International Law and Domestic Legal Systems

Different countries incorporate and interpret international law in different ways. This book provides a systematic analysis of the domestic constitutional regime of over two dozen countries, setting out the status accorded to international law in those countries and its normative weight, as well as problems relating to its implementation. This country-by-country comparison allows the book to examine how the international legal order and domestic legal systems interact and influence each other. Through a series of chapters on the role of international law in 27 countries throughout the world, it shows a growing tendency towards greater democratic participation in treaty-making coupled with a significant utilization of informal agreements that by-pass such participation, as well as a role for non-binding normative instruments as persuasive authority in domestic judicial decision-making. The chapters suggest a stronger attachment to international law in legal systems that have survived a period of repression, resulting in many cases in a higher normative status for international human rights instruments in those states. The impact of the European Union on the constitutional order of its member states is also examined.

Autorentext

Professor Dinah Shelton holds the Manatt/Ahn Professorship in International Law at the George Washington University Law School, where she has taught since 2004. She previously taught international law and was director of the doctoral program in international human rights law at the University of Notre Dame Law School (1996-2004). Professor Shelton is the author of three prize-winning books, Protecting Human Rights in the Americas (co-authored with Thomas Buergenthal), Remedies in International Human Rights Law, and the three-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity. She has also authored many other articles and books on international law, human rights law, and international environmental law. She is a member of the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law. In June 2009, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States elected her to a four-year term as a member of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.