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Title:

An Empire of the Scholars: Transnational Lawyers and the Rule of Opinio Juris. By: Olson, Andy,

Perspectives on Political Science, 10457097, Winter2000, Vol. 29, Issue 1

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AN EMPIRE OF THE SCHOLARS: TRANSNATIONAL LAWYERS AND THE

RULE OF OPINIO JURIS

Contents

1.

MONISM AND DUALISM

2.

INSTITUTIONALIZING MONISM IN THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM

3.

A WORLD OF LEGAL SCHOLARS AS SOVEREIGNS

4.

NOTES

ListenSelect:American Accent

One of the goals of a true democracy is to create what John Adams called "a government of laws, and not of

men."(n1)Today, however, the rule of law is being confused with rule by lawyers. Specifically, there is a growing

movement within the international law community to build a transnational legal regime above and independent of the

citizens of states and the governments they elect. These transnational legal scholars have been reinterpreting

international law so as to create an independent source of sovereignty, superior to and unchecked by the

governments of states. They have, in addition, appointed themselves as the guardians and directors of the emerging

system. But law based not on constitutions, the statutes of legislatures, and the consent of states but on the personal

opinions of scholars does not carry the approbation of the duly enacted laws of democratic governments. And

unsanctioned laws lead to bad government. Such an alternative source of legitimacy limits the authority and power of

states. Thus international law is quickly being transformed into a transnational sovereign without legitimation by the

governed, a system above and apart from the governed. And given its reliance on the opinions of elites who are not

authoritative decision makers, international law is becoming an empire of the scholars.

Few would doubt that attorneys who practice public international law play a unique role in the formation of U.S.

foreign policy.(n2)Those elites form what Peter Haas has described as an epistemic community: a community of

professionals who possess a recognized expertise in the field of jurisprudence and thus have an authoritative claim to

policy-relevant knowledge concerning the law. Haas further defines such a community as consisting of professionals

who have

(1)a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, which provide a value-based rationale for the social action of

community members; (2) shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of practices leading or

contributing to a central set of problems in their domain and which serve as the basis for elucidating the multiple

linkages between possible policy actions and desired outcomes; (3)shared notions of validity--that is, intersubjective

internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise; and ( 4)a common

policy enterprise--that is, a set of common practices associated with a set of problems to which their professional

competence is directed, presumably out of the conviction that human welfare will be enhanced as a

consequence.(n3)(emphasis added)

In many respects, the community of public international lawyers provides a model example of Haas's definition of an

epistemic community of elites. This community views itself as a guild of accredited specialists engaged in the

formation of society's rules and uniquely qualified to interpret international law.(n4)These attorneys reach out across

national boundaries, sharing ideas at conferences and serving on international law boards and commissions

established to further the study of international law and its role in international problem solving. They meet and

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exchange views in a variety of venues such as the International Law Section of the American Bar Association, the

American Society of International Law, and the UN-created International Law Commission, to give but a few

examples.

Furthermore, the law is a system constructed of shared normative and principled beliefs in the form of the laws and

rules that constitute the societal order. It is a system whose validity is based on commonly accepted foundations of

legitimacy, namely constitutions, statutes, regulations, and precedents. And, most important, lawyers view their

profession as one dedicated to solving the most fundamental societal problems through the regulation of individual

behavior.

Public international lawyers, including both those serving within the government and those working for

nongovernmental organizations, participate in the creation of international law through the formation of treaties and

the interpretation of customary and other forms of international law. This community of elites influences domestic-

level foreign policy decision making across all three branches of the U.S. government through interpretations of

international law. On both the domestic and international levels, this "specialized interpretive community" helps to

shape the political environment in which foreign policy decisions are made and to regulate the implementation of

those decisions through international legal practice.(n5)

A great debate is raging in that community, the outcome of which could have profound effects on the way individuals

view their government. The debate concerns the nature of international law and its relationship to the nation-state.

