Normative Plurality in International Law: A Theory of the Determination of Applicable Rules PDF
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Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice 57 Carlos Iván Fuentes Normative Plurality in International Law A Theory of the Determination of Applicable Rules Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice Volume 57 Series editors Mortimer Sellers, University of Baltimore James Maxeiner, University of Baltimore Board of Editors Myroslava Antonovych, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Nadia de Araújo, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro Jasna Bakšic-Muftic, University of Sarajevo David L. Carey Miller, University of Aberdeen Loussia P. Musse Félix, University of Brasilia Emanuel Gross, University of Haifa James E. Hickey Jr., Hofstra University Jan Klabbers, University of Helsinki Cláudia Lima Marques, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Aniceto Masferrer, University of Valencia Eric Millard, West Paris University Gabriël A. Moens, Curtin University Raul C. Pangalangan, University of the Philippines Ricardo Leite Pinto, Lusíada University of Lisbon Mizanur Rahman, University of Dhaka Keita Sato, Chuo University Poonam Saxena, University of Delhi Gerry Simpson, London School of Economics Eduard Somers, University of Ghent Xinqiang Sun, Shandong University Tadeusz Tomaszewski, Warsaw University Jaap de Zwaan, Erasmus University Rotterdam More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7888 á Carlos Iv n Fuentes Normative Plurality in International Law A Theory of the Determination of Applicable Rules 123 Carlos IvánFuentes Officeof LegalAffairs, United Nations NewYork,NY USA Theviewsexpressedhereinarethoseoftheauthoranddonotnecessarilyreflecttheviews of the UnitedNations. ISSN 1534-6781 ISSN 2214-9902 (electronic) Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives onLawandJustice ISBN978-3-319-43927-3 ISBN978-3-319-43929-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43929-7 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016947755 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor foranyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerland A un tal Lucas Foreword This book by Carlos Iván Fuentes—like so many scholarly studies—is the chronicle of a journey. It invites us to accompany the author from the initial intuition that motivated the decision to inquire further, through the tribulations he faced in his path, to the final destination in the form of a theory that provides a suitableexplanationoftheinitial concerns.VerymuchlikeDante,whomidwayin hislife’sjourneyfoundthatthepathwhichledarightwaslost,CarlosIvánFuentes recounts in this book how he came to the realization that the classical theory of sources did not provide him with a suitable framework to understand how the international judge determines the rules applicable to the settlement of a dispute. And very much like Dante, he tells us the story of how, in the vast emptiness in whichhefoundhimself,AlfRossandhisScandinavianformoflegalrealismwould become the Virgil who would guide his way towards a theory of normative plurality. As the starting point of this journey, Carlos Iván Fuentes chooses two con- trastingdecisionsoftheInternationalCourtofJustice:one(theadvisoryopinionon the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons) in which a comprehensive survey of relevant normative instruments still led the Court to the conclusion that ultimatelytherewasnointernationallawapplicabletothematteratstake;theother (thejudgmentonthemeritsoftheAhmadouSadioDiallocase)inwhichtheCourt didnothesitatetoseeksystemicsupportforitsinterpretationofthelawapplicable tothecaseinthejurisprudenceofvarioushumanrightsbodiesandregionalcourts. Astrictrelianceonthetraditionaltheoryofsourcesofinternationallawastaughtin our law schools—he finds—does not suffice to explain the divergence in the approachesthattheCourtadoptedineachofthesecases.Andhisintuition,inspired by the jurisprudence of the international law of human rights, is that our attention should be shifted from the sources themselves to the decision-maker. Different normativeinstruments—hetellsus—coexistinanunorderedspace,sothatmeaning can be produced by the free interaction of those instruments around a given problem. Decision-makers, therefore, cannot base their activity on a doctrine that limits the possible sources of law, pre-establishing their relative weight and vii viii Foreword relationship to each other. Instead (and this is where Alf Ross comes for the first time to the rescue), our focus should be on the not objectified factors that pre- condition the decision-makers’ understanding of what constitutes international law in a given case. Thus Carlos Iván Fuentes invites us to engage in the journey with a decon- structionofthetheoryofsourcesfromahistoricalperspective.InhisfirstChapter, he shows how, from the emergence of international law in the 1600s until the present,scholarshavealwayshadrecoursetoanirreduciblenon-objectifiedelement tocomplementtheirattemptstoclassifytherulesofinternationallaw.Fromdivine or natural law in the classics of our discipline to the general principles of law, principlesofjustice,juscogens orsoftlawinmorerecentconstructionsofthelaw of nations, there has always been a variable in the equation, an external element which did not fit an objective and ordered set of sources. He then turns, in his second Chapter, to Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, which is nowadays often elevated as a paradigm of the theory of sources in international law. He shows that this Article only provides a general frame of reference, which fails to encompass the normative phenomenon as a whole. Through the detailed review of how the International