicitly committed to applying de facto the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law in the course of peace operations. The 2001 NATO joint doctrine31 states that although whilst peace forces32 ‘will not generally be a party to the conflict’, ‘certain [law of armed conflict] principles may be applied’.33 The doctrine explicitly lists as such applicable principles the principle of civilian immunity and the principle of proportionality (intended to minimise the risk of civilian casualties). In any case, application of international humanitarian law to forces under the command and control of an international organisation is not just a matter of the policy position of the UN or another organisation in charge of the operation. First of all, international organisations with legal competence for establishing military forces and carrying out military operations, are in principle also capable of entering relevant international agreements and of being subject to the relevant provisions of customary international law regulating the conduct of military operations. According to a widely accepted view, international organisations with international legal personality capable of possessing international rights and duties,

28 See eg reg 44, Regulations for the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) (20 February 1957), which stated that ‘[t]he Force shall observe the principles and spirit of the general international Conventions applicable to the conduct of military personnel’, namely the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977, and the 1954 Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property; see also reg 43, Regulations for the United Nations Force in the Congo (ONUC) (15 July 1963) and reg 40, Regulations for the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) (25 April 1964). The ‘spirit and principles’ clause was also included in the 1991 Model Agreement between the United Nations and Member States Contributing Personnel and Equipment to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (United Nations, UN Doc A/46/185, 23 May 1991) Annex, para 28, but as Roberts and Guelff have noted, specific ‘formal agreements along these lines have only rarely been concluded with troop-contributing States’; Roberts and Guelff, Documents (n 26) 723. Since 1993, the ‘spirit and principles’ (later ‘principles and rules’) clause has become a standard element of the status-of-forces agreements (SOFA); see eg the Agreement between the Government of Sudan Concerning and the United Nations Concerning the Status of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (Khartoum, 28 December 2005). 29 UN/Secretary-General’s Bulletin UN Doc ST/SGB/1999/13 (6 August 1999). The Bulletin is an internal legal document of the UN and as such binding within the Organisation. It explicitly applies only to the UN-led peace operations and does not cover those operations that are authorised by the UN Security Council but carried out under the command and control of a regional organisation or State(s). For a more detailed analysis of the bulletin see eg PC Sasz, UN Forces and International Humanitarian Law, in M. Schmitt (ed), International Law Accross the Spectrum of Conflict: Essays in Honour of Professor L.C. Green on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (Newport, Naval War College, 2000) 507–38. 30 Bulletin, (n 29) §1.1. 31 NATO, AJP-3.4.1. 32 Or ‘peace support forces’ in NATO’s terminology. 33 NATO, AJP-3.4.1, Section 4B-2.

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may in principle enter into international agreements and be bound at least by customary international law.34 Thus, although presently neither the UN nor any other international organisation are parties to the existing humanitarian conventions,35 they may still be directly bound by the customary humanitarian regime applicable in a specific situation. It must nonetheless be noted that since international organisations do not have all the attributes of a state, some specific rules of international humanitarian law cannot be (properly) implemented by international organisations in practice and apply intuitu personae only to states. Such rules include, among others, those relating to detention and treatment of detainees, since international organisations do not have competencies that stem from territorial sovereignty. Therefore, these and other such rules36 must apply to international organisations mutatis mutandis.37 In addition, military forces of individual troop-contributing nations placed at the disposal of an international organisation remain formally bound, to the same extent and the same degree, by the same rules of international humanitarian law which would apply if these forces were engaged in an armed conflict while acting on behalf of their own states.38 In other words, all members of the national armed forces acting under the command and control of an international organisation, remain individually bound by those particular provisions of international humanitarian law binding upon their respective sending states in a particular situation.39 Therefore, international humanitarian law may apply to peace operations formally and in its totality, regardless of whether they are operating under the command and control of a state or a coalition of states, or an international organisation. Peace forces are obliged to observe both customary international humanitarian law, as both states and international organisations are bound by it, 34 Specifically with respect to the UN, this view has been upheld by the ICJ as early as 1949, in the Advisory Opinion on Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep,179). In 1980, the ICJ further confirmed, in its Advisory Opinion on the Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt (Advisory Opinion) [1980] ICJ Rep 73, para 37, that ‘international organizations [as subject of international law] are bound by any obligations incumbent upon them under general rules of international law, under their constitutions, or under international agreements to which they are parties’. For a scholarly view, see eg I Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998) 690; see also D Shraga, ‘The United Nations as an Actor Bound by International Humanitarian Law’ (1998) 5 International Peacekeeping 64, 65. 35 For a discussion on whether or not the UN and regional organisations could become a party to the various humanitarian conventions, see eg M Zwanenburg, Accountability of Peace Support Operations (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2005) 136–38; BD Tittemore, ‘Belligerents in Blue Helmets: Applying International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Peace Operations’ (1997) 33 Stanford Journal of International Law 61, 95; F Seyersted, United Nations Forces in the Law of Peace and War (Leyden, Sithoff, 1966) 333–98. 36 The application of certain rules of the law of naval warfare and belligerent occupation may likewise be modified as a result of the involvement of an international organisation. 37 See also M Bothe and T Dörschel, ‘The UN Peacekeeping Experience’, in D Fleck, The Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) 500; Shraga, The United Nations as an Actor (n 34) 65. 38 See Roberts and Guelff (n 26) 723; C Greenwood, ‘International Humanitarian Law and United Nations Military Operations’ (1998) 1 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 3, 7, 17–19. 39 This conclusion is based not only on the practical necessity but also on the formal obligation of states to respect and ensure respect for the GCs and AP I ‘in all circumstances’, articulated in the common Art 1 of GCI-IV and in AP I.

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and the relevant provisions of international humanitarian conventions, to the extent that various troop-contributing states are individually bound by it.

Difficulties in Applying International Humanitarian Law to Multinational Contingents This conclusion does not eliminate the uncertainty regarding the content and scope of the applicable legal regime rationae personae, which may vary with respect to different national contingents participating in one common operation. Different troop-contributing states may be parties to different humanitarian conventions, and they may disagree on the scope and content of the relevant rules of customary law, which otherwise applies equally to all troops. In case of the former, the same situation or conduct could be governed by different applicable legal regimes. For example, a situation might arise where the peace forces are fighting against forces of a state party to AP I, while not all troop-contributing states are bound by its rules. Theoretically, a provision of AP I would apply to fighting between host-state forces and some national contingents within the mission, but not all. With respect to UN-led peace operations, the 1999 Secretary General’s bulletin partly clarified the situation by determining the minimum standards governing the conduct of all UN forces engaged in hostilities,40 regardless of their nationality. These standards concern the protection of the civilian population in the UN area of operation and in the area controlled by the other party,41 means and methods of combat,42 treatment of civilians and persons hors de combat, particularly women and children, and relief personnel,43 treatment of detainees,44 as well as the treatment of the wounded and sick, protection of medical and relief personnel and collection and identification of the dead left on the battlefield.45 Therefore, all forces operating under UN command and control are bound to base their actions on these minimal common standards,46 while different national contingents must further abide by those other particular provisions binding their respective sending states. Of course, as an internal UN document, the bulletin does not apply directly to states, and thus also not to non-UN peace operations. The obstacles related to the different applicable legal regimes and to the different interpretations of the content and scope of applicable customary law therefore remain more significant in these 40 Before 1999, it was entirely unclear what the UN considers to be the ‘principles and spirit’ of the main conventions of international humanitarian law. 41 Bulletin (n 29) § 5. 42 ibid § 6. 43 ibid § 7. 44 ibid § 8. 45 ibid § 9. 46 Some authors pointed out that this list goes beyond those standards that are widely accepted as part of customary international humanitarian law and which would in any case apply equally to all individual national contingents. See eg D Shraga, ‘UN Peacekeeping Operations: Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and Responsibility for Operation-Related Damage’ (2000) 94 American Journal of International Law 406, 408. See also H McCoubrey and ND White, The Blue Helmets: Legal Regulation of United Nations Military Operations (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1996) 161–62.

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operations. On the practical level, this problem may be solved on an ad hoc basis by ensuring effective and thorough legal and military pre-deployment training as well as effective coordination of commands within a specific operation. But in order to increase consistency and more effective implemenation of humanitarian protections by mixed contingents, it would be useful to agree, on an authoritative level, upon an explicit list of core common standards applicable to any peace operation present or involved in an armed conflict, whether acting under the command and control of a state, a coalition of states, or international organisation(s), and regardless of the degree of command and control transferred to the joint command structures.47

The Threshold of Application: ‘Armed Conflict’ in the Context of Peace Operations International humanitarian law is formally applicable only in situations of ‘armed conflict’48 (or ‘military occupation’) and the international or non-international nature of the particular armed conflict determines the scope of applicable law. Thus, two of the most important questions with regard to the applicability rationae materiae of international humanitarian law to peace operations are whether these activities may ever amount to an ‘armed conflict’ triggering the application of international humanitarian law and, if the answer to this question is affirmative, whether the applicable rules are those governing ‘international’ or ‘noninternational’ armed conflict. Where the peace forces operate in a non-armed conflict situation, international humanitarian law is not formally applicable.49 But its rules become directly relevant whenever they find themselves in an armed conflict situation, either as peaceful observers or as active fighters.50 As long as they are not engaged in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict between other actors on the ground, international humanitarian law does not bind them, but it may offer them a certain level of protection. On the other side, whenever the peace forces engage in hostilities on the level of an armed conflict with another actor on the ground, the rules of international humanitarian law not only protect them, but might also constrain their freedom of action.

47 A helpful starting point could be the list of rules based on the conclusions set out in Volume I of the ICRC study on customary international humanitarian law as included in JM Henckaerts, ‘Study on customary international humanitarian law: A contribution to the understanding and respect for the rule of law in armed conflict’ (2005) 87 International Review of the Red Cross 175, 198–212. 48 In non-armed-conflict situations, international humanitarian law does not apply, but other relevant protective regimes may, primarily human rights law, which applies both in times of peace and armed conflict (see also Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136, para 106). 49 In such situations, the rules regulating the conduct of peace operations are determined primarily by the relevant status-of-forces agreement(s), agreements on the contribution of troops and equipment to the peace operation, national legislation of the sending and of the receiveing state(s), international human rights law, and other relevant instruments. 50 Either from the beginning of the operation or because hostilities have resumed.

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As a preliminary point, it must be stressed that the applicability of international humanitarian law to peace operations depends on the factual existence of an armed conflict on the ground and on the actual conduct of the actors, not on the formal combat or non-combat mandate of the particular operation, the legality vel non of the use of force by the peace forces, or the intention (self-defence or enforcement) with which the peace forces have engaged in armed conflict. First, the mandate determining the powers of the peace forces to use armed force might have jus ad bellum consequences, but does not per se determine the applicability51 of international humanitarian law. This view is now widely supported in legal scholarship52 and also in UN practice: for example, Section 1.1 of the Secretary General’s bulletin confirms that international humanitarian law may apply (to the UN forces) not only in the context of enforcement actions, but also in ‘peacekeeping operations when the use of force is permitted in self-defence’, whenever and as long as they are ‘actively engaged [in situations of armed conflict] as combatants’.53 It is particularly important to bear this in mind in the context of contemporary peace operations, in which elements of traditional peacekeeping are increasingly mixed with enforcement elements. In practice, any situation, in which the peace forces operate, may (eventually) amount to an armed conflict, and any peace forces, regardless of their formal mandate, may (eventually) become involved in fighting on the level of an armed conflict, triggering the application of international humanitarian law. Traditional peacekeepers may get involved in fighting on the level of ‘armed conflict’ when defending themselves or the mission, but it may just as well happen that those peace forces with ‘robust’ powers to use force beyond the limits of what is permissible in self-defence, will in practice never use force of such nature or intensity to cross the threshold of ‘armed conflict’. Moreover, international humanitarian law may apply regardless of whether the peace forces have used military force in accordance with their formal mandate, ie in accordance with the jus ad bellum, and regardless of whether that force was used in self-defence or for enforcement/offensive purposes. This follows from one of the most important principles of international humanitarian law—the principle of equal application, according to which rules of international humanitarian law apply equally to all parties to an armed conflict without discrimination as to whose decision to use violence was legitimate and whose was not.54 Peace operations 51 Although, the Security Council mandate might, under certain circumstances, limit or modify the scope of applicable law pursuant to the general principle of the UN Charter supremacy arising from Art 103; see eg, Greenwood, International Humanitarian Law (n 38) 28; R Kolb, ‘Occupation in Iraq since 2003 and the powers of the UN Security Council’, 90 International Review of the Red Cross 29. For a different view, see eg R Arnold, ‘The Applicability of the Law of Occupation to Peace Support Operations’, in R Arnold and GA Knoops (eds) Practice and Policies of Modern Peace Support Operations Under International Law (Ardsley, Transnational Publishing, 2006) 91, 110–12. 52 See eg C Greenwood, ‘Scope of Application of Humanitarian Law’, in Fleck, Handbook (n 1) 50 and 52; A Faite and JL Grenier (eds), Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to UN Mandated Forces, Report of the Expert Meeting on Multinational Peace Operations (Geneva, ICRC, 2004) 1–2. 53 Bulletin (n 29) § 1.1. 54 The provision of common Article 1 of GC I-IV, requesting that their instruments be respected ‘in all circumstances’, confirms the view that the question of the legality of the use of force under jus ad

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should not be an exception to this principle, which is essential to ensure respect for international humanitarian law. As McCoubrey and White have rightly pointed out, the efforts to prevent and minimise human suffering in the context of armed conflicts should not be qualified by the specific nature of the actors involved or their origin and motives; on the contrary, all military personnel engaged in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict should respect the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, including (and particularly) members of peace operations who, by definition, should operate as guardians of legitimacy and humanity.55 Given that the decision on whether the peace forces have found themselves in a situation of an armed conflict is of utmost importance for determining the applicable legal regime, prescribing rights and obligations of the peace forces, it would be necessary to define as clearly as possible the criteria for determining the existence of an ‘armed conflict’ in a specific situation.56 Nonetheless, it remains difficult to define precisely the point in time from which it can be said that the peace forces have become involved in an armed conflict with another actor on the ground. One reason for this is conceptual: the instruments of international humanitarian law do not define clearly the concept of an ‘armed conflict’.57 Another reason may be political—most sending states as well as the international organisation(s) in charge of the operation are reluctant to openly acknowledge that their forces have become involved in an ‘armed conflict’ in terms of international humanitarian law and have thus turned into legitimate military targets; in any case, states hardly ever explain why they consider a certain situation to be (or not to be) an armed conflict. Despite the lack of common understanding of the concept of ‘armed conflict’, the intensity of the fighting has been widely understood as a key factor in determining the existence of an armed conflict in international jurisprudence, in the practice of states and international organisations, as well as by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).58 In line with this view, not every event involving the use of armed force (however limited) would automatically meet the threshold of ‘armed conflict’ triggering the application of international humanitarian law. However, the necessary level of violence for crossing this threshold is not entirely clear.59 bellum does not have a bearing on the obligations of States under international humanitarian law. Furthermore, the Preamble to AP I points out that the Geneva provisions must apply in all circumstances to all protected persons ‘without any adverse distinction based on the nature or origin of the armed conflict or on the causes espoused by or attributed to the Parties to the conflict’ (AP I, para 5 of the Preamble). See also Greenwood, Historical Development (n 1) 10–11; DW Bowett, United Nations Forces: A Legal Study (London, Stevens, 1964) 496. 55 McCoubrey and White, The Blue Helmets (n 46) 155. For a similar comment see also C Ku and HK Jacobson, Democratic Accountability and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 111. 56 This problem is particularly acute in the context of contemporary peace operations in which the elements of peaceful presence and military enforcement are increasingly mixed and where the use of more robust, more intense military force is more likely than in the past. 57 See also Greenwood, Scope of Application of Humanitarian Law (n 52) 47; Zwanenburg, Accountability of Peace Support Operations (n 35) 186. 58 For a mored detailed analysis of these views see Zwanenburg (n 35) 187–93. 59 See also Greenwood, Scope of Application of Humanitarian Law (n 52) 47–48 and 53.

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In general, the level of violence necessary to cross the ‘armed conflict’ threshold is understood to be lower for international than for non-international armed conflicts,60 although state practice and jurisprudence suggests that even on the level of international armed conflicts, sporadic and isolated clashes will not always be treated as armed conflicts.61 As far as non-international armed conflicts are concerned, the analysis is further complicated by the fact that different applicable regimes suggest somewhat different thresholds. The AP II explicitly sets a high threshold of violence and excludes from the concept of armed conflict ‘situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of similar nature’, while common Article 3 is not thus limited and says nothing about a threshold determining an armed conflict.62 In this respect, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has made a great effort to specify the threshold for non-international armed conflict by suggesting various indicators that may be used to evaluate the ‘intensity’ criterion, among them: the number, duration and intensity of individual confrontations, the spread of clashes over territory and over a period of time, any increase in the number of government forces and mobilisation and the distribution of weapons among both parties to the conflict, the type of weapons and other military equipment used, in particular the use of heavy weapons and equipment such as tanks and heavy vehicles, the number and calibre of munitions fired, the number of persons and type of forces partaking in the fighting, the extent of material destruction and the number of casualties as well as the number of civilians fleeing combat zones.63 The problem of defining the lower threshold of ‘armed conflict’ has been particularly pertinent with respect to peace operations. As said, these operations have traditionally been designed to avoid fighting, but were nonetheless always permitted to use limited force in self-defence, including for the defence of the mission and the mandate.64 Therefore in effect, even when peace operations are deployed in non-armed conflict situation, limited military force might sometimes

60 See particularly the test for determining the existence of an armed conflict set out by the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the Tadic´ Jurisdiction Decision: ‘[a]n armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organised armed groups or between such groups within a State’ (emphasis added); Prosecutor v Tadic´ (Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction) ICTY-94–1-AR72 (2 October 1995).para 70. The criterion of ‘protracted violence’ had been interpreted in practice, including by the Tadic´ Trial Chamber itself, as referring to the intensity of the armed violence rather than to its duration; see Prosecutor v Tadic´ (Opinion and Judgment) ICTY-94–1 (7 May 1997) para 562. 61 See Greenwood, Scope of Application of Humanitarian Law (n 52) 48; for the analysis of the various decisions of national courts supporting this view, see eg Prosecutor v Boškoski and Tarcˇ ulovski (Judgement) ICTY-04–82-T (10 July 2008) paras 180–83. 62 But see eg Art 8(2)(d) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90 (Rome Statute).relating to serious violations of common Art 3 which ‘applies to armed conflicts not of an international character and thus does not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence or other acts of a similar nature.’ 63 For a summary list of these and other indicators, suggested in various decisions of the ICTY, see Prosecutor v Boškoski and Tarcˇ ulovski (n 61) paras 178–79; see also Prosecutor v Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj (Judgement) ICTY-04–84-T (3 April 2008) para 49. 64 See The Human Security Centre (n 12).

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need to be employed not only in self-defence against (sporadic) attacks but also for limited enforcement purposes, for example, to quench riots or to secure the freedom of movement of the peace operations. Undoubtedly, even the most limited use of force (either in self-defence or for enforcement purposes), may escalate, immediately or gradually, into high-intensity fighting that clearly falls into the concept of an armed conflict. At the other extreme, and in line with the general view, single, isolated armed confrontations between peace forces and other actors on the ground (regardless of whether the peace forces employed force in selfdefence or offensively) would not automatically reach the level of armed conflict. But a precise determination of where on the spectrum of violence lies the thin red line between peacetime and armed conflict, remains elusive. As a starting point, the indicators set out by the ICTY for evaluation of the existence of a (noninternational) armed conflict, might serve as a useful tool for the evaluation of particular situations involving the use of armed force in the context of peace operations. It should be noted that some authors65 have suggested that as a general principle, the threshold for determining whether a peace force has become a party to an armed conflict should be understood as more flexible and higher than in the case of classic conflicts.66 In response to such suggestions, Zwanenburg observes that while there are practical examples that support this view (at least with respect to UN-led operations), state practice in this regard is too rare and inconsistent to allow a definite conclusion.67 According to the present author, the idea of applying different thresholds of ‘armed conflict’ for different actors or depending on the ‘purpose’ of the employment of armed force is incompatible with the well-established principles of equal and objective application of international humanitarian law.

International or Non-International Armed Conflict? In terms of international humanitarian law, armed conflicts triggering its formal application are traditionally viewed within the bifurcated framework of international and non-international armed conflict. The largest and most developed part of international humanitarian law regulates international armed conflicts, ie armed conflicts between armed forces of two or more states, as well as the so-called national liberation wars.68 However, the smaller and more rudimentary portion of international humanitarian law applies to non-international armed conflicts, which are generally understood as involving hostilities between government armed forces and organised armed groups, or between such groups, within a territory of a single state.69 Although the line between these two traditional categories is becoming increasingly blurred in the context of contemporary conflicts, and although today 65

See eg Greenwood, International Humanitarian Law (n 38) 24. But have mostly refrained from locating such ‘higher threshold’ on the spectrum of violence in the context of peace operations. 67 Zwanenburg (n 35) 207. 68 See common Art 2 of the GC I-IV and Art 1 of AP I. 69 See common Art 3 of the GC I-IV and Art 1 of AP II. 66

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many humanitarian provisions apply in both international and non-international armed conflict,70 the distinction is still relevant, particularly with regard to the legal status of persons participating in hostilities, and those detained in the context of armed conflict.71 It therefore remains important to categorise any given situation properly in order to know which particular rules govern the behaviour of the relevant actors. In the context of peace operations, the proper classification of an armed conflict may be relevant not only for determining the precise standards that the peace forces are bound to observe and respect, but also for determining the level of protection afforded to such forces.72 However, the traditional de jure dichotomisation between international and non-international armed conflict, which has been seriously challenged in the context of contemporary complex conflict situations (such as situatons of non-state conflicts and the ‘war against terrorism’), is not easily applicable to peace operations. Indeed, it seems safe to claim that an eventual armed conflict between the peace forces and the forces of a formal or de facto local government or another subject of international law may be qualified as an international armed conflict and thus governed by the rules applicable in international armed conflicts.73 However, virtually all contemporary peace operations are deployed in situations of latent or actual non-international armed conflicts74 and are consequently more likely to become involved in fighting with irregular forces which do not act on behalf of any formal or de facto government in the territory of the host state. But a situation in which peace forces are engaged in hostilities against such non-state forces cannot easily be described with reference to the traditional concepts of international humanitarian law. Since the peace forces are not fighting against any state or other international legal subjecs, such hostilities prima facie cannot be classified as an ‘international armed conflict’. But they also cannnot easily be qualified as ‘noninternational armed conflicts’, at least not for the purpose of applying the whole set of provisions applicable in non-international armed conflicts. Indeed, such situations might be covered by the ‘negative’ definition of the common Article 3 of GC I-IV, forming also part of customary international humaniarian law, which applies in any armed conflict not of an international character, occurring in the territory of

70 For a more detailed discussion on the fading distinction between international and non– international regimes of international humanitarian law, see eg Zwanenburg (n 35) 182. 71 Furthermore, the nature of armed conflict has important implications for determination of individual criminal responsibility of soldiers and commanders on the ground: for example, the 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court incriminates as war crimes a greater number of violations of international humanitarian law in the context of international, rather than non-international, armed conflicts. 72 For example, with respect to the UN-led forces, whether the relevant protective regime is international humanitarian law or the 1994 Safety Convention, which a contrario remains applicable in non-international armed conflicts. For more on this particular issue see C Greenwood, ‘Protection of peacekeepers: the legal regime’ (1996) 7 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 185, 203. 73 See Seyersted, United Nations Forces (n 35) 212, Tittemore, Belligerents in Blue Helmets (n 35) 110; Zwanenburg (n 35) 184; Greenwood, International Humanitarian Law (n 38) 25. 74 See also M Berdal, ‘The Security Council and Peacekeeping’, in V Lowe et al, The United Nations Security Council and War (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 175, 188.

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a single state;75 but with respect to the application of the common Article 3, the proper qualification of the armed conflict situation does not have practical significance, as its very basic and rudimentary humanitarian protections apply in any armed conflict, regardless of character.76 However, more problematic is the application of AP II,77 which is restricted to hostilities that ‘take place in the territory of a High Contracting Party between its armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organised armed groups’ and does not envisage the option of foreign intervention or simply the fighting between the international forces and irregular forces in the territory of one State without the participation of the local government forces.78 At present, a general conclusion regarding the legal regime applicable in armed conflict between peace forces and a non-state organised armed group remains elusive. There is no common view on this issue in legal scholarship. Many prominent authors have suggested de lege ferenda that all armed conflicts in which foreign peace forces are involved independently from the local governmental forces should be viewed as ‘internationalised armed conflicts’ or ‘international armed conflicts sui generis’ due to the international element, regardless of the governmental or non-governmental nature of the opposing forces.79 Consequently, the broader international legal regime should apply.80 Still others insist that the qualification of such operations depends on the legal nature of the other parties to the conflict.81 The discussion is further complicated by the peculiar approach adopted by the UN Secretary General in its 1999 bulletin, which drops the distinction between international and non-international regimes of international humanitarian law with respect to UN peace operations. The minimal behavioural standards, set out therein, apply to all UN forces involved in any armed conflict, regardless of its international or non-international nature.82 To clarify the situation for a particular operation, the applicable legal regime may be decided or agreed upon ad hoc, in the relevant status-of-forces agreements and 75 A similar approach has been adopted in the 1998 Rome Statute of the ICC, which defines non-international armed conflicts in Art 8(2)(f) as protracted hostilities ‘in the territory of a State . . . between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups’; see also the decision of the ICTY in the Tadic´ Jurisdiction Decision (n 60). 76 This has been confirmed, inter alia, by the ICJ in Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, para 218, and by the ICTY in Tadic´ Decision on Jurisdiction (n 60) para 67. 77 Save for those provisions that are also part of customary international law. 78 Art 1 of AP II (emphasis added). 79 See eg F Seyersted, (n 35) 213; D Shraga, ‘The Applicability of International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Operations’, in E Claude (ed), Blue Helmets: Policemen or Combatants? (Montreal, Wilson & Lafleur, 1997) 333; for further references see R Kolb, ‘Background Document 1: Applicability of international humanitarian law to forces under the command of an international organization’, in Faite and Grenier, Applicability of International Humanitarian Law (n 52) 62. For an opposite view see eg McCoubrey and White (n 46) 172; Tittemore (n 35) 110. 80 ibid. 81 See Faite and Grenier (n 52). 82 Although the use of the term ‘combatants’ in §1.1. of the Bulletin (n 29) implies an international armed conflict, it is hard to say whether the intention of this formulation or the application of a very wide set of humanitarian standards to all UN peace operations was to express a position on the legal nature of armed conflicts in which peace forces are engaged as such. However, the standards included in the Bulletin are clearly based on the broader, international legal regime.

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agreements with troop-contributing states, as well as in special agreements between the state(s) or international organisation in charge of the operations and irregular forces on the ground. On a normative level, it might be useful to elaborate on a list of those existing principles of international humanitarian law applicable as a minimum yardstick in all peace operations that amount to an ‘armed conflict’ situation in its material sense, regardless of the international or non-international nature of such a conflict.83 An authoritative clarification of what humanitarian standards apply equally in any kind of armed conflict, regardless of their international or non-international character, would of course be a helpful starting point.84

The Applicability of the Law of Occupation to Peace Operations Another important question that arises with regard to the applicability of international humanitarian law to contemporary peace operations is whether and to what extent the law of occupation can be applied to peace forces, when these forces actually exercise control over a certain territory on the basis of a UN mandate but without the consent of the local government,85 which itself is incapable of exercising effective control over the given area. As in the case of armed conflict, the applicability of the relevant rules of occupation rationae materiae depends on the factual existence of occupation, ie the temporary administration of foreign territory, regardless of the legitimacy and/or legality of the intervention that led to the state of occupation.86 Nonetheless, the presence of a peace operation in the territory of a non-consenting state cannot be easily described as ‘occupation’ within the meaning of the existing framework of international humanitarian law. According to Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations concerning the laws and customs of war on land, ‘territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile

83 As already said, common Art 3 of the GC I-IV may apply to all peace forces involved in armed conflict of any kind, either against regular or irregular armed forces; but other ‘basic’ common standards applicable to peace operations in any armed conflict situations could be explicitly listed. 84 Evolution of a new category of armed conflicts, such as the proposed category of ‘internationalized’ armed conflicts may be a tempting idea, but it is doubtful whether such a new concept would lend itself towards actual normative codification and whether it would actually bring more clarity (if not the opposite) into the application of international humanitarian law to peace operations. For some critical comments about the development of new categories of armed conflicts in a different context, see eg M Sassòli, Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law (HCPR Occasional Paper Series, No 6, 2006) 25. 85 The question of applicability of the law of occupation does not arise where the ‘host state’ has consented to the international presence; see M Sassòli, ‘Outline of de jure and de facto applicability of the law of occupation to United Nations-mandated forces’, in Faite and Grenier (n 52) 33; A Faite, ‘Background Document 2: Applicability of the law of occupation to United Nations-mandated forces’, in Faite and Grenier (n 52) 71. 86 See also M Sassòli, Outline of de jure and de facto applicability (n 85); A Faite Background Document 2: Applicability of the law of occupation to United Nations–mandated forces’, in Faite and Grenier (n 52) 72. This view was recently confirmed by the ICJ in its decision on the Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Uganda) (2005) ICJ Rep 168, para 172.

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army’.87 The ICRC has also acknowledged that the presence of a ‘hostile army’ or hostile foreign forces is a necessary condition for the application of the law of occupation.88 Apart from examples of pure collective enforcement actions under Chapter VII, peace forces prima facie do not qualify as a hostile army within the meaning of Article 42 of the Hague Regulations.89 The absence of the host state’s consent most likely denotes the fact that peace forces have been deployed in an area where there is no effective authority against whom the international forces could be described as hostile. In this respect, Greenwood90 has warned that the law of occupation does not apply de jure to international forces deployed in support of the territorial administration of a state, without having previously been a party to an international armed conflict. However, other commentators have expressed the view that relevant provisions of the law of occupation do apply de jure to those operations, which are deployed on a territory of a state without that state’s consent, and which exercise de facto control over that territory, while the local authorities are unable to exercise effective territorial control.91 In practice, there are no formal references to (compliance with) the law of occupation. In the course of establishing the transitional international administrations in Kosovo (UNMIK) and in East Timor (UNTAET), the Security Council subjected both missions only to its mandate and to internationally recognised human rights standards, despite the fact that both missions were granted very broad administrative powers.92 Similarly, the law of occupation wasn’t invoked in more recent peace operations, such as that in Afghanistan in 2002 (ISAF) and in Southern Sudan in 2005.93 Even in the context of the collective enforcement action in Somalia in 1992 (operation Restore Hope), Australia was the only troopcontributing state which explicitly subjected the deployment of its forces to the rules of occupation, articulated in GC IV.94 Nonetheless, both states and international organisations frequently apply the law of occupation to their peace operations as a matter of policy. Caution is necessary in this respect, as the application of the law of occupation where no ‘occupation’ exists, entails important legal implications beyond the provision of humanitarian protection. For instance, as Naert observes, legally inappropriate application of the law of occupation could lead to internment of civilians in an operation in cases in which in fact no legal authority for such internment under international humanitarian law exists.95

87 Emphasis added. This definition was broadened by the common Art 2 of GC I-IV so as to include situations where the occupation meets with no armed resistance. 88 ICRC, ‘Occupation and International Humanitarian Law: Questions and Answers’ (2004), http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/634kfc?opendocument. 89 Such cases are extremely rare and include the Korean War in 1950 and the first Gulf War in 1991. 90 Greenwood, International Humanitarian Law (n 38) 30. 91 See E Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004) 4. 92 ibid, xv–xvi. 93 See D Scheffer, ‘The Security Council and the International Law on Military Occupation’, in V Lowe et al (n 74) 589. 94 See Faite and Grenier (n 52) 73–74. For a more extensive analysis of state practice see Zwanenburg (n 35) 195–99. 95 F Naert, Detention in Peace Operations: The Legal Framework and Main Categories of Detainees (Institute for International Law/KU Leuven Faculty of Law, Working Paper No 94, 2006) 8.

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The Legal Status of Peace Forces: Between ‘Civilians’ and ‘Combatants’ It is widely accepted today that whenever peace forces operate in an armed conflict situation without taking direct part in hostilities, they should be considered as ‘civilians’, protected against the dangers arising from military operations by the relevant provisions designed to protect civilians and other persons not participating or no longer participating in hostilities. This view is supported in several relevant legal documents96 and is consistent with the position of the UN97 and with state practice.98 To a certain extent, it seems counter-intuitive to describe uniformed soldiers as civilians. Soldiers, participating in peace operations, are members of the regular armed forces, and should as such be classified as combatants, at least in terms of the law applicable in international armed conflicts. However, under this law, peace forces present or involved in an armed conflict situation can only be qualifed either as ‘civilians’ or ‘combatants’. As there is no intermediate status in existing international humanitarian law,99 the choice to describe peace forces as ‘civilians’ seems more appropriate, at least as long as they are not regarded as a ‘party to a conflict’.100 Nonetheless, this does not resolve the status of the peace forces once they have engaged in hostilities at the level of armed conflict, nor the implications of such engagement in hostilities. It seems clear that like all persons that take part in hostilities, peace forces that become involved in hostilities lose immunity from attacks and become legitimate military targets. Yet, their precise legal status for the purpose of determining the implications of their participation in hostilities other than the loss of immunity from deliberate attacks, remains unclear. One particularly significant problem may arise in relation to the legal regime applicable upon capture of the peace forces in the context of an armed conflict.101 Under international humanitarian law applicable in international armed conflicts, the formal status of persons captured by enemy combatants depends on their status at the moment of capture.102 The difficult question in such situations is whether

96 eg Arts 8.2(b)(iii) and 8.2(e)iii of the ICC Statute, which protect the members of peace operations under the command and control of an international organisation, ‘as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict’. This rule is also included in Art 4(b) of the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. 97 See eg §1.2 of the 1999 Secretary General’s Bulletin (n 29), which states that the provisions of the Bulletin do not affect the protected status of peace forces under the 1994 Safety Convention ‘or their status as non-combatants, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians under international humanitarian law’. For additional evidence of UN practice in this regard, see J Henckaerts and L Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 113. 98 For an overview of State practice see Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law (n 97) 112–14. 99 See Arts 48 and 50 of AP I. See also O Uhler and H Coursier (eds), Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: Commentary (Geneva, ICRC, 1950) 51. 100 See Art 43 of AP I, which provides that members of the armed forces of a party to a conflict (apart from medical and religious personnel) are combatants. 101 If they are captured by a party to the conflict while not participating in hostilities, the situation is not difficult if we accept the proposition that they are technically civilians as long as they stay out of combat—in that case they are not prisoners of war if captured. 102 See K Ipsen, ‘Combatants and Non-Combatants’, in Fleck (n 1) 79, 95.

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peace forces participating in hostilities should be considered ‘combatants’, and thus subject to the prisoner of war (POW) regime, or whether they should be regarded as civilans who took part in hostilities, and are henceforth not entitled to the prisoner of war status under the GC III but to protections under the GC IV.103 The idea of a dynamic transformation between the two statuses of civilians and combatants (and, by extention, POWs) is confusing and does not have a clear legal basis in the existing framework of international humanitarian law. Civilians who become engaged in hostilities in the course of an international armed conflict, do not normally turn into lawful ‘combatants’, entitled to POW status and other privileges connected with the status of a (lawful) combatant, and then back again once they voluntarily stop fighting. This logic seems at odds with the principle of equal application of international humanitarian law. In effect, it creates a hybrid category of persons in (international) armed conflicts—some sort of civilians sui generis. These persons enjoy all civilian protections whenever they are not directly involved in hostilities,104 however, once they have actually engaged in hostilities, they are, as opposed to ‘normal’ civilians,105 accorded the ‘combatant’ status. Consequently, these persons, unlike all other persons with civilian status, are legally allowed to fight, and are entitled to the privileged POW status if captured while fighting. Perhaps it would be useful to consider options for the development of a new specific category, for example an additional exceptional category of ‘noncombatant members of armed forces’ or ‘armed forces not directly participating in hostilities’ with special protections. They could be granted special protections against the effects of hostilities as long as they refrain from active fighting, while they would also be entitled to the same legal protection as prisoners of war without being formally labelled as such; a status comparable to religious and medical members of armed forces. While the existing conceptual confusion was less relevant in times of traditional peacekeeping where the use of force by the peace forces was rare, and only exceptionally escalated into a full armed conflict situation, the problem is much more pressing in times of ‘robust’ peace operations, deployed in troubled environments with wider powers to use force. In these operations, the distinction between non-combat and combat functions tends to be more blurred than ever and the ‘factual’ transition of peace forces between peaceful presence and engagement in

103 The difficulty of this question has also been noted at the meeting of experts in 2004, see Faite and Grenier (n 52) 68–69. 104 According to Art 51(3) of AP I and Art 13 of AP II, civilians taking direct part in hostilities lose their protection against the effects of hostilities only for the duration of each specific act amounting to direct participation, while combatants may be attacked even when they are not directly involved in fighting. 105 Civilians proprio sensu are in principle not entitled to participate directly in hostilities; by doing that, they are considered to have waived their immunity from attacks and turned into legitimate military targets for the time of their participation in hostilities, but they do not become ‘combatants’ entitled to all the privileges connected to that status during combat and upon capture—rather, they are treated as unprivileged (or unlawful) belligerents if they fall into the hands of the enemy and might face penal consequences for the mere act of taking up arms; see K Ipsen, Combatants and Non-Combatants (n 102) 83. For a related discussion see also CHB Garraway, ‘′Combatants′–—Substance or Semantics?’, in MN Schmitt and J Pejic (eds), International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultlines (Leiden, Nijhoff. 2007) 317.

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fighting much more common.106 An authoritative clarification of the threshold of ‘direct participation in hostilities’,107 as well as the legal nature and implications of a factual transition from ‘peaceful’ to ‘fighting’ peace forces, would thus be extremely useful. On the other hand, the fact that the majority of peace operations today are deployed in non-international armed conflict, might reduce the practical dimensions of this problem at least with respect to the legal regime applicable upon capture. Namely, when peace forces are fighting irregular fighters, not associated with the local government, the GC III does not formally apply. Therefore, if peace forces are captured by irregular forces, they are not entitled to the prisoners of war regime and vice versa, at least in the absence of any specific agreement to the contrary. In any case, the difference between the international or non-international legal regimes with respect to detention, is another factor urging a careful clarification of the nature of armed conflicts in which peace forces are involved, at least in an ad hoc manner for any particular operation. CONCLUSION

The relationship between peace operations and international humanitarian law has undergone significant developments in recent years, and many contentious issues have been clarified almost beyond doubt. For example, it is no longer questionable whether the existing framework of international humanitarian law can cover peace operations without any specific reference to such activities. It is widely accepted that international humanitarian law may apply to peace operations, regardless of whether they are carried out under the auspices of a state, a coalition of states, or international organisation(s), whenever the peace forces get involved in combat on the level of an armed conflict. It also seems rather widely understood that international humanitarian law may apply to any type of peace operations, since any operation, regardless of its formal mandate, may become involved in hostilities as a matter of fact. Nonetheless, a great degree of uncertainty remains regarding the exact conditions and scope of application of international humanitarian law. Moreover, the contemporary trend towards more complex and ‘robust’ peace operations, particularly the increasing presence or involvement of peace forces in armed confrontations, poses additional challenges to the application and effective implementation of international humanitarian law in this context. For instance, while there is practically no doubt that the law of international armed conflict applies to the fighting between the peace forces and armed forces of one or more states (or other international subjects), it remains unclear what legal regime is applicable when the foreign peace 106 In addition, military members of complex peace operations often work closely with the civilian personnel (such as humanitarian workers) on one side and with the traditional state armed forces, directly engaged in armed conflict, on the other side (an obvious example is the UN-authorised, NATO-led peace operation in Afghanistan (ISAF), which operates together with the US-led classic military operation). 107 An important step in the line of attempts to clarify this term is a series of discussions by a Group of Experts brought together by the ICRC and the TMC Asser Institute in the Netherlands which began in 2003.

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forces are fighting against one or more non-state armed groups in the territory of the host-state, which is the most common scenario in contemporary peace operations. In addition, mixing of combat and non-combat functions in the mandates of contemporary peace operations, as well as the increasing involvement of military and non-military, combat and non-combat personnel on the ground, makes it even more difficult (as well as urgent) to determine the legal status of peace forces and, accordingly, their rights and obligations under international law. Whereas this and other challenges, some of which were discussed in this paper, do not necessarily require a revision or refocusing of the rules of international humanitarian law, they certainly increase the pressure to clarify the conditions and scope of the applicable legal regime(s) on an authoritative level, bearing in mind the peculiarities of (contemporary) peace operations. First of all, the threshold of ‘armed conflict’ in the context of peace operations, particularly with respect to borderline cases, in which peace forces are using small-scale force, needs to be more clearly defined. Secondly, consensus must be reached on an appropriate categorisation of armed conflicts, in which international peace forces are present or involved, At the same time, the idea of developing a new normative category of armed conflicts, in which peace forces are involved and to which a specific legal regime of international humanitarian law would apply, should be carefully discussed. Thirdly, a set of minimum common standards applicable rationae personae in any peace operation engaged in an armed conflict, regardless of its multinational structure or its command and control arrangement, should be elaborated on an authoritative level. And finally, consensus must be reached on the exact legal status of peace forces involved in an armed conflict situation, as well as on the threshold and implications of their (potential) participation in hostilities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books E Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004). DW Bowett, United Nations Forces: A Legal Study (London, Stevens, 1964). I Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law 5th edn (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998). A Faite and JL Grenier (eds), Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to UN Mandated Forces, Report of the Expert Meeting on Multinational Peace Operations (Geneva, ICRC, 2004). J Henckaerts and L Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I: Rules (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005). C Ku and HK Jacobson (eds), Democratic Accountability and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). H McCoubrey and ND White, The Blue Helmets: Legal Regulation of United Nations Military Operations (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1996).

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A Roberts and R Guelff (eds), Documents on the Laws of War 3rd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). F Seyersted, United Nations Forces in the Law of Peace and War (Leyden, Sithoff, 1966). OM Uhler and H Coursier (eds), Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War: Commentary (Geneva, ICRC, 1950). M Zwanenburg, Accountability of Peace Support Operations (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2005).

Chapter in Edited Volumes R Arnold, ‘The Applicability of the Law of Occupation to Peace Support Operations’, in R Arnold and GA Knoops (eds) Practice and Policies of Modern Peace Support Operations Under International Law (Ardsley, Transnational Publishing, 2006). M Berdal, ‘The Security Council and Peacekeeping’, in V Lowe, A Roberts, J Welsh and D Zaum, The United Nations Security Council and War (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). M Bothe and T Dörschel, ‘The UN Peacekeeping Experience’, in D Fleck, The Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001). A Faite, ‘Background Document 2: Applicability of the law of occupation to United Nations-mandated forces’, in A Faite and JL Grenier (eds) Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to UN Mandated Forces, Report of the Expert Meeting on Multinational Peace Operations (Geneva, ICRC, 2004). CHB Garraway, ‘′Combatants′—Substance or Semantics?’, in MN Schmitt and J Pejic (eds) International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultlines (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2007). C Greenwood, () ‘Historical Development and Legal Basis’, in D Fleck (ed) The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). BF Klappe, ‘International Peace Operations’, in D Fleck (ed) The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). R Kolb, ‘Background Document 1: Applicability of international humanitarian law to forces under the command of an international organization’, in A Faite and JL Grenier (eds) Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to UN Mandated Forces, Report of the Expert Meeting on Multinational Peace Operations (Geneva, ICRC, 2004). M Sassòli, ‘Outline of de jure and de facto applicability of the law of occupation to United Nations-mandated forces’, in A Faite and JL Grenier (eds) Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law to UN Mandated Forces, Report of the Expert Meeting on Multinational Peace Operations (Geneva, ICRC, 2004).

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PC Sasz, ‘UN Forces and International Humanitarian Law’, in M Schmitt (ed) International Law Accross the Spectrum of Conflict: Essays in Honour of Professor L.C. Green on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (Newport, Naval War College, 2000). D Scheffer, ‘The Security Council and the International Law on Military Occupation’, in V Lowe, A Roberts, J Welsh and D Zaum, The United Nations Security Council and War (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). D Shraga, ‘The Applicability of International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Operations’, in E Claude (ed) Blue Helmets: Policemen or Combatants? (Montreal, Wilson & Lafleur, 1997).

International Documents North Atlantic Treaty Organization/Military Agency for Standardization, Peace Support Operations, AJP-3.4.1 (Brussels, NATO, 2001). The Human Security Centre, Human Security Report 2005: War and Peace in the 21st Century, www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content& task=view&id=28 (The University of British Columbia, 2005). United Nations/Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines, http://pbpu.unlb.org/pbps/ Library/Capstone_Doctrine_ENG.pdf (New York, United Nations, 2008).

Journal Articles C Greenwood, ‘Protection of peacekeepers: the legal regime’ (1996) 7 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 185–207. C Greenwood, ‘International Humanitarian Law and United Nations Military Operations’ (1998) 1 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 3–34. JM Henckaerts, ‘Study on customary international humanitarian law: A contribution to the understanding and respect for the rule of law in armed conflict’ (2005) 87 International Review of the Red Cross 175–212. R Kolb, ‘Occupation in Iraq since 2003 and the powers of the UN Security Council’ (2008) 90 International Review of the Red Cross 29–50. D Shraga, ‘The United Nations as an Actor Bound by International Humanitarian Law’ (1998) 5 International Peacekeeping 64–78. D Shraga, ‘UN Peacekeeping Operations: Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and Responsibility for Operation-Related Damage’ (2000) 94 American Journal of International Law 406–12. BD Tittemore, ‘Belligerents in Blue Helmets: Applying International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Peace Operations’ (1997) 33 Stanford Journal of International Law 61–117.

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Working Paper F Naert, Detention in Peace Operations: The Legal Framework and Main Categories of Detainees (Institute for International Law/KU Leuven Faculty of Law, Working Paper No 94, 2006). M Sassòli, Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law (HCPR Occasional Paper Series, No 6, 2006).

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Military Necessity: A Fundamental ‘Principle’ Fallen Into Oblivion ROBIN GEIß *

INTRODUCTION

M

ILITARY NECESSITY IS unanimously acknowledged as a bedrock principle of the modern laws of war. Yet, ever since its inception, this principle has led a shadowy existence. Tainted with perniciousness since its denigration as a military carte blanche in Wilhelmina Prussia and Nazi Germany, the principle has henceforth been accompanied by startling misconceptions regarding its true scope and aim. It has been praised as much as it has been cursed; it was emphatically discussed in legal literature in the first half of the twentieth century and it was then nearly forgotten in the second half. Today, perhaps the principle’s most palpable characteristic is its notable absence from discussions concerning contingent reform of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the astounding scarcity of modern legal literature devoted to the topic. This status quo is perhaps best explained by reviewing the principle’s multifarious history. The principle is nearly 150 years of age. The legal document in which it was initially anchored in 1863, General Orders No 100, more commonly known as the Lieber Code, has remained its principal source. Even at the time, the Code’s conception of military necessity was viewed with jaundiced eyes. On 24 June 1864, the Confederate Secretary of War, James Seddon, released a lengthy critique arguing that Lieber’s conception of military necessity was hopelessly muddled and that it could legitimise the most barbarous acts.1 Politically, the Confederacy suspected the Code to be a Unionist tool tailored to legitimise the Union’s conduct of war against the Confederacy.2 But also in legal terms, the Code entailed provisions that nurtured such suspicions. Article 29(2) of the Lieber Code, for example, stipulated that ‘the more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity—Sharp wars are brief.’ Article 5 of the Code declared that ‘to save the country is paramount to all other considerations.’ * Legal Adviser, Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The views expressed in this contribution are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 1 Reprinted, in RS Hartigan, Lieber’s Code and the Law of War (Chicago, Precedent, 1983) 123–24: ‘A military commander under this code may pursue a line of conduct in accordance with the principles of justice, faith and honour, or he may justify conduct correspondent with the warfare of the barbarous hordes who overran the Roman Empire, or who in the Middle Ages, devastated the continent and menaced the civilization of Europe.’ 2 BM Carnahan, ‘Lincoln, Lieber and the Laws of War: The Origins and Limits of the Principle of Military Necessity’ (1998) 92 American Journal of International Law 213, 218.

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While the application of IHL and its underlying conception of military necessity today are to be regarded as a deviation from a peace-time normality that is regulated by more protective human rights law, it bears emphasis that at the time of the principle’s inception, no such international normality existed. Human rights law only really permeated the international sphere long after IHL had been codified in international treaties. IHL, predominantly shaped by experiences from preceding wars, was thus neither perceived as a deviation from more protective peacetime standards nor was there any need to evaluate a potential paradigm shift from ‘societal necessity’—the basis of limitations under human rights law—towards ‘military necessity’—the limiting factor in the humanitarian legal framework. Rather, initially it was the principle of military necessity that was intended to impose the first veritable restraint on the hitherto legally nearly unfettered conduct of warfare.3 Yet, over time, with the increasing intensification of the humanitarian regulative framework, the principle’s permissive aspects, epitomised in the infamous doctrine of ‘Kriegsräson’, gained greater emphasis and all but eclipsed the principle’s restrictive function.4 This contribution seeks to reassess military necessity’s contemporary scope and role. It aims to demonstrate that our understanding of military necessity has a far-ranging impact on such timely issues as IHL’s interrelation with human rights law, the permissibility of targeted killings and the operation of IHL in asymmetric conflict scenarios. To this end, the analysis pursues two basic questions. Firstly, does contemporary IHL leave room for recourse to military necessity’s restrictive aspects in order to close potential loopholes in the legal framework? IHL, for example, makes no provision with regard to the degree of force permissible against unprotected persons, combatants and civilians directly participating in hostilities. Indeed, IHL is commonly understood to grant an unfettered ‘license to kill’ vis-à-vis these categories of persons. Military necessity, however, only warrants the enemy’s defeat, ie his rendering hors de combat. Thus, depending on the circumstances, IHL may arguably oblige a belligerent to capture or injure rather than kill the adversary. Secondly, the question is raised whether military necessity—which seems to be so specifically tailored towards armed conflict and yet so alien to peace-time—is reconcilable with today’s increasingly soft continuum of war and peace. The contribution aims to emphasise military necessity’s fundamental otherness from ‘societal necessity’ upon which any use of force is based under the legal regime of

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ibid, 231. Especially German writers had invoked military necessity to argue that the laws of war lose their binding force when their violation alone offers either a means of escape from extreme danger or the realisation of the purpose of war, the overpowering of the enemy. ‘Kriegsräson geht vor Kriegsmanier’, the old German proverb which had been recognised in those times when warfare was regulated merely by certain usages (‘Kriegsmanier’) and when it was widely recognised that extreme necessity could overrule mere usages of war, was instrumentalised to overcome legal rules with the intention to legitimise unrestrained warfare. See defendant’s claim in: UK v von Lewinski (called von Manstein) (1949) 16 Annual Digest and Reports of Public International Law Cases (Case No 192) 509–25 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Generally, see H Lauterpacht (ed), Oppenheim’s International Law—A Treatise, Vol II, Disputes, War and Neutrality, 6th edn (London, Longmans, Green and Co, 1940) 232; W Downey, ‘The Law of War and Military Necessity’ (1953) 47 American Journal of International Law 251, 253. 4

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human rights law. These two questions touch upon the two distinctive components of military necessity: the necessity component, which naturally begs the question ‘necessary for what’, and the ‘military component’, which answers this question, because it encapsulates those aims that may legitimately be pursued in the conduct of hostilities. In pursuance of these questions and ultimately for the benefit of preserving IHL’s overall coherence, this contribution therefore aspires to shed some light on the long-neglected principle of military necessity.

THE VARIOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF MILITARY NECESSITY

Military necessity must not be confused with ‘absolute necessity’, ie a state of necessity as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness. Remarkably, as recently as 1980, the International Law Commission (ILC) deemed it necessary to once more confirm that military necessity may never be invoked as a justification for violations of the laws of war.5 Reconfirming the preambular statements of the 1899 Hague Convention II and its 1907 counterpart (1907 Hague Convention IV), as well as the various post-World War II judgments6 that had so emphatically ruled out the possibility of invoking ‘Kriegsräson’ as a justification for violations of the laws of war, the ILC again emphasised that military necessity had already been taken into account in the drafting of humanitarian rules and that it constituted the ‘underlying criterion’ for a whole series of substantive rules of the law of war.7 In fact, the wording and systematic context of the Lieber Code evidence that even in 1863, Lieber distinguished between ‘absolute necessity’, based on the notion of selfpreservation, and military necessity.8 Article 5 the Code speaks of ‘absolute necessities’ and the paramount duty to defend a country against invasion, whereas Article 14 of the Lieber Code speaks of military necessity and subjects it to ‘the modern laws and usages of war’. Up until the present day, however, it has not been conclusively resolved, whether in cases in which the survival and the very existence

5 See ILC, Draft Articles on State Responsibility and Commentary, Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Thirty-second Session, (United Nations, A/35/10, 1980) 45: ‘The principal role of “military necessity” is not that of a circumstance exceptionally precluding wrongfulness….’ 6 US v Alfred Krupp et al (US Military Tribunal at Nuremberg) (1949) The United Nations War Crimes Commission–—Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, Vol X (Case No. 78) 1032, Sec 4 (iii). In relation to the plea of national emergency, the Tribunal held: ‘The contention that the rules and customs of warfare can be violated if either party is hard pressed in any way must be rejected on other grounds. War is by definition a risky and hazardous business … It is an essence of war that one or the other side must lose and the experienced generals and statesmen knew this when they drafted the rules and customs of land warfare. … to claim that they can be … disregarded when [one belligerent] considers his own situation to be critical, means nothing more or less than to abrogate the laws and customs of war entirely.’ 7 ILC, State Responsibility (n 5) 45. 8 F Berber, Lehrbuch des Völkerrechts, Vol II, Kriegsrecht, 2nd edn (München, Beck, 1969) 78: ‘Die Maßnahme kraft Staatsnotstand darf keineswegs mit einer Maβnahme kraft sog. militärischer Notwendigkeit verwechselt werden.’

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of the state—not merely military victory—are in peril,9 a state of necessity may exceptionally be invoked, despite the fact that IHL is already imbued with considerations of military necessity.10 Indeed, the reverberations of Article 5 of the Lieber Code, according to which ‘to save the country is paramount to all other consideration’, are long-lasting. Yet, how exactly military necessity was taken into account when IHL was framed remains vague. Military necessity is difficult to grasp; it has remained a highly abstract notion. Even though there seems to be unanimous agreement that IHL was predicated on a subtle balance of military necessity and humanity,11 the travaux préparatoires of the Geneva Conventions or their Additional Protocols are not exactly reflective of any elevated degree of subtlety in this regard. Just as speaking of a ‘licence to kill’ vis-à-vis combatants is often blemished as lurid language and strongly disapproved even by those who would hardly disagree that in substance this statement precisely reflects our current legal reality, the real-world implications of military necessity, in the words of the ICRC commentary the ‘sad necessities of war’,12 are only hesitantly spelled out.13 In a generic, vernacular sense, military necessity, including its various synonyms—military exigencies, operational requirements or simply the realities of war—is perceived as the placeholder of realism in war. Military necessity in this sense encapsulates the real-politik necessity for the military to break some eggs when the going gets tough.14 It also alludes to the myriad uncertainties and unforeseeable dangers that are so inevitably related to the conduct of hostilities. Legally speaking, military necessity makes its occurrence as a statutory prescription in a number of IHL provisions, it also seems to be widely accepted as a general, somewhat Janus-faced, principle of IHL, which may

9 B Cheng, General Principles of Law As Applied By International Courts and Tribunals (London, Stevens, 1953) 71. 10 As is well known, the ICJ in its 1996 Advisory Opinion by explicitly referring to ‘extreme circumstances of self-defence’ resuscitated this debate; Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, para 97. See also Y Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004) 78, ‘The linkage between the use of nuclear weapons and “extreme circumstances …” is hard to digest: it appears to be utterly inconsistent with the basic tenet that [the law of armed conflict] applies equally to all belligerent States, irrespective of the merits of their cause.’ In its Advisory Opinion in the Wall case, the ICJ, while raising the question whether the fact that humanitarian law had already taken considerations similar to those underlying a state of necessity into account, did not find the strict conditions of a state of necessity cumulatively satisfied and thus left the question unanswered; Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136, para 140. 11 See eg Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities. (n 10) 16. 12 Y Sandoz, C Swinarski and B Zimmermann (eds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnels du 8 juin 1977 aux Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Geneva, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986) para 2219. 13 Indeed, the fear of military necessity is deeply rooted; see eg FF Martin, ‘Using International Human Rights Law for Establishing a Unified Use of Force Rule in the Law of Armed Conflict’ (2001) 64 Saskatchewan Law Review 347, 364 who states ‘… governing use of force by placing primary value on human beings—and not military necessity, which is an ambiguous doctrine that has led to past horrific atrocities’ (emphasis added). 14 D Kennedy, Of War and Law (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006) 42.

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potentially unfold permissive as well as restrictive functions, and finally, military necessity is accorded a value in and of itself, balancable against its ostensible antipode: humanity.

MILITARY NECESSITY AS A STATUTORY PRESCRIPTION

Even in its simplest occurrence, ie in its most palpable expression as a statutory prescription, military necessity is difficult to grasp. Guiding parameters for its application on the ground and for ex post juridical review are scarce. This is somewhat surprising, given that military necessity, as a statutory prescription, has featured relatively often even in more recent jurisprudence. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its Advisory Opinion regarding the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in affirming a violation of Article 53 Fourth Geneva Convention, opted for the evasion of the ambiguous notion of military necessity. In denying military necessity the Court confined itself—without further explanation—to stipulate that: on the material before it, the Court is not convinced that the destructions carried out contrary to the prohibition in Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention were rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.15

Nevertheless, recent jurisprudence has shown that military necessity as a statutory prescription is not a matter of mere subjective appreciation; its assessment is subject to posterior legal scrutiny on the basis of objectifiable standards.16 The very fact that various provisions explicitly allow for the consideration of military necessity shows that the humanitarian legal framework does not necessarily operate on the presumption of an entirely static level of military necessity once the existence of an armed conflict has been confirmed.17 Rather, IHL, in specific 15 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, para 135. See also D Kretzmer, ‘The Advisory Opinion: The Light Treatment of International Humanitarian Law’ (2005) 99 American Journal of International Law 88, 98. 16 For an extensive analysis of this jurisprudence, see MN Hayashi, ‘The Martens Clause and Military Necessity’, in HM Hensel (ed), The Legitimate Use of Military Force (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008) 135, 141. Central Front Eritrea’s Claims 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 22 between the State of Eritrea and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia (Partial Award) Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission (28 April 2003) www.pca-cpa.org/upload/files/Eritrea%20Central%20Front%20award.pdf paras 78, 87–88: the Claims Commission stated inter alia that: ‘Ethiopia has not suggested any reason why the destruction of any of the properties in question could have been rendered “absolutely necessary” by military operations other than simply to prevent their reuse by Eritrea if and when it should regain control of Senafe Town. The Commission does not agree that denial of potential future use of properties like these, which are not directly usable for military operations as are, for example, bridges or railways, could ever be justified under Article 53’. See also Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Uganda) (Judgment) (2005) ICJ Rep 168, para 219. 17 See Art 23(1)(g) of the Annexed Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land to the Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (adopted 18 October 1907 and entered into force 26 January 1910) www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4374cae64.html (‘imperatively demanded by the necessities of war’); Art 53 of the Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 135 (GC IV) (‘rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’). Explicit references to ‘military necessity’ are also included in Arts 8(3), 33(2), 34(2) of the Geneva Convention (I) for the Amelioration

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cases, obviously acknowledges oscillating levels of military necessity. In all of those provisions, in which military necessity is explicitly mentioned, IHL makes allowance for the consideration of situational or temporally elevated levels of military necessity. For example, the destruction of objects indispensable for the survival of the civilian population, generally prohibited (Article 54(1) AP I) and if conducted intentionally a war crime in international armed conflict (Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) ICC Statute), may exceptionally be permissible in cases of imperative military necessity, thereby going as far as allowing (defending!) belligerents a limited ‘scorched earth strategy’ (Article 54(5) AP I). Notably, however, de lege lata the statutory prescription of military necessity only takes into consideration elevated levels of military necessity, thereby making exceptional allowance for temporally more permissive standards. The approach to provide for such insular exceptions is a concession to reality and a logical consequence of the object and purpose of IHL, to prescribe the realistically highest attainable standard of protection in times of armed conflict. Yet, erratic levels of violence and the asymmetric structures of various modern armed conflicts rather beg the question in how far situational or temporally decreased levels of military necessity, that exceptionally warrant more protective standards than those generally prescribed by IHL, could be accommodated within this legal framework. The fact that IHL has not made any provision for such decreased levels of military necessity indicates the presumption that the existence of an armed conflict automatically invokes a certain ‘basic level’ of military necessity. MILITARY NECESSITY AS A FUNDAMENTAL ‘PRINCIPLE’ OF IHL

Military necessity comprises two components. Firstly, the military component encapsulates the aims that may legitimately be pursued in the conduct of hostilities. Herein lies a restrictive as well as a permissive element. Even in times of armed conflict, not every aim may legitimately be pursued. Those aims, however, that can be derived from military necessity are accorded a certain value; they may— potentially—trump and set aside humanitarian considerations, in which case they may legitimately be pursued. Yet, military necessity not only prescribes IHL’s legitimate aim in the abstract; the principle also comprises a genuine necessity requirement. The necessity component limits permissible behaviour in concreto to such behaviour—and no other—that is necessary to achieve this aim. The two components are inseparable. Without any conception of legitimate aims as a fixed of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 31 (GC I); Art 8(3) of the Geneva Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 85, (GC II); Art 8(3) of the Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 287 (GC III); Arts 49(2), 108(2) GC IV; Arts 54(5), 62(1), 67(4); 71(3) Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 3 (AP I); Arts 27(4), 42(1) GC IV. References to‘military considerations’ are to be found in Arts 12(4) GC I, 23(4) GC III, 16(2), 18(4), 30(2) GC IV. Art 30 GC I refers to ‘military requirements’.

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point of reference, the necessity requirement, which is a relational concept that automatically begs the question ‘necessary for what?’—could have no limiting impact on the conduct of hostilities. If, as has repeatedly been assumed, IHL had no conception of legitimate aims with regard to the conduct of hostilities,18 there could be no conception of illegitimate aims. Conduct in warfare would go by unrestrained. Yet, military necessity does not legitimise each and every act the military deems necessary for reasons and aims of their unfettered choosing, the choice of which could not be checked by anyone outside the military for lack of operational insight. Such an understanding would defy the very gist of IHL, to subject behaviour in warfare and the conduct of hostilities to the rule of law. The St Petersburg Declaration of 1868 stipulated that ‘the [only] legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy.’19 The Military Tribunal in the 1948 Hostages case referred to the ‘complete submission of the enemy’20 and modern military manuals, while omitting exclusive references to the enemy’s complete submission, which could potentially allude to the waging of total war, refer to the successful conclusion of ‘military operations’,21 ‘the partial or complete submission of the enemy’22 or simply to the ‘defeat of the enemy’.23

The Necessity Component Vis-à-vis assailable persons, combatants and civilians directly participating in hostilities, this abstract aim, ie the notion of defeat, is relatively clear and concise. A person is defeated if he or she is rendered hors de combat. This can be achieved via capture, injury or death. In view of the gradually increasing severity of these 18 But see W Abresch, ‘A Human Rights Law of Internal Armed Conflict: The European Court of Human Rights in Chechnya’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 741, 765; A Eide, ‘The Laws of War and Human Rights—Differences and Convergences’ in C Swinarski (ed), Etudes et essais sur le droit international humanitaire et sur les principes de la Croix-Rouge en l’honneur de Jean Pictet (Geneva, Nijhoff Publishers, 1984) 675, 681: ‘… the question of what is necessary is left completely to each State concerned.’ 19 Declaration Renouncing the Use, in Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight (Declaration of St Petersburg) (1868) www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/130?OpenDocument preambular para 2. 20 USA v Wilhelm List and others (The Hostages Case) (US Military Tribunal at Nuremberg) (1948) The United Nations War Crimes Commission–—Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, Vol VIII (Case No 47). 21 NATO, Glossary of Terms and Definitions Concerning the Safety and Suitability for Service of Munitions, Explosives and Related Products, www.nato.int/structur/ac/310/pdf/aop-38–3.pdf p 2-M-5; Manuel de Droit des Conflicts Armés (French Ministry of Defence) glossaire www.defense.gouv.fr/ defense/layout/set/popup/content/download/46822/465055/file/ manuel_de_droit_des_conflits_armes234_droit_conflits_armes.pdf ‘nécessité militaire’: ‘pour obtenir l’accomplissement de sa mission.’ 22 United States/Department of the Navy, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (Washington, NWP 1–14MMCWP 5–12–1/COMDTPUB P5800.7A, 2007) para 220(a); United Kingdom/Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) Section 2.2. 23 German Triservice Manual/Zentrale Dienstvorschrift der Bundeswehr (no 15/2)–—Humanitäres Völkerrecht in bewaffneten Konflikten (1992) (Bundesminister der Verteidigung), www.bits.de/public/ documents/ZDv15.2(1992).pdf para 130.

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measures, controversy has arisen as to whether there is a legal obligation under IHL to choose the least intrusive among equally suitable means.24 In other words, it is the necessity requirement, which is at issue when it comes to the question of whether there is a legal obligation to refrain from killing an enemy combatant, if incapacitating him by virtue of injury or capture is also possible. Current state practice does not seem to support such an assumption, and most practitioners, while ready to concede that the necessity restraint should be taken into consideration as a matter of policy, deny any legal obligation in this regard.25 Yet, one does not need to go as far as to recur to the Martens Clause (nota bene applicable vis-à-vis both civilians and combatants), to support a positive answer to this question.26 It is the historic achievement of the Lieber Code and, in fact, of IHL taken as a whole, to have limited behaviour in war to that which is necessary to defeat the enemy. Already the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868 went on to clarify that the legitimate aim of defeating the enemy would be exceeded if death was rendered inevitable.27 Indeed, it is this last bastion of humanity, that, even in the conduct of hostilities, force be limited to what is necessary, that IHL aims to uphold. Today, this basic tenet is entailed in Article 35 AP I, which explicitly extends the prohibition against causing unnecessary suffering also to the methods of warfare,28 and it is in conformity with human rights law’s prescription that even in times of war each and every emergency measure be limited ‘to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation.’ The travaux préparatoires of the ECHR give evidence that this is a situational test, which is not vitiated by the fact that IHL was construed on the basis of abstract considerations of military necessity.29 Only if necessity is ensured in concreto, ie in each specific case and in view of each measure

24 The Public Committee against Torture in Israel et al v The Government of Israel et al, The Supreme Court of Israel, (Jerusalem, 14 December 2006) [2006] IsrSC (not yet published, procedure no HCJ 769/02), para 40: ‘… among the military means, one must choose the means whose harm to the human rights of the harmed person is smallest. Thus, if a terrorist taking a direct part in hostilities can be arrested, interrogated, and tried, those are the means which should be employed.’ 25 See eg D Fleck, ‘The Law of Non-International Armed Conflicts’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 619. 26 N Melzer, ‘Targeted killing or less harmful means? Israel’s High Court Judgment on Targeted Killing and the restrictive function of military necessity’ (2006), 9 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 87, 108 et seq. 27 See also F Mégret, Non-Lethal Weapons and the Possibility of Radical New Horizons for the Laws of War: Why Kill, Wound and Hurt (Combatants) at all? (Social Science Research Network, 2008) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1295348. 28 Melzer, ‘Targeted killing or less harmful means?’ (n 26) 96. 29 AL Svensson-McCarthy, The International Law of Human Rights and States of Exception: With Special Reference to the ‘Travaux Préparatoires’ and Case-Law of the International Monitoring Organs (The Hague, Nijhoff Publishers, 1998) 378. From a context-interpretation of Art 15(1) and (2) European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) CETS No 5, it follows that conformity with other obligations under international law constitutes an additional requirement to the prescription that measures be strictly required by the exigencies of the situation. The exigencies of the situation must strictly be met, because especially under the margin of appreciation doctrine of the ECHR, states are granted considerable leeway in the determination of the existence of a public emergency and the Court thus supervises whether the respective derogation measure is indeed strictly required by the exigencies of the situation; Aksoy v Turkey (App no 21987/93) ECHR 1996-VI 2260, para 68.

