Law Commons^™

International Common Law: The Soft Law Of International Tribunals, Andrew T. Guzman, Timothy L. Meyer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Islands Of Effective International Adjudication: Constructing An Intellectual Property Rule Of Law In The Andean Community, Laurence R. Helfer, Karen J. Alter, M. Florencia Guerzovich

Faculty Scholarship

The Andean Community - a forty-year-old regional integration pact of small developing countries in South America - is widely viewed as a failure. In this Article, we show that the Andean Community has in fact achieved remarkable success within one part of its legal system. The Andean Tribunal of Justice (ATJ) is the world's third most active international court, with over 1400 rulings issued to date. Over 90% of those rulings concern intellectual property (IP). The ATJ has helped to establish IP as a rule of law island in the Andean Community where national judges, administrative officials, and private parties …

International Common Law: The Soft Law Of International Tribunals, Timothy L. Meyer, Andrew T. Guzman

Scholarly Works

Rising legalization in the international community has lead to greater use of international tribunals and soft law. This paper explores the intersection of these instruments. The decision of an international tribunal interprets binding legal obligations but is not itself legally binding except, in some instances, as between the parties. The broader, and often more important function of a tribunal's decision - its influence on state behavior beyond the particular case and its impact on perceptions regarding legal obligations - is best characterized as a form of soft law.

Despite its inability to bind states, a tribunal can influence state behavior …