Where an international lawyer falls in this debate depends on his view of the role of customary international law and

the sovereignty of the state.(n6)The jurisdictional nature of international law is more vague than that of the laws and rules created by national

legislation and adjudication.(n7)There are several accepted branches of international law in the United States, which

are accorded different levels of legitimacy. The Constitution mentions both "Treaties" and "the Law of Nations."( n8)

The Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States, an influential treatise compiled by the

prestigious American Law Institute, composed of U.S. international law scholars of the highest esteem, states that

there are three main sources of international law under the U.S. legal system: "customary international law";

"international agreements," which include treaties among states; and a rule of law "deriv[ed] from general principles

common to the major legal systems of the world."(n9)

Treaties are formal agreements negotiated between or among governments and are signed and ratified, in the case

of democracies, by the nations' duly elected leaders. Customary international law, on the other hand, was originally

derived from the behavior of governments toward each other. At the time of the Constitution's writing, "the Law of

Nations" constituted a small body of international practice, developed over the centuries, governing relations amongstates, such as the treatment of ambassadors, maritime law, and conflicts between the laws of different nations. In

time, the "Law of Nations" was renamed "customary international law."(n10)

Customary international law (CIL), "jus cogens,"(n11)and other similar forms of international law are not enacted

"positively"(n12) by elected legislators and national executives but today are derived to a great extent from the

interpretations and writings of legal scholars. In fact, the Restatement (Third) explicitly states that in determining

"whether a rule has become international law . . . substantial weight is accorded to" the judgments and opinions of

international judicial and arbitral tribunals, national judicial tribunals, pronouncements by states that undertake to

state a rule of international law, and the writings of scholars.(n13)

In the opinion of the international law community, customary international law is created through the convergence of

the opinions of members of that community. When the convergence threshold has been crossed is unclear.

Nevertheless, international law scholars and lawyers argue that it is determined through their writings in international

law journals and participation in international conferences.(n14)They claim the right to announce new, controllingCIL, pointing to the comments of government officials (regardless of the character of the government) and to the

declarations and resolutions of international organizations as evidence of their opinions. Often, customary

international law emerges simply because the law scholars make the normative claim that it should exist. Because

this growing body of customary international law is, to a great extent, created by the convergence of scholarly

opinion, as opposed to legislation, it has been given the name (without the slightest hint of irony) "soft law." As an

indication of how soft this new "law" is, many prominent commentators now claim that neither uniformity, affirmative

consent, nor tradition is required to create CIL. For example, Oscar Schachter, a professor emeritus of Columbia

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University Law School and former co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law--the official

publication of the American Society of International Law--has written,

This [new] position departs from the traditional view of custom as requiring uniformities of state practice revealed in

behavior and the claims of states against other states. Some writers and occasionally governments have maintained

that some general multilateral treaties adopted by a UN body constitute strong evidence of "generally accepted rules"

binding on all [emphasis added]. These varied arguments have led a critical French jurist to observe that the

requirement of consent to treaties has not been "frontally assaulted but cunningly outflanked."

. . . Many of the [UN] agencies use innovative techniques to extend the range of international regulation. The

techniques are of particular interest since they significantly relax the traditional principle that no state is bound without

its consent. An example is a provision for the amendment of treaties by treating silence as consent.(n15)

As the community reviews its own work, it bootstraps its own arguments. It adds layer upon layer of commentary to

an emerging norm of customary international law until it achieves a seemingly unimpeachable validity. Professor

Jeremy Rabkin, of Cornell University, writes,

International human rights law is not the product of court rulings, but of international conferences. Abstract

pronouncements are enough. At that, they need not even be the authoritative pronouncements of governmental

authorities. Words spoken by diplomats at conferences are given much weight, and then the reconfiguring of those

words by commentators is supposed to give more weight, and the repetition of the words by yet other commentators

is thought to lend more weight to contentions about the law. Soon there is a towering edifice of words, which is then

treated as a secure marker of "customary international law."(n16)These collected norms of customary international law are evolving as fast as the legal scholars can write articles on

them.