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taken, is this requirement fulfilled.30 Article 15 ECHR makes it abundantly clear that even in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation, legality’s ultimate bastion, that measures be necessary or in other words, that measures be strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, must be upheld. The assumption of a necessity restraint vis-à-vis assailable persons is less revolutionary than it may seem. The obligation to employ the least harmful among equally effective means or methods does not amount to an extension of the principle of proportionality towards combatants. It is not a backdoor attempt to undermine the principle of distinction. The principle of distinction entails the prescription that in times of armed conflict the value inherent in the rendering hors de combat of combatants or civilians directly participating in hostilities categorically outweighs the right to life, physical integrity and liberty of these persons. This alleviates individual soldiers—from the outset—of intricate value-balancing judgments. The necessity restraint, by contrast—without interfering with this predication—merely implies that there is no categorical relaxation of the purely factual and in any case situational assessment whether less harmful measures of equal effectiveness are also available in a given situation. A risky capture is not equally suitable to achieving the defeat of the enemy as a secure killing. Faced with such a choice, there would be no obligation to capture the enemy. De lege lata there is no indication that a military commander is obliged to accept any increased risks for his own troops when attacking legitimately assailable persons. The legitimate aim of defeating the enemy naturally comprises the preservation of one’s own military forces. Indeed, the definitions of military necessity in some national military manuals clearly indicate that the relevant legitimate aim in this regard is not only the defeat of the enemy, but the defeat of the enemy without compromising the security of one’s own forces. Different modern military manuals define military necessity as requiring measures to defeat the enemy with the ‘least expenditure of time, means or personnel’ or ‘minimum expenditure of life and resources.’31 IHL, which implicitly prescribes the taking of certain risks as far as the protection of civilians is concerned—the presumption of civilian status in cases of doubt (Article 50(1) AP I), for example, is risky as it may turn out to be false32—does not seem to endorse the necessity of taking any increased risk in relation to legitimately assailable persons. A presumption of being hors de combat in cases of doubt does not exist. On this basis, it would seem difficult to argue that a military commander must base his decision whether to use less harmful means or methods on any additional assessment of proportionate or disproportionate risks for his own troops.

30 The exigency of the conduct of hostilities during an armed conflict is to defeat the enemy and to take measures to this end. 31 United Kingdom, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (n 22) Section 2.2; similar United States, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (n 22) para 5.3.1. It has been pointed out that the criterion of minimum expenditure of time, life and physical resources should be understood to apply not only to the assailant, but also to the party attacked; see Sandoz et al, Commentary (n 10) para 1397. 32 Similarly, the taking of precautions against civilian damages as required by Arts 57, 58 AP I, may potentially compromise an operation’s success and the safety of the operating personnel.

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In the front line of combat, capture will almost always be impossible without taking a high risk for one’s own troops, whereas in situations of overall control—eg the encountering of a single FARC fighter by numerous soldiers in a supermarket in Bogotá—this risk is likely to be reduced to a level where capture instead of killing becomes obligatory.33 Finally, it bears mentioning that the necessity restraint does not impose any positive obligation to take additional and arguably unrealistic precautions vis-à-vis legitimately assailable persons. The judgment whether less harmful but equally effective means are available is to be made in view of the specific situation and in light of the means available at the time of the attack. It does not require the altering of the situation. In a situation in which the capturing of an enemy would be too risky, thus leaving merely the possibility to attack the enemy with potentially lethal force, there would be no obligation to call in or await additional backing to make a secure capture possible.

The ‘Military’ Component: Legitimate Aims in the Conduct of Hostilities With regard to the conduct of hostilities, the enemy’s military defeat is the legitimate aim prescribed by IHL. This aim is not a mere relict of the St Petersburg Declaration; modern IHL, more specifically the rules relating to the conduct of hostilities, are imbued with it. The principle of distinction, for example, is a logical offspring of this aim. The military defeat of the enemy necessitates the physical incapacitation of all enemy combatants, whereas the incapacitation of civilians would not further this aim at all. Combatants therefore literally become legitimate aims of attack; they are to be rendered hors de combat. Yet, in spite of this clarity of legitimately pursuable aims vis-à-vis directly assailable persons, it is well known that in various other contexts IHL has been haunted by the vagueness of its legitimate aims throughout its history. After all, the aim of defeating the enemy, without further elaboration, remains rather abstract. When Lieber first defined military necessity, in the absence of any restraint on the use of force in international relations, it was not necessary to distinguish between the level of ius ad bellum and the level of ius in bello. This dichotomy simply did not exist in 1863. Lieber, who in Article 14 of his Code defined military necessity to ‘consist in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war’ thus, was under no pressure to explain or narrow down his understanding of the (legitimate) ends of the war. Subsequent codifications of IHL, for example in the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868, adopted a clearer stance. Preambular paragraph 2 of the St Petersburg Declarations—a paragraph of general scope that arguably transgresses the specific focus of the Declaration’s operational paragraphs—states that ‘the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy.’34 33 It has, however, also been suggested that gradually varying degrees of necessity—absolute necessity in instances akin to law enforcement operations, in which there is overall situational control and merely reasonable necessity in the frontline of combat—should apply; Melzer (n 26) 112. 34 Declaration of St Petersburg (1868) (n 19), preambular para 2 (emphasis added).

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Yet, a certain degree of ultimately perhaps unavoidable peripheral vagueness has always remained. Military ends are never entirely autonomous in themselves. War itself ultimately remains a political act, and in the grey zones it may not be entirely clear when military considerations stop being military and become rather political. Today, IHL’s legacy of vaguely defined and barely specified legitimate aims features in the notoriously controversial notion of ‘military advantage’, which is yet to be determined on a case-by-case basis when it comes to the identification of military objects (Article 52(2) AP I) or the determination of proportional civilian casualties (Article 51(5)(b) AP I). Human rights law, in contrast, more specifically human rights limitation clauses, operate on the basis of a more defined and specific conception of legislatively predefined aims. Most conspicuously in the case of the right to life, in light of its fundamental importance and contrary to limitation clauses of other human rights that operate on the basis of more general variables such as public safety, the protection of public order, health or morals,35 Article 2(2) ECHR has concretised and translated the more abstract public interests that could potentially—albeit never automatically—warrant an intentional deprivation of life under human rights law into rather precise descriptions of concrete factual circumstances, such as the ‘defence of a person from unlawful violence’ or the effect of a ‘lawful arrest’. This problematic and the discrepancy between IHL and human rights law, of course, is well known and widely debated. Surprisingly, what seems to be hardly discussed at all is the paradigm shift that is brought about, if the legitimacy of the use of force is measured in terms of the enemy’s defeat instead of the maintenance of public order. Whether, for example, in the case of the single FARC-fighter who is encountered in a supermarket in Bogotá, the legitimacy and necessity of the level of force employed is measured in light of the fighter’s defeat or in light of his lawful arrest can have decisive repercussions. It may literally be a matter of life and death. The starting point for the derivation of legitimate aims under human rights law and under IHL differs considerably. Under human rights law, limitations are ultimately anchored in the public interest, rather than in the interest of military success and the enemy’s defeat. Based on the underlying rationale that the interests of society as a whole may override the interests of the individual, human rights may be limited on the basis of ‘societal necessity’, ie to protect public health, safety or morals, to prevent disorder or crime with the ultimate aim of maintaining the functioning of society. ‘Societal necessity’, for purposes of comparability, could thus be said to constitute military necessity’s peace-time equivalent, but human rights law knows of no exact correlate. Indeed, in the realm of IHL, limitations are permitted for a fundamentally different purpose: to achieve the defeat of the enemy. The problem is that the underlying rationale for this overall aim in the conduct of hostilities has remained rather vague. So far, it seems, it has not been conclusively resolved what exactly justifies recurrence to military necessity, least of all the paradigm shift from ‘societal necessity’ as the guiding parameter for the limitation of individual rights towards ‘military necessity’. It would seem that a meaningful delineation of acts of law 35 See FG Jacobs and R White, The European Convention on Human Rights, 2nd edn (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996) 226 et seq.

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enforcement and the conduct of hostilities hinges on a clear understanding of this justification. The notion of self-preservation is often, at least implicitly, invoked as the underlying justification for military necessity. The commentary to Article 25 of the ILC Draft Articles on state responsibility, for example, vaguely alludes that the considerations underlying ‘military necessity’ and the ‘state of necessity’ defined in Article 25 may be similar.36 Yet, it is difficult to see how the notion of selfpreservation or the idea of safeguarding ‘essential interests’ would come into play, for example, in the case of the militarily superior aggressor, who is undoubtedly bound by the rules of IHL when launching an illegitimate attack against another state.37 Ultimately, there may be no other justification to fall back on a rudimentary standard such as the necessity to strive for the enemy’s defeat than the fact that there are situations in which ‘societal necessity’ and the communitarian values it comprises are no longer agreeable. Armed conflicts constitute an upheaval of peace-time values. Amidst such upheaval, the reciprocal subjection of opposing states or state and non-state actors to higher societal values would be utopian. The judgment of the German Constitutional Court on the infamous ‘Luftsicherheitsgesetz’ reflects this upheaval quite vividly. It is telling that the Court that so rigorously ruled out the acceptance of ‘collateral damage’ in peace-time,38 included a caveat in its judgment whereby ‘collateral damages’—nota bene that in the Court’s opinion, in peace-time would breach the most fundamental, inviolable and non-derogable of the German constitutional rights, the right to human dignity—would be acceptable in wartime.39 With regard to the conduct of hostilities, IHL operates on the basis of the assumption that each side will inevitably strive for the defeat of the other. IHL, aiming to regulate this strive and to subject it to a regime of legal rules, must take into consideration this inevitability in its underlying value system. Military necessity, the fundamental acceptance, as a matter of law, of the necessity to strive for no more and no less than the enemy’s defeat, directly responds to this inevitability. This guarantees IHL’s universality and allows it to accommodate even unequal opponents under a set of rudimentary but common fundamental rules and thereby to attain its ultimate goal—perhaps insufficiently, but as effectively as possible: to attenuate the calamities of war.

36 J Crawford, The ILC’s Articles on State Responsibility, Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 186 (emphasis added). 37 See also the exception of Art 25(2)(b) of the ILC, Draft Articles on State Responsibility with Commentary (United Nations, A/35/10, 1980) according to which necessity may not be invoked ‘if the State has contributed to the situation of necessity.’ 38 Thus, declaring the German ‘Luftsicherheitsgesetz’ unconstitutional, given that Art 14 of the German ‘Luftsicherheitsgesetz’, by authorising the shooting down of civil airliners, had accepted not only the mere possibility of ‘collateral damage’, but the inevitable deaths of the civilian passengers; ‘Luftsicherheitsgesetz’, The German Constitutional Court, (Karlsruhe, 15 February 2006) [2006] BVerfGE 115, 118, 132 et seq.). 39 How the Court will henceforth construe the legality of collateral damage in times of armed conflict in view of the non-derogability of the right to human dignity remains to be seen; A Zimmermann and R Geiβ, ‘Die Tötung Unbeteiligter Zivilisten: Menschenunwürdig im Frieden—Menschenwürdig im Krieg?—Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zum Luftsicherheitsgesetz im Lichte des humanitären Völkerrechts’ (2007) 46 Der Staat 377–93. The Court’s prescriptions arguably go beyond what international human rights law would prescribe with regard to ‘collateral damage’.

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Military necessity continues to have an important bearing on the regulation of the conduct of hostilities in contemporary armed conflicts. From the necessity requirement, it follows that there is an obligation to choose the least intrusive among equally suitable means for achieving a legitimate aim. Large-scale hostilities will rarely, if ever, allow any such choice. Perhaps it is for this reason and in view of large-scale inter-state armed conflicts of the past that the restrictive element inherent in the necessity requirement has fallen into near oblivion. However, erratic levels of violence and asymmetric structures of modern armed conflicts—house raids in Iraq or Afghanistan perhaps constitute a more concrete example in point—sometimes leave room for such a choice. Killing the enemy may not always be necessary, and the necessity restraint then requires that other means are sought. The necessity requirement, however, hinges on military necessity’s second component: the clear identification of aims that may legitimately be pursued in the conduct of hostilities. Leaving aside well-known issues relating to the vagueness of these aims, it seems important to draw attention to the fundamental otherness of the legitimate aims prescribed by IHL on the one hand and by human rights law on the other. The former legal regime regulates the use of force on the basis of military interests, whereas under the latter regime of human rights the legitimacy of any use of force is tied to the public interest. Evidently, on an increasingly soft continuum of war and peace, this rather rigid paradigm shift from ‘societal necessity’ to ‘military necessity’ proves problematic. Yet, without a common understanding of the underlying rationale and the justification for the invocation of military necessity— and presently, there are few indications of any agreed understanding in this regard—it will be difficult to develop coherent legal criteria for the delineation of the paradigm of law enforcement and the paradigm of hostilities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books F Berber, Lehrbuch des Völkerrechts, Vol II, Kriegsrecht, 2nd edn (München, Beck, 1969). B Cheng, General Principles of Law As Applied By International Courts and Tribunals (London, Stevens, 1953). J Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility, Introduction, Text and Commentaries (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). Y Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004). RS Hartigan, Lieber’s Code and the Law of War (Chicago, Precedent, 1983). FG Jacobs and R White, The European Convention on Human Rights, 2nd edn (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996). D Kennedy, Of War and Law (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006).

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H Lauterpacht (ed), Oppenheim’s International Law—A Treatise, Vol II, Disputes, War and Neutrality, 6th edn (London, Longmans, Green and Co, 1940). Y Sandoz, C Swinarski and B Zimmermann (eds), () Commentaire des Protocoles additionnels du 8 Juin 1977 aux Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Geneva, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986). AL Svensson-McCarthy, The International Law of Human Rights and States of Exception: With Special Reference to the ‘Travaux Préparatoires’ and CaseLaw of the International Monitoring Organs (The Hague, Nijhoff Publishers, 1998).

Chapter in Edited Volumes A Eide, ‘The Laws of War and Human Rights—Differences and Convergences’, in C Swinarski (ed), Etudes et essais sur le droit international humanitaire et sur les principes de la Croix-Rouge en l’honneur de Jean Pictet (Geneva, Nijhoff Publishers, 1984). D Fleck, ‘The Law of Non-International Armed Conflicts’, in D Fleck (ed.), The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). MN Hayashi, ‘The Martens Clause and Military Necessity’, in HM Hensel (ed), The Legitimate Use of Military Force (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008).

International Documents International Law Commission, Draft Articles on State Responsibility with Commentary, Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its Thirty-second Session, A/35/10 (United Nations, 1980).

Journal Articles W Abresch, ‘A Human Rights Law of Internal Armed Conflict: The European Court of Human Rights in Chechnya’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 741–67. BM Carnahan, ‘Lincoln, Lieber and the laws of war: the origins and limits of the principle of military necessity’ (1998) 92 American Journal of International Law 213–31. W Downey, ‘The Law of War and Military Necessity’ (1953) 47 American Journal of International Law 251–61. FF Martin, ‘Using International Human Rights Law for Establishing a Unified Use of Force Rule in the Law of Armed Conflict’ (2001) 64 Saskatchewan Law Review 347–96. D Kretzmer, ‘The Advisory Opinion: The Light Treatment of International Humanitarian Law’ (2005) 99 American Journal of International Law 88–102.

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N Melzer, ‘Targeted killing or less harmful means? Israel’s High Court Judgment on Targeted Killing and the restrictive function of military necessity’ (2008) 9 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 87–113. A Zimmermann and R Geiβ, ‘Die Tötung Unbeteiligter Zivilisten: Menschenunwürdig im Frieden—Menschenwürdig im Krieg?—Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zum Luftsicherheitsgesetz im Lichte des humanitären Völkerrechts’ (2007) 46 Der Staat 377–93.

Working Paper F Mégret, (2008) Non-Lethal Weapons and the Possibility of Radical New Horizons for the Laws of War: Why Kill, Wound and Hurt (Combatants) at all? (Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers. cfm?abstract_id=1295348.

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The ‘Civilianisation’ of Contemporary Armed Conflicts GIULIO BARTOLINI * INTRODUCTION

R

ECENT EVENTS HAVE highlighted some relevant novelties concerning the traditional paradigms which constituted the basis for the development of international humanitarian law (IHL), whose presence could make it necessary to refocus the regime. In particular, one of the salient characteristics of several contemporary armed conflicts has been the tendency towards their ‘civilianisation’. By reason of a variety of elements, this term of art1 may describe the increased role of a heterogeneous series of actors in present-day conflicts who, while they assume an active role in hostilities, can hardly be qualified as ‘combatants’. Consequently, under IHL they would be included in the residual category of ‘civilians’, imposing the need to clarify legal consequences related to the involvement of civilians in hostilities, mainly regarding the obscure notion of ‘direct participation’. The protection against direct attacks that is afforded to members of civilian populations cannot be absolute, to prevent them from obtaining improper advantages from their status.2 This position is clearly expressed in the 1977 Additional Protocols (APs), according to which ‘Civilians shall enjoy the protection … unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.’3 However, the workability of this notion is subject to difficulties, as the two APs do not provide any guidelines. * Assistant Professor of International Law, Department of Law, University of ‘Roma Tre’, Rome. This article was submitted for publication in November 2008. It does not take into account subsequent developments in legal doctrine and practice. 1 For the use of the term ‘civilianisation’, see ‘International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts’ 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (2007) 15: ‘Even more recently, there has been a trend towards the “civilianization” of the armed forces’. 2 This assumption is clearly expressed in the UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) 53: ‘A civilian is … protected from direct attack and is to be protected against danger arising from military operations. He has no right to participate directly in hostilities. If he does so he loses his immunity.’ See also: H Gasser, ‘Protection of the Civilian Population’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 238; Prosecutor v Pavle Strugar (Appeals Chamber, Judgment) ICTY IT-01–42-A (17 July 2008) para 174: ‘The notion of participation in hostilities … is closely related to the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians … combatants have the right to participate directly in hostilities and civilians enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.’ 3 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1979) 1125 UNTS 609 (AP I) Art 51 para 3. An identical provision is present in UN Secretary-General, ‘Observance by the United Nations of International Humanitarian Law’ (6 August

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As recently recognised even by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s study on customary IHL: ‘A precise definition of the term “direct participation in hostilities” does not exist’,4 a position maintained in national military documents5 and legal doctrine.6 This paper aims to address the phenomenon of the ‘civilianisation’ of armed conflicts and legal issues related to the notion of ‘direct participation’, a need clearly recognised by the ICRC through the activities of the expert committee created under the auspices of this institution and the TMC Asser Institute.7 That committee has been trying to clarify this concept since 2003 but, as yet, has been unable to reach an agreement due to divergent positions; even so, the ‘Interpretative Guidance’ will be published as expressing the ICRC’s position.8

THE ‘CIVILIANISATION’ OF ARMED CONFLICTS AND THE LEGAL QUALIFICATION OF ACTORS INVOLVED IN HOSTILITIES

In my opinion, the trend towards the ‘civilianisation’ of contemporary armed conflicts has been favoured by certain parallel phenomena present in different areas of IHL. These are considered below.

1999) UN Doc ST/SGB/1999/13, Section 5.2. See also Common Art 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions I–IV (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 31, 75 UNTS 85, 75 UNTS 135 and 75 UNTS 287 referring to ‘active part in the hostilities’. 4 J Henckaerts and L Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 21–22. 5 US Army – The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Centre and School, Operational Law Handbook (2006) 17: ‘The phrase “direct part in hostilities” is not defined’. 6 See also: M Bothe, ‘Article 51’ in M Bothe, KJ Partsch and WA Solf (eds), New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts – Commentary On the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1982) 302: ‘the interpretation of these terms may affect matters of life or death, it is indeed regrettable that the ambiguities are left for resolution to the practice of States in future coalitions’. Similarly: Y Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004) 31; L Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies under International Humanitarian Law’ in S Chesterman and C Lehnardt (eds), From Mercenaries to Market. The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 128; N Melzer, Targeted Killing in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 332. 7 For an analysis of the summary reports of meetings concerning ‘Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law’ (Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2003) www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/participation-hostilities-ihl-311205/$File/ Direct%20participation%20in%20hostilities-Sept%202003.pdf (DPH report 2003), held also in 2004 www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/participation-hostilities-ihl-311205/$File/ Direct_participation_in_hostilities_2004_eng.pdf (DPH report 2004) and 2005 www.icrc.org/web/eng/ siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/participation-hostilities-ihl-311205 (DPH report 2005). 8 See ‘International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts’ (n 1) 17.

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The Substitution of Military Personnel with Civilians in a Series of Crucial Activities Supporting Armed Forces and the Emergence of Private Military Companies (PMCs) In recent times, we can note a general tendency to decrease the numbers of directly military personnel, motivated by political, military and financial reasons. Civilians are consequently playing a vital and correspondingly increased role in current armed forces.9 Truthfully, the support provided by civilians in hostilities cannot really be considered as an entirely new legal problem. Regarding international armed conflicts, the presence of civilians supporting armies even in the combat area has been acknowledged since the first codifications of IHL, through the category of so-called ‘persons who accompany the armed forces.’10 In the AP I11 as well as in legal doctrine and state practice, it has been consistently maintained that these civilians cannot be the object of direct attack,12 implying that activities performed by them cannot be considered as direct participation.13 However, the range of activities carried out by civilians on the battlefield has changed dramatically and nowadays includes crucial activities, such as transportation of troops and weapons, technological support, etc. Moreover, we can notice

9 For instance, while 9,200 civilians supported military operations in the 1991 Gulf War (see US General Accounting Office, ‘DOD Force Mix Issues: Greater Reliance on Civilians in Support Roles Could Provide Significant Benefits’ (October 1994) GAO-NSIAD-95–5) almost 60,000 contractor employees sustained military operations in Southwest Asia in 2006 (US General Accounting Office, ‘Military Operations: High-Level DOD Action Needed to Address Long-standing Problems with Management and Oversight of Contractors Supporting Deployed Forces’ (December 2006) GAO-07– 145 p 1). 10 See: Article 13 of Regulations annexed to the Geneva Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land (adopted 29 July 1899, entered into force 4 September 1900) [1910] UKTS 9; Art 4 A.4 of Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 135 (GC III) refers to ‘civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces’. 11 Their qualification as civilians is reaffirmed in Art 50.1 of AP I (n 3). As it is known, this rule qualifies as civilians those persons not included in the notion of combatants under Art 43 of AP I and certain categories of prisoners of war under Art 4.A of GC III (n 10), ie those having a combat function in the conflict. In this case, Art 50.1 of AP I expressly excludes individuals referred to in Art 4.A.4 of GC III from the definition of combatants. 12 See, for instance: H Lauterpacht (ed), Oppenheim’s International Law. A Treatise, Vol II: Disputes, War and Neutrality, 7th edn (London, Longmans, Green, 1952) 345; K Watkin, ‘Humans in the Cross-Hairs: Targeting and Assassination in Contemporary Armed Conflict’ in D Wippman and M Evangelista (eds), New Wars, New Laws? Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (New York, Transnational Publishers, 2005) 162; MN Schmitt, ‘Humanitarian Law and Direct Participation in Hostilities by Private Contractors or Civilian Employees’ (2005) 5 Chicago Journal of International Law 511, 531–32; Israeli Supreme Court, The Public Committee against Torture in Israel et al v The Government of Israel et al (Supplemental Response on behalf of the State Attorney’s Office) (14 December 2006) paras 143–44. 13 See: APV Rogers, ‘Unequal Combat and the Law of War’ (2004) 7 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 3, 21; Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies’ (n 6) 129. JK Kleffner, ‘From “Belligerents” to “Fighters” and Civilians Directly Participating in Hostilities – On the Principle of Distinction in Non-International Armed Conflicts One Hundred Years after the Second Hague Peace Conference’ (2007) 54 Netherlands International Law Review 315, 334, extends this hypothesis to persons given these duties in the context of a non-international armed conflict.

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the emergence of PMCs. Even if this term is not referred to in IHL,14 its use has become relatively common in legal documents.15 Similarly to other civilians supporting a party to a conflict, these individuals operate on the basis of a formal contract; however, legal problems arise when contractors are explicitly requested by the state to carry out activities implying their potential direct participation in hostilities. Concerning these hypotheses, doctrine has analysed whether persons belonging to PMCs can be recognised as ‘combatants’.16 While according to some authors this status is implicitly based on a formal incorporation at the domestic level on armed forces,17 the majority of authors maintain that once members of PMCs comply with the conditions required under IHL, they could be qualified as combatants, independently from their status at the internal level. Firstly, ‘combatant’ status could be ascertained under Article 43 of AP I. However, while some conditions provided in this rule can easily be satisfied by members of PMCs,18 it is highly debatable whether other requirements are complied with. For instance, this problem arises with regard to the presence of a ‘command responsible to that Party’. While the Commentary does not provide specific indications, this requirement has been interpreted in several ways as entailing that the unit is under the army’s chain of command,19 or, at least, that the state can exercise criminal jurisdiction over these individuals20 in order to provide for a supervisory mechanism, including an internal disciplinary system,21 which aims to ensure compliance with IHL. Definitively, the assumption that the PMC is ‘responsible’ to the state merely because the state can impose liability for non-performance of the contract has to be rejected.22

14 This term has primarily been developed by political science scholars. See PW Singer, Corporate Warriors. The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003). 15 See, for instance, Coalition of Provisional Authority, Order No 17 – Status of the Coalition Provisional Authority, MNF-Iraq, Certain Missions and Personnel in Iraq (2004) Section 1, Definitions: ‘“Private Security Companies” means non-Iraqi legal entities or individuals not normally resident in Iraq, including their non-Iraqi employees and Subcontractors not normally resident in Iraq, that provide security services to Foreign Liaison Missions and their Personnel, Diplomatic and Consular Missions and their personnel, the MNF and its Personnel, International Consultants and other Contractors’. 16 To simplify the analysis, we will focus on pertinent provisions dealing with international armed conflicts. 17 See A McDonald, ‘Ghosts in the Machine: Some Legal Issues concerning US Military Contractors in Iraq’ in MN Schmitt and J Pejic (eds), International Law and Armed Conflicts: Exploring the Faultlines. Essays in Honour of Yoram Dinstein (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2007) 373–81. 18 For instance, Art 43 of AP I (n 3) contains the preliminary requirement of ‘organisation’ of the structure, a situation that can probably be satisfied by several PMCs. 19 For this view, see Schmitt, ‘Humanitarian Law’ (n 12) 511. 20 See, for instance, Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies’ (n 6) 121: ‘Another issue is whether responsibility needs to include criminal jurisdiction by a state over such groups. This is not clear, although the negotiators of both these treaties probably presupposed that this was so because typically such groups would have consisted of persons of their nationality fighting for their country’. 21 The system referred in Art 43 of AP I (n 3) has been qualified as covering ‘the field of military disciplinary law as well as that of military penal law’ (Y Sandoz, C Swinarski and B Zimmermann (eds), Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Geneva/Dordrecht, ICRC-Nijhoff, 1987) 513). 22 On this possibility, see opinions expressed at the University Centre for International Humanitarian Law (UCIHL), Expert Meeting on Private Military Contractors: Status and State Responsibility for Their Actions (Geneva, 2005) www.adh-geneve.ch/pdfs/2rapport_compagnies_privees.pdf 13. For subsequent criticisms on this position, see ibid, 13–14.

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However, the possibility of exercising jurisdiction over the contractor is sometimes difficult,23 especially if they are non-nationals. Besides, their capacity to comply with IHL has been debated.24 Furthermore, if we look at previous treaties (1907 Hague Regulations, Article 4 of the Geneva Convention III25), it is even harder not to consider individuals belonging to PMCs as civilians. First, it is difficult to imagine that these individuals could be incorporated as members of the regular army, as the intrinsic nature of PMCs lies in the willingness to favour outsourcing.26 Similarly, the possibility of classifying them as members of ‘militias’ seems improbable, if we maintain that the four conditions of lawful belligerency must be satisfied for such a classification.27 Obviously, this conclusion does not imply that it would be impossible for members of PMCs to qualify as ‘combatants’,28 but the necessary requirements have hardly been satisfied in recent armed conflicts.

23 For the debate regarding difficulties in exercising jurisdiction by the US, see LA Dickinson, ‘Accountability of Private Security Contractors under International and Domestic Law’ (2007) 11 ASIL Insights www.asil.org/insights071226.cfm; McDonald, ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ (n 17) 386–92. This possibility has been considered as unworkable in some states, such as the UK (UCIHL, Expert Meeting (n 22) 11–12) or Australia (DR Rothwell, ‘Legal Opinion on the Status of Non-Combatants and Contractors under International Humanitarian Law and Australian Law’ (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2004) www.aspi.org.au/pdf/ASPIlegalopinion_contractors.pdf (last accessed 22 July 2009) paras 34–36), especially concerning non-nationals. Even regarding Italy it would be difficult to submit private contractors to the wartime military criminal code (ie the code including penalties for violations of IHL), as the code applies to ‘military personnel’. According to Art 7 of the Code ‘military person refers to all members of the Army … militarized individuals and any other person who is lawfully given military status … as well as the members of paramilitary corps or volunteer units authorized to take part in the war’. 24 The oversight control by the state is strictly necessary to meet the fundamental requisites of armed forces, such as respect for IHL. However, a large portion of the employees of PMCs have no military background. According to data provided by Blackwater, 30 per cent of its employees do not have military training (see Schmitt, (n 12) 515). Nevertheless, we can notice in recent practice a tendency by States employing PMCs to pay attention on the potential application of IHL. For instance, the US Department of Defence has requested contractors ‘to institute and implement effective programs to prevent violations of the law of war by their employees … including training and dissemination’ (see US Department of Defense, ‘DOD Law of War Program’ Directive 2311.01 E (9 May 2006)). 25 According to Art 50.1 of AP I (n 3), individuals belonging to groups mentioned in Art 4, paras 1, 2, 3 and 6 of GC III (n 10) cannot be considered as civilians during the conduct of hostilities, as they are classified as combatants. 26 See L Cameron, ‘Private Military Companies: Their Status under International Humanitarian Law and Its Impact on Their Regulation’ (2006) 88 International Review of the Red Cross 573, 583; Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies’ (n 6) 118. 27 For instance, the requisite of a fixed distinctive sign does not seem to be met, considering the variety of military attire that members of PMCs have worn in recent armed conflicts. According the Commentary ‘If it is to be distinctive, the sign must be the same for all the members…and must be used only by that organization’ (see J Pictet (ed), The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: Commentary, Vol III (Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross, 1960) 32). As previously stated, further doubts can be raised concerning whether PMCs operate in accordance ‘with the laws and customs of war’. In the same manner, several scholars have denied the fulfilment of other conditions established in Art 4.A.2 of GC III (n 10), ie their independence from the regular armed forces or the character of ‘belonging to a party to the conflict’ (see Schmitt (n 13) 527–29; Cameron, ‘Private Military Companies’ (n 26) 584–87). 28 In favour of admitting the abstract possibility that members of PMCs can be considered as combatants, see DPH report 2005 (n 7) 75–77. However, compare the criticisms on these positions in ibid, 77–78.

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‘Transnational’ Armed Conflicts: Trans-Border Armed Actions Against Non-State Actors Another relevant scenario is provided by the recourse to armed force against non-state entities located in foreign territories, creating the phenomenon of so-called ‘transnational armed conflicts’, ie armed actions ‘against a transnational armed group or when a government is fighting its domestic rebel abroad’.29 Even in these situations, it seems difficult to qualify these individuals as ‘combatants’. Concerning trans-border armed actions, which are part of an ongoing noninternational armed conflict spilling across state borders,30 it is necessary to override the traditional interpretations on the territorial limit of these conflicts.31 In addition, it would be relevant to analyse the legal status of non-governmental armed groups involved in the conflict, to assess whether these individuals are qualified as ‘civilians’ under IHL. This issue is examined in the subsequent section. Another possible scenario is one raised by recent events. Individuals, affiliated with transnational terrorist networks, who are the specific object of armed attacks by states. Even if terrorism should primarily be dealt with under a law-enforcement approach,32 there could be cases in which these individuals are directly involved in an international armed conflict, such as in the case of Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan, the situation regarding the ‘Second Intifada’ in the occupied territories, at least as interpreted by the Israeli Supreme Court,33 and, possibly, the armed confrontation involving Hezbollah in Lebanon, as maintained by the UN Commission of Inquiry.34 Regarding their status, 29 M Sassòli, Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law (Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Occasional Paper Series No 6, 2006) www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900sid/EVOD-6WQFE2/$file/OccasionalPaper6.pdf?openelement 23. 30 We can refer for instance to several conflicts in Africa, the 2008 operation by Colombia in Ecuador, Turkey’s actions in the Iraqi Kurdistan, etc. 31 According to the traditional interpretation of the relevant provisions, these conflicts involve armed confrontations within the territory of the governmental armed forces. However, several authors maintain that the territorial element cannot be the decisive factor as we should mainly focus on the nature of the actors involved. See L Zegveld, Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 136; Sassòli, ‘Transnational Armed Groups’ (n 29) 8–13; J Pejic´ , ‘Status of Armed Conflicts’ in E Wilmshurst and S Breau (eds), Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 87; Melzer, Targeted Killing (n 6) 257–61. According to the US Supreme Court a non-international armed conflict is different from an international one ‘chiefly because it does not involve a clash between nations’ (US Supreme Court, Hamdan v Rumsfeld et al (29 June 2006) Case No 05–184). 32 For instance, the fight against political terrorism or separatist movements in Europe during the 70’s or 80’s indicates that actions against transnational terrorism did not involve armed conflicts. See Sassòli (n 29) 3–11; N Ronzitti, Diritto dei conflitti armati (Torino, Giappichelli, 2006) 159. 33 See Israeli Supreme Court (High Court of Justice), The Public Committee against Torture in Israel et al v The Government of Israel et al (13 December 2006) c 769/02 (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment) paras 16–23. On difficulties in admitting this conclusion, see D Kretzmer, ‘The Supreme Court of Israel: Judicial Review during Armed Conflict’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 392, 423–25; G Bartolini, ‘Le eliminazioni mirate di appartenenti a gruppi terroristici al vaglio della Corte suprema di Israele’ (2007) 1 Diritti umani e diritto internazionale 623, 624–29; M Milanovic, ‘Lessons for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in the War on Terror: Comparing Hamdan and the Israeli Targeted Killings Case’ (2007) 89 International Review of the Red Cross 373, 381–86. 34 See UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon, pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution S-2/1 (23 November 2006) UN Doc A/HRC/3/2 paras 8–9, 57. The Commission qualified ‘the hostilities … constitute an international armed conflict’ but noted ‘its sui

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it is extremely hard to classify the members of these groups as ‘combatants’, in particular because they do not satisfy fundamental requirements, such as respect for the laws and customs of war.35 Paradoxically, we can even witness armed conflicts in which opponents of state armed forces are entirely composed of individuals qualifying as ‘civilians’ under IHL, as maintained by the Israeli Supreme Court in the ‘targeted killings’ judgment.36 However, it is possible that armed confrontations against transnational armed groups cannot be classified as an international armed conflict, as states can act deliberately outside national borders against members of these particular groups. If we override a narrow interpretation of the territorial prerequisite, we could assume that in certain limited circumstances,37 reaching the threshold for this qualification, these confrontations could be defined as non-international armed conflicts, as also maintained in the UN system.38 This possibility is also supported by the interpretation of this notion by the ICTY,39 emphasising, as qualifying elements, the ‘intensity’ of the conflict and the presence of ‘organised armed groups’, which can be characterised as parties to the conflict, according to a position already adopted by other international bodies.40 Other possible attempts to qualify such armed confrontations under ‘innovative’ and undefined categories, such as so-called

generis nature in that active hostilities took place only between Israel and Hezbollah fighters’. See also A Zimmermann, ‘The Second Lebanon War: Jus ad bellum, jus in bello and the Issue of Proportionality’ (2007) 11 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 99, 127; N Ronzitti, ‘The 2006 Conflict in Lebanon and International Law’ (2006) 16 Italian Yearbook of International Law 3, 9–11. 35 See, for instance, D Jinks, ‘September 11 and the Law of War’ (2003) 28 Yale Journal of International Law 1; L Vierucci, ‘Prisoner of War or Protected Persons qua Unlawful Combatants? The Judicial Safeguards to which Guantánamo Bay Detainees are Entitled’ (2003) 1 Journal of International Criminal Justice 284, 292–95; Sassòli (n 29) 15–19. Concerning the situation of Hezbollah in 2006, see Ronzitti, ‘The 2006 Conflict’ (n 34) 10, ‘Assuming that it is not a terrorist group. It qualifies as a militia whose components have to abide by the strict rules of the Regulations appended to the Hague Convention IV in order to be considered lawful combatants. Even if one cannot simplistically write off the Hezbollah militiamen as members of a terrorist group, they are nonetheless obliged to respect the law and customs of war. This is a very critical point.’ 36 According to the Court, as these individuals did not ‘fulfil the conditions for combatants’ (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 24) they should be qualified as ‘civilians’, due to the fact ‘That definition is “negative” in nature. It defines the concept of “civilian” as the opposite of “combatant”’ (ibid, para 26). 37 However, I must emphasise severe concerns about the possibility of qualifying some past episodes as subject to the application of IHL, such as, in my opinion, the US air strike in Yemen in November 2002. 38 See UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Sheinin (22 November 2007) UN Doc A/HRC/6/17/Add.3 para 8 ‘The Special Rapporteur … accepts in principle that a non-State armed group, including one called a “terrorist organization”, if organized as an armed force, is capable of being engaged in a transborder armed conflict, albeit technically a non-international one (one which is not between two States)’. 39 For an in-depth evaluation of these elements, see, for instance, Prosecutor v Limaj et al (Judgment) ICTY IT-03–66-T (30 November 2005) para 83–174; Prosecutor v Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj (Judgment) ICTY IT-04–84-T (3 April 2008) para 37–100. 40 See Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, Juan Abella v Argentina [Report] Case 11.137 (18 November 1997) para 154–56.

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conflicts having ‘an international character’ or being ‘international in scope’,41 have fortunately been rejected,42 thus, avoiding any unilateral misinterpretation of IHL. Therefore, if we admit the possible existence of transnational armed conflicts characterised as non-international ones, it is relevant to examine the status of members of such groups.

The Quantitative Predominance of Non-International Armed Conflicts in the International Arena There is no doubt that, from a quantitative point of view, non-international armed conflicts represent the vast majority of armed conflicts around the world.43 As is known, in non-international armed conflicts, while members of government forces are not classified as civilians,44 it is not easy to identify the legal status of persons affiliated to organised armed groups, as a proper ‘combatant status’ for these individuals, along with related privileges,45 is formally lacking. On the basis of a formalistic interpretation, under IHL the proper qualification of members of these groups should be as ‘civilians’. Therefore, these individuals will be subjected to the rule concerning the ‘direct participation in hostilities’; hence, the possibility to attack them exists only ‘for the time’, in which they take an active part in hostilities. Alternatively, members of organised armed groups could be distinguished from the civilian population and would thus constitute a separate category. This solution has been pursued through the use of terms such as ‘fighters’46 or by equating them with ‘armed forces’47 in order to permit constant attacks on them, thus providing a solution that is more appropriate than the previous one. Even if it is difficult to 41 See GW Bush, Memorandum on Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees (7 February 2002) and US Department of Justice, Memorandum for Alberto R Gonzales and William J Haynes II on Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees (22 January 2002). For authors supporting these views: J Callen, ‘Unlawful Combatants and the Geneva Conventions’ (2004) 44 Virginia Journal of International Law 1025; I Detter, ‘The Law of War and Illegal Combatants’ (2007) 75 George Washington Law Review 1049. 42 See Pejic´ , ‘Status of Armed Conflicts’ (n 31) 95–99; Melzer (n 6) 262–69. Moreover, see the position held by the US Supreme Court in the case Hamdan v Rumsfeld et al (n 31). 43 See the dataset provided by the Human Security Report Project at www.hsrgroup.org. 44 See Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law (n 4) 19. 45 See Doswald-Beck (n 6) 129; Kleffner, ‘From “Belligerents” to “Fighters”’ (n 13) 321. 46 See International Institute of Humanitarian Law, The Manual on the Law of Non-International Armed Conflict. With Commentary (San Remo, International Institute of Humanitarian Law, 2006). The Manual employs the term ‘fighter’ to qualify ‘members of armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups, or taking an active (direct) part in hostilities’ (1.1.2), while ‘Civilians are all those who are not fighters’ (1.1.3). 47 Melzer, (n 6) 317 ‘as far the principle of distinction is concerned, members of organized armed groups … are not regarded as civilians, but as approximately equivalent to State armed forces’. Moreover, see the position held by the Prosecution in the Strugar case: ‘in a non-international armed conflict, the label of “combatant” which carries with it the right to participate in the armed conflict and prisoner of war status would not specifically apply. Nonetheless, the Prosecution submits that it is necessary to distinguish between individuals who are actually conducting hostilities on behalf of a party, ie members of the armed forces and other organised armed groups, and civilians who are not conducting hostilities’ (Prosecutor v Pavle Strugar (n 2) 64, note 427)

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infer such a solution from the treaty provisions,48 this position has been recently affirmed in military manuals49 legal doctrine,50 and the 2006 San Remo Manual on Non-international Armed Conflict. However, some issues should first be clarified, particularly in order to identify activities which imply the status of ‘fighter’, as mere affiliation to these groups cannot be sufficient, due to their complex organised structure.51 In fact even the ICRC was unable to reach a clear position on this issue.52 Therefore, at present, it is difficult to maintain uncontested that members of organised armed groups, or at least those having a ‘fighting function’,53 can be clearly distinguished from ‘civilians’.

THE NOTION OF ‘DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN HOSTILITIES’: ACTIVITIES PERFORMED BY CIVILIANS AND THEIR LEGAL QUALIFICATION

Consequently, the above-described tendency towards the ‘civilianisation’ of contemporary armed conflicts brings with it the need to analyse the notion of ‘direct participation in hostilities’. Apart from some preliminary aspects, such as the kind of objects and persons targeted by civilians participating in hostilities,54 the core 48 Common Art 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (n 3) refers to ‘members of armed forces’, a term extended both to governmental forces and to organised armed groups, but it does not provide a clear definition of the notion of the civilian population. During the drafting of AP II, proposed Art 25 affirmed ‘a civilian is anyone who is not a member of the armed forces or of an organized armed group’ and ‘the civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians’. However, this provision was excluded from the final version of the Treaty. 49 According to the Colombian Instructors’ Manual (quoted in Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck (n 4) 19) the civilian population includes ‘those who do not participate directly in military hostilities (internal conflict, international conflict)’. 50 See in particular: M Bothe, ‘Töten und getötet werden – Kombattanten, Kämpfer und Zivilisten im bewaffneten Konflikt’ in K Dicke (ed), Weltinnenrecht. Liber amicorum Jost Delbrück (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2004) 67 et seq; Melzer (n 6) 312–14, 316–21; D Fleck, ‘The Law of Non-International Armed Conflicts’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 614. Several experts have favoured this approach during the meetings held by the ICRC/Asser Institute (see DPH report 2005 (n 7) 43–44, 48–49, 55–56). 51 Several of these groups actually have an organised structure, involving the participation of personnel dedicated to administrative, logistical and political support. In our opinion it is difficult to assume that all these individuals can be characterised as ‘fighters’. 52 As maintained by the authors, ‘practice is not clear as to whether members of armed opposition groups are civilians subject to Rule 6 on loss of protection from attack in case of direct participation or whether members of such groups are liable to attack as such, independently of the operation of Rule 6’ (Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck (n 4) 11). 53 Melzer (n 6) 321 ‘irregularly constituted organized armed groups should be construed as comprising only persons who assume a continuous fighting function on behalf of a party to the conflict, that is to say, a function which involves direct participation in hostilities on a regular basis’. 54 According to the Commentaries on the APs, a qualifying element is that activities performed by the civilian participating in hostilities ‘are likely to cause actual harm to the personnel and equipment of the enemy armed forces’ (Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (eds), Commentary APs (n 21) 619, para 1944). However, participants in some recent armed conflicts have pursued non-traditional goals, such as direct attacks on the civilian population on behalf of one party. The interpretation provided by the Commentary could suggest that similar civilians cannot be included in the concept of direct participation, imposing stringent limitations on State responses. However, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, ‘acts which by nature and objective are intended to cause damage to civilians should be added to that

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issues to be resolved are mainly connected with the analysis of activities performed by civilians. It is self-evident that individuals lose their protected status as civilians, if their behaviour can be qualified as ‘direct’ participation. This also implies that injuries caused to such participants cannot be considered ‘collateral damage’.55 Individuals whose behaviour can only be qualified as ‘indirect’ participation will continue to benefit from protection against attacks. However, the main legal challenge is posed by the fact that a proper definition of this concept cannot be found either in legal doctrine or in practice, as military manuals, for instance, tend to restate the rules quoted above without any further explanation.56 As stated by the Commentary: ‘to restrict this concept to combat and to active military operations would be too narrow, while extending it to the entire war effort would be too broad, as in modern warfare the whole population participates in the war effort to some extent, albeit indirectly’,57 a position shared in similar terms by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the ICTY.58 Nevertheless, on the basis of practice and legal doctrine concerning recent armed conflicts, we can identify four main hypotheses regarding the qualification of these activities. Activities Implying ‘Direct’ Participation on the Basis of their ‘Nature’ Firstly, some activities can easily be considered as a direct participation due to their nature, such as offensive or defensive combat actions. In particular, in the case of acts by individuals, are those that materially and directly cause harm to the opposing forces. This first hypothesis was clearly envisioned in the Commentary, according to which there are certain activities that due to their ‘nature’ can be qualified as ‘direct’ participation.59 Those cases, in which the civilian is personally responsible for direct fighting using military weapons, including cases of sabotage, or capturing enemy combatants or weapons and military systems, do not raise

definition’ as it ‘applies also to hostilities against the civilian population of the state’ (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 33). This position has also been maintained in the ICRC’s experts meetings concerning inter-civilian violence carried out ‘specifically in support of the military operations of a party to the conflict’ (See DPH report 2004 (n 7) 4; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 10. See D Kretzmer, ‘Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists: Extra-Judicial Executions or Legitimate Means of Defence?’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 171, 192). 55 Even if the wording of relevant provisions does not specify this additional outcome, it would be improper to include damage against them in the evaluation of the principle of proportionality. In favour of this solution, see Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Third Report on Human Rights Situation in Colombia (26 February 1999) OEA/Ser L/V/II 102, Doc 9 rev 1 para 54; ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 46. 56 See the survey of military manuals in Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck (n 4) 108–10. 57 Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (n 21) 516, para 1679. 58 IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) para 56. Moreover, Prosecutor v Pavle Strugar (n 2) para 175 ‘Conduct amounting to direct or active participation in hostilities is not, however, limited to combat activities as such … At the same time, direct participation in hostilities cannot be held to embrace all activities in support of one party’s military operations or war effort … to hold all activities in support of military operations as amounting to direct participation in hostilities would in practice render the principle of distinction meaningless’. 59 Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (n 21) 516, para 1679.

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particular problems. Such examples are clearly confirmed in military manuals,60 in case law by judicial61 or quasi-judicial bodies,62 and by legal scholars.63 In fact, they can be placed at the extreme end of the spectrum of possible civilian involvement in hostilities, as such civilians become proper fighters. Another sensitive issue, which mainly concerns members of PMCs, is the role of civilians in surveillance activities, such as patrolling or guarding military objects, escorting military convoys,64 and/or surveillance of captured enemy combatants. According to several authors,65 military manuals66 and the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC),67 such activities performed by civilians can be qualified as a direct participation in hostilities per se, a position substantially adhered to by the US Administration.68 However, some authors take a more

60 See, for instance, US Field Manual 27–10, The Law of Land Warfare (Department of the Army, Washington DC, 18 July 1956) www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/27–10/ para 60, ‘Persons who are not members of the armed forces … who bear arms or engage in other conduct hostile to the enemy thereby deprive themselves of many of the privileges attaching to the members of the civilian population’; UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual (n 2) 54 ‘Whether civilians are taking a direct part in hostilities is a question of fact. Civilians manning an anti-aircraft gun or engaging in sabotage of military installations are doing so.’ 61 See ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 34. 62 See IAComHR, Juan Abella v Argentina (n 40) paras 177–78, 189, 328. 63 See L Turner and LG Norton, ‘Civilians at the Tip of the Spear’ (2001) 51 Air Force Law Review 1, 27; APV Rogers, Law on the Battlefield, 2nd edn (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004) 11; J Quéguiner, ‘Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law’ (Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Working Paper, November 2003) www.ihlresearch.org/ihl/pdfs/briefing3297.pdf (last accessed 16 July 2009) 3; JR Heaton, ‘Civilians at War: Reexamining the Status of Civilians Accompanying the Armed Forces’ (2005) 57 Air Force Law Review 155, 177; R Watkin, ‘Controlling the Use of Force: a Role for Human Rights Norms in Contemporary Armed Conflict’ (2004) 98 American Journal of International Law 1, 17; Melzer (n 6) 344. 64 For an overview of these activities involving PMCs, see N Boldt, ‘Outsourcing War. Private Military Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 502, 510. 65 See Quéguiner, ‘Direct Participation’ (n 63) 5; Turner and Norton, ‘Civilians’ (n 63) 28; Schmitt (n 12) 538; Doswald-Beck (n 6) 129. For the guarding of POWs, see DPH report 2005 (n 7) 15–16; Melzer (n 6) 344. 66 See, for instance, US Air Force Pamphlet 110–34, The Commander’s Handbook, 1980, paras 2–8, according to which a lawful object of attack is ‘anyone acting as a guard for military activity’; US Navy, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, 1995, para 11.3 ‘civilians serving as guards . . . may be attacked’. 67 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, Pre-Trial Chamber I) ICC-01/04–01/06 (29 January 2007) paras 261, 263. In analysing the notion of ‘active participation in hostilities’ according to Art 77.2 of AP I (n 3), ie the rule prohibiting the involvement of children in armed conflict, the Chamber affirms that this notion includes the employment of children ‘to guard military objective, such as the military quarters of the various units of the parties to the conflict, or to safeguard the physical safety of military commanders’. However, it could be questioned if Art 77.2 of AP I (n 3), as reproduced in Arts 8.2.b (xxvi), 8.2.e (vii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90 (ICC Statute), can be used in order to assess the possibility to target children involved in an armed conflict. In this case Art 77.2 of AP I is primarily used in determining individual criminal liability for a war crime than to evaluate the possibility to admit direct attacks against these children. 68 See US Department of Defense, Contractor Personnel Authorized to Accompany the US Armed Forces, (Instruction No 3020.41, 3 October 2005) para 6.3.5.2. According to the Instruction, contracts for security services should not be employed to protect proper military objectives, such as ‘US or coalition military supply routes, military facilities, military personnel, or military property’. However, these limitations can be circumvented by an authorisation of the geographic Combat Commander.

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moderate position, arguing that such individuals should not be considered as directly participating in hostilities where they are employed to counter possible lootings and other criminal acts.69 While convincing at a theoretical level, this position presents significant practical problems. In the case of ongoing hostilities, there is the risk that the civilian uses force in order to repel armed action by an opposing party, claiming that his duty was to counter criminal activities. Such individuals should be prevented from performing those acts, or they risk losing their status as protected civilians.70 Furthermore, in some cases a civilian’s activities can be qualified as ‘direct’ participation in hostilities, even where there is no resort to direct physical violence. Possible examples include ‘computer network attacks’, a realistic scenario as several armed forces rely on civilians to process sophisticated computers.71

Activities Constituting ‘Direct Participation’ on the Basis of Qualifying Elements: Involvement in Tactical Operations or Proximity to the Theatre of Operations The most controversial hypothesis concerns cases in which the individual, without materially producing harm to the opposing forces himself, is simply integrated in a complex military operation that aims to cause harm to the enemy.72 In these cases, it is necessary to evaluate the kind of contribution the civilian provides in terms of the resulting harm, and the causal link existing between them; the fact that such activities might traditionally be performed by members of armed forces cannot be the decisive factor.73 Several ideas have been put forward in regard to this problem. As already emphasised by the Commentary on the APs, a possible solution would be to ascertain ‘a sufficient causal relationship between the act of participation and its immediate consequences’,74 a position supported by the Inter-American Commission on Human

69 Rogers, Law on the Battlefield (n 63) 11–12. The author correctly assumes that ‘protection would only be lost if the civilian guards tried by force to prevent attacks on, or attempts to capture, the military installation by members of the opposing armed forces’; Schmitt, (n 12) 538–39. 70 McDonald (n 17) 384. 71 For references regarding the use of contractors in providing services in information related fields, see Heaton, ‘Civilians at War’ (n 63) 190–91. For the qualification of these activities as direct participation in hostilities, see L Doswald-Beck, ‘Some Thoughts on Computer Network Attack and the International Law of Armed Conflict’ in MN Schmitt and B O’Donnel (eds), Computer Network Attack and International Law (Newport, Naval War College, 2002) 172; Quéguiner (n 63) 5–6; DPH report 2003 (n 7) para II; Schmitt (n 12) 542. 72 IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) para 54, note 38 ‘a civilian directly participates in hostilities when he is carrying or actually makes use of his weapon, as well as in situations in which he undertakes hostile acts without using a weapon’. 73 There could be conducts which, although traditionally having been performed by members of armed forces, do not necessarily imply that once carried out by a civilian he will be directly involved in hostilities. The classical hypothesis is provided by cooking, which cannot in any way be qualified as active participation in hostilities once performed by a civilian instead of military personnel. 74 Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (n 21) 1453, para 4787.

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Rights.75 Furthermore, during meetings convened by the ICRC, several tests have been proposed, such as the necessity to demonstrate a ‘sufficiently close’, ‘uninterrupted’ and ‘more than just remote’ causal link between the contributing act and the resulting harm.76 However, the difficulties in reaching a common agreement on this question were evident during the debates. Moreover, it should be emphasised that any test must be such that the operators, who are mainly combatants on the ground, are able to put it into practice. It is very challenging to define a theoretical standard. Comparable to other areas of international law, such as the evaluation of damages caused by wrongful acts, international organs and scholars have proposed criteria such as ‘directness’ or ‘proximity’, to distinguish pertinent situations from remote ones. However, these criteria have proved to be difficult to operate due to their abstract nature.77 Consequently, other approaches developed in legal doctrine seem more appropriate. Some scholars, such as Schmitt, favour a distinction according to the ‘level of war’ at which the contribution of the civilian can be located.78 Once the contribution effectively causes subsequent harm to the opposing forces at a tactical level,79 this activity is qualified as ‘direct’ participation. In this case, the integration of the civilian in the tactical combat operations provides an indispensable contribution to the direct infliction of violence80 and has an ‘immediate impact’ on the opposing forces.81 Other analyses conducted by eminent experts in this area, such as Melzer, seem to support this approach.82 If we uphold this approach, we can consider as examples of ‘direct’ participation cases in which the civilian gathers intelligence, such as look-out duties to identify military targets for subsequent operations, even through remotely controlled military systems. It would be inappropriate to conclude that their activity is an 75 IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) para 53. According to the Commission a ‘direct causal relationship between the activity engaged in and harm done to the enemy at the time and place where the activity takes place’ must be ascertained. 76 DPH report 2005 (n 7) 22, 30, 34 et seq. 77 G Arangio-Ruiz, Second Report on State Responsibility (9 June 1989) [1989] YILC II Part I 12–15; ILC, Commentaries to the Draft Articles on Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001) UN Doc A/56/10 227–228. 78 Schmitt (n 12) 534. On the possibility to distinguish activities performed by civilians on the basis of their involvement at the strategic, operational or tactical level of war, see examples provided ibid, 542–43. 79 For a definition of the ‘tactical level of war’, see US Department of Defense, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (as amended 17 October 2007) Joint Publication 1–02 ‘The level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and executed to achieve military objectives assigned to tactical units or task forces’. 80 ME Guillory, ‘Civilianizing the Force: Is the United States Crossing the Rubicon? Role of Civilians under the Laws of Armed Conflict’ (2001) 51 Air Force Law Review 111, 134; Heaton (n 63) 177–80. 81 M Sassòli, ‘Targeting: The Scope and Utility of the Concept of “Military objectives” for the Protection of Civilians in Contemporary Armed Conflicts’, in New Wars, New Laws? Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (New York, Transnational Publishers, 2005) 201 ‘What counts is the immediate impact on the enemy’; Quéguiner (n 63) 3 ‘the behaviour of the civilian must constitute a direct and immediate threat to the adversary’. 82 Melzer (n 6) 341–46. The examples provided by the author to qualify activities performed by civilians within an integrated military operation as direct participation in hostilities are based on the assumption that this determination is possible when the civilian is involved in actions implying his role in a ‘concrete hostile act’, ‘tactical’ activities, a ‘concrete attack’, etc.

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‘indirect’ participation, on the basis of the assumption that material harm would eventually be done later by military personnel.83 This solution is confirmed in military manuals84 and has been accepted by the Israeli Supreme Court85 and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.86 Nevertheless, we can record improper employments of civilians in these activities during past conflicts.87 Another question concerns attacks on the enemy’s political leadership; a possibility that has increased due both to technological developments and military doctrines favouring ‘effect-based operations’.88 Some situations do not create particular legal problems: when a political leader is identified as commander-inchief of the army and fulfils a real military role, he can be considered a lawful target, such as in the case of Saddam Hussein.89 Major legal problems arise when these individuals do not hold a military position during armed conflicts. In such cases the significant element is the ability to influence the conduct of tactical military actions, even if through the exercise of a veto on planned attacks, as recently confirmed by the Israeli Supreme Court.90 On the other hand, when the concerned individual only has influence at the strategic level91 by determining political alliances or the general objectives of the conflict, without any relevance for the tactical acts, it is hard to state that he is directly participating in hostilities.92

83 See WH Parks, ‘Air War and the Law of War’ (1990) 32 Air Force Law Review 116; Boldt, ‘Outsourcing War’ (n 64) 522; Dinstein, The Conduct (n 6) 27; K Watkin, ‘Canada/United States Military Interoperability and Humanitarian Law Issues: Land Mines, Terrorism, Military Objective and Targeted Killings’ (2005) 15 Duke Journal Comparative and International Law 281, 313; Heaton (n 63) 177; McDonald (n 17) 384; Gasser, ‘Protection’ (n 2) 262; Melzer (n 6) 342. 84 See US Air Force, The Commander’s Handbook (n 66) para 2–8, according to which ‘Civilians who collect intelligence information, or otherwise act as part of the enemy’s military intelligence network, are lawful objects of attack. Members of a civilian ground observer corps who report the approach of hostile aircraft would also be taking a direct part in hostilities’; US Navy, The Commander’s Handbook (n 66) para 11.3. 85 See ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35. 86 According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Third Report (n 55) para 323), members of the Convivir groups, a self-defence rural unit, were held to have lost their protection as they were constantly engaged in providing tactical intelligence on behalf of the Colombian Armed Forces in view of subsequent military operations against insurgents. 87 This is the case of the US employment of civilians to operate ‘Predator’ drones during the Afghan conflict, as the vehicles were still under development and the US Air Force had no trained service personnel (see US General Accounting Office, Contractors (n 9) 8). The employment of civilians for intelligence activities such as observation of the enemy’s movements in order to report them to their party was experienced by Western states during operations in Somalia (see US, Counterinsurgency Operations, US FMI 3–07.22, Section 4–56; DPH report 2004 (n 7) 5). 88 According to this approach, the effect of defeating the enemy can be achieved by rendering its armed forces’ combatants ineffective through disruption of command and control rather than engaging in battle confrontations. See for instance US Joint Chief of Staff, Joint Doctrine for Targeting, (17 February 2002) Joint Publication 3–60, I-4. 89 On these attacks, see G Bartolini ‘Air Operations against Iraq (1991 and 2003)’ in N Ronzitti and G Venturini (eds), The Law of Air Warfare. Contemporary Issues (Utrecht, Eleven International Publishing, 2006) 248–49. 90 See ‘Targeted Killings’ (n 33) para 37, ‘Those who have sent him, as well, take “a direct part”. The same goes for the person who decided upon the act, and the person who planned it.’ 91 That could be for instance the position held by the Italian President of the Republic. 92 See Boldt (n 64) 522; Watkin, ‘Humans in the Cross-Hairs’ (n 12) 163–164; DPH report 2004 (n 7) 8–9; Schmitt (n 12) 542–543; Melzer (n 6) 345.

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Similarly, acts carried out by ‘advisers’ in regard to military matters can only be considered as direct participation when they are involved in planning and executing tactical operations.93. Nevertheless, this is not the only standard for complex military operations. Practice emphasises that even geographical factors can be relevant, such as the proximity of the activities performed by the civilian to the theatre of operations. This element is mainly used to assess two kinds of activities in the battlefield, namely the employment of civilians to upgrade, provide support to and repair military weapons systems, and their use to drive military vehicles to transport military personnel or weapons to the front line. From a military point of view, these contributions are not relevant at a ‘tactical’ level of war as formally qualified, but are better characterised as furthering the ‘operational’ level of war, which refers to ‘logistic … support of tactical forces, and provid[ing] the means by which tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic objectives.’94 It should be noted that these activities involve a large amount of civilians and that their participation is even considered as part of the contractual obligations of the industry providing the military systems.95 According to the vast majority of statements from practice96 and academia,97 if these activities are carried out in the theatre of operations, it implies direct participation. This approach, consequently, emphasises that the supported military acts will be conducted in the near future, in close geographical proximity to the area of operation of the civilian, through systems provided or improved by the civilian involved, or permitting the supported forces to conduct harmful activities that could not otherwise be performed. These situations are hardly comparable to those in which only general and undefined support is provided, namely when 93 See, for instance, Schmitt (n 6) 545; Gasser (n 2) 239; Melzer (n 6) 342, regarding ‘the instruction and assistance given to troops with regard to the execution of a concrete military operation’. For instance there are allegations that a tactical role has been played by some PMCs, such as Vinnel Corporation or MPRI, during the first Gulf War and operations in Croatia in 1995 (see Heaton (n 63) 189; UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Private Military Companies: Options for Regulations (12 February 2002) HC 577, 13; D Kassebaum, ‘The Legal Use of Private Security Firms in Bosnia’ (2000) 38 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 581; Doswald-Beck (n 6) 122–23). 94 The US Department of Defense, Dictionary (n 80) further explains that operational level of war is that one ‘at which campaigns and major operations are planned, conducted, and sustained to accomplish strategic objectives within theatres or other operational areas’. 95 The US have developed the so-called ‘habitual relationship’ doctrine, according to which involved firms shall guarantee, through contractors, weapons system support ‘from the factory to the foxhole’. See Boldt (n 64) 507; ME Guillory, ‘Civilianizing’ (n 80) 125. This use is mainly due to technological difficulties with new weapons systems. During the 1991 Gulf War provided maintenance support for the M1 and M2 tanks, OH-58 helicopters and Patriot missile systems (M Nelson, ‘Contractors on the Battlefield: Force Multipliers or Force Dividers?’ (US Air Command and Staff College Paper, 2000) 12). Similar duties have been performed in the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts (US General Accounting Office, Contractors (n 9) 7, 18). 96 See ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35. See UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Private Military Companies (n 93) 8: ‘The distinction between combatant and non-combatant operations is often artificial. The people who fly soldiers and equipment to the battlefield are as much a part of the military operations as those who do the shooting. At one remove the same applies to those who help with maintenance, training, intelligence, planning and organisation’. 97 See Parks, ‘Air War’ (n 83) 132; Turner and Norton (n 63) 26–32; Guillory (n 80) 128; Boldt (n 64) 522; Watkin, ‘Canada/United States’ (n 83) 313; Heaton (n 63) 177; Schmitt (n 12) 544–45; McDonald (n 17) 385; Melzer (n 6) 342, 344.

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similar activities are carried out at home. However, this conclusion has been criticised by those who consider these activities too vague to create a link to the subsequent harm. Some scholars have underlined that similar activities have been qualified as not constituting ‘direct’ participation when not performed at the front line, and have highlighted the theoretical character of this issue.98 This position was recently supported by the US Administration,99 thus challenging the trend of previous interpretations provided in military manuals.100

Activities not Implying ‘Direct Participation in Hostilities’ At the other end of the spectrum there are activities which do not qualify as ‘direct’ participation. In fact, even if it would be wrong to assume that these activities are totally ‘neutral’ in relation to the ongoing conflict, as they benefit one party, the concerned civilian support generally contributes only to the overall war effort, or to non-defined military operations. This could be the case for situations examined so far, in which the above-mentioned ‘qualifying’ elements are lacking and for activities whose link with the subsequent harm to the opposing forces is remote. A first category of examples of relevant activities is probably those performed by ‘persons who accompany the force’. As emphasised earlier, it has been consistently maintained that such individuals cannot be the object of direct attack,101 implying that these activities do not qualify as a ‘direct’ participation.102 Several activities examined so far can be included in this category as well, namely conduct in which the ‘qualifying’ elements referred to above are lacking. This could be the case with regard to political leaders entrusted only with strategic duties, civilians involved only in strategic intelligence analysis,103 civilians providing general military training without participating in tactical operations,104 etc. Similarly, civilian drivers of military vehicles and civilians required to maintain and upgrade military weapons systems are usually excluded from the notion of ‘direct’ participation, at least as long as they do not act at the theatre of operation. 98 In fact these individuals can nevertheless suffer losses due to their proximity to legitimate military objectives (see criticism by Rogers (n 63) 10–11). 99 See US Department of Defense Instruction No 3020.41 (n 68) para 6.1.1, which characterises ‘transporting munitions … performing maintenance functions for military equipment’ as an ‘indirect participation in military operations’. 100 See the exhaustive analysis of these documents provided by Turner and Norton (n 63) 30–31. As an example of this position in military manuals, see US Navy, The Commander’s Handbook (n 66) para 11.3, ‘Civilians providing … logistic support to military operations are subject to attack while so engaged’. 101 For references, see above para 2. The provision refers to civilians working as war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces. 102 For instance, the Israeli Supreme Court has qualified ‘logistical, general support’ as ‘indirect participation’ (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35). 103 An example is provided by civilian intelligence analysts working for the Italian Military Centre for Strategic Studies. See also Schmitt (n 12) 544. According to the Israeli Supreme Court, ‘a person who aids the unlawful combatants by general strategic analysis’ is not taking a direct part in hostilities (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) paras 34–35). 104 See Boldt (n 64) 522, Quéguiner (n 63) 7.

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Various other activities do not involve direct participation in hostilities, such as financial support,105 propaganda activities,106 welfare services (eg working in canteens or other structures providing food, clothing107 or medicine),108 reconstruction activities,109 recruitment,110 or refusals to collaborate in countering enemy actions.111 Similarly, civilians working in weapons factories should not be considered as direct participants in hostilities.112 Likewise, the withdrawal of protection for civilians specialised in military research activities is usually rejected.113 These activities are clearly linked to the ‘operational’ level of war114 and it would be highly questionable to attribute military status to civilian scientists working on military plans for either belligerent while separating their role from other sensitive functions.115 Furthermore, attacks could be performed long before the concrete development or use of new weapons, a situation that illustrates the general support role provided by these scientists not linked with tactical operations.

