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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

International Law from a Nordic Perspective

Authors : Jakob v. H. Holtermann, Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen

Published in: European International Law Traditions

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Rather than emphasizing commonalities, contemporary Nordic scholars often convey a shared sense of discomfort pertaining to the very notion of a distinct “Nordic” approach to international law. We try to overcome this lack of unity by looking at the phenomenon through the lens of the region’s most famous school of legal thought, Scandinavian legal realism. We begin, in Sect. 2, by identifying a tension at the root of Nordic approaches to international law between what we call “realist scientism” and “humanitarian activism,” and we highlight the conspicuous absence of the epistemological concerns of the Scandinavian realists in activist scholars’ approach to international law. In Sect. 3, we then turn to Scandinavian realism in relation to Nordic domestication of international law through the national judiciaries. By contrast, Nordic research on this subject is characterized by a manifest—but in our view mistaken—presence of Scandinavian realism. Sect. 4 addresses methodological and theoretical issues more broadly, asking, first, in Sect. 4.1, which disciplinary lenses are better suited for studying the specific characteristics of Nordic approaches to international law. Second, Sect. 4.2 provides some reflections on recent developments—an ongoing Methodenstreit—which seem to affect the composition of the disciplinary perspectives that jointly make up the landscape of current Nordic international legal scholarship. Sect. 5 sums up the conclusions of the chapter.

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previous chapter Exploring Belgian and Dutch “Traditions” in International Law

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Examples include education, energy, taxation, culture, and gender equality.

With a view to identifying and analyzing the ‘Nordic Approach to International Law’, a group of international legal scholars and expert practitioners from the five Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden met for a two-day conference in 2015. The conference comprised inter alia five keynote speeches by an international legal scholar from each state and a round-table discussion between the five directors of legal affairs in the Nordic ministries of foreign affairs. Most of the conference papers were subsequently published in a special issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law, Vol. 86, No. 4 (2016) as well as in an edited volume; Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, Nordic Approaches to International Law (BRILL 2017). See further sect. 3. In June 2019, another conference entitled Nordic Narratives of International Law was organized by the research group Law, Society and Legal Development and the research project ‘Nordic Branding: Politics of Exceptionalism’ at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. At the time of writing, however, the papers presented at the 2019 conference have not been published.

Se note 2.

The movement's founding father was Axel Hägerström (1868-1939) whose key works include Axel Hägerström, Stat och rätt. En rättsfilosofisk undersökning, Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell (1904); and Axel Hägerström, Der römische Obligationsbegriff im Lichte der allgemeinen römischen Rectsanschauung, Uppsala: Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet. Other prominent members include Karl Olivecrona (1897-1980), notably Karl Olivecrona, Law as Fact, London: Oxford University Press 1939; and Alf Ross (1899-1979), notably Alf Ross, On Law and Justice, Jakob v. H. Holtermann (ed.), Uta Bindreiter (tr.), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2019 (first published in Danish, 1953).

In general philosophy, the first generation of Scandinavian realists subscribed to the so-called Uppsala school propounded by the movement’s founding father Axel Hägerström. The second generation, and especially its Danish member Alf Ross turned to the more internationally influential logical empiricism associated with the Vienna Circle.

Alf Ross, A Textbook of International Law: General Part (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1947), original Danish edition, Alf Ross, Lærebog I Folkeret. Almindelig del (Copenhagen: Munksgaard 1942). Ross’s continued influence also outside international law in general legal philosophy is illustrated by the recent publication of a new and full English translation at Oxford University Press of his main work On Law and Justice (original Danish edition: Om ret og retfærdighed, 1953), cf. Ross (n 4).

See EJIL (2003), Vol. 14, No. 4. Contributors included among others Martti Koskenniemi, Anthony Carty, Ole Spiermann, and Andreas Paulus.

For example, Ross is one of few post-World War II international legal scholars who steadfastly promoted the notion that, by definition, only states can be defined as subjects of international law. See Ross (n 6) 54. See further Ole Spiermann, ‘A National Lawyer Takes Stock: Professor Ross’ Textbook and Other Forays into International Law’ (2003) 14 EJIL 675-702, and Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen, The International Legal Personality of the Individual (Oxford: OUP 2018) 19.

