International Fundamental Values and Obligations Erga Omnes

This chapter argues that international law is a value-oriented legal order, and that the way in which its fundamental values are safeguarded reflects the unique structural features of the international legal system. In lack of an international constitution in a formal sense, the international fundamental values materialize through the brute practice of states, international organizations, and a number of open-ended legal concepts allowing the legal relevance of the underlying ethical convictions of the international community. In the field of international responsibility, such is the function fulfilled by the concept of obligations erga omnes. This chapter maintains that lawful responses to breaches of obligations erga omnes should always bear some elements of collectiveness. This condition realizes not only through institutionalized processes but also by means of a wide range of collective, scarcely formalized procedures of concertation of state action which may take place in institutional, political, or diplomatic settings.