Marks of Rectitude (original) (raw)
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The Binding Force of International Legal Standards in the Face of the Recurrent Practice of Soft Law
Przegląd Prawniczy Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza
Soft law facilitates cooperation between international actors. Already, the elaboration of international law is a matter of shared competence between States, traditionally recognized as the only subjects of international law, international organizations and the typical actors. International organizations have initiated a movement towards the adoption of flexible forms of regulation of international relations. They will profoundly change the way in which international law will be created and presented to the recipients of the rule of law. From the very beginning of their activities, organizations preferred a method other than hierarchical command to encourage international cooperation. They will develop a consistent legal technique, aimed at persuading and not compelling their Member States to adopt conduct consistent with the legally binding standard. This article proposes a reflection on soft law and the results of its increasing use in international practices.
Anuario Mexicano de Derecho Internacional, 2013
This article revisits the traditional conception on the study of the sources of international law by contrasting it with one of the notions that challenges classical law making: soft law. In doing so, the article presents an overall review of the concept of soft law, exploring its main features and actual legal implications. Finally, the paper formulates a series of questions whose main aim is to make a call for rethinking the sources of international law. It is posited here that such sources should not remain static but rather develop at the speed of contemporary international relations. Special reference is made to international environmental law considered as a particular branch of international law, which dynamics are to be useful and pertinent to such an endeavor.
Comparing the legitimacy and effectiveness of global hard and soft law: An analytical framework
Regulation & Governance, 2009
The international norms that are developed as tools of global governance can be placed on a continuum from traditional "hard law" treaties to the vaguest and voluntary "soft law." In this article we develop an analytical framework for comparing norms on different positions along the continuum, thus for comparing international hard and soft law. We root the framework in both the rationalist and the constructivist paradigms of international relations by focusing on two overarching evaluative criteria: effectiveness and legitimacy. These broad concepts are divided into smaller building blocks encompassing mechanisms through which norms can exert influence; for example, by changing material incentives, identities, and building capacity, and by contributing to building source-based, procedural, and substantive legitimacy. We illustrate the applicability of the framework with three norm processes of varying degrees of "softness" in global climate governance.
Market Modelling Soft Law: Reputation as a handbrake on the conduct of international actors
Soft law is not law in any formal sense. Rather, it is a term used to describe non-legally binding instruments in the international legal system. 1 There is no consensus as to its usefulness or to the strength it possesses as a nonlegally binding instrument; however, the debates that spawn from soft law contentions raise interesting issues for its future. Some scholars argue that soft law has both complementary and antagonistic features, but that soft law is susceptible to exploitative practices to subvert or reorient accepted international norms. 2 Others consider soft law no law at all. 3 This paper considers whether the antagonistic features of soft law are harmful to the international legal framework or whether soft law is a useful tool for aiding healthy global democratic practices.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017
This paper discusses the role of soft law in international law, in particular in the field of sustainable development law. Soft law is often regarded as non-law. However this qualification increasingly does not match the realities of the development of international law in which many legally relevant statements are made in the form of soft law, while many so-called hard law obligations are rather soft. A comparison between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change, both adopted in the second half of 2015, is used to illustrate these points. It is argued that in the development of international law can be better understood by placing legal statements on a continuum from weak to strong legal pronunciations instead of using the binary approach that distinguishes between hard and soft law and that qualifies soft law as non-law.
ROLE OF SOFT LAW IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: AN OVERVIEW
One of the key features of international law is the outstanding progress of law governing the environment in recent times. From a very reticent start with about no law at law, the global environmental law has developed an enormous complicated field encircling numerous treaties, declarations, general principles, and customary international law rules. It is not clandestine that this significant growth is due to a considerable extent, to the role played by the soft law instruments. Soft law is by its nature the enunciation of a norm in a non-binding written form and is considered to be the charters, resolutions, declarations or recommendations of world community that is not meant to be as binding as the international treaties. It is a core source of international law that has emerged and developed rapidly in the modern era of globalization, particularly to knob the sensitive issues, e.g., trade and commerce, protection of human rights, conservation of environment and so on. Though the idea of soft law has existed for years, scholars have attained at no consensus as to why do states regulate soft law or whether soft law is of a consistent logical category. To some extent, this perplexity replicates a profound diversity in the categories of global agreements and strategic situations that produce them. Despite it is accepted that soft law is a latent device in harmonizing the regime created by hard law and plays a key role in achieving fixed goals regarding the implementation of global environmental law. This article strives to provide a detailed definition of soft law as well as point outs its emergence and development. It also illustrates the legal status, impact, significance, and challenges of soft law. Furthermore, this research focuses on the role of soft law instruments in the conservation of global environment.