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A Fresh Look at the Issue of Non-justiciability of Defence and Foreign Affairs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2010

DANIELE AMOROSO
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Abstract

For decades it has been authoritatively stressed that non-justiciability of defence and foreign affairs represents one of the major hurdles to the application of international law by domestic courts. Until now, however, international law scholarship seems to have overlooked two aspects of this issue. First, it has not been sufficiently highlighted that the international and the European community legal orders are progressively eroding the scope of application of these non-justiciability doctrines. Second, it has rarely been shown how judicial intervention in international matters can be prevented from turning into the ‘judicialization’ of foreign policy. Hence, ideally by moving along the path traced by those who have already dealt with this issue, the present work aims to analyse these two aspects in greater depth.

Keywords

domestic application of international lawnon-justiciabilitypolitical question doctrinestate responsibility
Type
CURRENT LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 933 - 948
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2010

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References

1 A useful (although inevitably partial) overview of this trend is offered by the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts, available online at www.oxfordlawreports.com.

2 B. Conforti, Appunti dalle lezioni di diritto internazionale (1976), 9; Conforti, International Law and the Role of Domestic Legal Systems (1993), 8. For a similar approach, albeit from a different perspective, see Koh, H. H., Transnational Legal Process, (1996) 75 Nebraska Law Review 181, at 203Google Scholar.

3 E. Benvenisti, Judicial Misgivings Regarding the Application of International Law: An Analysis of Attitudes of National Courts, (1993) 4 EJIL 159.

4 The political question doctrine is firmly rooted in the US legal system (see Baker v. Carr, 369 US 186 [1962]), but analogous doctrines are applied in other common law countries, e.g. in the United Kingdom (see T. R. S. Allan, Constitutional Justice: A Liberal Theory of the Rule of Law (2003), 161).

5 We can include in this category all the doctrines inspired by the French acte de gouvernement (on which see P. Duez, Les actes de gouvernement (1935)): The Italian atto politico (Condorelli, L., Acts of the Italian Government in International Matters before Domestic Courts, (1976) 4 Italian Yearbook of International Law 178Google Scholar), the Greek κυβερνητικ πρξη (Tachos, A., ‘Le contrôle interne de l'administration publique en Grèce’, (1990) 42 Revue internationale de droit comparé 967CrossRefGoogle Scholar), as well as the doctrines of the actos politicos adopted in several Latin American countries (Urbina, F. Zuniga, ‘Control Judicial de los Actos Politicos. Recurso de Proteccion ante las “Cuestiones Politicas”’, (2008) 14 Ius et Praxis 271Google Scholar). According to some authors such avoidance doctrines have also been adopted by international courts (Helfer, L. R. and Slaughter, A.-M., ‘Toward a Theory of Effective Supranational Adjudication’, (1997) 107 Yale Law Journal 273, at 316CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perez, A. F., ‘The Passive Virtues and the World Court: Pro-dialogic Abstention by the International Court of Justice’, (1997) 18 Michigan Journal of International Law 399Google Scholar). This view is not universally shared (see, e.g., Francioni, F., ‘International Law as a Common Language for National Courts’, (2001) 36 Texas International Law Journal 587, at 590Google Scholar). Given our focus on domestic courts, however, this question is beyond the reach of the present inquiry.

6 It is worth noting that common law doctrines have a wider scope than their Continental counterparts. Unlike the latter they can also be invoked in the context of the judicial review of constitutionality, in disputes between private parties and with regard to defences raised by the respondent party. Both groups of doctrines, however, put government action in international matters beyond judicial review. Taking this aspect into consideration, therefore, a joint analysis is justified.

7 See, e.g., Dubois-Richard, F., ‘La raison de droit et la raison d'état dans le régime administratif français’, (1989) 2 Revue européenne de droit public 197Google Scholar; Nzelibe, J., ‘The Uniqueness of Foreign Affairs’, (2004) 89 Iowa Law Review 941Google Scholar.