‘For Such Time’: The Temporal Extension of Loss of Protection for Civilians Directly Participating in Hostilities Another significant legal issue concerns the temporal extent of the direct participation in hostilities, ie the period of time during which the civilian could lawfully be attacked. Relevant provisions state that the civilian loses his/her protected status

105 See ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35; Rogers (n 63) 11; Watkin (n 83) 313; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 14–15. 106 See IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) 53; ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35. Among scholars: Watkin (n 83) 313; H Duffy, The ‘War on Terror’ and the Framework of International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005) 230. 107 See ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 34. 108 See IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) para 53; ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 35; Dinstein (n 6) 28; Rogers (n 63) 11. 109 See Schmitt (n 12) 545–546. 110 DPH report 2004 (n 7) 10. The Israeli Supreme Court qualified ‘enlistment’ as a direct participation (‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 33). However, the Court expressly deals with enlistment activities carried out with the aim of producing a specific harmful action on the opposing party, such as suicide bombers. The presence of a tactical element seems to modify the scenario. 111 See IAComHR, Third Report (n 55) para 56, ‘failing to act to prevent an incursion by one of the armed parties, does not involve acts of violence which pose an immediate threat of actual harm to the adverse party’. 112 Before World War II, these individuals were even considered as belonging to the obscure category of ‘quasi-combatants’ (see for this term JM Spaight, ‘Non combatants and Air Attack’ (1938) 9 Air Law Review 372, 375). This doctrine has been definitively rejected in more recent times: F Kalshoven, The Law of Warfare. A Summary of its Recent History and Trends in Development (Leiden/Geneva, AW Sijthoff/Henri Dunant Institute, 1973) 38–39; Gasser (n 2) 262; Rogers (n 63) 11; DPH report 2003 (n 7) para I; Melzer (n 6) 342. 113 See Parks (n 83) 131. 114 These individuals are providing ‘the means by which tactical successes are exploited to achieve strategic objectives’ (see US Department of Defense, Dictionary (n 79)). 115 See, for instance, Sassòli, ‘Targeting’ (n 81) 202, ‘it would be very difficult to draw a line. Why should, for example, international law professors who justify the legitimacy of a war (or violations of IHL) be less legitimate targets than foreign ministry officials or TV speakers?’

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‘for such time’ as he/she carries out these activities.116 These provisions, therefore, seem to maintain that once the individual is no longer carrying out these activities, he regains protection.117 According to this line of reasoning, the civilian could only be legitimately attacked during the performance of these activities and not in other situations. As a slight corrective, it would also be possible to attack the civilian during the preparatory operations before deployment or for the limited period of time in which he is returning from the activities.118 However, it is difficult to accept this so-called ‘specific acts approach’,119 because it risks encouraging the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon.120 As was explained before, there are examples in which civilians not only perform activities that qualify as direct participation, but also have a structural relationship with one party to the conflict; these civilians take on a permanent role constituting direct participation.121 In these cases, it would be difficult to argue that these individuals are only legitimate targets in case of compliance with the ‘specific acts approach’, because ‘adopting a policy where a state would have to wait while the next attack is being planned or organised could erode rather than strengthen the credibility of humanitarian law.’122

116 See Common Art 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (n 3); Art 51.3 of AP I (n 3); Art 13.3 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II) (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 609 (AP II). 117 On this issue, see in particular the debates in DPH report 2004 (n 7) 20–23; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 60–67; Melzer (n 6) 346–53. 118 For an analysis of this term, see Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (n 21) 618 para 1943; Quéguiner (n 63) 3–4; DPH report 2003 (n 7) para III; DPH Report 2005 (n 7) 65–66. See moreover A Cassese, ‘Expert Opinion on Whether Israel’s Targeted Killings of Palestinian Terrorists is Consonant with International Humanitarian Law’ (2004) www.stoptorture.org.il/files/cassese.pdf (last accessed 17 July 2009) 7–8, released on behalf of the plaintiffs in the ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) ‘A civilian who, after carrying out military operations, is in his house or is going to a private home or to a market may not be the object of attack … Similarly, a civilian suspected of directly preparing an attack, or somehow participating in the planning and preparation of an attack or a hostile act, may not be attacked and killed if: (1) he is not operating within a legitimate military objective … or (2) he is not carrying out arms openly while in the process of engaging in a military operation or in an action preceding a military operation’. Similarly, Amnesty International, Israel and the Occupied Territories: State Assassinations and Other Unlawful Killings, (London, Amnesty International, 2001) 29. 119 For this term and its evaluation, see Melzer (n 6) 347–48. 120 This term characterises the continual and indefinite passing between phases in which we should recognise protection to the civilian involved in hostilities and moments during which he loses his protection from direct attacks. Against this approach, Parks (n 83) 118; Dinstein (n 6) 28. 121 This would be the case, for instance, of civilians with high-level qualifications supporting a party to the conflict in the manoeuvre of high-tech weapons systems in tactical operations, or in the acquisition of tactical intelligence on the basis of a contract or, similarly, in guarding activities carried out by members of PMCs. A similar problem would be raised in case members of organised armed groups in non-international armed conflicts were qualified as civilians taking an active role in the conflict instead of recurring to the notion of ‘fighters’. 122 Watkin (n 83) 312. Moreover, if one does not accept to qualify ‘fighting members’ of organised armed groups in non-international armed conflicts as ‘fighters’ it could create an unbalance in comparison to the possibilities to target members of governmental armed forces. The legitimacy of attacks against the latter is based on their status, rather than on concrete actions (see Kleffner (n 13) 332–33).

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Moreover, the relevant provisions, such as common Article 3 of the GCs123 and the Commentary of the APs,124 are not fully in agreement with this approach. During the Diplomatic Conference on the APs, state proposals that allowed attacks against civilians who are taking a direct part in hostilities only ‘on the spot’ were rejected.125 Similarly, international case law does not support such a position. For instance, in support of the ‘specific acts approach’, reference is sometimes made to the La Tablada case, in which the Inter-American Commission stated that insurgents in the specific non-international armed conflict ‘were legitimate military targets only for such time as they actively participated in the fighting.’126 However, the Commission used the expression ‘for such time’ to rightly condemn attacks against insurgents who are hors de combat, and not for endorsing a limited interpretation of the term.127 On the contrary, in other circumstances, the InterAmerican Commission has clearly rejected the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon.128 Another example is the Strugar case, which concerned a shrapnel attack against an off-duty driver for the Dubrovnik Municipal Crisis Staff who was charged with driving local and foreign officials in the city, including in war-related situations. However, the ICTY concluded that the driver was a civilian entitled to protection against direct attacks, as it was impossible to establish a link between the individual’s activities ‘at the time of the offence [he was injured close to his home on the way to work] and any possible participation of the Dubrovnik Municipal Crisis Staff, municipal officials and officials of the Republic of Croatia in acts of

123 For instance, Common Art 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions provides protection against attacks for ‘members of armed forces who have laid down their arms’, suggesting that as long as they assume this combat role in a continual manner they should not benefit from protection against direct attacks. According to Rogers (n 63) 11, a civilian forfeits his protection when he becomes a ‘member of a guerrilla group or armed faction involved in attacks’. 124 According to the Commentary, ‘It is only during such participation that a civilian loses his immunity and becomes a legitimate target. Once he ceases to participate, the civilian regains his right to the protection’ (Sandoz, Swinarski and Zimmermann (n 21) 619 para 1944). In fact, this text does not strictly assume that the loss of protection is temporarily limited to the time of the action characterised as direct participation itself. The Commentary refers generically to ‘participation’ which, apart from single acts, can also characterise the civilian’s ‘attitude’, such as his willingness to persist in actions that qualify as direct participation on behalf of a party. 125 See, in particular, Actes de la conférence diplomatique sur la réaffirmation et le développement du droit international humanitaire applicable dans les conflits armés (Genève, 1974–1977), Vol III (Berne, Département politique fédéral, 1977) 206, amendment proposed by Romania (CDDH/III/10) regarding draft Art 46.2 (current Art 51.3) ‘Jamais et dans aucune circonstance, la population civile en général et les personnes civiles prises isolément, qui ne participent pas directement et immédiatement aux hostilités, ne seront de quelque manière que ce soit l’objet d’attaques’. 126 IAComHR, Juan Abella v Argentina (n 40) 708, para 189. 127 In this case the Inter-American Commission was dealing with armed fighting between Argentine military forces and a group of ‘armed persons’ located at La Tablada barracks, a situation qualified as a non-international armed conflict (IAComHR, Juan Abella v Argentina (n 40) 708, para 189). The Commission rightly emphasises: ‘Those who surrendered were captured or wounded and ceased their hostile acts … could no longer lawfully attack or subject them to other acts of violence’. 128 See, Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights, (22 October 2002) OEA/Ser L/V/II.116, para 69, ‘It is possible in this connection, however, that once a person qualifies as a combatant, whether regular or irregular, privileged or unprivileged, he or she cannot on demand revert back to civilian status or otherwise alternate between combatant and civilian status’; IAComHR, Third report (n 55) para 61, regarding members of paramilitary groups underlines ‘Nor does humanitarian law recognize the right of any person to alternate at will or on demand between civilian and combatant status’.

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war.’129 In my opinion, it is difficult to argue that this statement favours the ‘specific acts approach’. An analysis of the judgment highlights that in the weeks preceding the event, the individual was in charge of driving the Presidents of the Executive Council of Dubrovnik and the Municipal Crisis Staff, ie persons who did not actively participate in hostilities.130 Consequently, this judgment does not endorse the ‘revolving door phenomenon’, because there was no evidence that the victim was directly participating in hostilities while performing official duties. Therefore, it is preferable to choose intermediary solutions enabling the use of a pragmatic balance between different cases, as supported by recent case law131 and scholars.132 The ‘specific acts approach’ could be applied in regard to a civilian who carries out a sporadic or isolated act of ‘direct participation’, such as a franc-tireur. Here, attacks are only legitimate if they are performed during the limited period of time that the civilian was actively engaged in this sporadic harmful activity. However, this solution does not grant absolute immunity to the civilian; he can, nevertheless, face criminal prosecution, because of his participation in the armed confrontation. On the other hand, if a civilian is directly participating in hostilities in a permanent and continual manner, the temporary inactivity of the civilian should be interpreted only as a temporary break in view of future and certain acts against the opposing forces; hence, direct attacks against such a civilian are permitted at any time, without any temporal interruptions.133 However, two requirements need to be fulfilled to reach this conclusion: the civilian has a continual link with one party to the conflict and his/her activities qualify as ‘direct’ participation.134 Therefore, the mere affiliation with one party is not sufficient.135 Moreover, the term ‘for such time’ seems to emphasise the possibility of regaining the protected status of a civilian, and hence protection from direct attacks, if the individual definitively ceases to perform such activities. Some authors argue that it is necessary that a formal act of some kind is communicated to the opposing forces

129 Prosecutor v Pavle Strugar (n 2) 71 para 184. The Appeals Chamber has therefore confirmed that Mr Valjalo was the victim of cruel treatment as a violation of the laws of war under Art 3 of the ICTY Statute. 130 ibid, para 182. 131 ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) paras 38–40. 132 See the analysis provided by Melzer (n 6) 346–353. 133 See Parks (n 83) 118; L Moir, The Law of Internal Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002) 59; Watkin (n 12) 154–57; Dinstein (n 6) 29; Schmitt (n 12) 535–36; McDonald (n 17) 385; Kretzmer, ‘Targeted Killing’ (n 54) 193. 134 See Schmitt (n 12) 536; Watkin (n 83) 313; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 49–51, 83; T Ruys, ‘License to Kill? State-Sponsored Assassination under International Law’ (2005) 44 Revue de Droit Militaire et de Droit de la Guerre 13; Kleffner (n 13) 333–34; Melzer (n 6) 352. 135 During the meetings organised by the ICRC, it was affirmed that the so-called ‘membership approach’ can determine loss of protection for any individual belonging to an organised armed group, without questioning the different roles they may play in it. See DPH report 2004 (n 7) 20–23; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 63–65.

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for these purposes.136 Other authors maintain that only the concrete behaviour of the individual, indicating that he has effectively disengaged from his previous role, can be considered relevant. However, it seems theoretical to expect from a civilian any formal acts in that regard. Furthermore, while ‘direct’ participation should not be considered a war crime per se,137 the civilian may face criminal proceedings, because he or she is not legally entitled to take part in hostilities. The civilian could therefore face criminal proceedings by the opposing state138 or by his own state.139 Obviously, requiring a formal act would probably eliminate the most grievous consequence, namely the loss of the protected status as a civilian. Yet, by doing so, the civilian must accept responsibility for his previous acts in regard to the opposing state.140 Moreover, the parties should also agree on rules and modalities necessary to complete such a formal act.141 Consequently, in practical terms, it seems more likely that the individual may regain protection by disengaging concretely and materially from his previous role, ie by abandoning activities previously performed and by detaching himself from the party to the conflict he supported previously.142

136 Watkin (n 83) 167 ‘Evidence of a civilian no longer acting like a combatant could include surrender, taking a form of parole, giving up weapons, and similar overt credible acts’. See also DPH report 2005 (n 7) 62. 137 Direct participation does not imply the international criminal responsibility of the individual. See IAComHR, Report on Terrorism (n 128) 69 ‘Mere combatancy by such persons is not tantamount to a violation of the laws and customs of war, although their specific hostile acts may qualify as such’; Quéguiner (n 63) 10–11; Gasser (n 2) 261; APV Rogers, ‘Combatant Status’ in E Wilmshurst and S Breau (eds), Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007) 119–123. 138 This is the case for international armed conflict. See for instance Canadian National Defense Joint Doctrine Manual, Law of Armed Conflict at the Operational and Tactical Level (2001) B-GJ-005–104/ FP-021 www.cfd-cdf.forces.gc.ca/sites/page-eng.asp?page=3481 para 318 ‘If captured, civilians who take a direct part in hostilities are not entitled to POW status …. They may also be punished as unlawful combatants’. See, moreover, C Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés, (Paris, Pedone, 1983) 68; Turner and Norton (n 63) 32; E David, Principes de droit des conflits armés, 3rd edn (Brussels, Bruylant, 2002) 417; Dinstein (n 6) 30–31; Schmitt (n 12) 520; K Ipsen, ‘Combatants and Non-Combatants’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 83. 139 This hypothesis refers to non-international armed conflicts. See IAComHR, Report on Terrorism (n 128) para 70 ‘Such governments therefore are free to prosecute all captured dissidents for sedition and their other violent acts’; Canadian Joint Doctrine Manual, Law of Armed Conflict (n 138) para 1706; Gasser (n 2) 263. 140 On this issue, see the debates in DPH report 2005 (n 7) 63–64. 141 This is the case for the determination of entities responsible for informing the opposing party, in the abstract identified as the ICRC or the Protecting Powers, the moment from which the individual will regain protection, the possibilities for the opposing party to contest such a statement, etc. 142 See DPH report 2005 (n 7) 59–62; Schmitt (n 12) 535–536. Obviously this approach will involve some grey areas. Especially to evaluate potential penal proceedings against military personnel responsible for wrongful attacks, the fact that these individuals were responsible for this risk, as they previously voluntarily performed acts that exposed them to the threat of direct attacks, should not be underestimated.

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Precautions to be Adopted when Determining the Disengagement from Direct Participation However, if one criticises the ‘specific acts approach’, the parallel legal issue, ie the determination of disengagement from ‘direct’ participation, will likely pose several problems as well. This determination may be an easier task for enemy armed forces mainly in cases in which it is evident that battlefield actions are carried out by civilians, such as the actual use of weapons by civilians guarding military objectives; these activities clearly manifest the civilian’s intent to participate directly in hostilities. Nevertheless, there may be uncertainties even in supposedly clear situations, for example in regard to a civilian who openly carries arms, but has not yet carried out hostile acts. In fact, there are situations in which armed groups are known to disregard the special protection of the civilian population, hence, in which civilians can possess and carry arms openly, solely for purposes of self-defence. In those cases, civilians will not automatically lose their protected status,143 but the problems faced by combatants are self-evident. Also, national statutes or manuals, which foresee the possibility of authorising the use of military uniforms or the possession of firearms by civilian contractors in the battlefield, can pose problems.144 In those cases, stricter prohibitions, as already included in some military manuals, are preferable.145 On the other hand, in many cases the decision to attack a civilian is not a spontaneous one, but the result of an evaluation process carried out at the planning level and based on information concerning the civilian’s link to the opposed party and his performed activities. Under these circumstances, the legality of the planned operation depends largely on the reliability of the information network and the evaluation process available to the concerned party, as emphasised by the Israeli Supreme Court.146

143 See Quéguiner (n 63) 4; Rogers (n 13) 20; Watkin (n 12) 160; WJ Fenrick, ‘The Prosecution of Unlawful Attack Cases before the ICTY’ (2006) 7.2004 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 153, 173; DPH report 2005 (n 7) 12; Melzer (n 6) 343. 144 According to the US Department of Defense Instruction 3020.41 (n 68) para 6.2.7.7, the ‘Combatant Commanders may authorize certain contingency contractor personnel to wear standard uniform items for operational reasons’ even if these individuals are requested to employ ‘distinctive patches, arm bands, nametags, or headgear’ to distinguish from military personnel. Similarly, these individuals could be armed both for self-defence purposes (ibid, para 6.3.4.1) and even, as ascertained above, be employed in security functions regarding military objectives. 145 UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual (n 2) 40 ‘Civilians who are authorized to accompany the armed forces in the field … should not wear military uniform’. 146 According to the Court, attacks on civilians taking a direct part in hostilities should be based on accurate information concerning their identity and the activities they carry out, provided that there is also an ex post independent investigative process to evaluate this accuracy (see ‘Targeted Killings’ judgment (n 33) para 40). For a positive evaluation, see A Cassese, ‘On Some Merits of the Israeli Judgments on Targeted Killings’ (2007) 5 Journal of International Criminal Justice 339, 340–41, contra Milanovic, ‘Lessons’ (n 33) 390. On ‘procedural’ requirements in targeted killings, see University Centre for International Humanitarian Law (UCIHL), ‘Report’ (n 22) Section E.5 and L Doswald-Beck, ‘The Right to Life in Armed Conflict: Does International Humanitarian Law Provide all the Answer?’ (2006) 88 International Review of the Red Cross 881, 897–98.

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However, such an assessment is only possible in a limited number of situations, for example in regard to activities carried out by enemy political leaders.147 On the other hand, the difficulty in assessing the role of civilians, means that a party can rely extensively on these individuals for activities that can be qualified as ‘direct’ participation, while remaining confident that these civilians would not face any negative consequences for their activities, thus creating an unfair advantage for those using civilians. Clear examples in this regard are civilians who process drones engaged in tactical activities. The possibility of countering these civilians is low, because the opposing forces needs to know the identity and functions performed by these individuals and to use modern technological means necessary to attack. Furthermore, the possibility for criminal prosecution of these civilians is largely theoretical, because capturing them is almost impossible as they normally act from their home state. In any case, even if a civilian can be considered as participating directly in hostilities, other rules can limit armed actions against him, such as the ‘prohibitive effect’ of the principle of military necessity.148 Moreover, in the framework of occupation, the occupying power may face stricter limits for the use of lethal force, as the possibility of criminal prosecution should be scrutinised before conducting an armed attack, because of the control exercised over the territory.149

CONCLUSION

The present trend towards the ‘civilianisation’ of armed conflicts requires a better definition of the term ‘direct participation in hostilities’. Clear guidelines are necessary to avoid interpretation efforts by persons applying them,150 because they will, in most cases, act automatically, spontaneously and in line with precise guidelines already assimilated through training, and self-interpretation by the parties, which can obviously jeopardise the system of protection. 147 Another possibility would be the presence of prolonged armed confrontations between the parties, as in the case of the targeted killings conducted by the Israeli armed forces against armed Palestinian actors. 148 Attacks should be evaluated not only in the light of express provisions of IHL but also according to an assessment of their reasonable necessity to defeat the enemy, with the result of favouring military options that are expected to cause the lesser harm. See ‘Targeted Killing’ judgment (n 33) para 40 ‘if a terrorist taking a direct part in hostilities can be arrested, interrogated, and tried, those are the means which should be employed’. See, moreover J Pictet, Development and Principles of International Humanitarian Law (Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1985) 75; G Venturini, Necessità e proporzionalità nell’uso della forza militare in diritto internazionale (Milano, Giuffrè, 1988) 127–31; R Kolb, ‘La nécessité militaire dans le droit des conflits armés. Essai de clarification conceptuelle’ in Société française pour le droit international (ed), La nécessité en droit international (Paris, Pedone, 2007) 164–66; Melzer (n 6) 286–89. For an opposite view, see Dinstein (n 6) 145. 149 M Sassòli, ‘Legislation and Maintenance of Public Order and Civil Life by Occupying Powers’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 661, 665–66. ‘Targeted Killing’ judgment (n 33) para 40 maintains that capture ‘might actually be particularly practical under the conditions of belligerent occupation, in which the army controls the area in which the operation takes place, and in which arrest, investigation, and trial are at times realizable possibilities’. 150 See, for instance, the detailed and exhaustive rules present in GC III (n 10) or rules regarding occupation in Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 287 (GC IV).

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From a long-term perspective, the trend of involving civilians in the direct conduct of hostilities, caused by the ‘civilianisation’ of the army and the promiscuous roles performed by these subjects, could endanger guarantees for the protection of the ‘peaceful’ civilian or for civilians who simply participate ‘indirectly’; thus, blurring the principle of distinction. Additionally, the current problems, and loopholes, enable parties to rely heavily on these ‘surrogate warriors’, because these individuals are unlikely to suffer any negative consequence for their activities, despite being direct participants. However, at the same time, there is the risk that these civilians are not fully aware of possible negative consequences for them.151 Proposed solutions, for example the creation of new procedures which would change the status of those civilians to that of a combatant once they become involved in an armed conflict, seem highly theoretical.152 In the meantime, few choices are available to states. Therefore, they should restrict these activities to military personnel or to reserve forces.153 However, it is first necessary to properly define the concept of ‘direct participation’ of civilians in hostilities in concrete terms. Consequently, even if uncertainties should persist in any classification, the publication of the final outcome of the invaluable studies performed by experts under the auspices of the ICRC and the TMC Asser Institute will certainly provide an authoritative evaluation of this sensitive issue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books E David, Principes de droit des conflits armés, 3rd edn (Brussels, Bruylant, 2002). Y Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004). H Duffy, The ‘War on Terror’ and the Framework of International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005). J Henckaerts and L Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Volume I (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005).

151 See the position held by CJ Dunlap, ‘Technology and War. Moral Dilemmas on the Battlefield’ in AF Lang, AC Pierce and JH Rosenthal (eds), Ethics and the Future of Conflict. Lessons from the 1990s (New York, Pearson, 2004) 132–33. According to Dunlap, ‘it is very doubtful that many of these “surrogate warriors” are cognizant of their new status or comprehend the ramification of it’. 152 See the proposal by Heaton (n 63) 204–08 to establish a ‘remote combatant’ status in line with possibilities offered in Art 43.3 of AP I (n 3) to incorporate law enforcement agencies into armed forces. These individuals would obtain combatant immunity for lawful acts of hostilities and would not face penal prosecution once captured. 153 Under the UK ‘Sponsored Reserve Programme’, certain relevant tasks for the military apparatus are performed by civilian employees who are also part of this reserve, making it easy for them to acquire combatant status once employed in an theatre of operations (see UK Army, The Reserve Force Act 1996).

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International Institute of Humanitarian Law, The Manual on the Law of NonInternational Armed Conflict. With Commentary (San Remo, International Institute of Humanitarian Law, 2006). F Kalshoven, The Law of Warfare. A Summary of its Recent History and Trends in Development (Leiden/Geneva, AW Sijthoff/Henri Dunant Institute, 1973). H Lauterpacht (ed), Oppenheim’s International Law. A Treatise, Vol II: Disputes, War and Neutrality, 7th edn (London, Longmans, Green, 1952). N Melzer, Targeted Killing in International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). L Moir, The Law of Internal Armed Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). J Pictet, Development and Principles of International Humanitarian Law (Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1985). J Pictet (ed), The Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949: Commentary, Vol III (Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross, 1960). APV Rogers, Law on the Battlefield, 2nd edn (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004). N Ronzitti, Diritto dei conflitti armati (Torino, Giappichelli, 2006). C Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés (Paris, Pedone, 1983). Y Sandoz, C Swinarski and B Zimmermann (eds), Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Geneva-Dordrecht, ICRC-Nijhoff, 1987). PW Singer, Corporate Warriors. The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003). UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). G Venturini, Necessità e proporzionalità nell’uso della forza militare in diritto internazionale (Milano, Giuffrè, 1988). L Zegveld, Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Chapters in Edited Volumes G Bartolini, ‘Air Operations against Iraq (1991 and 2003)’ in N Ronzitti and G Venturini (eds), The Law of Air Warfare. Contemporary Issues (Utrecht, Eleven International Publishing, 2006). M Bothe, ‘Article 51’ in M Bothe, KJ Partsch and WA Solf (eds), New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts – Commentary On the Two 1977 Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1982). M Bothe, ‘Töten und getötet werden – Kombattanten, Kämpfer und Zivilisten im bewaffneten Konflikt’ in K Dicke (ed), Weltinnenrecht. Liber amicorum Jost Delbrück (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2004).

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L Doswald-Beck, ‘Some Thoughts on Computer Network Attack and the International Law of Armed Conflict’ in MN Schmitt and B O’Donnel (eds), Computer Network Attack and International Law (Newport, Naval War College, 2002). L Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies under International Humanitarian Law’, in S Chesterman and C Lehnardt (eds), From Mercenaries to Market. The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). CJ Dunlap, ‘Technology and War. Moral Dilemmas on the Battlefield’ in AF Lang, AC Pierce and JH Rosenthal (eds), Ethics and the Future of Conflict. Lessons from the 1990s (New York, Pearson, 2004). D Fleck, ‘The Law of Non-International Armed Conflicts’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). H Gasser, ‘Protection of the Civilian Population’, in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). K Ipsen, ‘Combatants and Non-Combatants’ in D Fleck (ed), The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). R Kolb, ‘La nécessité militaire dans le droit des conflits armés. Essai de clarification conceptuelle’ in Société française pour le droit international (ed), La nécessité en droit international (Paris, Pedone, 2007). A McDonald, ‘Ghosts in the Machine: Some Legal Issues concerning US Military Contractors in Iraq’ in MN Schmitt and J Pejic (eds), International Law and Armed Conflicts: Exploring the Faultlines. Essays in Honour of Yoram Dinstein (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2007). J Pejic´ , ‘Status of Armed Conflicts’ in E Wilmshurst and S Breau (eds), Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). A Rogers, ‘Combatant Status’ in E Wilmshurst and S Breau (eds), Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). M Sassòli, ‘Targeting: The Scope and Utility of the Concept of “Military objectives” for the Protection of Civilians in Contemporary Armed Conflicts’, in New Wars, New Laws? Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (New York, Transnational Publishers, 2005). K Watkin, ‘Humans in the Cross-Hairs: Targeting and Assassination in Contemporary Armed Conflict’ in D Wippman and M Evangelista (eds), New Wars, New Laws? Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts (New York, Transnational Publishers, 2005).

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International Jurisprudence Amnesty International, Israel and the Occupied Territories: State Assassinations and Other Unlawful Killings (London, Amnesty International, 2001). G Arangio-Ruiz, ‘Second Report on State Responsibility’ [1989] YILC II Part I 12–15. A Cassese, ‘Expert Opinion on Whether Israel’s Targeted Killings of Palestinian Terrorists is Consonant with International Humanitarian Law’ (2004) www.stoptorture.org.il/files/cassese.pdf. Human Rights Council (2007) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Sheinin UN Doc A/HRC/6/17/Add 3. ILC, Commentaries to the Draft Articles on Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001) UN Doc A/56/10. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Third Report on Human Rights Situation in Colombia (26 February 1999) OEA/Ser L/V/II 102, Doc 9 rev 1 UN Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on Terrorism and Human Rights (2002) OEA/Ser L/V/II 116.

Journal Articles G Bartolini, ‘Le eliminazioni mirate di appartenenti a gruppi terroristici al vaglio della Corte suprema di Israele’ (2007) 1 Diritti umani e diritto internazionale 623–46 N Boldt, ‘Outsourcing War. Private Military Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 502–44. J Callen, ‘Unlawful Combatants and the Geneva Conventions’ (2004) 44 Virginia Journal of International Law 1025–72. L Cameron, ‘Private Military Companies: Their Status under International Humanitarian Law and Its Impact on Their Regulation’ (2006) 88 International Review of the Red Cross 573–98. A Cassese, ‘On Some Merits of the Israeli Judgments on Targeted Killings’ (2007) 5 Journal of International Criminal Justice 339–45. I Detter, ‘The Law of War and Illegal Combatants’ (2007) 75 George Washington Law Review 1049–1104. LA Dickinson, ‘Accountability of Private Security Contractors under International and Domestic Law’ (2007) 11 ASIL Insights www.asil.org/insights071226.cfm. L Doswald-Beck, ‘The Right to Life in Armed Conflict: Does International Humanitarian Law Provide all the Answer?’ (2006) 88 International Review of the Red Cross 881–904. WJ Fenrick, ‘The Prosecution of Unlawful Attack Cases before the ICTY’ (2006) 7.2004 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 153–89.

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ME Guillory, ‘Civilianizing the Force: Is the United States Crossing the Rubicon? Role of Civilians under the Laws of Armed Conflict’ (2001) 51 Air Force Law Review 111–42. JR Heaton, ‘Civilians at War: Reexamining the Status of Civilians Accompanying the Armed Forces’ (2005) 57 Air Force Law Review 155–208. D Jinks, ‘September 11 and the Law of War’ (2003) 28 Yale Journal of International Law 1–49. D Kassebaum, ‘The Legal Use of Private Security Firms in Bosnia’ (2000) 38 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 581–602. JK Kleffner, ‘From “Belligerents” to “Fighters” and Civilians Directly Participating in Hostilities – On the Principle of Distinction in Non-International Armed Conflicts One Hundred Years after the Second Hague Peace Conference’ (2007) 54 Netherlands International Law Review 315–36. D Kretzmer, ‘The Supreme Court of Israel: Judicial Review during Armed Conflict’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 392–456. D Kretzmer, ‘Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists: Extra-Judicial Executions or Legitimate Means of Defence?’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 171–212. M Milanovic, ‘Lessons for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in the War on Terror: Comparing Hamdan and the Israeli Targeted Killings Case’ (2007) 89 International Review of the Red Cross 373–93. WH Parks, ‘Air War and the Law of War’ (1990) 32 Air Force Law Review 1–225. APV Rogers, ‘Unequal Combat and the Law of War’ (2004) 7 Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law 3–34. N Ronzitti, ‘The 2006 Conflict in Lebanon and International Law’ (2006) 16 Italian Yearbook of International Law 3–19. T Ruys, ‘License to Kill? State-Sponsored Assassination under International Law’ (2005) 44 Revue de Droit Militaire et de Droit de la Guerre 13–49. M Sassòli, ‘Legislation and Maintenance of Public Order and Civil Life by Occupying Powers’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 661–94. MN Schmitt, ‘Humanitarian Law and Direct Participation in Hostilities by Private Contractors or Civilian Employees’ (2005) 5 Chicago Journal of International Law 511–46. JM Spaight, ‘Non combatants and Air Attack’ (1938) 9 Air Law Review 372–76. L Turner and LG Norton, ‘Civilians at the Tip of the Spear’ (2001) 51 Air Force Law Review 1–110. L Vierucci, ‘Prisoner of War or Protected Persons qua Unlawful Combatants? The Judicial Safeguards to which Guantánamo Bay Detainees are Entitled’ (2003) 1 Journal of International Criminal Justice 284–314. R Watkin, ‘Controlling the Use of Force: a Role for Human Rights Norms in Contemporary Armed Conflict’ (2004) 98 American Journal International Law 1–34. R Watkin, ‘Canada/United States Military Interoperability and Humanitarian Law Issues: Land Mines, Terrorism, Military Objective and Targeted Killings’ (2005) 15 Duke Journal Comparative and International Law 281–314.

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A Zimmermann, ‘The Second Lebanon War: Jus ad bellum, jus in bello and the Issue of Proportionality’ (2007) 11 Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 99–141.

Working Papers M Nelson, Contractors on the Battlefield: Force Multipliers or Force Dividers? (US Air Command and Staff College Paper, 2000). J Quéguiner, Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law (Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Working Paper, 2003). DR Rothwell, ‘Legal Opinion on the Status of Non-Combatants and Contractors under International Humanitarian Law and Australian Law’ (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2004) www.aspi.org.au/pdf/ASPIlegalopinion_contractors.pdf. M Sassòli, ‘Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law’ (Harvard University Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Occasional Paper Series No 6, 2006).

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L’attribution aux États des Actes des Sociétés Militaires Privées et de leurs Employés à la Lumière de l’article 4 du Projet d’articles sur la Responsabilité Internationale des États de 2001 HÉBIÉ MAMADOU *

INTRODUCTION

U

NE TENDANCE RÉCENTE dans le droit des conflits armés contemporains est l’implication grandissante des sociétés militaires privées dans les activités liées à la guerre. Accomplissant diverses fonctions allant de la participation directe aux hostilités à la fourniture de services d’hygiène aux forces armées, ces nouveaux acteurs des conflits armés se singularisent par leur origine privée et leur implication par un lien contractuel dans le conflit armé dans un esprit de lucre. L’émergence de ces nouveaux acteurs pose, entre autres problématiques, la question de la responsabilité des États pour leurs activités. En effet, si les États pouvaient échapper à leurs obligations internationales par la simple privatisation des activités relatives à la conduite des hostilités, il y aurait lieu de voir, dans le phénomène de la privatisation des activités liées à la conduite des hostilités, une menace pour l’intégrité des valeurs protégées par le droit international humanitaire. Dans des discussions contemporaines consacrées à la nécessité ou non de recentrer les règles de la guerre, nous apporterons un soutien à la thèse selon laquelle la privatisation des tâches militaires ne permet pas aux États d’échapper aux obligations qui leur incombent en vertu du droit international humanitaire. La doctrine ayant déjà étudié avec une certaine clarté les possibilités d’attribution résultant des articles 5 et 8 du projet d’articles sur la responsabilité internationale des États adopté par l’Assemblée générale (ci-après Projet d’articles),1 dans cette contribution nous aborderons l’hypothèse de l’attribution des actes des employés des sociétés militaires privées aux États qui les emploient en vertu de l’article 4 du Projet * Mamadou Hébié est doctorant en droit international à l’Institut des Hautes Études Internationales et de Développement de Genève et assistant de recherche à l’Académie de Droit Humanitaire et des Droits Humains de Genève sur le Projet de recherche ‘Private Military Companies and IHL’. L’auteur remercie les membres du Projet pour leurs discussions qui ont éclairci de nouvelles idées la rédaction de cet article. Toutefois, les prises de position de l’auteur sont bien personnelles et ne lient pas les membres du Projet de recherche de l’Académie. 1 Assemblée générale, Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité de l’État pour fait internationalement illicite (Nations Unies, A/RES/56/83, 2001).

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d’articles.2 Généralement cette disposition n’est pas examinée par la doctrine. En effet, celle-ci formule des doutes sur sa pertinence pour attribuer aux États des actes des employés des sociétés militaires privées.3 Il faudra donc établir, d’abord, les hypothèses d’attribution couvertes par l’article 4. Par la suite, on s’attachera à délimiter l’étendue de la responsabilité de l’État, surtout à l’égard des actes ultra vires que ces acteurs pourraient avoir commis.

LES HYPOTHÈSES D’ATTRIBUTION COUVERTES PAR L’ARTICLE 4 DU PROJET D’ARTICLES

L’article 4 du Projet d’articles dispose: 1)

Le comportement de tout organe de l’État est considéré comme un fait de l’État d’après le droit international, que cet organe exerce des fonctions législatives, exécutives, judiciaires ou autres, quelle que soit sa nature en tant qu’organe du gouvernement central ou d’une collectivité territoriale de l’État.

2)

Un organe comprend toute personne ou entité qui a ce statut d’après le droit interne de l’État.

Suivant cette disposition, la détermination de la qualité d’organe d’un État se fait principalement au regard du droit interne. Mais, la primauté du droit interne en la matière n’est pas absolue; souvent le droit international opère une qualification autonome. La Primauté du Droit Interne dans la Détermination du Statut des sociétés Militaires Privées et de leurs Employés sous l’article 4 du Projet d’articles La primauté du droit interne dans la détermination du statut des organes des États est un corollaire du droit à l’autonomie constitutionnelle de ceux-ci. Chaque État 2 Le caractère coutumier de cette disposition a été reconnu notamment dans l’affaire Différend relatif à l’immunité de juridiction d’un rapporteur spécial de la Commission des droits de l’homme (avis consultatif) [1999] CIJ Rec 62, para 62. Nous nous référerons donc au negotium du Projet d’articles et non à son instrumentum. 3 Voir par exemple, C Lehnardt, ‘Private Military Companies and State Responsibility’ dans S Chesterman and C Lehnardt (éds), From Mercenaries to Market: the Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 139–57; A Epiney et A Egbuna-Joss, ‘Zur völkerrechtlichen Verantwortlichkeit im Zusammenhang mit dem Verhalten privater Sicherheitsfirmen’ (2007) 17 Schweizerische Zeitschrift für internationales und europäisches Recht 215, 222; A Clapham, ‘Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors in Conflict Situations’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 491, 514; A McDonald, ‘Ghosts in the Machine: some Legal Issues concerning US Military Contractors in Iraq’ dans MN Schmitt et J Pejic (éds), International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultiness: Essays in Honour of Yoram Dinstein (Leiden, M Nijhoff, 2007) 397; K Nieminen, ‘The Rule of Attribution and the Private Military Contractors at Abu Ghraib: Private or Public Wrongs?’ (2004) 15 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 289, 297; L Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies under International Humanitarian Law’ dans S Chesterman et C Lehnardt, From Mercenaries to Market. The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 131; B Perrin, ‘Promoting Compliance of Private Security and Military Companies with International Humanitarian Law’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 613, 624.

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étant libre de s’organiser comme il l’entend en vertu du droit international,4 cet ordre juridique n’intervient qu’en seconde position pour attacher des conséquences juridiques à la qualification que l’État aura faite. En l’espèce, il considère attribuable à l’État certains actes commis par l’entité ou la personne privée qu’il aura désignée comme étant son organe.5 Vu cette primauté du droit interne dans l’attribution de la qualité d’organe d’un État, vouloir appliquer l’article 4 aux activités des sociétés militaires privées et de leurs employés requiert la preuve de leur qualité d’organe des États en vertu des dispositions du droit interne. Cependant, cette hypothèse s’avère difficilement applicable en pratique. Étant créées sur initiative privée, les sociétés militaires privées ne font pas ab initio partie des organes d’un État donné. Elles et leurs employés doivent donc y être insérés par une procédure d’incorporation pour bénéficier du statut d’organe suivant l’article 4.6 Il est cependant rarissime que des sociétés militaires privées soient incorporées par un règlement ou une loi aux organes d’un État.7 Le plus souvent, les États emploient ces sociétés par le biais de contrats, d’où la nécessité de s’interroger sur la capacité du contrat à incorporer les employés d’une société militaire aux organes d’un État. Ne remplissant pas les conditions de la généralité et de l’impersonnalité du droit interne, le contrat ne saurait évidemment pas constituer par lui-même le droit interne par lequel la société militaire privée est incorporée dans l’organigramme juridique étatique.8 Il peut toutefois produire un tel effet dans deux hypothèses: la première est celle où le droit interne dispose que l’engagement d’une personne ou d’une entité par voie contractuelle suffit pour les besoins de l’incorporation de jure. Il faudrait donc vérifier les dispositions de chaque ordre juridique pour voir si cette possibilité est prévue.9 La seconde hypothèse où le contrat peut suffire pour l’incorporation est celle où il définit le statut de la société militaire privée ou de ses employés à la lumière de catégories d’organes déjà établies en droit interne. Ainsi, si un contrat accorde aux employés d’une société militaire privée le statut de membres des forces armées, ou de personnel civil accompagnant les forces armées, cette qualification est suffisante pour que ceux-ci soient considérés comme des organes de l’État considéré. Tel fut le cas concernant les membres de Sandline international dans le contrat qui liait cette société à la Papouasie-Nouvelle

4

Sahara occidental (avis consultatif) [1975] CIJ Rec 12, para 94. L Condorelli, ‘L’imputation à l’État d’un fait internationalement illicite: Solutions classiques et nouvelles tendances’ (1984) 189 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9, 53. 6 Application de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (Bosnie-Herzégovine c/ Serbie-et-Monténégro) [2007] CIJ Rec 139, para 389. La Cour estima que les Scorpions, milices armées, pourraient être considérés comme des organes de la Serbie s’il était prouvé qu’ils avaient été incorporés dans les forces armées de cet État. Elle conclut cependant qu’elle ne disposait pas de preuves suffisantes pour aboutir à cette conclusion. 7 Voir par exemple le United Kingdom Reserves Forces Act de 1996 qui prévoit que les employés de sociétés militaires privées peuvent faire partie des réservistes de l’armée britannique et être déployés automatiquement en tant que membres des forces armées sur le terrain d’hostilités. Reserves Forces Act (London, HMSO, 1996) Part V,: www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1996/pdf/ukpga_19960014_en.pdf. 8 Voir dans ce sens, Nieminen, The Rule of Attribution and the Private Military Contractors at Abu Ghraib (n 3) 297; N Boldt, ‘Outsourcing War — Private Military Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2005) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 502, 523. 9 Nieminen (n 3) 297. 5

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Guinée. Suivant les stipulations de celui-ci, les membres de cette société militaire avaient le statut de ‘special constable’, c’est-à-dire de policiers, dans le droit interne de cet État.10 Dans chacune de ces deux hypothèses, l’État ayant manifesté sa volonté d’attribuer le statut d’organe à l’entité ou à la personne privée concernée, le droit international prendra note de cette qualification. Le commentaire de la Commission du droit international relatif à l’article 4 a tenu compte des ordres juridiques internes des pays de common law où la définition des organes de l’État peut ne pas se trouver dans une ‘table des lois’, mais résulter de la pratique interne. Dans de tels cas, déclare-t-il, il faut tenir compte de la pratique interne de l’État concerné, des relations entre l’entité concernée et d’autres organes de l’État et des prérogatives qui lui sont accordées.11 Toutefois, même dans ce cas, la pratique des États en question (principalement la Grande-Bretagne et les États-Unis) ne traite pas les membres des sociétés militaires privées comme faisant partie de leurs organes. Il est de notoriété commune que ceux-ci ne font aucunement carrière au sein de l’administration étatique, qu’ils ne sont pas non plus soumis aux mêmes obligations que les autres organes de l’État et que même ceux d’entre eux qui participent aux hostilités ne sont pas toujours soumis au commandement direct des forces armées. De ce constat, il ressort que, hormis des cas exceptionnels, les sociétés militaires privées et leurs employés ne sont pas des organes des États qui les emploient en vertu des dispositions des ordres juridiques internes. Du reste, il est souvent soutenu que l’intérêt de la privatisation des fonctions étatiques réside dans le caractère extra-étatique des entités qui les prennent en charge.12 C’est ce constat qui a justifié le scepticisme relevé plus tôt sur la pertinence de l’article 4 du Projet d’articles comme titre d’attribution des actes des sociétés militaires à un État. Il faut cependant se garder de conclusions hâtives. En effet, cette disposition semble contenir une autre possibilité d’attribution, peu examinée par la doctrine relative aux sociétés militaires privées.

L’hypothèse des Personnes et Entités Privées Assimilées à des Organes de l’État Cette possibilité est mentionnée de façon assez furtive dans l’article 4 du Projet d’articles et dans les commentaires de la Commission du droit international y relatifs. S’agissant du texte même de l’article 4, l’usage de la formule ‘un organe comprend’ implique que cette notion ne se limite pas seulement à la qualification

10 Le texte de cet accord est disponible sur, http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/PNG/htmls/ Sandline.html. Concernant les faits ayant entouré la conclusion du contrat entre Sandline International et la Papouasie-Nouvelle Guinée, PW Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry and its Ramifications for International Security (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001) 193 et seq. 11 Commission du droit international, ‘Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité de l’État pour fait internationalement illicite et commentaires y relatifs’ (2001) dans 53 Annuaire de la Commission du droit international, tome II(2), A/CN.4/SER.A/2001, 94–95. 12 Singer, Corporate Warriors (n 10) 48.

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opérée par le droit interne.13 Quant au commentaire, il met en relief la relativité de la qualification opérée par le droit interne en relevant qu’ [u]n État ne saurait, pour se soustraire à sa responsabilité du fait d’une entité qui agit véritablement en tant qu’un de ses organes, se contenter de lui dénier ce statut en invoquant son droit interne.14

Ainsi, dans certaines circonstances, notamment la mauvaise foi de l’État ou une liste non exhaustive de ses organes, le droit international peut opérer une qualification autonome des entités agissant dans l’ordre juridique étatique aux fins de la responsabilité internationale. Cette hypothèse a été expliquée et précisée par la Cour internationale de Justice dans l’affaire de l’Application de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide. Suivant en cela l’interprétation donnée par la juge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald dans l’affaire Tadic´ ,15 la Cour affirma que, dans certaines circonstances, selon la jurisprudence de la Cour, une personne, un groupe de personnes ou une entité quelconque peut être assimilé — aux fins de la mise en œuvre de la responsabilité internationale — à un organe de l’État même si une telle qualification ne résulte pas du droit interne, lorsque cette personne, ce groupe ou cette entité agit en fait sous la «totale dépendance» de l’État, dont il n’est, en somme, qu’un simple instrument.16

Pour la Cour, en vertu du principe d’effectivité valable dans cet aspect du droit de la responsabilité internationale,17 certaines personnes ou entités pourraient, en raison de leurs actions et de leurs relations avec les organes d’un État, être assimilées à des organes d’un État, même si ce statut ne découle pas du droit interne. La Cour précisa cependant qu’une telle hypothèse était ‘exceptionnelle’ et qu’elle nécessitait ‘un degré particulièrement élevé de contrôle de l’État sur les entités en cause’. Ce niveau extrêmement élevé de dépendance fut désigné par l’expression ‘complète dépendance’.18 Toutefois, la Cour ne mit point en lumière dans l’affaire du Génocide tous les éléments nécessaires pour soutenir la complète dépendance de personnes ou d’entités privées à un État. Elle mentionna seulement l’absence d’autonomie des personnes et entités concernées à l’égard de l’État.19 Cependant, à travers la référence qu’elle fit à sa jurisprudence Nicaragua, on pourrait tenter de lire dans celle-ci les critères à remplir pour qu’une société militaire privée puisse être assimilée de fait à un organe d’un État en matière de responsabilité internationale. Dans l’affaire du 27 juin 1986, la Cour déclara: En dépit de la masse de moyens de preuve documentaire et testimoniale qu’elle a examinés, la Cour n’est cependant pas parvenue à s’assurer que l’État défendeur a «créé»

13 Commission du droit international, Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité de l’État pour fait internationalement illicite et commentaires y relatifs (n 11) 95. 14 ibid, 118, para 11. 15 Procureur c/ Tadic´ (Opinion dissidente du Juge Gabrielle McDonald) TPIY-94–1-T (7 mai 1997) 295–96. 16 Application de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (n 6) 140, para 392. 17 ibid, 140–41, para 392. 18 ibid, 141, para 173. 19 ibid, 141, para 173.

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la force contra au Nicaragua … Les éléments font également défaut pour conclure que les États-Unis ont fourni «un appui direct et essentiel sur le terrain», du moins si cette expression devait signifier qu’un tel appui équivalait à une intervention directe des unités combattantes des États-Unis, ou que les opérations des contras traduisaient toutes une stratégie et des tactiques entièrement élaborées par les États-Unis.20

De cet extrait, trois principales raisons semblent avoir motivé la décision de la Cour selon laquelle les contras n’étaient pas assimilables aux forces armées des ÉtatsUnis. En premier lieu, elle mit en exergue le fait que les contras n’avaient pas été créés par les États-Unis. En second lieu, elle remarqua que les forces des États-Unis n’avaient pas participé aux opérations militaires aux côtés des contras. En dernier lieu, la juridiction de La Haye souligna que toutes les stratégies et tactiques des contras n’étaient pas entièrement élaborées par les États-Unis. Si la Cour a pu rejeter sur la base de ces intéressantes remarques la possibilité d’une assimilation de facto des contras aux forces armées des États-Unis, il semble fort probable que, si ces conditions étaient remplies, elle n’aurait pas hésité à soutenir le contraire. Pareille situation n’est pas inédite en jurisprudence. Dans l’affaire Stephens, le tribunal arbitral considéra qu’un membre d’une milice populaire devait être considéré ou être assimilé à un membre des forces armées puisqu’il exerçait de façon habituelle des activités de soldat pour le Mexique sous le contrôle d’un sergent de l’armée.21 Dans l’affaire Belsen, le tribunal militaire britannique siégeant à Londres trancha: In meeting the argument that no war crime could be committed by Poles against other Allied nationals, the Prosecutor said that by identifying themselves with the [German] authorities the Polish accused had made themselves as much responsible as the S.S. themselves. Perhaps it could be claimed that by the same process they could be regarded as having approximated to membership of the armed forces of Germany.22

20 Activités militaires et paramilitaires au Nicaragua et contre celui-ci (Nicaragua c/ États-Unis d’Amérique), (fond) [1986] CIJ Rec 14, para 108. Voir aussi la conclusion par la Cour de son raisonnement au para 109. 21 ‘Charles S Stephens and Bowman Stephens (USA) v United Mexican States’ (sentence arbitrale du 15 juillet 1927) (1951) 4 Recueil des sentences arbitrales 265, 267. Selon les passages pertinents de la sentence arbitrale: ‘It is difficult to determine with precision the status of these guards as an irregular auxiliary of the army, the more so as they lacked both uniforms and insignia, but at any rate they were acting for Mexico or for its political subdivisions … Responsibility of a country for acts of soldiers in cases like the present one, in the presence and under the order of a superior, is not doubtful. Taking account of the conditions existing in Chihuahua then and there [the absence of the federal army and the rebellion which was going on], Valenzuela must be considered as, or assimilated to, a soldier.’ (Italiques ajoutées). Dans le sens de l’interprétation de l’affaire Stephens comme consacrant la notion d’agent de facto, voir AO Kees, Privatisierung im Völkerrecht. Zur Verantwortlichkeit der Staaten bei der Privatisierung von Staatsaufgaben (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2007) 84. Un auteur a aussi interprété l’affaire Yeager comme signifiant que les gardes de la révolution iranienne faisaient partie de la structure organique de l’État iranien. R Wolfrum, ‘State Responsibility for Private Actors: an Old Problem of Renewed Relevance’ dans M Ragazzi (éd), International Responsibility Today. Essays in Memory of Oscar Schachter (Leiden, M Nijhoff, 2005) 22. 22 ‘Trial of Joseph Kramer and 44 Others, British Military Court, Luneberg, 17th September–17th November 1945’ dans United Nations War Crimes Commission (‘UNWCC’) (éd),, Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, Selected and Prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission, Vol II (His Majesty’s Stationary Office, London, 1947) 1. (Italiques ajoutées).

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Si, dans l’affaire Belsen, le tribunal militaire n’avait évoqué que la possibilité d’une assimilation de facto aux organes d’un État, la Cour de cassation néerlandaise fut plus catégorique dans l’affaire Menten. Elle considéra, toujours en relation avec les évènements ayant entouré la deuxième guerre mondiale, que: Since Menten, on the orders of the Befehlshaber of the Sicherheitspolizei in Poland, was dressed in the uniform of an under-officer of this branch of the [German] police when he was dem Einsatzkommando als Dolmetscher zugeteilt [assigned to the Special forces as interpreter], the [District] Court [of Amsterdam in its judgment of 14 December 1977] was justified in assuming that his position in the Einsatzkommando and his performance in it were of a more or less official character. Thus the relationship to the enemy in which Menten rendered incidental services was of such a nature that he could be regarded as a functionary of the enemy.23

C’est sur le fondement de ces deux dernières décisions que le Tribunal Pénal pour l’ex-Yougoslavie fut d’avis qu’il existe en droit international un critère d’attribution des actes de personnes privées aux États dont le test se fonderait, même en l’absence d’instructions données par un État, sur ‘l’assimilation d’individus à des organes de l’État en conséquence de leur comportement dans les faits au sein de la structure dudit État.’24 Dans l’affaire Blake, ce fut à la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l’homme de constater qu’une milice civile devait être considérée comme un organe de l’État. Elle affirma: The Court considers that, contrary to Guatemala’s claims, the civil patrols in fact acted as agents of the State during the period in which the acts pertaining to the instant case occurred … On the basis of the evidence examined and bearing in mind the arguments of the parties, the Court considers it proven that, at the time the events in this case occurred, the civil patrols enjoyed an institutional relationship with the Army, performed activities in support of the armed forces’ functions, and, moreover, received resources, weapons, training and direct orders from the Guatemalan Army and operated under its supervision.25

Aussi, peut-on conclure que l’article 4 offre une autre possibilité pour tenir les États responsables des actes des sociétés militaires privées et de leurs employés. Toutefois, il est facile de constater que l’hypothèse de l’assimilation d’entités privées à des organes des États n’a été mentionnée en jurisprudence que principalement à l’égard d’entités ayant une relation avec les forces armées des États ou les forces de sécurité de ceux-ci. On pourrait donc légitimement douter du fait qu’on puisse assimiler des personnes ou entités privées à d’autres organes des États en matière de responsabilité internationale. Il a du reste été allégué en doctrine que cette hypothèse ne concernerait que les employés de sociétés militaires privées qui exerceraient des prérogatives de puissance publique. Suivant cette logique, l’interprétation de l’article 4 comme couvrant l’hypothèse des personnes et entités assimilées aux 23

Public Prosecutor v Menten (1987) 75 International Law Reports 347. (Italiques ajoutées). Procureur c/ Dusko Tadic´ (arrêt de la Chambre d’Appel) TPIY IT-94-I (15 juillet 1999). 60, para 141. (Italiques dans l’original). Voir en doctrine l’excellent ouvrage de P Palchetti, L’organo di fatto dello stato nell’ellecito internazionale (Milan, Giuffrè, 2007), pp 286−291. 25 Blake Case (Judgment) IACtHR Series C No 36 (24 January 1998). paras 75–76. (Italiques ajoutées). 24

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organes des États aurait le même champ que l’article 5 du Projet d’articles, ce qui l’empêcherait de produire tout effet utile.26 Toutefois, remarquons que ni la Cour internationale de Justice ni le Tribunal pénal pour l’ex-Yougoslavie ni le texte de l’article 4 du Projet d’articles ni son commentaire n’ont limité exclusivement cette hypothèse aux organes des États exerçant des prérogatives de puissance publique. Rien ne semble donc a priori interdire que des employés d’une société militaire privée ne participant pas directement à la conduite des hostilités ou n’exerçant pas des prérogatives de puissance publique puissent être assimilés à d’autres organes d’un État. Cette conclusion est même conforme à la logique: en effet, si la responsabilité d’un État pour ses organes de jure ne distingue pas entre les actes commis dans l’exercice de prérogatives de puissance publique et les actes qui ne le sont pas, celle pour les organes assimilés ne saurait arbitrairement se fonder sur cette distinction. Du reste, l’affaire Menten concernait un interprète des forces armées allemandes qui fut assimilé à un fonctionnaire de l’Allemagne. L’assimilation de personnes privées aux organes de l’État n’est donc pas limitée seulement aux personnes participant directement aux hostilités ou exerçant d’autres prérogatives de puissance publique. S’il n’est pas nécessaire de prouver que les personnes assimilées à des organes d’un État exercent des prérogatives de puissance publique aux fins de l’application de l’article 4, les personnes concernées doivent avoir un statut officiel dans l’État visé. En effet, dans l’affaire Blake, la Cour interaméricaine remarqua que les patrouilles civiles avaient des relations institutionnelles avec l’armée;27 dans l’affaire Menten, la Cour de cassation néerlandaise releva le caractère plus ou moins officiel des activités exercées par Menten;28 dans l’affaire Stephens, le tribunal arbitral considéra que les milices concernées avaient le statut d’auxiliaire irrégulier des forces armées.29 L’hypothèse semble donc limitée à des personnes dont l’activité permet de les assimiler à des organes ayant un statut officiel dans un État donné. Cela ne revient pas à dire que ces entités ne commettent pas d’actes illicites. Jouissant de certaines compétences officielles octroyées par l’État, lorsqu’elles commettent des actes illicites, il faut déterminer si ces actes ont été commis dans le cadre de leurs compétences et, si tel n’est pas le cas, si elles l’ont été avec l’apparence de la qualité officielle. De la sorte, le critère du statut officiel constitue un des éléments qui permet de distinguer les entités couvertes par l’article 4 du Projet d’articles et celles couvertes par l’article 8. Alors que les personnes et entités couvertes par l’article 8 n’occupent pas en général des positions officielles au sein des États qui les emploient, les personnes et entités assimilées à des organes des États exercent de telles positions. En somme, le critère décisif pour assimiler des personnes ou des entités privées à des organes d’un État est celui de l’insertion factuelle d’un individu ou d’une entité

26 Voir dans ce sens, M Spinedi, ‘La responsabilità dello Stato per comportamenti di private contractors’ dans M Spinedi, A Gianelli et ML Alaino (éds), La codificazione della responsabilità internazionale degli Stati alla prova dei fatti. Problemi e spuniti di riflessione (Milan, Giuffrè, 2006) 94–95. 27 Blake Case (n 25) para 76. 28 Public Prosecutor v Menten (n 23) 347. 29 Charles S Stephens and Bowman Stephens (USA) v United Mexican States (n 21) 267.

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dans la structure institutionnelle d’un État du fait de l’accomplissement d’une activité officielle organisée, coordonnée et supervisée par celui-ci en relation avec les activités de ses organes pour l’atteinte de buts qu’il a fixés. Les indices mentionnés par la Cour dans l’affaire relative aux Activités militaires et paramilitaires au Nicaragua et contre celui-ci pour déterminer une telle insertion factuelle sont à cet égard très utiles, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit d’établir l’assimilation aux forces armées d’un État en matière de responsabilité internationale. En premier lieu, le critère de la création du groupe peut être un indice intéressant,30 bien que non décisif. En effet, lorsque l’État crée une entité, que celle-ci agisse dans sa structure peut faire l’objet d’une présomption simple. C’est pourquoi ce critère n’est pas mentionné dans les autres jurisprudences que nous avons citées, notamment dans les affaires Blake et Stephens. Ces dernières insistent beaucoup plus sur l’accomplissement de l’activité visée au sein de la structure étatique. Cette dernière condition nous paraît remplie en raison du contrat entre certaines sociétés militaires privées et l’État contractant. En effet, souvent celui-ci insère les employés de la société privée parmi les organes de l’État, en leur donnant une mission, des pouvoirs qui sont exercés sous la direction des organes de ce dernier. Du reste, en ce qui concerne les sociétés militaires privées, la privatisation n’aboutit pas dans tous les cas à une totale autonomie d’action de l’entité ou de la personne concernée, notamment lorsque la tâche des employés des sociétés militaires privées consiste à aider et à suppléer les organes de l’État pendant une durée déterminée. Les sociétés militaires privées et leurs employés accomplissent dans ces cas leurs activités au sein des forces armées, entretenant des relations de subordination par rapport aux autres organes de l’État déployés sur le terrain qui les utilisent suivant leurs besoins et, en principe, leurs qualifications.31 Dans ces cas, ils agissent en général sous la direction et la supervision générale des organes de l’État.32 30 Outre l’affaire Nicaragua, la Cour a utilisé ce critère de la création du groupe armé dans l’affaire des Activités armées au Congo. L’interprétation de l’usage qu’elle en fait n’est pas très claire. En effet, la République démocratique du Congo semblait invoquer l’article 4 sur le comportement des organes assimilés aux organes d’un État. Mais la Cour a conclu que ni l’article 4 ni l’article 5 ni l’article 8 n’étaient applicables à la situation au paragraphe 160 de son arrêt, sans préciser pour quel article cet indice était pertinent. Activités armées sur le territoire du Congo (République Démocratique du Congo c/ Ouganda) [2005] CIJ Rec 55–56, paras 155–60. Dans le sens de l’interprétation de la décision de la Cour comme ayant endossé la notion d’entités assimilées à des organes étatiques dans cette affaire, voir la plaidoirie de L Condorelli dans l’affaire relative à l’Application de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (Bosnie-Herzégovine c/ Serbie-et-Monténégro) (Plaidoirie du 6 mars 2006), CR2006/9, 52–56, paras 7–14. Cependant, dans son arrêt eu 26 Février 2007, la Cour s’est plutôt référée à l’affaire Nicaragua comme étant celle où elle a traité du cas des organes assimilés et non à l’affaire Congo c/ Ouganda. 31 Voir par exemple l’Instruction régissant les activités des employés des sociétés militaires privées travaillant auprès des forces armées américaines du Department of Defense. Au point 6.2.6, il prévoit l’organisation de la surveillance et de l’intégration des employés des sociétés militaires privées dans les opérations de l’armée par les commandants de zone et d’unités. Au point 6.3.2, il énonce que les ‘combattant commander’ peuvent imposer des restrictions sur le lieu et le timing de l’assistance que fournissent les employés des sociétés militaires privées. Au point 6.3.3, il impose l’existence d’un contracting officer qui dirige et contrôle l’activité des employés des sociétés militaires privées, avec des exceptions où le commandement militaire peut leur donner directement des ordres. US Department of Defense, Instruction Number 3020.41, Contractor Personnel Authorized to Accompany the U.S. Armed Forces (3 octobre 2005), http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/302041p.pdf (23.07.09). 32 Tant CACI et Titan, les deux firmes dont les employés avaient été contractés pour exercer des fonctions d’interrogatoires à Abu Grhaib, ont soutenu que leurs employés exerçaient leurs activités sous

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A contrario, si une société militaire privée apporte une aide ponctuelle, n’impliquant pas une activité continue dans la structure étatique, il ne peut être soutenu, sur la base de la simple fourniture d’une prestation, qu’elle ou son employé deviennent des organes de l’État contractant. Ce cas concernera notamment les sociétés militaires de vente de matériel militaire. Dans ce cas, le contrat étant exclusivement de nature commerciale, il ne saurait être considéré comme engendrant des relations institutionnelles intégrant l’employé de la société militaire privée dans la structure de l’État. De même, si la personne ou l’entité concernée jouit d’une autonomie de décision dans l’exercice de sa fonction et n’est pas utilisée comme un simple ‘instrument’, selon les mots de la Cour internationale de Justice dans l’affaire du Génocide précitée, l’article 4 ne serait pas non plus applicable. Il faudrait alors vérifier si sa fonction constitue une prérogative de puissance publique ou non avant de trancher la question de l’attribution à l’État de ses actes. Le critère de la création du groupe peut, en dehors de la présomption de l’insertion factuelle dans les organes de l’État, aussi servir à prouver l’étendue du contrôle de l’État sur le groupe concerné. Cependant, si la création d’un groupe armé donne à l’État qui en est l’auteur une capacité de contrôle et instaure un but commun entre les parties, le contrat fait de même en fournissant un moyen de contrôle sur les actes des sociétés militaires privées et en définissant le but de leur mission.33 En outre, il réserve la capacité de l’État de mettre fin à l’implication de la société concernée ou de ses employés dans le conflit armé. Dans ce sens, pour décider que les contras n’étaient pas sous la ‘complète dépendance’ des États-Unis dans l’affaire Nicaragua, la Cour prit note du fait que les activités de ces derniers s’étaient poursuivies après la cessation de l’aide financière des États-Unis.34 Les sociétés militaires privées étant essentiellement motivées par le profit, il est fort probable que la cessation de paiement ou la dénonciation du contrat par l’État employeur entraînera un arrêt de leurs activités. Par conséquent, le financement de l’État résultant de la relation contractuelle crée une forte dépendance entre celui-ci et la société qu’il emploie dans le cadre d’un conflit armé. Cette capacité de contrôle s’agrandit d’ailleurs si l’État qui embauche la société militaire privée est aussi celui dans l’ordre juridique duquel elle s’est légalement constituée.35 A l’égard de la participation de l’État dans les opérations militaires des sociétés militaires privées qui était le second indice mentionné par la Cour dans l’affaire Nicaragua, cette condition aussi ne semble pas impossible à remplir à l’égard des sociétés militaires comme Executive Outcomes fournissant des services de combat.

la supervision des agences qui les avaient recrutés. CACI, CACI Corrects False Information about Chain of Command in Iraq. Civilian Contractors Do Not Give Orders to Military Personnel, www.caci.com/ about/news/news2004/07_29_04_NR.html. 33 Charles S Stephens and Bowman Stephens (USA) v United Mexican States (n 21) 267. Le tribunal souligna que les milices dont faisaient partie Valenzuela travaillaient au bénéfice du gouvernement mexicain. Cette preuve n’est plus à rapporter en présence d’un contrat. 34 Activités militaires et paramilitaires au Nicaragua et contre celui-ci (n 20) 62, para 108. 35 Voir dans ce sens, JC Zarate, ‘The Emergence of a New Dog of War: Private International Security Companies, International Law, and the New World Disorder’ (1998) 34 Stanford Journal of International Law 75, 124.

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Du reste, Executive Outcomes a combattu aux côtés des forces gouvernementales, tant en Angola qu’en Sierra Leone, sous la direction des organes des gouvernements respectifs.36 Le dernier indice, celui de la planification et de l’établissement de toutes les stratégies et tactiques, est aussi rempli à l’égard des sociétés militaires privées du genre précité. En effet, dans toutes ces hypothèses, l’accord initial entre les parties fait que la conduite de la guerre peut être considérée comme faite de plein accord. Du reste, n’a-t-il pas été soutenu que souvent dans la prison d’Abu Grhaib, la chaîne de commandement s’était inversée, les membres de sociétés militaires privées supervisant des troupes gouvernementales.37 Il est évident que, si une telle hypothèse était avérée, ces membres ne pourraient pas être distingués des organes de l’État suivant l’article 4. En effet, ils s’intègrent à l’armée à un point que l’État leur octroie de grandes responsabilités.38 Comme l’ont souligné les jurisprudences Daley39 et Menten,40 le port d’uniformes militaires ou de tenues assimilables est aussi un indice important, bien que n’étant pas décisif,41 pour les besoins de l’assimilation aux forces armées. En revanche, est dénué de toute pertinence le fait que les membres des sociétés militaires privées ne bénéficient pas des mêmes avantages que les autres organes des États ou qu’ils ne soient pas soumis aux mêmes obligations que ceux-ci en vertu du droit interne. Dans l’affaire Blake précitée, la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l’homme a ainsi rejeté l’argument du Guatemala selon lequel it did not grant members of the patrols any remuneration or social security benefits as it did to regular troops … that its members were not subject to military discipline and performed their patrol duties in their free time, when not engaged in their own work.42

En conclusion, il existe en droit international deux catégories d’organes sous l’article 4 du Projet d’articles: tandis que la première catégorie est exclusivement définie par le droit interne, la deuxième catégorie est déterminée par le droit international et tient compte de la situation d’insertion factuelle de la personne ou de l’entité concernée au sein des organes d’un État pour l’accomplissement d’activités officielles. Il convient même de remarquer que, dans la version anglaise de l’arrêt dans l’affaire du Génocide, c’est pour cette catégorie d’organe que la Cour réserve l’appellation d’‘organe de facto’ et non à ceux couverts par l’article 8

36

Singer (n 10) 107–10. GR Fay, AR 15–6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade (août 2004), http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/dod/fay82504rpt. pdf. 38 Voir dans un raisonnement analogue, CH Lytton, ‘Blood for Hire’ (2006) 8 Oregon Review of International Law 307, 321; McDonald, Ghosts in the Machine (n 3) 397. 39 Daley v Islamic Republic of Iran, Award No 360–1-514–1 (1988) 18 Iran-USCTR 232, paras 19–20. 40 Dans l’affaire Menten, le tribunal prit en compte le fait que Menten, sans être un membre des forces armées allemandes, portait un tel uniforme pour l’assimiler aux forces armées de ce pays. Public Prosecutor v Menten (n 23). 41 Remarquons que dans le passage précité de l’affaire Stephens, le tribunal a assimilé les membres d’une milice populaire aux forces armées de l’État, tout en remarquant que ceux-ci ne portaient ni d’uniformes, ni d’insignes. 42 Blake Case (n 25) para 74. 37

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comme le fait la majorité de la doctrine.43 En pratique, l’hypothèse des personnes et entités assimilées à des organes d’un État concernera notamment les traducteurs, interprètes et autres auxiliaires des forces armées qui, bien qu’appartenant à des sociétés militaires privées, exécutent de façon officielle, en pleine coordination avec les forces armées et en relation de subordination à celles-ci, des activités à leur profit. Dans de tels cas, le critère de la totale dépendance, interprété à la lumière des relations entre l’entité concernée et les autres organes de l’État, et la subordination aux organes de l’État dans l’exercice des pouvoirs dont elle dispose seront d’une grande utilité pour attribuer ses actes à l’État au titre de l’article 4 du Projet d’articles.44 Mais la qualification d’organe de l’État n’implique pas nécessairement que tous les actes commis sont ipso facto attribuables à l’État employeur. C’est la détermination des actes des sociétés militaires privées et de leurs employés qualifiés d’organes de l’État attribuables à l’État qu’il faut donc établir.