MONISM AND DUALISM

There are two camps with conflicting views on the role and status of customary international law. (n17)In the more

traditional view, often described as "dualist," international law is a law among sovereign states. It is dual in that it

recognizes a distinction between international and national law, namely, that state and international law have

different, though not necessarily incompatible, sources of legitimacy. In the second, the "monist" view, international

law emanates partly from states but, more important, is a regime unto itself. The monists view international law as

indistinct from national law and as superior. They view international law as containing, independent of states, its own

foundations of legitimacy. For the monists, the international legal order is not a system of comity among sovereign

states but a sovereignty in its own right to be constructed and institutionalized by international lawyers for purposes of

curbing state sovereignty. Monists wish to replace the legitimacy of state sovereignty with what Judith Goldstein andRobert Keohane might call a "socially-constructed" transnational legal sovereignty.( n18)But to accomplish this, they

must first deconstruct state sovereignty.

The practice of public international law has been predominantly dualist since the Peace of Westphalia created the

modern world of states in 1648. Dualism is state centered and realist in character, positing that states are sovereign,

law-making equals under the international law system, even if they are not equals in the more material matters of

power and wealth.(n19)Within this system of equals, international law can be seen as a system of comity among

states. States contract with each other by treaty, and long-standing custom is used to resolve disputes. However,

international law is not "law," as that term is commonly understood.(n20)There is no legitimately authorized global

legislature, world sheriff, or judge.(n21)Should a state choose to, it may break international law--of course, at its

peril. Within this framework, sovereignty is vested in the state. The state may rescind any authority it grants to an

international organization.

The dualist approach preserves the sovereignty of nations while taking international law seriously. In the UnitedStates, the judicial branch begins with the presumption that whenever possible federal law should be construed to

uphold international law. Statutes must be interpreted with the goal of keeping U.S. domestic law consistent with

international law to prevent a violation of the latter by the United States. However, the dualist approach also

recognizes that the United States retains the right, as a sovereign state among equals, to take actions that might

violate international law should the United States determine it to be in its own national interest to do so. Such

violations of international law will have consequences, but nations retain the right to abrogate international law.

Monism allows no such abrogation.

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One can chart the rise of monism by examining the bloody wars of the twentieth century. In particular, attempts to

prevent war by making it illegal through treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, and

the Nuremburg Trials have given rise to the modern school of monism. Monists, in a nutshell, distrust national

institutions and look instead to peace and order through international law.

If the modern monist position has a spiritual founder it would have to be the renowned Austrian legal scholar Hans

Kelsen. Kelsen, who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1940 until his death in 1973, like many

scholars of jurisprudence, saw a need for a legal system that curbed the arbitrarily exercised powers of

government.(n22)Kelsen wrote of a "pure theory of law" in which law is considered a science.( n23)Kelsen created

a legal scientific paradigm in which the law contains its own internal bases for determining truth, independent of other

sciences. In this respect, the law is philosophically relativist, rejecting claims to absolute truth. The law, he wrote, is

much like a political system. It constitutes a system of compromises made by individuals to create a socially cohesive

state.(n24)The science of law, for Kelsen, is governed by discoverable norms regarding how human beings ought to

behave in a just legal system.(n25)

Kelsen's pure theory of law constitutes not a system of law created by sovereign states embodying national political

values, but a global web of norms governed by its own internal "scientific" logic. The "science of law" is analyzed as

an intellectual discipline by knowledgeable practitioners,(n26)in this case international lawyers. Kelsen's rule of law

is a structure governed by its own logic and is not to be a mere servant of politics or political masters, or for that

matter, even the electorate.(n27) Indeed, the law itself is the highest authority and should dominate politics,

constraining the political decision maker. Political authority is derived from the law, not the other way around. Kelsen'spure theory of law leads to the erosion of the notion of state sovereignty because the science of law, not the nation-

state, is the supreme authority.(n28)

