Just how International and European Community Law is being integrated into domestic legal systems is as yet not too well known. To gain a clear overview of this grey area requires more than knowing about the various constitutional rules. What is also needed is a study of little-known administrative practices and the attitudes of the national courts, where case-law is often as complex as it is diverse. When all these elements are taken into account, the general picture that emerges is a much more subtle one, transcending the classical positions based on the theories of monism and dualism. To grasp this reality and go beyond preconceived ideas, it seemed indispensable to make a thorough analysis of national practices. To this end, the International Law Centre of the University of Paris XIII (Cedin Paris XIII) took the initiative, in 1990, of setting up a network of European international lawyers to work on the theme International norms and legal barriers'. This book presents the outcome of the network's programme. The research was organized on the basis of a single questionnaire which provided the outline of a common workplan, to which each of the contributors has adhered. Detailed comparisons of national practices can now be made, relating in particular to international treaties, acts of international organisations and of the European Communities, and to unwritten international law. This is the first time that such a comprehensive and detailed survey has been made of all thirteen countries. Reading the national reports one after the other provides complete information on domestic practices; reading them crosswise gives a direct comparison between the different countries on specificissues.

This Liber Amicorum in honour of Professor Christian Dominicé covers most of the topical problems of contemporary international law, in particular those related to the principles and fundamentals of international law, human rights and humanitarian law, institutional law and criminal international law. Ce Liber Amicorum en l’honneur du Professeur Christian Dominicé couvre certains des sujets les plus actuels du droit international, en particulier ceux ayant trait aux principes et fondamentaux du droit international, aux droits de l’homme et au droit humanitaire ou encore au droit institutionnel et pénal international.

Treaty-making constitutes the very basis of the international legal order and influences international relations. It channels the expression by States of consent to be bound and defines the commitments they enter into. However, the national procedures by which States express their consent to be bound vary considerably, depending on constitutional, legal, and political conditions which reflect the history of each country. The report, drawn up under the aegis of the Committee of Legal Advisers on Public International Law (CAHDI) of the Council of Europe, encompasses the practice of thirty-nine member States of this Organisation and a number of observer States. It provides comprehensive and up-to-date information about these States' means of expressing consent to be bound by a treaty. Furthermore, the analysis commissioned by the CAHDI from the British Institute of International and Comparative Law casts fresh light on this matter by inferring interesting considerations from the diversity of national procedures. With this report, the Council of Europe wishes to pursue its practical contribution to the development of international law, facilitating the mutual understanding of its member States and, thus, helping to build a stable and peaceful international community. La conclusion des traités constitue la base même de l'ordre juridique international et exerce une influence sur les relations internationales. Elle véhicule l'expression du consentement des Etats à être liés et définit les engagements qu'ils souscrivent. Cependant, les procédures nationales par lesquelles les Etats expriment leur consentement à être liés varient considérablement en fonction de facteurs constitutionnels, juridiques et politiques qui reflètent l'histoire même de chaque pays. Le présent rapport élaboré sous l'égide du Comité des Conseillers Juridiques sur le droit international public (CAHDI) du Conseil de l'Europe, expose la pratique de trente-neuf Etats membres de cette Organisation ainsi que d'un certain nombre d'Etats observateurs. Il fournit des informations complètes et à jour sur les moyens par lesquels ces Etats expriment leur consentement à être liés par un traité. En outre, l'analyse confiée par le CAHDI à l'Institut britannique de droit international et de droit comparé apporte un éclairage nouveau à ce domaine en tirant des enseignements intéressants de la diversité des procédures nationales. Par ce rapport, le Conseil de l'Europe souhaite poursuivre sa contribution pratique au développement du droit international, en facilitant la compréhension mutuelle de ses Etats membres et en contribuant ainsi à la construction d'une communauté internationale stable et pacifique.

This book deals with the transformation of the international legal system into a new world order. Looking at concepts and principles, processes and emerging problems, it examines the impact of global forces on international law. In so doing, it identifies a unified set of legal rules and processes from the great variety of state practice and jurisprudence. The work develops a new framework to examine the key elements of the global legal system, termed the 'four pillars of global law': verticalization, legality, integration and collective guarantees. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the differences between traditional international law and the new principles and processes along which the universal society and world power are organized and how this is related to domestic power. The book addresses important changes in key legal issues; it reconstructs a complex legal framework, and the emergence of a new international order that has still not been studied in depth, providing a compass that will prove a useful resource for students, researchers and policy makers within the field of law and with an interest in international relations.

"African civil law countries are traditionally described as monist and common law countries as dualist. This book illustrates that the monism-dualism dichotomy is too simplistic, in particular in the field of human rights. Academics and practitioners from across the continent illustrate how domestic courts in Africa have engaged with international human rights law to interpret or fill gaps in national bills of rights. The authors also consider the challenges encountered in increasing the use of international human rights law by African domestic courts."--Back cover.

The reform of the European Constitution continues to dominate news headlines and has provoked a massive debate, unprecedented in the history of EU law. Against this backdrop Monica Claes' book offers a "bottom up" view of how the Constitution might work, taking the viewpoint of the national courts as her starting point, and at the same time returning to fundamental principles in order to interrogate the myths of Community law. Adopting a broad, comparative approach, she analyses the basic doctrines of Community law from both national constitutional perspectives as well as the more usual European perspective. It is only by combining the perspectives of the EU and national constitutions, she argues, that a complete picture can be obtained, and a solid theoretical base (constitutional pluralism) developed. Her comparative analysis encompasses the law in France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom and in the course of her inquiry discusses a wide variety of prominent problems. The book is structured around three main themes, coinciding with three periods in the development of the judicial dialogue between the ECJ and the national courts. The first focuses on the ordinary non-constitutional national courts and how they have successfully adapted to the mandates developed by the ECJ in Simmenthal and Francovich. The second examines the constitutional and other review courts and discusses the gradual transformation of the ECJ into a constitutional court, and its relationship to the national constitutional courts. The contrast is marked; these courts are not specifically empowered by the case law of the ECJ and have reacted quite differently to the message from Luxembourg, leaving them apparently on collision course with the ECJ in the areas of judicial Kompetenz Kompetenz and fundamental rights. The third theme reprises the first two and places them in the context of the current debate on the Constitution for Europe and the Convention, taking the perspective of the national courts as the starting point for a wide-ranging examination of EU's constitutional fundamentals. In so doing it argues that the new Constitution must accommodate the national perspective if it is to prove effective.

Diplomacy is transforming and expanding its role as the method of interstate relations to a general instrument of communication among globalized societies. Adapting to globalization, the practice of diplomacy is shared by non-state participants, thus becoming privatized and popularized. This book offers a comprehensive understanding of the widening scope of public as well as private diplomacy and its normative framework. It features a practitioner’s inside view of diplomacy combined with interdisciplinary academic analysis.