Two kinds of systemic consistency in international law

Abstract

The systemic view of international law has grown in popularity in recent decades. Even central authors who endorse the fragmentation of international law have recognised it as a legal system. Despite its popularity, however, some unresolved issues still obscure the systemic view. If international law is a system, does that mean it has no rule conflicts? Or is it that a system can handle these conflicts in a way that preserves legal consistency? In this respect, this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of international law as a legal system by rationally reconstructing the concept of consistency in international law. To make its argument, this research distinguishes rules from statements, as well as the consistency of rulesets (R-consistency) from the consistency of statement sets (S-consistency). With this differentiation, this article then explains how the internal logic of international law allows subjects to derive an S-consistent set of legal consequences even if the ruleset of international law is R-inconsistent.