International Law
11
Menno T. Kamminga
11.1 Introduction
Traditionally, two kinds of law are distinguished. On the one hand, there is national
or domestic law, which deals with legal relations within the territory of a single
state and with the organization of that state itself. On the other hand, there is
international law (sometimes called “public international law”), which deals with
the legal relations between states.
This traditional account is essentially a description of the “Westphalian duo” that was
discussed in Sect.1.5.
The sharp distinction between national and international law may have been
adequate in the past, but it is under increasing pressure. It is, for example, a mistake
to assume that states are free to adopt whatever laws they like. In European
countries, a large percentage of domestic laws and regulations currently originates
from Brussels. But much of European Union law in turn originates from Geneva,
New York, or Nairobi. Whether they are international trade and investment rules,
Security Council sanctions or greenhouse emission standards, legal standards are
increasingly devised at meetings of international organizations or ad hoc interna-
tional conferences around the world instead of in domestic capitals.
The interplay of rules and measures stemming from institutions at different
levels may be illustrated by the so-calledKadicase. The case provides an example
of the interplay between the United Nations Charter (under which financial
sanctions were imposed on Mr. Kadi), domestic law (under which the sanctions
were implemented), EU law (under which the sanctions were first transformed and
then nullified), and the law of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),
M.T. Kamminga (*)
Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Maastricht Centre for Human Rights, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
e-mail:[email protected]
J. Hage and B. Akkermans (eds.),Introduction to Law,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-06910-4_11,#Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
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