I. | Substantive International Law - First Part |
3. | INTERNATIONAL LAW AND MUNICIPAL LAW |
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Elettronica Sicula S.p.A. (ELSI)
Judgment of 20 July 1989
I.C.J.Reports 1989, p. 15
[p. 51] The question still remains, therefore, whether the
requisition was or was not a violation of Article III, paragraph 2. This
question arises irrespective of the position in municipal law. Compliance with
municipal law and compliance with the provisions of a treaty are different
questions. What is a breach of treaty may be lawful in the municipal law and
what is unlawful in the municipal law may be wholly innocent of violation of a
treaty provision. Even had the Prefect held the requisition to be entirely
justified in Italian law, this would not exclude the possibility that it was a
violation of the FCN Treaty.
[p. 74] Yet it must be borne in mind that the fact that an act of a
public authority may have been unlawful in municipal law does not necessarily
mean that that act was unlawful in international law, as a breach of treaty or
otherwise. A finding of the local courts that an act was unlawful may well be
relevant to an argument that it was also arbitrary; but by itself, and without
more, unlawfulness cannot be said to amount to arbitrariness. It would be absurd
if measures later quashed by higher authority or a superior court could, for
that reason, be said to have been arbitrary in the sense of international law.
To identify arbitrariness with mere unlawfulness would be to deprive it of any
useful meaning in its own right. Nor does it follow from a finding by a
municipal court that an act was unjustified, or unreasonable, or arbitrary, that
that act is necessarily to be classed as arbitrary in international law, though
the qualification given to the impugned act by a municipal authority may be a
valuable indication.