L’ATTRIBUTION À L’ÉTAT DES ACTES COMMIS PAR LES SOCIÉTÉS MILITAIRES PRIVÉES ET LEURS EMPLOYÉS SOUS L’ARTICLE 7 DU PROJET

Dans certaines hypothèses, les sociétés militaires privées peuvent être des organes de l’État qui les emploie. Si les actes commis dans le cadre de leur mandat ou de leur compétence ne suscitent pas de difficultés particulières d’attribution, l’État étant évidemment responsable pour ceux-ci, des doutes peuvent surgir concernant les actes commis en contradiction des instructions de l’État ou ceux entachés d’excès de compétence. L’article 7 du Projet d’articles aborde cette question en distinguant entre les actes commis avec l’apparence de la qualité officielle et ceux qui ne le sont pas; il s’agit du régime général de la responsabilité de l’État pour les actes ultra vires de ces organes. Concernant les membres des forces armées d’un État agissant en période de conflit armé international, un régime spécial semble être attaché à leurs actions.

Le Régime Général de la Responsabilité de l’État pour les Actes Ultra Vires de ses Organes L’article 7 du Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité internationale des États stipule: Le comportement d’un organe de l’État ou d’une personne ou entité habilitée à l’exercice de prérogatives de puissance publique est considéré comme un fait de l’État d’après le droit international si cet organe, cette personne ou cette entité agit en cette qualité, même s’il outrepasse sa compétence ou contrevient à ses instructions.

Cette disposition utilise le critère de la qualité officielle au moment de l’acte illicite afin de distinguer entre les actes attribuables à l’État et ceux qui peuvent être 43 Voir Application de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide (n 6) 142, para 397. 44 Commission du droit international (n 11) 94–95.

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considérés comme étant de simples actes privés.45 Le commentaire de l’article 7 précise que ce qui importe, c’est l’apparence de la qualité officielle durant la commission de l’acte illicite.46 L’organe de l’État doit agir comme s’il était en fonction pour le compte de l’État.47 Suivant les termes de la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l’homme, tel est le cas lorsque l’acte illicite est commis par un acte de puissance publique ou par des personnes qui usent de leur position d’autorité à cet effet.48 C’est pourquoi dans l’affaire Caire, le tribunal arbitral, quoiqu’ayant remarqué que l’assassinat de Mr Caire avait été perpétré dans le but de lui extorquer de l’argent, tint cependant le Mexique responsable de l’acte illicite de ses deux officiers puisque ceux-ci avaient agi ‘comme s’étant couverts de leur qualité d’officiers et servis des moyens mis, à ce titre, à leur disposition.’49 L’hypothèse s’appliquerait ainsi aux employés des sociétés militaires privées ayant le statut d’organe des États en vertu de leur droit interne. On pourrait s’interroger si elle s’étendrait aussi aux employés des sociétés militaires privées assimilés à des organes des États qui les emploient. Le commentaire de l’article 7 n’opère pas de distinction entre les organes des États en vertu de leur droit interne et les personnes et entités assimilées à de tels organes en matière de responsabilité internationale. Il semble donc considérer a priori que l’article 7 est applicable à chacune de ces deux hypothèses. La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme semble avoir suivi ce raisonnement dans l’affaire Avs¸ar c/ Turquie concernant la conduite de certains gardes de villages. En effet, sur la base d’un texte législatif, le chapitre 8 de la loi turque sur les villages (loi no 442), était autorisé le recrutement de gardes de villages volontaires pour la protection des populations villageoises. Ceux-ci étaient habilités à exercer des ‘fonctions quasi-policières’, notamment les investigations relatives à des délits et crimes et l’arrestation des présumés coupables et la protection de biens et d’édifices publics. Ces gardes de village étaient subordonnés aux commandants de la gendarmerie de la sous-préfecture du village concerné. Toutefois, les gardes de villages n’étaient assujettis ni à la discipline, ni à la formation que subissent les policiers et les gendarmes turcs. Les similarités entre cette situation et celle de certains employés de sociétés militaires privées ne manquent pas. La Cour considéra que ces gardes étaient des ‘agents’ de la Turquie,50 relevant que ceux-ci ‘jouissaient d’une position officielle et avaient des devoirs et des responsabilités’.51 Aussi, jugea-t-elle que les actes de ces gardes étaient attribuables à la Turquie dans la mesure où les gardes de village du cas d’espèce :

45 Voir en jurisprudence, Velásquez-Rodríguez v Honduras (Judgement). IACtHR Series C No. 4, para 170 (29 juillet 1988). 46 Commission du droit international (n 11) 108. 47 Petrolane, Inc v Islamic Republic of Iran (1991) 27 Iran-USCTR 92. 48 Velásquez-Rodríguez v Honduras (n 45) para 172. 49 ‘Estate of Jean-Baptiste Caire (France) v United Mexican States’ (sentence arbitrale du 7 juin 1929) (1952) 5 Recueil des sentences arbitrales 516, 531. Voir aussi, ‘Francisco Mallén (United Mexican States) v United States of America’ (sentence arbitrale du 27 avril 1927) (1951) 4 Recueil des sentences arbitrales 173, 175. 50 Avs¸ar c/ Turquie (CEDH) Reports 2001-VII 519, para 412. 51 ibid, para 413.

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avaient été envoyés à Diyarbakir pour participer à l’arrestation de suspects et ont déclaré à la famille Avs¸ar qu’ils étaient mandatés. La septième personne, un membre des forces de l’ordre, a également affirmé agir officiellement. Les protagonistes étaient des agents de l’État, et ont prétendu agir comme tels. Ils ont usé de leur position pour contraindre Mehmet S¸erif Avs¸ar à les accompagner.52

En insistant sur l’apparence de la qualité officielle utilisée pour l’arrestation de Sérif Avsar, la Cour semble avoir appliqué la règle prévue par l’article 7 à des personnes privées assimilées à des organes d’un État, bien qu’elle ne mentionnât pas expressément la disposition du Projet d’articles. Il peut donc être considéré que l’article 7 du Projet d’articles est applicable aussi aux organes assimilés à des organes d’un État. En pratique, cela reviendra à tenir l’État responsable pour les activités d’un employé d’une société militaire privée, organe suivant l’article 4, dès que celui-ci commet l’acte illicite en se revêtant de l’autorité étatique. De la sorte, l’État sera responsable du fait qu’un employé d’une société militaire privée, organe de son armée, utilise son autorité de gardien d’un prisonnier de guerre, pour le torturer, peu importe que son action ait été ou non mandatée par l’État. Il en sera de même si l’employé de la société militaire privée était seulement chargé d’interroger le prisonnier de guerre et qu’il violait les droits de ce dernier. Ce que rejette la condition de la qualité officielle formulée par l’article 7, ce sont les actes privés. Il en sera ainsi, selon l’exemple trivial de la Commission du droit international, de l’employé de la société militaire privée qui utiliserait son arme de service pour tuer l’amant de sa femme qu’il retrouve chez lui. Bien qu’ayant utilisé son arme de service, le crime aura été commis en qualité privée et ne peut donc pas être attribué à l’État. Selon le commentaire, l’exception des actes privés ne peut cependant pas être invoquée si le comportement illicite dont il est question est si récurrent ou si systématique qu’il doit être présumé que l’État dont la responsabilité est recherchée savait ou devait savoir son occurrence et prendre des mesures pour y mettre fin.53 De la sorte, les actes illicites répétés ou systématiques commis par des employés des sociétés militaires privées au sens de l’article 4 sont attribuables à l’État qui les emploie, même s’ils ont une nature privée. L’hypothèse que nous avons examinée ici couvre la responsabilité de l’État pour les actes ultra vires de ses organes en temps de paix et en période de conflit armé interne. Elle embrasse aussi les actes commis par des organes autres que les membres des forces armées en période de conflit armé international. Pour ces derniers, l’article 91 du Protocole 1 et l’article 3 de la Convention de La Haye IV, prévoient une responsabilité pour tous les actes en période de conflit armé international.54

52

ibid, para 413. Commission du droit international (n 11) 129, para 8. 54 Remarquons toutefois que cette disposition semble avoir étendu son champ aux actes des membres des forces armées en situation de conflit armé non international. Voir, J-M Henckaerts et L DoswaldBeck (éds), Droit international humanitaire coutumier (Bruxelles, Bruylant et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 2006) 545. 53

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Le Régime Particulier de la Responsabilité de l’État pour les Actes des Forces Armées en Période de Conflit Armé International L’application du régime particulier de la responsabilité de l’État pour les actes de ses forces armées en droit international humanitaire passe par la preuve que les employés des sociétés militaires peuvent être qualifiés de membres des forces au regard de ce corps de règles. En effet, c’est le droit international humanitaire qui prévoient l’ article 91 du Protocole additionnel I et l’article 3 de la Convention IV de la Haye. Partant, les membres des sociétés militaires doivent, pour entraîner l’application de ces deux articles, satisfaire aux conditions requises par le droit humanitaire pour être membres des forces armées d’un État. A cet égard, les conclusions en matière de responsabilité internationale ne peuvent en aucun cas être transposées en droit international humanitaire.55

Les Membres des Sociétés Militaires Privées, des Membres des Forces Armées au Sens du Droit International Humanitaire L’article 43 du Protocole additionnel I fournit une interprétation authentique de la notion de ‘membres des forces armées’ contenue à l’article 91 du Protocole additionnel I. L’alinéa 1 dudit article dispose: Les forces armées d’une Partie à un conflit se composent de toutes les forces, tous les groupes et toutes les unités armés et organisés qui sont placés sous un commandement responsable de la conduite de ses subordonnés devant cette Partie, même si celle-ci est représentée par un gouvernement ou une autorité non reconnus par une Partie adverse. Ces forces armées doivent être soumises à un régime de discipline interne qui assure, notamment, le respect des règles du droit international applicable dans les conflits armés.

Intrinsèquement pris, l’article 43 nous paraît être applicable aux activités des membres des sociétés militaires qui participent directement aux hostilités en étant insérés dans la structure étatique.56 Mais, avant toute chose, la remarque suivante s’impose: en mentionnant que les groupes et unités doivent être ‘armés’ afin de pouvoir être qualifiés de membre des forces armées, l’article 43 alinéa 1 du Protocole additionnel I circonscrit la qualité de membre des forces armées aux personnes qui ont le droit de participer directement aux hostilités en vertu du droit international humanitaire.57 En effet, l’activité typique des membres des forces armées qui la distingue de l’autre catégorie établie par le droit international humanitaire, à savoir celle des civils, est la participation directe aux hostilités. Par conséquent, l’hypothèse de l’assimilation d’employés de sociétés militaires privées aux forces armées d’un État doit aussi tenir compte de cette donnée fondamentale. 55 L Cameron mettait ainsi en garde contre une quelconque transposition des conclusions du droit de la responsabilité internationale pour la détermination du statut des membres des sociétés militaires privées. Voir L Cameron, ‘Private Military Companies: their Status under International Humanitarian Law and its Impact on their Regulation’ (2006) 86 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 573, 583–84. 56 Voir dans le même sens, Doswald-Beck, Private Military Companies (n 3) 121. 57 Dans le même sens, Boldt, Outsourcing War (n 8) 517.

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Les employés des sociétés militaires privées n’ont la qualité de membres des forces armées en vertu du droit humanitaire que dans la mesure où elles sont autorisées par l’État à accomplir des activités qui équivalent à la participation directe aux hostilités sous sa direction. Sont donc exclus tous les employés des sociétés militaires privées dont l’activité se limite exclusivement à des tâches civiles n’incluant pas une participation directe aux hostilités.58 Cette remarque est d’autant plus importante que c’est la limitation de la qualité de membre des forces armées et de combattants exclusivement aux personnes qui ont le droit de participer directement aux hostilités en vertu du droit humanitaire qui permet de respecter le principe fondamental de distinction du respect duquel dépend l’immunité des personnes civiles d’attaques lors de conflit armé.59 Une fois cette condition essentielle remplie, il faudra s’assurer que les employés des sociétés militaires concernées sont soumis à un commandement responsable. A cet égard, la condition du commandement responsable prévue par l’article 43 du Protocole additionnel I demande textuellement que le groupe ou l’unité armée soit sous le commandement de l’État et accepte d’exécuter les ordres de celui-ci.60 En effet, la seule portée de cette mention, comme le précise le commentaire de l’article 43, était d’exclure du champ d’application du droit humanitaire la guerre privée et le banditisme.61 Elle n’implique pas nécessairement une chaîne de commandement militaire, ce qui aurait été le cas si la disposition avait prévu qu’il fallait que les groupes et unités armés soient sous le commandement des commandants militaires des forces armées. Par conséquent, si des membres de sociétés militaires privées ne jouissent d’aucune autonomie et sont utilisés comme des employés de l’État dans le cadre d’un conflit armé, accomplissant des activités équivalant à la participation directe aux hostilités sous la direction de l’État, en synchronie avec les membres des forces armées, leur participation sera placée sous la responsabilité d’un organe de l’État qui aura intégré leurs opérations dans celles de ses forces armées. Le commandement responsable à même d’assurer un régime de discipline interne ne semble pas manquer dans ce cas.

58 Sur la notion de participation directe aux hostilités, voir N Melzer, Third Expert Meeting on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities, Geneva 23–25 October 2005, Summary Report, Co-organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the TMC Asser Institute, www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/participation-hostilities-ihl-311205/$File/ Direct_participation_in_hostilities_2005_eng.pdf. En doctrine, voir MN Schmitt, ‘Humanitarian Law and Direct Participation in Hostilities by Private Contractors or Civilian Employees’ (2005) 5 Chicago Journal of International Law 511–46. 59 Voir dans ce sens, McDonald (n 3) 376; K Weigelt et F Märker, ‘Who is Responsible? The Use of PMCs in Armed Conflict and International Law’ dans T Jäger et G Kümmel (éds), Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007) 382. 60 Selon Rogers, ‘If those individuals or groups come under command of a party to conflict, in the sense of accepting and carrying out the orders of that party, it can be argued that they are lawful combatant, unless they are mercenaries.’ APV Rogers, Laws on the Battlefield, 2ème édn (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004) 32. 61 J de Preux, ‘Protocole I — Article 43 — Forces armées’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986) 518.

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Toutes les conditions échafaudées par la doctrine, notamment l’exercice d’une compétence juridictionnelle ou l’institution d’un régime de discipline62 dont l’application conduit au déni de toute possibilité pour certains employés des sociétés militaires privées d’être des membres des forces armées au sens du droit international humanitaire semblent avoir été mal comprises dans leur portée. Il s’agit sans doute d’obligations supplémentaires imposées à l’État à l’égard des personnes qu’il autorise à combattre en son nom, mais il ne s’agit nullement de conditions nécessaires pour être membres des forces armées au sens du droit humanitaire. En outre, une lecture attentive de la structure de l’article 43 conforte cette conclusion. En effet, selon cette disposition, ce sont les personnes déjà qualifiées de membres des forces armées qui doivent être soumises au régime de discipline.63 Du reste, les auteurs qui dérivent de la condition du commandement responsable exigée par l’article 43 la nécessité d’une chaîne de commandement et d’une compétence juridictionnelle ne sauraient expliquer pourquoi ces conditions ne seraient pas applicables aux forces armées irrégulières qui sont généralement caractérisées par leur autonomie opérationnelle et leur insoumission à la même chaîne de commandement que les forces armées régulières. En effet, si l’article 43 exigeait de tous les membres des forces armées d’être nécessairement intégrés à la chaîne de commandement militaire des forces armées, cette règle devrait être appliquée tant aux forces armées régulières qu’à celles irrégulières puisque ledit article n’opère aucune distinction entre elles.64 Il est cependant évident qu’on ne saurait exiger des résistants et des partisans qui sont aussi couverts par l’article 43 d’être intégrés dans la chaîne de commandement militaire de l’État pour qui ils se battent. Il est donc fort possible que les employés des sociétés militaires privées soient des membres des forces armées d’un État sans être intégrés à sa chaîne de commandement militaire. Cette conclusion est d’ailleurs corroborée par l’article 4 A) 1 de la troisième Convention de Genève. En effet, cette disposition s’allie merveilleusement avec l’hypothèse des personnes intégrées de facto aux forces armées d’un État, puisqu’elle inclut parmi les forces armées d’un État au sens du droit international humanitaire, ‘les membres des milices et des corps de volontaires faisant partie de ces forces armées’. L’expression ‘faisant partie’ permet ainsi d’inclure dans les forces

62 Pour les auteurs qui défendent cette position, voir entre autres, Boldt (n 8) 529; M Klamert, ‘Military Subcontractors under International Humanitarian Law — A Contribution to the Distinction between Combatants and Civilians’ (2005) 10 Austrian Review of International and European Law 127, 141. Voir aussi, JK Elsea et NM Serafino, Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and other Issues, CRS Report for Congress, (11 juillet 2007) 13, http://media.washingtonpost. com/wp-srv/world/documents/contractor_crsreport_091807.pdf; GIAD Draper, ‘The Legal Classification of Belligerant Individuals’ dans Centre de droit international de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles (Centre Henri Rolin) (éd), Droit humanitaire et conflits armés, colloque des 28, 29 et 30 janvier 1970 (Bruxelles, Université de l’Université de Bruxelles), 1976) 142. 63 ‘Les forces armées d’une Partie à un conflit se composent de toutes les forces, tous les groupes et toutes les unités armés et organisés qui sont placés sous un commandement responsable de la conduite de ses subordonnés devant cette Partie, même si celle-ci est représentée par un gouvernement ou une autorité non reconnus par une Partie adverse. Ces forces armées doivent être soumises à un régime de discipline interne qui assure, notamment, le respect des règles du droit international applicable dans les conflits armés.’ 64 de Preux, Protocole I — Article 43 (n 61) 518.

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armées tant les milices légalement incorporées parmi les forces armées que ceux qui le sont d’une manière factuelle en étant soumis au commandement des organes de l’État dans la conduite des opérations militaires.65 Sa mention avait été exigée par les États pour tenir compte des cas de certaines personnes faisant partie des forces armées tout en demeurant distinctes d’elles,66 hypothèse qui n’est pas sans rappeler les mercenaires. En effet, avant l’entrée en vigueur du Protocole additionnel I, ceux-ci n’étaient pas des forces armées d’un État au sens du droit interne, n’étaient pas soumis à la chaîne de commandement militaire d’un État, ne partageaient pas le sentiment d’allégeance nationale des forces armées régulières des États et étaient impliqués dans le conflit armé dans un but lucratif, tout comme les sociétés militaires privées et leurs employés. Néanmoins, ils étaient considérés comme les membres des forces armées d’un État, et jouissaient à ce titre du statut de prisonnier de guerre.67 Ils faisaient donc factuellement partie des forces armées nationales des États qui les employaient sans satisfaire aux conditions du droit interne.68 Le Protocole additionnel I appuie aussi cette conclusion. En décidant de priver expressément les mercenaires du statut de combattant et de celui de prisonnier de guerre après capture, il admet par la même occasion que ceux-ci avaient normalement droit à ce statut. C’est d’ailleurs pourquoi le commentaire de l’article 47 du Protocole additionnel I précise qu’une telle privation de protection est facultative et que la partie qui détient le mercenaire peut toujours lui attribuer le statut de combattant et celui de prisonnier de guerre.69 La conclusion est donc certaine: les membres des sociétés militaires privées peuvent parfois être des membres des forces armées au sens du droit international humanitaire lorsqu’ils sont recrutés pour participer directement aux hostilités dans un conflit armé sous la direction d’un État.70 Toutefois, et en accord avec les 65 Voir aussi l’article 1 du règlement de la Haye qui considère que ‘Dans les pays où les milices ou des corps de volontaires constituent l’armée ou en font partie, ils sont compris sous la dénomination d’«armée».’ D Schindler, et J Toman, Droit des conflits armés. Recueil des conventions, résolutions et autres documents (Genève, Comité international de la Croix-Rouge et Institut Henry-Dunant, 1996) 26. Si ‘constituer les forces armées’ renvoie nécessairement à l’appartenance à celles-ci en vertu du droit interne, ‘en faire partie’ semble un niveau moins élevé, et paraît renvoyer à l’hypothèse d’une insertion factuelle. 66 Voir dans ce sens, J Pictet (éd), La Convention de Genève relative au traitement des prisonniers de guerre, (Genève, Comité International de la Croix-Rouge, 1958) 58. 67 Voir dans ce sens, J de Preux ‘Protocole I — Article 47 — Mercenaires’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986) 583. 68 V Harouel-Bureloup, Traité de droit international humanitaire (Paris, Presses Universitaire de France, 2005) 310; E Lambert-Abdelgawad, ‘Les sociétés militaires privées: un défi supplémentaire pour le droit international pénal’ (2007) Revue de science criminelle et de droit pénal comparé 156, 158; JR Heaton, ‘Civilians at War: Reexamining the Status of Civilians Accompanying the Armed Forces’ (2005) 57 Air Force Law Review 155, 174. 69 Voir dans ce sens Boldt (n 8) 529. 70 Le Code Lieber qui est une codification à certains égards des lois et coutumes de la guerre suit aussi cette même logique, puisqu’il considère comme ayant droit au statut de prisonniers de guerre: ‘Tous soldats à quelque armes qu’ils appartiennent; tous hommes faisant partie de la levée en masse du pays ennemi, toutes personnes attachées à l’armée pour ses opérations et faisant directement acte de guerre … s’ils sont capturés sont prisonniers de guerre et, comme tels, soumis aux rigueurs comme admis aux privilèges de prisonnier de guerre’. Voir le texte dans Schindler et Toman, Droit des conflits armés (n 65) 10.

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principaux manuels de droit humanitaire sur la question,71 la majorité de la doctrine relative aux sociétés militaires privées soutient qu’aucune incorporation factuelle des employés des sociétés militaires privées dans les forces armées d’un État n’est juridiquement possible. Il faudrait selon cette opinion doctrinale, dans chaque cas vérifier la satisfaction des procédures classiques du droit interne en matière de recrutement ou d’incorporation.72 L’idée est cependant difficilement soutenable, d’autant plus qu’aucune norme du droit international général ou du droit international humanitaire n’impose à l’État la manière dont il doit établir les membres de ses forces armées. Juridiquement, en l’absence d’une règle de droit international imposant des contraintes à un État, celui-ci jouit de la liberté d’agir comme il le veut.73 Dans le cas d’espèce, il peut établir ses forces armées librement par le contrat comme le reconnaît d’ailleurs le commentaire de l’article 43 du Protocole additionnel I.74 Si la doctrine est en général défavorable à l’hypothèse pourtant crédible de l’insertion de facto parmi les forces armées d’un État, elle semble plus réceptive à l’égard de l’article 4 A) 2) de la troisième Convention de Genève. Elle estime que les conditions de cet article sont souvent remplies concernant les sociétés militaires privées.75 Nous sommes cependant très réservés concernant la validité de cette argumentation. En effet, la disposition avait été rédigée pour accorder le statut de prisonniers de guerre aux partisans.76 Il sera difficile de considérer les employés de sociétés militaires privées comme des résistants, surtout lorsqu’ils sont engagés pour renforcer la politique d’une puissance occupante. Outre cet argument téléologique, l’hypothèse de l’article 4 A) 2) ne cadre pas véritablement avec la situation des employés des sociétés militaires privées. En effet, les entités envisagées par cet article jouissent d’une autonomie (indépendance) à l’égard de l’État, notamment 71 Voir entre autres, E David, Principes du droit des conflits armés, 3ème édn (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2002) 419; R Kolb, Ius in bello, Le droit international des conflits armés, Précis (Bâle, Helbing & Lichtehahn et Bruylant, 2003) 159; AW Solf, ‘Article 43’ dans M Bothe, KJ Partsch et WA Solf (éds), New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 1982) 231 et 236; M Sassòli et A Bouvier, How Does Law Protect in War, 2ème édn (Genève, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2006) 149–50. 72 Cameron, Private Military Companies (n 55) 583; Schmitt, Humanitarian Law and Direct Participation in Hostilities (n 58) 511; McDonald (n 3) 375–77; Boldt (n 8) 515; E-C Gillard, ‘Business Goes to War: Private Military Security Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 525, 533; CE Berdud, El estatuto jurídico de los mercernarios y de la compañías militares privadas en el derecho internacional (Pamplona, Thomson-Aranzadi, 2007) 178–79; C Schaller, ‘Private Security and Military Companies under International Law of Armed Conflicts’ dans T Jäger et G Kümmel (éds), Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007) 347. 73 Il s’agit du principe de la liberté résiduelle en l’absence de règle de droit international, reconnu notamment dans l’Affaire du ‘Lotus’ (France c/ Turquie) CPJI Série A No 10, 19. 74 de Preux (n 61) 518: ‘À ces conditions, auxquelles s’ajoutent celles de la deuxième phrase du présent paragraphe, toutes les forces armées sont « régulières », qu’elles soient mises sur pied par un État, en vertu d’une législation appropriée, ou par une autre Partie au conflit par des voies qui lui sont propres [notamment le contrat], ou encore qu’elles se soient levées spontanément.’ Voir aussi Weigelt et Märker, Who is Responsible? (n 59) 382; Doswald-Beck (n 3) 119; MF Furet, J-C Martinez et H Dorandeu, La guerre et le droit (Paris, Pedone, 1979) 60; C Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés (Paris, Pedone, 1983) 69. 75 Boldt (n 8) 516 et seq; Cameron (n 55) 585–86;Doswald-Beck (n 3) 118–19; Gillard, Business Goes to War (n 72) 533–36. 76 Cameron (n 55) 586.

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dans la conduite des hostilités. Le seul lien qui les lie à celui-ci est la communauté de but et une relation de facto. A la vérité, tel n’est pas le cas de certains employés des sociétés militaires privées qui sont engagés par les États, pour agir dans leur structure, sous la direction de leurs organes.77 Au final, certains employés des sociétés militaires privées peuvent être des membres des forces armées d’un État sous l’article 43 du Protocole additionnel I et l’article 4 A) 1 de la troisième Convention de Genève. L’hypothèse est cependant restrictive et ne doit pas être surestimée dans sa portée: premièrement, il faudrait que les sociétés militaires concernées soient engagées par des États ou d’autres sujets du droit international et non des entités ou personnes privées, ce qui n’est pas toujours le cas; deuxièmement, il faudrait que les activités des employés des sociétés militaires privées constituent une participation directe aux hostilités au sens du droit humanitaire, ce qui aussi n’est pas acquis d’avance. Enfin, cette participation directe aux hostilités doit être faite sous le commandement de l’État: il ne doit donc pas s’agir de simples instructions données à des personnes privées pour commettre des actes d’hostilités de façon autonome. Quoique restrictives, si ces conditions sont remplies, alors les employés de ces sociétés militaires privées seraient des membres des forces armées au sens du droit humanitaire en période de conflit armé international et la responsabilité de l’État pour leurs activités sera cernée par l’article 91 du Protocole additionnel I. La Responsabilité de l’État pour les Employés des Sociétés Militaires Privées Membres des Forces Armées en Droit International Humanitaire L’article 91 du Protocole additionnel I stipule: La Partie au conflit qui violerait les dispositions des Conventions ou du présent Protocole sera tenue à indemnité, s’il y a lieu. Elle sera responsable de tous actes commis par les personnes faisant Partie de ses forces armées.

La portée de cette stipulation est controversée. En effet, le commentaire de l’article 9178 et celui de la Commission du droit international relatif à l’article 779 considèrent qu’il n’existe pas une lex specialis concernant la responsabilité de l’État pour les activités de ses forces armées en période de conflit armé.80 Selon cette logique, pour établir la responsabilité de l’État pour les actes des membres des sociétés militaires privées incorporés dans les forces armées d’un État donné, il faudrait prouver qu’ils ont agi avec l’apparence de la qualité officielle. On 77

Schmitt, (n 58) 529 et seq. B Zimmermann, ‘Protocole I — Article 89 — Coopération’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986) 1056. 79 Commission du droit international (n 11) 106. 80 Voir en doctrine les auteurs suivants, M Frulli, ‘When Are States Liable towards Individuals for Serious Violations of Humanitarian Law? The Markovic´ Case’ (2003) 1 Journal of International Criminal Justice 406, 415; N Klein, ‘State Responsibility for International Humanitarian Law Violations and the Work of the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission so far’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 214, 219. Remarquons toutefois que les auteurs n’expliquent pas leurs arguments et se contentent souvent de simples affirmations. 78

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retrouverait là le régime de droit commun de la responsabilité internationale de l’État pour les actes ultra vires de ses organes. Même dans cette hypothèse, M Sassòli soutient qu’à l’égard des comportements régis par le droit international humanitaire, les forces armées de l’État sont toujours présumées agir es qualité et n’agissent pas à titre privé.81 Effectivement, de telles situations sont assez rares. Toutefois, cette position semble contraire au texte même de l’article 91 qui précise bien que l’État est responsable de tous les actes commis par ces forces armées, sans distinguer entre ceux commis avec l’apparence de la qualité officielle et ceux qui ne le sont pas. Elle ne tient donc pas compte du canon de l’interprétation textuelle dont la Cour internationale de Justice avait reconnu la très grande importance en 1950.82 De même, la relation entre l’article 3 de la quatrième Convention de La Haye de 1907 et l’article 91 du Protocole I soutient l’interprétation suivant laquelle les États sont responsables de tous les actes des membres des forces armées en période de conflit armé, peu importe l’apparence de la qualité officielle. En effet, l’article 91 n’a fait que réaffirmer et développer, à certains égards, l’article 3 précité.83 Et cet article attribue à l’État tous les actes commis par ces forces armées en période de conflit armé international.84 Cette interprétation fut aussi adoptée par la jurisprudence internationale. Suivant en cela la piste inaugurée par Max Huber dans l’affaire de Certains biens britanniques au Maroc espagnol,85 la Cour internationale de Justice prit le parti de l’interprétation large de la portée de l’article 91 dans l’affaire des Activités armées sur le territoire du Congo. Elle jugea: Est en outre dépourvue de pertinence, pour l’attribution du comportement des UPDF à l’Ouganda, la question de savoir si les membres des UPDF ont ou non agi d’une manière contraire aux instructions données ou ont outrepassé leur mandat. D’après une règle bien établie, de caractère coutumier, énoncée à l’article 3 de la quatrième convention de La Haye concernant les lois et coutumes de la guerre sur terre de 1907 ainsi qu’à l’article 91 du protocole additionnel I aux conventions de Genève de 1949, une partie à un conflit armé est responsable de tous les actes des personnes qui font partie de ses forces armées.86

A cette interprétation, qui nous paraît celle juridiquement la plus convaincante, se rallie aussi la majorité de la doctrine.87 A cet égard, les membres des sociétés

81 M Sassòli, ‘State Responsibility for Violations of International Humanitarian Law’ (2002) 84 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 401, 406. 82 Compétence de l’Assemblée générale pour l’admission d’un État aux Nations-Unies (avis consultatif) [1950] CIJ Rec 8. 83 de Preux (n 61) 519. 84 F Kalshoven, ‘States Responsibility for Warlike Acts of the Armed Forces. From Article 3 of the Hague Convention IV of 1907 to Article 91 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 and Beyond’ (1991) 40 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 827, 848; R Bierzanek, ‘The Responsibility of States in Armed Conflicts’ (1981–1982) 11 Polish Yearbook of International Law 93, 98–99; AJJ de Hoogh, ‘Articles 4 and 8 of the 2001 ILC Articles on State Responsibility, the Tadic´ case and Attribution of Acts of Bosnian Serbs Authorities to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ (2002) 72 British Yearbook of International Law 255, 284; Solf, Article 43 (n 71) 234. 85 ‘Affaire des biens britanniques au Maroc espagnol (Espagne c/ Grande-Bretagne)’ (sentence arbitrale du 1er mai 1925) (1949) 2 Recueil des sentences arbitrales 615, 645. 86 Activités armées sur le territoire du Congo (n 30) 69, para 214. 87 Voir entre autres, de Hoogh, Articles 4 and 8 (n 84) 284; Nieminen (n 3) 296; K Doermann, ‘Individual and State Responsibility in the Field of International Humanitarian Law’ (1999) 18(3)

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militaires privées qui constituent des membres des forces armées d’un État au sens du droit international humanitaire, en raison de leur participation directe aux hostilités sous le commandement d’un État engagent la responsabilité de ce dernier pour tous les actes illicites qu’ils commettent en période de conflit armé international. En revanche, concernant les membres des sociétés militaires assimilés à des organes de l’État sans être membres des forces armées en vertu du droit international humanitaire, le régime classique de la responsabilité internationale pour les actes ultra vires sera applicable. Il faudra établir que l’acte illicite a été commis es qualité.

CONCLUSION

Au terme de notre analyse, l’attribution des activités des employés des sociétés militaires privées aux États qui les emploient en vertu de l’article 4 du Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité internationale apparaît théoriquement possible en droit international. En pratique, l’article 4 ne pourra cerner que le comportement des employés des sociétés militaires privées qui sont engagés par des États et qui accomplissent des activités officielles dans la structure étatique en étant subordonnés aux organes de l’État et en l’absence de toute autonomie. L’hypothèse concernera ainsi certains membres des sociétés militaires privées, notamment ceux qui sont utilisés pour supporter les opérations de combat des forces armées, ceux qui sont utilisés pour des tâches civiles auprès des forces armées mais en pleine dépendance avec ceux-ci et aussi les membres des sociétés militaires privées embauchés pour participer aux opérations de combat au profit d’un État et sous son commandement. Au sens du droit humanitaire, les membres des sociétés militaires privées recrutés par un État pour participer directement aux hostilités sous son commandement sont des membres de ses forces armées au sens de l’article 43 du Protocole additionnel I et de l’article 4 A) 1) de la troisième convention de Genève. A ce titre, la responsabilité de l’État ne s’étend pas seulement aux activités commises es qualité; elle s’étend à tous les actes commis par ces forces. Étant souvent des organes de l’État contractant en droit de la responsabilité internationale et, parfois, des membres de ses forces armées au sens du droit international humanitaire, la Règle 139 de l’étude du Comité internationale de la Croix-Rouge sur le droit international humanitaire coutumier revêt tout son intérêt puisqu’elle impose à chaque partie au conflit de ‘respecter et faire respecter le droit international humanitaire par ses forces armées ainsi que par les personnes ou groupes agissant en fait sur ses instructions ou ses directives ou sous son contrôle’.88 A cet égard, il ne s’agit pas de recentrer les règles du droit humanitaire mais d’en

Refugee Survey Quarterly 78, 81; Kalshoven, States Responsibility for Warlike Acts (n 84) 853; Sassòli, State Responsibility (n 81) 406; Bierzanek, The Responsibility of States (n 84) 97–98; Condorelli, L’imputation à l’État d’un fait internationalement illicite (n 5) 146–48; Y Sandoz, ‘Unlawful Damage in Armed Conflicts and Redress under International Humanitarian Law’ (1982) 64 International Review of the Red Cross 135, 136––37. 88

Henckaerts et Doswald-Beck, Droit international humanitaire coutumier (n 54) 651.

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appliquer toutes les implications relatives à l’emploi de cette catégorie de sociétés militaires privées et de leurs employés dans les conflits armés.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Ouvrages CE Berdud, El estatuto jurídico de los mercernarios y de la compañías militares privadas en el derecho internacional (Pamplona, Thomson-Aranzadi, 2007). E David, Principes du droit des conflits armés, 3ème édn (Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2002). MF Furet, J-C Martinez et H Dorandeu, La guerre et le droit (Paris, Pedone, 1979). V Harouel-Bureloup, Traité de droit international humanitaire (Paris, Presses Universitaire de France, 2005). M Henckaerts et L Doswald-Beck (éds), Droit international humanitaire coutumier (Bruxelles, Bruylant et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 2006). AO Kees, Privatisierung im Völkerrecht. Zur Verantwortlichkeit der Staaten bei der Privatisierung von Staatsaufgaben (Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2007). R Kolb, Ius in bello, Le droit international des conflits armés, Précis (Bâle, Helbing & Lichtenhahn et Bruylant, 2003). P Palchetti, L’organo di fatto delto stato nell’illecito internazionale (Milan, Giuffrè, 2007). J Pictet (éd), La Convention de Genève relative au traitement des prisonniers de guerre (Genève, Comité International de la Croix-Rouge, 1958). APV Rogers, Laws on the Battlefield, 2ème édn (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004). C Rousseau, Le droit des conflits armés (Paris, Pedone, 1983). M Sassòli et A Bouvier, How Does Law Protect in War, 2ème édn (Genève, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2006). PW Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry and its Ramifications for International Security (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001).

Articles d’Ouvrages Collectifs J de Preux, ‘Protocole I — Article 43 — Forces armées’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986). J de Preux, ‘Protocole I — Article 47 — Mercenaires’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986).

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L Doswald-Beck, ‘Private Military Companies under International Humanitarian Law’ dans S Chesterman et C Lehnardt, From Mercenaries to Market. The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). GIAD Draper, ‘The Legal Classification of Belligerant Individuals’ dans Centre de droit international de l’Institut de Sociologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles (Centre Henri Rolin) (éd), Droit humanitaire et conflits armés, colloque des 28, 29 et 30 janvier 1970 (Bruxelles, Université de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1976). C Lehnardt, ‘Private Military Companies and State Responsibility’ dans S Chesterman and C Lehnardt (éds), From Mercenaries to Market: the Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). A McDonald, ‘Ghosts in the Machine: some Legal Issues concerning US Military Contractors in Iraq’ dans MN Schmitt et J Pejic (éds), International Law and Armed Conflict: Exploring the Faultiness: Essays in Honour of Yoram Dinstein (Leiden, M Nijhoff, 2007). C Schaller, ‘Private Security and Military Companies under International Law of Armed Conflicts’ dans T Jäger et G Kümmel (éds), Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007). AW Solf, ‘Article 43’ dans M Bothe, KJ Partsch et WA Solf (éds), New Rules for Victims of Armed Conflicts (The Hague, M Nijhoff, 1982). M Spinedi, ‘La responsabilità dello Stato per comportamenti di private contractors’ dans M Spinedi, A Gianelli et ML Alaino (éds), La codificazione della responsabilità internazionale degli Stati alla prova dei fatti. Problemi e spuniti di riflessione (Milan, Giufrè, 2006). K Weigelt et F Märker, ‘Who is Responsible? The Use of PMCs in Armed Conflict and International Law’ dans T Jäger et G Kümmel (éds), Private Military and Security Companies. Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects (Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007). R Wolfrum, ‘State Responsibility for Private Actors: an Old Problem of Renewed Relevance’ dans M Ragazzi (éd), International Responsibility Today. Essays in Memory of Oscar Schachter (Leiden, M Nijhoff, 2005). B Zimmermann, ‘Protocole I — Article 89 — Coopération’ dans Y Sandoz, C Swiniarski, B Zimmermann (éds), Commentaire des Protocoles additionnel du 8 juin 1977 au Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 (Genève, M Nijhoff et Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 1986).

Document International Commission du droit international ‘Projet d’articles sur la responsabilité de l’État pour fait internationalement illicite et commentaires y relatifs’ dans (2001) 53 Annuaire de la Commission du droit international, tome II(2), A/CN 4/SER A/2001.

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Articles de Périodiques R Bierzanek, ‘The Responsibility of States in Armed Conflicts’ (1981–1982) 11 Polish Yearbook of International Law 93–116. N Boldt, ‘Outsourcing War — Private Military Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2005) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 502– 44. L Cameron, ‘Private Military Companies: their Status under International Humanitarian Law and its Impact on their Regulation’ (2006) 86 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 573–98. A Clapham, ‘Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors in Conflict Situations’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 491–523. AJJ de Hoogh, ‘Articles 4 and 8 of the 2001 ILC Articles on State Responsibility, the Tadic´ case and Attribution of Acts of Bosnian Serbs Authorities to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ (2002) 72 British Yearbook of International Law 255–92. K Doermann, ‘Individual and State Responsibility in the Field of International Humanitarian Law’ (1999) 18(3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 78–83. A Epiney et A Egbuna-Joss, ‘Zur völkerrechtlichen Verantwortlichkeit im Zusammenhang mit dem Verhalten privater Sicherheitsfirmen’ (2007) 17 Schweizerische Zeitschrift für internationales und europäisches Recht 215–33. M Frulli, ‘When Are States Liable towards Individuals for Serious Violations of Humanitarian Law? The Markovic´ Case’ (2003) 1 Journal of International Criminal Justice 406–27. E-C Gillard, ‘Business Goes to War: Private Military Security Companies and International Humanitarian Law’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la CroixRouge 525–72. JR Heaton, ‘Civilians at War: Reexamining the Status of Civilians Accompanying the Armed Forces’ (2005) 57 Air Force Law Review 155–208. F Kalshoven, ‘States Responsibility for Warlike Acts of the Armed Forces. From Article 3 of the Hague Convention IV of 1907 to Article 91 of Additional Protocol I of 1977 and Beyond’ (1991) 40 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 827–58. M Klamert, ‘Military Subcontractors under International Humanitarian Law — A Contribution to the Distinction between Combatants and Civilians’ (2005) 10 Austrian Review of International and European Law 127–46. N Klein, ‘State Responsibility for International Humanitarian Law Violations and the Work of the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission so far’ (2004) 47 German Yearbook of International Law 214–66. E Lambert-Abdelgawad, ‘Les sociétés militaires privées: un défi supplémentaire pour le droit international pénal’ (2007) Revue de science criminelle et de droit pénal comparé 156–68. CH Lytton, ‘Blood for Hire’ (2006) 8 Oregon Review of International Law 307–35.

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K Nieminen, ‘The Rule of Attribution and the Private Military Contractors at Abu Ghraib: Private or Public Wrongs?’ (2004) 15 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 289–319. B Perrin, ‘Promoting Compliance of Private Security and Military Companies with International Humanitarian Law’ (2006) 88 Revue internationale de la CroixRouge 613–36. Y Sandoz, ‘Unlawful Damage in Armed Conflicts and Redress under International Humanitarian Law’ (1982) 64 International Review of the Red Cross 135–59. M Sassòli, ‘State Responsibility for Violations of International Humanitarian Law’ (2002) 84 Revue internationale de la Croix-Rouge 401–34. MN Schmitt, ‘Humanitarian Law and Direct Participation in Hostilities by Private Contractors or Civilian Employees’ (2005) 5 Chicago Journal of International Law 511–46. JC Zarate, ‘The Emergence of a New Dog of War: Private International Security Companies, International Law, and the New World Disorder’ (1998) 34 Stanford Journal of International Law 75–162.

Cours L Condorelli, ‘L’imputation à l’État d’un fait internationalement illicite: Solutions classiques et nouvelles tendances’ (1984) 189 Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International 9–221.

Référence Internet CACI, ‘CACI Corrects False Information about Chain of Command in Iraq. Civilian Contractors Do Not Give Orders to Military Personnel’, www.caci.com/about/news/news2004/07_29_04_NR.html. JK Elsea et NM Serafino, ‘Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and other Issues, CRS Report for Congress’, http://media.washington post.com/wp-srv/world/documents/contractor_crsreport_091807.pdf. GR Fay, ‘AR 15–6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade’, http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/ docs/dod/fay82504rpt.pdf. N Melzer, ‘Third Expert Meeting on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities, Geneva 23–25 October 2005, Summary Report, Co-organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the TMC Asser Institute’, www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/participation-hostilities-ihl-311205/ $File/Direct_participation_in_hostilities_2005_eng.pdf.

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Law and Policy Issues of Unilateral Geoengineering: Moving to a Managed World GARETH DAVIES *

INTRODUCTION

G

EOENGINEERING IS USUALLY understood to mean the deliberate manipulation of the climate.1 A number of techniques have been proposed to achieve this, from innovative ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, to the seeding of clouds or the spraying of dust in the upper atmosphere.2 Three facts make these proposals important. Firstly, some of the techniques discussed, it is claimed, could significantly or even entirely offset the effects of human-induced global warming. Secondly, they are in some cases relatively cheap and easy to carry out, even within the budgetary and technical reach of a large private organisation or a single small state. Thirdly, the full effects of the techniques are not known, and it is distinctly possible that alongside, or even instead of, causing any reduction in temperature, geoengineering could also cause global or local side-effects that would be undesirable or even catastrophic.3 It follows that motivation to experiment is very significant, since there is much to gain. Given the accessibility of the technology, there is a very high chance that geoengineering techniques will be applied, by someone, somewhere. However, there is also much to lose. There is therefore an obvious case for some kind of international regulation. This paper aims to identify and outline some of the practical and conceptual problems that such regulation would face. It does not offer answers to all of them. It is hoped that others will do that. The paper has three sections subsequent to this one. The first outlines techniques of geoengineering and discusses problems of definition. The second considers whether existing law has any relevance to these techniques. The third considers the legal and policy challenges that regulation would have to face.

* Professor of European Law, Free University, Amsterdam. 1 C Marchetti, ‘On Geoengineering and the CO2 Problem’ (Vienna, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Research Memorandum RM-76–17, 1976); G Marland, ‘Could We, Should We, Engineer the Earth’s Climate?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 275; DW Keith, ‘Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect’ (2000) 25 Annual Review of Energy and Environment 245. 2 For an overview of suggestions, A Carlin, ‘Global Climate Control: is there a Better Strategy than Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?’ (2007) 155 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1401. 3 See A Robock, ‘20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May Be a Bad Idea’ (2008) 64 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 14 for an overview of problems and side-effects.

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Gareth Davies DEFINITION

The number of ways of manipulating the climate is no doubt growing every day, but proposals so far fall into two groups.4 One group consists of ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere, thereby countering the effects of burning fossil fuels. Suggestions include building artificial trees, each of which could remove the CO2 produced by several thousand cars, and putting nutrients in the ocean, which would cause the rapid growth of algae, which would in turn absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking the CO2 with them.5 These methods would achieve the same atmospheric result, by more technological means, as simply planting huge numbers of trees. A definitional issue is whether these techniques should be distinguished from simply not emitting the CO2 in the first place, either by burning less, or by collecting it at the point of emission, for example through factory filters. To call these latter techniques geoengineering would be controversial, since to many they seem precisely the opposite—the prevention of manmade climate change—yet they do the same work. The difference is in the starting point; preventing CO2 being released means that the climate status quo is not changed, whereas by contrast, if it is already in the atmosphere and removed, then the status quo is being adjusted. This difference may justify classifying the two groups separately, given that any climate impact can only be measured by deviation from some concept of ‘normality’. At the moment such normality is imagined in terms of the climate prior to human impact, but as time passes it may become increasingly artificial to have a norm that is far removed both from the current situation and from any realistic short-term goal. Normality may then become a more dynamic concept, and the status quo then may acquire an important role in establishing benchmarks against which climate change, and visions of the optimal temperature, can be measured.6 In that case emission prevention and emission removal will be significantly different approaches. The second group focuses on reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the earth, with a resultant cooling effect. This could be done, proponents claim, by using seawater sprays to create clouds which would reflect sunlight, putting mirrors in orbit around the earth, or releasing dust particles high in the earth’s atmosphere, creating a fine cloud-like layer which would absorb or reflect light.7 Like oceanseeding (from the first group), cloud-seeding and putting particles in the atmosphere are techniques where relatively modest efforts are claimed to have potentially

4

Keith, ‘Geoengineering the Climate’ (n 1). JE Peterson, ‘Can Algae Save Civilization? A Look at Technology, Law and Policy Regarding Iron Fertilization of the Ocean to Counteract the Greenhouse Effect’ (1995) 6 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 61; K Scott, ‘The Day After Tomorrow: Ocean CO2 Sequestration and the Future of Climate Change’ (2005) 18 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 57. 6 See EA Parsons, ‘Reflections on Air Capture: The Political Economy of Active Intervention in the Global Environment’ (2006) 74 Climatic Change 5. 7 The details are discussed in Carlin, ‘Global Climate Control’ (n 2); J Michaelson, ‘Geoengineering: a Climate Change Manhattan Project’ (1998) 17 Stanford Environmental Law Review 73; and many of the other citations below. 5

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significant effects. The budgets and facilities necessary to implement these techniques on a significant scale are within the reach of, say, a large corporation. In fact, one can put it more bluntly; there seems to be a scientific consensus that global warming can be completely stopped, or reversed, for relatively trivial amounts of money.8 For example, estimates of the costs of entirely offsetting the warming effects of CO2 vary from one billion dollars per year to several tens of billions of dollars per year.9 It is hardly surprising that the economics of geoengineering have been described as ‘incredible’.10

THE EXISTING LAW

Existing law says relatively little that is explicitly about geoengineering.11 The 1977 ENMOD Convention prohibits climate manipulation for military or hostile use,12 but that is another issue. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea regulates ‘pollution’ of the seas,13 which may or may not apply to algaefertilisation—it remains to be debated, and may depend on exactly what techniques are used.14 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is very much focused on greenhouse gases, and on reducing emissions and increasing absorption by natural or manmade carbon sinks.15 It does not address measures which, rather than reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, aim to counteract its climatic effects. Dust emission into the upper atmosphere might violate international law if the dust is intended to spread, as the lower atmosphere is under national sovereignty, and it could also raise issues of transboundary air pollution.16 However, it might be possible to create dust clouds which do not spread to other territories to a significant extent, dispersing sufficiently to avoid violating treaties such as the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution.17 This could be done within very large countries, or over international waters. 8 See eg, Keith (n 1); S Barrett, ‘The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering’ (2008) 39 Environmental and Resource Economics 45; National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming—Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base (Washington DC, National Academy Press, 1992) ch 28; HD Matthews and K Caldeira, ‘Transient Carbon Simulation of Planetary Geoengineering’ (2007) 104 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 9949. 9 Barrett, ‘The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering’ (n 8); National Academy of Sciences, Policy Implications (n 8). 10 Barrett, ‘The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering’ (n 8). 11 D Bodansky, ‘May We Engineer the Climate?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 309. 12 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or any Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (adopted 10 December 1976, entered into force 5 October 1978) 1108 UNTS 151 (‘ENMOD Convention’). 13 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (opened for signature 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, 21 ILM 1261 (‘UNCLOS’). 14 See Scott, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (n 5). 15 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (opened for signature 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 31 ILM 854 (‘UNFCCC’) see in particular Art 4. 16 Bodansky, ‘May We Engineer the Climate?’ (n 11). 17 Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (opened for signature 13 November 1979, entered into force 16 March 1983) 1302 UNTS 217 (‘LRTAP’).

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Arguments could also be made concerning the precautionary principle, which is regularly invoked as a principle of international law.18 However, it is far from obvious what hard consequences this could have, or indeed which way it would cut; there is something to be said for cooling as a precautionary measure, even if it does bring risks. It would be highly irrational to emphasise the potential for risky side-effects of geoengineering without weighing them against the risky side-effects of global warming. In fact, read narrowly, the precautionary principle is rather ill-suited to the geoengineering context. For example, consider the classic formulation found as Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration: ‘where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’19 This clearly envisages uncertainty about the impending harm—global warming—but does not envisage the situation where the preventive measures—geoengineering— are also surrounded by uncertainty and possible risk. The classic text of the precautionary principle is constructed for a context where uncertainties are all on the side of the harm, and remedies are clear and predictable. Yet if the text is read in a more purposive and somewhat broader way, its clear intention is that the desire for absolute certainty should not be used to delay action on environmental harm. The world should act on plausible threats, err on the side of environmental caution. It is a legal expression of ‘better safe than sorry’. Then in the geoengineering context, we have to ask ‘what is safe?’ and choose the path which seems most likely to prevent serious environmental harm, taking into account also cost-effectiveness perhaps. And so it becomes impossible to avoid balancing the costs and risks of geoengineering against the costs and risks of global warming. If anything, since many of the objections to geoengineering are more ideological and political than scientific (as discussed below) and since it is relatively cheap, and since the harm of global warming is considerably more certain than the risks of geoengineering are, the cost- risk- and science-based approach to the environment, which Principle 15 reflects, is likely to provide, on balance, support for geoengineering. There are other principles of international—and indeed domestic—law which may also be relevant, notably the ‘good neighbour’ principle and national laws on environmental torts, and the principle of intergenerational equity.20 A great deal of work is being done on these in the context of liability for climate change generally, and more will not be said on them here. However, whatever legal arguments may be made on the basis of these principles, there are reasons to think that they offer an inadequate solution to the problems raised by climate change, and by geoengineering in particular; as principles to be applied before courts they are about allocating responsibility and determining liability.21 Yet tort-based principles of liability, it will be suggested in the next section, are not adapted to the procedural or the policy 18

In this context, see Scott (n 5); Bodansky (n 11). UN Conference on Environment and Development (3 June–14 June 1992) ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ UN Doc A/CONF 151/26 (Vol I). 20 On intergenerational equity see Bodansky (n 11). 21 See MG Fauré and A Nollkaemper, ‘International Liability as an Instrument to Prevent and Compensate for Climate Change’ (2007) 43A Stanford Journal of International Law 123. 19

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issues that climate manipulation raises. Collective decision-making and governance frameworks offer a more plausible way forward. In any case, current law should not be allowed to constrain decision-making on geoengineering. The legal framework for liability and of environmental law was designed without this particular issue in mind. This is of course true of other environmental issues, but geoengineering is qualitatively very distinct. While, for example, pollution or conservation principles may be transferable from one pollutant or species to another, man-made cooling raises unique issues that demand a specific analysis and probably a specific regime. Even insofar as environmental law deals with climate change, it is concerned with warming, but the political dynamics of warming, generally a side-effect of other actions, are importantly different from geoengineering, which would entail the deliberate pursuit of cooling as an end in itself. Moreover, the consequences and gains that might result from climate manipulation are of a vast and global scale, meaning that failing to have an appropriate legal regime could be disastrous for both planet and population. The conclusion is that geoengineering is simply too important to become the victim of legacy law—of accidentally relevant rules not suited to this new context. Any approach to geoengineering needs to begin with the policy issues, and then change the law to fit. The real question is how to do this. THE LEGAL AND POLICY CHALLENGES

The Problem in Brief If, say, UK-funded cloud seeding in the Pacific cools the earth by two degrees, with the consequence that, say, Indonesia suffers increased rainfall while India gets less, and the tourist industry in California collapses—who pays what? And if we decide not to let this happen in the first place—how do we get to that decision-making position, and upon what should our decisions be based? These are the legal and policy problems of geoengineering in a nutshell. Put more abstractly and thoroughly: if one party—a state or corporation— adjusts the climate and this disadvantages another, should the first pay? Does it make a difference whether that climate adjustment is overwhelmingly beneficial for the rest of the planet? Does it make a difference whether the first party acted unilaterally or had the support of other states? Does it make a difference whether that climate change is in fact reversing changes brought about by other human actions—by that state or by other states? If states decide that a collective approach to geoengineering is the best way forward, how do they build the consensus for this? What should the content of that approach be? If geoengineering is used, who compensates the victims—for any climate change hurts someone—and how are they to be defined? Is it possible to have any kind of collective insurance system, or do we have to take our chances? How do we, and who gets to, define the costs and benefits that determine when geoengineering is beneficial? Is there any room for law, or must it all remain ad hoc and political?

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Should the role of a state in contributing to global warming affect its legal status in disputes over action to combat that warming? Should they pay more compensation to losers, have less right to it themselves, have a greater responsibility for costs and consequences? What about the gains that a state enjoys from climate adjustment—should that be relevant to its contribution to the losers in the process? And perhaps not least, although not further addressed here: can geoengineering be integrated into carbon obligations? Is contributing to cooling something that could be set against a national contribution to warming? This paper does no more than sketch some of the factors relevant to the foregoing questions, but attempts to identify some central ones: the impossibility and undesirability of a simple prohibition on climate manipulation; the difficulty of identifying causation for climatic harm; the elusive concept of ‘normality’; and the ideological resistance to global management. These are briefly discussed below, and a few conclusions drawn.

It’s Going to Happen The greatest challenges come from measures compensating for increased levels of CO2, rather than those preventing it. They are not addressed by existing law, and are the cheapest and easiest techniques, but also have the greatest risks. Firstly, they only deal selectively with the effects of greenhouse gases, possibly reducing warming, but not addressing the harmful effects of raised CO2 concentrations on, for example, ocean acidity.22 Secondly, their potential power means they could have dramatic side-effects.23 If the use of clouds, dust or mirrors is effective enough to reduce global temperature by several degrees, then these are clearly powerful enough techniques that one should consider what else might occur. For example, if calibration is slightly inaccurate, overcooling might result, with a net reduction of the global temperature rather than simply an end to warming. Alternatively or additionally, local variations in temperature might be much greater than global ones,24 meaning that global benefits might be accompanied by specific local tragedies. Finally, there is the risk of greatly increased warming, should the geoengineering process be suddenly stopped, a kind of rebound.25 Aside from changing temperature, the reduction in sunlight reaching the earth might also have other effects, for example on crop growth or rainfall. These could be harmful, and either create a positive feedback mechanism spiralling out of control, or create a negative feedback mechanism undoing some of the cooling effect. There are many unknowns, and the complexity of the climate means that it will not be possible with complete confidence to predict the effects before use.26 22 TML Wrigley, ‘A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach to Climate Stabilization’ (2006) 314 Science 452. 23 See Robock, ‘20 Reasons’ (n 3) for an overview of problems and side-effects. 24 SH Schneider, ‘Geoengineering: Could – Or Should – We Do It?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 291; Bodansky (n 11). 25 Matthews and Caldeira ‘Transient Carbon Simulation’ (n 8). 26 Keith (n 1); Schneider ‘Geoengineering’ (n 24).

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Yet a prohibition of such techniques does not seem realistic or desirable.27 They may have much to offer, and an incomplete solution can still be a part of a wider solution. The ability to reduce global temperature is worth having, even if it does not solve all of our problems. Moreover, the technology developed is likely to have many spin-offs, and may help in local climate management, if sunlight is inhibited not just globally, but in specific areas. There are plenty of possible uses for local temperature control, whether in cooling the ice-caps to prevent melting, or helping arid areas become fertile. More pragmatically, the interests in these techniques are likely to be too powerful to prevent total restriction.28 On local national levels one might think of states with winter sports industries—could local cooling be stimulated to enhance the snow? Private corporations would also have an interest in bringing such techniques to market in the hope that they could somehow profit from them. A likely method would be by integrating the effects into carbon calculations and the trading system, and thereby creating a huge market. One might expect many emitters, unions concerned about jobs, and industry ministers concerned about industrial performance, to be enthusiastic about (partly) compensating for carbon emission via relatively cheap cooling techniques—perhaps plus some other measures to de-acidify the ocean; dumping alkaline substances perhaps? The lobbying for a technology-based approach to warming will be intense. Some states are also likely to have a strong interest in unilateral action. Those frustrated with progress in emissions-reduction and suffering particular harm from temperature increases might be tempted to take the problem into their own hands.29 Other states might realise that carbon fuels are of particular importance to their development, wealth, or power—these could be developing nations or those with oil or coal resources. These might engage in global cooling measures in order to ensure that continued use of carbon fuels is globally acceptable. Other states may simply realise that the developing technology gives them the possibility to modify their climate, something which may be attractive quite apart from warming issues. Many dirigiste governments might perceive an interest in cooling and dampening— rendering more productive—some of their deserts, not to mention the fact that it may become possible to use the science developed to combat warming to raise temperature too, for example by locally decreasing atmospheric absorption, so that local defrosting may also be an option. A particular issue arises because local measures may well have global effects, albeit indirect and not always easy-to-measure ones. Cooling the Sahara might, for example, change wind flows, resulting in different temperatures and precipitation and even sea currents in other places. Yet preventing or prohibiting purely local climatic measures would probably be rejected by most states as an unacceptable

27 R Cicerone, ‘Geoengineering: Encouraging Research and Overseeing Implementation’ (2006) 77 Climatic Change 221; RE Dickinson, ‘A Review of Aerosol Approaches to Changing the Global Energy Balance’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 279; contra, Bodansky (n 11), who regards international agreement on prohibition as the most likely policy outcome, as a result of precautionary attitudes and the difficulty of agreeing on the institutional framework necessary for any other approach. 28 See Parsons, ‘Reflections on Air Capture’ (n 6). 29 ibid.

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infringement of their sovereignty. On the other hand, liability for transboundary effects could easily founder on causation—discussed below. The dangers of geoengineering are clear, but the possibilities are too, as are the powerful interests involved. One comes to the conclusion that geoengineering is not something that can be simply avoided. Too many parties are likely to perceive too many opportunities, and perhaps quite correctly. The task is therefore to determine how it should be approached.

A Liability-Based Approach If the risk of geoengineering is the harm to specific areas or to the global environment, then a tortious approach to regulation might seem appropriate, based on payment of compensation.30 However, this approach faces a number of problems. Firstly, causation could be very difficult to prove.31 It is hard to isolate the effect of a single factor in a complex system like the climate. Furthermore, too much insight into the specific links between consumption, emission and land use in a particular area, on the one hand, and particular unpleasant weather events, on the other, could be politically destabilising: if liability claims can be made for climatic effects resulting from geoengineering, then a case needs to be made why such claims cannot be sustained for climatic effects resulting from urbanisation, deforestation, emission of CO2, and changes in land use and population behaviour generally. Of course, increasingly the case is made that such claims are possible.32 However, at the moment, perhaps fortunately, the state of science limits the possibilities for dispute. It is certainly known that (a) states and communities suffer climate-related harm from temperature change, floods, storms, animal and plant stock changes, and other events, and also that (b) changing land use, such as urbanisation, industrialisation or deforestation, the emission of CO2, or the emission of other pollutants into the air or sea can causally contribute to such events, but there does not yet exist, in most cases, the ability to show a clear cause-and-effect chain from specific actions to specific harmful results. If that were to change, it is quite conceivable that one might be able to support claims such as (these are hypothetical examples) ‘the burning of oil flares in the Iraqi and Saudi deserts has caused crop failure in western India’ or ‘the trebling of the urban area of Shanghai in the last decade is almost entirely responsible for wind direction changes which brought Typhoon Bob to northern Japan’ or ‘massive floods in Italy are the result of particulate emission by Russian industry upsteam on the prevailing wind which causes excessive cloud seeding’, and so on. Understanding the climate may then lead to an unprecedented growth in inter-state claims of responsibility and liability. Accepting such claims would hugely diminish sovereignty and state independence, as science gives states ever more opportunities to object to the internal polices of 30 There is much discussion of liability for climate change generally. See Fauré and Nollkaemper, ‘International Liability’ (n 21); C Voigt, ‘State Responsibility for Climate Change Damages’ (2008) 77 Nordic Journal of International Law 1. 31 See, for analogous issues in the general climate change context, Faure and Nollkaemper (n 21). 32 ibid, for discussion, although the authors are themselves sceptical.

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their neighbours. Yet rejecting these claims in the face of good scientific evidence would be a profoundly aggressive act that would justifiably infuriate victims. Either path is a recipe for political conflict. One might attempt to defuse the situation by making a distinction between climatic side-effects of ‘normal’ activities—such as the replacement of vegetation with concrete, or the draining of marshes—and ‘artificial’ ones like geoengineering which aim to influence climate.33 However, it is far from obvious why that distinction should change the liability picture, and it is even less obvious that letting lawyers loose on the issue is the right way to deal with this problem. Secondly, it may become increasingly difficult, even meaningless, to speak of ‘harm’. In the climatic context, this concept relies on a concept of ‘normal’ from which there is deviation. That ‘normal’ is an increasingly distant memory. The new normality may be current conditions, which may be advantageous for some areas. If cooling leads to a return to pre-greenhouse conditions, can areas for whom this is disadvantageous legitimately complain? Suppose my island had an atrocious climate for thousands of years, and only in the last 30 has it become moderately habitable, fertile, or pleasant. Do I have grounds for complaint against a party taking away my gains and returning me to my local ice age? If the principle is that there should be liability for causing climate to deviate from what it would be without humans, then we have the problem of establishing what this would be, and the problem that such deviation is already advanced and likely to be not completely reversible. On the other hand, if the principle is simply that there should be liability for causing harmful change to the climate of another, a principle which rests on the status quo prior to the influencing act, then insofar as either may cause harm to certain groups or areas, there is no real basis for distinguishing between contributing to warming or reversing it. As well as these logical problems, a tort-based approach has other shortcomings; the effects of climate manipulation may be very serious, and irreversible, and such damage is not suitable for compensation, but needs to be prevented. It seems as if liability is not the most immediately attractive way to think about either climate change or, more specifically, geoengineering. Alternatively, a mechanism for collective decision-making about geoengineering, with some form of prior collective approval for measures, may offer more chance of avoiding conflict,34 preventing undue harm, and guiding behaviour in desirable directions. Such a mechanism could be integrated within the UNFCC institutional framework.35 However, having the institutions for collective decision-making does not answer the substantive question of how geoengineering should be assessed, and what decisions should be taken. These will be very problematic issues for many, since they will challenge common assumptions about the relationship between humanity and the environment.

33 See Schelling’s observation that geoengineering implies something unnatural; TC Schelling, ‘The Economic Diplomacy of Geoengineering’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 303. 34 On which see Schelling, ‘The Economic Diplomacy of Geoengineering’ (n 33); Parsons (n 6). 35 Bodansky (n 11).

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Global Climate Management Much environmentalism seeks to minimise human impact on the ‘natural’ environment. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) embodies such an approach, with the aim being to prevent human emissions of CO2 increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. As far as the environment goes, the natural and the good are almost equated, with natural being understood to mean the state of affairs as it would be without human influence.36 Use of geoengineering, even in a controlled way—perhaps especially in a controlled way—does not fit within this model. It is a very large step towards a world in which the climate becomes as managed and designed as the surface environment is now—in fact perhaps more so, since while one can deliberately leave areas of global surface to their own designs, the fluidity of the atmosphere, literally, means that intervention in any part of the climate is likely to be intervention in all of it. Any international institution or conference considering geoengineering would be forced into some form of cost-benefit analysis. On the one side would be the fact that for a low price it would be possible to prevent carbon fuel use having any impact on global temperature. This would have huge economic and developmental significance. On the other side, would be the other consequences of carbon emission, notably increased ocean acidity,37 and possible side-effects of the geoengineering technique, such as damage to the ozone layer.38 It seems that a rational response would be to assess the harm of acidity and ozone effects, to look and see if they can be dealt with by some other means, and make an overall bestcompromise cost-benefit analysis. It might be the case that a combination of relatively simple technological measures could neutralise the undesirable effects of CO2 emission, or reduce them so significantly that the trade-off between carbon fuel benefits and CO2 harm became a fundamentally different one.39 Geoengineering is therefore likely to lead to a chain reaction of technological fixes.40 Its seductiveness is such that the temptation is to look for a fix for problem A, and then a fix for the problems caused by the first fix, and so on. What this ultimately would amount to, is a complete global climate and environment management policy, with a wide repertoire of techniques used to keep conditions within the range we collectively desire, at minimum cost. Such an approach is the norm in most policy areas. Social and economic measures always have their downsides too, but are embedded in a system of measures which complement, and compensate for, each other. Regulators make a choice to allow many activities, which are potentially harmful in some cases—from driving, to alcohol consumption, to retailing, to having children—but then take other measures to deal with the problems arising—licences, fraud laws, medical

36 Schneider (n 24); Keith (n 1); J Michaelson, ‘Geoengineering’ (n 7); D Jamiesen, ‘Ethics and Intentional Climate Change’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 323. 37 Wrigley, ‘A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach’ (n 22). 38 S Tilmes, R Müller and R Salawitch, ‘The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes’ (2008) 320 Science 1201. 39 Wrigley (n 22). 40 See ibid.

