This chapter analyses the relationship between international and domestic law and particularly the reception of the former in domestic legal systems. This matter is regulated in the receiving State’s constitutional law and is generally based on the doctrine of incorporation and that of transformation. The former does not require any further implementing legislation by the receiving State, but where it is applied it is subject to several limitations, particularly where the treaty in question is not sufficiently clear or precise, in which case it is not automatically self-executing. The philosophical foundations of the relationship between international and domestic law are explained by reference to the monist and dualist theories. Besides treaties, domestic law also regulates the reception of custom and UN Security Council resolutions. However, in respect of Security Council resolutions, international human rights law determines their legality.
Chapter
4. The relationship between international and domestic law
Chapter
9. Constitutional Conventions
This chapter assesses the nature and purpose of constitutional conventions. The discussions cover the concepts of collective and individual ministerial responsibility; the relationship between the Monarch and her Ministers; the relationship between convention, statute, and the common law; the ‘Ponsonby rule’ and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. It is argued that the concentration of effective political power is often very intense, even within a political party; small groups of senior Ministers or even the Prime Minister alone may occasionally be, to all intents and purposes, ‘elected dictators’.
