| The usual research practices in jurisprudence express the idea that each legal system, be it Dutch law, French law, European Community law or international law has its own particular structure which delimits it from other legal systems. Studies focus on one such legal system, or compare one system with another, but always on the assumption that legal rules by definition form part of one particular legal system. As legal relationships are defined as relationships defined by legal rules, these also belong to a particular legal system. This view also assumes that legal systems only relate to one other 'externally'. As states are legal subjects in relation to international law, their legal relationships under international law may give rise to obligations affecting their internal legal systems. The creation of such obligations depends on the states' constitutional rules on concluding, approving and ratifying treaties, and they are the outcome of the choice made in constitutional law between direct applicability and implementation by legislation. Relationships do therefore exist between the legal systems, but they cannot be reduced one to another or reduced to one overarching legal system. A similar phenomenon may be observed in the relationship between national legal systems. There are no international rules of law for international contracts, marriages and adoptions; rather each national legal system has rules to establish whether the law of that jurisdiction or another should be applied. The research program addresses the increasing permeability of legal systems, their interconnectedness and the consequences of this for the role retained by legislative bodies, as well as for the increasing role of conflict resolution. The method used here is, on the one hand, a theoretical analysis of the development of law in treaties, statutes and other decisions, and on the other hand an assessment from the practice of conflict resolution and the application of the law. Research into the theory of international relations and political science will have a role to play, in particular in relation to the development of law in treaties and statute. |
