Abstract
This short comment on the preceding article by Prof. Schneiderman calls for the clarification of legal methodologies in research on international economic law (IEL) and on the ‘constitutionalisation’ of multilevel governance of international public goods (PGs). While European lawyers and courts throughout Europe accept the ‘constitutionalisation’ of European economic law and human rights law (HRL) as legal facts and normative challenges, legal discourse about ‘constitutionalisation’ of UN and WTO law and governance remains contested and often confusing due to inadequate clarification of legal terminologies, research methods and diverse conceptions of international law and multilevel governance of PGs.
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Notes
- 1.
Schneiderman (2016), section 2.
- 2.
Schneiderman (2016), section 1.
- 3.
These earlier publications were summarised in Petersmann (1991).
- 4.
- 5.
On the increasing recognition of transnational economic, labour, social and political citizenship rights (e.g. in the EU, the EEA, the Andean Community, MERCOSUR, the Central American Common Market, the Economic Community of West-African States, the Gulf Cooperation Council) and of regional parliamentary institutions see Closa C, Vintila D (2015) Supranational citizenship: rights in regional integration organizations. EUI Florence (unpublished conference paper).
- 6.
Arjay Associates Inc. v Bush, 891 F.2d 981, 898 (Fed. Cir. 1989). See also the US Supreme Court decision in Buttfield v Stranahan, 192 U.S. 470, 493, where the Court held ‘that no one has a vested right to trade with foreign nations, which is so broad in character as to limit and restrict the power of Congress to determine what articles (…) may be imported into this country and the terms upon which a right to import may be exercised’. While this decision could have been construed as part of a democratic ‘principal-agent relationship’ to imply a limited ‘right to import’ subject to Congressional regulation, subsequent US Court decisions have inferred from this Supreme Court decision the absence of any individual right to trade with foreign nations (similar to a ‘master-slave interpretation’ of the ruler/subject relationship). For a criticism of US trade law see also Garcia (2013), criticising US attitudes of ‘regulating my market at home, and deregulating markets abroad in order to facilitate exploitation of other markets internationally’, as well as US power politics in NAFTA and CAFTA dispute settlement procedures (at p. 260 ff. as illustrating ‘how U.S. trade policy is not always consistent with notions of justice inherent in domestic law’, p. 257 and p. 324.
- 7.
Petersmann (2002).
- 8.
On discourse theory, and the implicit, moral respect of discourse partners as having reasonable autonomy and dignity, as justification of human rights ‘without metaphysics’ see : Alexy (2004), pp. 15–24. For a comparison of Kant’s moral and Rawls’ contractual justifications of principles of justice, human rights and hypothetical ‘social contracts’, and for their criticism from communitarian perspectives, see, e.g. Sandel (2009), Chapters 5 and 6. Similar to Kant’s justification of his cosmopolitan ‘right of hospitality’ on moral grounds, the legal interpretation of EU ‘market freedoms’ as ‘fundamental rights’ can be justified on moral and constitutional rather than only utilitarian grounds (e.g., as being constitutionally protected also by the ‘general freedom of action’ guaranteed in Article 2 of the German Basic Law and representing ‘generalizable human interests’ of all EU citizens). Also the derivation of individual investor rights and judicial remedies from international investment treaties, like the derivation of labour rights from ILO conventions, can be justified not only on utilitarian grounds, but also on human rights principles.
- 9.
- 10.
Preamble and Article 31 of the VCLT.
- 11.
E.g. pursuant to Article 4 of the WTO Agreement on Preshipment Inspection.
- 12.
Petersmann (2013) Constituting, Limiting, Regulating and Justifying Multilevel Governance of Interdependent Public Goods: Methodological Problems of International Economic Law Research. EUI Law Working Papers 2013/08, http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/27559 (last accessed 8 September 2015). Pure ‘PGs’ (like sunshine, clean air, inalienable human rights) tend to be defined by their non-rival and non-excludable use that prevents their production in private markets. Most PGs are ‘impure’ in the sense that their use is either non-excludable (like common pool resources) or non-rival (like club goods, patented pharmaceutical knowledge) and impedes their supply in private markets.
- 13.
On the diverse legal traditions of republicanism and the disagreement on whether the core values of republicanism should be defined in terms of liberty, republican virtues of active citizenry finding self-realisation in political participation and collective supply of PGs, communitarianism, social and political equality, or deliberative democracy, see Besson and Marti (2009).
- 14.
Schneiderman (2016), section 1.
- 15.
Petersmann (2015).
- 16.
Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union.
- 17.
Article 31:3(c) of the VCLT.
- 18.
Schneiderman (2016), section 3.
- 19.
Schneiderman (2016), section 3.
- 20.
Schneiderman (2016), section 3.
- 21.
Schneiderman (2016), section 6.
- 22.
Petersmann (2015a).
- 23.
Petersmann (1991), p. 61 ff.
- 24.
- 25.
Dworkin (2006), p. 9 ff.
- 26.
My own definitions in Petersmann (2012a), p. 140 ff.
- 27.
See e.g., Francioni (2007).
- 28.
Article 31, para. 1.
- 29.
Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948.
- 30.
See Case 43/75 Defrenne v Sabena ECR 1976, 455, par. 31; Case C-281/98, Angonese ECR 2000, I-4139.
- 31.
Semertzi (2014).
- 32.
On the exclusion by governments of ‘direct applicability’ of GATT/WTO rules see Petersmann (1997), p. 18 ff.
- 33.
Preamble and Article 31 of VCLT.
- 34.
cf. the Preamble of the WHO Constitution.
- 35.
Preamble of the GATT 1947.
- 36.
Preamble of the UNESCO Constitution.
- 37.
Article 38(1)(d) of the ICJ Statute.
- 38.
Jurisdictional Immunities of the State, Germany v Italy, 2012 ICJ, at 99.
- 39.
Arctic Sunrise, Netherlands v Russia, International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Case No. 22, Order of 22 November 2013: “The settlement of such disputes between two states should not infringe upon the enjoyment of individual rights and freedoms of the crew of the vessels concerned.”
- 40.
See the overview of international environmental adjudication and of human rights courts identifying human rights provisions with environmental content in Dupuy and Vinuales (2015), p. 244 f. and p. 307 ff.
- 41.
For a discussion of the relevant ICJ judgments in Congo v Uganda (2005), Diallo (2010) and Belgium v Senegal (2012), see Andenas (2015), p. 712 ff.
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Petersmann, EU. (2016). From Fragmentation to Constitutionalisation of International Economic Law? Comments on Schneiderman’s ‘Constitutionalism’. In: Bungenberg, M., Herrmann, C., Krajewski, M., Terhechte, J. (eds) European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2016. European Yearbook of International Economic Law, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29215-1_3
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