Constitutional Law (kempo)

In 1976 Carl Heymanns Verlag published the first volume of a series on Japanese law. A recent addition to this collection covering areas as diverse as civil and criminal procedure, labor law, nuclear energy law, and international law, is Miyazawa Toshiyoshi\u27s (1899-1976) book on constitutional law. With this German translation, Robert Heuser and Yamasaki Kazuaki provide their readers with the first systematical overview on Japanese constitutional law in a western language

The Reunification of Germany: Comments on a Legal Maze

In its Preamble, the Basic Law - the constitution - of the Federal Republic of Germany declares itself a transitional order put in place until all Germans can freely decide to live in a reunified Germany. The Preamble is evidence of both history and aspirations of the western part of Germany that emerged from the Second World War. It is now one of the legal foundations for an event that only a year ago few thought was possible: the merging of the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany into one German state. In its preamble and in several other provisions the Basic Law kept the door open for a home coming without precedent. Some said this door had, over the years, become a legal fiction. Yet the events of the past year, culminating in the opening of the Berlin Wall on the night of November 9, 1989, came as a surprise even to the most optimistic observers. The citizens of the German Democratic Republic forced the door open with peaceful means and the most compelling of all passwords: We are the People

The Responsability of States for Environmental Harm in a Multinational Context — Problems and Trends

Le présent article comporte d'abord une discussion des parallèles entre les problèmes de la responsabilité pour les dommages environnementaux aux niveaux national et international. Dans les deux cas, les règles établies pour des problèmes et priorités d'une autre époque devaient être appliquées aux problèmes complexes de l’environnement de notre temps. Mais les deux systèmes se sont avérés inadéquats à traiter les problèmes actuels de l’environnement et ils ont dû évoluer de façon à mieux faire face aux défis. La deuxième partie illustre, dans ses grandes lignes, les lacunes du système international et des règles de la responsabilité de l’Etat. Ces lacunes sont ancrées dans le coeur du système, concentré sur les intérêts des États souverains. Elles comprennent l'imprécision des règles, la mésentente concernant le genre de responsabilité (faute ou responsabilité stricte), la considération de nombreuses activités polluantes comme « légales », le caractère réactif du système et l'incapacité du système à traiter convenablement les coûts écologiques plutôt que les dommages aux intérêts de l'État. La troisième partie comprend l’énumération des développements et des orientations qui pourraient fournir des réponses aux problèmes mentionnés ci-dessus. Les solutions possibles comprennent l'établissement de règles protégeant les intérêts des États souverains de la communauté internationale, l'institution de régimes spéciaux de responsabilité pour les problèmes environnementaux plus précisément soulignés, les efforts de la Commission de droit international pour instituer un régime de responsabilité pour risques et la diffusion des régimes conçus pour prévenir ou résoudre les problèmes de l'environnement.The paper begins with a discussion of parallels between problems of environmental liability law at the national and international levels. At both levels, rules built upon concerns and priorities of another era had to be applied to the complex environmental problems of our times. Both systems have proven to be inadequate in addressing modern environmental concerns and have evolved to better meet the challenge. The second part of the paper will highlight the shortcomings of the international system and the law of state responsibility. They are rooted in the system's focus on the interests of sovereign states and include the vagueness of the relevant rules, the disagreement as to the standard of liability (fault or strict liability), the perception of many polluting activities as « lawful », the system's reactive character, the system's failure to effectively deal with ecological costs rather than injury to state interests. In its third part, the paper will survey developments and trends that may provide solutions to the aforementioned problems. Possible solutions include the emergence of rules that protect the common interests of the international community rather than the sovereign interests of states, the development of special liability regimes for more narrowly defined environmental concerns (generally : ultrahazardous activities), efforts of the International Law Commission to develop a risk liability regime, the proliferation of regimes designed to prevent or manage environmental problems