Kelsen concluded that international law holds the highest authority and that national or subnational legal norms are

subordinate to the international norms. To be valid, national norms must be tested against the touchstone of the

"universal legal order."(n29)As Roger Cotterrell explains, "Kelsen's rejection of state sovereignty entails not only a

rejection of the claim that the state is above the law but also of the claim that there can be no higher political

allegiance and legal obligation than to the nation state."(n30)Indeed, Kelsen turns dualism on its head, describing

national or "municipal" law as delegated to the state by international law.( n31)The international legal order, based

on an ultimate presupposed Grundnorm, becomes the ultimate sovereign.(n32)Since there is no global legislature, it

is a sovereign managed by the international legal scientists, the caretakers who discover its norms and maintain its

integrity.

Kelsen's noble attempt to create a system governed by universal norms, however, creates instead a systemdominated by the learned lawyers. The state in a liberal democracy, far from being the arbitrary oppressor of the

citizenry, is instead its political expression and servant. Lawmaking is governed not by "legal scientists" discovering

norms, but by the state, constrained by a constitution and acting on behalf of the citizens through elected

representatives. Through elections and other forms of participation, citizens decide the laws and choose the

legislatures by which they will govern themselves. Kelsen's legal order degenerates into a monopoly of self-regulating

lawyers, multiplying norms to serve as justification for further norm creation. Or, as the German jurist Carl Schmitt

noted concerning normative legal theory, "The sovereign . . . the engineer of the great machine [of law], has been

radically pushed aside. The machine now runs by itself."(n33)

The monist camp, following the Kelsen line of reasoning, perceives international and domestic law as part of a unified

system.(n34)The monist approach holds that international law is generally superior to national law and that the state

is generally bound by international law in the same sense that individuals are bound by national law.( n35)Monists

argue that policymakers cannot "violate" international law on behalf of the national interest. The sovereignty ofinternational law is greater than the sovereignty of individual states. A policymaker's attempted violation of

international law is an attempt to act without authority. Thus policymakers are obliged to obey international law as

determined by the international law community.

Kelsen and the monists, then, have created a new regime of sovereignty, a regime that exists beyond state--or for

that matter, any other-sovereignty.(n36) Their transnational view of international law places the global legal

community at the helm of lawmaking. Indeed, many monist scholars now opine that custom need not be based either

on time-honored tradition or on the principle of universal consent. For example, Hiram Chodosh, of Vanderbilt

University, argues that binding international law, in the form of customary international law, can be formed instantly

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should a substantial number of international scholars agree.(n37)Some monist scholars even argue that customary

international law constitutes authority superior to international law in the form of treaties, including treaties between

democratic nations, despite the fact that treaty-based international law can claim legitimacy based on the consent of

the electorate through their chosen governments.(n38) The tenured scholars of jurisprudence in the world's

universities are not elected. They are not accountable in any political sense. Yet, as we have seen, under the rapidly

evolving doctrines of customary international law they are becoming a sovereign order of scholarly legislators.

In the monist view the nation-state is the source of instability in the world today. For example, at a recent symposium

on international law and human rights at Fordham University, Fali Nariman, president of the Bar Association of India,

gave this summary of the monist view of the nation-state:

[T]he task before us is to find ways to diffuse th[e] power [of the nation state]. Fortunately, ways are being found. It is

somewhat paradoxical that the once-impregnable walls of the sovereign State, so carefully constructed by the jurists

of the nineteenth century, are now being dismantled by the innovative and ingenious techniques of the jurists of the

twentieth century. But, the omnipresent ogre of State sovereignty still looms large. Much remains to be done.