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care, child protection services, free education—and then take other measures to deal with the problems that these cause—taxation to provide funding, equality of access rules to prevent discrimination, measures to prevent corruption and ensure maintenance of standards—and so on. The policy game is never over. We expect our regulators to have their eyes constantly on the ball and to continue intervening to keep values, freedoms, and rights within the range we want them. A similarly interventionist and control-oriented approach would be novel in global environmentalism, where the dominant philosophy has tended to be ‘hands off’—leave the world the way we found it, rather than make the world the way we want it. Some will object, because geoengineering apparently allows decadent and immoral behaviour, such as burning oil.41 Objections to consumption are often a mix of the pure environmental and moral views on values and the good lifestyle. Surely, we ought to pay a price for our indulgence? This argument will be expressed forcefully, but is severely weakened by the rapid rise of the developing world. Carbon fuels are no longer just the basis of a lifestyle of over-consumption, as one can easily see them in the West, but also the motor of an industrially based hard climb out of poverty for over half the world’s population. The moral case for restraint per se is harder to make. The more powerful argument concerns hubris. Accepting the challenge of managing climate proactively is an awesome responsibility. The devastation that nature can cause will become the devastation that inadequate management can lead to. Making decisions on climate entails international governance mechanisms that represent a concentration of power, perhaps unprecedented. One wonders whether even the Security Council or international financial organisations are to be seen as comparable in power and influence to an imaginable future committee deciding whether global temperature should go down a degree or not. It is a real and difficult question whether such power can be handled responsibly, and whether the dangers of misuse, stasis, lack of accountability and political horse-trading that it brings are greater than the benefits.42 And if those problems are addressed by intensifying international democratic mechanisms, then this is yet another knock-on effect, which not all will consider desirable, given its potential price in the status and importance of the nation state. Addressing a global issue by global means is the only way to address it, but it does entail a deepening of global governance, and so it has political and social consequences beyond the issue itself.43 Yet there is a certain unreality in not following this path. To wish we did not have the capacity to change climate would be understandable—the ensuing responsibility is a heavy burden. However, that capacity was acquired some time ago, and 41 For discussion see Schneider (n 24); Keith (n 1); Michaelson (n 7); Jamiesen ‘Ethics and intentional climate change’ (n 36). 42 Schneider (n 24); Bodansky (n 11). 43 R Bilder, ‘The Role of Unilateral State Action in Preventing International Environmental Injury’ (1981) 14 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 51; D Bodansky, ‘The Legitimacy of International Governance: a Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?’ (1999) 93 American Journal of International Law 596; D Bodansky, ‘What’s so Bad About Unilateral Action to Protect the Environment?’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 339; L Boisson de Chazournes, ‘Unilateralism and Environmental Protection: Issues of Perception and Reality of Issues’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 315.

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it is hard to see how it can be lost again. Our ability to act in ways that powerfully influence the natural environment is firmly established, and continues to develop, driven by the engines of science, industry and the desire for economic growth. The real question is therefore not whether humanity will change and manipulate the climate and the global environment, but whether it will collectively decide how it wants that manipulation to work, or whether it will leave it to chance. The risks and lost opportunities of the latter make it even less attractive than the Big Brother-like omnipotence involved in the former.

CONCLUSIONS

Whatever the approach to geoengineering, three issues arise out of climate management that will be difficult to solve. The first is that of local aberration from the global picture. Changes or improvements on a global scale may not have uniform effects, and certain areas or communities may suffer far more than other groups, or suffer where others are benefiting. The second, closely related problem is that of reversing established gains. Almost any change disadvantages some, and combating climate change may result in gains being taken away from areas for which a degree or two of temperature rise, or changes in weather patterns, were beneficial. Thirdly, there is the issue of the side-effects of local climate management. Such local management will become ever more attractive, quite independently of what occurs on a global scale, but it is unlikely that effects can be entirely sealed within a jurisdiction. Yet measuring and establishing causation and liability are likely to be difficult. There is a need for agreement on the kind of measures that are tolerable. If one can prevent these problems leading to unmanageable conflict, it is possible that geoengineering has much to offer. It does represent a certain loss of innocence and of the light-hearted picture of humanity as dwellers in a wilderness, bound to respect, but not to dominate. Instead the wilderness becomes a garden and with that realisation comes a heavy responsibility for maintenance and management, and for decision-making about the garden’s future. Yet if an age of innocence is ending, an age of abundance is potentially beginning. The earth has plenty of resources, if a way can be found to use them without destroying it. Geoengineering may be an important part of meeting that challenge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Book National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming—Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base (Washington DC, National Academy Press, 1992).

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Journal Articles S Barrett, ‘The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering’ (2008) 39 Environmental and Resource Economics 45–54. R Bilder, ‘The Role of Unilateral State Action in Preventing International Environmental Injury’ (1981) 14 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 51–96. D Bodansky, ‘The Legitimacy of International Governance: a Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?’ (1999) 93 American Journal of International Law 596–624. D Bodansky, ‘What’s so Bad About Unilateral Action to Protect the Environment?’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 339–47. D Bodansky, ‘May We Engineer the Climate?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 309–21. L Boisson de Chazournes, ‘Unilateralism and Environmental Protection: Issues of Perception and Reality of Issues’ (2000) 11 European Journal of International Law 315–38. A Carlin, ‘Global Climate Control: is there a Better Strategy than Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?’ (2007) 155 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1401–98. R Cicerone, ‘Geoengineering: Encouraging Research and Overseeing Implementation’ (2006) 77 Climatic Change 221–26. RE Dickinson, ‘A Review of Aerosol Approaches to Changing the Global Energy Balance’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 279–90. MG Faure, and A Nollkaemper, ‘International Liability as an Instrument to Prevent and Compensate for Climate Change’ (2007) 43A Stanford Journal of International Law 123–79. D Jamiesen, ‘Ethics and Intentional Climate Change’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 323–63. DW Keith, ‘Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect’ (2000) 25 Annual Review of Energy and Environment 245–84. G Marland, ‘Could We, Should We, Engineer the Earth’s Climate?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 275–78. HD Matthews and K Caldeira, ‘Transient Carbon Simulation of Planetary Geoengineering’ (2007) 104 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 9949–54. J Michaelson, ‘Geoengineering: a Climate Change Manhattan Project’ (1998) 17 Stanford Environmental Law Review 73–140. EA Parsons, ‘Reflections on Air Capture: The Political Economy of Active Intervention in the Global Environment’ (2006) 74 Climatic Change 5–15. JE Peterson, ‘Can Algae Save Civilization? A Look at Technology, Law and Policy Regarding Iron Fertilization of the Ocean to Counteract the Greenhouse Effect’ (1995) 6 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 61–108. A Robock, ‘20 Reasons Why Geoengineering May be a Bad Idea’ (2008) 64 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 14–18. TC Schelling, ‘The Economic Diplomacy of Geoengineering’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 303–07.

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SH Schneider, ‘Geoengineering: Could – Or Should – We Do It?’ (1996) 33 Climatic Change 291–302. K Scott, ‘The Day After Tomorrow: Ocean CO2 Sequestration and the Future of Climate Change’ (2005) 18 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 57–108. S Tilmes, R Müller, and R Salawitch, ‘The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes’ (2008) 320 Science 1201–04. C Voigt, ‘State Responsibility for Climate Change Damages’ (2008) 77 Nordic Journal of International Law 1–22. TML Wrigley, ‘A Combined Mitigation/Geoengineering Approach to Climate Stabilization’ (2006) 314 Science 452–54.Working Paper C Marchetti, ‘On Geoengineering and the CO2 Problem’ (Vienna, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Research Memorandum RM-76–17, 1976).

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Sustainable Development as a Legal Principle: A Rhetorical Analysis JAYE ELLIS *

INTRODUCTION

S

USTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WAS first articulated as a principle of international policy in the mid-1980s, and jurists have been grappling with its relevance to international law ever since. Although it is sometimes referred to as an emerging (and less often as an established)1 principle of international law in its own right, the better position appears to be that it is a policy objective—a ‘concept’, to invoke a commonly used term—that informs and influences the development and interpretation of international law.2 This paper seeks to examine how that influence is felt in international law, particularly environmental law, and how it manifests itself. The framework adopted is based on rhetorical theory, sustainable development being presented as a topic or commonplace which is used to frame arguments, thus making them more legible—and more persuasive—to audiences. Following a brief overview of my approach to legal principles, I will present four possible approaches to analysing the implications of sustainable development for international law: as a legal principle; as an interstitial norm; as an umbrella concept; and as a body of law. I will then discuss a rhetorical approach, which builds on the insights of the other three approaches.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES

Principles are not to the same as rules—they tend to be phrased in language that is more vague and general, and do not create clearly delimited legal rights and * Faculty of Law and School of Environment, McGill University. 1 The most famous statement to this effect is, of course, the separate opinion of Justice Weeramantry in the Case Concerning the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) [1997] ICJ Rep 7; [1998] 37 ILM 162 at 204. 2 See eg, P Birnie and A Boyle, International Law and the Environment, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 95–96; D French, International Law and Policy of Sustainable Development (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005); V Lowe, ‘Sustainable Development and Unsustainable Arguments’ in A Boyle and D Freestone (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) 33; V Lowe, ‘The Politics of Law-Making: Are the Method and Character of Norm Creation Changing?’ in M Byers (ed), The Role of Law in International Politics: Essays in International Relations and International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000) 216; P Sands, Principles of International Environmental Law, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 266.

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obligations. The difference, however, is one of degree rather than kind. In particular, legal principles cannot tell actors what to do. They instead provide guidance on analysing factual situations and identifying particularly salient features of those situations; assigning weight to different considerations; and interpreting the often more specific and elaborate guidance provided by rules. Legal principles are no different in structure or function than moral or political principles. The difference lies only in their status within legal systems, which in turn may have an impact on the way in which they are used in legal argumentation, or the extent to which their invocation can render arguments more persuasive. The binding nature of legal, as opposed to political or moral, principles simply means that those engaged in legal argumentation are not free to disregard the principle if they do not find it useful or convenient to refer to it.3 But in any context there may be a range of principles, included in applicable conventions or having the status of customary law, that apply, and they may not all point in the same direction, with the result that their relative weight will have to be determined in light of the context. Furthermore, there will generally be various other principles, not necessarily having the status of law but nevertheless possessing significant persuasive authority, which can be invoked by those engaged in legal argumentation. There may be no legal obligation to refer to them, but their appropriateness and the level of consensus which they have attracted may make it very difficult to disregard them, regardless of their legal pedigree.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

The best-known articulation of the concept of sustainable development is found in the Brundtland Report: ‘development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’4 Central to sustainable development is the notion of integration: sustainable development is generally described as resting on the three pillars of economic development, social development and environmental protection.5 None of these objectives can be considered without due regard to the others, because none trumps the others. Our

3 This is the fourth of seven stages or ‘degrees of relevance’ which JB Ruhl argues norms pass through on their way to becoming binding rules of law. The fourth degree is met when ‘[f]ailure affirmatively to portray an action as consistent with the norm is seen as a significant deficiency.’ Ruhl argues that sustainable development has reached this stage in US domestic law: JB Ruhl, ‘The Seven Degrees of Relevance: Why Should Real-World Environmental Attorneys Care Now about Sustainable Development Policy?’ (1997–1998) 8 Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 273, 283. 4 G Brundtland (ed), Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987) 43. 5 See World Summit on Sustainable Development, 17th plenary meeting, ‘Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development’ (Johannesburg, South Africa, 4 September 2002) para 5. For recent literature on these three pillars, see eg J-M Arbour and S Lavallée, Droit international de l’environnement (Cowansville, Éditions Yvon Blais, 2006) 73 et seq; ABM Marong, ‘From Rio to Johannesburg: Reflections on the Role of International Legal Norms in Sustainable Development’ (2003) 16 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 21, 31 et seq.

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pursuit of each must be adjusted and constrained by attention to the others. Therefore, integration requires attention to balance among these different and often competing objectives. The Brundtland Report did not propose sustainable development as a legal principle, but as: a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.6

Clearly, law could play some role in this process of change, and indeed the concept depends on changes to legal rules and processes, and possibly to structures and institutions as well. Efforts to work out the implications of sustainable development for international law have taken a number of forms. A minority view holds that it is already an established legal principle, or at least in the process of becoming one. A more common approach is to describe sustainable development as a concept with particular implications for law. Some observers refer to it as an umbrella concept gathering together a range of existing or evolving international legal and political principles; others take a more systematic approach, attempting to identify its core elements and features. Finally, it has been argued that sustainable development is an emerging body of international law in its own right. Each of these approaches will be discussed in the following section, preparing the ground for my own approach to analysing the implications of sustainable development for law.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A LEGAL PRINCIPLE

It is possible to conceive of sustainable development as a legal principle in its own right. As noted above, principles, whether legal or otherwise, do not necessarily create specific legal rights and obligations. Very often, their role is rather to draw attention to particular considerations, such as the relevance of risks that are subject to scientific uncertainty7 or the particular circumstances of certain states.8 Therefore, the vagueness and open-endedness of sustainable development do not necessarily represent obstacles to its being, or becoming, a legal principle. Vaughan Lowe has argued that the concept is not and cannot be a legal principle, since ‘[i]t lacks

6

Brundtland, Our Common Future (n 4) 46. The precautionary principle does not create an obligation to act in the face of scientific uncertainty; rather, it reminds decision-makers that scientific uncertainty is not a good reason for failing or refusing to act. In so doing, it underlines the significance of risks that may or may not be realised at some point in the future, and ensures that these risks will be given due consideration alongside, for example, economic benefits that are fairly certain to result from a given project. 8 Even without a principle of common but differentiated responsibility, it would of course be open to states to conclude agreements that create asymmetrical rights and obligations. The principle serves to remind states that there may be good reasons for doing so when international environmental agreements are concluded among states at different levels of economic development. It thus lends legitimacy to arguments that, for example, developing states should receive financial and technological assistance in order to help them meet their environmental protection obligations. 7

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normative status’.9 I share many of Lowe’s preoccupations, as well as his doubt as to whether it makes sense to think of the concept as a potential legal principle. However, I do not agree with Lowe’s characterisation of sustainable development as an interstitial principle. First, on the issue whether sustainable development could ever be a legal principle, Lowe relies in part on the argument in the North Sea Continental Shelf Cases that a proposed rule ‘should … be of a fundamentally norm-creating character’,10 which Lowe appears to understand as the capacity of the norm to constrain behaviour.11 A norm capable of constraining behaviour, he argues, ‘must be couched in normative terms. “Develop sustainably” is a norm. So are “States have a right to develop sustainably,” “States are at liberty to develop sustainably,” “States may develop sustainably but must not develop unsustainably,” and so on.’12 This appears to be an issue of formulation and articulation of the norm, however, and to have little to do with its content. The question posed by Lowe remains, however: is sustainable development readily comparable to norms like the precautionary principle or the equidistance/ special circumstances principle? The approach taken by the International Court of Justice in the Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros case, and more particularly in Justice Weeramantry’s separate opinion, is instructive. In the judgment of the Court, sustainable development is described as a ‘concept’, but it seems to do just as much work as in Weeramantry’s separate opinion, in which it is described as a legal principle. Alan Boyle, discussing the Court’s judgment, states: [I]t seems that the Court viewed sustainable development … as a value or objective that the parties were legally obliged to take into account in their decisions on development projects. If this is correct, then the Court’s use of sustainable development has implications primarily for the process of decisionmaking by the parties and not for the decision itself. It is in this sense that requiring states to evaluate and assess environmental impacts and apply new environmental norms and standards becomes part of the process for giving effect to the objectives of sustainable development. From this perspective, sustainable development may also entail commitments to public participation in decisionmaking, environmental impact assessment, and the application of the precautionary principle, but

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Lowe, ‘Sustainable Development’ (n 2) 25. North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Federal Republic of Germany v Denmark; Federal Republic of Germany v Netherlands) [1969] ICJ Rep 3. The Court used this notion of ‘norm-creating character’ to support its argument that the equidistance principle, as articulated in Art 6 of the UN Convention on the Continental Shelf (adopted 29 April 1958) 499 UNTS 311, had not evolved into a principle of customary international law. This begs the question how a provision in an international convention should be regarded as having no ‘fundamentally norm-creating character,’ since it is obviously intended to be a legal norm, and was a legal norm binding on parties to that convention. The difficulty that the Court had with the equidistance principle was that it was qualified, first, by the obligation of parties to attempt to reach an agreement and, second, by the need to consider special circumstances, if any. It would appear that the Court was primarily concerned with the appropriateness of extracting the equidistance principle from a provision in which it was balanced against other considerations, and elevating it in this excised form to the status of a customary norm. 11 Lowe, ‘Sustainable Development’ (n 2) 24. 12 ibid, 24–25. 10

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it dictates no particular outcome or result and leaves the parties free to give effect to this fundamental value in almost any way they choose.13

Boyle goes on to note that it is unlikely that, based on this line of reasoning, the Court would review decisions to determine whether they are sustainable, as they could when applying a principle of equitable utilisation. He describes this as appropriate deference to the judgment of states, given the nature of the concept of sustainable development: The factors involved in determining what is sustainable are much broader and more subjective than the factors at issue in questions of equitable utilization. Weighing the interests of inter- and intra-generational equity, the integration of environmental protection and development, and the sustainable utilization of resources, inter alia, would stretch the boundaries of justiciability ….14

This distinction between process and substance pointed to by Boyle, and in particular the issue of the justiciability of a substantive challenge to a state’s developmental decision, lay bare possible reasons for unease at describing sustainable development as an actual or potential legal principle. The principle does not direct states to achieve a particular outcome; rather, it directs them to take into consideration a range of considerations, identified or highlighted by sustainable development. As Boyle points out, while the Court does not recognise sustainable development as a legal principle, the concept seems to be doing the work of one. The oft-cited paragraph from the judgment of the Court is worth repeating, yet again, here: Throughout the ages, mankind has, for economic and other reasons, constantly interfered with nature. In the past, this was often done without consideration of the effects upon the environment. Owing to new scientific insights and to a growing awareness of the risks for mankind—for present and future generations—of pursuit of such interventions at an unconsidered and unabated pace, new norms and standards have been developed, set forth in a great number of instruments during the last two decades. Such new norms have to be taken into consideration, and such new standards given proper weight, not only when States contemplate new activities but also when continuing with activities begun in the past. This need to reconcile economic development with protection of the environment is aptly expressed in the concept of sustainable development.15

Why would the Court state that the new norms must be taken into consideration, that the standards must be given proper weight? Boyle argues that, although the majority did not wish to go this far, the implication is that sustainable development is a legal principle, and in particular that other states ‘have standing to complain of a failure to give proper weight to sustainable development in decisions regarding development projects.’16 It is also possible, however, that the Court was referring, as does Weeramantry, to legal norms other than sustainable development, such as

13 A Boyle, ‘The Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros Case: New Law in Old Bottles’ (1997) 8 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 13, 18. 14 ibid. 15 Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros Project (n 1) 51, para 140. 16 Boyle, ‘New Law’ (n 13) 19.

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an obligation to carry out environmental impact assessments.17 Or they may have been referring to the version of equity spelled out in Article 10 of the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities.18 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS AN INTERSTITIAL NORM

Although Lowe and Weeramantry reach different conclusions as to the legal status of sustainable development, they describe its function in strikingly similar ways. Weeramantry describes sustainable development as a ‘principle of reconciliation’.19 He states: To hold that no such principle exists in the law is to hold that current law recognizes the juxtaposition of two principles [the law of development and the law of environment] which could operate in collision with each other, without providing the necessary basis of principle for their reconciliation. The untenability of the supposition that the law sanctions such a state of normative anarchy suffices to condemn a hypothesis that leads to so unsatisfactory a result.20

Lowe does not agree that the principle of reconciliation is necessarily found in the law, noting, correctly in my view, that ‘[t]he resolution may well be achieved simply by the precise determination of the inherent limits of the conflicting principles themselves,’ and citing the example that the freedom of the high seas enjoyed by each state is limited by the obligation to respect the exercise of that same freedom by other states.21 Nevertheless, Lowe’s depiction of interstitial principles seems to ascribe a very similar role to sustainable development and similarly structured concepts. Lowe argues that, as an interstitial principle, sustainable development modifies ‘the normative effect of other, primary norms of international law.’22 He describes the principle as ‘exercis[ing] an interstitial normativity by establishing the relationship between the neighbouring primary norms when they threaten to overlap or conflict with each other’,23 locating it, as the term suggests, in the interstices between primary obligations. He argues that one of the important roles of interstitial norms is related to: [t]he metaphor of colour …. The effect of interstitial norms is to set the tone of the approach of international law to contemporary problems, bringing subtlety and depth to the relatively crude, black-and-white quality of primary norms.24

Lowe may have been influenced to adopt this approach by the principle of sustainable development itself, which, as Justice Weeramantry notes, is specifically 17

Gabcˇ ikovo, Weeramantry’s opinion (n 15) 71 et seq. UN ILC ‘Draft Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities’ GA 56th Session Supp No 10 (A/56/10) 370. 19 Gabcˇ ikovo, Weeramantry’s opinion, (n 15) 57. 20 ibid. 21 Lowe, ‘Unsustainable Arguments’ (n 2) 22. 22 Lowe, ‘Politics’ (n 2) 213. 23 ibid, 216. 24 ibid, 218. 18

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designed to mediate between two logics or objectives, namely environmental protection and economic development. It becomes more difficult to understand what Lowe means by ‘interstitial’ when he turns his attention to other concepts, such as reasonableness,25 the most favoured nation principle,26 or the right of states to protect their nationals.27 The first thing to note is that the latter two examples are, of course, rules of law, and are capable of functioning as primary norms, as Lowe himself acknowledges.28 Reasonableness and sustainable development cannot be so described. What these four examples have in common, then, is their capacity to modify other norms—to ‘colour the understanding of the norms that [they] modif[y].’29 At this point in his discussion, Lowe moves away from a description of these concepts as standing between two norms and modifying the relationship between them, a function that is easily attributable to sustainable development but much less so, if at all, to these other examples. It is easy enough to identify norms that these four concepts might be in tension with: the most-favoured-nation rule coexists with the principle of state sovereignty, encompassing the right to set domestic economic policy, while the right to protect one’s nationals must contend with the principle of territorial integrity and the prohibition on the use of force, to name just a few examples. Lowe’s rejection of the idea that norms are in tension with and condition one another is further reflected in his argument that ‘[t]he concept of sustainable development effectively “occupies the field”,’30 and goes on to suggest that sustainable development has pushed out alternative approaches, such as the polluter pays principle and state sovereign rights to develop their economies.31 Yet sustainable development has hardly pushed these (potentially) competing principles out of the field: indeed, one could argue that sustainable development seeks to incorporate or reconcile both of them. Lowe seems to want to principles he identifies as interstitial norms to do more work than they are capable of, namely by resolving tensions between overlapping or conflicting norms and directing decision-makers towards conclusions and outcomes. Lowe refers to the importance of rhetoric to his analysis, and his description of interstitial norms certainly bears resemblance to discussions of topics by authors such as Viehweg, Kratochwil and Perelman.32 However, these authors, in developing rhetorical approaches to law, do not argue that topics are capable of mediating

25 ibid, 216–17. In one respect, reasonableness is a kind of golden mean: extremes are, virtually by definition, unreasonable. Therefore, the reasonable course of action would in virtually every instance lie between two extremes. But these extremes are not primary norms; we seem to be some distance from Lowe’s concept of a norm that mediates between two other norms, but which possesses a different character to them. 26 Lowe, ‘Sustainable Development’ (n 2) 34. 27 ibid. 28 Lowe, ‘Politics’ (n 2) 34. 29 ibid. 30 ibid, 217. 31 ibid. 32 F Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical Reasoning in International and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989); T Viehweg, Topik und Jurisprudenz. Ein Beitrag zur rechtswissenschaftlichen Grundlagenforschung (München, Beck, 1969); C Perelman and L Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l’argumentation, 5th edn (Brussels, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1988) 112 et seq.

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conflicts between different rules. Quite the contrary. For example, Kratochwil33 and Perelman34 note that topics tend to be arranged in opposing pairs: in a debate between two opposing sides, one would refer to one topic and the other to another. There is no further topic or any other vehicle to fulfil the functions described by Lowe: rather, the audience must decide. We will return to rhetorical theory below. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS AN UMBRELLA CONCEPT

List of Principles Approach Many scholars, in exploring the legal ramifications of sustainable development, describe the concept as an umbrella principle, drawing together a series of legal and policy principles.35 Among the principles most commonly referred to in the literature are precaution, inter- and intragenerational equity, common but differentiated responsibility, and the polluter pays principle.36 Arguably, in order to understand the role of these principles in specific contexts and the relative weight to be given to each, one needs to refer back to the broad notion of sustainable development. Thus, establishing a priority between inter- and intragenerational equity or common but differentiated responsibility and the polluter pays principle would require reference to sustainable development. If the polluter pays principle were to be applied to all equally regardless of capacity, this would run counter to 33

Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions (1989) 232–33. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l’argumentation (n 32) 115. 35 See eg RD Munro and JG Lammers (eds), Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development: Legal Principles and Recommendations (London, Graham & Trotman/Nijhoff, 1987); International Law Association ‘New Delhi Declaration on Principles of International Law relating to Sustainable Development’ (2 April 2002) [2002] 2 International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 211; Marong, ‘From Rio to Johannesburg’ (n 5) 58 et seq; M-C Cordonier Segger and A Khalfan, Sustainable Development Law: Principles, Practices and Prospects (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) Chapter 5. Philippe Sands describes sustainable development as an umbrella concept, but rather than presenting a list of principles, he seeks to present a tighter analysis, identifying a small number of basic features of the concept: see P Sands, ‘International Law in the Field of Sustainable Development’ (1994) LXV British Yearbook of International Law 303, 379. His approach will be considered below. 36 See eg G Mayeda, ‘Where Should Johannesburg Take Us? Ethical and Legal Approaches to Sustainable Development in the Context of International Environmental Law’ (2004) 15 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 29, 30–31; Marong (n 5) 58 et seq; P Sands, ‘Environmental Protection in the 21st Century: Sustainable Development and International Law’ in RL Revesz, P Sands and RB Stewart (eds), Environmental Law, the Economy and Sustainable Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000) 374; A Boyle and D Freestone, ‘Introduction’ in A Boyle and D Freestone (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999) 8 et seq; DB Magraw and LD Hawke, ‘Sustainable Development’ in D Bodansky, J Brunnée and E Hey (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007) 613, 619. A series of these principles was identified by a Legal Experts Group constituted to propose a Convention on Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development. Their conclusions were published in Munro and Lammers, Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development (n 35). While the convention was never adopted, the work of the Experts Group provided an important foundation for the development of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (3 June–14 June 1992) ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ UN Doc A/CONF 151/26 (Vol I). For an account of these developments, see Marong (n 5) 61. 34

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common but differentiated responsibility and intragenerational equity. Similarly, the implementation of common but differentiated responsibility could be taken far enough to come in conflict with the policy objectives lying behind the precautionary principle and the principle of intergenerational equity. Reference back to sustainable development could help decision-makers find the golden mean between extremes. Sustainable development does not establish a hierarchy among the principles, but provides necessary interpretative guidance when these principles are brought into play. The notion of sustainable development as an umbrella concept, or a fundamental rule from which more specific rules and principles are derived, is more in line with a conception of sustainable development as a policy objective or ‘concept’. Sustainable development, on this analysis, does not seem itself to be a legal principle; it is rather an organising principle that may have normative, but no independent legal, weight. The problem with this approach is that it is difficult to understand how the concept of sustainable development, in and of itself, comes to bear relevance. Is it greater than the sum of its parts? If so, in what way? A fourth, closely related approach, which seeks to go beyond the laundry list and to identify essential features of the concept, is much more helpful. Core Elements Approach Authors who seek to extract from the many facets of sustainable development a small number of interrelated core concepts tend not to insist on the legal status of the concept, being content to treat it as highly influential and possessing normative force, and therefore as relevant to legal argumentation. Thus, Duncan French identifies the core concepts of sustainable development as environment, economy, equity and empowerment;37 Daniel Barstow Magraw and Lisa D Hawke list inter- and intragenerational equity (presented as two distinct elements), environmental preservation and the integration of economic, social, and environmental policies;38 Sands refers to integration of environment and development, equity between states, intergenerational equity, and non-exhaustion of renewable natural resources (or sustainable use);39 JB Ruhl names environment, economy and equity;40 and the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development speaks of inter- and intragenerational equity, sustainable use of environmental resources, equitable access to and use of natural resources, and integration between environment and development.41 These lists are strikingly similar, suggesting that among environmental jurists, at least, some degree of consensus about the content of sustainable development is emerging. 37

French, International Law and Policy (n 2) 14. Magraw and Hawke, ‘Sustainable Development’ (n 36) 618. 39 Sands, ‘International Law’ (n 35) 338. 40 JB Ruhl, ‘Sustainable Development: A Five-Dimensional Algorithm for Environmental Law’ (1999) 18 Stanford Environmental Law Journal 31, 35. 41 Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, ‘Sustainable Development: The Challenge to International Law’ (1993) 2 Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 1, 5. 38

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Regardless of the particular approach taken to describing sustainable development from the point of view of the legal system,42 Boyle must be correct in concluding that it is more fruitful to think of the procedural than the substantive implications of the concept. Sustainable development as a general principle or concept can provide guidance on the manner in which decisions are taken, in particular by pointing to a range of factors that must be taken into consideration, but it does not point to specific outcomes of decision-making processes. In a similar vein, Alhagi Marong presents a particularly useful depiction of the concept as ‘impl[ying] a legitimate expectation … that States and other actors should conduct their affairs in a manner consistent with the pursuit of economic development, social development and environmental protection as equal objectives.’43

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A BODY OF LAW

There is a fourth approach to describing the relevance of sustainable development to international law, namely as: a corpus of international legal principles and treaties which address the areas of intersection between international economic law, international environmental law and international social law aiming toward development that can last.44

On one hand, this seems to imply the identification of a series of existing bodies of rules and principles, such as trade law, competition law, labour law, international humanitarian law, international environmental law and so on, and identifying the ways in which these rules are relevant to the project of sustainable development.45 On the other hand, the notion of sustainable development law is used to refer to regimes that bring together, to greater or lesser degrees, the three corpora of environmental, economic and human rights law.46 There is certainly utility in developing a scheme for classifying regimes or instruments along a continuum of integration, and it no doubt makes sense to adopt international sustainable development law as the theme for a research or academic programme, but I agree with Duncan French that this approach is in tension with one of the fundamental elements of sustainable development, namely a call for greater integration among economic, social and environmental domains.47 Of these four approaches, I believe that the third, namely the identification of core elements or features of sustainable development, is the most promising, in that it permits us to identify that which is distinct about the concept and how it might 42 By this rather roundabout phrase I mean simply sustainable development either as a legal principle (actual or potential) or sustainable development as a concept or idea that stands outside the law but that bears normative weight and can influence the shape and persuasiveness of legal arguments. 43 Marong (n 5) 45. 44 Cordonier Segger and Khalfan, Sustainable Development Law (n 35) 46–47. 45 ibid, ch 4: ‘Intersections of International Economic, Social and Environmental Law.’ 46 Cordonier Segger and Khalfan identify four degrees of integration, ranging from separate regimes for social, economic and environmental objectives to fully integrated instruments in which all three objectives are treated as interrelated: ibid, 175. 47 French, International Law and Policy (n 2) 37.

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make a unique contribution to international law. At the same time, this approach accepts that the concept does not have the structure of a legal principle; it bears more resemblance to concepts such as equity or reasonableness. Sustainable development may not tell actors what to do, by specifying their rights and obligations or dictating the outcomes of decision-making procedures. It does, however, help jurists to make, analyse and evaluate legal arguments and conclusions. To better understand the function of sustainable development in legal argumentation, we now turn to a rhetorical analysis of the concept.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS A RHETORICAL ‘COMMONPLACE’

According to rhetorical theory, arguments depend heavily on topics, or commonplaces, described by Friedrich Kratochwil as ‘seats of arguments’.48 One key feature of commonplaces, as the term suggests, is their common-sense appeal: for example, ‘more is better.’49 Despite their undoubted quality as timeworn, possibly even threadbare concepts, commonplaces are able to inject dynamism into argumentative processes, in part because any given commonplace can be juxtaposed with another that leads in a very different direction. The fact that commonplaces tend to be arrayed in opposing pairs means that the invocation of a commonplace can always be challenged. For example, topics of quantity such as ‘more is better,’ stand alongside topics of quality, such as a topic that points to the value of rarity.50 This is because commonplaces express a type of syllogism, an enthymeme, whose premises are likely rather than necessary.51 Thus, commonplaces cannot lead, as logical syllogisms do, to a conclusion; they indicate a path from premises to conclusion, and, significantly, heighten the persuasiveness of arguments. Commonplaces contribute to persuasiveness in part because they help a speaker to structure his argument so as to better communicate it to an audience. They serve this purpose because of their familiarity. As Kratochwil argues: [C]ommonplaces … locate the issues of a debate in a substantive set of common understandings that provide for the crucial connections within the structure of the argument. Precisely because topoi reflect our commonsense understandings, these general topoi are ‘persuasive’ and can easily be resorted to when technical knowledge about an issue is lacking or has become problematic.52

The persuasiveness of an argument, as this extract indicates, may not depend wholly on the logic of the argument—on its basis in fact. When we compare rhetorical theory to, for example, a Habermasian theory involving the exchange of reasons, we begin to see more clearly the contribution made by topics. Habermas’s

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Kratochwil (n 32) 38. ibid. 50 See Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l’argumentation (n 32) 115; Kratochwil (n 32) 232–33. 51 Kratochwil (n 32) 218; Aristotle and GA Kennedy (tr), On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991) 33, 42. 52 Kratochwil (n 32) 219–20. 49

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discourse ethics emphasises the exchange of reasons; the outcome of decisionmaking processes is to depend on ‘the unforced force of the better argument.’53 Rhetorical theory similarly places emphasis on the provision of reasons to support arguments, but also makes room for emotional appeal capable of moving members of an audience.54 To say that the invocation of principles such as sustainable development involves an emotional appeal would be accurate to a certain extent, but too simplistic. One indication of the effectiveness of topics is that they function as a kind of shorthand, evoking a consensus that has crystallised around particular ways of knowing and understanding. To invoke the commonplace is to invoke the consensus, which of course means a reference to any processes of reason-giving that led to the emergence of the consensus in the first place. It also involves, however, reference to a certain orientation, to a certain set of values and priorities that are integrated into or closely associated with the commonplace. Another key feature of commonplaces is, of course, their vagueness and openendedness. They do not seek to tell actors precisely what to do or how to resolve a problem. A concept such as sustainable development refers to a range of factors to be taken into consideration, and serves as a reminder that these factors are important even though, in the past, they may not have received much attention or consideration. It refers, more importantly, to an emerging consensus about how those factors are to be weighed in decision-making processes. Indeed, it is premature to speak about a consensus on sustainable development. At present, this principle seems to play as much of a disruptive as a constructive role, compelling us to question received wisdom. Our discussion of sustainable development and its relevance to international law has revealed a strong consensus that it is a concept that informs the development and interpretation of more specific principles and rules of international law. Central to the concept is integration, notably among social, environmental and developmental or economic objectives. Phrased in this way, sustainable development seems uncontroversial, even common-sensical, and therefore doesn’t seem capable of adding much to our understanding of rights, obligations, objectives and priorities. Sustainable development seems simply to tell us that we need to adopt robust decision-making procedures and consider all relevant factors in making decisions. Could not notions such as reasonableness or equity fulfil this function? It is helpful to remind ourselves that the articulation of a principle of sustainable development is a response to a state of affairs in which those seeking to voice concerns about impacts of actions on the environment could not be heard, or saw their concerns quickly discounted in the face of short-term approaches to problem solving and a focus on economic considerations. Environmental protection has become respectable, even mainstream, but concerns about long-term and uncertain

53 J Habermas and W Rehg (tr), Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998) 305–06. 54 Aristotle, On Rhetoric (n 51) 37–39. See J Walker, ‘Pathos and Katharsis in ‘Aristotelian’ Rhetoric: Some Implications’ in AG Gross and AE Walzer (eds), Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 2000) 74, 85 on the appeal of enthymeme to emotion.

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environmental impacts still tend to be discounted in the face of promises of short-term economic gain.55 Often, the complexities of identifying and evaluating possible future environmental impacts are so daunting that the temptation is strong to make unwarranted optimistic assumptions about the scale and scope of those impacts and our ability to respond or adapt to them at some future time. One important contribution of sustainable development is to make it more difficult for us to do so—in other words, to diminish the persuasiveness of arguments that pay insufficient attention to each of the three pillars of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development is necessary precisely because the existing consensus about the appropriate balance between economic and environmental objectives and between short-term benefits and long-term risks and costs is not serving us well. Current understandings of what is reasonable and equitable do not take sufficient account of long-term impacts on society and environment, and concerns about environmental impact are given too little weight when set against promises of economic growth. Sustainable development and related concepts serve to disrupt the current consensus about the appropriate balance to strike among environment, society and development. Sustainable development, in calling for the consideration of a range of objectives and obliging decision-makers to attempt to establish equilibrium among them, functions in much the same way as equity. Indeed, intra- and intergenerational equity, two key elements of sustainable development, are simply further specifications of the more general international law principle of equity. These more specific concepts are necessary because decision-makers, in applying equitable principles, tend not to take adequate account of environmental concerns, nor of the tension between environment and development. Equity was not being interpreted in such a way as to protect the interests of future generations nor to strike a healthier balance between the interests of developed and developing countries.56 The notion of sustainable development needed to be articulated in order to disrupt an existing consensus about the meaning of equity and introduce the basis of a new consensus. Similarly, sustainable development provides a context for the well-established principle of prevention of environmental harm, also known as the no-harm principle or Principle 21.57 Sustainable development reminds us that one of the purposes of prevention of environmental harm is to ensure that economic activities, with their myriad benefits for human communities, can continue over a long timescale.58

55 On the difficulty of attracting attention to environmental as well as economic concerns, see X Fuentes, ‘International Law-Making in the Field of Sustainable Development: The Unequal Competition between Development and Environment’ in N Schrijver and F Weiss (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Principles and Practice (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2004) 7. 56 On the need for greater specification of equity in light of the concerns highlighted by sustainable development, see Duncan French’s discussion of intragenerational equity in French International Law and Policy (n 2) 28 et seq and 65 et seq, and D French, ‘International Environmental Law and the Achievement of Intragenerational Equity’ (2001) 31 Environmental Law Reporter 10469, 10477 et seq. 57 UN Conference on the Human Environment (5 June–16 June 1972) ‘Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment’ UN Doc A/Conf 48/14/Rev1. 58 See Ruhl, ‘Sustainable Development’ (n 40) 32. The ILC ‘Draft Articles on Prevention of Transboundary Harm from Hazardous Activities’ (n 18), and more in particular Article 10, represents

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The emphasis that sustainable development places on integration functions in a similar way. When sustainable development is incorporated into an international convention, it reminds decision-makers to exercise the discretion afforded to them by that convention in accordance with the objectives and priorities identified by sustainable development—social, economic and environmental. As Boyle notes in his discussion of sustainable development in the Gabcˇ ikovo case, we can envisage a court taking a state to task for failing to give due weight to the factors encompassed by sustainable development—in other words, we can readily imagine a court challenging the decision-making procedure taken in adopting a developmental project, even if it is highly unlikely that it would invoke sustainable development to challenge or overturn the decision on the basis of substance.59 Of course, international adjudicatory bodies rarely have occasion to rule on the merits in environmental disputes, but sustainable development plays a similar role in other decisionmaking fora. If a commission established by an environmental convention issues a decision that fails to refer to, or is clearly at odds with, sustainable development— that fails, for example, to take into account the different capacities of various state parties or the different levels and types of needs of their local populations—this would be grounds for a party to refuse to accept the decision. While parties to conventions are generally under no legal obligation to present reasons for declining to adopt decisions, such arguments could serve to challenge authority and legitimacy of the decision and stand as a good reason, as opposed to a self-interested excuse, for rejecting it. Similarly, in cases where the applicable legal rule is based on equity, reference to sustainable development could serve as a good reason for expanding the list of factors to be taken into consideration. Following Boyle’s argument, it may be that sustainable development could not be used to challenge the substantive outcome of a decision based on equity, but it could certainly be used to call into question a decision-making process and could be used to impugn a conclusion in this manner. If one of the key features of commonplaces, and one of the central reasons why they are able to inject dynamism into argumentative processes, is their coexistence with opposing commonplaces, we may ask whether sustainable development is really intended to play the role suggested by Weeramantry and Lowe, namely to reconcile norms that pull in different directions. If such reconciliation is at the core of sustainable development, it must remain a necessary but impossible condition, since sustainable development does not and cannot tell us how the three policy objectives of economic development, environmental protection and social justice are to be weighed against one another when tensions arise among them in specific contexts. Indeed, sustainable development will often be in tension with principles an interesting and potentially very fruitful approach to bringing sustainable development concerns to bear on international environmental law. That provision applies when reasonable measures to prevent transboundary harm have failed to reduce such harm to below significant levels, and calls for an equitable balancing of the interests of source and affected States, taking into account a list of considerations, both environmental and economic. Social considerations are referred to briefly at para (b) (‘advantages of a social, economic and technical character for the State of origin’), but it is fair to say that these considerations are not given the same priority as environmental and economic concerns. 59

Boyle, ‘New Law in Old Bottles’ (n 13) 18–19.

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that are supposed to proceed from it, such as precaution and polluter pays. For example, while precaution draws attention to the need to be attentive to uncertain risks, sustainable development, precisely by seeking to strike a balance between environmental and economic objectives, points to reasons why we might accept those risks. Similarly, the polluter pays principle calls for the internalisation of environmental costs, while the imperative of economic development in states of the global South may result in exceptions to this principle. Sustainable development, like reasonableness or equity, cannot tell decision-makers what to do. They are required to search for an appropriate solution and to seek to justify their choice to the relevant stakeholders.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I referred briefly, above, to the tensions between a Habermasian approach, with its emphasis on the ‘unforced force of the better argument’, and a rhetorical approach, with its tolerance of appeals to emotion. A proper analysis of this tension is beyond the scope of this paper, but I would like to make some comments on the relevance of this tension, by way of a discussion of one of the central concerns of sustainable development, namely integration. The passage quoted from Kratochwil, above, draws attention to certain of the limitations of arguments based solely on reasoned argument: lack of technical knowledge, or the problematic nature of such knowledge. In the field of environmental protection, one of the features of the landscape is uncertainty, notably in the form of scientific uncertainty. Of course, as Hannah Arendt reminds us, uncertainty is a ubiquitous factor in human affairs: she speaks of the unboundedness of human activity, each action setting into motion a chain of events that can neither be predicted nor controlled. In order to make this state of affairs tolerable, people resort to the institutions of promising and forgiving.60 Promising places some limited restraint on the range of possible outcomes by allowing people to project themselves, to some extent, into the future. As for forgiving, is necessary precisely because we can never be sure that things will go as we intend, yet nevertheless bear some moral responsibility for the results, however unforeseen and unforeseeable, of our actions. Even without considering the immense complexity of the natural world and our extremely limited understanding of this world and our impacts on it, we must concede that our ability to determine what is in our interests, and what would be the better course of action, is severely limited. As a result, our arguments, in order to be persuasive, must refer not only to the likely outcomes of different courses of action and their impact on our own and others’ interests, but also to some notion of the kind of decision we would like to take and the way in which we would like this decision to reflect on us. This suggests the real source of the power of commonplaces: they help us to express, or recognise, the motivations that lie behind our adherence to particular courses of action.

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H Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd edn (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998).

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Uncertainty may not be specific to environmental issues, but the particular role played by scientific uncertainty characterises such issues. The problem of uncertainty is exacerbated by the highly technical nature of environmental problems and proposed solutions, rendering highly problematic communication and consultation among scientists, political decision-makers and members of the public who will be affected by those decisions. Kratochwil, like Habermas, places faith in the capacity of ordinary language ‘to bridge the gaps between various, more specialised “discourses” which have emancipated themselves from the “imprecision” of ordinary language through the creation of specialized systems of signs and meanings.’61 Later, he argues that, while legal argumentation depends on specialised, legal commonplaces, the ‘authoritative’ legal decision … depends for its persuasiveness largely upon a careful weaving, into one strand of thought, of legal and common-sense arguments. They ‘back’ the decision and its characterization of the case. It is through this embeddedness of the specialized ‘legal’ language in the practical discourse that the importance of topoi as backings or groundings for decisions becomes visible.62

Describing an apparently similar phenomenon, Habermas refers to law as a ‘hinge between system and lifeworld’; ‘the “transformer” that first guarantees that the socially integrating network of communication stretched across society as a whole holds together.’63 A contending argument is presented by Gunther Teubner, based on his autopoietic theory of law: while the same phenomenon may be recognised and given meaning in more than one system—say, in science and in law—we cannot look to ordinary language or any other vehicle to permit the carriage of concepts back and forth across the borders of specialised systems.64 Niklas Luhmann, describing law as an autopoietic system, refers to its cognitive openness and normative closure: cognitive openness means that the system is able to observe phenomena, such as major hydrological works on a transboundary river, taking place in its environment, but: [t]here is no import of normative quality from the environment into the system, and that means, neither from the environment in general (nature), nor from the internal societal environment (such as religion and morality). … If the legal system refers to extra-legal norms, such as loyalty and belief or good practice, these norms attain legal quality only with this reference.65

Teubner argues that the best we can hope for is the establishment of ‘network logic’ among these systems through ‘a loose coupling of colliding units’.66

61

Kratochwil (n 32) 220. ibid, 228. 63 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (n 53) 56. 64 G Teubner, Law as an Autopoietic System (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993) 65. 65 N Luhmann, A Sociological Theory of Law (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) 285. 66 A Fischer-Lescano and G Teubner, ‘Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 999, 1004. 62

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Following the collapse of legal hierarchies, the only realistic option is to develop heterarchical forms of law that limit themselves to creating the relationship between the fragments of law. This might be achieved through a selective process of networking that normatively strengthens already existing factual networks between the legal regimes …. Combining different logics, [networks] mediate between autonomous function systems, formal organizations, and … between autonomous regimes.67

We are thus presented with three frameworks through which to understand the role of sustainable development in the integration of disparate areas of law, and, further, communication (or some other form of transaction) among law, science and other specialised systems, on the one hand, and the life world, on the other. A discourse ethical approach would point, in particular, to processes of opinion- and willformation that gave rise to the concept of sustainable development, and might, in particular, allow for an analysis of the role of that concept in light of its situation at the frontier between legal and other normative frameworks. A rhetorical approach would shed light on these features as well, but would also indicate the role played by sustainable development in casting novel claims, or arguments that rely heavily on scientific and technical frameworks, in familiar language and in providing a motivation for making a particular judgment. Autopoiesis, in a very different vein, admits of the possibility that sustainable development could constitute—or form a component of—a node in a network of specialised systems across whose borders communication is impossible, but which are nevertheless capable of ‘interfering’ with one another, establishing ‘a weak normative compatibility of the fragments [of the legal system].’68 Each of these three approaches sheds light on the relevance of sustainable development for international law. A discourse ethics approach helps us to understand the demands that sustainable development places on participants in legal argument: in particular, it sets standards regarding the types of evidence that proponents of a project must bring forward and the range of factors that must be taken into account. The obstacles to reaching consensus based on the exchange of reasons are immense: will all participants in legal argumentation be able to evaluate the scientific and technical data and interpretations of that data that are used to support or attack arguments? How will participants decide, under conditions of uncertainty, among a range of plausible options? Rhetorical theory provides one type of answer to that question: they don’t; instead, sustainable development is used as a heuristic to distinguish relevant from less relevant considerations and weak from strong arguments, and furthermore serves to enhance the persuasiveness of certain types of arguments. Autopoietic approaches question whether consensus, either based exclusively on reasoned argument or assisted by appeals to emotion, is possible when different social systems are implicated in decision-making. Concepts

67

ibid, 1018–19. Fischer-Lescano and Teubner, ‘Regime-Collisions’ (n 66) 1004. The authors are here talking about coupling among the fragments of the legal system, or specialised domains within law. They do not conclude that such a normative compatibility would be possible across different specialised systems. If Luhmann is correct, and if translation of normativity across system boundaries is not to be hoped for, sustainable development may nevertheless hold some capacity to carry out a form of integration within international law. 68

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such as sustainable development are conceived instead as permitting the establishment of relatively stable links between independent systems. Each of these theoretical approaches can also serve to shed light on the potential pitfalls of sustainable development as well. While sustainable development can be used in a principled fashion to help identify reasonable arguments, acceptable conclusions, and robust decision-making procedures, it can, of course, be used to distract attention from weaknesses and flaws and to manipulate policy-makers and members of the public. The fact that sustainable development can be used in inappropriate and unconstructive ways need not, however, be taken as proof that the concept itself is flawed. It is, however, essential that a critical approach be taken to the concept and to its application. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books J-M Arbour and S Lavallée, Droit international de l’environnement (Cowansville, Éditions Yvon Blais, 2006). H Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd edn (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998). Aristotle and GA Kennedy (translator), On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (New York, Oxford University Press, 1991). P Birnie, and A Boyle, International Law and the Environment, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). G Bruntland (ed), Our Common Future: The World Commission on Environment and Development (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987). M-C Cordonier Segger andA Khalfan, Sustainable Development Law: Principles, Practices and Prospects (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). D French, International Law and Policy of Sustainable Development (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005) J Habermas and W Rehg (translator), Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998). F Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical Reasoning in International and Domestic Affairs (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989). N Luhmann, A Sociological Theory of Law (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985). RD Munro and JG Lammers, (eds) Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development: Legal Principles and Recommendations (London, Graham & Trotman/Nijhoff, 1987). C Perelman, and L Olbrechts-Tyteca, Traité de l’argumentation, 5th edn (Brussels, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1988). P Sands, Principles of International Environmental Law, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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G Teubner, Law as an Autopoietic System (Oxford, Blackwell, 1993). T Viehweg, Topik und Jurisprudenz. Ein Beitrag zur rechtswissenschaftlichen Grundlagenforschung (München, Beck, 1969). Chapters in Edited Volumes A Boyle and D Freestone, ‘Introduction’, in A Boyle and D Freestone (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999). X Fuentes, ‘International Law-Making in the Field of Sustainable Development: The Unequal Competition between Development and Environment’ in N Schrijver and F Weiss (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Principles and Practice (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2004). V Lowe, ‘Sustainable Development and Unsustainable Arguments’, in A Boyle and D Freestone (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development: Past Achievements and Future Challenges (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999). V Lowe, ‘The Politics of Law-Making: Are the Method and Character of Norm Creation Changing?’, in M Byers (ed), The Role of Law in International Politics: Essays in International Relations and International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000). DB Magraw and LD Hawke, ‘Sustainable Development’, in D Bodansky, J Brunnée and E Hey (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007). P Sands, ‘Environmental Protection in the 21st Century: Sustainable Development and International Law’, in RL Revesz, P Sands and RB Stewart (eds), Environmental Law, the Economy and Sustainable Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000). J Walker, ‘Pathos and Katharsis in ‘Aristotelian’ Rhetoric: Some Implications’, in AG Gross and AE Walzer (eds), Rereading Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 2000). International Documents International Law Association, ‘New Delhi Declaration on Principles of International Law relating to Sustainable Development’ [2002] 2 International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 211. Journal Articles A Boyle, ‘The Gabcˇ ikovo-Nagymaros Case: New Law in Old Bottles’ (1997) 8 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 13–20. A Fischer-Lescano and G Teubner, ‘Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law’ (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 999–1046.

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Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, ‘Sustainable Development: The Challenge to International Law’ (1993) 2 Review of European Community and International Environmental Law 1. D French, ‘International Environmental Law and the Achievement of Intragenerational Equity’ (2001) 31 Environmental Law Reporter 10469–85. ABM Marong, ‘From Rio to Johannesburg: Reflections on the Role of International Legal Norms in Sustainable Development’ (2003) 16 Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 21–76. G Mayeda, ‘Where Should Johannesburg Take Us? Ethical and Legal Approaches to Sustainable Development in the Context of International Environmental Law’ (2004) 15 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 29–69. JB Ruhl, ‘The Seven Degrees of Relevance: Why Should Real-World Environmental Attorneys Care Now about Sustainable Development Policy?’ (1997–1998) 8 Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 273–93. JB Ruhl, ‘Sustainable Development: A Five-Dimensional Algorithm for Environmental Law’ (1999) 18 Stanford Environmental Law Journal 31–64. P Sands, ‘International Law in the Field of Sustainable Development’ (1994) 65 British Yearbook of International Law 303–381.

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The Standards of Compensation for Foreign Investment Expropriations in International Law: Internalising Environmental Costs? SAVERIO DI BENEDETTO *

INTRODUCTION

S

TATE MEASURES AIMED at protecting the environment can negatively interfere with foreign investments and result in expropriations. Several questions arise out of international law, namely whether such measures enforced by states might be considered as expropriation, and whether and to what extent compensation should be paid to foreign investors. Arbitral tribunals are becoming more and more concerned with such matters, particularly within the ICSID framework. Most international disputes about investments and environmental protection involve the actual existence of a taking, ie whether some public regulatory measures may be deemed as (indirect) expropriation. Even if recent arbitral decisions seem to restrict the notion of ‘regulatory expropriation’ (as in the Methanex case1), such a trend is not firmly established. Moreover, in some cases (for instance, Santa Elena v Costa Rica2), national measures aimed at protecting major public interests (biodiversity) involve the direct taking of a foreign investment. This article deals with the issue of defining compensation standards when the expropriation of a foreign investment is made with the intent of protecting the environment. The problem is critically relevant when investments are located in a developing country. In these cases, the obligation to pay full compensation could prevent poor countries from adopting decisive measures aimed at protecting the environment (and human rights as well). On the other hand, the obligation to pay compensation is in force both in customary international law and investmentrelated agreements, ie free trade agreements (FTAs) and bilateral investment treaties (BITs). The latter, in particular, set out rigid criteria to assess the amount of compensation, usually by referring to the traditional formula of ‘prompt, effective * Researcher in International Law, Lecturer in International Economic Law, Advanced School Isufi, Lecce. Article updated at the end of 2008 1 Methanex Corporation v US UNCITRAL Tribunal (NAFTA) (Final Award, 3 August 2005) 44 ILM 1345. 2 Compania del Desarrollo de Santa Elena, SA v Republic of Costa Rica ICSID Case No ARB/96/1 (Award of 17 February 2000) 39 ILM 1317.

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and adequate compensation’ and to the ‘fair market value’ of the investment. In a nutshell, there seems to be a dilemma between the need to protect the environment and human rights, and the obligation to pay compensation, as recent arbitral case law and authors’ comments attest. This article suggests that arbitral tribunals could address such a dilemma by using the criterion of internalising environmental costs when assessing the value of an expropriated investment. Arbiters, in other words, could determine the value of an expropriated investment by deducting its environmental costs, both before and after expropriation, from the overall amount of compensation. The polluter pays principle, as formulated in the 1992 Rio Declaration,3 explicitly refers to cost internalisation, and could provide a legal basis to such an interpretative operation. The principle of unjustified enrichment, referred to foreign investors, also could help to support such an approach. In sum, the internalising costs approach would prevent arbitral tribunals from a dichotomy choice between foreign investors’ rights and environmental protection. It thus would help to reconcile these different interests, as the principle of sustainable development already recommends.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND FOREIGN INVESTMENT EXPROPRIATION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

This part takes a general look at two paramount questions concerning the relevance of environmental interests in the context of international investment law. The first section, by making reference to the concept of ‘regulatory expropriation’, as elaborated by several authors, discusses whether a state measure aimed at protecting the environment could in itself be defined as ‘compensable expropriation’ in international law. In the second section, the question of taking environmental protection into consideration in the field of investment law is approached by considering the standards for assessing compensation when an expropriation has occurred.

The Existence of a Compensable Expropriation Expropriation, Compensation and the Principle of Sovereignty The right of states to expropriate4 foreign properties is acquired and commonly accepted in general international law. Expropriation is an expression of the 3 UN Conference on Environment and Development (3 June–14 June 1992) ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ UN Doc A/CONF 151/26 (Vol I). 4 In the international legal discourse, the word ‘expropriation’ is commonly used to refer to all the cases in which a foreign investor is deprived of his own property rights by a host state. Of course, a legal difference remains between a state act consisting in an across-the-board seizure of an entire economic sector and an administrative measure involving the physical dispossession of a single property. Nevertheless, international investment agreements tend to regulate all these cases on a whole (for

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fundamental principle of sovereignty of each country in its own territory.5 However, some limits to this right traditionally and currently exist, in particular when the foreign dispossessed rights constitute an investment:6 the act of expropriation should only be adopted for a public purpose, be non-discriminatory and respect the due process of law. The absence of one of these requirements would make the expropriation unlawful. The paramount limit to the expropriating power of states, however, is the obligation to pay compensation to the foreign owners for the taking of their investments. This obligation is crucial because it remedies the loss suffered by private foreign investors, by means of a monetary amount, without interfering with the free pursue of public purposes. Even so, in the past, some countries radically contested this obligation;7 today its existence is commonly accepted both by states and tribunals and strongly reaffirmed by more and more investment treaties. In the last decades, the legal concept of expropriation has been enlarged by BITs and FTAs: in fact, these treaties equalise the classical notion of direct expropriation (‘complete and formal deprivation of the owner’s legal title’8) with that of indirect (or ‘creeping’9) expropriation, which concerns state acts negatively interfering with foreign properties, without leading to the direct dispossession of the owner. Indeed, according to a famous dictum, ‘[a] deprivation or taking of property may occur under international law through interference by a state in the use of that property

instance, North American Free Trade Agreement (United States, Canada, Mexico) (signed 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) 32 ILM 289 (NAFTA), Art 1110 indifferently refers to ‘nationalization’ or ‘expropriation’, and all the bilateral investment treaties (BITs) analysed in this article have the same approach): therefore the word ‘expropriation’ (or ‘taking’) and the corresponding verb is employed in this article to refer to acts of both the nationalisation and expropriation (in a strict sense) of a foreign investment, unless we distinguish between the two notions according to specific situations. 5 This inveterate principle was solemnly reaffirmed, some decades ago, with respect to natural resources of States (Declaration on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (14 December 1962) UNGA Res 1803 (XVII)). 6 The notion of investment is often very broad in the context of bilateral investment treaties, tending to coincide with that of property rights. However, some characterising elements, such as risk acceptance, can be drawn from investment treaties. The Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes Between States and Nationals of other States (submitted to governments by the executive directors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development 18 March 1965, entered into force 14 October 1966) 4 ILM 524, which instituted the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), avoids providing any definition of ‘investment’. On this point, see D Carreau, ‘Investissements’ in Encyclopédie Juridique Dalloz, Répertoire de Droit International (Vol II) (Paris, Dalloz, 1998). 7 Communist states formally contested this obligation, due to their economic system, even if, in practice, they paid some compensation for expropriation of foreign properties. Likewise, in the 1960s, new countries, emerging from the decolonisation process, contested the obligation to pay compensation. 8 Santa Elena case (n 2). 9 Sometimes treaty rules on expropriation are formulated as if a third kind of expropriation existed (see eg NAFTA (n 4) Art 1110.1: ‘[n]o Party may directly or indirectly nationalize or expropriate an investment of an investor of another Party in its territory or take a measure tantamount to nationalization or expropriation of such an investment’, emphasis added). However Tribunals do not give concrete meaning to this third category (cf, Pope & Talbot Inc v The Government of Canada, UNCITRAL (NAFTA) Case (Interim Award of 26 June 2000) www.naftalaw.org/Disputes/Canada/Pope/ PopeInterimMeritsAward.pdf para 102; Metalclad Corporation v United Mexican States, ICSID Case No ARB(AF)/97/2 (Award of 30 August 2000) 40 ILM 36 para 103) and authors have criticised it (see RD Bishop, J Crawford and WM Reisman, Foreign Investment Disputes. Cases, Materials and Commentary (The Hague, Kluwer, 2005) 1009).

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or with the enjoyment of its benefits, even where legal title to the property is not affected.’10 The critical point is to establish the scope of the concept of ‘indirect expropriation’,11 in particular, when the impairment of the benefits arising from an investment is a consequence of a national regulatory measure adopted to protect fundamental values.12 Authors have defined this kind of expropriation as ‘regulatory taking’. Environmental Protection and the Category of ‘Regulatory Taking’ Recent arbitral case law regarding foreign investment protection has involved several cases where investors sought compensation for the expropriation of their rights, while states affirmed the necessity of expropriatory measures to protect environmental interests,13 which are recognised internationally.14 In this case, the first issue concerns the existence of compensable expropriation. The problem is that in developing as well as developed countries, ‘[environmental] legislation may be hampered by the threat of paying high amounts of damages and compensation.’15 This question is hotly debated among scholars. States’ regulations may entail the closing down of dangerous factories, the imposition of strict measures against pollution, or the revocation of permission for 10 Tippetts, Abbett, McCarthy, Stratton v Iran, Award No 141–7-2 (22 June 1984) (1986) 6 Iran-US Claims Tribunal Rep 219, 226. Likewise in Middle East Cement Shipping and Handling Co SA v Egypt, ICSID Case No ARB/99/6 (Award of 12 April 2002) 18 ICSID Rev—FIJL 602 (2003) the Tribunal claimed that a taking occurs ‘[w]hen measures are taken by a State the effect of which is to deprive the investor of the use and benefit of his investment even though he may retain nominal ownership of the respective rights being the investment’ para 107. Many arbitral awards tend to refer to the separate elements of use and benefit of an investment to assess whether an indirect expropriation occurred. For the historical roots of this approach (dating back to Roman law), see M Sornarajah, The International Law of Foreign Investment, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004) 352. 11 In the above quoted Tippets case (n 10) it is specified that an expropriation occurs ‘whenever events demonstrate that the owner was deprived of fundamental rights of ownership and it appears that this deprivation is not merely ephemeral’ (emphasis added). In Metalclad Corporation v United Mexican States (n 9), the Tribunal made reference to a deprivation ‘in whole or significant part, of the use or reasonably to be expected economic benefit of property’ (emphasis added). 12 An important element is provided by the last US Bilateral Investment Treaty Model (2004) www.twnside.org.sg/title2/FTAs/Singapore%20Issues/Investment/USModelBIT2004.pdf (US BIT Model). Its Annex B is dedicated to specifying the rules governing the expropriation of foreign investments, and one paragraph, the forth one, does concern indirect expropriation. This paragraph provides some elements of assessment, to decide on a case-by-case analysis whether ‘an action or series of actions by a Party has an effect equivalent to direct expropriation without formal transfer of title or outright seizure’. Among such elements, the reference to ‘the extent to which the government action interferes with distinct, reasonable investment-backed expectations’ seems to be very important to balance both the private and public interests involved. 13 For instance, if a state decides to create a national park in a high biodiversity area, it might need to expropriate land owned by foreign corporations and intended for economic exploitation; similarly, the strict regulation of an economic activity which is potentially highly polluting, could also entail a devaluation of a foreign investment in such a field. 14 Current practice has concerned cases where environmental interests were at stake, and this article follows this path. However, very similar issues could be raised by cases where some fundamental human rights are negatively affected by the implementation of a foreign investment, such as the right to health or the right to decent work. 15 E Kentin, ‘Sustainable Development in International Investment Dispute Settlement: the ICSID and NAFTA Experience’ in N Schrijver and F Weiss (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development. Principles and Practice (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2004) 309, 327.

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hazardous waste landfill. Such regulations lead to different legal consequences, compared to classical form of nationalisations, eg of oil wells. Some authors affirm that such regulatory measures should not be considered as compensable taking, unless such measures were unnecessary, arbitrary or discriminatory. According to other authors, conversely, such regulatory measures could well be deemed as compensable.16 Neither investment treaties nor arbitral practice help to achieve a clear position on this point. The Infrequent Reference to the Environment in Investment Treaties This problem of the potential conflict between foreign investors’ rights and environmental public measures is intensified by the lack or insufficiency of specific provisions on this point in investments treaties. Whereas in the WTO legal system, several provisions are used to conciliate, even with difficulties, trade liberalisation and environment protection,17 BITs usually lack corresponding rules. Some recent investment treaties have started to address this problem. For instance, the Preamble of the 2004 US Model BIT clearly states that treaty objectives should be achieved ‘in a manner consistent with the protection of health, safety, and the environment, and the promotion of internationally recognized labour rights.’18 NAFTA, on the other hand, provides for an exception clause for environmental measures: [n]othing in this Chapter shall be construed to prevent a Party from adopting, maintaining or enforcing any measure otherwise consistent with this Chapter that it considers appropriate to ensure that investment activity in its territory is undertaken in a manner sensitive to environmental concerns.19

However, the US Model BIT is quite exceptional in this matter compared to other BITs, while the concrete efficacy of NAFTA Article 1114 seems to be compromised by the formula ‘otherwise consistent with this Chapter’.20 In sum, these treaty provisions, though important, highlight the problem without actually solving it. 16 See eg, respectively, Sornarajah, The International Law of Foreign Investment (n 10) 375; Nouvel, ‘Les mesures équivalent á une expropriation clans la pratique recente des tribunaux arbitraux’ (2002) 106 Revue Générale de Droit International Public 79, 96. 17 cf Art XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, in Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (signed 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/06-gatt.pdf (GATT 1994) and Art XIV of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, Annex 1B to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (GATS), which set forth a list of general exceptions to the principles of trade liberalisation. 18 cf US BIT Model (n 10). 19 NAFTA (n 4) Art 1114 (emphasis added). It is worth noting that in the Preamble of the NAFTA the three member States affirm to be ‘resolved to: … PROMOTE sustainable development; STRENGTHEN the development and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations’. 20 In fact, such a passage appears to deprive the clause referred to of its exceptive meaning. Furthermore, NAFTA (n 4) Art 2101 (General Exceptions), although it incorporates the GATT (n 17) Art XX (which has played a fundamental role in affirming a State’s right to protect the environment and human health, cf below, III. 5) into the treaty, explicitly excludes NAFTA provisions referring to investments from being affected by the GATT Art XX. An echo of the GATT Art XX can be found in NAFTA Art 1106, but such environmental exceptions refer to a limited number of hypothesis and have never been addressed by tribunals (see N Bernasconi-Osterwalder and E Brown Weiss, ‘International Investment Rules and Water: Learning from NAFTA Experience’ in E Brown Weiss, L Boisson de Chazournes and N Bernasconi-Osterwalder (eds), Fresh Water and International Economic Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) 263, 276).

