Sources and the Systematicity of International Law: A Co-Constitutive Relationship?

Gleider I. Hernández

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    This chapter illuminates the role that sources doctrine plays in construing international law as a system. It frames international law’s systemic qualities within the recursive relationship between sources doctrine and debates over international law’s systematicity. Sources doctrine reinforces and buttresses international law’s claim to constitute a legal system; and the legal system demands and requires that legal sources exist within it. International law’s systematicity and the doctrine of international legal sources exist in a mutually constitutive relationship, and cannot exist without one another. This recursive relationship privileges unity, coherence, and the existence of a unifying inner logic which transcends mere interstate relations and constitutes a legal structure. In this respect, the social practices of those officials who are part of the institutional workings of the system, and especially those with a law--applying function, are of heightened relevance in conceiving of international law as a system.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law.
    EditorsSamantha Besson, Jean d’Aspremont
    Place of PublicationOxford
    PublisherOxford University Press
    Pages604-624
    Number of pages21
    ISBN (Print)9780198745365
    Publication statusPublished - 2018

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