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How to Select and Develop International Law Case Studies: Lessons fromComparative Law and Comparative Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Katerina Linos
Katerina Linos*
Affiliation:
Berkeley Law School
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Extract

To develop international law claims, it is often critical to compare different countries’ laws. This essay explores how methods drawn from comparative law and comparative politics research can help international lawyers make comparative inquiries more simply and straightforwardly.

International lawyers recognize three main sources of legal authority: treaties, custom, and general principles. Cross-national comparisons are deeply embedded in the very definitions of two of these three sources. To establish international custom, an international lawyer must show that a broad range of states consistently engage in a certain practice out of a sense of legal obligation. To establish a general principle, an international lawyer must show that it is “recognized by civilized nations”; in practice this requires that the principle be found in diverse legal families. Treaty interpretation does not necessitate cross-country comparison as a matter of definition: in theory, the text of the treaty itself could provide the requisite answers. However, in practice, international and domestic courts are typically faced with ambiguous treaty terms. To interpret them, they often turn to the jurisprudence of diverse states and to subsequent state practice, thus implicitly beginning a comparative inquiry. in sum, comparative international law is useful for identifying and applying international law, as this volume’s introduction explains.

Type
Exploring Comparative International Law
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 109 , Issue 3 , July 2015 , pp. 475 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2015

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References

1 Statute of the International Court of Justice art. 38, June 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, 8 Unts 993. As a subsidiary source, “judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations “ can be used (emphasis added). Id.

2 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties art. 31(3)(b), opened for signature May 23, 1969, 1155 Unts 331.

3 See generally, Priest, George L. & Klein, Benjamin, The Selection of Disputes for Litigation, 13 J. Legal Stud. 1 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and works citing this piece.

4 Roberts, Anthea, Is International Law International? (forthcoming 2016)Google Scholar.

5 Id.

6 Zaring, David, The use of Foreign Decisions by Federal Courts: An Empirical Analysis, 3 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 297, 301 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Voeten, Erik, Borrowing and Nonborrowing Among International Courts, 39 J. Legal Stud. 547 (2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Int’l Law Ass’n, London Conference, Final Report of the Committee: Statement of Principles Applicable to the Formation of General Customary International Law 32–34 (2000).

9 See Roberts, Anthea Elizabeth, Traditional and Modern Approaches to Customary International Law: A Reconciliation, 95 AJIL 757 (2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 For examples of databases that international lawyers might find especially useful, see United Nations Treaty Collection, at https://treaties.un.org (last visited Mar. 29, 2015); Comparative Constitutions Project, at http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org (last visited Mar. 29, 2015); Doing Business Data, World Bank Group, at http://www.doingbusiness.org (last visited Mar. 29, 2015); and the Correlates of War Project, at http://correlatesofwar.org (last visited Mar. 29, 2015). For a very helpful review of the quantitative literature in comparative law, see Spamann, Holger, Empirical Comparative Law, 11 Ann. Rev. L. & Soc. Sci. (forthcoming 2015)Google Scholar, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2577350.

11 See Forteau, Mathias, Comparative International Law Within, Not Against, International Law: Lessons from the International Law Commission, 109 AJIL 498 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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13 See, e.g., Marshall, Martin N., Sampling for Qualitative Research, 13 Fam. Prac. 522, 523 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See, e.g., Waldron, Jeremy, “Partly Law Scommon to All Man Kind”: Foreign Law in American Courts 171–76 (2012)Google Scholar.

15 Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to be Chief Justice of the United States Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. 200–01 (2005).

16 See, e.g., Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, in The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology 756 (2008)Google Scholar.

17 See, e.g., Freedman, David A., Do the N’s Justify the Means?, 6 Qualitative & Multi-Method Res. 4 (2008)Google Scholar.

18 See, e.g., Gerring, John, Techniques for Case Selection: A Response to David Freedman, 6 Qualitative & Multi-Method Res. 7, 8–9 (2008)Google Scholar.

19 Theoretically informed sampling, also known as purposive sampling, bears important similarities to stratified random sampling.