CourtofJusticeidentifiedtheapplicablelawinthreedecisions,CarlosIvánFuentes shows that the international judge has had resort to a “jurisprudence of incorpo- ration” to frame recent developments of international law into the rigid parameters of the list of sources found in Article 38. This is when the initial intuition returns with the idea that the jurisprudence of humanrightsbodiesmayprovideanewparadigmtounderstandthephenomenonof normativity in international law. In his third chapter, Carlos Iván Fuentes shows howthesehumanrights’bodieshaveexercisedlargerfreedomintheirrecoursetoa vast array of instruments (resolutions, general comments, recommendations, guidelines, etc.) to complement the meaning of international human rights con- ventions,whichallowedthemtodevelopasetofinterpretativetoolsthatwasbetter suited to advancing the protection of human rights in the face of changing cir- cumstances of the international community. As such, they encourage us to liberate ourselves from the strictures of the classical theory of sources to appreciate the determination of the applicable rules of law in its whole dimension. The theory of normative plurality that ensues is based on Alf Ross’s idea that judicial decisions are at least partially determined by a set offree, not formulated, not objectified factors spontaneously arising in the judge as the mouthpiece of the community.InhisfinalChapter,CarlosIvánFuentesadjuststhetheorytotakeinto account certain recent phenomena of international law: from the original focus on the judicial function, he extends the idea to a broader range of institutions per- forming advisory or quasi-judicial functions. Then, he further develops the theory, identifying three guiding notions that assist decision-makers in determining the norms that are relevant in a given case, namely: (1) specificity, i.e. the particular tradition that guides decision-makers in determining what constitutes normative information; (2) completeness, or the idea that every international situation is capable of being determined as a matter of law; and (3) purpose, that is the Foreword ix decision-makers’understandingoftheirroleintheinternationalcommunity.These notions allow him to shed light on the socio-psychological process by which decision-makers arrive to their decision, thus bringing out the creative dimension of the judicial or quasi-judicial function in the determination of the rules of law. Thisbriefpersonallogofideasgatheredinmyownjourneythroughthisvolume doesnotrenderjusticetothepagesthatfollow.Thetrueappealofreadingthisbook liesinlettingtheauthorleadourwaythroughthetwistsandturnsofthetheoryand practiceofinternationallaw.Whileourpathisgenerallyguidedbythecompassof normativeplurality,thisstudyisactuallyanexplorationoftheinternationaljudicial function as a whole. Carlos Iván Fuentes has a unique talent in describing with simplicity and rich background knowledge the case-law of judicial bodies as diverseastheInternationalCourtofJustice,theInternationalTribunalfortheLaw oftheSea,theInter-AmericanandEuropeanCourtsofHumanRightsortheUnited Nations Administrative Tribunal. He displays the same ease in dissecting the classics of our discipline (Grotius, Zouche) and the latest theories of realism or critical legal studies, complemented with references to other social sciences. He makes ample use ofwhat Iwould call “artisanal footnotes”, i.e.references that are not automatically generated by legal research software, but rather reveal that what madeittothefinaltextistheresultofmonthsofpurposefulinquiryandinquisitive flânerie inlibraries and texts. Most ofall, his realist theory of the determination of applicable rules is built on a solid command of the traditional techniques of internationalscholarship,suchasthestudyofthepreparatoryworksofalegaltext (asshowninhisexaminationofArticle38oftheStatuteoftheInternationalCourt ofJustice)ortheexegesisofthecase-law(asdemonstratedinhisdescriptionofthe jurisprudence of incorporation in the second Chapter or of human rights decisions inhisthirdChapter).Atatimewhentoomanyauthorsinthelegalliteraturewantto deconstructwithoutunderstandinghowthingsarebuiltortrytobePicassoswithout studying Michelangelo, it is refreshing to read an author who masters both the traditional and modern expressions of our legal language. Butwhatshouldwe,asinternationallawyers,takefromnormativeplurality?For the spectators of the judicial (or advisory or quasi-judicial) function, this theory is an invitation to change our perspective in the reading of the case-law of interna- tional institutions, freeing ourselves from the strictures of the classical theory of sourcestotry toassessthe fullcreativepowerthat decision-makersexerciseinthe determination of the law applicable to a given case. The focus on the notions of specificity, completeness and purpose, in other words, provides us with an opportunityforadifferentreadingofwell-knownprecedentsofinternationallawto revealthesocio-psychologicalfactorsthatinfluencedthem.Forthosewhoareinthe positionofdecision-makers(judges,experts,etc.)orarecalledtoparticipateinthe formationofthosedecisions(counselofparties,secretariatofficials,etc.),thetheory is a call to understand our own subjectivity. In his general course at The Hague Academy,GeorgesAbi-Saab(whowasmyownVirgilwhenIengagedinthissame exercise of crafting a thesis) claims, citing Gunnar Myrdal, that in legal studies, x Foreword asinothersocialsciences,thehighestdegreeofobjectivitythatscholarsmayreach is the awareness of their own subjectivities. The theory of normative plurality developed by Carlos Iván Fuentes in this book is a key contribution to this quest. March 2016 Santiago Villalpando1 1The views expressed in the present contribution are solely those of the author and do not necessarilyreflectthoseoftheUnitedNations.
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