8 D. P. Kommers, The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany (1997), 153.

9 C. Flinterman, ‘Judicial Control of Foreign Affairs: The Political Question Doctrine’, in R. Bakker, A. W. Heringa, and F. A. M. Stroink (eds.), Judicial Control: Comparative Essays on Judicial Review (1995), 45, at 52.

10 A. Barak, The Judge in a Democracy (2006), 177.

11 F. Sarasola, La funciòn de gobierno en la Constituciòn española de 1978 (2002), 196.

12 E. Benvenisti, ‘United We Stand: National Courts Reviewing Counterterrorism Measures’, in A. Bianchi and A. Keller (eds.), Counterterrorism: Democracy's Challenge (2008), 251.

13 See, e.g., Conforti, International Law, supra note 2, at 13. In this regard, it has been noted that international lawyers have been more assertive than constitutionalists in criticizing these doctrines (Burley, A.-M. Slaughter, ‘Book Review: Are Foreign Affairs Different?’, (1993) 106 Harvard Law Review 1980, at 1994CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

14 Annuaire de l'Institut de droit international (1994) 65, II, 318 (the text of the resolution is also available at www.idi-iil.org).

15 For the purposes of the present work, the expression ‘rule of law’ will be employed in its most general meaning, namely as the principle according to which state bodies must comply with the rules of law. For a fuller analysis of this concept, however, see Watts, A., ‘The International Rule of Law’ (1993) 2 German Yearbook of International Law 36Google Scholar.

16 It is impossible to mention all the authors who have critically dealt with this subject. Still, it suffices to recall the excellent work of Duez, supra note 5, for the civil law systems, and that of T. M. Franck, Political Questions/Judicial Answers: Does the Rule of Law Apply to Foreign Affairs? (1992), for those of common law.

17 See, e.g., Terneyre, P., ‘Le droit constitutionnel au juge’, (1991) 145 Les Petites Affiches 4Google Scholar; or, with reference to international human rights norms, P. Mertens, Le droit de recours effectif devant les instances nationales en cas de violation d'un droit de l'homme (1973), 118.

18 See, e.g., Japan Whaling Association v. American Cetacean Society, 478 US 221 (1986), at 230 (‘The political question doctrine excludes from judicial review those controversies which revolve around policy choices and value determinations constitutionally committed for resolution to the halls of Congress or the confines of the Executive Branch’); Cassazione Civile, Sezioni Unite, 5 June 2002 No. 8157, Marković v. Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri e altri, para. 2 (‘[political] acts . . . constitute the manifestation of a . . . function with regard to which the Constitution requires attribution to a constitutional body’, Eng. trans. available at www.oxfordreports.com).

19 For an explicit, constitutional prohibition of the exercise of judicial review over acts of foreign policy, however, see the Dutch Constitution, Art. 120 (‘The constitutionality of . . . treaties shall not be reviewed by the courts’, English translation available at www.minbzk.nl). One must emphasize, however, that this provision goes beyond the scope of our inquiry. In this case the judicial immunity of foreign power does not prevent the domestic application of international law but, on the contrary, strengthens it.

20 On the ‘political function’ see, in general, G. Jellinek, L'État moderne et son droit (1911), 330.

21 See, e.g., R. v. Jones and others, [2006] UKHL 16, at 65, per Lord Hoffmann (‘there is the theoretical difficulty of the courts, as the judicial branch of government, holding not merely that some officer of the state has acted unlawfully . . . but, as a sine qua non condition, that the state itself, of which the courts form part, has acted unlawfully’). See also the stance taken by the Italian state attorney in the Marković case, supra note 18, para. 4 (the Facts): ‘The State is subject to the jurisdiction of its courts only if it appears as “State administration”, since in that case the judicial power may be applied to it both as an independent and as a third party. This position of independence and third parties on the part of the court does not apply if the State is summoned before the court as unitary entity of “State Community” and that is the position if claims are made against it that relate to conduct pursued as a sovereign in the field of international relations. In that case, its actions may be judged only by International Courts to whose jurisdictional competence the State is subject in connection with specific matters.’

