THE CHANGING STATUS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN ENGLISH DOMESTIC LAW

Abstract

This article focuses on a number of recent decisions of English courts addressing issues of international law. The starting point is the House of Lords decision in Kuwait Airways v. Iraqi Airways (2002) that effect would not be given in English law to a decree of the Iraqi state which breached international law. Subsequent decisions exploring the role of international law in the context of the justiciability of UK state action have failed to follow Kuwait Airways' lead unless required to apply international law by statute, usually the Human Rights Act 1998. Cases involving terrorism and human rights and attacks on the UK's stance and involvement in Iraq have revealed further questions about the role of international law in English courts and elsewhere. The article examines how subtle movement is taking place in the approach taken by English judges to matters of international law particularly in the context of human rights but that executive action in foreign affairs remains largely immune from judicial scrutiny.