The sovereignty of the State, as opposed to the concept of comity of nations, continues to be the single gravest threat

to the human right to world peace, and there is no sustained and dedicated effort to make the peoples of the world

aware of this important fact."(n39)

By globalizing lawmaking and placing it in the hands of scholars, monism seeks to reduce the power and authority of

the nation-state by creating an alternative source of rule making, one freed from the parochial concerns of individual

nations. Creating this alternative authority undermines the legitimacy of the nation-state. By treating international lawas indistinguishable from national law, monists divorce the transnational legal system from the world of international

politics, endowing it with a universal air. "Law," unlike politics, has a noble sound. Law is authoritative; law is

prescriptive. Law, unlike politics, is not based on persuasion but is coercive and is to be obeyed. Law commands.

Unfortunately, international conflict cannot be so easily contained.

In recent years, the monist school has been gaining the upper hand in the community of public international lawyers.

The Restatement (Third) reflects much of the monist position, and there is a growing consensus in favor of it in the

U.S. legal community. As law professors Jack Goldsmith, of the University of Chicago, and Curtis Bradley, of the

University of Colorado, have noted, monism has been ascendant in the classrooms and the courtrooms in recent

years; "the proposition that CIL is federal common law is today a well-settled principle of U.S. foreign relations law.

This was not always so. Indeed, the modern position has become orthodoxy only in the last two decades."(n40)

In particular, transnational human rights litigation, environmental law, and North-South wealth redistribution goals,

placed in the context of CIL and jus cogens, have provided the monist school with a broad agenda to transfer legalauthority from the level of sovereign states to the global level. To counter the growing trend, dualists must effectively

promote an alternative framework to further international human rights, environmental protection, and wealth creation.

Their challenge will be to insist, rightly, that the only true guarantee of human rights comes from systems based on

the stable and periodic elections of lawmakers and the constitutional protection of civil liberties found within the

community of democratic states.

INSTITUTIONALIZING MONISM IN THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM

The U.S. legal system is officially a dualist system. In Committee of the United States Citizens Living in Nicaragua v.

Reagan, for example, the D.C. Federal Court of Appeals stated,

Once again, the United States' rejection of a purely "monist" view of the international and domestic legal orders

shapes our analysis. Statutes inconsistent with principles of customary international law may well lead to international

law violations. But within the domestic realm, that inconsistent statute simply modifies or supersedes customary

international law to the extent of the inconsistency.(n41)But the dualist consensus could be changing with both the rise of the monist view among public international lawyers

and the evolving role of international law within the U.S. legal system.

The U.S. legal system gives access to public international lawyers who form transnational coalitions for the purpose

of institutionalizing international norms as U.S. law. It is this access to the U.S. court system that makes coalitions of

public international lawyers particularly effective in influencing U.S. foreign policy outcomes.( n42)Thus, although

other transnational epistemic communities influence U.S. policy by lobbying the various parts of the executive and

legislative branches to enact their policies into law, international lawyers can skip the lawmaking level in the U.S.

system by presenting their preferred policies within the judicial system as existing law. Policy norms, interpreted as

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customary international law by coalitions of monist-school lawyers, increasingly are accepted in the judicial system as

federal law binding upon U.S. domestic lawmakers.

How does the incorporation of international norms into our national law work? To begin with, as a general rule,

international law is treated as having the same supremacy over conflicting state law as federal statutes have in the

U.S. legal system. Under the Supremacy Clause and the doctrine of preemption, if a conflict arises between state law

and accepted international law, international law will prevail.(n43 In a conflict between a federal statute and a U.S.

treaty, the one that was promulgated later in time will prevail.( n44)Dualists and monists can generally agree on

these positions. Where dualists and monists diverge sharply is on questions regarding the proper hierarchy of norms

of customary international law, created by the global law community, in relation to the U.S. Constitution and federal

statutes. For example, can certain norms of customary international law supersede the U.S. Constitution? Do norms

of customary international law, created by the global law community, that come later in time than a conflicting U.S.

federal statute prevail over that statute?

