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5 - The League of Nations and the Relationship between International Law and Municipal Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2025

By
Philip Burton  and
Jean d’Aspremont
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Edited by
Robert Kolb  and
Momchil Milanov
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
Robert Kolb
Affiliation:
Université de Genève
Momchil Milanov
Affiliation:
International Court of Justice
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Summary

The distinction between international and domestic law plays an essential function in the establishment of international law as an autonomous order. During the lifespan of the League, this distinction was contested by scholars and judges in increasingly sophisticated ways. This process culminated in the debate between monists and dualists. However, the formal conceptual foundations of this debate meant that it failed to take account of the way that bureaucrats, officials and experts at the League adopted equally sophisticated normative strategies as part of the ‘experiment of international administration’. Such strategies, which lay at the heart of attempts to promote the ‘well-being and development’ of peoples subject to mandatory rule and foster co-operation across social and economic fields, creatively transformed conventional understandings of the relationship between international law and domestic law. This chapter juxtaposes these simultaneous, countervailing trends of formalisation and deformalisation in international law and administration to offer fresh insight into the crucial formative period in the history of the distinction between international law and municipal law.

Keywords

international law and municipal lawdomestic lawdeformalisation in international lawmonismdualismKelsenPermanent Mandates Commissiontransboundary human traffic
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 130 - 161
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

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Gaja, Giorgio, ‘Positivism and dualism in Dionisio Anzilotti’, European Journal of International Law, 3 (1992) 123–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessup, Philip, Transnational Law (New Haven: Yale University Press 1956).Google Scholar
Kelsen, Hans, General Theory of Law and State (Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange 2007).Google Scholar
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Kelsen, Hans, ‘Les rapports de système entre le droit interne et le droit international public’, Recueil des cours, 14 (1926) 227–331.Google Scholar
Kolb, Robert, and Milanov, Momchil, ‘Dualism/monism’, Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Constitutional Law, at oxcon.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-mpeccol/law-mpeccol-e248.Google Scholar
Kunz, Josef L., ‘The Vienna school and international law’, New York University Law Quarterly, 11 (1933) 370–421.Google Scholar
Lauterpacht, Hersch, Private Law Sources and Analogies of International Law. With Special Reference to International Arbitration (London: Longmans, Green and Company Ltd 1927).Google Scholar
McDougal, Myres, ‘The impact of international law upon national law: a policy-orientated perspective’, South Dakota Law Review, 4 (1959) 25–92.Google Scholar
Nijman, Janne E., and Nollkaemper, André (eds.), New Perspectives on the Divide Between National and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez Garcia, Magaly, Rodogno, Davide and Kozma, Liat (eds.), The League of Nations’ Work on Social Issues. Visions, Endeavours and Experiments (New York: United Nations Publications 2016).Google Scholar
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