22 E. Zoller, Droit des relations extérieures (1992), 311. See, e.g., Occidental of Umm al Qaywayn, Inc. v. A Certain Cargo of Petroleum, 577 F.2d 1196, 1204–05 (5d cir. 1978): ‘In their external relations, sovereigns are bound by no law; they are like our ancestors before the recognition or imposition of the social contract. A prerequisite of law is a recognized superior authority whether delegated from below or imposed from above [:] where there is no recognized authority, there is no law. Because no law exists binding these sovereigns and allocating rights and liabilities, no method exists to judicially resolve their disagreements.’

23 See supra note 16.

24 Iovane, M., ‘La participation de la société civile à l'élaboration et à l'application du droit international de l'environnement’, (2008) 112 Revue générale de droit international public 465, at 469Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., at 498.

26 [2002] EWHC 2777.

27 Callan v. Bush, District Court for the District of Nebraska, 30 April 2003, Civil Action No. 4:03CV3060 (unreported), aff'd 103 Fed. Appx. 68 (8th Cir. 2004), cert. denied 125 US 932 (2005), rehrg. denied 125 S. Ct. 1730 (2005).

28 O-Hoon Lee v. President of the Republic, 16–1 KCCR 601 (available in English at http://english.ccourt.go.kr).

29 United States v. Lt. E. Watada, Ruling on the Defense Request for Hearing on Nuremberg Defense, 16 January 2007 (unreported, available at http://peacelaw.wdfiles.com).

30 Comité contre la guerre en Irak et autres, CE, 10 December 2003, req. n°255904 (available at www.legifrance.gouv.fr).

31 [2002] EWCA Civ. 03.

32 [2001] JC 143, HCJ.

33 R. v. Secretary of State ex parte Thring, Court of Appeal (Civil Division), 20 July 2000 (unreported, available at www.cicr.org/ihl-nat.nsf). In this regard, it is worth mentioning also the judgment rendered by the UK High Court of Justice (Divisional Court) in R. v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs ex parte Al-Haq ([2009] EWHC 1910). In that case the court regarded as non-justiciable the UK government's choice not to take measures with regard to the grave breaches of international humanitarian law committed by Israel during ‘Operation Cast Lead’.

34 Marković, supra note 18.

35 Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir. 1980).

36 B. Stephens et al., International Human Rights Litigation in US Courts (2008).

37 412 F.3d 190 (DC Cir. 2005).

38 449 F.3d 1260 (DC Cir. 2006).

39 445 F.3d 427 (DC Cir. 2006).

40 Judicial abstention in these disputes was strongly advocated by the Bush administration. In most cases, however, courts have refused to accede to this request (Stephens, B., ‘Judicial Deference and the Unreasonable Views of the Bush Administration’, (2008) 33 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 773Google Scholar).

41 67 F. Supp. 2d 424, 453 (DNJ 1999).

42 65 F. Supp. 2d 248 (DNJ 1999).

43 196 F. App'x 93, (3d Cir. 2006).

44 503 F.3d 974, (9d Cir. 2007).

45 See, also for further bibliographical references and for the case law mentioned therein, A. Nollkaemper, ‘Internationally Wrongful Acts in Domestic Courts’, (2008) 101 AJIL 760, at 767.

46 ILC Draft Articles on State Responsibility, (2001) II (Part Two) Yearbook of the International Law Commission, Arts. 42 and 49. In this sense, Khdir, M., ‘La théorie de l'acte de gouvernement dans la jurisprudence du Conseil d'Etat relative aux relations internationales de la France à l'epreuve du droit international’, (2003) 130 Journal du Droit International 1059, at 1059Google Scholar, but see also Duez, supra note 5, at 172.

47 CE, Ass., 15 October 1993, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande du Nord, Rec. 267.

48 CE, 26 July 1985, Solis Estarita, Rec. 230.

49 It is important to note that the Commissaire du gouvernement, despite what the name suggests, performs a function similar to that of the Judge Rapporteur. Its conclusions – much more articulate than the Conseil d'Etat judgments – often offer useful insights about the reasons which underlie the Court's decisions. The conclusions submitted by Vigouroux in the aforementioned case are published in (1993) 9 Revue française de droit administratif 1179.