20 For a more extensive discussion, see John Gerring, Case Study Research (2007) and Jason Sea wright & Gerring, John, Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options, 61 Pol. Res. Q. 294 (2008)Google Scholar.

21 As noted in part I, the continued relevance of opinio juris is debated; while the U.S. Restatement emphasizes opinio juris, other authorities are more flexible. Relatedly, some scholars argue that, to establish a general principle, deductive, natural-law-like reasoning is appropriate.

22 For more details on this example, see Ohlin, Jens David, Control Matters: Ukraine & Russia and the Downing of Flight 17, Opinio Juris (July 23, 2014, 8:30 AM)Google Scholar, at http://opiniojuris.org/2014/07/23/control-mattersukraine-russia-downing-flight-17.

23 See, e.g., Chayes, Abram & Chayes, Antonia Handler, On Compliance, 47 Int’l Org. 175, 175–76, 178 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Linos, Katerina, How Can International Organizations Shape National Welfare States? Evidence from Compliance with European Union Directives, 40 Comp. Pol. Stud. 547 (2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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25 See, e.g., La Porta, Rafael et al., The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins, 46 J. Econ. Literature 285 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677 (1900).

27 See Alexander L. George & Andrew Bennett, Cases Tudies and theory Development in the Social Sciences 153–60 (2005).

28 Ashley Deeks, Intelligence Communities and International Law (working paper).

29 See Gary King, Robert O. Keohane & Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry 168 (1994).

30 For further analysis of whether a case might be more or less likely to confirm a theory, see Eckstein, Harry, Case Study and Theory in Political Science, in 7 Handbook of Political Science 79 (Greenstein, Fred I. & Polsby, Nelson W. eds., 1975 Google Scholar).

31 1 Jean-Mariehenckaerts & Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Human Itarian Law (2005); 2 Int’l Comm. of the Red Cross, Customary International Humanitarian Law (Jean-Marie Henckaerts & Louise Doswald-Beck eds., 2005).

32 See Rogowski, Ronald, The Role of Theory and Anomaly in Social-Scientific Inference, 89 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 467, 468 (1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 See George & Bennett, supra note 27, at 20–21.

34 The power resources thesis emphasizes the role of organized labor and organized business opposition to labor in the development of modern welfare states. See, e.g., Bradley, David et al., Distribution and Redistribution in Post industrial Democracies, 55 World PoL. 193 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 See Linos, supra note 23, at 561.

36 See generally Michaels, Ralf, The Functional Method of Comparative Law, in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law 342 (Reimann, Mathias & Zimmermann, Reinhard eds., 2006)Google Scholar.

37 See id. at 373. See also Fr.Kruse, Vinding, What Does “Transfer of Property” Mean with Regard to Chattels? A Study in Comparative Law, 7 Am. J. Comp. L. 500 (1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See, e.g., Hansmann, Henry & Mattei, Ugo, The Functions of Trust Law: A Comparative Legal and Economic Analysis, 73 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 434 (1998)Google Scholar; von Mehren, Arthur T., Civil-Law Analogues to Consideration: An Exercise in Comparative Analysis, 72 Harv. L. Rev. 1009 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 See generally Cheng, Bin, General Principles of International Law as Applied by International Courts and Tribunals (Cambridge Univ. Press 2006)Google Scholar (1953).

40 Compare LG&E Energy Corp., LG&E Capital Corp., and LG&E Int’l, Inc. v. Argentine Republic, Icsid Case No. Arb/02/1, Decision on Liability, ¶¶ 229, 245 (Oct. 3, 2006), and Continental Casualty Company v. Argentine Republic, Icsid Case No. Arb/03/9, Award, ¶¶168, 233 (Sept. 5, 2008) (excusing Argentina’s conduct because Argentina found itself in a state of necessity), with CMS Gas Transmission Co. v. Argentine Republic, Icsid Case No. Arb 01/8, Award (May 12, 2005) (holding that the requirements of necessity had not been met).