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New Constitutions and the Old Problem of the Relationship between International Law and National Law
Vladlen S. Vereshchetin1
Full text available: PDF format *
I. Introduction
More than thirty years ago The American Journal of International Law pointedly observed in its Editorial Comment that:
the continuing practice of making reference to international law in national constitutions has not produced any one form of wording that has found general adoption.2
In the same Comment a reference was made to an earlier observation to the effect that:
after each World War of the present century there was a wave of effort to include in national constitutions provisions whereby the law of nations would be made a part of municipal law.3
One might add to the above observations that the same holds true as far as the situation after the end of the `cold war' is concerned. Again, on one hand, we are witnessing another wave of introducing references to international law in national constitutions and, on the other hand, the lack of uniformity in wording and, more importantly, in resolving the classical issue of the relationship between national law and international law. However, one can notice a clear tendency towards `de jure recognition' of the primacy of international law by new constitutions. This tendency is analysed in the present article from the perspective of post-`cold-war' constitutional developments in the CIS and East European States, and against the background of contemporary constitutional changes in other countries.
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1 Judge at the International Court of Justice.
The author
acknowledges, with gratitude, the helpful comments and suggestions of Professor
Antonio Cassese who was kind enough to review the draft of this article.
The article is the elaboration of the presentation made by the author at the
Conference of the Association of Attenders and Alumni of the Hague Academy of
International Law (The Hague 10-12 July 1995).
2 Wilson, `International Law in New National Constitutions', 58
AJIL (1964/2) 432.
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This file was last modified:
Tuesday, October 14, 2003 12:20PM