50 In this sense, see Cayla, O., ‘Le contrôle des mesures d'exécution des traités: réduction ou négation de la théorie des actes de gouvernement’, (1994) 10 Revue française de droit administratif 1, at 6Google Scholar; Khdir, supra note 46, at 1077.

51 Articles on State Responsibility, supra note 46, Arts. 48 and 54.

52 Rasul v. Bush, 542 US 466 (2004); Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 US 557 (2006); Boumediene v. Bush, 553 US 723 (2008).

53 For a brief, but very useful, overview of this case law see Chemerinsky, E., ‘The Constitution and National Security’, (2009) 25 Touro Law Review 577Google Scholar.

54 Similarly, Cohen, H. Grant, ‘Supremacy and Diplomacy: The International Law of the US Supreme Court’, (2006) 24 Berkeley Journal of International Law 273, at 279Google Scholar.

55 Hamdan case, supra note 52.

56 Ibid., Part VI (A–C).

57 Ibid., Part VI (D).

58 This expression was famously used by Steyn, LJ, ‘Guantánamo Bay: The Legal Black Hole’, (2004) 53 ICLQ 1.

59 See the case law mentioned in Boulois, X. Dupré de, ‘La théorie des actes de gouvernement à l'épreuve du droit communautaire’, (2000) 116 Revue de Droit Public 1791, at 1795Google Scholar.

60 Maclaine Watson & Company Limited v. Council and Commission of the European Communities, Opinion of Mr Advocate General Darmon delivered on 1 June 1989, Case C-241/87, [1990] ECR I-01797.

61 Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v. Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities, Opinion of Mr Advocate General Poiares Maduro delivered on 23 January 2008, Joined cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, [2008] ECR I-06351.

62 Maclaine Watson case, Opinion of Mr Advocate General, supra note 60, paras. 66–93.

63 Ibid., para. 95.

64 Ibid., para. 97.

65 Kadi case, Opinion of Mr Advocate General, supra note 61, para. 33.

66 Ibid., para. 34.

67 [2008] ECR I-06351. On this judgment see P. De Sena and M. C. Vitucci, ‘The European Courts and the Security Council: Between Dédoublement Fonctionnel and Balancing of Values’, (2009) 20 EJIL 193.

68 ECJ, Case 222/86, Union nationale des entraîneurs et cadres techniques professionnels du football (Unectef) v. Georges Heylens and others, (1987) ECR 04097, para. 14.

69 CE, 12 March 1999, Société Héli-Union, Rec., 501.

70 Tribunale di Roma, Società Fincantieri v. Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 10 October 1991, (1992) Nuova Giurisprudenza Civile 577.

71 See supra note 17.

72 See, e.g., A. Bickel, The Least Dangerous Branch: The Supreme Court at the Bar of Politics (1962), 75; P. Reuter, Le droit international et la place du juge français dans l'ordre constitutionnel national (1970), 27; Franck, supra note 16, at 50.

73 See, e.g., Korematsu v. United States, [1944] 332 US 214, at 224 (‘the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot – by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight – now say that at that time these actions were not justified’).

74 Hirschl, R., ‘The Judicialization of Mega-politics and the Rise of Political Courts’, (2008) 11 Annual Review of Political Science 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

75 See House of Lords, The Arantzazu Mendi, [1939] AC UKHL 256, at 264, per Lord Atkin (‘Our State cannot speak with two voices on such a matter, the judiciary saying one thing, the Executive another’); Baker case, supra note 4, at 212.

76 See, e.g., Michoud, J., ‘Étude sur le pouvoir discrétionnaire de l'administration’, (1914) 37 Revue générale d'administration 5Google Scholar; Duez, supra note 5, at 193.

