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Remarks on Scelle's Theory of "Role Splitting"
(dédoublement fonctionnel) in International Law
Antonio Cassese *1
It is the purpose of this paper to focus briefly on one of the main pillars of G. Scelle's contribution to the theory of international law, namely his construct of "role splitting" ("dédoublement fonctionnel") in the international legal community. To this end, I shall first sketch out Scelle's view and then endeavour briefly to appraise it. Finally, I shall raise the question of whether the doctrine is still vital today.2
I. Scelle's Doctrine: Basic Premises
To grasp Scelle's doctrine in its real purport, it is necessary to become aware of its basic conceptual assumptions. They are four, and I shall outline them briefly.
The first is that Scelle does not conceive the international community as most other international lawyers do, namely as an agglomerate of states and inter-state entities (intergovernmental organizations) governed by a body of rules designed to direct and regulate their behaviour. In contrast, Scelle, under the clear influence of the French publicist Léon Duguit's doctrine of the plurality of legal orders, takes the view that the world community ("société internationale globale ou oecuménique") consists of a plurality of communities, starting with the family and moving on to local or provincial communities, regions, nation-wide associations and groupings, up to the state society, to the special or regional international groupings ("communautés internationales particulières") and, at the very top, the civitas maxima, i.e. the world community. In other words, for Scelle the world community swarms with myriad legal orders (in today's parlance we would call them 'sub-systems'); they do not live by themselves, each in its own area, but intersect and overlap with each other. Within this global community, states constitute the fundamental political element, for in the present historical stage, all individuals and groups are linked to one state or another.3
The second basic concept is that according to Scelle one should discard the traditional view whereby in the world community states appear in the form of structures endowed with legal personality: this view, according to Scelle, falls into the trap of anthropomorphizing actual reality. In fact, the world community does not result from the coexistence or the juxtaposition of states, but rather consists of the "interpenetration of peoples through international intercourse" ("l'interpénétration des peuples par le commerce international").4 Individuals and groups establish mutual relations beyond national borders. Indeed, the very essence of the international community is constituted by dealings between individuals; public international law, i.e. the law regulating relations between governments, serves the purpose of facilitating relations between individuals. Two consequences follow. First, the real subjects of international law are not states, but individuals: they act on behalf of states, as "rulers or members of the executive" ("gouvernants"), their competence being then discretionary, or as "state officials" ("agents"). Another class of subjects consists of mere individuals acting on their own behalf (here one can clearly detect the influence of H. Kelsen's theory of the role of the individual in the international community). The second consequence is that in Scelles's view it would be artificial to differentiate between the branch of international law dealing with governmental action (public international law) and the branch concerned with dealings of individuals (private international law or rules governing conflict of laws). For Scelle the two levels - that of inter-state action and that of inter-individual action - are in reality inextricably bound up with each other and indeed constitute but one level of reality.
The third basic concept underlying Scelle's theory of "dédoublement fonctionnel" regards the relations between the various legal orders making up the world community. According to Scelle there exists a hierarchy in this regard. All the various communities existing within a state are subject to the state legal order, which conditions their scope, validity and field of competence. All national legal orders are, in turn, subject to the international legal order: international law overrides national law. For Scelle, this however does not mean that international rules take precedence over state rules, but that the international legal order as such is superior to national legal systems. The reason for this primacy is that if it were not so, the normative force of international law would be precarious, and indeed international law would come down to a set of ineffective principles of ethics (plainly, here the realism normally permeating Scelle's investigation of law yields to an internationalist approach strongly influenced by value judgments).
The fourth underlying assumption of the doctrine at issue is that any legal system, to exist, needs to rely on three basic functions, which Scelle terms "essential social functions": law-making, adjudication and enforcement. Scelle posits these three functions in a rather doctrinaire and dogmatic fashion (clearly in the wake of all those publicists who had insisted that the three basic functions are central to the notion of a state - as the prototype of any legal order).5
2 On
Scelle's doctrine of dédoublement fonctionnel, see in
particular the following works by him: Précis de droit des gens.
Principes et systématique (Vol. I) (1932) 43, 54-56, 217; (Vol.
II) (1934) 10, 319, 450; (hereinafter: Précis); `La doctrine
de L. Duguit et les fondements du droit des gens', in Archives de
philosophie du droit et de sociologie juridique (1932) 98-99;
`Règles générales du droit de la paix', in 46
Recueil des cours de l'Académie de La Haye (1933) 356.
(hereinafter: Règles générales); `Essai sur
les sources formelles du droit international', in Recueil en l'honneur
de F. Gény (Vol. III) (1934) 410; `Théorie du
gouvernement international', in Annuaire de l'Institut international de
droit public (1935) 41-59; `Théorie et pratique de la fonction
exécutive en droit international', in 55 Recueil des cours de
l'Académie de La Haye (1936) 91-106 (hereinafter:
Théorie et pratique); Manuel de droit international
public (1948) 15-24, 799. (hereinafter: Manuel); `Quelques
réflexions sur l'abolition de la compétence de guerre', in
Revue générale de droit international public (1954)
7-13 (hereinafter: `Quelques réflexions'); `Le
phénomène juridique du dédoublement fonctionnel', in
Rechtsfragen der Internationalen Organisation - Festschrift für H.
Wehberg (1956) 324-342 (hereinafter: `Le phénomène
juridique'); `Quelques réflexions hétérodoxes sur la
technique de l'ordre juridique interétatique', in Hommage d'une
génération de juristes au Président Basdevant
(1960) 473-488 (hereinafter: `Quelques réflexions
hétérodoxes').
On Scelle's doctrine at issue see in particular H. Wiebringhaus,
Das Gesetz der funktionellen Verdoppelung. Beitrag zu einer
universalistischen Theorie des internationalen Privat- und
Völkerrechts (2nd ed.1955) 23-38. See also Ch. Carabiber, `Le
fédéralisme international dans l'_uvre du professeur G.
Scelle', in La technique et les principes du droit public - Etudes en
l'honneur de Georges Scelle (Vol. I) (1950) 55-66; F. Luchaire,
`L'exercice de la fonction exécutive du droit international par les
organes étatiques', id. (Vol. II) 815-820. A. Miaja de la
Muela, `La teoria del desdoblamiento funcional en el derecho internacional
privado', in Revista española de derecho
internacional (Vol. VI) (1953) 133-141; G. Vlachos, `La
théorie du pluralisme international de G. Scelle', in
Philosophia - Yearbook of the Research Center for Greek Philosophy at
the Academy of Athens (1983-84) issue 13-14, at 429-443.
3
Manuel, supra note 1, at 18.
4
Manuel, supra note 1, at 18.
5 For
references, see infra, notes 27 and 28.
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