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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Over the past years, two important challenges to traditional conceptions of international law have come to the fore: pluralism and informality. Pluralism refers to the fact that global society is characterized by multiple legal systems that frequently overlap. Informality refers to the increasing relevance of non-traditional actors, processes and outputs in the realm of international law. Two recent books provide important contributions to enhancing our understanding of these challenges. In the first book, Nico Krisch presents a powerful plea that in a ‘postnational’ context legal pluralism is to be preferred over its alternative, transferring constitutionalism to the global level. In the second book, Joost Pauwelyn, Ramses Wessel and Jan Wouters offer a collection of essays that seek to further knowledge of the concept, legal nature, impacts and accountability of ‘informal international lawmaking’. In reviewing these two books, this review essay seeks to identify avenues for further inquiry in the area of transnational environmental law.
1 See, e.g., Koskenniemi, M., ‘The Fate of International Law: Between Technique and Politics’ (2007) 70(1) The Modern Law Review, pp. 1–30.Google Scholar
2 International Law Commission, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, UN Doc. A/CN.4/L.682, 13 Apr. 2006. For a recent collection of essays on the fragmentation of international law see Young, M.A. (ed), Regime Interaction in International Law: Facing Fragmentation (Cambridge University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
3 See, e.g., Fischer-Lescano, A. & Teubner, G., ‘Regime-Collisions: The Vain Search for Legal Unity in the Fragmentation of Global Law’ (2004) 25(4) Michigan Journal of International Law, pp. 999–1046Google Scholar; Berman, P.S., ‘A Pluralist Approach to International Law’ (2007) 32(2) Yale Journal of International Law, pp. 301–29Google Scholar; Michaels, R., ‘Global Legal Pluralism’ (2009) 5 Annual Review of Law & Social Science, pp. 243–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 See d’Aspremont, J., ‘The Politics of Deformalization in International Law’ (2011) 3(2) Goettingen Journal of International Law, pp. 503–50.Google Scholar
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7 D'Aspremont (n. 4 above, at p. 506) notes that the increase in sites of governance is not necessarily new, but rather that international lawyers have found it increasingly difficult to respond to this development.
8 Krisch, N., Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law (Oxford University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
9 Pauwelyn, J., Wessel, R.A. & Wouters, J. (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (Oxford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
10 Heyvaert, V. & Etty, T.F.M., ‘Introducing Transnational Environmental Law’ (2012) 1(1) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 1–11, at 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Ibid., at 5–6. Although the editors do not define ‘transnational environmental law’ as such, a broad definition is offered by Shaffer, G. & Bodansky, D., ‘Transnationalism, Unilateralism and International Law’ (2012) 1(1) Transnational Environmental Law, pp. 31–41, at 32Google Scholar: ‘Transnational environmental law encompasses all environmental law norms that apply to transboundary activities or that have effects in more than one jurisdiction’. This definition will be adopted for the final part of this essay.
12 Krisch (n. 8 above, at p. 11) adds that this does not necessarily mean ‘drawing them into one as a matter of legal theory’.
13 Ibid., at p. 12.
14 Krisch has later posited that state consent in international law is actually highly resilient but that it is increasingly sidelined, for instance through minilateral and unilateral approaches in which state consent plays an inferior role: see Krisch, N., ‘The Decay of Consent: International Law in an Age of Global Public Goods’ (2014, forthcoming) 108(1) American Journal of International Law.Google Scholar
15 Krisch, n. 8 above, at p. 22.
16 Ibid., at p. 23.
17 Ibid., at p. 27.
18 Ibid., at p. 53.
19 Ibid., at p. 77.
20 Ibid., at p. 89.
21 Ibid., at p. 24.
22 Ibid., at p. 105.
23 Joined Cases C-402/05 and C-415/05, Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities [2008] ECR I-06351.
24 Krisch, n. 8 above, at p. 181.
25 Ibid., at p. 188.
26 Montreal (Canada), 29 Jan. 2000, in force 11 Sept. 2003, available at: http://bch.cbd.int/protocol.
27 Marrakesh (Morocco), 15 Apr. 1994, in force 1 Jan 1995, available at: http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/04-wto_e.htm.
28 European Communities – Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products, Report of the Panel, WTO Docs WT/DS291/R, WT/DS291/R and WT/DS291/R, 29 Sept. 2006.
29 Krisch, n. 8 above, at p. 206.
30 Ibid., at p. 212.
31 Ibid., at p. 240.
32 Ibid., at p. 262.
33 Ibid., at p. 285.
34 Ibid., at pp. 285ff.
35 Ibid., at p. 295.
36 Ibid., at pp. 74–5.
37 The interface norms proposed by Krisch thus suffer from a potential weakness that is common to any solution to integrating different legal systems – that such an integrative effort itself may become the platform for contestation: see M. Koskenniemi, ‘Hegemonic Regimes’, in Young, n. 2 above, pp. 305–24, at 320.
38 This is the gist of the main criticisms targeted at the book so far: see, e.g., Besson, S., ‘Book Review: The Truth about Legal Pluralism’ (2012) 8(2) European Constitutional Law Review, pp. 354–61, at 357–9Google Scholar; Shaffer, G., ‘A Transnational Take on Krisch’s Pluralist Postnational Law’ (2012) 23(2) European Journal of International Law, pp. 565–82, at 572–5Google Scholar; A. Stone Sweet, ‘The Structure of Constitutional Pluralism: Review of Nico Krisch, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law’ (2013) 11(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law, pp. 491–500, at 491–3; but see Krisch, N., ‘Constitutionalism and Pluralism: A Reply to Alec Stone Sweet’ (2013) 11(2) International Journal of Constitutional Law, pp. 501–5.Google Scholar
39 J. Pauwelyn, ‘Informal International Lawmaking: Framing the Concept’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 13–34, at 22.