77 R (Abbasi) v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2003] UKHRR 76; R (Al Rawi and others) v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [2006] EWHC 972, per Lord Laws para. 148 (‘The court's role is to see that the government strictly complies with all formal requirements, and rationally considers the matters it has to confront. Here, because of the subject-matter, the law accords to the executive an especially broad margin of discretion’). See also ECJ, Case C-162/96, A. Racke GmbH & Co. v. Hauptzollamt Mainz, (1998) ECR I-03655, para. 53 (‘because of the complexity of the rules in question and the imprecision of some of the concepts to which they refer, judicial review must necessarily . . . be limited to the question whether, by adopting the suspending regulation, the Council made manifest errors of assessment concerning the conditions for applying those rules’).

78 The Israeli Supreme Court case law relating to the fight against terrorism is fully collected in Judgments of the Israel Supreme Court: Fighting Terrorism within the Law, available at www.mfa.gov.il.

79 CA 2/84, Neiman v. Chairman of Cent. Elections Comm. For Eleventh Knesset.

80 CA 7048/97, Anonymous v. Minister of Defense. See Barak supra note 10, at 283.

81 A. Baker, Proportionality under the UK Human Rights Act (2010).

82 Hamdan case, supra note 52, Part V.

83 Kadi case, supra note 61, para. 361.

84 See, e.g., E. Orükü, ‘The Core of Human Rights and Freedoms: The Limit of Limits’, in T. Campbell et al. (eds.), Human Rights: From Rhetoric to Reality (1986), 37.

85 HCJ 5100/94, The Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. The Government of Israel, 53(4) PD 817.

86 Ibid., at 845.

87 See, e.g., Iovane, supra note 24, at 469.

88 In this sense see Tigar, M. E., ‘Judicial Power, the “Political Question Doctrine” and Foreign Relations’, (1970) 17 UCLA Law Review 1135, at 1171Google Scholar.

89 Daniković and others v. The Netherlands, NJ (2002) 35 (English translation available in (2004) 35 Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 522); Association of Lawyers for Peace and Others v. The Netherlands, NJ (2004) 329 (available in English at www.oxfordlawreports.com).

90 Nagoya High Court, 17 April 2008 (unreported).

91 Constitutional Committee Association and Others v. Rasmussen, 17 March 2010 (unreported, an English summary is available at www.domstol.dk).

92 Supra note 28.

93 Supra note 27, at 4.

94 See Nollkaemper, supra note 45, at 770.

95 BVerwG, 2 WS 12.04 (a partial English translation of the judgment is available at www.oxfordlawreports.com).

96 Ibid., para. 95.

97 d'Aspremont, J., ‘The Foundations of the International Legal Order’, (2007) 18 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 219Google Scholar.

98 BVerfGE 66, 39 2 BvR 1160/83 (an English translation is available at www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/transnational/work_new/german).

99 Ibid., at C, para. 2(c). More recently, a similar approach was followed by the Queen's Bench Division (Divisional Court) in Hutchinson v. Newbury Magistrates Court, 2 October 2000 (unreported, available at www.tridentploughshares.org).

100 B. Conforti and A. Labella, ‘Invalidity and Termination of Treaties: The Role of National Courts’, (1990) 1 EJIL 44.

101 B. Conforti, Diritto internazionale (2006), at 125.

102 Conforti and Labella, supra note 100, at 50.

103 Ibid. (emphasis in original).

104 Ibid. Following the entry into force of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties – and in particular of the compulsory conciliation procedure under Arts. 65–68 – some clarification is needed. Even though the conciliation mechanism under the Convention could result in a paralysis of state power to terminate a treaty, this does not rule out the national courts’ power and duty to ascertain whether a treaty is valid and in force before enforcing it in a domestic proceeding (ibid., at 65).

105 V.-D. Degan, ‘Création et disparition de l'Etat (à la lumière du démembrement de trois Fédérations multiethniques en Europe)’, (1999) 279 RCADI 195, at 247.

106 See, e.g., I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (2008), 85.

107 406 US 759 [1972], at 775.