Developments in customary international law: theory and the practice of the International Court of Justice and the international ad hoc criminal tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia

408 Pages·2010·1.38 MB·English

by  Birgit Schlütter

Developments in Customary International Law
Developments
in International Law
VOLUME 62
Developments in Customary
International Law
Theory and the Practice of the International Court
of Justice and the International ad hoc
Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia
By
Birgit Schlütter
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schlutter, Birgit.
Developments in customary international law : theory and the practice of the
International Court of Justice and the international ad hoc criminal tribunals for
Rwanda and Yugoslavia / by Birgit Schlutter.
p. cm. — (Developments in international law ; v. 62)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-90-04-17772-7 (hardback)
1. Customary law, International. 2. International criminal courts.
I. Title.
KZ1277.S35 2010
341—dc22
2010010539
ISSN 0924-5332
ISBN 978 90 04 17772 7
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
For my parents

Contents
List of Abbreviations ................................................................................ xvii
List of Cases and Documents ................................................................. xxi
Foreword .................................................................................................... xxxiii
Preface ........................................................................................................ xxxv
Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xxxvii
Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
Chapter One Customary International Law, Theoretical
Conceptions and Evidence of its Formation ................................... 9
I. Introduction ................................................................................... 9
II. Customary international law ...................................................... 9
A. Custom as a source of international law ............................ 9
1. Custom ................................................................................ 10
2. Sources of international law ............................................ 11
3. Formal and material sources of international law and
further distinctions ............................................................ 11
B. Assessment ............................................................................... 13
III. Introduction to the theory of customary international law ... 13
IV. Scope of the theoretical assessment ........................................... 14
V. Theory of the formation of customary international law ...... 15
A. Positivism ................................................................................. 16
1. Voluntarist conceptions ................................................... 18
2. Other opinio juris-based approaches to customary
international law ................................................................ 24
3. Ago’s theory of spontaneous law .................................... 25
4. Practice-based approaches ............................................... 26
5. Strict normativism: Hans Kelsen’s pure theory of
international law and neo-Kelsenian approaches ........ 27
6. Assessment .......................................................................... 29
7. Later approaches: Haggenmacher, Mendelson and
others ................................................................................... 29
8. Commentary on the late positivist approaches ............ 32
9. Other practice-based conceptions ..................................... 33
viii Contents
B. Two-element approaches ......................................................... 33
C. Two-element conceptions of the formation of customary
international criminal law and customary international
human rights law ................................................................. 36
1. Different sorts of customary international law ............... 37
2. The deductive approach to custom-formation ................ 39
3. The ‘core rights’ approach .................................................. 42
4. Two-element approaches to customary international
human rights and humanitarian law: assessment .......... 44
D. Naturalist conceptions .............................................................. 46
1. Moral theoretical approaches to the formation of
customary international law ............................................... 47
2. Assessment ............................................................................ 48
E. Realist Conceptions ................................................................... 49
1. New Haven and similar approaches ................................. 50
2. The customary international law game ............................ 52
3. Assessment of the New Haven and the game theory
concepts of custom .............................................................. 54
F. New Approaches to International Law .................................. 55
1. The Sliding-Scale Approach ............................................... 55
2. Ascending and descending conceptions of international
criminal law ........................................................................... 57
3. Evaluation of the sliding-scale approach and
subsequent up and down arguments ................................ 58
4. Institutionalised law-making: Charney’s ‘universal
international law’ and subsequent ideas .......................... 59
5. Assessment of institutionalised law-making approaches 60
6. Critical Legal Studies perceptions of the formation of
customary norms .................................................................. 61
7. Assessment of the CLS conception of customary
international law ................................................................... 64
G. Theory of customary international law:
tentative conclusions ................................................................. 65
H. Evidence ...................................................................................... 67
Chapter Two Customary International Law and its Relationship
with other Sources and Methods of Law-Identification ................... 71
I. Introduction ....................................................................................... 71
II. The relationship of customary international law with other
sources of international law: general principles of international
law and customary international law ............................................ 71
Contents ix
III. General principles of law in accordance with Article 38 (c)
and other general principles .......................................................... 73
A. Preliminary considerations ...................................................... 73
B. General principles of national or international origin ........ 74
1. General principles of national origin ................................ 75
2. General principles of a genuine international origin ..... 75
3. A third category? .................................................................. 76
4. General principles of international law originating
from any source of international law ................................ 77
5. Preliminary Conclusion ....................................................... 79
C. General principles of law as a source of international
human rights and international criminal law ....................... 80
1. Simma’s and Alston’s approach to international human
rights law ................................................................................ 81
2. Kolb, Henkin and Yasuaki .................................................. 81
3. Simma’s and Paulus’ approach to international
criminal law ........................................................................... 82
4. Discussion of a general principles approach to
international human rights and international
criminal law ........................................................................... 83
D. Concluding remarks on the relationship of custom and
the general principles of law .................................................... 85
IV. Interpretative methods and their relationship with the finding
of customary international law ..................................................... 86
A. Interpretation ............................................................................. 88
1. The notion of interpretation ............................................... 88
2. Underlying concepts ............................................................ 90
B. Particular methods: Articles 31–33 VCT ............................... 92
1. Article 31 (1) and (2) VCT ................................................. 92
2. Article 31 (3) (c) VCT ......................................................... 93
3. Article 31 (3) (c) and the Oil Platforms Case .................. 94
4. Further interpretative rules of the VCT ........................... 95
5. Subsidiary means of interpretation ................................... 96
C. Interpretation of treaties by the ICJ, the ICTY and the
ICTR ............................................................................................. 97
1. Grammatical interpretation, supporting elements and
systemic interpretation ........................................................ 98
2. Object and purpose, effectiveness and other
circumstances ........................................................................ 99
3. Customary international law .............................................. 101
4. Assessment ............................................................................. 101