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The Rhetoric of Fragmentation: Fear and Faith in International Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

ANNE-CHARLOTTE MARTINEAU
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Abstract

Over the last decade international lawyers have been increasingly concerned with the ‘fragmentation’ of international law. However, given that this expression has been repeatedly used by the profession since the mid-nineteenth century to depict the state of international law, one may wonder about its recent revival in the international legal discourse. Why has it re-emerged? What can we learn from previous invocations? An answer may be sought by contextualizing the fragmentation debate in a historical perspective. This brings out the repetitive and relatively stylized modes in which the profession has narrated legal developments. This essay suggests a correlation between periods of crisis in general and a critical view of fragmentation on the one hand, and periods of scholarly enthusiasm and the prevalence of positive views about fragmentation on the other. This analysis sheds critical light on both the implicit assumptions and political implications of the current debate on fragmentation.

Keywords

argumentative patternsfragmentationhistoryinternational lawlegal discourse
Type
ARTICLES
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2009

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References

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2 And in particular those favouring systemic interpretation. Report of the ILC Study Group, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, Doc. A/CN.4/L.702, 18 July 2006.

3 See, e.g., Hafner, G., ‘Pros and Cons Ensuing from Fragmentation of International Law’, (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 849Google Scholar; Simma, B., ‘Fragmentation in a Positive Light’, (2004) 25 Michigan Journal of International Law 845Google Scholar.

4 One only needs to think about the opposing approaches taken by the European Society for International Law (examining the role of formal sources) and by scholars at US colloquia (focusing on institutional actors). Compare R. Huesa Vinaixa and K. Wellens, L'influence des sources sur l'unité et la fragmentation du droit international (2006), with the various contributions of NYU School of Law's 1998 symposium, ‘The Proliferation of International Tribunals: Piecing Together the Puzzle’.

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9 As is often the case with words with the same suffix, fragmenta-tion refers both to a result (international law is fragmented) and to a process (it is fragmenting). The two meanings are mutually exclusive: if the law is fragmented or primitive, then it cannot be disintegrating (we assume that it is already so); if the law is disintegrating, then it cannot yet be fragmented (we fear that it might become so). See more generally R. Guastini, Estudios sobre la interpretación jurídica (2003), at 71.

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22 This draws on the suggestion that the systematization of international law has two advantages, namely to promote legal (and not political) relations between states and to ensure the primacy of international (and not national) law. See Kennedy, ‘When Renewal Repeats’, supra note 7; J.-L. Halpérin, ‘L'apparition et la portée de la notion d'ordre juridique dans la doctrine internationaliste du XIXe siècle’, (2001) 33 Droits 41, at 48.

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52 And this without exception. A. Cavaglieri, ‘Règles générales du droit de la paix’, (1929-I) 26 RCADI 311, at 330.

53 He claimed to be breaking with ‘the traditional conception of the universality of legal rules’ that he now labelled ‘formalism’. In the 1930s he did not speak of a ‘civilizing mission’ that belonged to Latin America (as he did previously). See, e.g., his La codification du droit international, ses tendances, ses bases (1912).

54 See Álvarez, supra note 35, at x–xi.

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60 In the face of Álvarez's strong definition of regionalism, Le Fur's response is marked by a mixture of desire and terror (the latter being prominent) similar to the field's attitude towards nationalism in the inter-war period. See Berman, N., ‘“But the Alternative Is Despair”: European Nationalism and the Modernist Renewal of International Law’, (1993) 106 Harvard Law Review 1792CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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63 Ibid., at 151.

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67 There were some, however, like Joseph Barthélemy, who criticized the field's ‘excesses in abstract legalism’ and its tendency to prefer uniform or general rules over the ‘reality’. Nevertheless, these denunciations seem to have remained in the background. J. Barthélemy, ‘Politique intérieure et droit international’, (1937-I) 59 RCADI 421, at 442.

