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Is stare decisis an impediment to the enforcement of international law by British courts?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

L. Erades
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Extract

In 1950 the late J. Drion began his inaugural lecture as professor in the Law Faculty of Leyden University by quoting a well-known English saying: “When a doctor makes a mistake, he buries it; when a judge makes a mistake, it becomes the law of the land” as an introduction to a learned exposition on the fundamental rule of English law: stare decisis et quieta non movere. According to this rule British courts are, as a matter of principle, bound by decisions on points of law, laid down in the judgments of the superior courts, the House of Lords, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal. Until 1966 the House of Lords was even bound by its own precedents, as still is the Court of Appeal. The House of Lords can overrule the Court of Appeal and it may, by a single decision, be presumed to bind future Courts of Appeal. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which is not strictly a judicial body is not bound by its own judgments and does not in theory bind British courts, but the fact that it is manned largely by Law Lords makes its opinions of very great value as precedents.

Type
Section A: Articles
Information
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law , Volume 4 , December 1973 , pp. 105 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1973

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References

1. Drion, J., Stare decisis – Het gezag van precedenten (The Hague, 1950).Google Scholar

2. For more details on the doctrine of judicial precedent see Wortley, B.A., Jurisprudence (Manchester; Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1967), pp. 65–98.Google Scholar

3. Op cit., p. 14.

4. [1939] A.C. 160; A.D. 1938–1940, No. 87; 3 B.I.L.C, p. 96; Green, , International Law through the Cases, 2d ed. (London, 1959), p. 14.Google Scholar

5. [1880] 5 P.D. 197; 3 B.I.L.C. p. 305 et seq., p. 322 et seq.; Green, op.cit., p. 199, whose summary of the case is quoted above.

6. [1920] P 30; A.D. 1919–1922, No. 100, from which I quoted part of the description of the case; 3 B.I.L.C., p. 350.

7. B.I.L.C., p. 354.

8. [1894] 1 Q.B.149; 3 B.I.L.C., p. 170; Green op.cit., p. 202, from whom I quoted the description of the case.

9. [1924] A.C. 797; AD. 1923–1924, No. 25; 3 B.I.L.C., pp. 197, 216; Green, op.cit., p. 207, whose description of the case I quoted.

10. [1951] 2 K.B. 1003; 18 I.L.R. (1951) No. 50; 7 B.I.L.C., p. 689.

11. 18 I.L.R. (1951), pp. 214–215.

12. Op.cit., pp. 217–218.

13. [1938] A.C. 485 at 529–530; A.D. 1938–1940, No. 86; 3 B.I.L.C., p. 402.

14. Cohn, E.J., “Waiver of Immunity”, 34 B.Y.I.L. (1958), p. 260 et. seq.Google Scholar

15. Brierly, J.L., The Law of Nations, 6th ed. by Sir Humphrey Waldock (Oxford, 1963), p. 275.Google Scholar

16. Decided by the Court of Appeal on 18 and 26 May 1965 [1966] 1 Q.B. 426; [1965] 3 W.L.R. 380; [1965] 2 All E.R. 881; 41 B.Y.I.L. (1965–66), p. 439; 8 B.I.L.C., p. 824.

17. Mann, F.A.. “State Contracts and International Arbitration”, 42 B.Y.I.L. (1967) p. 1Google Scholar et.seq., reprinted in Mann, F.A., Studies in International Law (Oxford, 1973), p. 256 et. seq. at pp. 275–276.Google Scholar

18. Art. 36(2).

19. [1915] P 52 at 61, at quoted by O'Connell, D.P., International Law, 2nd ed. (London–Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1970), p. 58.Google Scholar

20. Decided on 26 July 1934, [1934] A.C. 586; A.D. 1933–1934 No. 89; 3 B.I.L.C., p. 836.

21. [1943] 4 D.L.R. 11; [1943] S.C.R. 483; 80 Can. C.C. 161; A.D. 1943–1945 No. 36.

22. [1954] Ch. 131; 20 I.L.R. (1953), p. 7 et seq. at p. 11.

23. Jenks, C.W., “The Authority in English Courts of Decisions of the Permanent Court of International Justice”, 20 B.Y.I.L. (1939) p. 1–36Google Scholar; Chapter 13 of his The Prospects of International Adjudication (London-Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1964) is a revised version of that article.Google Scholar

24. “Judicial Practice and the Supremacy of International Law”, 27 B.Y.I.L. (1950), pp. 80–82.Google Scholar

25. Georg, Schwarzenberger, International Law, 3d ed. (London, 1957), p. 33Google Scholar and the same in Manual of International Law, 5th ed. (London, 1967) p. 38.Google Scholar

26. Fawcett, J.E.S., “The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and International Law”, 42 B.Y.I.L. (1967), p. 229 et seq. at p. 234.Google Scholar

27. Op.cit., p. 58.

28. Op.cit., p. 50.

29. 25 Transactions of the Grotius Society (1940) p. 51Google Scholar; International Law, being the Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht (Cambridge, 1970), p. 156.Google Scholar

30. In Chow Hung Ching and another v. R., [1948] 77 C.L.R. 449; A.D. 1948 No. 47.

31. Mitchell, J.D.B., Kuipers, S.A. and Gall, B., “Constitutional Aspects of the Treaty and Legislation Relating to British Memberships”, 9 C.M.L.R. (1972), p. 134 et seqGoogle Scholar. at pp. 138–147.