40 A. Berman and R.A. Wessel, ‘The International Legal Form and Status of Informal International Lawmaking Bodies: Consequences for Accountability’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 35–62, at 61.
41 Pauwelyn, n. 39 above, at p. 21.
42 L. Andonova & M. Elsig, ‘Informal International Lawmaking: A Conceptual View from International Relations’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 63–80.
43 S. Voigt, ‘The Economics of Informal International Law: An Empirical Assessment’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 81–105.
44 See, e.g., Kingsbury, B., Krisch, N. & Stewart, R., ‘The Emergence of Global Administrative Law’ (2005) 68(3–4) Law & Contemporary Problems, pp. 15–61.Google Scholar
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46 P. Dann & M. von Engelhardt, ‘Legal Approaches to Global Governance and Accountability: Informal Lawmaking, International Public Authority, and Global Administrative Law Compared’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 106–21, at 107.
47 Ibid.
48 Pauwelyn, n. 39 above, at pp. 31–2.
49 See n. 6 above.
50 J. Pauwelyn, ‘Is It International Law or Not, and Does it Even Matter?’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 125–61, at 127–30.
51 Ibid., at p. 151.
52 J. d’Aspremont, ‘From a Pluralization of International Norm-Making Processes to a Pluralization of the Concept of International Law’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 185–99, at 199. See also d’Aspremont, n. 4 above.
53 Black, J., ‘Constructing and Contesting Legitimacy and Accountability in Polycentric Regulatory Regimes’ (2008) 2(2) Regulation & Governance, pp. 137–64, at 141.Google Scholar
54 T. Corthaut, B. Demeyere, N. Hachez & J. Wouters, ‘Operationalizing Accountability in Respect of Informal International Lawmaking Mechanisms’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 310–36.
55 Koppell, Cf. J.G.S., World Rule: Accountability, Legitimacy, and the Design of Global Governance (University of Chicago Press, 2010), at pp. 55–66.Google Scholar
56 Ibid., at p. 335. This point is also highlighted by E. Benvenisti, ‘Towards a Typology of Informal International Lawmaking Mechanisms and their Distinct Accountability Gaps’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 297–309.
57 Corthaut, Demeyere, Hachez & Wouters, n. 54 above, at p. 334.
58 See J. Pauwelyn, R.A. Wessel & J. Wouters, ‘Informal International Lawmaking: An Assessment and Template to Keep it Both Effective and Accountable’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 500–37, at 525.
59 Ibid., at pp. 500 and 524–6.
60 Pauwelyn (n. 39 above, at pp. 31–2) dedicates eight pages to the conceptualization of ‘accountability’ and only one page to ‘effectiveness’.
61 See, e.g., Mitchell, R.B., ‘ Evaluating the Performance of International Institutions: What to Evaluate and How to Evaluate It’, in Young, O.R., King, L.A. & Schroeder, H. (eds), Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Research Frontiers (The MIT Press, 2008), pp. 79–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
62 For a searching critique of the regime effectiveness literature, reinforcing this argument, see Mehling, M.A., ‘Betwixt Scylla and Charybdis: the Concept of Effectiveness in International Environmental Law’ (2003) 13 Finnish Yearbook of International Law, pp. 129–82.Google Scholar
63 Corthaut, Demeyere, Hachez & Wouters, n. 54 above, at p. 336.
64 This is particularly highlighted by the editors in their concluding chapter: see Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 58 above, at p. 517.
65 The book is accompanied by a separate volume that forms the empirical base from which several chapters draw: Berman, A., Duquet, S., Pauwelyn, J., Wessel, R.A. & Wouters, J. (eds), Informal International Lawmaking: Case Studies (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2012).Google Scholar
66 Jan Klabbers, for instance, argues that ‘[t]he fundamental academic flaw behind IN-LAW is the attempt to substitute social sciences (be it sociology, be it economics) for law. … [I]ts fundamental political problem is that it caters too much to effectiveness’: J. Klabbers, ‘International Courts and Informal International Law’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 219–40, at 239. Similarly, Dann & von Engelhardt (n. 46, at p. 120) point to potential problems with IN-LAW’s proposals for strengthening accountability: ‘It is where the project abandons its analytically neutral stance to make constructive proposals on how to enhance accountability where a certain obscurity with regards to its normative underpinnings surfaces’.
67 H. Schepel, ‘Private Regulators in Law’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 356–67.
68 Benvenisti, n. 56 above.
69 Andonova & Elsig, n. 42 above, at pp. 67–70.
70 Voigt, n. 43 above, at pp. 84–93; and M.A. Pollack & G.C. Shaffer, ‘The Interaction of Formal and Informal International Lawmaking’, in Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 9 above, pp. 241–70, at 243–50.
71 See R.B. Mitchell, ‘International Environmental Agreements Database, Version 2013.2’, IEA Database Project, available at: http://iea.uoregon.edu, which lists 1,198 international environmental agreements and 1,595 bilateral environmental agreements.
72 See generally Abbott, K.W. & Snidal, D., ‘Strengthening International Regulation through Transnational New Governance: Overcoming the Orchestration Deficit’ (2009) 42(2) Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, pp. 501–78.Google Scholar
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91 Ibid., at pp. 250–69.
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93 Cashore, B., Auld, G., Bernstein, S. & McDermott, C., ‘Can Non-state Governance “Ratchet Up” Global Environmental Standards? Lessons from the Forest Sector’ (2007) 16(2) Review of European Community and International Environmental Law, pp. 158–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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96 Krisch, n. 8 above, at p. 250.
97 The importance of remaining accountable to external stakeholders in the context of IN-LAW is stressed by Pauwelyn, Wessel & Wouters, n. 58 above, at pp. 521–4.
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