Quasi-legislation

Quasi-legislation

Quasi-legislation Within the Domain of International Law

Lassa Oppenheim, in the book entitled The Future of International Law, about Quasi-legislation Within the Domain of International Law, wrote in 1921: 30. When we speak of legislation we have in view as a rule a state, wherein there is a law-making power which acts without reference to the consent of individual subjects. For even if in a constitutional state an individual does anyhow exercise so much influence upon legislation as comes from voting at the election of members of parliament, still he has no direct influence, and must submit to a law that has been enacted whether he approves of it or not. That is why it is asserted that there cannot be any talk of legislation in the domain of international law. And, in fact, that is so if we adhere rigorously to the meaning of the concept ‘legislation’, as developed in the domain of internal state life. The nature of the case does not, however, demand so rigid an adherence as this; legislation is really nothing more than the conscious creation of law in contrast to the growth of law out of custom. And it is an admitted fact that, side by side with international law developed in this latter way, there is an international law which the members of the community of states have expressly created by agreement. We might therefore quite well substitute the term agreeing a law for the term decreeing a law,–but why introduce a new technical term? This international ‘agreeing a law’ does consciously and intentionally create law, and it is therefore a source of law. And provided that we always bear in mind that this source of law operates only through a quasi-legislative activity, there is no obstacle to speaking, in a borrowed sense, of international ‘legislation’. Nevertheless, agreeable and apt as this term is, it must not lead us to assimilate the internal legislation of a state and international legislation save in the one respect that in both law is made in a direct, conscious and purposive manner, in contrast to law that originates in custom.


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