Ramses A. Wessel

Bio: Ramses A. Wessel is an academic researcher from University of Twente. The author has contributed to research in topics: European union & International law. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 212 publications receiving 1701 citations. Previous affiliations of Ramses A. Wessel include University of Exeter & University of Groningen.

Informal International Lawmaking

Abstract: Informal international lawmaking (IN-LAW) is on the rise. It seems to fall outside the strictures of both domestic law as well as international law. Hence, this activity raises questions of accountability deficit. The book's aim is to be empirical and problem-oriented. It intends to gauge whether there is a problem related to informal international lawmaking and, if so, to think about how to solve this problem in a way that can assist policy-makers and their stakeholders. The book distinguishes informal lawmaking from traditional lawmaking by focusing on the actors, process, and output. It argues that the international legal discipline will have to find ways to take the rich, effective, and (more often than not) legitimate normative output stemming from IN-LAW onboard to remain relevant.

When Structures Become Shackles: Stagnation and Dynamics in International Lawmaking

Abstract: It is a mantra amongst international lawyers that the field of international law is expanding, exponentially This trend, also referred to as the legalization of world politics, may have been true until a decade ago It is highly questionable today Formal international law is stagnating both in terms of quantity and quality It is increasingly superseded by “informal international lawmaking” involving new actors, new processes and new outputs On many occasions, the traditional structures of formal lawmaking have become shackles Drawing on a two-year research project involving over forty scholars and thirty case studies, this article offers evidence in support of the stagnation hypothesis (section 2), evaluates the likely reasons for it in relation to a ‘turn to informality’ (section 3) and weighs possible options in response (section 4) The international legal order has radically transformed in the past, on all three axes of actors, processes and outputs The conceptual boundaries of how international law may look in the future are wide open Crucially, however, also informal structures can become shackles and limit freedom Informal lawmaking must therefore be kept accountable, through tailor-made accountability mechanisms, especially toward stakeholders not involved in the network but affected by it (section 5) Finally, focusing on the short to medium term, the article questions whether some of the new outputs of international cooperation could already be seen as part of traditional international law and how traditional and new forms are interacting before international tribunals (section 6) In this respect, it proposes certain procedural meta-norms against which informal cooperation forms ought to be checked, which we refer to as “thick stakeholder consensus” imposing limits in respect of actors (authority), process and output Intriguingly, this benchmark may be normatively superior (rather than inferior) to the validation requirements of traditional international law, coined here as “thin state consent” In this sense, formal international law is stagnating not only in quantity but also quality

When structures become shackles: stagnation and dynamics in international lawmaking

Abstract: Formal international law is stagnating in terms both of quantity and quality. It is increasingly superseded by ‘informal international lawmaking’ involving new actors, new processes, and new outputs, in fields ranging from finance and health to internet regulation and the environment. On many occasions, the traditional structures of formal lawmaking have become shackles. Drawing on a two-year research project involving over 40 scholars and 30 case studies, this article offers evidence in support of the stagnation hypothesis, evaluates the likely reasons for it in relation to a ‘turn to informality’, and weighs possible options in response. But informal structures can also become shackles and limit freedom. From practice, we deduce procedural meta-norms against which informal cooperation is increasingly checked (‘thick stakeholder consensus’). Intriguingly, this benchmark may be normatively superior (rather than inferior) to the validation requirements of traditional international law (‘thin state consent’).

The European Union and Crisis Management : Will the Lisbon Treaty Make the EU More Effective?

Abstract: The European Union's security and defence policy (ESDP) was invented 10 years ago and has been operational for more than five years. During this period the EU has launched over 20 ESDP missions allowing the organization to be engaged in international crisis management in various ways. The coming years will reveal whether the European Union is able to meet its ambitions to carry out a greater number of more complex ESDP missions in higher-risk theatres. While the EU has stepped up the plate to meet these challenges, the three case studies discussed in this article (EULEX Kosovo, EUPOL Afghanistan, EUFOR Tchad/RCA) reveal that the path paved with good intentions might in this case indeed lead to hell. Whereas the new Treaty of Lisbon introduces quite a few institutional changes to the current treaty regime of foreign affairs and security policy, it is questionable whether these innovations will significantly improve the decision-making and leadership on issues of ESDP and, consequently, the effectiveness of the Union as an international crisis manager.

International Law as Law of the European Union

Abstract: Introduction: International Law as Law of the EU, Enzo Cannizzaro, Paolo Palchetti, Ramses A. Wessel I. General Issues: Monism, Dualism and the European Legal Order Reconsidering the Relationship between International and EU Law: Towards a Content-Based Approach? Ramses A. Wessel The Neo-Monism of the European Legal Order, Enzo Cannizzaro The EU at Crossroads: A Constitutional Inquiry into the way International Law is received within the EU Legal Order, Jan Willem van Rossem II. International Law within the EU Customary International Law in the European Union, Alessandra Gianelli The Validity of EU Norms Conflicting with International Obligations, Jan Klabbers Using International Law for the European Union's Domestic Affairs, Bruno de Witte International Agreements in the Area of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, Panos Koutrakos The Application of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law in CSDP Operations, Frederik Naert III. International Decisions in EU Law Effects of Decisions of the UN Security Council in the EU Legal Order, Andrea Gattini Direct Effect of International Agreements in the EU Legal Order: Does it Depend on the Existence of an International Dispute Settlement Mechanism? Beatrice Bonafe On the Absence of Direct Effect of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body's Decisions in the EU Legal Order, Antonello Tancredi Consistent Interpretation of WTO Rulings in the EU Legal Order? Giacomo Gattinara IV. Member States' International Law and EU Law Member States Agreements as Union Law, Marise Cremona Mixed Agreements as a Source of European Union Law, Eleftheria Neframi V. International Law and EU Law: The Role of Judges International Law as Law of the EU: the Role of the ECJ, Christina Eckes Judicial Review of the International Validity of UN Security Council Resolutions by the European Court of Justice, Paolo Palchetti Giving Indirect Effect to International Law within the EU Legal Order: The Doctrine of Consistent Interpretation, Frederico Casolari

국제정치이론 = Theory of international politics

Abstract: Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and de‹ciency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself the enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency. (Ibn al-Haytham)1

General Theory of Law and State. By Hans Kelsen. Translated by Wedberg Anders. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Twentieth Century Legal Philosophy Series: Vol. I); 1945. Pp. xxxiii, 516. Appendix. Index. $6.00.