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Another important novelty in this matter is provided by the last US Model BIT. Its Annex B, dedicated to specifying the rules governing the expropriation of foreign investments, sets out the following standard: [e]xcept in rare circumstances, non-discriminatory regulatory actions by a Party that are designed and applied to protect legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety, and the environment, do not constitute indirect expropriations.21

This is a turning point. The BIT Model refers to only a part of sovereign regulatory powers, namely those aimed at fulfilling ‘legitimate public welfare objectives, such as public health, safety, and the environment.’ When such powers are exercised in a non-discriminatory way, it is not classified as an indirect expropriation. The solution offered by the US Model BIT seems to be the best answer to the issue of whether to compensate regulatory indirect expropriations. However, some points remain problematic. Firstly, the scope of the ‘rare circumstances’ exception;22 which degree of discretionary power will the Tribunal have to determine such circumstances? Secondly, among all BITs currently in force, even those signed by the USA, few have a clause such as Annex B of the US Model BIT.23 The Controversial Experience of Arbitral Tribunals In recent years, the arbitral awards in the Metalclad24 and Tecmed25 cases have been characterised by the broad meaning given to ‘indirect expropriation’. Both cases concerned national measures which prohibited foreign investors from maintaining a landfill for hazardous wastes on their property; the local population’s concerns about the harmful consequences for human health and the environment were the reasons for these regulations. Both tribunals found, using different arguments, that such regulatory measures were tantamount to expropriation and thus created an obligation for compensating the value of investments. The recent Methanex case26 seems to change the latter approach.27 The Tribunal found that national rules do not in fact constitute a measure tantamount to expropriation (and thus compensable), when they are non-discriminatory, adopted in accordance with due process of law and aimed at fulfilling a public 21

US BIT Model (n 10), Annex B. See in this sense OK Fauchald, ‘International Investment Law and Environmental Protection’ (2007) 22 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 3. 23 For example the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Republic of Uruguay Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investment (US–Uruguay BIT) (signed 4 November 2005, entered into force 1 November 2006) 44 ILM 265, whose Annex B, paragraph 4, exactly corresponds to the US BIT Model (n 10). 24 cf, Metalclad (n 9). 25 Tecnicas Medioambientales (TECMED) SA v The United Mexican States, ICSID Case No ARB (AF)/00/2 (Award of 29 May 2003) http://icsid.worldbank.org/ICSID/FrontServlet?requestType=Cases RH&actionVal=showDoc&docId=DC602_En&caseId=C186. 26 Methanex case (n 1). 27 In this case, the state of California had banned the sale and use of the gasoline additive known as ‘MBTE’, due to its proven toxicity. Methanex Corporation, a Canadian investor in the USA, claimed, inter alia, that such a ban was tantamount to expropriation—according to Art 1110 of NAFTA (n 4)—since it sharply reduced the value of its investment aimed at producing a fundamental component of MBTE. 22

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purpose.28 The concrete effect of this ruling—to deny compensation for this kind of regulatory measures—is a good point to reaffirm the prevailing regulatory power in basic public fields. However, the problem is that the Tribunal’s finding seems to directly contradict the formula of NAFTA Article 1110. According to this rule, a national measure, even if it is ‘non discriminatory’, adopted ‘in accordance with due process of law’ and ‘for a public purpose’, can result in a direct or indirect expropriation and accordingly involve the obligation to pay compensation.29 In other words, according to Article 1110, the three quoted characteristics (non-discrimination, due process of law and public purpose) are relevant only to preclude unlawfulness of the national expropriatory measure (and the necessity to pay additional damages), but not to deny the basic obligation to pay compensation. Seeing how the Tribunal has reversed the formula of NAFTA Article 1110, fears persist that in the future this literal formula, which is also set forth similarly by many BITs, could resurface.30 Moreover, an ‘environmental taking’—as in the Santa Elena case31—may concern the direct seizure of a foreign investors’ property rights. In such a case of direct expropriation, though justified by major environmental reasons, it seems difficult to simply negate compensating foreign investors. In sum, another perspective seems to be necessary. The quest for an equilibrium between foreign investors’ rights and environmental (and human rights) protection shifts towards the analysis of the standards used to award compensation. By carefully determining the amount of compensation, arbitrators could reach appropriate solutions taking into account both interests. In particular, they might try to determine the value of the investment (and, accordingly, the sum to be paid) by also considering negative and harmful effects of the investment on the environment, as this article suggests.

The Criteria for Assessing Compensation The concrete way taken to assess the amount of compensation is decisive for the effective implementation of the rules concerning expropriation and relates to the ideology which underlies them. The concept of full compensation relates to a 28 In fact, according to the Tribunal, ‘as a matter of general international law, a non-discriminatory regulation for a public purpose, which is enacted in accordance with due process and, which affects, inter alios, a foreign investor or investment is not deemed expropriatory and compensable’ (Methanex Case (n 1), IV, D, para 7). 29 Indeed, the Tribunal in the Methanex Case (n 1) makes reference to a ‘matter of general international law’ to deny the expropriatory character of the regulatory measure. 30 Maybe the Tribunal could have tried to justify its approach by referring to the fundamental character of the involved public interest: it would have thus built (or tried to build) an exception to the letter of NAFTA (n 4) Art 1110. The Tribunal however has limited its ‘reversal’ of Art 1110 by specifying that compensable expropriations would occur if ‘specific commitments had been given by the regulating government to the then putative foreign investor contemplating investment that the government would refrain from such regulation’. For a criticism on this point, see H Mann, ‘The Final Decision in Methanex v United States: Some New Wine in Some New Bottles’ (2005) www.iisd.org/pdf/2005/ commentary_methanex.pdf. 31 cf Santa Elena Case (n 2).

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‘property-oriented’ approach and implies the idea of damages, which require a complete reparation, whilst more nuanced standards of assessment, which could incorporate the concept of ‘appropriate’ (or ‘just’) compensation, enable judges to take into account different and potentially conflicting interests and values. The Disputed Issue of Compensation Standards in General International Law: from the ‘Hull Formula’ to the ‘Appropriate Compensation’ Since the beginning of the last century, the way of determining compensation in cases of expropriation has been not only the object of doctrinal debates, but also a cause of diplomatic clashes. In 1938, the US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, wrote to the Mexican Foreign Minister claiming that the expropriation of private property was legitimate only in case of payment by the expropriating government of a ‘prompt, adequate and effective compensation’.32 The Mexican government had just expropriated important US private land properties and had refused to pay full compensation immediately. The tripartite ‘Hull formula’, and in particular the requirement of ‘adequateness’,33 was intended to refer to an amount corresponding to the full market value of the property taken.34 Since then, the validity of this formula in international law has been strongly debated by both states and authors. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Hull Formula appeared to be considerably old-fashioned. New countries arising out of the process of decolonisation strongly contested traditional Western approaches on this matter, by asserting their sovereignty over natural and economic resources and, accordingly, the freedom to reasonably determine amounts of compensation. Their view was also shared by socialist countries. In 1962, the UN General Assembly issued the famous Declaration on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources,35 which set forth, inter alia, the obligation to pay an ‘appropriate compensation in accordance with international law’ in the case of foreign expropriations. The text was a compromise between the two existing positions of Western and developing countries: the ‘appropriate compensation’ would constitute a flexible standard36 allowing tribunals to take into account all relevant circumstances in calculating the due amount.37 In the last two decades, with the collapse of the European communist states and the end of political unity of developing countries, the situation has changed. The triumph of a new liberalist global order has involved a renewed fervour for enhancing foreign investments, which are seen as a means to expand the world economy and foster the development of poor countries. In particular, this has 32

Cordell Hull in a Note of 21 July 1938 to the Mexican Government. This character concerns the criteria to assess the amount of compensation. 34 For a broader analysis of this case, see Sornarajah (n 10). 35 UNGA Res 1803 (n 5). 36 See Sornarajah (n 10) 480. 37 The importance of UNGA Res 1803 (n 5) arises from the extremely wide support that it received from states, unlike other more ambitious economic General Assembly resolutions, such as that claiming for a New International Economic Order. The latter argued for a discretionary power of states to determine the amount to be paid for the taking of foreign investments: this statement, however, seems unlikely to reflect a customary principle. 33

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resulted in an impressive increase of treaties and agreements setting out comprehensive rules protecting foreign investments. Nevertheless, authors frequently doubt that this recent phenomenon has implied a radical change in customary international law concerning foreign investments and, in particular, has meant a (re)affirmation of the ‘Hull Formula’.38 On this point, the doctrinal debate is ongoing. According to the most convincing position, the current customary obligation, arising out of foreign investment expropriations, still consists in the payment of an appropriate, rather than full, compensation.39 However, in recent years, cases in which arbitral tribunals are called to apply customary law are increasingly rare, due to the huge growth of investment treaties, and, thus, general international law seems to maintain a real role only as a means of interpreting BITs and FTAs, which usually provide for full compensation in the case of investment expropriations.40 Assessing Compensation under Investment Treaties: the ‘Fair Market Value’ Today, there are more than 2,700 bilateral investment treaties,41 and free trade agreements also play an important role at a regional level. Both of these types of instrument provide for strong protection for investors’ interests, in a broader legal context characterised by the quest for intensifying trade relations and mutually stimulating economic development.42 All these treaties create an obligation to pay compensation in the event of foreign investment expropriations, although formulating it in several different ways. There appears to be a clear prevalence of the ‘Hull formula’ (‘prompt, adequate and effective compensation’, ‘full compensation’), particularly, when Western countries are involved. However, treaties often refer to ‘just’, ‘fair’, ‘appropriate’ or ‘reasonable’43 compensation. Sometimes, only two elements of the Hull formula are repeated. 38 ‘Prompt, adequate and effective compensation’, Cordell Hull in a Note of 21 July 1938 to the Mexican Government. 39 Authors’ views on this point are divergent. Cf Sornarajah (from Singapore) (n 10), as an exponent of the opinion against the customary obligation to pay full compensation, and GH Aldrich (from the USA, former member of the US-Iran Claims Tribunal), The Jurisprudence of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996) 170, for the opposite view. Arbitral practice on this point is also quite ambivalent. Cf, among the cases of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, Ina Corporation v Iran (Award No 184–161–1, 13 August 1985) 8-IUSCTR 373; Sedco, Inc v National Iranian Oil Company and Iran (Award No 59–129–3, 27 March 1986) 10-IUSCTR 180. The ICSID Tribunal of the Santa Elena Case (n 2), after recognising the situation of uncertainty in general international law on the point, awarded the ‘fair market value’ following the agreement of the parties on that criterion (see below). 40 However, the concept of appropriate compensation is useful in the context of treaties from an interpretative point of view, since treaties are presumed to conform to customary law, unless they set out specific derogating rules (in this sense see the International Court of Justice in the ELSI case: Elettronica Sicula SPA (ELSI) [1989] ICJ Rep15 para 50). 41 A complete picture of BITs in force is provided at www.unctadxi.org. 42 These general objectives could play an important role to guide Tribunals’ interpretation when assessing compensation, by preventing them from adopting purely investor-oriented approaches. 43 This wording is quite rare: see eg, Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (11 July 1988) 1514 UNTS 65 (Australia–China BIT) Art 8.

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Almost all investment treaties state that the amount of compensation must be equivalent to the investment value44 and this is often characterised as ‘market value’, ‘fair market value’, ‘genuine value’ or without any adjective at all.45 Reference to the (market) value of the investment seems to support the position that compensation should be calculated according to commercial parameters usually employed in evaluating economic enterprises.46 By doing so, full compensation would substantially be granted.47 Nevertheless, it is also important to take into account how different treaties have characterised compensation (‘full’ is different from ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’) and, most of all, the legal context in which treaties operate. ‘Fair market value’ could be defined as ‘the amount which a willing buyer would have paid a willing seller for the shares of a going concern.’48 This definition shows the hypothetical dimension in which this concept is collocated. The ‘fair market value’ (or ‘genuine value’) of an investment is usually determined by arbitral tribunals by taking into account the actual assets as well as the future prospects of the expropriated investment49 in order to determine the price which a hypothetical buyer would be willing to pay a hypothetical seller, a minute before the expropriation occurred.50 In other words, the value of the expropriated investment also ‘depends on the revenue that the enterprises would have generated had the taking not occurred.’51 The relevance of potential revenues or future prospects52 has been strongly criticised by some jurists, due to the hypothetical character of their calculation and the risk of imposing a disproportionate burden on expropriating

44 Important exceptions can be found: see eg Acuerdo entre la República de Bolivia y la República de Chile para la Promoción y Protección Recíproca de Inversiones (22 September 1994) www.direcon.cl/ documentos/BOLIVIA.pdf (last accessed 7 July 2009) (Chile–Bolivia BIT) Art VI, where an equivalence with market value is not affirmed, but the latter is simply a parameter of assessment. 45 Among Western countries, French BITs have a rather different approach, by referring to the ‘valeur réelle’ of the investment. 46 The simple reference to the value of investment is usually interpreted, by authors and tribunals, as meaning ‘fair market value’, since the latter is the typical standard for assessing compensation in Western countries (and in particularly in the US and UK). 47 See, in this sense, R Dolzer and C Schreuer, Principles of International Investment Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) 91. 48 Ina Corporation v Iran (n 39). According to a 2005 document of the American Society of Appraisers, fair market value could be defined as ‘the price, expressed in terms of cash equivalents, at which property would change hands between a hypothetical willing and able buyer and a hypothetical willing and able seller, acting at harm’s length in an open and unrestricted market, when neither is under an obligation to buy or sell and when both have reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts’ (quoted by I Marboe, ‘Compensation and Damages in International Law. The Limits of “Fair Market Value”’ (2006) 7 The Journal of World Investment and Trade 723, 731). 49 The most common method to concretely carry out such an appraisal is the so-called discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, whereby future prospects are discounted according to the potential market risks of the investment: the result is the market value of the asset at the time of expropriation. 50 Therefore, according to common appraisal practice, ‘the effects of expropriation or the threat of expropriation should not be taken into account when valuing the property’s fair market value’ (Marboe, ‘Compensation and Damages’ (n 48) 740). 51 SPP (Middle East) v Egypt, ICSID Case No ARB/84/3 (Award of 20 May 1992) 22 ILM 752, para 184. 52 It is worth noting that future prospects are not refunded as lucrum cessans, (which is relevant in case of unlawful expropriation) but just represent a parameter for predicting the price that a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller.

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states.53 This criticism is particularly appropriate with respect to the present subject matter, namely when states realise public policies aimed at protecting fundamental public interests, such as human rights and the environment. Expropriations for Environmental Purposes: What Standards of Compensation? The main, current attempt to integrate environmental protection into investment expropriation issues consists—as seen above—in denying the very obligation to compensate. However, in many cases, this position is simply untenable, as it would jeopardise the overall equilibrium between sovereign prerogatives and foreign investment protection. On the other hand, when an expropriation is deemed to be compensable, the application of a purely commercial approach when assessing compensation, ie the rigid standard of fair market value, might endanger the concrete implementation of states’ sovereign rights. States, and in particular poor countries, could be discouraged from adopting important regulatory measures, negatively affecting foreign investments, for fear of being required to pay huge compensation. The Santa Elena v Costa Rica case is a clear example of how the classical ‘fair market value’ approach is too rigid when expropriatory measures aim to fulfil an environmental purpose. The Caribbean state decided to develop a natural park in a high biodiversity area (the Santa Elena region); however, the territory was partially owned by foreign investors, who planned to build a huge tourist complex. After the expropriation of this foreign property by Costa Rica, a dispute concerning the amount of compensation arose and the investors submitted a request for arbitration to ICSID. In defence, the respondent made reference to ‘its international legal obligation to preserve the unique ecological site that is the Santa Elena Property.’54 The ICSID Tribunal—in a famous dictum—replied that: while an expropriation or taking for environmental reasons may be classified as a taking for a public purpose, and thus may be legitimate, the fact that the Property was taken for this reason does not affect either the nature or the measure of the compensation to be paid for the taking. That is, the purpose of protecting the environment for which the Property was taken does not alter the legal character of the taking for which adequate compensation must be paid. The international source of the obligation to protect the environment makes no difference.55

Accordingly, the Tribunal awarded ‘full compensation for the fair market value of the property’.56

53 A different evaluation method is the ‘net book value’, whereby the compensation should amount to ‘the corporation’s assets and liabilities as stated in the accounts books’ at the time of expropriation (Sornarajah, (n 10) 487). This method is more favourable for expropriating states because it does not consider future prospects: however, arbitral tribunals tend to refuse it when applying the rule of ‘fair market value’. 54 Santa Elena case (n 2) para 71, note 32. 55 Santa Elena case (n 2) para 73 (emphasis added). 56 ibid.

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In this decision, the ICSID Tribunal explicitly refused to take environmental reasons into account when determining the amount of compensation. However, there are good arguments supporting a different view on this point. Legal doctrine has recently started to address the issue of ‘whether environmental consideration may constitute a basis for reducing compensation’, by claiming that this may occur ‘where an investor claims compensation for an investment that has caused harm to environmental goods … or that will cause such harm in the future.’57 However, Fauchald concludes that a tribunal will probably take environmental costs into account only in the case of pre-existing national measures which integrate these costs.58 This position seems to be an important starting point to reflect carefully on this subject. This article tries to develop a more general discourse about the internalisation of the environmental costs when assessing compensation, by relying on the very concept of market value and the potential relevance of general principles of international law. INTERNALISING ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS IN ASSESSING COMPENSATION

This section lays out some arguments in support of the idea that the assessment of the value of an expropriated investment (and accordingly the amount of due compensation) should be made in consideration of its environmental costs. These arguments range from an internal interpretation of investment treaties (the ‘pragmatic approach’) to a more systemic approach, which relies on general principles of international (environmental) law.59 Naturally, two or more arguments might be jointly employed. A Pragmatic Approach More than a Commercial Reading of ‘Fair Market Value’ As anticipated, and according to most investment treaties, the amount of compensation must be equivalent to the value of the investment expropriated; this value is usually characterised as ‘market value’ or ‘fair market value’.60 The current application of this notion—as we have seen—is purely commercial and arbitrators tend to determine it by simply calculating the price that a willing buyer would have paid to a willing seller before the expropriation occurred. It is worth noting, however, that this approach is directly transposed from the commercial practice of appraisers: although its exclusive use might be correct in a purely commercial 57

Fauchald, ‘International Investment Law and Environmental Protection’ (n 22) 24 et seq. While, ‘the less likely it is that the investor at some point will be made responsible for such costs, the less likely will it be that such costs may be invoked to reduce the amount of compensation’ (ibid). 59 This fundamental bipartition (pragmatic/systemic) can be suggested as a way of systematising the typologies of arguments that arbitral tribunals may employ to take into account environmental protection when interpreting international investment rules. 60 See above. 58

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dispute, it is not reasonable when fundamental interests—such as those related to environmental protection—are likewise at stake. In fact, the willing buyer–willing seller schema has the inconvenience of ignoring two economic concepts, elaborated by the modern economic sciences: market failure and negative externality. These refer to situations where some market distortions are not autonomously redressed by the mechanisms of demand and supply. Pollution and the depletion of natural resources are classical examples of negative externalities produced by non-regulated market systems. Such reasoning implies that environmental assets have an economic value, but no relevance for the mechanism of demand and supply. Likewise, the purely commercial approach to ‘market value’ (namely, the ‘willing buyer–willing seller’ schema) reveals itself as unable to quantify at a monetary level some fundamental values such as human health or biodiversity. However, this does not mean that these goods are not relevant to market logic, as they have an economic value due to their scarcity and rareness. Rather, their relevance in assessing compensation should be ascertained by legal tools61 and by also integrating assessment of technical experts (eg ecologists and chemists for environmental damages; legal medics for human health troubles). BITs merely set out the reference to (fair) market value in calculating compensation. Why should this mean excluding a wide-ranging economic approach in order to determine an asset value? Should a treaty implicitly renounce employing legal tools which rely on economic concepts? Markets, in real life, are not without limits; instead they are regulated by law. The use of the concept of negative externalities could provide significant indications for the purpose of balancing environmental needs and investors’ interests when assessing compensation. The idea suggested in this article is that environmental (and human) costs should be internalised in calculating the market value of expropriated investments, provided that the expropriation is necessary for states to achieve public purposes relevant to international law.62 According to this perspective, all environmental costs—before and after the expropriation—should be deducted from the overall value of the assessed investment.63 The application of such an approach is quite simple. Environmental costs, which have already affected the territory and population of a state, should be deducted

61 It is worth noting that in several national legal systems judges are able to quantify in monetary terms a loss of health on the basis of an equitable assessment. In some countries they may rely on schedules which link the level of harm done, scientifically verified, to a corresponding monetary sum. Anyway, the calculability of the environmental damage is a complicated issue, which would need a further specific analysis. 62 See above. 63 For a rather similar idea (without however reference to assessing compensation) cf FS Nogales, ‘The NAFTA Environmental Framework, Chapter 11 Investment Provisions and the Environment’ (2002) 8 Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law 97, 112: ‘[A]s with the evaluation of any other investment, these costs [of protecting health, safety and the environment] should clearly be included in an investor’s own risk assessment’.

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from the value of investments.64 For instance, when arbitrators assess the value of a polluting industrial unit—which has been expropriated and closed for this reason— they should deduct an amount representing all the pollutant effects for which the unit has been responsible over the years, in terms of mortality, health problems, environmental damage and so forth. This application of the criterion of internalising costs thus takes into account past negative effects of expropriated investments on the environment: an echo of such a possible approach may be found in the Metalclad case award.65 At the same time, future negative effects may be taken into account as well.66 This could influence the assessment of future prospects of an expropriated investment. The current evaluation method of fair market value also considers, where appropriate, the future cash flow that the investment was supposed to have generated after the expropriation, meaning the overall revenues that it would have produced in a determined period of time successive to the taking.67 According to the perspective of balancing different key interests, such hypothetical revenues could be calculated by deducting future negative environmental costs of the investment from the overall revenues. In cases in which the investment relies primarily on activities producing serious damage to the environment, future revenues could be deemed as unfair and consequently be reduced to zero.68 The Role of the Principle of Sovereignty Another, broader argument in favour of the internalisation of environmental costs may be obtained from a contextual and teleological interpretation of investment treaties. If it is indeed true that states were free to accept whether or not to be bound by BITs or FTAs, which incorporate the standard of fair market value, it

64 See, in this sense, Sornarajah (n 10) 479: ‘[w]here the taking is based on the State’s belief on objective grounds that the practices adopted in the exploitation of natural resources were harmful to the environment or depleted the resources unnecessarily, there is room for argument that this factor should be taken into account in assessing compensation’. 65 The case concerned the negative effects of the hazardous landfill activities in Mexico of Metalclad, a US corporation. The Arbitral Tribunal stated: ‘[t]he fact that the site may require remediation has been borne in mind by the Tribunal and allowance has been made for this in the calculation of the sum payable by the Government of Mexico’ (Metalclad Corporation v United Mexican States (n 9) para 127, emphasis added). Most importantly, such a statement has been repeated in the ‘AWARD’ section, at the end of the decision: ‘the Tribunal hereby decides that, reflecting the amount of Metalclad’s investment in the project … less the estimated amount allowed for remediation … the Respondent shall … pay to Metalclad the amount of …’ (131st and last para, emphasis added). 66 See, on this point, the award of the ICSID Tribunal in Southern Pacific Properties (Middle East) Limited v Arab Republic of Egypt, ICSID Case No ARB/84/3, para 190 et seq, available at http://icsid. worldbank.org/ICSID/FrontServlet?requestType=CasesRH&actionVal=showDoc&docId=DC671_ En&caseId=C135 (last accessed 7 July 2009) and L Liberti, ‘The Relevance of Non-investment Treaty Obligations in the Assessment of Compensation’ (2007) 4 Transnational Dispute Management no 6, available at www.tran sational-dispute-management.com. 67 See above. 68 In this case, the market value of the investment on the whole would be zero, since it would not have generated any future revenues. However, even in such cases a certain amount of compensation could be awarded, namely the sum of the market values of the single expropriated assets (eg the total economical value of the land and existing machines which belonged to the expropriated business).

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must be equally true that states hold the sovereign right to protect fundamental public interests on the level they deem appropriate.69 In sum, the principle of sovereignty challenges the rigid and commercially oriented interpretation of the standard of fair market value. In fact, investment treaties are not conceived as simply protecting foreign property, but rather as encouraging foreign investments and, more generally, as stimulating the economic development of contracting parties. In this context, the host state has legal relevance as the expression of a human community with its fundamental interests and needs, rather than as a mere economic entity. Moreover, BITs and FTAs aim to protect investments, and not merely foreign property rights. The logic of investment is anchored in risk and implies the possibility of losing benefits. The fact that an investor pays for the existence of past and future environmental costs (through the reduction of the amount of compensation) seems thus to fall within the common alea of economic activities.70 In the context of this interpretative framework, a specific concern arises about the selection of sovereign interests which are relevant to the logic of internalising costs. In other words, what ecological value would justify the deduction of environmental costs from the overall amount of compensation? According to a rigid state-oriented position, this question is useless, given the states’ freedom to specify their own fundamental interests. Yet, in such a delicate matter, international law could provide further support for taking specific environmental costs into consideration (eg greenhouse gas emissions, the destruction of endangered species) when assessing compensation. Another point, related to but distinct from the former, concerns the modality of choosing regulatory expropriating measures. The practice of WTO law could provide useful guidance on this point,71 in particular with the so-called necessity test. According to WTO case law, a restrictive state measure:

69 In particular, such a right is now recognised within the WTO Legal System. Cf the Report of the Appellate Body, European Communities — Measures Affecting Asbestos and Products Containing Asbestos (12 March 2001) WT/DS135/AB/R, para 168: ‘it is undisputed that WTO Members have the right to determine the level of protection of health that they consider appropriate in a given situation’. 70 This approach is inspired by the Brownlie’s Separate Opinion in the CME-Czech Republic case (13 March 2003) http://ita.law.uvic.ca/documents/CME2003-SeparateOpinion_000.pdf. In that case, the Czech state was ordered by an UNCITRAL Tribunal to pay compensation for the indirect expropriation of a Dutch enterprise’s investment in the broadcasting sector. The legal basis was the Netherlands–Czech Republic BIT. The amount was determined by the Tribunal in light of the ‘fair market value’ standard and by concretely using the (DCF) analysis. The compensation awarded was considerable for a small country such as the Czech Republic. Brownlie’s Separate Opinion focused on the methods used for evaluating compensation: in particular, he censured the Tribunal’s use of exclusively commercial methods of evaluation, namely the DCF analysis, to interpret the concept of ‘genuine value’ of the investment (paras 97 et seq). Brownlie’s reasoning begins from the legal context of the BIT and relies on general principles of law: it may be, mutatis mutandis, a valid parallel to deal with the issue of standards of compensation when foreign investments are expropriated to protect the environment. 71 Within the WTO legal system is today accepted the existence of a general right of states to protect human health and the environment, according to the level they deem appropriate, at least in the GATT and GATS (n 17) context. This right is founded on GATT Art XX (and GATS Art XIV) which sets out the general exceptions to the Treaty, and has been clearly affirmed by the Appellate Body of the WTO, eg in the EC–Asbestos case (n 69).

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could be considered to be ‘necessary’ in terms of Art. XX b) [of the GATT] only if there were no alternative measure consistent with the General Agreement, or less inconsistent with it, which [a State] could be reasonably expected to employ to achieve its health policy objectives.72

Such a statement seems to offer a balanced approach to the matter. In fact, the principle of self-determination of its own protection level is affirmed,73 but the restrictive measure should be the least restrictive way to achieve the goal.74 Therefore, mutatis mutandis, when an expropriating measure was adopted, although the same level of protection could be achieved by another measure, without expropriating foreign investment, compensation would be provided according to the usual criteria of assessment, without discounting environmental costs. For example, if a natural park had been created in a small wild area, just by seizing a foreign investor’s property and leaving an identical broad wild area without protection, it would be difficult to invoke the necessity of that measure, which would appear as a form of discrimination against the investor75 rather than a simple exercise of fundamental sovereign prerogatives.

A Systemic Approach Recent doctrine has strongly (re-)affirmed the importance of the principle of systemic interpretation in international law, as opposed to the theory of selfcontained regimes.76 Even if arbitral tribunals rarely make reference to other fields of international law, it is worth suggesting some arguments, relying on principles of international law, which could help arbitrators to find a balance between investors’ interests and environmental needs.

72 Thailand—Restriction on Importation of and Internal Taxes on Cigarettes (7 November 1989) GATT BISD 37S/200, para 75 (emphasis added). This position was confirmed by successive WTO rulings, such as in Brazil and Venezuela v US (Gasoline Case) (1995) WT/DS4. 73 The crucial point is that within the concept of necessity there is no place for a Panel’s evaluation of the environmental or health policy objective. The existence of another possible measure is relevant only if this measure achieves the same objective as that pursued by the State measure which is deemed to be inconsistent with general principles of GATT. 74 The Panel’s statement unites two elements. The first one regards the absence of an alternative measure which is able to achieve the same purpose. This is exactly what is meant by the concept of necessity. The Panel’s interpretation adds a second, crucial element: the fact that this measure is more consistent with GATT. There is no reason to object this: the requirement of necessity would have no sense without affirming this other aspect. The logic of Art XX(b) exception intends to obtain that the same policy result is achieved by the less trade-restrictive means. 75 It is worth noting that, according to this article’s approach, this ‘necessity test’ has nothing to do with the lawfulness of foreign investment expropriations, unlike the WTO context, where it is used to decide the legitimacy of a state measure. 76 See on this point the recent activity of the International Law Commission on the topic of the fragmentation of international law (eg ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (UN Doc A/CN.4/L.682, 2006)). Cf also C McLachlan, ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration And Article 31(3)(C) of the Vienna Convention’ (2005) 54 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 279.

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The Polluter Pays Principle The standard of environmental cost internalisation, which may be derived from general concepts of modern economic theory, finds its roots in the international law of the environment and in the ‘polluter pays principle’ (PPP). According to Principle 16 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, [n]ational authorities should endeavour to promote the internalisation of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments, taking into account the approach that the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution, with due regard to the public interest and without distorting international trade and investment.77

This is one of the most important versions of the polluter pays principle,78 and it has been adopted by a wide-ranging number of states. The text of Principle 16 clearly makes reference to the legal objective of internalising environmental costs. As regards the discussion of this article, the PPP could be applied when foreign investors claim compensation for a supposed expropriation, which consists in national measures imposing heavy additional costs on the investor, such as installing a purifier (or paying pollution taxes).79 Indeed, Principle 16, when affirming the need for internalising environmental costs, adds that this should occur ‘without distorting international trade and investment’. In this way Principle 16 sets out a clear link between international investment law and environmental protection. It thereby provides an important argument to use the PPP when interpreting BITs, to balance the two spheres of interest. The PPP generally affects all environmental costs. Therefore, in regard to the issue of compensation, this principle could be relevant for national measures, not only those directly imposing costs for protecting the environment (eg pollution taxes), but also those providing for overall environmental regulations which negatively affect (in terms of costs) foreign investments (eg the prohibition against modifying a rare natural habitat). If such regulatory measures were considered as constituting an (indirect) expropriation,80 the PPP, and the consequent standard of internalising costs, could be used by arbitral tribunals for calculating the amount of compensation.

77

‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’ (n 3) 874. See eg N de Sadeleer, Environmental Principles. From Political Slogan to Legal Rules (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 21–60. 79 According to H Mann, Assessing the Impact of NAFTA on Environmental Law and Management Processes (Working Paper for the First North American Symposium on Understanding the Linkages between Trade and Environment, 2002) www.iisd.org/pdf/2001/trade_mann_final.pdf (last accessed 7 July 2009), the broad concept of expropriation set out by the NAFTA (n 4) Art 1110 could ‘overturn the central principle of the polluter pays and establish Chapter 11 as an instrument requiring governments to pay the polluter’. 80 This reasoning is equally consistent with direct expropriation, such as in the case of foreign land being taken to realise a natural park in a high biodiversity area (as in the Santa Elena Case (n 2)). 78

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The Balancing Perspective of ‘Sustainable Development’ The principle of sovereignty and the logic underlying the protection of foreign investments (rather than all foreign properties) should strike a balance between commercial and non-commercial interests in assessing compensation. More generally, another important principle (or concept) of international law seems to support such a balanced approach: sustainable development. Authors follow different approaches in defining sustainable development, yet one of its features seems to clearly emerge. The principle of sustainable development provides for (or, rather, invokes) a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.81 This common view has been retained by the International Court of Justice in the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros case: ‘[t]his need to reconcile economic development with protection of the environment is aptly expressed in the concept of sustainable development.’82 Moreover, the relevance of ‘sustainable development’ is no longer confined to international legal instruments concerning the environment; rather, it is clearly affirmed in major economic legal systems, such as the WTO and NAFTA. On the other hand, with rare exceptions, BITs do not refer to this principle, even though they often refer to the necessity of promoting the development of both the parties involved. The principle of ‘sustainable development’, however, may be relevant without textual references in investments treaties. In the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros case, the ICJ took into account this concept, although it was not explicitly mentioned in the agreement between Hungary and Slovakia. Therefore, sustainable development supports the taking into account of environmental reasons when assessing the act of dispossession of foreign investments, even in cases in which the applicable investment treaties do not explicitly refer to such a concept. Equitable Principles and Unjustified Enrichment Arbitral tribunals could eventually internalise environmental costs when assessing compensation by directly applying equitable principles. The possibility of applying principles of equity is affirmed by several awards of arbitral tribunals with respect to compensation assessments. For instance, in the Phillips Petroleum case, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal said that ‘the determination of value [of the investment] by a tribunal must take into account all relevant circumstances, including equitable considerations.’83 The same approach was followed by the arbitral tribunal in the AMINOIL case.84 Moreover, some BITs make explicit reference to equitable principles as further criteria for assessing compensation, even when they provide for

81 See in this sense PW Birnie and AE Boyle, International Law and the Environment, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 112. 82 Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia) [1997] ICJ Rep 7 (para 140). 83 Phillips Petroleum Company Iran v The Islamic Republic of Iran and The National Iranian Oil Company (Award of 29 June 1989) 21- Iran United States Claims Tribunal Reports 79, para 112. 84 Kuwait v Aminoil (Aminoil case) (Award of 24 March 1982) 1982 ILM 976.

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the ‘Hull formula’.85 Reference to equitable principles or considerations is important because equity usually has the function of easing the strict application of legal rules.86 In particular, a major role could be played by a general principle of law with an undoubtedly equitable function: the principle prohibiting unjustified enrichment (or the ‘principle of unjust enrichment’ tout court). Unjust enrichment was traditionally referred to as a standard for calculating compensation. In such cases, this principle was used to justify a state’s obligation to pay compensation as well as a standard for determining the amount of compensation.87 The underlying equitable logic of the principle of unjust enrichment has important consequences for the issue of assessing compensation when environmental protection is involved. It has been suggested that this principle, read in light of equity, would ‘provide a tool for balancing … the claims of the dispossessed owner with the profits and advantages that he enjoyed prior to nationalization.’88 This is a crucial point. Unjustified enrichment could refer not only to state gains arising from nationalisations,89 but also to the advantages and profits unfairly obtained by foreign investors during the life of their investment.90 The concrete consequences in assessing compensation would be to deduct these unjust profits from the value of the nationalised investment. Today, unjust profits

85 Almost all Australia’s BITs set forth such a clause: ‘[t]he compensation … shall be computed on the basis of the market value of the investment immediately before the expropriation or impending expropriation became public knowledge. Where that value cannot be readily ascertained, the compensation shall be determined in accordance with generally recognised principles of valuation and equitable principles taking into account the capital invested, depreciation, capital already repatriated, replacement value, and other relevant factors’ (emphasis added). This clause is present eg in the BITs of Australia with China (n 43), India (Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of India on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (signed 26 February 1999, entered into force 4 May 2000) 2000 ATS 14), Egypt (Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (signed 3 May 2001, entered into force 5 September 2002) 2002 ATS 02), Peru (Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Peru on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (signed 7 December 1995, entered into force 2 February 1997) 1997 ATS 08), Poland (Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Poland on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (signed 7 May 1991, entered into force 27 March 1992) 1992 ATS 10) and Pakistan(Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (signed 7 February 1998, entered into force 4 October 1998) 1998 ATS 23). The latter four provide clear rules for full compensation. Also some South American BITs have a similar formula referring to equitable principles (see eg the Chile–Bolivia BIT (n 44)). 86 MN Shaw, International Law, 5th edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003) 239. 87 ‘The principle of unjust enrichment postulates in itself that not the loss of the expropriated owner …, but the beneficial gain of the nationalising State must be taken into account to establish the measure of reparation’: F Francioni, ‘Compensation For Nationalisation of Foreign Property: the Borderland Between Law and Equity’ (1975) 24 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 255, 272. 88 ibid, 278. 89 ie, the fact of obtaining properties without giving anything in return. 90 Francioni, ‘Compensation for Nationalisation of Foreign Property’ (n 87) 279, defines this as ‘the negative side’ of the unjust enrichment principle.

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may indeed be constituted by environmental (and human health) costs,91 and consequently the principle of unjust enrichment may well support the internalising costs approach92 developed above.93

CONCLUSIONS

The complex and multi-faceted issue of the relevance of environmental concerns in the context of investment treaties has been dealt with from the particular angle of assessing compensation when states expropriate foreign investments. Authors recently concentrated their attention on the actual existence of an expropriation when a state regulatory measure was at stake. Of course, in many cases the goal of protecting fundamental non-commercial values should prevent arbitrators from considering national measures as compensable expropriation. Nevertheless, the potential conflict between different values recognised by international law should not necessarily be reduced to a ‘yes/no’ dichotomy. The necessity of allowing states to protect the environment (or human rights) would otherwise risk jeopardising the stable legal framework for foreign investors which many BITs provide. Therefore, in more complex cases, a reasonable approach would be to determine compensation by taking into account the non-commercial values at stake, rather than totally negating compensation. The idea underlying this article is that a specific standard to assess compensation should be outlined to balance different situations correctly, namely the standard of internalising environmental costs arising from the expropriated assets. This attempt however needs to have sound foundations. In particular, arbitral tribunals could be reluctant to employ standards which are not directly set out in the applicable legal instruments. In this article, it has been suggested that the standard of internalising environmental costs may be directly derived from general concepts of modern economic theory as well as from important legal principles and linked to other standards of equity, which are usually employed by arbitrators when assessing compensation. Nevertheless, a direct mention of the goal of sustainable development in future BITs (and the incorporation of environmental clauses as in the last US Model BIT) would surely help to support the position of internalising environmental costs and build up a more balanced legal regime of international investments. 91 Once, ‘nationalized companies … enjoyed great advantages and profits out of the political influence or domination of the colonizing power’ (Francioni (n 87) 278–79). Today, unjust profits are those founded on widespread pollution, human health troubles, biodiversity destruction and workers’ exploitation. 92 A common logic underlies both the polluter pays principle (PPP) and the unjust enrichment principle: an investor who discharges his polluting costs on territorial collectivities does not respect the PPP; likewise, he obtains an unjust gain. 93 Actually, Francioni’s essay concerned across–the–board nationalisations, which thus affect the entire economic sector of a country. However, a parallel can be drawn with current regulatory expropriations, when they are aimed at protecting fundamental values such as human rights or the environment. Even if these expropriations usually affect single investments, or specific groups of investments, they are nevertheless justified as they fulfill a major public purpose, as is the case of wide-ranging nationalisations.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books GH Aldrich, The Jurisprudence of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996). PW Birnie and AE Boyle, International Law and the Environment, 2nd edn (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). RD Bishop, J Crawford and WM Reisman, Foreign Investment Disputes. Cases, Materials and Commentary (The Hague, Kluwer, 2005). N de Sadeleer, Environmental Principles. From Political Slogan to Legal Rules (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002). R Dolzer and C Schreuer, Principles of International Investment Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008). MN Shaw, International Law, 5th edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003). M Sornarajah, The International Law of Foreign Investment, 2nd edn (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Chapters in Edited Volumes N Bernasconi-Osterwalder and E Brown Weiss, ‘International Investment Rules and Water: Learning from NAFTA Experience’ in E Brown Weiss, L Boisson de Chazournes and N Bernasconi-Osterwalder (eds), Fresh Water and International Economic Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). D Carreau, ‘Investissements’ in Encyclopédie Juridique Dalloz, Répertoire de Droit International (Vol II) (Paris, Dalloz, 1998). E Kentin, ‘Sustainable Development in International Investment Dispute Settlement: the ICSID and NAFTA Experience’ in N Schrijver and F Weiss (eds), International Law and Sustainable Development. Principles and Practice (Leiden, Nijhoff, 2004).

Journal Articles OK Fauchald, ‘International Investment Law and Environmental Protection’ (2007) 22 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 3–47. F Francioni, ‘Compensation For Nationalisation of Foreign Property: the Borderland Between Law and Equity’ (1975) 24 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 255–83. L Liberti, ‘The Relevance of Non-investment Treaty Obligations in the Assessment of Compensation’ (2007) 4 Transnational Dispute Management no 6, www.transational-dispute-management.com. I Marboe, ‘Compensation and Damages in International Law. The Limits of “Fair Market Value”’ (2006) 7 The Journal of World Investment and Trade 723–59.

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C McLachlan, ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration and Article 31(3)(C) of the Vienna Convention’ (2005) 54 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 279–320. FS Nogales, ‘The NAFTA Environmental Framework, Chapter 11 Investment Provisions and the Environment’ (2002) 8 Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law 97–149.

Working Paper H Mann, (2002) Assessing the Impact of NAFTA on Environmental Law and Management Processes (Working Paper for the First North American Symposium on Understanding the Linkages between Trade and Environment) www.iisd.org/pdf/2001/trade_mann_final.pdf.

Website Source H Mann, (2005) ‘The Final Decision in Methanex v United States: Some New Wine in Some New Bottles’ www.iisd.org/pdf/2005/commentary_methanex.pdf.

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International Law and the Media: Envisioning the Media DANIEL JOYCE *

I

N THIS PAPER, I examine the ways in which international law depends on and fosters a number of different notions of the media’s significance. In doing so, I will provide an analytical framework for considering the interrelationship of international law and the media. This work draws on and condenses aspects of my PhD dissertation. In that work, I considered whether there is an emergent ‘international law of the media’ by examining four regulatory areas: free expression, incitement, trade and telecommunications. Here, I will focus on four significant visions of the media, which emerge from international law’s treatment of the media. These images also in turn reflect different approaches to the media within media theory. I begin then to reflect critically on international law’s conception of the media by drawing into focus the field of media theory and the ways in which it might offer international law greater understanding of the complex role and power of the media.

THE MEDIA AS WATCHDOG

The first and dominant image of the media in international law and jurisprudence is that of the watchdog.1 This draws on liberal democratic theories of the role of the media in social and political life and is particularly vivid in the international jurisprudence concerning free expression within the field of human rights. The media as watchdog is animated by the idea of deliberation in the context of democracy. As such, it is preoccupied with notions of freedom, pluralism and accessibility, as witnessed in freedom of expression jurisprudence. The focus is on the organisation of the media and its content, with implications for the licensing of journalism and the structuring of public service broadcasting. The regulatory posture is optimistic. The media is seen as a ‘good’ and ascribed a positive role in politics, governance and the public sphere in general. The policy orientation is * Erik Castrén Fellow, Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. I would like to especially thank Susan Marks, Kirsty Hughes, Stephen Humphreys, Reinhard Müller, Frédéric Mégret and Guglielmo Verdirame, along with fellow presenters and participants in this forum, for their contribution to, and much appreciated criticism of, what remains a developing project. 1 More broadly one could categorise the media as a good, yet the distinctive image which emerges within the free expression jurisprudence is that of a watchdog. As a participant usefully pointed out, the media can also operate as a lapdog or as Pavlov’s dog.

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essentially protective of the media, as reflected in the many ringing statements that abound in international human rights jurisprudence about the central importance of the right to freedom of expression in the context of democratic deliberation.2 The vision of media as watchdog, which emerges in freedom of expression jurisprudence, can be further illuminated by reference to the writings of Habermas.3 He is one of the most important social and political thinkers, who focused on the role of the media in public life. In his early work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas charts the emergence of a bourgeois public sphere and the central role of the media within this process.4 He emphasises the role of the media in several key dimensions with resonance for the media as watchdog: as an aspect of democracy; as a means for promoting public deliberation and rational communication; as implicated in the rise of public opinion and publicity; and as an arena for the emergence of commercial monopolies. His account draws on the critical tradition of the Frankfurt school, yet places emphasis on the individual and on the media’s function in democratic life. It is ultimately an optimistic account of the historical role of the media, though one which is at the same time pessimistic about the potential for market monopolisation of the culture industries, and sceptical about the commercialised and popular press. He sees the dangers for such a media to become manipulative, emotive and sensationalist in its treatment of public debates. Rational communication and the media as a locus for such communication are central to his account of the development of the liberal constitutional state. Habermas places the press and the world of letters at the heart of this process of transformation.5 At the same time, he subjects the politics of spectacle and the marketing of politics to sustained critique, and insists that freedom of expression by itself is not enough, as the media has developed institutional quasi-public power.6 Ultimately, however, he is sanguine about the potential for a rational public now manifested through organisations and the media. The key to ‘critical publicity’ for him is a plurality of media. For Habermas, ‘this critical form of publicity is in conflict with publicity merely staged for manipulative ends.’7 Democratisation depends on the critical publicity prevailing through ‘the rationalization of the exercise of social and political authority’.8 John Thompson and others have criticised this work for focusing too heavily on the bourgeois public sphere, and neglecting the role and contestation of popular

2 See for example, Handyside v The United Kingdom (App no 5493/72) (1976) ECHR Series A no 24, para 48. 3 For discussion of this ‘watchdog’ role, see Goodwin v The United Kingdom (App no 17488/90) ECHR 1996-II 483, para 39. 4 J Habermas and T Burger, F Lawrence (translator), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1991, first translated 1989, originally published 1962). 5 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (n 4) 30–31. 6 ibid, 227. 7 ibid 232. 8 ibid.

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social movements.9 This absence is felt in relation to contemporary efforts to re-theorise the public sphere in light of the internet as a new means for rational communication, interactive connections and citizen deliberation, and dissent. The historical approach exemplified in Habermas’s work, which takes its cues mainly from an earlier era of radical presses and pamphleteers, exposes proponents to the criticism that they do not adequately take into account the subsequent proliferation of mass media and new media, and also that they idealise this earlier phase of public sphere communication without commercialised mediation of politics. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is not a contemporary account, but it has had an enduring resonance across a variety of disciplines and offers an important democratic theory of the media’s public power. Usefully, it also points to the potential for democratic communication to be distorted by the rise of techniques of marketing and publicity, an issue with contemporary significance for the mediatisation of law, and, which prefigures the visions of the media as attack dog and market to follow. It should be noted that Habermas has acknowledged and countered many of the criticisms directed at this earlier work and continued to develop his immensely influential vision of rational communication at the heart of democracy.10 He draws upon these ideas in his later work on communicative action11 and maintains the possibility of a cautiously optimistic view of the role of the media in democratic processes of deliberation. Rationality is conceived on his account in the very act of communication. Yet this generally positive image of the media is shadowed by another with more troubling associations—that of the media as attack dog.

THE MEDIA AS ATTACK DOG

This second image of the media, as attack dog, can be seen in traditional concerns with incitement, and is developing, in particular, in the field of international criminal law, but also in international humanitarian law and international human rights law.12 The vision of the attack dog reflects more critical theories of the potential for media distortion and often evinces a pessimistic view of media power and the agency of audiences. To some extent, it is the flipside to the vision of the 9 J Thompson, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995) 69–72; see also G Born, Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (Secker & Warburg, London, 2004) 378–79. 10 For a critical discussion of Habermas’ work on the public sphere see further, C Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1992). For an overview of his later work see W Outhwaite (ed), The Habermas Reader (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996). 11 See in particular, J Habermas and T McCarthy (translator), The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 Vols (Cambridge, Polity, 1984–87, originally published in German in 1981); J Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996, originally published in German in 1992). See further for a discussion of the development of Habermas’ ideas on the nature of democracy and the role of the media, J Curran, Media and Power (London, Routledge, 2002) 232–36. 12 More broadly one could see the image of the media here as a danger, yet the international criminal law jurisprudence points specifically to the media’s implication in violence. This calls into question both images of watchdog and lapdog, evoking a more direct connection with violence.

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media as watchdog. As such, it is focused on abusive activities such as propaganda and incitement to international crime. The overriding concern is responsibility and respect for others, and the dominant posture is one of pessimism concerning the potential for distortion, manipulation and incitement. This fosters a punitive model of regulation, focused on the content of media communications, and oriented to the imposition of criminal sanctions on those responsible for particular content. The disciplinary policy focus draws on doctrines of abuse of rights, and also justifies the creation of new offences. Indeed, the relationship between the media and international law has been addressed recently in the context of international criminal law.13 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), in particular, has considered the role of the media as a propagandist for and perpetrator of genocide, and this has resulted in the conviction of a Belgian journalist14 and most prominently in the Media Genocide case,15 in which, for the first time since the Nuremberg Tribunal’s conviction of Julius Streicher, three media executives, two involved with radio and one with a newspaper, were found guilty of a wide range of international crimes. For the ICTR Trial Chamber in the Media Genocide case, the media was an ideological tool for Hutu extremism.16 The radio station and magazine were ‘the bullets in the gun’, the actual weaponry of genocide,17 and those in charge of them bore both individual and command ‘responsibilities inherent in ownership and institutional control over the media.’18 Where the democratic media theory of Habermas provides a useful backdrop to the vision of the media as watchdog, here the critical media theory of Chomsky and Herman has application. They develop a more pessimistic view of the use of the media by those in power to manipulate agendas and secure approval for their actions.19 In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and Herman’s theory of the media focuses on the following aspects: the use of the media for social control; the use of the media to consolidate power and influence; the role of media as ideology; the way in which the commercialisation of the media as a business has anti-democratic and repressive outcomes; and the way in which the media acts as a filter to limit the flow of information and thus restrict democracy and manipulate public opinion.20

13 See further, A Obote Odora, ‘Criminal Responsibility of Journalists under International Criminal Law: The ICTR Experience’ (2004) 73 Nordic Journal of International Law 307. 14 Prosecutor v Ruggiu (Judgement) ICTR 97–32-I (1 June 2000). 15 Prosecutor v Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngeze (Judgement) ICTR-99–52-T (3 December 2003). For more extensive background to the media’s role in the Rwandan genocide than is possible here, see A Thompson (ed), The Media and the Rwandan Genocide (London, Pluto Press, 2007). 16 ibid. 17 ibid para 953. 18 ibid para 979. This case has subsequently been appealed, but the characterisations of the media as attack dog remain a significant feature in the jurisprudence. 19 ES Herman and N Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (London, Vintage, 1994, originally published 1988). Whilst Herman and Chomsky deal less with violence and more with issues of propaganda and monopoly, their perspective helps us to link issues of violence, media and the economy, which are often disconnected in international legal discussion of the media. 20 ibid.

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Chomsky and Herman want to question the watchdog role—the popular ‘democratic postulate … that the media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived.’21 Propaganda, they argue, is not the sole function of the mass media, but it is still a very significant one.22 Whilst the media is not a ‘solid monolith’, the overall pattern of manipulation is ‘pervasive’.23 By looking at a large number of case studies in Latin America and Indochina during the Cold War period, they seek to illustrate their theoretical framework and to show cases of the ‘power of the government to fix frames of reference and agendas, and to exclude inconvenient facts from public inspection.’24 They show how such processes are naturalised, hidden from view and constructed to appear positively as patriotic rather than coercive.25 The main idea proposed is of various filters, which act to constrain critique, marginalise dissent, and ensure that mainstream corporate and governmental agendas dominate news space.26 Alternatives become difficult even to imagine, let alone publicly articulate, as these filters work to block differing viewpoints.27 Chomsky and Herman perceive these factors as ‘interacting’ with and ‘reinforcing’ each other.28 This results in a structured view of the way, in which the media operates to sustain propaganda campaigns in the interest of organised capital and governmental elites. International law’s vision of the media as attack dog is less focused on the interests of the wealthy and more on the violent use of media to create division, consolidate power, and vilify minorities. In this way, then, Herman and Chomsky help to expand the vision to include consideration of the interaction between economic power and the use of the media as a tool for social control and an instrument of violence.29 They usefully call into question the ideological construction of the media as democratic watchdog. But does the vision of the attack dog operate in a similar way, albeit from an opposite end of the spectrum, replacing optimism with pessimism, but not going further in exploring the complexity of media power behind such characterisations? In adopting an increasingly criminalisation-focused framework to counteract and control negative forms of media power, the international jurisprudence tends toward extreme or oversimplified characterisations of media effects, swinging from the idealisation of the media as watchdog to its demonisation as attack dog. The attack dog image needs to be tempered by greater recognition of the agency of audiences in their reception of media messages. This is seen in the case of media genocide in Rwanda, where international criminal law has characterised the radio messages as weapons, painting a picture of passive audiences whipped up into a frenzy of media-driven violence. Such characterisations miss the complexity of

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

ibid p xi. ibid. ibid p xii. ibid p xiv. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid.

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media power, and also risk underplaying the choices open to, and hence the responsibility that must be borne by, those involved in the killings. Violence is perceived only in its most public and extreme manifestations, whereas more hidden and ongoing forms of structural violence and economic exploitation remain obscured. Are these reflected in the image of the media as market in international economic law?

THE MEDIA AS MARKET

International law fosters a third vision of the media as market.30 This image is typified by notions of an information economy and global media flows. Here, the media is neither watchdog, nor attack dog. Rather, the image is of the media seen through the frame of market capitalism. This draws on the concept of the ‘marketplace of ideas’, while also echoing concerns about media concentrations and monopoly and raising questions of consumption and culture. The image reflects increasing recognition of the media’s economic dimensions, and points to the possibility of regulation through competition or trade law, as well as to the issues of monopoly and ownership. The vision of media as market is concerned with the production and exchange of media products and services, and the animating idea for regulation is freedom of commerce within a framework of global capitalism. As such, the orientation is towards liberalisation, and this has implications for the media in terms of both organisation and content. The posture is neither one of optimism, as with the watchdog, nor pessimism, as with the attack dog. Rather, the media is evaluated as neither inherently good nor bad. The key sphere of international law involved is international trade law, though regulation in that context is partial and still emergent.31 Considering the media as a market risks underestimating its social and cultural significance in terms of regulatory policy. Tania Voon has argued for an overhaul of the WTO system as it applies to cultural products, while other scholars such as Ed Baker have argued that in fact we should turn to human rights rather than purely trade perspectives, where media is concerned.32 To some, a move to treat ‘cultural products’ as a distinct 30 In some sense the media is primarily an object of commodification, but it is also categorised and regulated as a distinctive market and industry. I use the term market here to cover both senses of the media’s regulation as an object and field of commerce. In the future, I hope to further emphasise and analyse the commercial regulation of the media, pointing also to intellectual property regimes. 31 At present, the WTO system does not cover ‘audio-visual services’ under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). So far there has been one key case regarding the media and culture in the context of the WTO, see WTO Canada – Certain Measures Concerning Periodicals (Panel Report) WT/DS31/R (14 March 1997); WTO Canada – Certain Measures Concerning Periodicals (Appellate Body) WT/DS31/AB/R (30 June 1997). The debate over ‘cultural protectionism’ has kept agreement over audio-visual services out of the compulsory aspects of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), resulting in a mixed picture in terms of what aspects of the media industry member states have volunteered to fall within the WTO regime. The WTO regime has the potential to regulate the media in terms of telecommunications, audio-visual services, electronic communications and also intellectual property under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). 32 See further, T Voon, Cultural Products and the World Trade Organization (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007); CE Baker, Media, Markets and Democracy (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002) Ch 10 and 11, see especially 270–75.

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category would help, though this clearly could not resolve all definitional problems.33 Public service broadcasting and news media will always involve public policy concerns, which may sometimes differ in kind from policy matters relating to ‘cultural products’ generally. Stronger regulatory frameworks may be emerging in regional fora, as evidenced by European competition law, though even there media concentration and ownership are regulated with a light touch.34 The policy focus adopted towards the media is deregulative and largely adopts the perspective of business.35 In some areas, along with the recognition of the media’s significance as an economy, there is concern over the media’s role with respect to group identity.36 The debate here focuses on the controversy in trade law over ‘cultural protectionism’. But the term ‘protectionism’ itself evinces a deregulatory bias and does little to highlight the extent to which liberalisation is a contestable and potentially diverse and plural process. The image of the media as market fostered in trade law also neglects to make the connections between the monopoly of economic power and resulting suffering and violence. To bring these concerns into focus, it is again useful to return to Herman and Chomsky and their theory of the media, with its potential to connect attack dog and market. Chomsky and Herman’s rather bleak view of the power of the mass media in manufacturing consent derives, in part, from an awareness of the sheer economic might of the media today, and of the ideological role it plays in modern life. They look to the way, in which the mass media is institutionalised and also concentrated at the level of ownership.37 They argue further that the centralised top tier of media outlets and news agencies set the agenda and news for all other sources, with television dominating as a medium.38 As Herman and Chomsky summarise, the dominant media companies ‘are closely interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major corporations, banks, and government.’39 They also consider the way, in which news organisations became dependant on advertising revenue to do their business.40 The radical press could not compete for advertising revenues and this led to further concentration of the media.41 It has also seen programming skewed in favour of audiences targeted by advertisers, rather than the public at large.42 Thus, they make connections between monopoly power, censorship and propaganda.43

33

ibid. cf Arts 81, 82, 87 of the Treaty of Nice amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties Establishing the European Communities and Certain Related Acts (signed 26 February 2001, entered into force 1 February 2003) [2001] OJ C80/1. 35 J Harrison and L Woods, European Broadcasting Law and Policy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). 36 ibid. 37 Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (n 19) 14. 38 ibid. 39 ibid.. 40 ibid. 41 ibid. 42 ibid. 43 ibid. 34

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This view of media power can be traced to the Frankfurt School and the work of Adorno and Horkheimer on the culture industry.44 While some argue that technology and the mass media helped the individual to achieve greater involvement in modern life; for Adorno and Horkheimer the individual is paralysed by the mass media.45 As a consumer in the culture industry, we are left helpless to decipher and critically scrutinise the increasingly centralised messages we receive.46 The public is displaced at the very moment it is most energetically evoked.47 Thus, the media as market is a significant qualification to both the visions of watchdog and attack dog. Yet it is now clear that things are more complicated and that industrial capitalism, whilst firmly implicated in the rise of mass media, is also potentially the subject of media critique. The media, especially in its ‘new’ and ‘citizen’ dimensions, offers greater possibilities for public participation and resistance than is allowed by either Chomsky or Adorno and Horkheimer. Does this point to a vision of the media simply as messenger?

THE MEDIA AS MESSENGER

A final vision is that of the media as messenger, according to which the media is conceived above all as a communications infrastructure. The image of the media as messenger is prominent in the regulation of telecommunications, beginning with the rise of the telegraph and the radio and most recently encompassing the debates over internet governance.48 The activity with which the media is associated in this vision is that of communication, and the animating idea for regulation is that of connectivity and networking. The preoccupation is with access and infrastructure, involving the media primarily at the level of technology and carriage, but also, in some respects, at the level of content. While questions of freedom of expression, incitement and trade are not entirely sidestepped, the regulatory posture is one of neither optimism nor pessimism, but relative neutrality. This is accompanied by a policy focus, which is facilitative and technological, as exemplified in the framework of an information society and in the theories of networks associated with the rise of the new media.49 The media as messenger has also sparked a revival of the concept of the right to communicate, with convergence of media forms occurring and blurring the distinction between content and transmission. The object of regulation thus becomes ‘communications’, rather than specific modes or forms of 44 TW Adorno and M Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London, Verso, 1997, first published in 1947). 45 ibid. 46 ibid. 47 ibid. 48 Institutionally, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), based in Geneva, is the multilateral specialised agency given a coordinating role as regards the international regulation of telecommunications. It has in recent years expanded its focus to engage in debates over internet governance, and was involved in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The World Summit has met initially in Geneva and then again in Tunis, and generated a range of soft law instruments concerning development, communication and most controversially, internet governance. 49 See further, Y Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006).

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media. The internet has seen the narrative of media as messenger blend with realities that implicate elements also of the watchdog, attack dog and market. Here it is useful to turn to the work of Jodi Dean in analysing the rise of the new media market.50 The information economy has become a cliché, which we struggle to question or to analyse critically. Who can challenge the idea of participation, knowledge and information as being for the greater good? Yet, as Dean contends, publicity only masks the persistence of arenas of secrecy and unaccountability, serving as the legitimating ideology of what she terms ‘communicative capitalism’.51 If the internet is the new global public sphere, on her account this must be recognised, not as a boon for democratic politics, but rather as a threat to it, insofar as public affairs are depoliticised and removed to an increasingly commercialised social space.52 From this perspective, what passes for publicity in fact marks the eclipse of the public by the private sphere and the market. Thus, she argues: The emphasis on making public, whether through the rules and procedures of the rational public sphere or the networked intensities of publicity in global technoculture, provides a fetish screening the fact that there is no public that can act. Fascinated by publicity in its normative, technological, and celebrity formats, we disavow the fact that the public isn’t there.53

Nicholas Mirzoeff is a theorist of visual culture, whose work draws on contemporary cultural, political and media theory.54 Mirzoeff analyses the media’s role in the emergence of a global visual culture, and highlights the messenger’s role for the media in translating, analysing and presenting information and news events for global audiences.55 At the same time, he is interested in the active role that is played by media audiences in international life.56 In his book, Watching Babylon, Mirzoeff discusses the Iraq conflict of 2003 as a visual spectacle, highlighting the media’s central role in its construction and in its translation, while allowing for the audience’s role in its deconstruction and interpretation.57 His central claim is that, rather than delivering greater transparency or creating empathy across distance, the media is a means of social control.58 On the other hand, and in contrast to Chomsky and Herman, he also stresses the potential for resistance and the agency on the part of those ostensibly controlled.59 Echoing the notion of the media as attack dog, he wants to think ‘about the ways in which images have become

50 J Dean, Publicity’s Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2002). 51 ibid. 52 See further, ibid. 53 ibid 43. 54 N Mirzoeff, Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture (Routledge, New York, 2005) 2. 55 ibid. 56 ibid. 57 ibid. 58 ibid. 59 ibid.

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weapons’ in what he refers to as the ‘military-visual complex’.60 In his assessment, media saturation serves as a strategy for producing a ‘banality of images’ whereby the audience loses its critical edge.61 However, Mirzoeff also emphasises the ways in which audiences are increasingly aware of the manipulation of images and the impact of new technologies.62 He writes that the ‘distance between image and perceived reality is the signature of the irony that has dominated Western mass media imagery for the past decade.’63 Whilst visual culture and media may encourage passive ‘spectatorship’, he is less worried than Dean about the ideological dimensions of new technologies, and sees blogging and citizen media in particular as key sites of active resistance and critique.64 Mirzoeff is thus alert to both the limits and possibilities of the media. Overall, then, Dean and Mirzoeff expand our understanding of the infrastructuredriven model of the media as messenger, questioning its neutrality but also highlighting its contradictory possibilities. In doing so, they call attention to changes in the media landscape, which have blurred the four visions projected in international law and shown how they must be understood as linked and mutually corrective.

SUMMARY

In this paper, I have examined the various images of the media which inform international regulatory arrangements. Drawing on important currents within media theory, I have considered the contribution and limits of approaches that envision the media as watchdog, attack dog, market and messenger. I have also discussed ways in which the internet affects these different visions and their interrelationship. What emerges is a variegated, shifting and problematic picture, in which no single account is adequate, yet each has something to reveal. I have pointed to a number of fields (though by no means all) in which international legal measures have been adopted to control the media—most notably, the international protection of human rights, international criminal and humanitarian law, international trade law and telecommunications law. While the impact on the media of norms and institutions in each of these fields may be familiar (albeit in some cases only to a small number of specialists), what is much less familiar is the interconnections between them. Each tends to be viewed in isolation from the others. Instead, I have tried to show how these various arenas of media-related regulation need to be viewed together. By exploring theoretically the ways, in which international law envisions the media, I consider the prospects for their interrelationship in a heterogeneous world. To deepen our understanding of this relationship, further consideration should be given not only to the ways, in

60 61 62 63 64

ibid ibid ibid ibid ibid

13. 14. 13–14. 69–70. 13–14.

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which international law shapes the media, but also to the ways, in which, increasingly, the media might be seen to be shaping international law.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books TW Adorno and M Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London, Verso, 1997). CE Baker, Media, Markets and Democracy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002). Y Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2006). G Born, Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC (London, Secker & Warburg, 2004). C Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2002). J Curran, Media and Power (London, Routledge, 2002). J Dean, Publicity’s Secret: How Technoculture Capitalizes on Democracy (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002). J Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996). J Habermas, T Burger, and F Lawrence (translator) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1991). J Habermas and T McCarthy (translator), The Theory of Communicative Action 2 Volumes (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984–87). J Harrison, and L Woods, European Broadcasting Law and Policy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). ES Herman and N Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (London, Vintage, 1994). N Mirzoeff, Watching Babylon: The War in Iraq and Global Visual Culture (New York, Routledge, 2005). W Outhwaite (ed), The Habermas Reader (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1996). A Thompson (ed), The Media and the Rwandan Genocide (London, Pluto Press, 2007). J Thompson, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1995). T Voon, Cultural Products and the World Trade Organization (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007).

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Journal Article A Obote Odora, ‘Criminal Responsibility of Journalists under International Criminal Law: The ICTR Experience’ (2004) 73 Nordic Journal of International Law 307–23.

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From Social Justice to Decent Work: Is the Shift in the ILO Significant For International Law? ANNE TREBILCOCK *

I

N THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organization (ILO), emphasis has shifted over the past 10 years from ‘social justice’ to a call for ‘decent work.’ Is this significant for international law? After a brief review of a few main developments, in particular the 2008 ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization1 and its antecedents, a few questions are posed for further reflection.

A SHORT HISTORICAL REVIEW (1919–98) OF ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE’ IN THE ILO CONTEXT

For most of its nearly 90 years of existence, the ILO couched its work primarily in terms of social justice—a concept whose roots go back to nineteenth-century political thought.2 While the term has been used repeatedly by the ILO, it has rarely been defined or explained. The first Director-General of the ILO, Albert Thomas, reportedly approached social justice as a progression or as a trend, rather than a fixed state.3 Over its history, the ILO has tended to use social justice as an overriding goal or as a backdrop for more concrete objectives in labour and social policy.4 On the occasion of the ILO’s 75th anniversary in 1994, Dieng offered this broad idea of social justice:

* Former Legal Adviser of the International Labour Organization, currently associated with the Centre de Droit International, Université Paris X Nanterre. The views expressed are those of the author alone. 1 ILO General Conference (97th Session) ‘Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalisation’ (Geneva, 10 June 2008) (ILO 2008 Declaration). 2 Overviews of the history of the ILO and developments antecedent to its creation in 1919 may be found in VY Ghébali, ‘L’Organisation internationale du Travail’ in R Ago and N Valticos (eds), L’Organisation internationale et l’évolution de la société’mondiale Vol 3 (Genève, Georg, 1987); A Alcock, History of the International Labour Organisation (London, Macmillan Interactive Publishing, 1971); A de Maday, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la paix (Paris, Marcel Girard, 1931). The author is grateful for the research assistance of Rachelle Thierry and Mélanie Jeanroy in locating these and other sources. 3 Ghébali, L’Organisation Internationale du Travail (n 3) (‘comme une tendance et non comme un état’). 4 See eg CW Jenks, Social justice in the law of nations: The ILO impact after 50 years (London, Oxford University Press, 1970).

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The ideal is that of justice, and we must bear in mind that justice which remains the privilege of a few countries or individuals is not justice at all. There is no true justice without social justice, and no true social justice is achieved by denying justice in another essential area to the detriment of human dignity.5

Beyond the ILO context, the phrase has been used in the context of widely differing ideologies.6 In an international law framework, examination of ‘fairness’ as used by Franck and others7 generally fits well with the ILO’s traditional approach to ‘social justice’. By contrast, a recent equation of social justice and the purposes of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank seems considerably overstated.8

The ILO Constitution: the Link between Social Justice, Improved Labour Conditions and Peace Returning to the ILO source documents, the Preamble to the Constitution firmly links three objectives: social justice, the improvement of conditions of labour and world peace.9 In its first paragraph, the Preamble asserts that, ‘universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based on social justice.’10 The second paragraph connects unacceptable conditions of labour to unrest that imperils peace and harmony: conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship and privation to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperiled; and an improvement of those conditions is urgently required ….11

The ‘comparative advantage’ paragraph has attracted most attention in recent years: ‘the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labour is an obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve the conditions in their

5 A Dieng, ‘The ILO and Social Justice’ in ILO, Visions of the future of social justice: essays on the occasion of the ILO’s 75th Anniversary (Geneva, ILO Publications, 1994) 81. 6 See C Graig, T Burchardt and D Gordon, eds, Social Justice and Public Policy: Seeking Fairness in Diverse Societies (Bristol, University of Bristol Public Policy Press, 2008). 7 See eg Craig, Burchardt and Gordon (eds), Social Justice and Public Policy (n 6); J Tasioulas, ‘International Law and the Limits of Fairness’ (2002) 13 European Journal of International Law 993; T Franck, Fairness in International Law and Institutions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995). 8 C Kaufmann, Globalization and Labour Rights: The Conflict between Core Labour Rights and International Economic Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007) 100. (The Bank’s Articles of Agreement do refer to its promotion of the ‘long-range balanced growth of international trade …, thereby assisting in raising productivity, the standard of living and conditions of labour’ (UN Monetary and Financial Conference ‘Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’ (adopted at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire 22 July 1944, entered into force 27 December 1945) Art I(iii)), and among the purposes of the IMF is ‘to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, and to contribute thereby to the promotion and maintenance of high levels of employment and real income’ (Art I(ii)) UN Monetary and Financial Conference ‘Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund’ (adopted in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire 22 July 1944, entered into force 27 December 1945)). 9 ‘Constitution of the International Labour Organization (ILO)’ Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919–21 January 1921) (28 June 1919) (ILO Constitution) Preamble paras 1–2. 10 ibid, Preamble para 1. 11 ILO Constitution (n 9) Preamble para 2.

