Hearing life: the effect of acts of an international court in national legal systems

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The article discusses the mutual influence of the legal positions of international courts (as illustrated by the case-law of the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Court of Justice of the European Union) and the influence of the legal positions of international courts formed in the course of judicial normative control on the development of international and national law (as illustrated by the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union). Today the main function of international courts is not to resolve disputes, but to interpret a provision of international law in order to create its uniform enforcement and uniform standards for all actors of international legal relationship. A court that has avoided politicization and functionally interprets the norms of international law can create a position that influences the legal regulation in a specific integration association. The court does not create a specific legal norm, but rather formulates a rule (position) that in the future, through case-law, becomes a customary rule, even an imperative rule, or through regulatory practice, progressively developing, is formalized in a statutory norm. A significant role in this process can be played by the judgments of other international and national courts that have picked up the legal position of the court that has formulated a rule for the first time. The legal positions of the Court of the EAEU are gradually penetrating into framework of national legal systems in a very peculiar way that differs from those adopted in other regional integration associations: the EAEU gradually develops connections and interactions that correspond to the legal conscience, traditions, and notions common to member states of the Union. The problem of a negative precedent is touched upon, when the court impedes the development of law. Its possible causes and consequences

are indicated. The author comes to the conclusion that the court, by creating a negative precedent, may have in mind other aspects of resolving an economic conflict. Overcoming these phenomena largely depends on the personal qualities of judges. The separate opinions are the only way to identify a negative precedent. The author concludes that the power of a judicial act is not important for the development of law, whether an obligatory decision, a recommendatory advisory opinion or a separate opinion of a judge.

About the author: Tatyana Neshataeva – Doctor of Sciences in Law, Professor of Law, Judge of the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union, Minsk, Republic of Belarus.

Citation: Neshataeva T. (2018) Slyshat’ zhizn’: deystvie aktov mezhdunarodnogo suda v natsional’nykh pravovykh sistemakh [Hearing life: the effect of acts of an international court in national legal systems]. Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie, no. 1, pp. 53–66. (In Russian).

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