Turning Fantasy into Inclusion … Regional Approaches and Unity of International Law

Abstract

Is international law in crisis, torn as it is between assertions of its unity and the growth of regional groupings in its study and approach? The rhetoric and fears of fragmentation at the turn of the century do not seem to have ended with the reassuring report of the Study Group of the United Nations International Law Commission on the issue. Concerned about preserving the integrity and essence of their discipline, the international legal community is apprehensive about regional approaches and visions, which it sees as potentially leading to the eventual undermining of international law. Analysing this dynamic, of the call for pluralism within international law and the principle of the discipline’s unity, that has been erected as a dogma, this article stresses that the two are not irreconcilable. It explores the ways and means and indicates the conditions under which regional approaches can be a source of enrichment for international law by introducing more diversity, without calling into question either the unity or the universality of the discipline. Indeed, pluralism and multiculturalism are not legal concepts but political and sociological choices that correspond to a vision of society, to the construction of a more inclusive model of society. Regional approaches to international law, by facilitating the construction of a representative, pluralistic, and multicultural international law, allows for its true universality. This universality, in turn, strengthens the unity of international law while nourishing itself from it. However, this is only possible if the concept of unity is dusted off to avoid a dogmatic vision of it.