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own countries.’12 The final preambular paragraph refers to ‘sentiments of justice and humanity’ and reconnects them to the goal of lasting peace.13 Langille has described this link as: an early expression of what we now call a ‘comprehensive’ or ‘integrated’ view of development. This conceptual, normative and empirical view sees social justice or human freedom not as a luxury good to be purchased with the fruits of economic development, but as both the very point of development and its necessary precondition.14

Expanding the Mandate through the ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (1944) Although the Preamble has remained unchanged, the Constitution itself has been amended several times. The ‘International Labour Charter’ (former Article 41 of the Constitution), which referred to sanctions and promoted policies which, for the most part, were later translated into International Labour Conventions, was deleted as part of the 1940s reforms.15 The adoption in 1944 of the Declaration on the aims and purposes of the International Labour Organisation, also known as the Declaration of Philadelphia,16 which became part of the Constitution,17 articulated the objectives of the ILO in important new ways. It described the central aim of national and international policy as the attainment of conditions in which it is possible for ‘all human beings … to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity.’18 The true novelty of the 1944 Declaration lay in two areas: it expanded the sphere of the ILO’s concern from ‘labour’ to ‘social’ questions by addressing ‘all human beings’,19 and it extended the types of action foreseen for the Organisation. It

12

ibid, Preamble para 3. The texts of the Constitution in English and in French are equally authoritative. 14 B Langille, ‘Re-reading the Preamble to the 1919 ILO Constitution in light of recent data on FDI and worker rights’ (2003) 42 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 87, 94–95. 15 See a review of these developments in S Charnovitz, ‘The influence of international labour standards on the world trading regime’ (1987) 126 International Labour Review 565–84. The Charter was revived in a preparatory document for the 2008 Declaration, but not retained in the final text. 16 ILO General Conference (26th Session) ‘Declaration Concerning the Aims and Purposes of the International Labour Organisation’ (Philadelphia 10 May 1944) (ILO Declaration of Philadelphia). 17 This text became part of the Constitution in 1946, upon entry into force of the relevant instrument of amendment. The other declarations adopted by the International Labour Conference (ILO General Conference (48th Session) ‘Declaration Concerning the Policy of ‘Apartheid’ of the Republic of South Africa’ (Geneva 8 July 1964), ILO General Conference (71st Session) ‘Declaration on Equality of Opportunity and Treatment for Women Workers’(Geneva 7 June 1985), ILO General Conference (86th Session) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (Geneva 18 June 1998) (ILO 1998 Declaration) Record of Proceedings, Nos 20 and 22 and ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) discussed below) have not become part of the ILO Constitution. The ILO Governing Body of the International Labour Office (204th Session) ‘Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy’ (Geneva 16 November 1977), as revised, is referenced in the ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1). 18 ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 16) para II(a). 19 For details, see F Maupain, L’OIT, justice sociale et mondialisation (The Hague, Nijhoff, Académie de droit international de la Haye, 2000) 325–30. 13

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became a ‘responsibility’ of the ILO ‘to examine and consider all international economic and financial policies and measures’ in the light of the fundamental objective.20 These policies and measures, in particular those of an economic and financial character, should be judged in this light and accepted only in so far as they may be held to promote and not to hinder the achievement of this fundamental objective.21

The Declaration of Philadelphia specified further that the ILO, in discharging its tasks, could include in its decisions and recommendations any provisions which it considers appropriate.22 Towards a range of economic ends (including the promotion of economic and social advancement of less developed regions), the full cooperation of the Organization was pledged with such international bodies as might be entrusted with a share of the responsibility for this great task.23 The Declaration of Philadelphia was part of a new vision for a post-World War II world effort to reforge the links between family life and the economy, based on a platform of employment and a regulated labour market.24 Another amendment to the Constitution in 1946 required member states to report on the extent to which effect has been given, or is proposed to be given, to non-ratified Conventions and to Recommendations25 (which are not open to ratification). These two innovations laid much of the legal foundation for the two more recent Declarations, discussed below.

A Changing Global Context and the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Initially, the predominant task of the ILO was the formulation of international labour legislation, ie Conventions and Recommendations. Its well-respected system of monitoring their application by member states grew over the years.26 The experience with the ILO’s own tripartite structure—in which representatives of employers and of workers govern the institution alongside governments—has given rise to a further strand of thought: social dialogue. Such dialogue among these three

20

ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 16) para II(d). ibid, para II(c), emphasis added. 22 ibid, para II(e) 23 ibid, para IV; The Declaration also included a series of substantive policies to be promoted, from full employment and the raising of standards of living to the extension of social security measures (para III). It served as inspiration for several ILO Conventions and for portions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 (ICESCR). 24 See S Deakin, ‘Social Rights in a Globalized Economy’ in P Alston (ed), Labour Rights as Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005); J Fudge, ‘The New Discourse of Labor Rights: From Social to Fundamental Rights’ (2008) 29 Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 29, 33–34; S Charnovitz, Influence (n 16). 25 ILO Constitution (n 9) Article 19(5)(e), 6(d), 7(b)(iv) and (v). 26 For a description, see ILO, Rules of the Game: A brief introduction to international labour standards (Geneva, International Labour Office, 2005) and JM Servais, International Labour Law (The Hague, Kluwer, 2005). 21

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actors at the national level has contributed to social peace in many countries,27 presenting a model of democratic political participation. This was at least one factor in the ILO being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969. However, more and more segments of the labour market began to fall beyond the reach of national legislation, privatisation and the market reigned, and the tensions between the former communist bloc and the West waned. By the 1990s, the ILO faced serious challenges from globalisation.28 In terms of international law, this led to three main innovations: first, the ILO launched a more vigorous process of renewing its body of international labour standards (including some novel means for ‘euthanasing’ outdated treaties) and used standards more actively in its expanded practical action in member states. The ILO Conference engaged in animated debates that focused largely on standards.29 In a multi-year effort, a Governing Body working party pared down the list of ILO instruments to those that the tripartite constituents agreed were up to date. For the instruments that were not, stop-gap measures to declare them dormant or as having interim status were adopted.30 A constitutional amendment to permit abrogation of obsolete Conventions was approved by the Conference in 1997, and to date has been ratified or accepted by 106 member states (of the 122 currently required).31 At the same time, the ILO began making much greater use of, at least some of, its international labour Conventions in its technical cooperation activities in member states. The ILO Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour used instruments on minimum age as part of its arsenal, and ILO initiatives on gender equality, indigenous rights, occupational safety and health, and labour relations in particular incorporated relevant ILO Conventions. Second, the Organization broke with legal tradition by singling out from its 70 or so up-to-date Conventions a set of eight core instruments on freedom of association/collective bargaining and the elimination of forced labour, child labour and discrimination.32 Their constitutionally grounded principles formed the basis 27 See eg ILO, ‘Social pacts at the national level in European countries’ www.ilo.org/public/english/ dialogue/ifpdial/info/pacts and for earlier examples A Trebilcock (ed), Towards social dialogue: Tripartite cooperation in national economic and social policy-making (Geneva, ILO, 1992). 28 See M Hansenne, Un garde-fou pour la mondalisation : Le BIT dans l’après-guerre froide (Brussels, Quorum et Zoé, 1999) (Mr Hansenne is a former Director-General of the ILO). 29 See the background documents for these discussions: ILO General Conference (81st Session), Defending values, promoting change: Social justice in a global economy, an ILO agenda (Geneva, ILO, 1994) and ILO General Conference (85th Session) The ILO, standard setting and globalization–Report of the Director-General (Geneva 1997). 30 See JM Servais, International Labour Law (n 27) 49 and F Maupain, ‘Une revolution tranquille dans le droit des traités: l’abrogation des conventions internationales obsolètes’ (1996) XLII Annuaire français de droit international 629–35. 31 For details, see www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/leg/amend. 32 These are: ILO General Conference (31st Session) ‘Convention (No 87) concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize’ (adopted 9 July 1948, entered into force 4 July 1950); ILO General Conference (32nd Session) ‘Convention (No 98) concerning the Application of the Right to Organize and to Bargain Collectively’ (adopted 1 July 1949, entered into force 18 July 1951); ILO General Conference (14th Session) ‘Convention (No 29) concerning Forced Labour’ (adopted 28 June 1930, entered into force 1 May 1932); ILO General Conference (40th Session) ‘Convention (No 105) concerning the Abolition of Forced Labour’ (adopted 25 June 1957, entered into force 17 January 1959); ILO General Conference (34th Session) ‘Convention (No 100) concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value’ (adopted 29 June 1951, entered into force 23

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for the 1998 ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.33 This approach generated an academic debate, which continues.34 All agree, however, that the 1998 Declaration spurred high levels of awareness and ratification of these Conventions.35 Four of the eight are now almost universally ratified, and the others have attracted a high number of ratifications.36 The reporting required under the Follow-up to the Declaration acted as a major push in this direction.37 The 1998 Declaration, adopted at the height of a cul de sac debate about trade and labour standards in a variety of forums, recalled several ideas of the Declaration of Philadelphia. These included the link between peace and social justice, the idea of sharing fairly the fruits of wealth/progress, the mobilisation of efforts at the national, regional and international levels, and several substantive social issues. The body of the Declaration reiterated the universality of ILO standards and recalled the voluntary endorsement, by virtue of each ILO member state’s acceptance of the Constitution, of ILO principles and rights set out in it, including in the Declaration of Philadelphia. The 1998 Declaration broke ground in at least two respects: first, it affirmed the scope of the obligation to ‘respect, promote and realise’.38 These are fundamental principles and rights by all ILO Members, even by countries that have not yet ratified the relevant ILO Conventions;

May 1953); ILO General Conference (42nd Session) ‘Convention (No 111) concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation’ (adopted 25 June 1958, entered into force 15 June 1960); ILO General Conference (58th Session) ‘Convention (No 138) concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment’ (adopted 26 June1973, entered into force 19 June 1976); ILO General Conference (87th Session) ‘Convention (No 182) concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour’ (adopted 17 June 1999, entered into force 19 November 2000). 33

ILO 1998 Declaration (n 1). See eg P Alston, ‘Core Labour Standards and the Transformation of the International Labour Rights Regime’(2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 457; F Maupain, ‘Revitalization not Retreat: The Real Potential of the 1998 ILO Declaration for the Universal Protection of Workers’Rights’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 439; B Langille, ‘Core Labour Rights—The True Story (Reply to Alston)’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 409; P Alston, ‘Facing up to the Complexities of the ILO’s Core Labour Standards Agenda’(2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 467–80. The first Alston and Langille articles are reproduced in V Leary and D Warner (eds), Social Issues, Globalization and International Institutions: Labour Rights and the EU, ILO, OECD and WTO (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2006). 35 ILO 1998 Declaration (n 18) para 1(a). 36 The ILO 1998 Declaration (n 1) built on a ratification campaign for the fundamental Conventions launched in 1995. By September 2008, the number of countries for which the Conventions were in force totalled: 149 for Convention No 87, 159 for Convention No 98, 173 for Convention No 29, 171 for Convention No 105, 166 for Convention No 100, 168 for Convention No 111, 150 for Convention No 138 and 169 for Convention No 182 (all n 33). Four of these have thus been ratified by over 90 per cent of the ILO Members (164 out of 182). 37 See inter alia, the introductions to annual reviews, 2000 onwards, by the Independent Declaration Expert–Advisers, to the ILO Governing Body March sessions, and the global reports produced by the International Labour Office under the 1998 Declaration Follow-up. 38 ‘in good faith and in accordance with the Constitution’ of the ILO (n 10). ILO 1998 Declaration (n 1) para 2. 34

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second, it coupled a reporting mechanism under Article 19 of the Constitution with offers of stepped-up assistance to governments in their efforts towards this end.39 The originality of the 1998 Declaration lay in the identification of this particular set of principles and rights as ‘enablers’ in the context of globalisation, and their role as a necessary corollary to balance its economic aspects.40 Third, the ILO increasingly cast the social justice mission of the Organisation as a contribution to economic and social development. While the explicit basis for this had existed earlier, it took on new life in the 1990s, with a heightened interest on the part of international financial institutions, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, in social protection issues and in the supposed effects of legal regulation of an ever more diverse labour market.41 The Bank’s approach of looking at standards only from the viewpoint of narrowly measured economic efficiency posed a particular challenge to freedom of association and collective bargaining, which are critical to the ILO from both ideological and structural perspectives.

A SHIFT TO DECENT WORK AS FROM 1999

This was the background against which the current Director-General of the ILO, Juan Somavia, took up office in 1999. He chose to describe the mission of the Organization in new terms: ‘decent work’, characterising the primary goal of the ILO as promoting ‘opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.’42 While seemingly new, this description can be viewed essentially as a ‘sound bite’ of a paragraph in the Declaration of Philadelphia.43 It also built upon commitments already entered into by heads of state and government at the World Social Summit, held under his pre-ILO diplomatic leadership in Copenhagen in 1995.44 The new Director-General understood that the ILO today—in contrast to 1919—is one of many institutional actors on a media-led international scene. With its moral 39 A Trebilcock, ‘The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: A New Tool’ in R Blanpain and C Engels (eds), The ILO and the Social Challenges of the 21st Century: The Geneva Lectures (The Hague, Kluwer, 2001)106. 40 Maupain, L’OIT (n 19) 263. 41 See eg OECD, Trade, Employment and Labour Standards (Paris, OECD, 1996). 42 ILO General Conference (87th Session) Decent Work—Report of the Director-General (Geneva, 1999) p 3. 43 The phrase in the Declaration of Philadelphia is, ‘all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and of equal opportunity.’ (ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 16) para II(a)). 44 Among other commitments, they pledged to ‘pursue the goal of ensuring quality jobs, and safeguard the basic rights and interests of workers and to this end, freely promote respect for relevant international labour Conventions, including those on the prohibition of forced and child labour, the freedom of association, the right to organize and bargain collectively, and the principle of nondiscrimination.’ UNGA Report of the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, 6–12 March 1995) UN Doc A/CONF166/9 (New York, 19 April 1995) Commitment 3(i).

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authority far exceeding its economic clout, getting its message across in a new way is indeed important. The unfamiliarity of the term ‘decent work’, its vagueness and the discomfort it generated for some (by implying that some work was indecent45), probably only helped it gain some traction.

Resonance of ‘Decent Work’ beyond the ILO In any event, ‘decent work’ can now be found in a wide range of official pronouncements within and beyond the UN system. This was the fruit of a political strategy of outreach and partnerships involving a wide range of regional and international institutions. Only the highlights can be traced here. In 2004, the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, a body of eminent persons for which the International Labour Office served as the secretariat, called for ‘making decent work a key goal of economic policy, by giving priority to employment creation, protecting fundamental rights at work, strengthening social protection, and promoting social dialogue.’46 The Commission recommended making decent work for all: a global goal and pursued through more coherent policies within the multilateral system. All organizations in the multilateral system should deal with international economic and labour policies in a more integrated and consistent way.47

These recommendations were endorsed in a discussion at the International Labour Conference the same year, and became building blocks of the 2008 Declaration, described below. At the 2005 UN World Summit, which took note of progress towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals, world leaders endorsed making the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, central objectives of their national and international policies.48 A Ministerial Declaration adopted at the UN Economic and Social Council in July 2006 reaffirmed this commitment and requested the multilateral system as a whole to support efforts to mainstream the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all in their policies, programmes and activities.49 In response, the Chief Executives Board for Coordination of the UN system and the financial institutions adopted the ‘Decent Work Toolkit’ in April 2007. It acknowledges that ‘Decent work has been defined by the ILO and endorsed by the international community as being productive work for 45 ILO Governing Body Statement of the Chairperson of the Employers’ Group, Minutes of the 274th Session of the ILO Governing Body, March 1999 para 170. (The Employers later embraced the term along with Government and Worker representatives.) 46 World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All (Geneva, ILO, 2004) 142. 47 Ibid, 145. 48 2005 World Summit Outcome Resolution, UNGA Res 60/1 (16 September 2005) UN Doc A/RES/60/1 para 47. 49 ECOSOC, Ministerial Declaration of the high–level segment of the United Nations Economic and Social Council on creating an environment at the national and international levels conducive to generating full and productive employment and decent work for all, and its impact on sustainable development E/2006/55 (5 July 2006).

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women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.’50 The Toolkit describes the Decent Work Agenda as: a balanced and integrated programmatic approach to pursuing the objectives of full and productive employment and decent work for all, … comprised of four pillars: employment creation and enterprise development, social protection, standards and rights at work and governance and social dialogue.51

In its initial form, the Toolkit includes a self-assessment questionnaire intended for other agencies to identify linkages and potentials for synergies with the Decent Work Agenda. Billed as an initiative to strengthen multilateral coherence,52 the Toolkit is an attempt to address some aspects of the fragmentation of international law (and by implication, policy) noted by the International Law Commission.53 The term ‘decent work’ has also been picked up by human rights bodies outside the ILO. In its General Comment No 18, on the right to work, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESC) has affirmed that the work mentioned in Article 6 of the CESC Covenant must be decent work.54 Interestingly, however, the Committee then gave its own understanding of the term: This is work that respects the fundamental rights of the human person as well as the rights of workers in terms of conditions of work safety and remuneration. It also provides an income allowing workers to support themselves and their families as highlighted in article 7 of the Covenant. These fundamental rights also include respect for the physical and mental integrity of the worker in the exercise of his/her employment.55

The explanation for this approach comes in the following form: ‘Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Covenant are interdependent. The characterization of work as decent presupposes that it respects the fundamental rights of the worker.’56 In addition, the CESC of course had to take into account its own previous work and the travaux préparatoires of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

50 ILO Chief Executives Board for Coordination, Toolkit for Mainstreaming Employment and Decent Work (Geneva, ILO, 2007) p ii. It further specifies that, ‘Decent work involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income; provides security in the workplace and social protection for workers and their families; offers better prospects for personal development and encourages social integration; gives people the freedom to express their concerns, to organize and to participate in decisions that affect their lives; and guarantees equal opportunities and equal treatment for all.’ 51 ibid. 52 ibid, p viii. 53 ILC, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (United Nations, A/CN4/L682, 2006). 54 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESC) (35th Session), General Comment No 18: Article 6: the Right to Work (United Nations, E/C12/GC/18, 2006) para 7. 55 ibid. 56 ibid, para 8. Art 7 of the Covenant addresses just and favourable conditions of work, including aspects of remuneration, safety and health, limits on working hours, and equal opportunity; Art 8 incorporates freedom of association rights; Art 8, para 3 includes a safeguard of the guarantees provided by the ILO General Conference (31st Session) ‘Convention (No 87) concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize’ (adopted 9 July 1948, entered into force 4 July 1950).

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Decent Work as a Development Agenda The exploration of decent work as a development agenda can only be covered cursorily here. In a 1999 address to the International Labour Conference, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen commented favourably on the rights-based concept of decent work, and especially its affirmation that: ‘All those who work have rights at work.’57 As he stated: ‘The framework of rights-based thinking is thus extended from the pure domain of legality to the broader areas of social ethics.’58 This entails an invitation to the law to catch up with social ethics, he noted, not merely through fresh legislation, but also ‘by a general political and social commitment to work for the appropriate functioning of social, political and economic arrangements to facilitate recognized rights.’59 In labour law, the usefulness of Sen’s capabilities approach as expressed in his landmark work, Development as Freedom,60 has been recognised as a normative basis for labour and social rights that renders them compatible with the market and civil rights,61 and applicable in both the formal and informal economies.62 However, as Fudge observed, ‘a normative theory of social choice is needed to supplement Sen’s theories of capabilities.’63 In any event, by using the term ‘decent work’ rather than (or alongside) ‘employment’, the ILO makes it clear that all who work, not only those in formal employment, are within its mandate. This issue was not really new, since from early on, debate and even international jurisprudence had addressed those aspects of the scope of the ILO’s mandate.64 However, reassertion of this point in new terms and in the context of globalisation put the ILO in a better position to advocate that ‘decent work is a development agenda’ or a ‘development framework’.65 The ILO made its own case for decent work as a key element for poverty elimination in its 2003 report, Working out of Poverty.66 Recent reference to decent work by the

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ILO, Decent work (n 42) p 4. ILO General Conference (87th Session) Record of Proceedings No 21—Statement of Amartya Sen (Geneva, 1999) p 33. 59 ibid. 60 A Sen, Development as Freedom (New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1999). 61 See S Deakin, ‘Social Rights in a Globalized Economy’ in P Alston (ed), Labour Rights as Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005) and S Deakin and F Wilkinson, The Law of the Labour Market; Industrialization, Employment and Legal Evolution (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). For a recent examination of Sen’s theories, see J Alexander, Capabilities and Social Justice: The Political Philosophy of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008). 62 A Trebilcock, ‘Using Development Approaches to Address the Challenges of the Informal Economy for Labour Law’ in G Davidov and B Langille (eds), Boundaries and Frontiers of Labour Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006) 63–86. 63 Fudge, New Discourse (n 24) 62–63. 64 For a useful description of the debates and Advisory Opinions of the Permanent Court of International Justice addressing the scope of the ILO’s mandate, see Maupain, L’OIT (n 19) 317–25. 65 D Peccoud, ‘The Decent Work Agenda: A Brief Summary’ in D Peccoud (ed), Philosophical and spiritual perspectives on Decent Work (Geneva, International Labour Office/World Council of Churches/ ILO International Institute for Labour Studies, 2004) 167. 66 ILO General Conference (91st Session) Working out of Poverty—Report of the Director-General (Geneva, 2003). 58

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high-level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor,67 as well as the inclusion of ‘labour rights’ as one of the pillars for ‘making the law work for everyone’, recognise this link. The reports of the Commission’s Working Groups flesh out how elements of decent work form an integral part of the empowerment of the poor.68

EMBEDDING DECENT WORK IN A ‘FOUNDATION’ DOCUMENT OF THE ILO: THE 2008 DECLARATION

Despite the introduction of the term ‘decent work’ in other institutions, anchoring the term in an ILO governance document akin to earlier Declarations did not occur until quite recently. Somewhat ironically, the notion of ‘decent work’ has now been consecrated in what is entitled the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization.69 While the full history of this instrument goes beyond the scope of this paper, the seeds of the idea were sown during the debate over the report on fair globalisation at the 2004 Conference. Numerous discussions in the ILO Governing Body, many informal and sometimes difficult consultations, as well as an examination of the idea at two sessions of the International Labour Conference followed. Ultimately, on 10 June 2008, the new Declaration was adopted unanimously, together with a follow-up and a resolution.70 Originally modelled according to the 1998 Declaration to a certain extent, which foresees mutual obligations on the member states and the Organization, the final instrument adopted in 2008 instead places greater emphasis on the Organization’s obligations towards its member states.71 The new instrument promotes the Decent Work Agenda, consisting of four strategic objectives,72 as the main instrument of action to achieve social justice for a fair globalisation. It leaves considerable leeway to member states as to how they will achieve these strategic objectives. But they do not have unbridled discretion, with their action bracketed by national conditions and social dialogue, interdependence, solidarity and cooperation among member states, and relevant international labour standards and principles. The lengthy Preamble to the 2008 text reaffirms the earlier Declarations of 1998 and 1944, and recalls the recognition by the international community of decent 67 UNDP Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Making the Law Work for Everyone, vol 1: Report of the Commission and vol II: Working Group Reports (New York, UNDP, 2008). 68 ibid, see in particular the Working Group reports on labour rights, and on road maps for implementation of reforms. 69 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1). 70 ibid; ILO General Conference (97th Session) Resolution on Strengthening the ILO’s Capacity to Assist its Members’ Efforts to Reach its Objectives in the Context of Globalization (Geneva 10 June 2008). 71 This is partly the result of reliance by the 2008 Conference Committee on a draft text that the Employer and Worker Vice-Chairpersons of the Conference Committee had proposed as an alternative to the text published by the Office as a basis for discussion. See ILO General Conference (97th Session)Provisional Record No 13—Report of the Committee on Strengthening the ILO’s Capacity (Geneva, 2008). 72 These were originally introduced as a way to structure the ILO programme and budget and subsequently a reorganisation of the International Labour Office.

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work as an effective response to globalisation.73 It notes that ‘achieving an improved and fair outcome for all’ is even more necessary now ‘to meet the universal aspiration for social justice’.74 Social justice thus remains the touchstone, with the Decent Work Agenda as the programmatic vehicle to achieve it.

Placing Decent Work at the Heart of Economic and Social Policies The body of the new Declaration speaks of commitments to implement the ILO’s constitutional mandate, ‘including through international labour standards’ and ‘to place full and productive employment and decent work at the centre of economic and social policies’.75 Somewhat confusingly, employment features as both part of a double-barrelled objective and as one of the four elements of the indivisible objective. This is not explained, but it may be due to the inclusion of the term ‘employment’ in the constitutive documents of the international financial institutions (thereby stressing the importance of the overall economic policy framework for decent work outcomes) or to the references to both terms in the 2005 World Summit Outcome document and the 2006 ECOSOC Ministerial Declaration. The efforts of both the Organization (which is comprised of its three organs, the Conference, the Governing Body and the Office, or secretariat of the Organisation) and its member states should be based on four equally important strategic objectives. In brief, these are: promoting employment, social protection and social dialogue, and respecting, promoting and realising the fundamental principles and rights at work. These four objectives, set out with a specificity somewhat reminiscent of programmes mentioned in the Declaration of Philadelphia, are ‘inseparable, interrelated and mutually supportive.’76 While recognising that other international and regional organisations, which address closely related fields, have full control of their mandates, the 2008 Declaration notes that they can contribute importantly to implementing an integrated approach. At the same time, the 2008 Declaration, its follow-up and the resolution that accompanied them, very much aim at more efficient and effective operation of the Organization, and by implication, its Secretariat, at assisting ILO member states.

Implementation: up to National Discretion, within Limits How members achieve the strategic objectives is a matter for each to determine, subject to existing international obligations, and depending on national needs and priorities.77 This draws on experience with decent work country programmes, which are nationally defined and have tended to focus on employment as the 73 74 75 76 77

ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) Preamble para 5. ibid, Preamble para 5. ibid, para I.A. ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 16) para I. B. ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) paras I.C and II.B.

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number one concern. The 2008 Declaration takes all of the strategic objectives as an integrated package.78 It reaffirms the role of international labour standards at several points, while reflecting the fact that international labour legislation has shifted from being the main focus of the ILO’s action to serving as one tool among others. The Preamble to the new instrument notes that the Organization must: promote the ILO’s standard-setting policy as a cornerstone of ILO activities by enhancing its relevance to the world of work, and ensure the role of standards as a useful means of achieving the constitutional objectives of the Organization.79

This phraseology lends itself to varying interpretations. In the 2008 Declaration, as in the Constitution, international labour standards are treated as a means of implementing the ILO mandate.80 They also provide orientation on how members can achieve the strategic objectives, since this is subject to each member’s ‘existing international obligations’,81 with due regard to ‘the principles and provisions of international labour standards’.82 Presumably, these principles would only apply in cases of ILO Recommendations and non-ratified Conventions, since a member that has ratified an International Labour Convention is already bound by its provisions. When it comes to implementing the Decent Work Agenda at national level, members may consider, among other steps … the review of their situation as regards the ratification or implementation of ILO instruments with a view to achieving increasing coverage of each of the strategic objectives, with special emphasis on the instruments classified as core labour standards83 as well as those regarded as most significant from the viewpoint of governance covering tripartism, employment policy and labour inspection.84

For countries already bound by the relevant Conventions, the 2008 Declaration would not modify the commitments they undertook upon ratification of those instruments. What do the member states expect, following adoption of the Declaration? Above all, the follow-up to the 2008 Declaration seeks a more effective response by the Organization to their needs ‘using all the means of action at its disposal, including standards-related action’.85 Further discussion at the Conference on this and related points, plus an assessment of the results of the ILO’s activities, are to be

78

ibid, see para I.B. ibid, Preamble final para. 80 ibid, opening statement, para I.A. 81 ibid, para I.C. 82 ibid, para I.C (iii) 83 These are for the moment the fundamental Conventions (n 23). 84 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) para I.B(iii); The Follow-up to the 2008 Declaration lists these as currently being ILO General Conference (30th Session) ‘Convention (No 81) concerning Labour Inspection in Industry and Commerce’ (adopted 19 June 1947, entered into force 7 April 1950); ILO General Conference (48th Session) ‘Convention (No 122) concerning Employment Policy’ (adopted 9 July 1964, entered into force 15 July 1966); ILO General Conference (53rd Session) ‘Convention (No 129) concerning Labour Inspection in Agriculture’ (adopted 25 June 1969, entered into force 19 January 1972); ILO General Conference (61st Session) ‘Convention (No 144) concerning Tripartite Consultations to promote the Implementation of International Labour Standards’ (adopted 2 June 1976, entered into force 16 May 1978). ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) Follow-up (Annex I) para II.A(vi) and its footnote. 85 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) Follow-up (Annex I) para II.B(i). 79

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‘without duplicating the ILO’s supervisory mechanisms’.86 Overall, the Declaration protects the role of standards in a contemporary setting. Given the criticism levelled at standard-setting over the past two decades, this is an important achievement. At the same time, the 2008 Declaration reaffirms the importance of fundamental principles and rights at work in its preamble and body; it recognises them as ‘both rights and enabling conditions that are necessary for the full realisation of all of the strategic objectives ….’87 Of the full set, however, freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining are singled out as particularly important for achieving the four strategic objectives. There is also a weaker reference to ‘gender equality and non-discrimination’, defining them as ‘cross-cutting issues’ in relation to the strategic objectives.88 The full list of fundamental principles and rights at work was, however, recalled in the Preamble’s reaffirmation of the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.89 With indirect reference to the debate about trade and labour standards, the 2008 text contains a noteworthy variation on paragraph 5 of the 1998 Declaration.90 The text notes ‘that the violation of fundamental principles and rights at work cannot be invoked or otherwise used as a legitimate comparative advantage and that labour standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes.’91 The first part of this phrase can be seen as curing what some saw as a defect in the 1998 Declaration, which stated that ‘the comparative advantage of any country should in no way be called into question’ by it.92 The second part of the 2008 phrase repeats the first statement in paragraph 5 of the 1998 Declaration. The first part of the new text must not be read as implying that the violation of principles and rights at work that are not considered ‘fundamental’ could be a legitimate comparative advantage, since such a reading would be incompatible with the ILO Constitution.

Looking at the Role of the ILO in a Fresh Light When it comes to the role of the Organization, the 2008 Declaration reflects the fact that the power given to the ILO by the Declaration of Philadelphia—‘to judge and accept all national and international policies only in so far as they promote rather than hinder social justice’93—has never really been exercised (although it still could be). The 2008 Declaration sheds fresh light on the role of the institution, as ‘helping to promote and achieve progress and social justice’ through effective 86

ibid, para II.B, read together with(ii). ibid, para I. A(iii). 88 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) para I.B. 89 ibid, Preamble para 4. 90 This states, ‘labour standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes, and … nothing in this Declaration and its follow-up shall be invoked or otherwise used for such purposes; in addition, the comparative advantage of any country should in no way be called into question by this Declaration and its follow-up.’ (ILO 1998 Declaration (n 1) para 5). 91 ibid. 92 ibid. 93 ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 16) para IV. 87

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assistance to its members in their efforts to implement the ILO’s mandate and towards all the strategic objectives.94 The role of the ILO is thus seen essentially as facilitator and technical backstopper. The Declaration and its follow-up specify these main tasks, among others: provision of strengthened and streamlined technical cooperation and expert advice, meeting the constituents’ needs through ‘coordinated use of all its means of action’ and, if appropriate, additional resources; in this context, reference is made to decent work country programmes, sustainable development and the framework of the United Nations system;95 promoting shared knowledge and understanding, through empirical analysis and tripartite discussion of concrete experiences, and upon request by a member state, assistance in establishing appropriate indicators or statistics to monitor and evaluate progress made or in other ways;96 ‘facilitating consensus building’ (through social dialogue at various levels) ‘on relevant national and international policies that impact on employment and decent work strategies and programmes’;97 supporting steps, which members ‘may consider’ for ‘the taking of appropriate steps for an adequate coordination between positions taken on behalf of the member state concerned in relevant international forums …’;98 having ‘the responsibility to examine and consider all economic and financial policies in the light of the fundamental objective of social justice’,99 and to evaluate the employment effects of trade and financial market policy to achieve its aim of placing employment at the heart of economic policies;100 inviting other international and regional organisations with mandates in closely related fields to promote decent work and to participate in an evaluation of the impact of the Declaration,101 and developing new partnerships with non-state entities and economic actors in consultation with representative national and international organisations of workers and employers;102 preparing a report from time to time as a basis for the Conference to evaluate the impact of the Declaration, taking into account action taken and the possible impact of the Declaration in relation to other interested international organisations.103 Furthermore, the new Declaration emphasises governance issues, both in relation to the labour market and the institution itself. In terms of the first, social dialogue and tripartism are seen as the most appropriate methods for ‘making labour law and

94

ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) Preamble introduction to fourth paragraph and paras I.A, I.B(ii) and

II.A. 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) paras I.B(ii), II.A(i) and (ii) and Follow–up para II.C. ibid, para II.A(iii), para II.B(ii). ibid, para I.A (iii). ibid, para II.B(iv). ibid, Preamble, basically tracking para II(d) of the ILO Declaration of Philadelphia (n 17). ibid, para II.C. ibid, para II.C and Follow-up para III.C. ibid, para II.A(v). ibid, Follow-up para II.B.

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institutions effective, including in respect of recognition of the employment relationship, the promotion of good industrial relations and the building of effective labour inspection systems.’104 As for internal governance, the Declaration, its follow-up and the accompanying resolution very much reflect a reform agenda, with a focus on responsiveness to expressed needs of ILO constituents, increased efficiency and effectiveness of assistance provided to them, as well as periodic review: [T]he Organization should review and adapt its institutional practices to enhance governance and capacity building in order to make the best use of its human and financial resources and of the unique advantage of its tripartite structure and standards system.105

The 2008 Declaration is thus likely to create reverberations within the institution for some time to come. Like the Declaration of Philadelphia, the 2008 Declaration has sought to state the ILO’s ideals in a message reflective of the times. As the Director-General replied to the Conference in June 2008: Just as the Declaration of Philadelphia was a response in May 1944 to the challenges of post-war reconstruction, the new Declaration is an expression of the relevance of the responses social dialogue at its best can produce in today’s challenges of globalization.106

The 2008 Declaration is a fresh attempt to restore a balance, in values and in institutions, between human dignity and faith in market forces that have promised much, but have delivered far too little to too many. As the product of lengthy consultations among diverse actors, the new Declaration could not have been expected to match the Declaration of Philadelphia in its economy of language or its elegance of structure. The new text should be read with a generous spirit, knowing that in the life of an institution, every generation needs a renewed battle cry.107 What will matter most is how the new Declaration plays out in practice, particularly in light of its operational focus. As the Director-General has commented, ‘It is a call for creativity, efficiency and excellence.’108 The broad consensus, enjoyed by the new Declaration, gives it a good start.

A FEW QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

The pronouncements of the 2008 Declaration will in themselves obviously not produce a shift of direction in International law. However, how the instrument is 104 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) para I.A(iii); The inclusion of the employment relationship is noteworthy in this consensus document, since Employer delegates had opposed adoption of ILO Recommendation R198: Employment Relationship Recommendation (Recommendation Concerning the Employment Relationship) (95th Conference Session Geneva 31 May 2006). 105 ILO 2008 Declaration (n 1) para II.A 106 ILO General Conference (97th Session) Provisional Record No 22 (Geneva, 2008) para 8. 107 As a former ILO Director-General remarked, ‘Unless there is a miraculous discovery of an economic system which automatically ensures both growth and equity, social justice will remain a constant struggle.’ Hansenne, Un garde-fou pour la mondialisation (n 29) (unnumbered page). 108 ILO General Conference (97th Session) Reply by the Director-General to the discussion of his report Provisional Record No 22 (Geneva, 2008) para 11.

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used could be of interest from both theoretical and institutional viewpoints. If, as the Preamble to the 2008 Declaration notes, the ILO is helping to promote and achieve social justice, social justice is thereby acknowledged as a much wider agenda that is shared. Indeed, social justice is so vast a topic that it cannot be the responsibility of one agency alone. The Organization is using decent work as a springboard for more effective alliances with other organisations that, it is hoped, will make their own contributions to attaining the broader aspiration. This is certainly the intent of the Decent Work Toolkit and other initiatives aimed at greater coherence across the multilateral system. At the same time, the progression of discourse in the ILO from social justice to decent work raises several questions that call for further thought among international jurists and others. An interdisciplinary approach could yield a differently structured analysis and a deeper understanding of some of the persisting issues posed by both decent work and social justice. A few questions for investigation might include: What are the longer-term implications of an apparent de-emphasis on the link between peace, social justice and conditions of labour that is embedded in the Preamble to the ILO Constitution? Do elements of the Decent Work Agenda, in particular social dialogue, inform a normative theory of social choice to supplement—as suggested by Fudge— Sen’s theories of capabilities? Is decent work or the Decent Work Agenda a global public good? Is mainstreaming of global goals such as decent work a legal concept or a management tool?109 What advantages and disadvantages does the concept of decent work include in the debate on sustainable development? Since much more effort has gone into measuring decent work than ever into social justice, what are the pros and cons, from an international law perspective, of such a measurement?110 Have the ILO fundamental principles and rights at work morphed into general international law, moving beyond their origin as lex specialis? Could other elements of the Decent Work Agenda, or the sum of their parts, ie decent work, ever be a candidate for this transformation? Perhaps more importantly, the recent anchoring of decent work in a fundamental ILO governance document could stimulate a deeper examination of the notion of ‘decency’ in international law. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights uses the word ‘decent’ in the context of just and favourable

109

This question is inspired by Kaufmann, Globalization and Labour Rights (n 8)129. Within and outside the ILO, a number of experimental efforts have been made to move from traditional labour statistics to decent work indicators. See eg D Kucera (ed), Qualitative Indicators of Labour Standards: Comparative Methods and Applications (Heidelberg, Springer, 2007) and ILO, Measurement of decent work—Discussion paper for the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on the Measurement of Decent Work (Geneva, ILO, 2008). For a broader policy perspective supporting more empirical work, see ILO General Conference (89th Session) Reducing the Decent Work Deficit—Report of the Director-General (Geneva 2001). 110

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conditions of work, which ensure remuneration that provides, as a minimum, a ‘decent living’ for workers and their families.111 The Convention on the Rights of the Child refers to ‘a full and decent life’ for a mentally or physically handicapped child.112 The concept also appears elsewhere, though much less frequently than ‘adequacy’—which in turn sets an arguably lower threshold than ‘decency’. Although a handful of labour lawyers have written about decent work, a conceptual reflection among international lawyers about decency in the context of social justice largely remains to be done.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books A Alcock, History of the International Labour Organisation (London, Macmillan Interactive Publishing, 1971). J Alexander, Capabilities and Social Justice: The Political Philosophy of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008). D Craig, T Burchardt,and D Gordon (eds), Social Justice and Public Policy: Seeking Fairness in Diverse Societies (Bristol, University of Bristol Policy Press, 2008). A de Maday, L’Organisation internationale du Travail et la paix (Paris, Marcel Girard, 1931). S Deakin and F Wilkinson, The Law of the Labour Market; Industrialization, Employment and Legal Evolution (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). T Franck, Fairness in International Law and Institutions (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995). M Hansenne, Un garde-fou pour la mondalisation : Le BIT dans l’après-guerre froide (Brussels, Quorum et Zoé, 1999). ILO, Rules of the Game: A brief introduction to international labour standards (Geneva, International Labour Office, 2005). CW Jenks, Social justice in the law of nations: The ILO impact after 50 years (London, Oxford University Press, 1970). C Kaufmann, Globalization and Labour Rights: The Conflict between Core Labour Rights and International Economic Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2007). D Kucera (ed), Qualitative Indicators of Labour Standards: Comparative Methods and Applications (Heidelberg, Springer, 2007). V Leary and D Warner (eds) Social Issues, Globalization and International Institutions: Labour Rights and the EU, ILO, OECD and WTO (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2006). F Maupain, L’OIT, justice sociale et mondialisation (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2000). OECD, Trade, Employment and Labour Standards (Paris, OECD, 1996). A Sen, Development as Freedom (New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1999). 111

ICESCR (n 24) Art 7(a))ii). Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 Art 23(1). 112

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JM Servais, International Labour Law (The Hague, Kluwer, 2005). A Trebilcock (ed), Towards social dialogue: Tripartite cooperation in national economic and social policy-making (Geneva, International Labour Office, 1992). Chapters in Edited Volumes S Deakin, ‘Social Rights in a Globalized Economy’, in P Alston (ed), Labour Rights as Human Rights (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005). A Dieng, ‘The ILO and Social Justice’, in ILO, Visions of the future of social justice: essays on the occasion of the ILO’s 75th Anniversary (Geneva, International Labour Office, 1994). VY Ghébali, ‘L’Organisation internationale du Travail’, in R Ago and N Valticos (eds), L’Organisation internationale et l’évolution de la société’mondiale Vol 3 (Genève, Georg, 1987). D Peccoud, ‘The Decent Work Agenda: A Brief Summary’, in D Peccoud (ed), Philosophical and spiritual perspectives on Decent Work (Geneva, International Labour Office/World Council of Churches/ILO International Institute for Labour Studies, 2004). A Trebilcock, ‘The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work: A New Tool’, in R Blanpain and C Engels (eds), The ILO and the Social Challenges of the 21st Century: The Geneva Lectures (The Hague, Kluwer, 2001). A Trebilcock, ‘Using Development Approaches to Address the Challenges of the Informal Economy for Labour Law’, in G Davidov and B Langille (eds), Boundaries and Frontiers of Labour Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2006). International Documents Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESC) (35th Session), General Comment No 18: Article 6: the Right to Work (United Nations, E/C12/GC/18, 2006). International Labour Organization, Measurement of Decent Work, Discussion paper for the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on the Measurement of Decent Work (Geneva, ILO, 2008). International Labour Organization, Rules of the Game: A Brief Introduction to International Labour Standards (Geneva, International Labour Office, 2005). International Law Commission, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, A/CN 4/L 682 (United Nations, 2006). Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Trade, Employment and Labour Standards (Paris, OECD, 1996). World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, A Fair Globalization: Creating Opportunities for All (Geneva, ILO, 2004).

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Journal Articles P Alston, ‘Core Labour Standards and the Transformation of the International Labour Rights Regime’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 457–521. P Alston, ‘Facing up to the Complexities of the ILO’s Core Labour Standards Agenda’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 467–80. S Charnovitz, ‘The influence of international labour standards on the world trading regime’ (1987) 126 International Labour Review 565–84. J Fudge, ‘The New Discourse of Labor Rights: From Social to Fundamental Rights’ (2008) 29 Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 29–66. B Langille, ‘Re-reading the Preamble to the 1919 ILO Constitution in light of recent data on FDI and worker rights’ (2003) 42 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 87–99. B Langille, ‘Core Labour Rights—The True Story (Reply to Alston)’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 409–37. F Maupain, ‘Une revolution tranquille dans le droit des traités: l’abrogation des conventions internationales obsolètes’ (1996) XLII Annuaire français de droit international 629–35. F Maupain, ‘Revitalization not Retreat: The Real Potential of the 1998 ILO Declaration for the Universal Protection of Workers’ Rights’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 439–65. J Tasioulas, ‘International Law and the Limits of Fairness’ (2002) 13 European Journal of International Law 993–1023.

Website Source ILO, ‘Social pacts at the national level in European countries’ www.ilo.org/public/ english/dialogue/ifpdial/info/pacts.

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Victim Participation in Proceedings before the International Criminal Court* GAUTHIER DE BECO * INTRODUCTION

T

HE ROME STATUTE of the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) (Rome Statute) provides for victim participation in proceedings before the Court. Article 68(3) stipulates that:

[w]here the personal interests of the victims are affected, the Court shall permit their views and concerns to be presented and considered at stages of the proceedings determined to be appropriate by the Court and in a manner which is not prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.1

The Chambers were given the task of arranging victim participation within this framework. Now that the first trial before the ICC has started, victim participation in the trial proceedings has to be determined. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part deals with victim participation in proceedings before the ICC generally. It explains why victim participation is important, when it should take place and what the conditions are. The second part discusses the judgment of 11 July 2008 of the Appeals Chamber.2 It presents the Thomas Lubanga Dyilo case and analyses the way in which the Appeals Chamber dealt with contentious issues in the light of the arguments presented by the participants in proceedings. The third examines how victim participation should be balanced with the rights of the accused. VICTIM PARTICIPATION IN PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Victim participation in proceedings was not foreseen before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal * A more extensive version of the article was published in (2009) 3 Human Rights and International Legal Discourse 95. 1 The second paragraph of the Preamble of the Rome Statute provides that state parties are ‘[m]indful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity’. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (opened for signature 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90 (Rome Statute). 2 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Judgment on the appeals of The Prosecutor and The Defence against Trial Chamber I’s Decision on Victims’ Participation of 18 January 2008, Appeals Chamber), ICC-01/04–01/06 (11 July 2008) (Appeals Chamber Judgment).

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Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The two Tribunals only have a repressive function, leaving no place for victim participation.3 The procedure is solely accusatorial (as opposed to inquisitorial).4 In this procedure, victims play no part in proceedings, but are merely an instrument in the hands of both the prosecutor and the defence. Only when asked to testify do victims have permission to intervene.5 The prosecutor and the defence, however, will only do so to obtain information that supports their arguments. Victims can then only reply to the questions asked, and even be obliged to do so.6 As a result, they can never freely speak about their experience.7 They are just witnesses. This system has been criticised. Victim participation, it has been argued, has several advantages. To start with, it is indispensable for shedding light on international crimes. Furthermore, even if victims do not need a proper status for this, they deserve better, since their involvement is implicit in the international community’s commitment to combat impunity. Victims, therefore, should be able to speak in their own capacity.8 Victim participation can also be considered as a form of (moral) reparation, thanks to its symbolic dimension.9 What is more, it can contribute to reconciliation, by helping both victims and torturers to reintegrate their communities.10 While participation in practice is only accessible to certain persons, those that remain at home can still identify themselves with the participants in proceedings. Victim participation would thus achieve justice in the larger sense. These arguments convinced the drafters of the Rome Statute which made provision for victim participation upon the request of France and several NGOs (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in particular). Article 68 (3) of the Rome Statute provides that:

3 C Jorda and J de Hemptinne, ‘The Status and Role of the Victim’ in A Cassese, P Gaeta and J Jones (eds), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1390, 1391. 4 See J Jackson, ‘The Adversarial Trial and Trial by Judge Alone’ in M McConville and G Wilson (eds), The Handbook of the Criminal Justice Process (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 335. 5 See Art 85(A) UN International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 ‘Rules of Procedure and Evidence’ (adopted 11 February 1994, entered into force 14 march 1994) UN Doc IT/32/Rev 38 (1996) (ICTY RPE) and UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Genocide and Other Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Rwanda and Rwandan Citizens Responsible for Genocide and other such Violations Committed in the Territory of Neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994 ‘Rules of Procedure and Evidence’ (adopted and entered into force 29 June 1995) UN Doc ITR/3/REV 1 (1995) (ICTR RPE). 6 See Art 77(A)(i), ICTY and ICTR RPE (n 5). 7 Victims are indeed interrupted by ICTY judges when their stories do not contribute to the determination of the innocence or guilt of the accused. See M-B Dembour and E Haslam, ‘Silencing Hearings? Victim-Witnesses at War Crimes Trials’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 151, 158. 8 It has nonetheless been argued that courts are not the best place for victims to tell their stories. See ibid, 154; H Arendt, Eichmann à Jérusalem. Rapport sur la banalité du mal (Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1966). 9 L Scomparain, ‘La victime du crime et la juridiction pénale internationale’ in M Delmas-Marty and A Cassese (eds), Crimes internationaux et juridictions internationales (Paris, PUF, 2002) 335. 10 G de Beco, ‘La participation des victimes à la procédure devant la Cour pénale internationale’ (2007) 87 Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie 787, 809.

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[w]here the personal interests of the victims are affected, the Court shall permit their views and concerns to be presented and considered at stages of the proceedings determined to be appropriate by the Court and in a manner which is not prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.11

This provision is applicable throughout the whole procedure before the ICC,12 which consists of three phases: pre-trial, trial and appeal.13 The Rome Statute also provides for victim participation at precise stages: when the prosecutor opens an investigation proprio motu under Article 15(3), when the jurisdiction of the Court or the admissibility of a case is challenged under Article 19(3), and when reparations are awarded to victims under Article 75 (appeals against which can be initiated by their legal representatives by virtue of Article 82(4)). The modalities of the participation of victims are further outlined in the Rules of Procedure and Evidence.14 The latter define the term ‘victim’. According to rule 85(A) of the Rules of Procedures and Evidence, victims are ‘natural persons who have suffered harm as a result of the commission of any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court’. As seen in the next section, this includes both direct and indirect victims, the latter of whom are usually members of a direct victim’s family.15 Victim participation in proceedings before the ICC is a mixture of aspects of both accusatorial and inquisitorial procedures.16 On the one hand, victims are allowed to share ‘their views and concerns’, which is strange to common law systems. They can also ask for reparations, including restitution, compensation and rehabilitation, to be ordered directly by the Court.17 On the other hand, they are not a full party to the procedure, in contrast to the prosecutor and the defence. While the latter dominate proceedings, victims can only participate to a limited extent. In other words, they cannot constitute themselves partie civile, as is possible in civil law systems. Nonetheless, the very fact that victims have a proper status before the ICC gives the procedure a certain inquisitorial character, although it is still principally accusatorial.

11

Art 68(3), Rome Statute (n 1). D Donat-Cattin, ‘Article 68’ in O Triffterer (ed), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Observers’ Notes, Article by Article (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1999) 873. That Art 68(3) is a transversal provision applicable to the whole procedure is confirmed by the Rules of Procedure and Evidence stipulating that victims should be made aware of certain decisions, although no explicit provision is made for this in the Rome Statute. This is the case with rule 92(2) and (3) which provides that victims should be notified the decision of the Prosecutor not to prosecute under Art 53 and the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber to organise a hearing to confirm the charges against the arrested person under Art 61. International Criminal Court ‘Rules of Procedure and Evidence’ (adopted and entered into force 9 September 2002) UN Doc ICC-ASP/1/3 (part II-A) (ICC RPE). 13 The pre-trial phase starts with the opening of the investigation by the Prosecutor and ends with the confirmation of the charges against the arrested person by the Pre-Trial Chamber. The arrested person, then, becomes the accused. The trial and appeal phases concern the trial and appeal, respectively. 14 See rules 89 to 93, ICC RPE (n 12). 15 S Zappala, Human Rights in International Criminal Proceedings (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003) 220–22. 16 de Beco, La participation des victimes (n 10) 797–98. 17 Art 75, Rome Statute (n 1). In contrast, victims cannot ask the ICTY and the ICTR to order reparations, but should do this before their national jurisdictions, except as far as the restitution of unlawfully taken property is concerned. See rules 98 ter and 105, ICTY and ICTR RPE (n 5). 12

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In practice, victims willing to participate in proceedings before the ICC should send their application to the Registrar, who will transmit it to the competent Chamber.18 The latter may, as stipulated by the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, ‘reject the application if it considers that the person is not a victim or that the criteria set forth in article 68, paragraph 3, are not otherwise fulfilled.’19 It will thus check whether applicants meet the conditions for victim participation described in this Article. These conditions have been further developed by the Pre-Trial Chambers which already allowed certain victims to participate in the pre-trial proceedings before the Court.20 To participate in proceedings before the ICC, victims must fulfil three conditions, which will be outlined below. When these conditions are fulfilled, the Chamber specifies the ‘manner in which participation is considered appropriate, which may include making opening and closing statements.’21 First, Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute provides that victims may only participate when their personal interests are affected. This leaves a certain margin of discretion to judges. Whether their personal interests are affected will vary according to the stage of the procedure. As far as the pre-trial phase is concerned, the Pre-Trial Chambers make a differentiation between proceedings pertaining to a situation—which is referred to the Court by either a state party, the UN Security Council or the prosecutor acting proprio motu22—and proceedings pertaining to a case—for which a warrant of arrest or summons to appear has been issued by a Pre-Trial Chamber upon request of the prosecutor.23 While victims have a general right to take part in the former,24 they should satisfy the Chamber that there is a link between the harm done to them and the crimes contained in the warrant of

18

Rule 89(1), ICC RPE (n 12). Rule 89(2), ICC RPE (n 12). 20 See Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of VPRS 1, VPRS 2, VPRS 3, VPRS 4, VPRS 5 and VPRS, 17, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–101 (17 January 2006); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings Submitted by VPRS 1 to VPRS 6 in the Case the Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–172 (29 June 2006); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of a/0001/06, a/0002/06 and a/0003/06 in the case of the Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and of the investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–228 (28 July 2006); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on applications for participation in proceedings a/0004/06 to a/0009/06, a/0016/06, a/0063/06, a/0071/06 to a/0080/06 and a/0105/06 in the case of The Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–601 (20 October 2006); The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of Applicants a/0327/07 to a/0337/07 and a/0001/08, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/07–357 (2 April 2008); The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (Public Redacted Version of the ‘Decision on the 97 Applications for Participation at the Pre-Trial Stage of the Case’, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/07–579 (10 June 2008); Prosecutor v Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen (Decision on victims’ applications for participation a/0010/06, a/0064/06 to a/0070/06, a/0081/06 to a/0104/06 and a/0111/06 to a/0127/06, Pre-Trial Chamber II), ICC-02/04–01/05–252 (10 August 2007). 21 Rule 89(1), ICC RPE (n 12). 22 Arts 14 and 15, Rome Statute (n 1). 23 Art 58, Rome Statute (n 1). 24 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of VPRS 1, VPRS 2, VPRS 3, VPRS 4, VPRS 5 and VPRS, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–101 (17 January 2006) para 63. 19

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arrest or summons to appear.25 Thus, victims willing to exercise their participatory rights in proceedings pertaining to a case must demonstrate a link with that particular case. Second, Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute provides that victims may share ‘their views and concerns at stages of the proceedings determined to be appropriate by the Court’. The appropriateness of their participation actually bears on the modalities of this participation, which may include making opening and closing statements.26 In addition, Article 68(3) provides that the ‘views and concerns [of the victims] may be presented . . . by legal representatives.’ This is necessary not only because victims are not familiar with the procedure, but also to keep their participation manageable. It might also be that victims may not appear in person before the Court. According to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, victims may choose their legal representatives by themselves, although the Chamber may order them to choose common representatives.27 The legal representatives will make observations in their name, which they might be asked to do in writing28 and may ask the Chamber’s permission to question witnesses.29 Third, Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute provides that victim participation must not be ‘prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.’ This is the main condition, the two others being, to a large extent, just an expression of it. As further discussed in this article, victims should respect the rights of the accused, which might be violated should the latter face an additional accuser. As soon as victims apply to participate in proceedings before the ICC, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence provide for procedural guarantees to protect these rights. The defence should be made aware of victims’ requests to intervene, and have the opportunity to react.30 During proceedings, it has the right to reply to any observation made by their legal representatives.31 Finally, whenever a Chamber authorises victims to take part, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence

25 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings Submitted by VPRS 1 to VPRS 6 in the Case the Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–172, 6 (29 June 2006); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of a/0001/06, a/0002/06 and a/0003/06 in the case of the Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and of the investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–228, 7 (28 July 2006); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on applications for participation in proceedings a/0004/06 to a/0009/06, a/0016/06, a/0063/06, a/0071/06 to a/0080/06 and a/0105/06 in the case of The Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–601, 12 (20 October 2006); The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of Applicants a/0327/07 to a/0337/07 and a/0001/08, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/07–357, 8 (2 April 2008); The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (Public Redacted Version of the ‘Decision on the 97 Applications for Participation at the Pre-Trial Stage of the Case’, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/07–579 (10 June 2008) para 66; Prosecutor v Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen (Decision on victims’ applications for participation a/0010/06, a/0064/06 to a/0070/06, a/0081/06 to a/0104/06 and a/0111/06 to a/0127/06, Pre-Trial Chamber II), ICC-02/04–01/05–252 (10 August 2007) para 105. 26 Rule 89(1), ICC RPE (n 12). 27 Rule 90(1) and (2), ICC RPE (n 12). 28 Rule 91(2), ICC RPE (n 12). 29 Rule 91(3)(a), ICC RPE (n 12). 30 Rule 89(1), ICC RPE (n 12). 31 Rule 91(2), ICC RPE (n 12).

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remind that it should do so ‘taking into account . . . the rights of the accused and the need for a fair, impartial, and expeditious trial.’32 Until very recently, no trial had begun before the ICC. Therefore, victim participation in practice can only be discussed during the pre-trial phase.33 As already said, the Pre-trial Chambers allowed victims, who met the three abovementioned conditions, to participate in the pre-trial proceedings. Concrete participation took place in both the Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and the Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui cases, during the confirmation of charges more exactly. At this occasion, Pre-Trial Chamber I gave the legal representatives of the victims authorisation to participate in proceedings and permission to make opening and closing statements.34 The next question, therefore, is how victims will participate in the trial proceedings.

JUDGMENT OF THE APPEALS CHAMBER OF 11 JULY 2008

Following a referral to the ICC by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the situation in this state has been assigned to Pre-Trial Chamber I.35 In this situation, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is being prosecuted for committing the crimes of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 into armed forces and using them to participate actively in hostilities. These are war crimes under both Articles 8(2)(b)(xxvi) and 8(2)(e)(vii) of the Rome Statute, ie in both international and non-international armed conflicts, respectively. The ICC issued a (sealed) warrant of arrest against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo on 10 February 2006 and he was transferred to the Court on 17 March 2006 (the warrant of arrest was then unsealed). As required by Article 61(7), Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed the charges against him on 29 January 2007, considering that there were substantial grounds to believe that he had committed the afore-mentioned crimes.36 The case was subsequently referred to Trial Chamber I. The Thomas Lubanga Dyilo case, however, reached a stalemate. While the trial was due to start on 23 June 2008, 32

Rule 91(3)(b), ICC RPE (n 12). On victim participation in the pre-trial phase, see C Stahn, H Olasolo, and K Gibson, ‘Participation of Victims in Pre-Trial Proceedings of the ICC’ (2006) 4 Journal of International Criminal Justice 219; A Guhr, ‘Victim Participation During the Pre-Trial Stage at the International Criminal Court’ (2008) 8 International Criminal Law Review 109. 34 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Arrangements for Participation of Victims a/0001/06, a/0002/06 and a/0003/06 at the Confirmation Hearing, Pre-Trial Chamber), ICC-01/04–01/ 06–462, 8 (22 September 2006); The Prosecutor v Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui (Decision on the Set of Procedural Rights Attached to Procedural Status of Victim at the Pre-Trial Stage of the Case, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/07–474, 58 (13 May 2008). 35 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Decision assigning the Situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo to Pre-Trial Chamber I, Presidency), ICC-01/04–1 (5 June 2004). 36 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Décision sur la confirmation des charges, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–803 (29 January 2006). On the confirmation of charges against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo see G de Beco, ‘The Confirmation of Charges before the International Criminal Court: Evaluation and First Application’ (2007) 7 International Criminal Law Review 469; M Happold, ‘Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga, Decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, 29 January 2007’ (2007) 56 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 713; O Bekou, ‘Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo—Decision on the Confirmation of Charges’ (2008) 8 Human Rights Law Review 343. 33

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Trial Chamber I imposed a stay of the proceedings on 13 June 2008, because the prosecutor allegedly failed to disclosure exculpatory evidence to the accused.37 On 2 July 2008, it decided, as a result, that Thomas Lubanga Dyilo had to be released, but this decision was successfully appealed.38 The stay on the proceedings was eventually lifted on 18 November 2008, and the trial started on 26 January 2009. Returning to victim participation, Trial Chamber I issued a Decision on victims’ participation on 18 January 2008.39 The purpose was to fix issues relating to the participation of victims in the proceedings of the future trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. Three issues that were dealt with by Pre-Trial Chamber will engage our attention. First, the Chamber ruled that both direct and indirect victims may participate in proceedings before the ICC.40 Second, it decided that neither the Rome Statute nor the Rules of Procedure and Evidence ‘have the effect of restricting the participation of victims to the crimes contained in the charges confirmed by Pre-Trial Chamber I.’41 It is therefore enough for victims to have suffered harm caused by crimes listed in the Rome Statute to be allowed to participate in the trial proceedings. They do not need to show a link between the harm and the charges confirmed against the accused by the Pre-Trial Chamber. For their personal interests to be affected, victims merely have to demonstrate a link with the evidence being considered or an issue arising at the trial.42 Third, Trial Chamber I decided that victims may both introduce evidence pertaining to the innocence or guilt of the accused and challenge the admissibility or relevance of evidence.43 It considered that a Trial Chamber can request victims to introduce evidence pertaining to the innocence or guilt of the accused, and that neither the Rome Statute nor the Rules of Procedure prohibit them from challenging the admissibility or relevance of evidence. Thus, Trial Chamber I interpreted victim participation in very broad terms, thereby distancing itself from ICC jurisprudence to date. Both the prosecutor and the defence sought authorisation to appeal Trial Chamber I’s Decision on victim participation.44 The Trial Chamber granted an 37 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the consequences of non-disclosure of exculpatory materials covered by Article 54(3)(e) agreements and the application to stay the prosecution of the accused, together with certain other issues raised at the Status Conference on 10 June 2008, Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01–06/1401 (13 June 2008). The problem is that the Prosecutor agreed with the UN sources that provided him with the information not to disclose it. 38 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the release of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–1418 (2 July 2008); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Judgment on the appeal of the Prosecutor against the decision of Trial Chamber I entitled ‘Decision on the release of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo’, Appeals Chamber), ICC-01/04–01/06–1487 (21 October 2008). 39 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on victims’ participation, Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06 (18 January 2008) (Trial Chamber I Decision). The decision includes a dissenting opinion of Judge René Blatmann. 40 Trial Chamber I Decision (n 39), para 91. 41 ibid, para 93. 42 ibid, para 95. 43 ibid, paras 108–09. 44 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Application for Leave to Appeal Trial Chamber I’s 18 January 2008 Decision on Victims’ Participation), ICC-01/04–01/06–1136 (28 January 2008); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Requête de la Défense sollicitant l’autorisation d’interjeter appel de la ‘Decision on Victims’ Participation’ rendue le 18 janvier 2008), ICC-01/04–01/06–1135 (28 January 2008). Both the Prosecutor and the Defence based their application for leave to appeal on Art 82(1)(d) of the Rome Statute (n 1) which allows the parties to the proceedings to appeal any ‘decision that

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appeal on 26 February 2008, and the matter was referred to the Appeals Chamber.45 Appeal was exclusively granted on the three issues mentioned above: whether victims must have suffered direct harm, whether the harm must be linked to the charges confirmed against the accused by the Pre-Trial Chamber, and whether victims may both introduce evidence pertaining to the innocence or guilt of the accused and challenge the admissibility or relevance of evidence. Subsequently, both the prosecutor and the defence presented their arguments,46 whereby the former replied to the latter.47 The legal representatives of the victims that were allowed to participate in proceedings also made their observations,48 to which the prosecutor replied as well.49 The Appeals Chamber eventually rendered its judgment on 11 July 2008.50 The three issues that had been the subject of the appeal will be discussed successively. The Appeals Chamber confirmed and amended the first issue, reversed the second, and confirmed the third. The first issue concerns the notion of ‘victim’. Trial Chamber I decided that victim participation in proceedings before the ICC applies to both direct and indirect victims.51 The rationale is that rule 85(B) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence provides that organisations must have suffered direct harm to be victim, whereas rule 85(A) does not include this requirement for natural persons.52 Only the defence opposed this finding. It argued that harm must not only be direct, because indirect harm was not explicitly mentioned in rule 85(A), but also

involves an issue that would significantly affect the fair and expeditious conduct of the proceedings or the outcome of the trial, and for which, in the opinion of the Pre-Trial or Trial Chamber, an immediate resolution by the Appeals Chamber may materially advance the proceedings’. 45 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Decision on the Defence and Prosecution Requests for Leave to Appeal the Decision on Victims’ Participation of 18 January 2008, Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/06–1191 (26 February 2008). 46 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Prosecution’s Document in Support of Appeal against Trial Chamber I’s 18 January 2008 Decision on Victims’ Participation), ICC-01/04–01/06–1219 (10 March 2008) (Prosecutor Arguments); Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Acte d’appel de la Défense relativement à la Décision du 18 janvier 2008 de la Chambre de première instance I concernant la participation des victimes), ICC-01/04–01/06 (10 March 2008) (Defence Arguments). 47 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Prosecutor’s Response to ‘Acte d’appel de la Défense relativement à la Décision du 18 janvier 2008 de la Chambre de première instance I concernant la participation des victimes’), ICC-01/04–01/06–1233 (19 March 2008) (Prosecutor Response to Defence Arguments). 48 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Observations des victimes quant aux appels du Procureur et de la Défense contre la décision du 18 janvier 2008), ICC-01/04–01/06–1345 (21 May 2008) (Victims Arguments). 49 Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Prosecution’s Response to the ‘Observations des victimes quant aux appels du Procureur et de la Défense contre la décision du 18 janvier 2008’), ICC-01/04–01/ 06–1361 (30 May 2008) (Prosecutor Response to Victims’ Arguments). 50 Appeals Chamber Judgement (n 2). The judgment includes partly dissenting opinion of Judges Georghios Pikis and Philippe Kirsch. See Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (Judgment on the appeals of The Prosecutor and The Defence against Trial Chamber I’s Decision on Victims’ Participation of 18 January 2008—Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Philippe Kirsch, Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–01/ 06–1432-Anx (23 July 2008) (Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Phillip Kirsch). The partly dissenting opinion of Judge Georghios Pikis is annexed to the document containing the Appeals Chamber’s Judgement (n 2). 51 Trial Chamber I Decision (n 39). 52 ibid, para 91.

