La Doctrina de Prescripción en el Derecho Internacional Público y la necesidad de nuevos paradigmas transnacionales

Abstract

International customary law presents an (apparently) irresoluble conflict on a central issue as the existence in International law of an equivalent of the national laws on equivalent to national laws on prescription. For instance, only 132 over approximately 3000 bilateral and multilateral investment treaties include a statute of limitations. Theoretically, the balance would allow to indefinitely present outdated complaints or, alternatively, to introduce them on a random basis in ad hoc prescription periods. Therefore, lacks of uniformity and standard regulations have determined uncertainty and insecurity: the very same problems that the statute of limitations’ doctrine aims to eradicate. The author states public International law fragmentation on the prescription period’s doctrine lays on: (i) massive enclosure of domestic legislation on statute of limitations into public International law disregarding International law politics and aspirations; and (ii) industrialised States’ economic agendas, ruling out developing countries and transitional economies. In order to develop the present proposal a descriptive and prescriptive methodology is applied.