an international origin can only become national law if it is explicitly “transformed”
into national law by means of legislation. In the Netherlands, law with an interna-
tional origin to which the Dutch state is bound “automatically” becomes part of the
national legal system.
Global Legal System Another perspective was propagated by the Austrian phi-
losopher of law Hans Kelsen (1881–1973), namely that the world has only one law,
with local variations. These variations are comparable to the differences between
the municipal law of the cities of Maastricht and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is a unitary state and has one legal system. However, this system
allows provinces and municipalities to arrange their own affairs within the
boundaries of national law. This means that the parking regulation of Maastricht
may differ from that of Amsterdam. However, the rules of, for instance, property
law are the same everywhere in the Netherlands.
It is possible to apply the same view to the international legal system. There
would be one global law, but there are local variations that correspond to national
states or to federations or to districts, provinces, or municipalities. There need to be
“conflict rules” that specify which rule is applicable if there seems to be more than
one applicable rule for a particular case. Yet most of the time, the content and scope
of the rules themselves determine whether a rule is applicable. French rules usually
do not claim to be applicable to cases in the US, just as the law of the city of London
does not claim to be applicable in the city of Manchester. From this point of view,
the Westphalian duo is rejected. There is one global law, even if there is sometimes
a need for conflict rules that deal with potential conflicts between rules.
According to their national rules, most, if not all, states adopt the first view of the
law and adhere to the Westphalian duo. They assume that a law with an interna-
tional origin needs to be incorporated in their national systems if it is to be
applicable to national courts and that it is their national laws that determine whether
and how such incorporation is to take place. One of the interesting things about EU
law is that it seems to reject this approach.
10.6.4 Van Gend & Loos and Costa/ENEL
The question how the law of the EU (then called the EEC) related to the national
laws of the Member States was answered by the CJEU in a ground-breaking
decision in theVan Gend & Looscase (CJEU Case C-26/62). When the case
came before the CJEU at the beginning of the 1960s, the precise nature of this
relation was still unclear. The Member States may have even thought that it was
clear, namely in accordance with what their national laws said about it. It turned
out, however, that the CJEU was of a different opinion.
10.6.4.1 Van Gend & Loos
The Van Gend & Loos company imported a chemical substance,
ureaformaldehyde, from Germany into the Netherlands. According to the Dutch
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