Abstract: The single article by M. Fryde on modern corporations is largely devoted to explanation of the Berle and Means thesis on the control of modern corporations and the supporting findings of the T.N.E.C. The author compares this point of view to that of James Burnham to the latter's disadvantage. Although this is by no means an original approach, supporting conclusions by some French and German writers not always available in translation give this article some value. The article on Andrew Wolan by C. Jarra is the only one that provides something new for the American or English reader. Wolan was evidently a leading writer and politician in the Calvinist movement in Eastern Europe, although it is not clear what his writings and leadership contributed to modern Poland. On the whole, this volume suffers from a lack of integration or plan. In addition, no subject touched upon was explored with any high degree of thoroughness. Finally, the prefatory note that \"the authors . . . do not necessarily represent the views of the Association,\" seems somewhat futile since very few distinct points of view are expressed. This latter omission, though regrettable, was perhaps deliberate and is understandable.

The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements

Abstract: The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements, by Abram Chayes and Antonia Handler Chayes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. Pp. 285. $49.95 (hardcover) . I. INTRODUCTION Just after the end of the second World War, and at the dawn of the modern age of technological innovation, the future prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sir Anthony Eden, told the House of Commons that "[e]very succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty."1 Five decades later, despite the sustained assault mounted not only by science but by the dissolution, association, and recombination of what used to be thought of as indisputably sovereign states, and by the expanding importance of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, international lawyers have been slow to discard those conceptions. Sovereignty is still seen as a defining criterion of international legal personality, rendering more difficult questions regarding the juridical status of such entities as the European Union, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and insurgent forces exercising government authority in such places as Liberia, Bosnia, Burma, and Sri Lanka.2 Despite both its title and the need for a scholarly yet provocative book on the evolution of the concept of sovereignty at the end of the twentieth century, this is not the set of issues to which Abram and Antonia Chayes turn their attention in The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements.3 Rather than a theory of sovereignty, new or otherwise, they present a theory of international behavior modification. More accurately, it is a theory of getting states to do what they should do, either because they accepted obligations voluntarily, as in the case of treaties and other agreements, or because obligations were imposed on them by other international legal processes, such as the maturation of custom into binding law. The book's principal thesis is that noncompliance with norms is usually the result, not of deliberate contumacy, but of a lack of capacity, sluggishness brought on by domestic political paralysis, or, occasionally, ambiguity in the rule itself.4 Compliance, therefore, is most efficiently secured not by coercive measures, or even by threatened or actual withdrawal of membership rights in international organizations, but by interactive, cooperative efforts and transparency.5 Such efforts result not only in improved behavior by recalcitrant states but in improvement of the international regimes themselves. The most valuable and persuasive parts of the book are those in which the Chayeses draw upon their first-hand experience to discuss specific regulatory treaty regimes of which they have been participants or close students.6 The least effective are those in which generalizations are hazarded with insufficient empirical support and theoretical underpinnings that are not developed with adequate rigor. The volume also suffers from inconsistent and even incorrect readings of U.S. law and policy (U.S. law is regularly deployed as illustrating key aspects of the authors' thesis), which undermine some of the credibility that the authors work so hard to earn elsewhere in the book. In particular, the critical argument that coercive sanctions do not work fails to take into account other objectives, beyond bringing about compliance with treaties, that states have in view when they decide that other states' behavior is intolerable and requires a response. II. THE NEW SOVEREIGNTY The agenda in The New Sovereignty is the development of a theory under which the international community can attain a level of compliance with what the authors call "international regulatory agreements" superior to that commonly observed.7 To that end, they set out to prove, first, that sanctions-whether collective or unilateral, economic or military-do not work. …

Europe's Foreign and Security Policy: The Institutionalization of Cooperation

Abstract: The emergence of a common security and foreign policy has been one of the most contentious issues accompanying the integration of the European Union. In this book, Michael Smith examines the specific ways foreign policy cooperation has been institutionalized in the EU, the way institutional development affects cooperative outcomes in foreign policy, and how those outcomes lead to new institutional reforms. Smith explains the evolution and performance of the institutional procedures of the EU using a unique analytical framework, supported by extensive empirical evidence drawn from interviews, case studies, official documents and secondary sources. His perceptive and well-informed analysis covers the entire history of EU foreign policy cooperation, from its origins in the late 1960s up to the start of the 2003 constitutional convention. Demonstrating the importance and extent of EU foreign/security policy, the book will be of interest to scholars, researchers and policy-makers.

An Introduction to International Institutional Law

Abstract: International institutions are powerful players on the world stage, and every student of international law requires a clear understanding of the forces that shape them. For example, with increasing global influence comes the need for internal control and accountability. This thought-provoking overview considers these and other forces that govern international institutions such as the UN, EU and WTO, and the complex relationship that exists between international organizations and their member states. Covering recent scholarly developments, such as the rise of constitutionalism and global administrative law, and analysing the impact of important cases, such as the ICJ's Genocide case (2007) and the Behrami judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (2007), its clarity of explanation and analytical approach allow students to understand and think critically about a complex subject.