Perspectives of judicial review in international law

The article considers whether it is possible to talk about constitutional review by international courts and tribunals in the context of constitutionalization of international law. The author starts with a brief analysis of the problem of constitutional review and its legitimacy. This is transfered to the grounds of international law, where the relations between law, politics and power are even more tense and complicated than in case of municipal law. International law does not have its own "Marbury vs Madison", however several important cases, especially before the International Court of Justice could qualify as "constitutional" because they extended sevaral tribunals' competences from merely dispute settlement to proper adjudication and judicial review. Examples of developing standards as far as review of some legal international documents against major treaties are given. After that, the article moves to analysing some real and theoretical problems of constitutional review, such as pluralism and policentrism of constitutional review systems in international relations. The major theoretical problem that is discussed is the subject of judicial review - what kind of normative material should be analysed by an international tribunal, which is a question closely related to the problem of the sources of international law. The second problem is the constitutional standard by which the tribunal should measure other law. This amounts in essence to the question what is the international constitution. The main part of the article concentrates on these two issues. In conclusion the article does not give any specifications of how constitutional review in international law does or should operate. This short overview of the problems of international constitutional review ends with a call for a more reflexive international law and a more reflexive international judge - oriented towards the idea of law and the rule of law itself rather than following the rule of recognition