Application of International Law in the Domestic Legal Order

In recent years, a rising awareness for the importance of constitutional review as an instrument for judicial oversight is being witnessed among scholars, legal practitioners and society – in the Middle East, North Africa, the Golf countries, and beyond. Institutions charged with constitutional review in the countries of the MENA region (constitutional courts and councils, supreme courts, high tribunals etc.) are undergoing fundamental reforms (e.g., Morocco, Tunisia). Some have been established for the first time (e.g., Bahrain in 2002, Iraq in 2004 or Saudi Arabia in 2009), some have been attributed new competences, and new procedures have been introduced. 

Globalisation and the growth of transnationalism has resulted in an enormous increase in the number of international treaties and their scope. International treaties no longer exist only in classical areas of international law, such as international humanitarian law or international commercial law, but also concern environmental protection, health, cyberspace, telecommunication and transport as countries recognized certain tasks, due to their specific character, can be better dealt with in cooperation with other states.

Traditionally, the conclusion of treaties under international law has been a classic task of the executive branch. However, the growing number of international treaties in a broadening range of topics have led to the involvement of the legislature and thus the control by the judiciary. The constitutional control of international treaties poses major challenges, most of them relating to the relationship between international treaties and national constitutional law – a question that is especially difficult to answer in cases the constitution remains silent on this subject. How to deal with an international treaty that is considered to be in violation of the constitution?

In this context, The Rule of Law Program Middle East / North Africa in cooperation with the Lebanese Center for International Studies gathered from 25 to 27 of October, 2018 constitutional experts and judges from Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Germany and France in order to specifically discuss and define the legal frameworks and to analyse different ways of how countries of the region accommodate the complex relation between international treaties and national constitutional law. A series of research papers were submitted post study days in preparation of a unified publication that is expected to be launched in 2019.