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94 Lauterpacht refuted the distinction between legal and political disputes, considering the legal system to be materially (and not formally) complete. International judges could always resort to contextual standards or other considerations to resolve a case. Because he believed (his) judicial practice to be a privileged instrument for order and justice, he argued that the law's unity would be ensured not so much by UN administrative bodies as by the judicial profession. H. Lauterpacht, ‘Some Observations on the Prohibition of “Non Liquet” and the Completeness of the Law’, in Symbolae Verzijl (1958), 196. He had already formulated this argument in The Function of Law in the International Community (1933), 245–345.

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102 Ibid., at 114.

103 Ibid., at 367.

104 Ibid., at 122. Also P. de Visscher, ‘Cours général de droit international public’, (1972-II) 165 RCADI 79.

105 Friedmann, supra note 99, at 125. Here again, universality would be achieved through speciality.

106 G. Abi-Saab, ‘Cours général de droit international public’, (1987-VII) 207 RCADI, at 173. Koskenniemi, M., ‘Repetition as Reform: Georges Abi-Saab, Cours Général de droit international public’, (1998) 9 EJIL 408CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bedjaoui, M., Towards a New International Economic Order (1979) 9, at 138Google Scholar.

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112 In the 1970s the ‘basic needs’ strategy was endorsed by the World Bank, the ILO and other agencies. See, e.g., Report of the Director General of the ILO, Employment and Basic Needs: A One-World Problem (1976).

113 C. Fenwick, ‘International Law: The Old and the New’, (1966) 60 AJIL 475, at 481.

114 Another example is the law of development promoted by René-Jean Dupuy, whose ‘situational logic’ differed from the ‘universal logic’ of traditional international law. Traditionally, he explained, international law did not prescribe derogative rules for Third World countries, although their situation often required it. By contrast, development law was premised on the idea that unequal situations required different treatments, and this could only be done through ‘individualized, differentiated and concrete rules’. R.-J. Dupuy, ‘Communauté internationale et disparités de développement’, (1979-IV) 165 RCADI 9, at 125.

115 For the Yale school's positions on issues related to fragmentation, see especially McDougal, M. and Lasswell, H., ‘The Identification and Appraisal of Diverse Systems of Public Order’, in McDougal, M. (ed.), Studies in World Public Order (1960), 13–18Google Scholar.

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120 At the 1977 annual meeting, he introduced his talk on the ‘impact of complex regional systems on the overarching structure’ by stating that ‘every regional system leads to the fractionalizing of the international legal order’. Thus the question was not whether fragmentation was formally possible but whether ‘it served or hindered the progress of international law’. This question could not be answered in the abstract because it depended on state practice: what would they privilege and to what ends? States could very often justify their actions on the basis of both universal law and regional law. L. Dubouis, ‘Les rapports du droit régional et du droit universel’, in Société Française pour le Droit International (SFDI), Régionalisme et universalisme dans le droit international contemporain (1977).

121 See Friedmann, supra note 99, at 142.

122 Ibid., at 143–54.

123 Address by Judge Gilbert Guillaume, president of the ICJ, to the UN General Assembly, 26 October 2000. See the previous address by Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, president of the ICJ, on 26 October 1999. The speeches of the Presidents of the ICJ can be found on the Court's website at www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/iprstats/htm (last visited 1 May 2008).

124 M. Koskenniemi, ‘International Law’, supra note 8, at 7.

125 See for instance Kingsbury, B. and Krisch, N., ‘Introduction: Global Governance and Global Administrative Law in the International Legal Order’, (2006) 17 EJIL 1Google Scholar.

126 See Carr, supra note 71.

127 J. Rosenberg, The Empire of Civil Society: A Critique of the Realist Theory of International Relations (1994), ch. 1.

128 This argument is developed by Koskenniemi, supra note 15, ch. 7.

129 Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, General Assembly Resolution 3281 (XXIX), UN Doc. A/RES/29/3281, 1974, Preamble.