This article is devoted to current practices concerning the application of general principles of law in the light of their function in the international legal system. As a means of the application and interpretation of both treaty and customary law, general principles of law perform a crucial function in the system of international law, which is understood as set of interrelated rules and principles – norms. The role played by general principles of law in the international legal order has been discussed by academia for years now. Initially they were used to ensure the completeness of the system of international law. However, at the current stage of development of international law, when many of them have been codified, they are usually invoked by international courts for the interpretation of treaties and customary law and/or the determination of their scope. This means that despite their ongoing codification they do not lose their character as general principles and are still applied by international courts in the process of judicial argumentation and the interpretation of other norms to which they are pertinent. References by international courts to general principles of law perform the allimportant function of maintaining the coherence of the international legal order, which is faced with the twin challenges of fragmentation and the proliferation of international courts.
International law reflects systemic conditions compatible with its essence, which means that a space must exist inside the borders of that order for the presence of the phenomenon of general principles. The assumption that international law is a legal system ipso facto means that general principles must exist within its borders. A general principle of law is a necessary element of every legal order. It is a form and a tool in which the efforts of the individual seeking to comprehend a given phenomenon are materialized through imposing order on it rather than by breaking it down into unconnected and independent elements. Since law is an expression of order, law therefore applies general principles. The systematicity of law, and therefore of international law as well, creates the primary source of the binding force of any norm. Considerations of natural law or positive law justifications for the presence of general principles in international law are of little consequence, as the source of general principles is the systemic nature of the law. Order and hierarchy are part of the rationalized system in which norms of law present themselves. This dependency applies also to norms of international law. The role of the judge is to fill in the appropriate normative content (general principles) in fields constituting at one and the same time both a necessary element and a consequence of the systemic character of the international legal order. Within this context the principle of good faith constitutes one of the bases for considerations concerning the extent of the international legal order. The extent of international law reaches as far as the extent to which evidence of good faith are present among the subjects of international law. The impossibility of describing relations between two states by the use of the determinants of good faith, translated in turn into a normative general principle, determinates the limits of international law.
This article aims to present the issues related to the legal framework for conducting economic activity in the form of marine aquaculture, consisting of farming marine organisms. The work analyses mainly selected the regulations of international law because it is these regulations that shape the rights and obligations of states, producers, farmers and society in the field of ocean farming, as well as in the context of marine resources, which are undoubtedly a common good for all mankind. The author also discusses the legal status of maritime areas in which aquaculture is cultivated.
There are different meanings and functions of what is called a “general principle of law.” This article seeks to address their importance as the basis for the systemic integration of the international legal order. When international law is considered as a legal system, its normative unity and completeness seems essential. This article argues that general principles of law are a necessary, although less visible, element of international legal practice and reasoning, which secure the systemic integration and long-lasting underpinnings of international law. In this sense they may be seen as the gentle guardians of international law as a legal system.
This article discusses the classical question whether general principles of law form a separate source of international law. To this end it adopts the method of a posteriori analysis, examining the normative nature of various principles of law one by one. This analysis leads to the conclusion that only some principles have a normative nature, while others lack it.
On 1 March 2020, Professor Andrzej Wasilkowski died. In his research, Professor Wasilkowski undertook issues which were co-creating the mainstreams of legal debates all over the world. He was an author of valuable publications on the relationship between international law and Polish domestic law. Professor Wasilkowski was also a director of the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the head of the Legal Advisory Committee of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
This article analyses the relationship between the Court of Justice and other international jurisdictions. In particular, it addresses the following question: To what extent is the Court of Justice ready to accept that some aspects of EU law are subject to the jurisdiction of an international body? The answer to this question requires analysis of the precise scope of the principle of autonomy of EU law as this principle could potentially constitute grounds on the basis of which the Court of Justice excludes the transfer of judicial competences to external bodies. For this reason, the article refers to the most important decisions in the field: Opinions 1/91 and 1/92, Opinion 1/09, Opinion 2/13, judgment in C-146/13 Spain v. Parliament and Council and judgment in C-284/14 Achmea. It also discusses the consequences of the application of Article 344 TFEU.
This article is an attempt to identify the essence of new positivism, described by Ludwik Ehrlich as a method of interpretation of international law. The evolution of his views on international law is examined with respect to the place of this method from the beginning of 1920s until his retirement in 1961. The article expounds on both the theoretical and methodological aspects of new positivism, according to which judicial decisions should be taken into account in addition to international treaties and customs for the determination of international law. The question of the obligatory force of international law is discussed as being related to the principle of good faith, which is at the core of Ehrlich’s views on international law. The article offers suggestions on how the method of new positivism might be used and what tasks it can fulfil today. It also makes an attempt to critically analyse Ehrlich’s method and to characterize it both in general and in the context of the theory of international law.
The present text describes the attitude toward sources of law in the recent works of the International Law Commission (ILC) on custom, general principles of law, and jus cogens (with special emphasis on reports of the respective special rapporteurs). The three main tasks of the text are to verify whether the ILC rapporteurs: grasped the essence of unwritten sources (reality-concern); preserved the coherence of views when referring to different topics (coherence-concern); and last but not least allow states to have the decisive voice as regards the set of their obligations (sovereignty-concern). The author notes the nominal strict attachment of the ILC to two-element nature of custom as a general practice recognized as law. Though in fact it should be a good message for states, this strict attitude of the ILC seems not to be based on a real stress test. It seems to ignore the reality of lawyers and even international judges referring to several customary norms without the slightest attempt to verify the true existence of both the two elements of custom – namely practice and opinio juris. What is more, the ILC does not see any problem with calling all general principles as sources of law. What is overlooked is the element of state consent to be bound by several presumed general principles. This is qualified by the author as a threat to state sovereignty – with states being pressured to follow some patterns of conduct to which they have not given their consent.