In this context, it is remarkable that – compared to strictly doctrinal studies in other disciplines of international law – the Nordic Journal of International Law (of which Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen is currently editor-in-chief) receives a relatively high number of submissions from international legal scholars worldwide, whose work promote a normative agenda within e.g. international human rights law.

Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011) 14 et seq.

Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock, ‘Solutions When the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development’, (2004) 32 World Development 191-212, et seq.

Fukuyama (n 10) 14.

In her presentation on ‘A Nordic Approach to a New International Climate Treaty’, for example, Christina Voigt addressed the challenges of promoting a specific environmental agenda in UN climate negotiations. Cecilia Bailliet discussed particular strategies as regards the promotion of women’s rights in international law. See Cecilia Bailliet, ‘A Nordic Approach to Promoting Women’s Rights within International Law: Internal v. External Perspectives’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 187-213. Furthermore, Martti Koskenniemi’s keynote address provided a more indirect example of the open intermixing of the doctrinal study of law with the advancement of specific political agendas in international law. His paper illustrated the way in which the most prominent Finnish international lawyers of the 20^th century frequently combined academic work with their work as diplomats and politicians. See Martti Koskenniemi, ‘Diplomats, Professors, and Then Some: Notes for a History of International Law in 20th Century Finland’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 187-213.

See further Jakob v.H. Holtermann, ‘Conspicuous Absence or Mistaken Presence – A Note on the Ambiguous Role of Scandinavian Legal Realism in Nordic Approaches to International Law’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.) Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 221-223.

For an influential, yet problematic early critique of Alf Ross, see H.L.A. Hart, ‘Scandinavian Realism’ (1959) 17 CLJ 233-240. For critique and discussion, cf e.g. S. Eng, ‘Lost in the System or Lost in Translation? The Exchanges between Hart and Ross’, (2011) 24 Ratio Juris – An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 194-246; and Jakob v. H. Holtermann, ‘A Straw Man Revisited - Resettling the Score Between H.L.A. Hart and Scandinavian Legal Realism’, (2017a) 57 Santa Clara Law Review 2-41.

In Ross’s own words: “The idea of the purity of science is the cornerstone of the professional ethos of the man of science. I embrace it warmly myself, and I am always happy when anyone defends it by attacking that fraudulence of science which follows when this idea is not honoured. Nevertheless, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that the methodological demands which these scholars wished to derive from this idea are mistaken. One might say that they are caused by mixing up, on the one hand, what applies to science qua idea, and, on the other, what applies to science qua profession. No violence is done to the idea by the profession pursuing both science and policy making, provided that the ideal borderline between them is clearly observed.” Ross (n 4) p. 425, emphasis added.

Johan Karlsson Schaffer contended that Sweden and Denmark were at number 17 and 26 respectively on a list of countries that have ratified human rights treaties, while the rest of the Nordic countries were even further down the list. In her study of the citation practice of Scandinavian supreme courts, Marlene Wind shows that in particular Danish and Swedish courts are reluctant to cite the case law of the CJEU and the ECtHR, see Marlene Wind, ‘Who Cares about International Law? A Study of Scandinavian Judges Cite International Law and Courts’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 76-96. See also Bailliet (n 7). Arguably, the Danish Supreme Court was outright defiant in its recent explicit disregard for a preliminary ruling by the CJEU, in DI, acting on behalf of Ajos A/S v Estate of A, Danish Supreme Court, Judgment of 6 December 2016. An English translation of the judgment is available at http://www.hoejesteret.dk/hoejesteret/nyheder/Afgorelser/Documents/15-2014.pdf>.

For examples, Nordic exceptionalism was in focus at the conference “Still Exceptional? Nordic Countries Constitutional Tradition in the 21st Century”, held 16-17 May 2016 at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Ronald Dworkin, Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (Oxford: OUP 1996), notably ‘Introduction: The Moral Reading of the Majoritarian Premise’, 1-38.

This link plays a particularly dominant role in Wind (n 17) 76-96, and in Jens Elo Rytter, ‘A Nordic Approach to the Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights?’, in A. Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 63-75. See also Marlene Wind, ‘When Parliament Comes First - The Danish Concept of Democracy Meets the European Union’, (2009) 2 Nordisk Tidsskrift for Menneskerettigheder 272-288, and Jens Elo Rytter and Marlene Wind, ‘In need of juristocracy? The silence of Denmark in the development of European legal norms’, (2011) 9 ICON 470-504.