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personal.53 The Appeals Chamber agreed that Trial Chamber I should have stated that harm must be personal, which is the real question.54 However, it considered that both direct and indirect victims may participate in proceedings, applying the a contrario argumentation of the Trial Chamber.55 It further considered that indirect victims can be affected personally by crimes committed against direct victims.56 This is quite evident and, to a certain extent, just a matter of wording. As pointed out by the legal representatives of the victims, the conscription and enlisting of children into armed forces, of which Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is accused, are evidently harmful to their family members.57 The question is more why this issue had to be dealt with by the Appeals Chamber. The reason is that the drafters of the Rome Statute did not want to further define the term ‘victim’, leaving it to the judges. The only merit is that the issue is now settled. The second issue is the link between the harm done to victims and the charges confirmed against the accused by the Pre-Trial Chamber. This matter was raised by both the prosecutor and the defence. The problem is that by allowing the participation of victims, who have not suffered harm caused by the crimes contained in the charges, the Trial Chamber expands its powers. As explained by the prosecutor, the charges set the parameters of a Trial Chamber’s authority to deal with a case, and victim participation may not go beyond them.58 The defence outlined the consequences for the rights of the accused. The participation of a victim of crimes that are not connected to the crimes contained in the charges might confront the accused with new charges.59 This creates an additional burden for the defence and diminishes legal certainty. Interestingly, the legal representatives of the victims authorised to participate in proceedings made almost no comment on this issue. They just reminded the Appeals Chamber that the harm suffered by these victims was indeed linked to the charges confirmed against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo by Pre-Trial Chamber I, and relied on ‘the wisdom of the Court’ to solve the matter.60 The Appeals Chamber eventually ruled that the charges confirmed against the accused limit victim participation, thereby reversing the decision of Trial Chamber I.61 Relying on Article 31(1) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which stipulates that ‘a treaty must be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose’, it considered that the purpose of rule 85 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence is solely to define the term ‘victim’.62 Concerning their participation in the trial proceedings, attention should

53

Defence Arguments (n 46), paras 16 and 30. Appeals Chamber Judgement (n 2), para 37. 55 ibid, para 30. 56 ibid, para 32. 57 Victims Arguments (n 48), para 10. 58 Prosecutor Response to Defence Arguments (n 47), paras 15–16. 59 Defence Arguments (n 46), para 39. 60 Victims Arguments (n 48), paras 20–21. The legal representatives were apparently surprised by the decision of Trial Chamber I. That they did not argue in favour of this decision might have encouraged the Appeals Chamber to reverse it. 61 Appeals Chamber Judgment (n 2), paras 53–54. 62 ibid, para 58. 54

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be paid to Article 68(3) of the Statute ‘the effect of [which] is that the participation of victims in the trial proceedings . . . is limited to those victims who are linked to the charges.’63 The Appeals Chamber agreed with the prosecutor that any other decision would result in the Trial Chamber exceeding its powers.64 In so doing, it followed the Pre-Trial Chambers, which require that victims willing to participate in the pre-trial proceedings pertaining to a case must demonstrate a link between the harm done to them and the crimes contained in the warrant of arrest or summons to appear.65 Thus, while a warrant of arrest or summons to appear restricts victim participation in the pre-trial phase, the charges confirmed against the accused restrict it in the trial phase, mutatis mutandis. The third issue relates to the right of victims to both introduce evidence pertaining to the innocence or guilt of the accused and challenge the admissibility or relevance of evidence. Both the prosecutor and the defence appealed this double issue. According to the prosecutor, it creates a confusion of roles, because it results in the interests of victims overlapping with those of the prosecutor.66 According to Article 66(2) of the Rome Statute, ‘[t]he onus is on the Prosecutor to prove the guilt of the accused.’ Were victims allowed to introduce evidence contributing to the determination of the truth, they might disturb the prosecution’s strategy. According to the defence, this also affects the rights of the accused, because it turns victims into a second accuser.67 This again creates an additional burden for the defence. In addition, the Rome Statute provides for the disclosure of evidence only between the prosecutor and the defence, which indicates that it was not the intention of the drafters of the Rome Statute to allow victims to present evidence pertaining to the innocence or guilt of the accused.68 Moreover, as noticed by the prosecutor, Article 69(3) of the Rome Statute provides that ‘[t]he parties may submit evidence relevant to the case.’69 The same applies to the admissibility or relevance of evidence, which according to Article 64(9) should be determined by a Trial Chamber ‘on application of a party’.70 The Appeals Chamber, however, ruled that these arguments did not prevent victims from introducing evidence pertaining the innocence or guilt of the accused as well as challenging the admissibility or relevance of evidence. Otherwise it would too severely reduce victims’ participatory rights. While the Rome Statute gives a principal role to both the prosecutor and the defence in the trial proceedings, victims have the right to introduce evidence pertaining the innocence or guilt of the accused as well as to challenge the admissibility or

63

ibid, para 58. Appeals Chamber Judgement (n 2), para 63. Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of VPRS 1, VPRS 2, VPRS 3, VPRS 4, VPRS 5 and VPRS, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–101 (17 January 2006) para 63. 66 Prosecutor Response to Defence Arguments (n 47), para 41. 67 Defence Arguments (n 46), para 48. 68 ibid, para 50. See also Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Phillip Kirsch, paras 8–16. 69 Prosecutor Arguments, 31; Prosecutor Response to Victims, para 22. See also Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Phillip Kirsch (n 50), paras 18–19. Contra: Victims Arguments (n 48), para 25 (emphasis added). 70 Prosecutor Arguments, para 49. See also Partly Dissenting Opinion of Judge Phillip Kirsch (n 50), para 35 (emphasis added). 64 65

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relevance of evidence. Article 69(3) second sentence stipulates that the Court may ‘request the submission of all evidence that it considers necessary for the determination of the truth’, which implies that it can demand such evidence to the victims.71 The Appeals Chamber also found that the Rome Statute provides a sufficient legal basis allowing victims to challenge the admissibility or relevance of evidence.72 The contrary finding would forbid them to react to the introduction of evidence affecting their personal interests.73 In the meanwhile, the Appeals Chamber issued another judgment on victim participation. This time two decisions of Trial Chamber I were challenged by the Office of Public Council for the Defence (OPCD) and the prosecutor, respectively.74 These decisions build on the afore-mentioned differentiation made by the Pre-Trial Chambers between proceedings pertaining to a situation and proceedings pertaining to a case. According to Pre-Trial Chamber I, victims have a general right to take part in the former, as already mentioned.75 In its judgment of 19 December 2008, the Appeals Chamber ruled that they have no such general right, since an investigation by itself is not a proceeding in the sense of Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute.76 This generl right would otherwise ignore that the investigation is the sole domain of the prosecutor. This does not mean that they may not participate in proceedings pertaining to an investigation when their personal interests are affected.77 However, victims are precluded to participate at this stage outside specific proceedings, in contrast to was originally provided for by the Pre-Trial Chambers.

71

Appeals Chamber Judgment (n 2), para 98. ibid, para 101. According to the Appeals Chamber, both Art 69(4), which gives a Trial Chamber the power to rule on the admissibility or relevance of evidence, and Art 64(4), which allows it to do so on its own motion, read in the light of Art 68(3) of the Rome Statute (n 1), provide this legal basis. 73 Appeals Chamber Judgment (n 2), para 102. 74 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Decision on the Requests of the OPCD on the Production of Relevant Supporting Documentation Pursuant to reg 86(2)(e) of the Regulations of the Court and on the Disclosure of Exculpatory Materials by the Prosecutor, Pre-Trial Chamber I), ICC-01/04–417 (7 December 2007); Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Décision sur les demandes de participation à la procédure déposées dans le cadre de l’enquête en République démocratique du Congo par a/0004/06 à a/0009/06, a/0016/06 à a/0063/06, a/0071/06 à a/0080/06 et a/0105/06 à a/0110/06, a/0188/06, a/0128/06 à a/0162/06, a/0199/06, a/0203/06, a/0209/06, a/0214/06, a/0220/06 à a/0222/06, a/0224/06, a/0227/06 à a/0230/06, a/0234/06 à a/0236/06, a/0240/06, a/0225/06, a/0226/ 06, a/0231/06 à a/0233/06, a/0237/06 à a/0239/06 et a/0241/06 à a/0250/06, Pre-Trial Chamber I),ICC-01/04–423 (24 December 2007). 75 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Decision on the Applications for Participation in the Proceedings of VPRS 1, VPRS 2, VPRS 3, VPRS 4, VPRS 5 and VPRS, Pre-Trial Chamber I ), ICC-01/04–101 (17 January 2006) para 63. 76 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Judgment on victim participation in the investigation stage of the proceedings in the appeal of the OPCD against the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of 7 December 2007 and in the appeals of the OPCD and the Prosecutor against the decision, Appeals Chamber), ICC-01/04–556 (19 December 2008) para 45. As a result of this judgment, the second decision appealed by the Prosecutor and The Office of Public Council for the Defence has become ill-founded. 77 Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Judgment on victim participation in the investigation stage of the proceedings in the appeal of the OPCD against the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of 7 December 2007 and in the appeals of the OPCD and the Prosecutor against the decision, Appeals Chamber), ICC–01/04–556 (19 December 2008) para 56. 72

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Gauthier De Beco VICTIM PARTICIPATION AND THE RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED

Victim participation in proceedings before the ICC is a right under the Rome Statute. However, as stipulated by Article 68(3), it may not be ‘prejudicial to or inconsistent with the rights of the accused and a fair and impartial trial.’ Victim participation, however, might violate the rights of the accused in two ways. First, victim participation could affect his or her right to a fair trial. This right is protected by Article 67(1) of the Rome Statute, and builds on both Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The right to a fair trial implies equality of arms. This means that parties to the proceedings must be on equal footing, a critical issue for accusatorial systems.78 Were victims to become a second accuser, the equality of arms would no longer be upheld. Second, victim participation could affect the right of the accused to an expeditious trial. Article 67(1)(c) of the Rome Statute stipulates, as well as Article 14(3)(c) of the ICCPR and Article 6(1) of the ECHR, that the accused should ‘be tried without due delay’.79 This means that he or she has the right to know if he or she is guilty or not as soon as possible. Regarding the present case, timing is a problem, since Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is already suspected of having committed crimes listed in the Rome Statute as long ago as February 2006.80 Of course, international criminal trials may take longer, because they concern the most serious crimes and because they raise complex issues, but this is not a reason to prolong them further. Victim participation, however, de facto extends proceedings. The rights of the accused, however, must not reduce victim participation to nothing. It was the intention of the drafters of the Rome Statute not to treat victims as mere witnesses, as before the ICTY and the ICTR. Under the conditions provided for in Article 68(3), they should be able to express ‘their views and concerns’ during a trial. The problem is that victims will always somewhat disrupt proceedings through their participation. A justification for this is that the nature of the crimes allegedly committed by the accused justifies that time be spent listening to their grief. While the rights of the accused must be respected, restricting these rights to a certain extent to allow victims to participate in the proceedings, is necessary for implementing the Rome Statute. This does not mean that victim participation should be unrestricted. That would risk making trials cumbersome, by overburdening the defence and complicating the task of the prosecutor, and eventually endless. Victim participation, therefore, should be balanced with other interests at stake.

78 S Zappalà, ‘The Rights of the Accused’ in A Cassese, P Gaeta and J Jones (eds), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1319, 1329. 79 According to the Human Rights Committee, ‘[t]his guarantee relates not only to the time by which a trial should commence, but also the time by which it should end and judgement be rendered’. See HRC, General Comment no 13, Equality Before the Courts and the Right to a Fair and Public Hearing by an Independent Court Established by Law (Art 14) (Geneva, United Nations, HRI/GEN/1/Rev 6) 135, para 10. 80 As mentioned previously, the warrant of arrest was issued on 12 February 2006 and Thomas Lubaga Dyilo brought to the Court on 17 March 2006.

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The question, thus, is the extent to which victims may participate in proceedings. Regarding the pre-trial phase, the Pre-Trial Chambers developed the conditions for victim participation, which were partially revised by the Appeals Chamber. Trial Chamber I subsequently lowered these conditions with respect to the trial phase. One reason might be that the confirmation of charges against the accused by the Pre-Trial Chamber strengthens the participatory rights of victims. Both the prosecutor and the defence, however, were opposed. The Appeals Chamber eventually resolved the conflict, thereby settling victim participation in the trial proceedings. This is an important achievement, considering that victim participation is not sufficiently determined in the Rome Statute.

Books H Arendt, Eichmann à Jérusalem. Rapport sur la banalité du mal (Paris, Editions Gallimard, 1966). S Zappala, Human Rights in International Criminal Proceedings (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003).

Chapters in Edited Volumes D Donat-Cattin, ‘Article 68’, in O Triffterer (ed), Commentary on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Observers’ Notes, Article by Article (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1999) 873. J Jackson, ‘The Adversarial Trial and Trial by Judge Alone’, in M McConville and G Wilson (eds), The Handbook of the Criminal Justice Process (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 235. C Jorda, and J de Hemptinne, ‘The Status and Role of the Victim’, in A Cassese, P Gaeta and J Jones (eds), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1390. L Scomparain, ‘La victime du crime et la juridiction pénale internationale’, in M Delmas-Marty and A Cassese (eds), Crimes internationaux et juridictions internationales (Paris, PUF, 2002) 235. S Zappalà, ‘The Rights of the Accused’, in A Cassese, P Gaeta and J Jones (eds), The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—A Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002) 1319.

Journal Articles O Bekou, ‘Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo—Decision on the Confirmation of Charges’ (2008) 8 Human Rights Law Review 343. G de Beco, ‘La participation des victimes à la procédure devant la Cour pénale internationale’ (2007) 87 Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie 787.

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G de Beco, ‘The Confirmation of Charges before the International Criminal Court: Evaluation and First Application’ (2007) 7 International Criminal Law Review 469. M-B Dembour and E Haslam, ‘Silencing Hearings? Victim-Witnesses at War Crimes Trials’ (2004) 15 European Journal of International Law 151. A Guhr, ‘Victim Participation During the Pre-Trial Stage at the International Criminal Court’ (2008) 8 International Criminal Law Review 109. M Happold, ‘Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga, Decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, 29 January 2007’ (2007) 56 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 713. C Stahn, H Olasolo and K Gibson, ‘Participation of Victims in Pre-Trial Proceedings of the ICC’ (2006) 4 Journal of International Criminal Justice 219.

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Part 11

Final Round Table RÜDIGER WOLFRUM, MARK VILLIGER, JAN KLABBERS, PANU MINKKINEN, REIN MÜLLERSON, JUTTA BRUNNÉE AND VERA GOWLLAND-DEBBAS

RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: I know it has been a long day at least for some of you and for us it has been a long night. This is our last round or panel discussion, one of the three highlights and I am particularly grateful for our six panellists who volunteered to sit on the panel. May I briefly introduce the panellists in the way they are sitting from my side to the other: Here, directly to my right is Professor Dr Mark Villiger, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Professor at the University of Zurich. He has a very fascinating CV. He was born in South Africa, lived also in Mozambique and then returned to Switzerland and assumed an academic position and, at the same time, a position at the Commission of Human Rights and later at the Human Rights Court and is now, since 2006, a judge. Thank you very much, Mark, for joining us on rather short notice, I must confess, that it is very important for us that we get your views. The next in the line is Jan Klabbers, who has been with us during all the days of this conference. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Amsterdam—having first obtained master’s degrees in international law and political science. He is Professor of International Organizations Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research. He has held visiting professorships at Hofstra University, New York, and the Graduate Institute of International Studies and Development in Geneva. Panu Minkkinen is, as his name indicates to insiders, from Finland. He received his legal training in Finland, in Helsinki to be more precise. And he has now been at the University of Leicester since 2004. Before that, he worked at the Helsinki Colloquium for Advanced Studies, an interdisciplinary research institute, as a deputy director and fellow. He has also served a three-year term as director of the Finnish Institute in London, a charitable trust advancing the cultural and academic cooperation between Finland and the United Kingdom. He is involved in the editorial work of several international journals all reflecting his personal research interest: Law and Critique by Springer, Law, Culture and Humanities published by Sage and Redford, the leading journal for critical law. His research work is guided by dedication to interdisciplinary approaches; that’s why he sits in the middle.

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Rein Müllerson you already heard yesterday and I don’t have to introduce him again as I did so already yesterday. He is a member of the Institut de Droit International and actually, when he was elected—or selected—he was the second youngest of those elected to that prestigious body. Jutta Brunnée is also a person crossing many different borders. She started in Mainz actually, you won’t believe it, she was a student of mine, one of my first students I ever had. She did her first examination in Mainz and, from there, went to Dalhousie in Canada. She has a degree from Dalhousie and from the University of Dijon in France; she taught at the University of British Columbia and McGill and holds now the Metcalf Chair of Environmental Law, Faculty of Law at the very prestigious University of Toronto. Finally, Professor Vera Gowlland-Debbas is Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva where she has been a faculty member since 1994. She has also been an Honorary Professor at University College London (UCL), a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College at Oxford and a Visiting Professor at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Paris II and at the University of California, Berkeley. MARK VILLIGER: Thank you. Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. May I at the outset convey to you the best wishes of the Court and its President. The Court receives 50,000 applications a year and is well aware of the relations and the tensions between the uniform standards, which the European Convention of Human Rights aims to set out and the heterogeneity of human rights even within the European society, let alone of other cultures, societies and continents. So how does the Convention of Human Rights in its interpretation by the European Court of Human Rights reflect heterogeneity? How far does it reflect a universal approach to human rights? I would see four levels. The first level is the protection of the individual. The second level is the protection of smaller groups, of minorities. The third level is the protection of larger groups, of regions, of States within Europe, and the fourth level is the protection of universal values. Let me deal with each level separately. First, the protection of the individual. I think this is the best example of how the Convention protects heterogeneity. The Convention’s rights are directed at the individual and grant him or her individual rights, the right to say what the individual wants, to believe what the individual wants, the right to create a private life and have relationships with whoever the individual wants. In my view, this is heterogeneity par excellence. This is the complete fragmentation, a complete individualisation of rights which the convention guarantees to everybody. That is the first level. The second level: the European Convention of Human Rights protects groups of individuals, protects minorities. I would just briefly refer to one case: D.H. versus the Czech Republic, which illustrates this in a very clear way. The case was decided last year by the Court in Strasbourg. D.H. concerned Roma school children in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic had school systems like most other countries, ie schools for children with regular IQs and schools to help children with IQs who are below average. In most European countries, the school children, when they

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commence their schooling, start in the regular primary school and if it is established that their intellectual development and their IQ is for some reason or other below average, they are placed in special schools where they have adequate protection and training. However, it transpired that in the Czech Republic the situation was frequently the inverse. Roma school children were first sent to the special schools and if it then proved that their IQ was average then they were sent to the normal schools. The Court was confronted with this discrimination and concluded that there were insufficient reasons to explain such a discriminate treatment. I think this shows very nicely that the Convention and the Court are able to protect groups of people. However, the protection of minorities finds its limits in the Convention. The Convention does not guarantee cultural and social rights and of course guarantees non-discrimination, so the rights which apply to minorities must also apply to the majority. The third level is the protection of cultural and religious typicalities or idiosyncrasies of larger groups, regions, states in Europe. Not all states have the same views on religion, on culture. And within a state, not all regions have the same view. What may be considered shocking in one state or in one region of one state may not be so in another part. And here the Convention allows in paragraph 2 of its Articles 8, 9, 10 and 11 to adapt to the particularities of the different regions. This is the so-called ‘margin of appreciation’, which the Court and the Convention gives to the national authorities, to the national judges, to decide that in their particular part of the country, their particular views on culture, on religion are justified. There are different examples; I will take two classic ones: Müller v Switzerland, a famous artist who painted pictures reflecting sodomy and blasphemy, which were considered shocking in one part of Switzerland, in Fribourg, but not in other parts of Europe since his paintings were requested to be exhibited in other parts of Europe. When the Swiss authorities not only prohibited the exhibition, but also confiscated the paintings, the former Commission of Human Rights found that prohibiting the exhibition in one particular part of Switzerland, which regards these pictures as shocking fell within the margin of appreciation, but preventing these pictures from being shown elsewhere, clearly went beyond. The principle of subsidiarity is the basis for this margin of appreciation There are also other elements of subsidiarity, which reflect regional typicalities, such as the exhaustion of domestic remedies, ie the courts must themselves first examine whether there has been a breach of human rights before the case is brought before the Strasbourg Court. Fourth, the protection of universal values of human rights. The European Convention of Human Rights offers a regional protection of human rights. Does the Convention differ from other human rights instruments, whether universal or regional? Now, it is clear that in respect of certain rights, Europe offers a unique regional protection. I would take the right to life and the prohibition of the death penalty. The death penalty is prohibited in 46 states in Europe and the 47th state, Russia, de facto does not apply it. Now this is clearly a unique area in the world. You will not find such protection of this particular human right anywhere else. Apart from that, the European Convention of Human Rights is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in my view there are no big

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differences in the substantial guarantees of the European Convention of Human Rights and other international instruments. I would just read out to you one instrument, I would let you guess which one it is. ‘Every individual has the right to life, liberty and security of person. These rights shall be protected by law. The accused shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty at a lawful trial in which he has enjoyed the guarantees necessary for his defence.’ Can you guess which instrument it is? It’s the Arab Charter of Human Rights of 1994. So I do not see considerable differences between the European Convention and other instruments. Of course, certain nuances exist. Take the African Convention of Human Rights and its particular emphasis on what is a family and the tribe, or take the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which implements judgments differently than, for example, the European Court. But these are nuances, I think, in principle, the rights guaranteed in the Convention are basically the same in most other international instruments. And I believe the Convention fits well into the standards of universal protection of human rights. Thank you very much. JAN KLABBERS: Heterogeneity and homogeneity are, to some extent, matters of perspective and context. By way of illustration: the six people gathered at this roundtable are, from one perspective, fairly heterogeneous: we include a judge, a former deputy foreign minister, and a legal theorist, as well as academic international lawyers. We live in France, Switzerland, the UK, Canada and Finland, again suggesting some heterogeneity. Yet, we also have a few things in common, and the one thing that struck me while listening to us being introduced is that all six of us are migrants: we all live in a country different from the one in which we were born and raised. In other words, depending on perspective and context, it is probably always possible to discern ‘unity in diversity’, to quote the subtitle of a leading work on institutional law and vice versa. Let me start by outlining how I perceived my task. The idea behind this round table, as I understand it, is to provide an impression as to what this conference tells us about the discipline: a ‘state of the art’ concerning the art of international law, if you will, as it emerges through the panels, the discussions, the interventions and the talk around the coffee-table and in the corridors. In other words: I did not think it would be proper to discuss individual panels or papers in any detail. That said, I have heard some very good and interesting presentations. In particular perhaps Kerry Rittich’s paper on Government by Measurement has struck a chord, perhaps not surprising in a climate where academics are audited on a very regular basis—and all too often. Instead of doing a detailed survey, I wish to make two general observations (express some concerns perhaps), which may well be related. The first of these is that the discipline seems to have become resigned to fundamental divisions. Colloquially put: we are all enthusiastic dualists now, or so it seems. The second is that while quite a few of the presentations I attended reached high standards of technical sophistication, what we have gained on the level of specialisation seems to have come at the expense of our general concepts: in some of the panels there was quite a bit of confusion—however implicit at times—about some of the fundamental concepts of international law.

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It was not uncommon for international lawyers to address heterogeneity, in one way or another, throughout recent history. Authors would publish books or articles on international law in a multicultural world, culminating perhaps in Cassese’s International Law in a Divided World in 1986, when the Cold War still looked to be there to stay. What those works shared was a sense of worry. They typically shared an undertone of concern that political divisions or cultural divisions should not be allowed to undermine the fundamental unity of international law. International lawyers, so these works typically suggested, should continue to strive for accommodation between diverging opinions, if only in the thin form of ‘peaceful co-existence’, or if only, to once again refer to Schermers & Blokker, by suggesting that there be ‘unity in diversity’. This was, in part, only proper of course. As one of my intellectual heroes once put it (and I leave it to you to figure out whom this refers to), lawyers are ‘system-builders by vocation’: we tend to see bits and pieces and subsequently try to figure out how they hang together; try to impose some sense of order on what would otherwise appear as pure chaos. And the vocation of academics is, often enough, quite the same. So it should not come as a surprise that the discipline shared a common faith in universalism, shared ‘der Glaube an das universale Recht’. The undertone here in Heidelberg, however, has been different. The discipline seems to have resigned itself to the existence of fundamental divisions, not so much by celebrating difference (which is a respectable exercise by any standard), but by giving up the ambition of unity. The clearest indication is the buzz around the decision of the European Court of Justice, a few days ago, in the Kadi appeal. In its decision, the ECJ to a large extent closes EU law off from general international law: it builds a fence around EU law, in the name of human rights protection in Europe. That seems fine, at first sight, and thoroughly commendable, but what if the ayatollahs in Tehran would start to do the same thing and say that they reserve the right to scrutinise Security Council resolutions by their local standards? Or what if the apparatschiks in Moscow would announce such a position? Or the generals and judges in Washington? Come to think of it, the latter may already have happened. By the same token, a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights which still aims to accommodate Security Council action (the Behrami & Saramati decision) has met with vigorous criticism the last couple of days, to the effect that the Court should have let European human rights law prevail over the Security Council—never mind the consequences. To celebrate difference is one thing; to accept however that global justice is impossible and that we should thus all embrace local justice in pockets of Europe whenever we can, even at the expense of UN action, or any global concern for that matter, is quite something else. This would open up space for the powerful: if we abandon the universal aspirations of international law, then something else will take over—or someone else perhaps. The warm embrace of the Kadi decision also suggests, eventually, that we pick and choose the law that suits us: if general international law does not give us what we want, then we simply look elsewhere. In this case, we happen to prefer EU law, but tomorrow we might well prefer something else: maybe morality (in our

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particular conception of course, not some agreed upon conception with others), or maybe, as the Völkerrechtsleugner at reputable US institutions that Bruno Simma mentioned have realised all too well, we might simply replace law with power: the commodification of international law in full glory. Adding to the curiosity are the circumstances giving rise to the Kadi case. At bottom, the case concerns a wealthy businessman (wealthy enough to bring his case to the ECJ and hire seasoned QCs) and the protection of his right to property— which is rapidly establishing itself as the most prominent human right, therewith embodying what professor Sornarajah so aptly referred to as the International Law of Greed. To be sure, the case has relevance beyond the limits of the circumstances from which it arose, but still, it is surprising that the buzz here is about Kadi, rather than, say, the situation in Georgia, or Darfur, or Kosovo’s attempts to achieve independence. While this is justifiable because, as system-builders, we should discuss systemic issues (such as the relationship between UN law and EU law at issue in Kadi), nonetheless the prominence of Kadi at this conference is somewhat bemusing. My second observation (or concern) relates to the basic concepts of our discipline. It is not for me to advocate Begriffsjurisprudenz, but I did notice that there was quite a bit of confusion (in the sense of people using the same terms in widely diverging and sometimes irreconcilable manners) about those basic concepts. Thus, there seemed to be radically different views on what law-making means (whether, eg, judges applying a principle to a specific case are thereby by definition making law), on the differences between rules and principles (and between legal and other principles), on the distinction between sanctions and countermeasures and, indeed, about law itself. Sir Robert Jennings’ classic question, ‘What is international law and how do we tell it when we see it?’, has lost nothing of its urgency—quite the opposite. In itself this is no cause for surprise: a bit of debate on core concepts will keep any discipline fresh and lively. But what seems to be at issue here is not so much the regular methodological or theoretical disciplinary internecine struggles, but instead a manifestation of confusion that is the direct consequence of technical sophistication. The quest to broaden the base and legitimacy of international law by including all sorts of entities as law-makers may well have resulted in dilution of the concept of law; the quest to come up with ever more sophisticated compliance arrangements may well have come to overshadow basic distinctions between enforcement, sanctions, and countermeasures. Hence, some conceptual clarity may be useful for its own sake. In addition, however, some conceptual clarity may also help to strengthen the unity of international law. It could well be argued that clear ideas about what constitutes valid law, for instance in the form of a rule of recognition—whether formal or substantive, or a combination of the two—would have prevented the Security Council from creating its sanctions regimes, or at least prevented their seeming functional legitimacy. And if so, the Kadi case would possibly never have arisen, and if so, there would not be any justification for the ECJ to build a fence around EU law. In short: a decent idea as to where to draw the line between law and non-law might help preserve the discipline.

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Such a rule of recognition cannot be found by resorting to social science behaviouralism, as is sometimes thought, let alone by trying to apply the methods of the ‘dismal science’ of economics to the law, as a sizeable proportion of our colleagues in the American academy is inclined to think. Instead, it would seem to require a turn to legal theory or jurisprudence, and it is encouraging to see that the composition of this roundtable seems to indicate a modest move in that direction: Jutta Brunnée is working to integrate Fullerian insights into international law, something I also dabble with on occasion, and a third panelist, Panu Minkkinen, is a legal theorist by profession and inclination. This not only taps into a distinctly European tradition (although, admittedly, Fuller was an American), but may also, as suggested, help to strengthen the unity of international law. While unity is to some extent a systemic concern, and it may thus be tempting to ignore it in the face of seemingly more pressing substantive concerns (surely, one would not wish to condemn people to starvation in the name of the integrity of the legal system), nonetheless giving up on international law’s unity too quickly might be something we could come to regret. Instead of accepting rigorous division along dualist lines; instead of accepting mere islands of justice in an ocean of injustice, perhaps we should not give up on our vocation as system-builders just yet. PAUL MINKKINEN: At one of the coffee breaks a colleague and I were entertaining ourselves with the idea of how my task as a panellist resembled that of a restaurant critic. I wander anonymously from session to session taking notes without the speakers themselves knowing. And what is this plenary panel session if not the compilation of those notes into a Michelin Guide of European international law scholarship, even if our observations are unlikely to make fortunes for anyone or provoke suicides. My contribution to the Guide is made up of two comments of which one is more of a polemic assertion. These comments come from the intersection of constitutional theory, political philosophy and the theory of public international law. While I may be accused of some modest expertise in the two former, I willingly confess to being a total dilettante in relation to the last. But even if my take on international law may be tainted by the type of naïve over-enthusiasm that is typical of a dilettante, I may also be slightly less inhibited by the disciplinary and institutional constraints that others must cope with. The problem of being such an ‘outsider’ is the risk involved: the outside perspective may bring an added value, but it can also go terribly wrong. Moreover my comments are slightly ‘academic’ in the pejorative sense of the word, and I fear that Pufendorf, the ‘spiritual’ host of this conference, would probably have had no patience for comments such as these. My first comment is on heterogeneity, literally on multiple origins or foundations. The title of our conference International Law in a Heterogeneous World seems to suggest two assumptions that were often one way or another imbedded into many of the papers that I had the privilege of hearing. The first assumption seems to claim that heterogeneity is a fairly recent phenomenon, not even ‘modern’, but introduced into the world with the concurrent progression of globalisation. On this temporal or historical axis, the world was previously allegedly more homogenous either per se or at least until we knew better.

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The phenomenon of heterogeneity is then contrasted with a juridical matrix (ie international law) that is supposedly homogenous to the extent that, at least on a conceptual level, it stems from a single source or foundation. This type of homogeneity is often achieved through something resembling the famous Kantian als ob. The single source does not have to be the ‘inscrutable sovereign lawgiver’ of the Rechtslehre, for it can also be, for instance, an all-permeating principle like the rule of supremacy: even in the absence of verifiable facts we postulate ‘as if’ international law was supreme, for otherwise it would make no sense. The second interrelated assumption states that from our perspective of international law, heterogeneity is something that belongs to the external world. The framework within which the relationship between international law and the external world is then addressed is more often than not a semblance of national law even if we admit to the differences. The task of international law is accordingly to tame or to domesticate the turbulence of the external world or at least to temper its force. I would like to suggest that both of these assumptions can be problematised. Not only is heterogeneity concurrent with modernity, but modern international law is itself at least an accomplice—if not more—in introducing it into the world. Allow me to illustrate at the risk of being crude. The classical model of international law was able to model itself quite easily as a ‘macrocosmos’ of national law including a body of legal norms ruling over nations as legal subjects. Vattel’s attempt to formulate a ‘natural law applied to nations’ comes to mind as a good example here. This ‘law of nations’ gradually transmuted into a ‘law between nations’, into an inter-national law that cannot superimpose itself on sovereign states from a single source above but must somehow establish its force and authority from the plurality of the intermediate spaces between them. This is the type of inter-national law that Bentham alludes to in a footnote of Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation attributing it to eighteenth century French Chancellor Henri François d’Aguesseau. I encourage you to embrace the radicality of your discipline in its full breadth; to recognise the possibility that international law is, indeed, a radically other law without being reduced to pure politics; to acknowledge that perhaps we should be modelling our understanding of national law on this radically other international law and not vice versa. I do not pretend to know where this might take you, but otherwise you run the risk of being caught forever in the neo-Kantian loop of ‘as if’ fictions. My second comment is for the more progressive elements at ESIL. For I cannot truthfully say that everything I have heard could be characterised as ‘progressive’. A number of less ‘progressive’ presentations depicted themselves specifically as ‘provocative’. So let me just riposte that I have been ‘provoked’ and let’s leave it at that. But to my ‘progressive’ comrades I would say that I was a bit surprised at how far a sort of institutional Koskenniemi orthodoxy has progressed. Don’t get me wrong, I am a believer too even if I read Koskenniemi rather as a legal and political theorist than as an international lawyer. But if Koskenniemi’s work is understood as a set of theoretical insights and not as a single monolithic theory, I feel that its

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critical potential would intrinsically resist any such institutional orthodoxy. So perhaps it is time to grab ourselves—me included—by the collar and give a gentle shake. I would finally invite you to decide yourselves which of my two comments was the polemical assertion. REIN MÜLLERSON: Yesterday, I had your attention, I believe, for two and a half hours. Therefore, today I would like to be much shorter. When Rüdiger introduced today’s panelists he said that we don’t need a moderator and I thought that, in that respect, we are very much like international law. International law functions not only in a heterogeneous society, but also in a society that is called anarchical. We are also a bunch of anarchical lawyers without any moderator or boss over us. I attended several very interesting panels during these two days. This morning, one of the panels which drew my attention was the panel on international humanitarian law. Although this discipline is one of the oldest branches of international law, I was very glad that the panellists and the organisers had found some new topics and angles to explore whether existing international humanitarian law can be used, modified, reinterpreted in order to face new challenges. And the term used— civilianisation of international humanitarian law—first I thought it was a mistake, an error simply. I thought it should have been civilisation of international humanitarian law, but it was really civilianisation, because it is true that civilians are becoming more and more involved in armed conflicts. And the issues like international peacekeepers and international humanitarian law, whether peacekeepers are civilians or combatants or whether they enjoy a special, sui generis, status. The role of private contractors and their legal status in the light of international humanitarian law is also a topical issue. I found these presentations and discussions very illuminating and we had a very lively discussion concerning the problem of military necessity. I am not going into these details, but you’ll read on papers which will be published soon, hopefully. There we had fascinating discussions. Now, one more comment concerning another panel that took place yesterday. It was on law-making. There are two related, even overlapping questions: what is international law and what is the subject matter for the international lawyer. One of the issues discussed yesterday was how do we define law generally and international law specifically—whether we take a positivistic approach or a different, wider approach, to the definition of international law. This is one aspect. But the other, though related, aspect is how do we decide what belongs to the domain of studies of international law. And in my opinion, law, differently from other disciplines, cannot be studied at all, if it is separated from underlying realities which are governed by law, by international law, in our case. In some other areas of academic studies, there may be phenomena which, though related to other phenomena, are not so closely tied to them that they cannot be dealt with separately. In Marxian terms: law is a superstructure while economic, trade, political or whatever relations governed by international law form a basis of that superstructure. And it is impossible to study international law separated from these underlying realities. Therefore, though, it is also important of course how we define international law (say, as a set of rules or a process of authority and control), but

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studies of international law are a different matter. Here morality, politics, even religion and other phenomena often become parts of professional interest. Even interpretation and application of international law cannot do without raising issues belonging to these phenomena. Now, at the same panel, the name of Hersch Lauterpacht was mentioned several times. And then today when I attended the panel on international humanitarian law, I recalled that in one of his articles he had said that, while international law was at the vanishing end of law, international humanitarian law, he used probably the term ‘the law of armed conflict’, was at the vanishing end of international law. And I thought that there are different areas of international law. And during these days, we discussed issues belonging to this vanishing end of international law too. But as Professor Jan Klabbers today mentioned, we have to discuss issues like Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, the armed conflicts that have taken place there and how international law relates to these and other acute conflicts. However, when I read about, say, the recent war at the Caucasus, I discover that many politicians, diplomats, journalists write about this conflict very one-sidedly. You know, when I lived in the Soviet Union, I always listened to the BBC and other Western radio stations. Now, when I live in the West, I feel that I need to watch Russian TV, Chinese TV programmes and look for other non-Western sources of information. Al Jazeera of course is a must. So the point is that I have become brainwashed in the West too, though of course in a more subtle way. In order to avoid that, one always needs different perspectives. JUTTA BRUNNÉE: You might think that Jan Klabbers and I coordinated our remarks. But, in fact, we had absolutely no discussion about what we were going to say. That said, I did have some of the same impressions as Jan when listening to the proceedings over the last two days. I also thought that one might have a range of reactions to our discussions of the role of international law in a heterogeneous world. And one that might well vacillate between these reactions. At one end of the spectrum, there might be despair or even distaste. One might throw up one’s hands and say: ‘Well, we just can’t build a bridge over these troubled waters. They are just too deep, they are too wide.’ Or one might say: ‘International law is really only a sham. It’s a poorly disguised power game driven by instrumentalism, dressed up in a garb of false universalism.’ Or, at the other end of the spectrum, there might be a sense of satisfaction, leading one to say: ‘Well, look at what we have accomplished—notwithstanding all the challenges, there is a proliferation of treaties and tribunals, there is an ever denser web of organisations and legal interactions, there is a growing stock of commons norms. It’s not perfect but all things considered it’s not so bad.’ Or else, somewhere in the middle, one might take a pragmatic approach and say: ‘Well, why are we doing all of this navel gazing? What’s the point of the despair? Of the self-satisfaction? Let’s just get on with it, let’s fix what needs to be fixed. And let’s do that bit by bit. Never mind the bigger picture, let’s not worry about the forest but instead let’s focus on the closest tree.’ Well, I think that, as is often the case, the truth is somewhere in the middle. And probably there is good reason to vacillate between these impressions. I want to suggest that each of these reactions rings true to some extent because, ultimately,

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international law is a work in progress. Let me clarify what I mean by that. First of all, I am not saying that there is inevitable progress, and that the world’s problems will eventually be solved by international law if only we are patient enough. And I am not saying that we should not be demanding of international law and ourselves as international lawyers. Rather, my point is this: International law is quite literally work—a work in progress. It is not finished when a treaty is adopted, when a case is decided, when a treaty is implemented, or even when a given rule is actually enforced. International lawyers must constantly build and rebuild international law and must constantly work to uphold it. That is the hard work of international law. This image also shows international law’s potential to grow, to be reshaped, to be adjusted, and to be strengthened. At the same time, we must always bear in mind that if we do not do that work, international law can easily erode. The participants in this process are not just states, courts and international organisations. Many other international actors were mentioned in the discussions at this conference: NGOs, individuals, even the publics within states. One of the key purposes of international law, we might say, is precisely to manage the tension between heterogeneity and common purpose or aspirations for solidarity. That purpose would seem to be woven into international law’s genetic code. Even if you take the most traditional view of international law, heterogeneity, or aspects of it are protected by foundational concepts like sovereignty and non-intervention. International law works to uphold these concepts while at the same time attempting to shrink their scope by articulating common concerns like human rights, trade issues, environmental standards, the responsibility to protect, and so forth. Some of these latter concepts are actually doing several things at once. If you take human rights, for example, you could say that it expresses common concerns and tries to shrink heterogeneity; but it also tries to protect a new kind of heterogeneity by accommodating actors beyond the state—individual human beings—in their diversity. How it is that international law comes to manage these tensions, you might ask? What exactly is the ‘hard work’ that I am talking about? I think that, in a sense, international law is a language of human interaction. It allows different actors to interact and to develop common standards, but also to maintain their differences. And it does that in a distinctive way. One might say that distinctiveness flows from the fact that only certain actors can participate, that only particular sources account for the acceptable vocabulary, or that international law works through particular processes. All true—and yet, these features do not exhaustively capture the distinctiveness of international law. International law might be thought of as a language or practice that guides human interaction in a distinctive way. Its ability to do so depends on careful attention to a range of factors. First of all, international law must be at least broadly congruent with the basic practices and understandings in the international society that is today made up of states and a growing variety of other international actors. Legal norms must be grounded in genuinely shared understandings. The importance of this point cannot be over-stated. It does not portend an idealistic and overly optimistic image of international law. Rather, in the heterogeneous world that we are operating in, this point should serve as a reminder that the stock of such

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genuine shared understandings may actually be quite modest. And that is important to recognise, lest international law-making efforts over-reach. In addition, in making and applying international law, a sustained effort must be made to uphold basic requirements of legality. Thus, care must be taken to ensure that: law-making actually produces rules, and not just ad hoc decisions; that law is publicly accessible (promulgated); that legal rules are reasonably clear; that they are prospective, not retroactive; that they are compatible with one another and avoid contradiction; that they are reasonable and do not ask the impossible; and that they are relatively constant over time. Perhaps most importantly, official action must actually follow the existing rules. In international law that means that there must be at least a wide level of respect for and compliance with international law, along with widespread efforts to live up to the requirements of legality. Now, these criteria all sound like reasonable indicators of good law. What I want to suggest, building on Lon Fuller’s influential account of legality, is that they are actually central to what distinguishes law from other social norms. And when I say that I am not denying that negotiating treaties, developing customary law, and resorting to international courts or tribunals are important. What I am saying is that work on these elements is only part of the hard work that we need to do as international lawyers. The rest of that work entails what I just described—sustained efforts to develop treaties or custom, to apply international law, and to settle international disputes in a manner that upholds the requirements of legality. In conclusion, another way of putting these points is to say that the hard work consists in participating in the upholding of a practice of legality—in actually making the indicators that I have described come to life in the daily practice of international law. Why is this important in the context of our conference theme? Here just a few random thoughts. First of all, in the context of a horizontal system like international law, it is important that law is seen as legitimate and attracts its own adherence. I would posit that honouring the requirements of legality, and working to promote them, fosters legitimacy and adherence. Second, paying attention to the requirements of legality also helps us understand many of the failures of international law. This applies especially where substantive shared understandings are thin and where international law-making may need to be modest and start by building up or strengthening the practice of legality, rather than over-reaching through ambitious substantive norms. Third, and perhaps most importantly, this perspective helps us understand that the strength of international law in a heterogeneous world rests precisely in adherence to the requirements of legality. Because these requirements are not about shared substantive values, building up and maintaining legality is something that diverse actors can participate in while pursuing their own values and priorities. I would even go as far as saying that scrupulous attention to the requirements of legality that I have described makes it harder for powerful actors to simply hijack international law and promote the false universalism that some speakers at this conference have warned against. If we want to understand the possibilities and limitations of international law, both in respecting heterogeneity and in the pursuit of commonality and common goals, we must undertake the hard work of international law.

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VERA GOWLLAND-DEBBAS: I want to begin by quoting Anthony Giddens, the sociologist, who states: ‘As we stand at the end of the twentieth century I suggest to you that rather than a world of high organisation and predictability tightly within our control, it seems to be an erratic, dislocated world. If you like, a runaway world … of uncertain possible futures. … Rather than just talking about greater global integration, we should discuss basic shifts in the way our world is and what it is like. These shifts do not just include changes in the structures of the world, but changes in our own inner consciousness and identity.’ This has created a sense of dislocation in many international lawyers faced with our systemic crisis. All we have to do is look at the first ILC report by Gerhard Hafner on fragmentation. The title, which was subsequently changed, read ominously: ‘Risks Ensuing from Fragmentation of International Law’, which was seen as a threat to its stability and coherence, and therefore ultimately, to its legitimacy and effectiveness. Martti Koskenniemi termed this concern with ‘fragmentation’ ‘post-modern anxieties’. This got me thinking about the difference between fragmentation and heterogeneity which is the title of our conference. The dictionary meaning of fragmentation is disintegration, in fact decomposition of something which was once a unity. So fragmentation in our context could mean the disintegration of social norms and of social relationships. But we also talk about fragmentation of our hard discs, of files broken up and stored in many different locations on a magnetic disk which slows down system performance. Heterogeneity on the other hand, connotes diversity of elements and constituent parts and therefore a certain enrichment of the system. So I think I prefer the title heterogeneity to that of fragmentation. We have spent the last few days examining the extent to which the heterogeneity of the world—attributed normally to a globalisation process—has had an impact on and challenged international law. It is certain that the process of globalisation, but also its contradictions, its confusions—universalisation alongside fragmentation of international society, homogenisation through glocalisation (the export of a particular local system) alongside cultural and religious diversity—have been reflected to a certain extent in current developments in international law and in our different panels. While as a global project globalisation is not a novel process—one need only think of empire building or jurisprudential standpoints such as Bentham’s ‘citizen of the world’ or Kant’s cosmopolitanism—it is also generally agreed that its contemporary multidimensional manifestations which find some echo in current international law are unique: interconnections between hitherto sealed areas—political, economic, legal, social, cultural, scientific or technological—and the merging of the public and the private; its ideological base, a combination of capitalism and liberal democracy; an economic process which conceptually has led to an economic reading of law. Pierre-Marie Dupuy has called this globalising process in international law a non-volitional and uncontrollable process operating ‘not as a project but as an inevitability’. This has also been reflected in a legal system which has gone beyond an intergovernmental law of cooperation as promoted by Wolfgang Friedman. We’ve seen other paradoxes of the process of globalisation reflected in our panels. While mobility of goods and wealth across frontiers has been vaunted, mobility of

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persons outside certain continents has been prevented, hence the creation of a population of ‘sans-papiers’, ‘migrants in an irregular situation’ and so on. Interestingly, at a time when we are talking about the withering away of sovereignty, never has the state defended so vociferously that last bastion of state sovereignty, which is the right to determine who enters and who leaves. Globalising threats such as pandemics, global warming and international terrorism have determined the substantive agenda of international law through codification. There are different ways of envisaging this exchange between international legal system and social change, of demarcating that ‘thin red line’—as Bruno Simma puts it (inspired by the film of the same name)—between law and non-law. It is certain that the legal system does not transform every happening into law and that it preserves a certain kind of detachment from what Teubner calls the disturbance or noise emanating from society. While it is open to its international environment, it is also closed in that it reinterprets these developments according to a specifically legal matrix. So while certain aspects of globalisation have been encapsulated in the international legal system, including changes in our very perception of international law and its functions, the system has remained impervious to certain other changes and we can debate whether to call this reactionary or progressive, it’s a matter of personal choice. The dilemma is that if law adapts in real time to every change occurring outside its own boundaries it will lose credibility. If it refuses too much change, it risks widening the rift between law and society. And so we should conclude that international law should neither share the ‘rigidity of metal’ nor ‘the decomposition of smoke’, which is what totally open-ended systems would lead us to. What is interesting is that Hans Kelsen himself was aware of that paradox, of the dilemma created by his postulate of the complete separation of law from politics. He confesses that a pure theory of law may not seem appropriate at a time of growing divergence between social mores and legal institutions. Yet at the same time, Kelsen’s insistence on the strict autonomy of the law took place in reaction to the brutal transformations of the social order of his time, and in some way was an attempt to save the law from destruction through its instrumentalisation for political purposes. Now we of course define our own discipline. We’ve seen the choices operated by the participants in the conference. We can determine that normative threshold rigidly by sticking to our formal sources of law, or we can opt for soft law-making processes, by widening the scope of our discipline in order to encapsulate that grey area where law and non-law interrelate. But we must not forget that the legal system also regulates not only the formal validity of the rule in accordance with its own criteria, but also, as François Ost has pointed out, its substantive validity based on empirical, teleological and axiological criteria (notions of effectiveness or legitimacy, finalities, essential values), incorporated as underlying or implicit rules of the formal legal system. Doubtless, globalisation has resulted in both the heterogeneity of international law—the diversity and dissimilarity of actors, law-making processes, etc—as well as its fragmentation, which connotes disintegration of what was once unified.

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There have been challenges to the system of public international law from external sources. International law has now to contend with the phenomenon of legal pluralism, which is challenging its monopoly of relations across borders as well as its secondary rules, as other overlapping legal orders—local, national, transnational, regional, supra-state, legal networks and orders—have come to co-exist in the same international space. There are increasing claims to a third sphere of law— ‘global law beyond the state’ as Teubner has put it—a lex mercatoria, lex electronica, lex sportiva or other rules secreted by informal networks. As someone once said: as positivism took over, we lost God, nature and reason as the basis of validation of law-making across international borders. Are we now at risk of losing the state? But the challenge of fragmentation has also come from within, as we’ve seen throughout this conference. We’ve dwelt on the challenges to the unity of law-making processes, the secondary rules of international law, and the trend towards diversity in the methods of law-making. To what extent developments such as the increasing technicity and complexity of the social environment, cultural diversity, or the budding of an international public policy have had an impact on the formal techniques of multilateral treaty making, such as the forms that international agreements are taking, or the changing nature of state consent? Are we seeing a budding form of international legislation in the form of Security Council decisions on such issues as terrorism and arms control? How have the methods of formation of customary international law been affected, particularly in the light of the current tensions between unilateral claims based on hegemonic power and community interests? The panels have touched on the breakdown in the unity of the content of the rules themselves: their substantive diversity and hierarchisation due to a growing value-oriented international law. We have also seen challenges to procedural unity created by the proliferation of tribunals. Are these tribunals contributing to the harmonisation and hence unity of the legal system through resort to general international law, or, paradoxically, are they posing institutional challenges to that very unity by interpreting the law in accordance with their own self-contained mandates resulting in conflicting applications and interpretations of this same law? The same question has arisen from the proliferation of international institutions with their different mandates and ethos, including all kinds of hybrid entities: the COPs and MOPs of international environmental law, for example. We’ve also seen challenges to the unity of international law from the diversity of actors who strut and fret across the international stage. We’ve talked of NGOs, of transnational corporations; we could have also raised the subject of the role of the scientific community. But the international legal system has set down conditions for entry into that exclusive club in determining who are its subjects; so although we’ve seen great changes in the locus of decision-making with new and diverse social actors, all clamouring to make their voices heard, and who may indeed drive the substantive agenda, formally, the international legal system has a difficult time transcending the state-centric legacy of Westphalia. At the same time, the monolithic nature of the state itself has broken down: internally, as states increasingly lose control over traditional public functions, including coercion and control of borders; there are

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various ways in which states have tried to divest themselves of responsibility through privatisation: privatisation of prisons, refugee detention centres and immigration control, as well as privatisation of the waging of war. The panels also showed how externally the homogeneity of states has broken down along cultural or other divisions, states claiming differentiated obligations due to culture, or power or to the division of the world into the good, the bad and the ugly, in which it is professed to create new universal norms, nevertheless operable only between ‘democratic’, ‘peace-loving’ or ‘civilised’ states, thus creating a form of cultural relativism in reverse. Naturally, this hierarchisation and breakdown in the unity of the content of the law has led to the question of norm conflict. The ILC study group on fragmentation has proposed a cross-cutting set of rules to address resolution of such conflicts. But in my view, we should go beyond the mechanical application of such rules. If indeed we are devising what Lescano and Teubner have referred to as an ‘inter-systemic conflicts law’ derived not from collisions between the distinct nations of private international law, but from collisions between distinct global social sectors’, then perhaps we should think of substantive conflict rules, resort to a kind of international public policy. The latter concept is obviously very elusive even at the domestic level, but nevertheless, this conference has reflected in one way or another the emergence or at least consciousness of such an international public policy to counter the fragmentation of the universal nature of international law. This would lead us from collision rules to the need for substantive rules incorporated as underlying rules of the formal legal system. There are of course important collisions and tensions between fundamental interests and values, but these are gradually being ironed out in practice, and in the absence of a central instance, this is surprisingly, being done by the individual institutions which guard the various sectors of international law, through a variety of techniques. Think of the World Bank internalising the concept of sustainable development into its mandate and the adoption of environment-related operational policies. Inexorably we are moving towards greater permeability between different functional areas of international law: breakdown of barriers between domestic and international law, the latter increasingly playing the role of harmonising the former, between human rights and humanitarian law, the former humanising the latter, and so on. Just to give a very brief example: mechanically applying Article 103 as a conflict rule for the purpose of superseding human rights law is too reductionist; in fact what has been apparent has been the need for the mutual reinforcement of these fields in the achievement of community objectives. We should therefore think about ways of ensuring compatibility between what are apparently the conflicting public order norms of security and human rights, for human rights is now part and parcel of the primary goal of the United Nations, in other words part of the peace maintenance function itself. So I would advocate departing from a mechanical resolution of conflicts, including through application of the lex specialis rule itself as has become evident in the interplay between human rights and humanitarian law. I simply want to say in conclusion that never has the need for multilateralism, coordination and holistic approaches been more evident. International law is not

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just empirical; it is also a mental construct. One of the Bush administration’s advisors once said: ‘’We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ But surely, it depends on whose reality we wish to construct or inhabit. In the construction of this reality, international law can at least act, as Philip Allott has put it: as ‘the modest voice of common sense in the midst of rampant unreason.’ REIN MÜLLERSON: I wanted to add to the very interesting speeches of Professor Brunnée and Professor Gowlland that it is true that the world is becoming more and more complicated. However, I am not sure that the world is becoming more and more heterogeneous. I’ll try to put my point succinctly. I believe that (1) due to demographic pressures (the world population doubled from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion in 1999 and by 2007 it had exceeded 6.5 billion), the development of the means of communication and transportation, increasing migration flows that equal or even exceed previous migrations such as those of the Huns and other tribes from Asia to Europe or the Europeans to the New World or Australia, as well as some other developments, the world is becoming smaller and smaller; we—the humans— are more and more coming to live in the same ‘global village’ or rather in a global megapolis; (2) at the same time, we remain very different not only physically, ie, more or less superficially, but also culturally and in terms of societal development (wealth, freedoms, education etc); (3) the differences, which were gradually acquired by population groups going their own ways in the process of the long and slow journey from an African village to the entire planet, usually did not matter much because there were no, or there were only few, contacts between the tribes that were becoming more and more different from each other (because they were also becoming geographically more and more remote from each other); although sometimes such contacts ended in violent conflicts or even what today are defined as acts of genocide or crimes against humanity; however, in contradistinction to today’s moral and legal norms that was all then considered normal; (4) today, some of these differences, due to the smallness of the world, are starting to matter more and more, either by enriching us or vice versa becoming a source of serious tension and conflicts; and (5) the questions are: will or should our differences, or at least some of them, disappear when the whole world is becoming one ‘global village’; can these new ‘village people’ remain as different (some extremely rich, others terribly poor, some enjoying wide civil liberties, others suffering in virtual slavery, some tolerant to everything imaginable or even unimaginable, while on the other extreme some are ready to fanatically impose on everybody their kind of ‘absolute truth’) as they are today when they are not any more remote from each other; will or should the process of dissimilation or diversification be replaced by some kind of at least partial process of assimilation? RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: Any questions maybe, comments? I have discovered that you, the group, are not that homogeneous. If I start with Mark Villiger. He was much more arguing, we are less heterogeneous when we tend to believe quoting very

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concrete examples. The others were of a different opinion. Be it as it may, let’s now open it to the public and I call upon you whether you would like to contribute to this round of discussion, you may address one of the general topics or insert new ideas. Mr Giegerich. THOMAS GIEGERICH: Thank you very much, Thomas Giegerich from the Walther Schücking Institute for International Law in Kiel. I just wanted to introduce one term which I have not heard yet, perhaps I have overheard it, it is the term ‘the international community’. The question for me is this: Isn’t the distinctive role of international law in the heterogeneous world to establish some very fundamental principles which can transform that heterogeneous world into a, very basic certainly, international community? I am of course thinking of the late Hermann Mosler, who lived and worked in this city of Heidelberg and wrote a major piece on ‘The International Society as a Legal Community’. Thank you. JUTTA BRUNNÉE: I actually had the word ‘community’ in my notes, but I scratched it out because I thought it was too ambitious. Instead I settled for ‘international society’, ‘collective goals or concerns’, and the like. I think part of the problem is exactly what I tried to describe in my remarks: there is the temptation to reach for ‘community’; this is an impulse that many of us share. But there is also a need for realism as to what kind of ‘community’ is possible at the international level. This question goes right back to the point that I made about generating genuine shared understandings. It seems difficult to imagine any ‘community’ without such a foundation. So, I might be prepared to go as far as saying that there are pockets of ‘community’, say within individual treaty regimes, and that the communitybuilding aspiration is certainly an important one. Still, it seems to me that caution required—community cannot be assumed, it must be built and maintained. VERA GOWLLAND-DEBBAS: Yes, I avoided the term international community although it comes with what I was saying about an international public policy. It seems to me that there is an international community not in Tonnies’ sense of shared values but of a legal construct or fiction around which revolve certain norms which are vital for the protection of community values, interests, but also for its very survival. And certainly, though I may not have got my message across, alongside heterogeneity there are such universalising tendencies. And this appeared in fact, as I said, in almost all the panels that we heard at this conference. JUTTA BRUNNÉE: A quick addition. I suppose another spin on this issue is to say that what I have been trying to describe in my remarks on the need for a ‘practice of legality’ is what you might call a ‘community of practice’—the latter being a concept that Emanuel Adler has introduced into the study of international relations. In other words, we can think of international law as a distinctive practice. But, importantly, the term ‘community’ here is not used in the sense of necessarily deeply held and shared substantive values, but in the sense of a collective effort to engage in and uphold the kinds of practices that distinguish legality from other forms of international interaction. On that foundation, a more ambitious international ‘community’—or ‘communities’ may come to be built, but this is not an inevitable outcome.

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RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: Thank you. Back to the audience. Yes, Mr Onuma. YASUAKI ONUMA: Thank you very much. I would like to ask a few questions to the panellists on the subject of heterogeneity and/or diversity or diversification or unification of the globe. I have already said this in my panel, but there were very few attendants. So let me allow my own view on this issue. In my view, from the perspective of the globe as a whole, the globe used to be much more heterogeneous than it is today. We tend to assume that international society was homogeneous and became heterogeneous after decolonisation. On the surface, yes, it is, but in my view, heterogeneity before decolonisation was much deeper, much more important than it is today. Why we had the impression that the international society was homogeneous, well, that’s because heterogeneity was concealed under the sovereign states’ system, which was accompanied by the colonial system. And heterogeneity, for example during the seventeenth and nineteenth century, was such that there were plural regional systems in Europe and in part of the American continent. There was a Eurocentric system in Central Asia, South Asia and North Africa and in part of South-East Asia, there was an Islamocentric system. In East Asia, there was a Sinocentric tribute system. And heterogeneity in this period was far larger than the heterogeneity that we have today. And modernisation has brought us a kind of homogeneity in terms of industrialisation and modern civilisation. Now we have had that homogeneous world under the hegemony of Western European nations and the United States, we are entering the world where we are witnessing the resurgence of India and China as superpowers or candidates for superpowers. In terms of industrial civilisation and in terms of some globalised ideas of democracy and human rights and environment, it is likely that we are having a more and more homogeneous world in terms of ideology, in that sense in terms of democracy, human rights, global environment etc. But on the other hand, in terms of power allocation and based on this differentiated power allocation, the assertion possibly made by emerging new superpowers, there might be a different picture in terms of ideology or ideas or worldviews. That may be more heterogeneous than today. And what would be the role of international law in such a complex? On the one hand increasing homogeneous world, on the other hand increasing heterogeneous world? I would appreciate any comments on this point. REIN MÜLLERSON: Thank you. A very interesting comment. I would like to comment on it too. I believe that the world before great geographical discoveries, before colonisation was much more heterogeneous than it is now. But the international society or the international system was much more homogeneous, because it was Europe basically. And peoples in the Americas, in Africa, in many places of Asia, they were not included in the international society or the international system. Therefore, of course, when after these discoveries, after colonisation and then decolonisation, the world becomes smaller and these peoples, these nations were included in international society or international community, of course in that respect this community, this society became more heterogeneous. But it doesn’t mean that the world became more heterogeneous because those peoples,

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who were very different, were included. We didn’t know of them or knew of them very little, but this doesn’t mean that the world was not more heterogeneous than it is now. MATTHIAS HARTWIG: Thank you very much. Matthias Hartwig from Heidelberg. I would like to address a concern of Professor Jan Klabbers concerning the Kadi case. The question is: Who is betraying international law? Is it the European Court of Justice, which is refusing obedience to a resolution of the Security Council? Or is the Security Council, which is adopting a resolution which is not so much about property, but about the refusal of judicial protection, and this protection is one of the great achievements of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, which has formed part of all bills of law in the constitution of various countries of the world. And I think when we read and interpret the Charter of the United Nations, which is underlining the importance of human rights; this implies also the right of judicial protection. And if one of the main organs of the United Nations is refusing to pay due respect to this value I think, this is a much bigger danger for the unity of international law than the refusal of obedience. I think this form of self-destruction of international law will play a much more important role than some statements, which were made within the ESIL panels. Thank you. JAN KLABBERS: I guess I would not wish to take sides in a debate as to who really betrayed international law, whether it’s the Security Council or the European Court of Justice or maybe Advocate-General Maduro earlier on. What I tried to do is capture the mood here; that was sort of the interpretation that I gave to my task. And it struck me as curious that the mood went into the direction of saying that the European Court of Justice got it right. Now had the mood been the other way around, I would have probably given you the exact reverse of my presentation. Especially without actually reading the decision in full, I don’t want to get into a yes/no type of thing. I’m not sure that would be very productive. All I tried to do is to capture the mood. And I haven’t heard anything yet which convinces me that I captured it wrongly, for whatever that’s worth. VARRO VOOGLAID: Varro Vooglaid from the University of Helsinki. I was just wondering before this conference and talking with several of my colleagues that probably during this conference, we would be hearing a lot about the events in Georgia. Then again, I, of course, haven’t been able to participate in all panels, but the experience I’ve had thus far is that there has been almost no talk about those issues. The way I understand it, a small European nation, well European or not, we might disagree about that, but it isn’t really relevant, has been brutalised through the violation of most basic principles and rules of international law. And it in a way seems . . . well, unexpected to say the least that we don’t talk about those issues at all. Of course, there have been many interesting topics, many different topics. And I don’t really know how this question should be addressed. But nevertheless, . . . Now perhaps my question to the panelists is: Could it be the case that we, meaning the international lawyers, have come to appreciate heterogeneity in some of its

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forms too greatly, and that has led us to a sort of political correctness which doesn’t really allow us any more to take judgmental positions on things which perhaps should be judged? Thank you. JAN KLABBERS: I might not be the most appropriate person to answer in the sense that Mr Vooglaid and I are close colleagues. I do think he has a point, but I don’t think it’s a very relevant point in this particular case. I think the timing of the issue has far more to do with it. The timing happened to be that the Kadi case was decided two or three days ago. So that becomes the buzz. Had Georgia been invaded two or three days ago and Kadi been decided a month ago, I’m sure it would have been the other way around. That’s not much of a satisfactory answer. It might even be a very unsatisfactory answer and a disturbing answer, but I would imagine that timing has quite a bit to do with it. The flavour of the day, whether it’s a matter of political correctness not to discuss such things . . . I would have my doubts and would be frankly worried if that were the case. MARK VILLIGER: I just wish to add that there are two interstate cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights, both filed by Georgia against Russia. So the problems are clearly on the table, will be on the table. The first case concerns incidents in the second semester of 2006 regarding Georgian nationals in Russia. And the second interstate application concerns the events in August 2008. They will be on the table, they will be discussed. There will be judgments on these issues. REIN MÜLLERSON: My point is that it may be very difficult to discuss this hot political issue academically at our conference. And I recall the words of the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, who when he was asked what he thought about the French revolution said that he thought it was too early to make any conclusions about it. In the case of the war that has taken place a couple of weeks ago and when some people are accusing Russia of aggression against Georgia while others speak of Georgian aggression against South Ossetia, it takes some time to see what has happened and what’s going on. And therefore, in such an academic gathering, I don’t think we would spend our time usefully discussing today these controversial political issues. Although in my presentation earlier I said that international lawyers have to pay more attention to such sensitive areas of international law, I think that the fog of disinformation is still too thick to have an academic discussion on this very topic. Thank you. RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: Yes, please. LAURI MÄLKSOO: Lauri Mälksoo from the University of Tartu in Estonia. I would like to take advantage of the fact that Judge Villiger is here with us today and would like to get more out of you in terms of your thoughts on: how does the European Court of Human Rights manage the heterogeneity of the member states of the Council of Europe? My sense is that the European Court of Human Rights today is an actually very different animal from what it used to be—let’s say 15 or 20 years ago. And . . . do you hear me? MARK VILLIGER: How many years?

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LAURI MÄLKSOO: Well, let’s say before Berlin Wall came down. But it’s probably even different from 10 years ago. Let’s not get into detail of this. So, and looking at some cases, there is a recent case that I’m particularly thinking of, that’s Kononov v Latvia. One can see, reading the judgment, how those different cultures, different identities and memories, how they clash. So what is your general take? Some Western Europeans might probably sometimes even think: Did we need to take all those countries to the Council of Europe with all of their difficult historical issues? RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: Mark, I believe that goes to you. MARK VILLIGER: You mention a lot of different elements. I am just trying to see where to start. How does the Court cope with heterogeneity? As I already pointed out. We have the instruments of subsidiarity and the margin of appreciation that is one element. And we accept and we indeed wish to have heterogeneity to a certain extent. There cannot be heterogeneity as regards torture, certainly not, but there is room for heterogeneity as regards the freedoms of expression and belief etc. Of course, the Court is in a way based on heterogeneity. The judges come from 47 different states and bring in the different views in Europe. So the heterogeneity in Europe is certainly present in the decisions and the judgments of the European Court. Now you mentioned then that the Court has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall, if I understood your question correctly. Well, we have certainly doubled the number of member states. And these are states mainly from Central and Eastern Europe. The Court is not the same any more as it was in 1970 or in 1980. It is not any more a Western European Court, it is a truly European, a pan-European Court. And necessarily, the views and the standards have changed. Personally, I think every European society has the European Court that it deserves. And we have the Court now, which the European society deserves as it stands today, and I have not the slightest doubt that in 10 or 20 years, it will again be a different Court, though it will always be the European Court of Human Rights! Finally, you mentioned Kononov v Latvia. I should perhaps point out to those who don’t know the case: It was decided by one of the five Sections of the Courts, it concerns the criminal conviction and sentencing of a person who, in the Second World War, in 1944, killed villagers in a Latvian village, who had been collaborating with the Nazis. Sixty years later, the Latvian courts convicted Mr Kononov of these crimes. The question arose whether there was a legal basis for this conviction and, in particular, whether issues such as retroactive application of the law were applied contrary to the principles of the Convention. Now, this case was handed down by seven judges in one Section. There is a majority of four judges, three are in the minority. The three judges in the minority have prepared a dissenting opinion; one of the judges in the minority has prepared a second dissenting opinion. Among the majority, one of the judges filed a separate opinion. So as decisions and as judgments of courts sometimes are, they don’t reflect complete consensus, they reflect different views. And precisely in view of such situations the Convention enables one of the parties to bring the case (under certain further conditions) from the Section to the Grand Chamber where 17 judges will decide. Whether one of the parties will refer this case to the Grand Chamber remains to be seen.

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ARMIN VON BOGDANDY: Since our session is coming to an end, I want to address the overall topic and ask you about the heterogeneity in our society, the European Society of International Law, which is in some way a heterogeneous world in itself. We have now met for the third time. The impression from the first meeting was a surprise how heterogeneous we were. As Elaine rightly said this morning: We are coming from national traditions, and those national traditions are very diverse. It was not always easy to understand and to discuss. So my question to you: To the extent that you have attended the various panels and fora: What is your idea? Is there still so much heterogeneity that leads to incomprehension? To what extent are we succeeding in having a meaningful exchange with common methods and common understandings? To what extent are we succeeding in engaging in meaningful discussions, even if interests and methods are diverse? PANU MINKKINEN: At face value, there is a lot of homogeneity here. The suits are blue and the shirts are white. So it may not be heterogeneous as you think. But I don’t think a unitary homogeneity is even something that you should hope for. There should be divisions because, as far as an intellectual enterprise is concerned, I don’t think absolute homogeneity is either possible or desirable. I see a lot of, shall we say clusters? Clear clusters? People thinking in similar ways, people sharing similar interests, and so forth. And there are enough issues that touch upon each other to see that this is a society. And anyway, the fact that the conference has been able to attract as many people as it has, here to beautiful Heidelberg; I think that’s already an indication of the success of the enterprise. At least, as far as I am concerned. RÜDIGER WOLFRUM: Thank you. I believe that brings us to the end of this afternoon, Armin just reminded us, we are approaching. And the buses are standing in front of the building, hopefully. I wish us all two things: an interesting or happy evening and as little rain as possible. Thank you very much, the audience, and, particularly, the panel. It was a particular difficult task for them at the end of a long conference to inject new ideas or to sum up or do both at the same time. But I think this was an experience, which I will repeat; for at least it was extremely encouraging as well as a better interaction between the audience and a group than we normally would have with a final speaker where everybody would be a little bit refraining from engaging in a discussion. Thank you very much again and let’s slowly go down to enter the buses. I have said what I wanted to say. Thank you.

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