Alternatives to withdrawal from an International Organization: The Case of the EEC

Abbreviated adaptation of a study prepared for the Nathan Feinberg Festschrift (20 Israel Law Review 282 (1986))

J. H. H. Weiler Reply to the Laudatio on the Occasion of the Conferal of the Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Bucharest, April 30th 2013

Professor Weiler received the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Bucharest after a lifelong career dedicated to the study and practice of international and European law. In his reply to the Laudatio he explored the question of justice, through an overview of its ecclesiastic roots. In this respect, he identifies four important elements: the rejection of collective punishment, the connection between the idea of justice and the existence of God, the source of injustice in the world, and the need to maintain coherence in God’s way to do justice

The Transformation of Europe

Professor Weiler confronts the most complex and multi-faceted, and indeed the deepest change in contemporary Europe-the evolving relationship between the European Community and its Member States. Without denying the importance of 1992, he argues that it was preceded by two deeper mutations in the structure of the European Community, mutations we must understand if we are to grasp fully the significance of 1992. Tracing the evolution of the Community's political structure from 1958 to the present, the Article concentrates on constitutional aspects of the Community, specifically relationships between the Community and Member States along the axes of political power and legal norms. Professor Weiler then confronts the evolving question of the division of competences between Community and Member State. Analyzing law's role in the Community in its living political matrix rather than as abstract ideal, Weiler follows the evolution of these center-periphery tensions and concludes with some observations on ideology, ethos and political culture in post-1992 Europe

Crimes of State

None of the Draft Articles on State Responsibility adopted by the International Law Commission has provoked as much controversy as Article 19 on Crimes of State. Yet, strangely enough, even if the issues themselves have received exhaustive treatment, the debate about the issues, the debate which divides proposers of, and opposers to, the adoption of the new category of State Responsibility, has remained largely unexplored. It is this second dimension which will be the focal point of these brief remarks - concluding the Florence Conference on State Responsibility and Crimes of State. What interests me here, therefore, as distinct from most other contributions to the ongoing discussion, is not the notion of Crimes of State in itself but rather the international law Weltanschauung of those, states and particularly scholars, debating the concept. Why is it that some scholars and some states espouse, even enthusiastically, the concept whereas others reject it, at times as anathema