The rule of law at international level and the international rule of law: trends and challenges

Abstract

The idea of the public power submission to the law has gone beyond the State borders and, progressively, made its way at international level by means of a principle called by Anglo-American doctrine the “International Rule of Law”. For some authors, the root cause for the application of the Rule of Law to interstate relationships, within international society, could date back to the XVIII Century. However, it was until a few years ago that the Rule of Law analysis, from a strictly international point of view, started to take off and become a recurrent topic for the doctrine and the practice of the States and International Organizations. In Spain, unfortunately the study of the potential manifestations of the Rule of Law in international affairs has been scarcely addressed. Regarding the latter, and with the aim of contributing to the debate that seems to be generating within the doctrine of our country on this question, we are going to analyze the genesis and development that the promotion of the Rule of Law has experienced at international level. For this purpose, we will take as reference the practice of the General Assembly of UN related to this matter. In this light, we shall study the evolution and gradual concretion that the Rule of Law has experienced in the heart of the UN which went from the internationalization of a national model of Rule of Law to the postulation of an international model itself..