As Professors Goldsmith and Bradley point out, the modern interpretation of international law in the U.S. legal system

has created an unwarranted loophole through which CIL becomes U.S. domestic law with little or no scrutiny.( n45)

Under the U.S. legal system, the question whether an international norm is, in fact, enforceable as U.S. domestic law

is a question of law "appropriate for judicial notice in courts in the United States without pleading or proof."( n46)

Taking judicial notice of a rule of law is simple when the law in question is a statute of public record or a treaty and

can easily be found in the U.S. Code. However, taking judicial notice of a rule of international law, in the form of

customary international law, can be another matter. The judge is called upon to make a determination whether aproposed rule of customary international law, not adopted by any competent U.S. legislative body, is in fact a binding

law, equivalent to federal statute, under the U.S. legal system.(n47)But how does a judge make the determination

as to whether an international custom is binding federal law? According to monists, the judge must consult

international tribunal rulings and the writings of scholars" (emphasis added).( n48)Thus a judge trying to determine,

for example, what constitutes a "crime against humanity" consults the writings of international law scholars to

determine the elements of that crime, giving their opinions "substantial weight."(n49) The opinions of the legal

scholars as to what constitutes an offense then become the law of the case at bar and precedent for similar cases in

the future.

In this respect, this injection of customary international law into domestic law through scholarly opinion was praised

by one monist as "the thin end of the norm ative wedge of international law . . . the 'Trojan Horse of [activists].'"(n50)

Professor Harold Kongju Koh, the Clinton administration's assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights

and labor, for example, has advocated the shaping of U.S. law and foreign policy through the judicial branch, layingthe groundwork for a transnational legal system that limits the power of national authorities. Through what he terms

"transnational public law litigation," activists can advance their political causes through the adoption of "public action"

lawsuits in the American legal system (emphasis added):

[T]ransnational public law litigation seeks to vindicate public rights and values through judicial remedies. . . . [P]arties

bring "public actions," asking courts to declare and explicate public norms, often with the goal of provoking

institutional reform. . . . [T]ransnational public law litigants have sought redress, deterrence and reform of national

government policies through clarification of rules of international conduct.

Private individuals, government officials, and nations sue one another directly, and are sued directly, in a variety of

judicial fora, most prominently, domestic courts. In these fora, these actors invoke claims of right based not solely on

domestic or international law, but rather, on a body of "transnational" law that blends the two. Moreover, contrary to

"dualist" views of international jurisprudence, which see international law as binding only upon nations in their

relations with one another, individual plaintiffs engaged in this mode of litigation usually claim rights arising directlyfrom this body of transnational law.

[T]ransnational public lawsuits focus retrospectively upon achieving compensation and redress for individual victims.

But as in traditional international law litigation, the transnational public law plaintiff pursues a prospective aim as well:

to provoke judicial articulation of a norm of transnational law, with an eye toward using that declaration to promote a

political settlement in which both governmental and nongovernmental entities will participate. Thus, although

transnational public law plaintiffs routinely request retrospective damages or even prospective injunctive relief, their

broader strategic goals are often served by a declaratory or default judgment announcing that a transnational norm

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has been violated. Even a judgment that the plaintiff cannot enforce against the defendant in the rendering forum

empowers the plaintiff by creating a bargaining chip for use in other political fora.(n51)

Although the Supreme Court has said little concerning "transnational public litigation" lawsuits, two cases from the

Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals have laid much of the groundwork for importing these transnationally

created norms. The case of Filartiga v. Pena-Irala broke new ground by establishing that a foreign plaintiff could sue

a foreign defendant in a U.S. District Court under the Alien Tort Act for actions that occurred wholly outside the United

States as long as the plaintiff could demonstrate that the defendant violated the "Law of Nations."(n52)

Kadic v. Karadzic furthered the Filartiga precedent. In Kadic, the plaintiffs sued the notorious Bosnian Serb leader

Radovan Karadzic for his role in the unspeakable and well-documented atrocities committed against the Bosnian

