The Legitimacy of International Law
A Constitutionalist Framework of Analysis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12197771 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mattias Kumm (0000-0002-2576-407X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 907-931 |
| Publication date | 2004-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of International Law (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0938-5428 • E-ISSN: 1464-3596 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ejil/15.5.907 |
| OpenAlex | W1997244086 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 58 |
Does international law suffer from a legitimacy crisis? International law today is no longer adequately described or assessed as the law of a narrowly circumscribed domain of foreign affairs. Its obligations are no longer firmly grounded in the specific consent of states and its interpretation and enforcement is no longer primarily left to states. Contemporary international law has expanded its scope, loosened its link to state consent and strengthened compulsory adjudication and enforcement mechanisms. This partial emancipation from state control means that domestic accountability mechanisms are becoming ineffective as a means to legitimate international law. Correspondingly, the legitimacy of international law is increasingly challenged in domestic settings in the name of democracy and constitutional selfgovernment. This article addresses this challenge. It develops a constitutionalist model for assessing the legitimacy of international law that takes seriously the commitments underlying constitutional democracy. At the heart of this model are four distinct concerns, each captured by a distinct principle. These principles are the formal principle of international legality, the jurisdictional principle of subsidiarity, the procedural principle of adequate participation and accountability as well as the substantive principle of achieving outcomes that are not violative of fundamental rights and are reasonable. Such a framework provides a middle ground between national and international constitutionalists. Whereas the former sometimes suggest that any law not sufficiently connected to domestic legal actors is suspect legitimacy-wise, the latter tend to underplay what is lost democracy-wise as decision-making is ratcheted up from the national to the international level
Accountability · Adjudication · Constitutionalism · Democracy · Economics · European union · International law · Law and economics · Legitimacy · Municipal law · Political science · Politics · Principle of legality · Public law · Sociology · Subsidiarity · International Arbitration and Investment Law · International Law and Human Rights · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law
Constitutional Public Reason
Globalization and Sovereignty
Beyond Constitutionalism
Reconciling Constitutionalism with Power
‘Victors’ justice'? Historic injustice and the legitimacy of international law
Authority and the Globalisation of Inclusion and Exclusion
The (Il)legitimacy of Constitutional Amendments in Africa and Democratic Backsliding
Democratic legitimacy in global platform governance
The Cosmopolitan Turn in Constitutionalism
The Relationship of Participatory Democracy to Participatory Law Formation
Is There an International Environmental Constitution
Emerging Patterns of Global Constitutionalization
Jurisgenerative Constitutionalism
Constitucionalismo cosmopolita = Cosmopolitan constitutionalism
The distributive justice of a global basic structure
The asymmetry between domestic and global legitimacy
Standardization
A Disaggregative View of Customary International Law-Making
Treaty rigidity and domestic democracy
Constitutionalism as Liberal-Juridical Consciousness
Towards a Humanized International “Constitution”
Narrative Kill or Capture
Standing in Cost‐Benefit Analysis
Transnational Legitimacy in a Globalising World
Criteria to scrutinize new rights
Legal Philosophy and Cosmopolitan Constitutionalism. Debates on Morality, Unity, and Power
An Analysis of the Adequacy of Protection Afforded by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Situations of Armed Conflict
Global constitutionalism and cultural diversity
Introduction to the material study of global constitutional law
A matter of perspective
The constitutions of international organisations
The constitutionalization of what
Judicial authority, legitimacy and the (international) rule of law as essentially contested and interpretive concepts
Comparative, global and transnational constitutionalism
Transnational constitutional aspects of the European Court of Human Rights
Supranational public reason
Global distributive justice? State boundaries as a normative problem
Doomed aspiration of pure instrumentality
Dehumanising the dehumanisers
Rights and constituent power in the global constitution
Collapsing Legitimacy
A consideration of how emerging military leaders perceive themes in the autonomous weapon system discourse
Triangulating the Legitimacy of International Organizations
Cost–benefit analysis and ‘next best’ methods to evaluate the efficiency of social policies
What makes international institutions legitimate to citizens of non-democratic states
The trial’s the thing
Theories of Normative Legitimacy Beyond the State and the Role of their Conceptual Dimension
Russia, the death penalty, and Europe
The Duality of Direct Effect of International Law
Juridification through rights
Explaining cooperation between IGOs and NGOs – push factors, pull factors, and the policy cycle
Towards Unilateralism? House of Commons Oversight of the Use of Force
The International Constitutional Order
Remedying Disregard in Global Regulatory Governance
Due Process in the United Nations
Mandatory Multilateralism
International Law in National Legal Systems
Which post-Westphalia? International organizations between constitutionalism and authoritarianism
| Unique citing works | 58 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,9 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2025 (20) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 58 |