Presentation: Multilevel Regime Interaction in International Law
This presentation was given by Nikolas Giannopoulos, who is a PhD Candidate in international law at the University of Utrecht within the research project “Accommodating New Interests at Sea: Legal Tools for Sustainable Ocean Governance” (SUSTAINABLEOCEAN) headed by dr. Seline Trevisanut. His current research focuses on the assessment of the consequences brought about by the changes in the competing interests on regulating and performing economic activities at sea, with a focus on the offshore energy industry and deep seabed mining.
Current global problems are subject to a plethora of international, transnational, regional and domestic regimes. International law scholars and practitioners have been heavily preoccupied with the management of fragmentation through legal techniques for normative conflict resolution. Starting from a different point of view, regime interaction literature faces fragmentation as an opportunity rather than a weakness of international law. It is rooted on the observation that rights and duties arising from different regimes do not necessarily create tensions, but can operate in a synergetic manner. The relevant literature proposes that the vain search for unity in international law should give way to an investigation of the biases and preferences within regimes and an alternative mode of study into how regimes interact and how they should interact.
Recent legal literature on regime interaction adopts a rather broad conception of “regimes” to include in its scope all relevant actors besides States, a wider variety of normative production and decision making processes. The added value of this broad conception of regimes is that it serves as sufficient basis for understanding the multiple levels of governance in modern international law.
Regime interaction is described as the cross-fertilization of norms and the collaboration between institutions within different (and sometimes even competing) regimes. This interaction takes place in a situation of legal pluralism rather than coherence. It is noteworthy that interactions between international regimes do not occur only in case of disputes, but also at other stages of international law making and implementation. For instance, during the law-making process, the inclusion of perspectives from a range of relevant regimes is essential for the drafting of new rules. These initiatives can be mutually reinforcing for the interacting regimes.
However, in case regime interaction is promoted without the (explicit/implicit) consent of States, it might give rise to issues of legitimacy and accountability. Therefore, regime interaction should take place within a normative framework that provides appropriate checks and balances. The enforcement of procedural safeguards is suggested to provide the necessary openness, transparency and wide participation of all the affected stakeholders. Given its impact on the lawmaking and implementation of international law, it is urgent for international lawyers to understand how regimes interact and how they should interact.
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