International Law and the Practice of Legality: Stability and Change

Drawing on the practice-turn in constructivism and in international relations (IR) theory more generally, we argue that a particular approach to managing stability and change is inherent in, and indeed characteristic of, legality and the rule of law in international as in domestic law. Our "interactional law" framework places particular emphasis on what we call the "practice of legality". This concept is central to understanding how law can both enable and constrain state actions, and why international law is a distinctive language of justification and contestation. In turn, the focus on stability and change is helpful because it directly confronts some of the persistent doubts and assumptions about international law, in particular in relation to international politics. Our work is animated by the intuition that the dominant views in IR and international law scholarship underestimate international law's capacity to mediate stability and change, in part because they focus on the surface of law (treaties, statutes and so on) and external factors (interests, enforcement). They neglect the deeper structure of what makes norms "law", and the distinctive practices that account for both its relative stability and its capacity for change

The challenge to international law : water defying sovereignty or sovereignty defying reality

o Direito Internacional da Água continua a ser influenciado pela persistência duma concepção tradicionalista de soberania sobre a águaf que vê nela, um recurso que pode ser destacado do ambiente em que se insere para utilizar ou alocar, conforme as circunstâncias. Para responder capazmente ao "desafio das águasof o direito internacional tem que traduzir a realidade da interdependência, entre Estados ribeirinhos e não só, em toda a sua complexidade. As normas do Direito Internacional do Ambiente e do Direito Internacional da Água terão que ser compatibilizadas com uma dupla finalidade: por um lado, perspectivarem a água como um elemento integrante do ambiente; e por outro, darem expressão a um conceito de soberania que reflicta, em vez de desafiar, uma realidade ambiental desenhada em função de princípios destinados a proteger o ecossistema e o desenvolvimento sustentado. Este artigo propõe-se enunciar as reais linlitações do Direito dos Cursos de Água Internacionais. Em seguida, com a finalidade de averiguar se estão sendo feitos esforços no sentido de encontrar uma concepção mais apropriada para a soberania sobre a água, apreciará alguns desenvolvimentos recentes, incluindo a Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre o Direito dos Usos Diversos da Navegação nos Cursos de Agua Internacionais, bem como as decisões do Tribunal Internacional de Justiça relativas ao caso Gabcikovo- Nagymaros. O ênfase do artigo é colocado no direito internacional dos recursos de água doce, mas não deixará de ser feita uma breve referência ao interface entre a água doce e os oceanos

The Stockholm Declaration and the Structure and Processes of International Environmental Law

The article considers the impact, and relevance, of the 1972 Stockholm Declaration of the Human Environment in the contemporary context of international environmental law.. Its role as the first major document that cast environmental concerns as global concerns makes the Declaration especially helpful in exploring the conceptual foundations of international environmental law. The article explores five major principles that reflect the evolution of international environmental law since 1972. It argues that, irrespective of their legal status, international environmental law principles influence state action, as is evident, inter alia, in treaty-making, judicial decisions, and domestic law-making

Europe, the United States and the Global Climate Regime: All Together Now?

The Article begins with a brief sketch of the climate regime as it has evolved under the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol. It then highlights the main features of current approaches taken by the United States and the EU toward climate policy and to the global climate regime. Next, it explores some of the factors that might account for European and American policy trajectories. This discussion turns from the internal politics of the EU and the United States, to their respective identities as international actors and leaders, to European and American attitudes towards international law, and finally to the salience of international environmental norms for EU and U.S. policies. The Article concludes with an evaluation of the likely implications of these factors for the future of the U.N. climate regime and for the respective leadership roles of the EU and the United States within the regime

International Legal Accountability Through the Lens of the Law of State Responsibility

International legal accountability involves the legal justification of an international actor's performance vis-ý-vis others, the assessment or judgment of that performance against applicable international legal standards, and the possible imposition of consequences if the actorfails to live up to these legal standards. This article examines questions of accountability in the international legal system through the lens of the state responsibility regime. It begins with an examination of the law of state responsibility and the accountability framework that it provides. By definition, that framework can facilitate only inter-state accountability on the basis of positive legal rules. The article then turns to the increasingly rich variety of other modes of international legal accountability. The rise of these alternative modes reflects the expansion of international law's normative horizons beyond inter-state concerns, the widening of the range of international actors, and the diversification of international law-making and implementation methods. It also reflects the fact that states rarely resort to the law of state responsibility to hold one another accountable for breaches of international law. Thus, while state responsibility remains the "paradigm form of responsibility on the international plane," it is not clear that it still constitutes the paradigm form of legal accountability in contemporary international practice