Droit International du Développement. By M. Flory. [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1977. 336 pp.] - Droit International Economique. By D. Carreau, P. Juillard and T. Flory. 2nd ed. [Paris: Pichon et Auzias. 1980. xix and 631 pp.]

Abstract

DROIT International du Developpement presents the first systematic treatment of a new and fast expanding branch of international economic law. Its author. Professor Maurice Flory of the University of Aix-Marseille, deals with every conceivable facet of that subject, but makes it clear from the beginning that he regards it as the function of the new law to act as the handmaiden of the New International Economic Order. It is, he writes, an international law "at the service of a project" (p. 12), "un droit au service d'une finalite" (p. 31). By attributing to the subject a teleological quality, he casts the newly emerging breed of international development lawyers headlong into the stream of lexferenda. A teleology must, however, assume the existence of clearly defined objectives. Yet, no agreed model of a New International Economic Order has ever been devised. Undeterred, Professor Flory thinks that quasi-legislative directives will spring from three sources, listed by him as (a) a body of declarations, preambles anmd resolutions, (b) some rules of positive law on the constitutional plane, and (c) a cluster of bilateral arrangements (p. 77). While agreeing with him in principle, one cannot help feeling that it will be a long time before the materials flowing from those sources can be regarded as sufficiently free from their present political and legal ambiguities to be of positive use to international development lawyers. Like traditional international law in its formative stage between Renaissance and Reformation, international development law in its initial stages of evolution will have to tap sources of natural law to derive a measure of legitimacy. Professor Flory draws attention to a "right to industrial development" claimed by the developing countries (p. 52). This point will have to be elaborated and investigated with a view to linking it with the concept of "equity", which is applicable by way of relief wherever the rigours of positive law would lead to patent injustice. A great deal of thought will have to be given to what one might call the "jurisprudence of international development law", an area in which British lawyers, brought up on notions of equity, could perhaps be helpful. Professor Flory also considers the international development lawyer's task an analysing "the progressive transformation of relations between industrial States and countries undergoing development" (p. 12). It is here that British lawyers, trained exclusively within the discipline of law, find themselves at a disadvantage visa -vis their continental colleagues, in whose case a firm grounding in the economic and political sciences forms part of their basic academic instruction. In examining the practical side of implementing the New International Economic Order, the author posits the organisation of compensating mechanisms between developed and underdeveloped countries as the prime task in the present field. He even proposes the imposition of a "world solidarity tax" (pp. 182-186). Admitting that "consensus" as an international en...

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