Holtermann (n 14) 224ff.

As Ross’s understands it, natural law’s chosen foundations for law are universally valid conceptions of justice, which we have access to because of our (God-given) reason. Ross dismissed this approach in the – presumably – most (in)famous passage of On Law and Justice: “Like a harlot, natural law is at the disposal of everyone. There is no ideology that cannot be defended by invoking the law of nature. And indeed, how could it be otherwise when the ultimate basis for every natural law is to be found in a private (intra-subjective), direct insight, a self-evident contemplation, an intuition. Cannot my intuition be just as good as yours?” Ross (n 4) § 63.

In Ross’s opinion, legal positivism was, philosophically speaking, not much better than natural law. To the legal positivists, statements about valid law may be scientific, since they can be derived – through an inter-normative chain of reasoning – from a Grundnorm (Hans Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law (Berkeley: University of California Press 1967) or a rule of recognition (H.L.A., Hart, Joseph Raz, and Penelope Bulloch, The Concept of Law (3rd ed., introduction by Leslie Green. ed.) (Oxford: OUP 2012). The Grundnorm or rule of recognition is claimed to be valid if it is effective, that is if it has in fact been generally complied with by the population. Ross, however, dismissed this approach, because he found it to be based on a naturalistic fallacy. At its foundation, legal positivism, according to Ross, is built on an inference from is to ought, i.e. the inference from the fact of effective compliance with the historically first constitution/the rule of recognition to the normative validity of that constitution. See further Holtermann (n 14) 229-232.

Gregor Noll, ‘Nostalghia: A Nordic International Law’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 6-21.

Noll (n 24).

The same held true for the 2019 conference on Nordic Narratives of International Law mentioned in note 2 above (conference programme available at https://www.uio.no/english/research/strategic-research-areas/nordic/research/research-groups/nordic-branding/events/2019/nordic-narratives-of-international-law.html).

Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, and Albert Dickson, Civilization, Society and Religion: Group Psychology, Civilization and Its Discontents and Other Works (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1991) 90.

See further sect. 2. On the presentations by Johan Karlsson Schaffer and Marlene Wind, see note 17.

See e.g. Gregory Shaffer and Tom Ginsburg, ‘The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship’, (2012) 106 AJIL 1-46; and Jakob v. H. Holtermann and Mikael Rask Madsen, ‘Toleration, Synthesis or Replacement? The “Empirical Turn” and its Consequences for the Science of International Law’, (2016) 29 LJIL 1001-1019.

Understood broadly to include all supra-national law.

Established in 2013, the iCourts Working Paper Series (https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/research-resources/working-papers/, visited 6 June 2020) consists of close to 200 research papers. Furthermore, the trend toward interdisciplinarity is reinforced by the creation of a series of Nordic research networks including e.g. the network on ‘Nordic Exceptionalism in International Criminal Justice’ (https://jura.ku.dk/icourts/research/nordic-exceptionalism/, and NoLesLaw (Network of Legal Empirical Scholars of Law, https://noleslaw.net/). Both networks are financed by the NOS-HS – The joint committee for Nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences.

For an early example, see Jan Klabbers, ‘The Relative Autonomy of International Law or The Forgotten Politics of Interdisciplinarity’, (2005) 1 Journal of International Law & International Relations, 35-48. See also, beyond the Nordics, Jörg Kammerhofer, ‘International Legal Positivism’, in Anne Orford and Florian Hoffman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law (Oxford: OUP 2016).

This is a paraphrase of the question originally asked by K.A. Armstrong in the context of EU law and political science: “Political science has discovered the European Court of Justice. But has it discovered law?” (‘Legal Integration: Theorizing the Legal Dimension of European Integration’ (1998) 36 Journal of Common Market Studies 155-174, at 155).

See e.g. Jakob v. H. Holtermann and Mikael Rask Madsen, ‘European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible’ (2015) 28 LJIL, 211-230). For more broad examples, Nordic international law researchers have contributed substantively to a series of special issues relating to these issues, cf. e.g. (2015) 28 LJIL (special issue on New Legal Realism); (2016) 39 Retfærd: Nordic Journal of Law and Justice (special issue on European New Legal Realism); and (2019) European Journal of Legal Studies (special issue, NoLesLaw).

