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Habeas Corpus and the Normative Jurisprudence of International Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2010
Abstract
In this article I am interested in seeing what the normative jurisprudential support is for a minimalist version of habeas corpus in international law. I investigate what Fuller called ‘procedural natural law’ in contemporary international criminal law. In the first two sections I rehearse some of Hart's and Fuller's views as they pertain to the subject of international law and also to the inner morality of law. In the third section I set out some of my views on these matters, drawing on both Hart and Fuller, concerning the value of fundamental procedural rights. In the fourth section I discuss the right of habeas corpus as a good test case of how to think about these issues. In the final sections I expand on these remarks and argue that procedural rights need to be protected better in international law, if the latter is to have a claim to legitimacy as a mature legal system.
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References
1 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1134a35.
2 Ibid., 1134b20.
3 Hart, H. L. A., ‘Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals’, (1958) 71 Harvard Law Review 623CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 L. L. Fuller, The Morality of Law (1969), 96–7.
5 Ibid., at 81.
6 I have written studies of each of these substantive international crimes: Crimes against Humanity: A Normative Account (2005); War Crimes and Just War (2007); Aggression and Crimes against Peace (2008); and Genocide: A Normative Account (forthcoming in 2010).
7 H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (1994), 81.
8 For example see R. Dworkin, ‘The Model of Rules I’, in Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1977), 41.
9 Hart, supra note 7, at 237.
10 Ibid., at 236.
11 Ibid., at 212.
12 Ibid., at 89. I am grateful to Jack Knight for discussion of this point.
13 Ibid., at 57.
14 Ibid., at 214.
15 Ibid., at 3.
16 Ibid., at 93.
17 Ibid., at 201.
18 Ibid., at 203.
19 Ibid.
20 H. L. A. Hart, ‘Problems of the Philosophy of Law’, in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 6 (1967), 273–4.
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23 Ibid., at 207.
24 Fuller, supra note 4, at 39 and 96.
25 Ibid., at 96–7.
26 Ibid., at 98.
27 See my treatment of this topic in the first few chapters of May, Crimes against Humanity, supra note 6.
28 Fuller, L. L., ‘Positivism and Fidelity to Law: A Reply to Professor Hart’, (1958) 71 Harvard Law Review 643CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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30 Ibid., at 104.
31 Ibid., at 108.
32 Ibid., at 150–1.
33 Ibid., at 81.
34 The OED lists, as one of the earliest uses of the term ‘visibleness’, a sixteenth-century reference to the fact that the Catholic Church did not maintain open procedures.
35 Sir H. Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom (1886), 389.
36 Plato, The Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (1974) 359c.
37 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1979 [1765]), I, 132.
38 Boumedienne v. Bush [2008] 128 S.Ct. 2229, at 2239.
39 Alexander, L., ‘Are Procedural Rights Derivative Substantive Rights?’, (1998) 17 Law and Philosophy 31Google Scholar.
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41 See my discussion of the problems with custom in May, Crimes against Humanity, supra note 6, ch. 3.
42 Prosecutor v. Kanyabashi, Decision of the Defence Extremely Urgent Motion on Habeas Corpus and for Stoppage of the Proceedings, Case No. ICTR-96–15-I, T.Ch.II, 23 May 2000, para. 28.
43 See Prosecutor v. Fernando Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, Appeals Chamber Judgement, 28 November 2007.
44 C. Tomuschat, ‘Concluding Remarks’, in C. Tomuschat and J.-M. Thouvenin (eds.), The Fundamental Rules of the International Legal Order: Jus Cogens and Obligations Erga Omnes (2006), 430.
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46 Ibid., 45 n. 22; 41 n. 6.
47 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Precautionary Measures Granted by the IACHR during 2002, at para. 80, available at www.cidh.oas.org/medidas/2002.eng.htm.
48 IACHR, Decision on Request For Precautionary Measures (Detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba), 12 March 2002, [2002] 41 ILM 532, at 534.
49 Ibid.
50 See Tittemore, B., ‘Guantánamo Bay and the Precautionary Measures of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: A Case for International Oversight in the Struggle against Terrorism’, (2006) 6 Human Rights Law Review 378CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 542 U.S. 466 (2004).
52 548 U.S. 557 (2006).
53 Supra note 38.
54 M. C. Bassiouni and E. M. Wise, Aut Dedere Aut Judicare: The Duty to Prosecute or Extradite in International Law (1995).
55 I am grateful to Thomas Mertens for this objection and the next.
56 See Hart, supra note 7, postscript, 240 ff.
57 I am grateful to Harmen van der Wilt for this objection and the next.
58 See Chapters 5 and 6 of my book Due Process and Global Justice (forthcoming, 2011).
59 Ibid., ch. 11.
60 I am grateful to Wouter Werner for this objection.
61 See Fuller, supra note 4, at 81.