he Role of Legal Research in the Codification and Progressive Development of International Law

INTRODUCTION. The UN Charter entrusts the General Assembly with the obligation to “initiate studies and make recommendations” to promote the progressive development of international law and its codification. This mandate is primarily implemented through cooperation of States within the UN International Law Commission (ILC). Beyond the ILC’s work, the significance of scholarly research in international law – whether individual or collective – remains debated, including the very validity of the term “unofficial codification of international law”. This article explores the practical impact of legal scholarship on the evolution of contemporary international law, particularly in light of the UN Charter’s reference to the “teachings of the most highly qualified publicists”.

MATERIALS AND METHODS. The article calls attention to the relevant provisions of the UN Charter (including such its integral component as the Statute of the International Court of Justice), and to the ILC documents, and to scholarly works on general international law, which cover its codification, progressive development and historical dimensions–by both domestic and foreign experts. Methodologically, it employs general scientific approaches (analysis, synthesis) and specialized legal methods, notably comparative legal analysis.

RESEARCH RESULTS. The UN Charter notion “the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists” means a special part of the broader concept – “the science of international law”. Merely addressing a particular topic of international law is not enough for qualifying its results as one of the “teachings” in the sense of article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of justice; a sort of key characteristics of such a “teaching” are suggested: the scholarly (academic) nature of a publication on the results of such international law research; taking into account the system of international law (that is, results of the research are not to be a fragmented presentation of a position regarding a specific issue of international law in isolation from its overall system); the professional achievements of the author of a publication in the area of international law, their recognition within the international scholarly community. The notion “the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists”, as it is used in the UN Charter and in its Commentaries, refers first of all to theoretical contributions on issues of international law that are produced by scholars, either individually or collectively; the term does not mean a document of a State.

DICUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The literature on international law demonstrates a variety of opinions relating to the role of legal research in the development of international law and its systematization, including different opinions as to the relation between the term “the science of international law” and the “teachings of the most highly qualified publicists”, as provided in Art. 38 of the ICJ Statute. What is suggested in foreign legal publications is, in particular, a positive description of the list of international lawyers whose works were already cited by the ICJ. The authors of this paper take a more critical approach, identifying that in this list the majority are scholars from the USA and Western Europe. In contrast, no doctrinal contributions of scholars from Russia or China, or from Africa or Latin America were cited by the ICJ. Such underrepresentation of legal research done in countries and regions noted above does not mean that international laws scholarship is less developed in these regions that in the USA and Western Europe. Rather the dominance of Anglo-Saxon legal scholarship in the ICJ practice is facilitated by other factors, including political ones, as indicated in this paper.

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