ICON S Conference 17 – 19 June 2016 Humboldt University Berlin

11 BOOK PANEL: THE INTERPRETATION
OF INTERNATIONAL LAW BY DOMESTIC
COURTS
Domestic courts are increasingly faced with the need
to apply and interpret international law. This has been
greeted by many as progress for the international rule
of law, as domestic courts might step in to fill the lacunae
of an underdeveloped institutional structure at the
international level. At the same time, this development
risks to undermine the unity and uniformity of international
law. This is especially so when domestic courts
interpret rules of international law in a divergent manner.
The panel discussion departs from the findings
of a recently published volume on “The Interpretation
of International Law by Domestic Courts” (OUP 2016).
Judge Andreas Paulus will discuss the findings of the
book in the light of the practice of the German Federal
Constitutional Court.
Participants
Name of Chair
Room
Helmut Philipp Aust
Andreas Paulus
Georg Nolte
Helmut Philipp Aust
UL9 E23
Helmut Philipp Aust: The Interpretation of International
Law by Domestic Courts: Introduction
to the Volume and General Themes
Andreas Paulus: Interpreting International Law
in Domestic Courts – The Perspective of the
German Federal Constitutional Court
Georg Nolte: Interpretation of International Law
by Domestic Courts and the International Rule
of Law: The Way Forward
12 SUBSIDIARITY IN GLOBAL
GOVERNANCE
Subsidiarity has become increasingly prominent in
the theory and practice of global governance and
international law. It responds to a need for a principled
distribution of tasks between different layers
of governance and expresses a general commitment
to lower-level decision-making. This panel interrogates
the prospect and limits of the subsidiarity
principle in the global context, focusing on different
issue areas – trade, human rights, and international
security – as well as cross-cutting empirical and
normative aspects. It asks how strong subsidiarity
discourse is in the different fields, to what extent it
helps (and can help) to influence decision-making
practice, and how much normative appeal it holds
across issue areas. Should we think of subsidiarity
as a guiding idea throughout global governance?
And what alternatives are there for organizing the
distribution of powers in a way that reflects the frequent
need for global decisions as well as respect
for local self-government?
Participants
Name of Chair
Room
Nico Krisch
Isobel Roele
Tomer Broude
Andreas Føllesdal
Gráinne de Búrca
BE2 E42
Nico Krisch: Subsidiarity in Global Governance
Subsidiarity has become increasingly prominent in
the theory and practice of global governance and international
law. It responds to a need for a principled distribution
of tasks between different layers of governance
and expresses a general commitment to lower-level
decision-making. This framing paper situates subsidiarity
among competing principles, evaluates its appeal
from a normative perspective and develops a number
of conjectures about its prevalence, potential and limitations.
The picture that emerges from this inquiry is not a
homogeneous one. Subsidiarity is not present or desirable
in all contexts, and empirically we find significant
variation across issue areas and institutional settings.
The landscape of subsidiarity is bound to remain variegated,
but the concept is gaining ground and for many
actors holds much appeal as a principled way of balancing
the need for strong global cooperation with a continuing
emphasis on the value of local self-government.
Concurring panels 38
Isobel Roele: Side-Lining Subsidiarity in
Collective Security
Subsidiarity is not an effective way of managing
the tension between local emancipation and global
effectiveness in the field of collective security. Inspired
by the work of Michel Foucault, this paper uses the
notion of infra-law to analyse a subset of non-coercive