Serb population. Although the evidence against Karadzic was strong, the federal judge initially threw out the case,

citing a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, bewildered as to why foreign plaintiffs were suing a foreign defendant (who

was not present in the forum) for acts committed in a distant nation in a Manhattan federal court. The Second Circuit

overturned the dismissal on appeal, declaring that the Alien Tort Act provided a proper basis for subject matter

jurisdiction in the U.S. District Court. Yet the judge writing for the Appellate Court noted the unusual circumstances,

writing "most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that victims of atrocities committed in Bosnia are suing

the leader of the insurgent Bosnian-Serb forces in a United States District Court in Manhattan."(n53)

The plaintiffs used the Alien Tort Act as a basis for jurisdiction, arguing that Karadzic's acts, even if acts committed in

a private capacity, violated international law. The Second Circuit agreed:

We do not agree that the law of nations, as understood in the modern era, confines its reach to state action. Instead,we hold that certain forms of conduct violate the law of nations whether undertaken by those acting under the

auspices of a state or only as private individuals.(n54)

The court further elaborated on the substance of the "Law of Nations" (emphasis added):

Filartiga established that courts ascertaining the content of the law of nations "must interpret international law not as it

was in 1789, but as it has evolved and exists among the nations of the world today." . . . We find the norms of

contemporary international law by "consulting the works of jurists, writing professedly on public law; or by the general

usage and practice of nations; or by judicial decisions recognizing and enforcing that law." . . . If this inquiry discloses

that the defendant's alleged conduct violates "well-established, universally recognized norms of international law," as

opposed to "idiosyncratic legal rules," then federal jurisdiction exists under the Alien Tort Act."(n55)

Thus any plaintiff anywhere in the world may sue any defendant in a U.S. Federal Court (or at least in the Second

Circuit)(n56)for any crime committed anywhere, as long as the plaintiff can demonstrate that the defendant's actions

violated the "law of nations."(n57)A violation has occurred if the community of public international lawyers declaresan act a violation of international law. And, as Kadic notes, this body of customary international law is always

evolving.

A WORLD OF LEGAL SCHOLARS AS SOVEREIGNS

Whereas dualism grounds lawmaking in a system of state sovereignty, the monist view of customary international law

as a binding horizontal web of international norms is deliberately vague. The monist position leaves open the

possibility of future norm-making, and thus lawmaking, through evolving interpretations of international law. For

example, one former International Court of Justice judge has asserted that the UN General Assembly's "New

International Economic Order"(n58) resolutions, demanding "equity" in the form of mandatory transfers of wealth

from the "North" to the "South," is a legally binding duty of the North and a "subjective international right" of the South

under customary international law, the rights and duties of which will be determined later.(n59)And under the monist

school's rules of customary international lawmaking, such binding international law can be formed instantaneously by

the majority of opinion in the community of international scholars.(n60)The monist view naturally leads to Kelsen's conclusion that the international legal order, as maintained by the juridical

scientists, is supreme. Because state sovereignty is subordinate to international law, international judicial institutions

can render legal decisions that bind the domestic policymaker under both international and national law. For example,

in the case of Committee of the United States Citizens Living in Nicaragua v. Reagan, the appellants argued the

monist view, asserting that the judgments of international tribunals were binding law upon the United States:

Appellants argue that the rule requiring parties who have submitted to an international court to abide by its judgment

is not only a principle of customary international law but has become a form of jus cogens. Because such peremptory

norms are nonderogable and enjoy the highest status within international law, appellants conclude that these norms

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are absolutely binding upon our government as a matter of domestic law as well. Indeed, appellants assert that "the

obligation stemming from the ICJ judgment . . . is such that it rises to the level of a constitutional obligation, which

cannot be overridden by statute."(n61)

Taken to its logical conclusion, such an approach would render the International Court of Justice in the Hague or any

similar international juridical entity superior in matters concerning the interpretation of international law to our

