Download This PaperCoercing Compliance: The Enforcement Conundrums of the Formal Sources of International and Constitutional Public Law
36 Pages Posted: 24 Jan 2023
Date Written: December 10, 2022
Abstract
One of the international law's most frequent critiques relates to its apparent unenforceability, a weakness commonly attributed to the absence of a central world government with the ability to exact coercive force against transgressors of inter-State obligations. Yet, as this article aims to demonstrate, the challenge of law whose subjects bend to no legal authority is one of equal theoretical relevance in domestic constitutional systems. Highlighting this oft-overlooked parallelism, this paper draws on 20th-century positivist thought to frame international law's shortcomings, not through the lens of a Hartian rule of recognition but rather through a problem confined to le domaine politique. Arguing for a reconceptualization of public international law, this paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the formal sources of the law of nations.
Keywords: International law, constitutional law, sources of law, comparative law, Grundnorm
JEL Classification: K33
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