See note 2.

Armstrong KA, ‘Legal Integration: Theorizing the Legal Dimension of European Integration’ (1998) 36 Journal of Common Market Studies 155-174.

Bailliet C, ‘A Nordic Approach to Promoting Women’s Rights within International Law: Internal v. External Perspectives’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 187-213.

Dworkin R, Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution (Oxford: OUP 1996)

Freud S, Strachey J, and Dickson A, Civilization, Society and Religion: Group Psychology, Civilization and Its Discontents and Other Works (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1991)

Fukuyama F, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)

Hart HLA, ‘Scandinavian Realism’ (1959) 17 CLJ 233-240

Hart HLA, Raz J, and Bulloch PA, The Concept of Law (3rd ed., introduction by Leslie Green. ed.) (Oxford: OUP 2012)

Holtermann J vH, ‘“Således består (endnu) al verdens herlighed!” - om Jens Evalds vurdering af Alf Ross’ betydning’ (2011) 16 Ugeskrift for Retsvæsen 136-142

Holtermann J vH, ‘A Straw Man Revisited - Resettling the Score Between H.L.A. Hart and Scandinavian Legal Realism’, (2017a) 57 Santa Clara Law Review 2-41

Holtermann J vH, ‘Conspicuous Absence or Mistaken Presence – A Note on the Ambiguous Role of Scandinavian Legal Realism in Nordic Approaches to International Law’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.) Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017b) 214-237

Holtermann J vH and M Rask Madsen, ‘European New Legal Realism and International Law: How to Make International Law Intelligible’, (2015) 28 LJIL 211-230

Holtermann J vH and M Rask Madsen, ‘Toleration, Synthesis or Replacement? The “Empirical Turn” and its Consequences for the Science of International Law’, (2016) 29 LJIL 1001-1019

Kammerhofer J, ‘International Legal Positivism’, in A Orford and F Hoffman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law (Oxford: OUP 2016)

Kelsen H, General Theory of Law and State (Clark, N.J, Lawbook Exchange 2009)

Kelsen H, Pure Theory of Law (Berkeley: University of California Press 1967)CrossRef

Kjeldgaard-Pedersen A, Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017)CrossRef

Kjeldgaard-Pedersen A, The International Legal Personality of the Individual (Oxford: OUP 2018)CrossRef

Klabbers J, ‘The Relative Autonomy of International Law or The Forgotten Politics of Interdisciplinarity’, (2005) 1 Journal of International Law & International Relations, 35-48.

Koskenniemi M, ‘Diplomats, Professors, and Then Some: Notes for a History of International Law in 20th Century Finland’, (2016) 85 Nordic JIL 322-333

Noll G, ‘Nostalghia: A Nordic International Law’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 6-21

Radbruch G, ‘Statutory Lawlessness and Supra-Statutory Law’, (2006) 26 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1-11

Ross A, A Textbook of International Law: General Part (London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1947)

Ross A, On Law and Justice, J v. H. Holtermann (ed.), U Bindreiter (tr.) (Oxford: OUP, 2019)

Rytter JE, ‘A Nordic Approach to the Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights?’, in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 63-75

Rytter JE and Wind M, ‘In need of juristocracy? The silence of Denmark in the development of European legal norms’, (2011) 9 ICON 470-504

Shaffer G and Ginsburg T, ‘The Empirical Turn in International Legal Scholarship’, (2012) 106 American Journal of International Law 1-46

Wind M, ‘When Parliament Comes First - The Danish Concept of Democracy Meets the European Union’, (2009) 2 Nordisk Tidsskrift for Menneskerettigheder 272-288

Wind M, ‘Who Cares about International Law? A Study of Scandinavian Judges Cite International Law and Courts’ in Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen (ed.), Nordic Approaches to International Law (Leiden: BRILL 2017) 76-96

Title: International Law from a Nordic Perspective
Authors: Jakob v. H. Holtermann
Astrid Kjeldgaard-Pedersen
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: European International Law Traditions
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-52027-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-52028-1

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52028-1_8