Congress, our president, and even our own U.S. Supreme Court. A decision from the ICJ, if held to be a matter jus

cogens, would become a nonderogable duty of international law that each nation would be obliged to follow. No

nation would be empowered with the authority to overturn, overrule, or ignore that rule that rises to the "level of

constitutional obligation." Under such a view, even the Constitution would be subordinate to a conflicting international

norm "from which no derogation is permitted." Some American legal scholars, such as Michael Glennon and Jules

Lobel, have argued as much, claiming that the president has no constitutional authority to violate international

law.(n62)

The monists do not stop at the creation of new international rules and the emphasis on the supremacy of

supranational legal institutions, however. They have creatively expanded old and narrow bases of jurisdiction to

parallel the new, evolving civil and criminal norms. In a remarkable recent event, the international law community

validated an incredible expansion of a concept known as "universal jurisdiction."(n63)

Generally, jurisdiction to prosecute is based on the defendant's contacts with the forum in which the injury

occurred.(n64)Usually, the defendant has direct contacts with the prosecuting state; for example, the defendant has

committed crimes within the offended state, has committed acts intended to injure that state, or is a citizen of thatstate. Universal jurisdiction has been a traditional exception to this direct contact rule. It originated as a narrow source

of jurisdiction to cover the prosecution of pirates, men without country who rarely appeared in any jurisdiction but hid

on the high seas. Under universal jurisdiction, any state was recognized by the others as having the authority to seize

the maritime brigands and prosecute them for piracy. Piracy constituted a grave threat to all nations and thus over the

centuries developed into a specifically defined "crime against humanity." Universal jurisdiction to prosecute pirates

was created among the sovereign states because pirates were considered unique among criminals, in that they were

highly mobile and lived on the common seas, a threat to all, and could disappear easily into the vast recesses of the

oceans. Instead of allowing, for example, only the Dutch Navy to catch pirates who raided Dutch merchants, the

English Royal Navy was empowered to seize them also, should they catch them.

Last fall, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, a Socialist-party magistrate with a reputation as a daring and zealous

investigator, ordered the arrest of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet while he recuperated in a London hospital.

Judge Garzon claimed the power to prosecute the "crimes against humanity" committed by the Pinochet regime aswithin his authority as an examining magistrate in Spain's National Court system.( n65)Judge Garzon cited universal

jurisdiction as a basis for the investigation. In this matter, Pinochet had no direct contacts with Spain: Pinochet is

Chilean, the acts in question occurred during the civil war in Chile, and the arrest warrant was served in Britain.

Ordinarily, because the acts occurred entirely within Chile and because Pinochet is a Chilean citizen, Chile would

have been the proper forum of jurisdiction to prosecute Pinochet. Judge Garzon was thus obliged to rely on universal

jurisdiction as a means of getting Pinochet into the Spanish court. In spite of the novelty of prosecuting a former head

of state under universal jurisdiction, the warrant was upheld by the governments of Great Britain and Spain and was

lauded by much of the international law community as a proper basis for his prosecution.

The Pinochet case is more interesting for its radical reinterpretation of the relationships between state sovereignty,

diplomatic immunity, and the authority to prosecute criminal acts than for the emotions and polemics it has aroused.

In spite of his frail health, it is difficult to have sympathy for Pinochet. He overthrew a democratically elected, albeit

incompetent and divisive, government and installed a military dictatorship. Furthermore, he has been implicated in thedeaths of perhaps thousands of his fellow Chilean citizens. Yet the zeal to prosecute Pinochet has resulted in a

profound and unlegitimated expansion of a vague basis for jurisdiction: A person accused of committing an offense

against the law of nations, as defined by international norms (that is, the customary international law as evidenced by

the writings of law scholars), can be tried in any nation that apprehends the suspect.

The concept of universal jurisdiction, when combined with the vagaries of customary international law, could lead to

some surprising long-term results. For example, it would allow any country to prosecute any person who falls under

its control for "crimes against humanity," however the international law scholars choose to define that term, because

no treaty among sovereign states exists to define it. As John Bolton of the Ame