Abstract
By all rights, Prosper Weil's 1983 cri de coeur should be one of many best-forgotten law review articles. It targets, after all, concepts that few dispute today (namely jus cogens and erga omnes obligations, as well as shortcuts to finding universally applicable customary law based on “quasi-universal” treaties). Its other direct target—the distinction between international crimes and delicts—refers to once contentious debates over whether states can be charged with ordinary international delicts as well as international crimes. This has since been eclipsed by the International Law Commission's (ILC's) decision to include, in its Articles of State Responsibility, Article 41 (enumerating the consequences of “serious breaches” resulting from the violation of preemptory norms). And insofar as Weil's foil was the premise that international “delicts” can have a “variable geometry,” that too has been overtaken by events: neither the ILC's turn to “serious breaches” nor the far older proposition that individuals can be prosecuted for international crimes remains the subject of much controversy today.
Highlights
By all rights, Prosper Weil’s 1983 cri de coeur should be one of many best-forgotten law review articles
Insofar as Weil’s foil was the premise that international “delicts” can have a “variable geometry,” that too has been overtaken by events: neither the International Law Commission (ILC’s) turn to “serious breaches” nor the far older proposition that individuals can be prosecuted for international crimes remains the subject of much controversy today
If “soft enforcement” is a pathology, international law has been diseased for quite some time
Summary
Prosper Weil’s 1983 cri de coeur should be one of many best-forgotten law review articles.
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