Enigma of the Constitution of Russian Federation 1993: “Generally Recognized Principles and Norms of International Law”

Abstract

The International law, being the independent legal system, has essential peculiarities,which are not manifested merely by the availability itself of the core component — therelevant system of its principles. The article explores very specific aspect related to the“generally recognized principles and norms of international law” as a category of legalscience, in an atypical perspective of finding the origins of its inclusion into the Russianlegal system basing on the grounds of analysis of domestic law and effective trends ofinternational practice in this regard. The term and the category itself ‘generally recognizedprinciples and norms of international law’ have become an integral part of the Russiancontemporary jurisprudence and positive law in a whole due to relevant incorporationthereof into provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, 1993. They constitutean important layer in the history of constitutional evolution of our state, which, however,has not yet received due attention in legal literature. Despite the wide-spread use of theafore-referred term in science and positive domestic law both in the Soviet Union andnowadays Russia, the scholars as far as the international law, have not till to date definedthe substance and scope of the ‘generally recognized principles and norms’ as part of thesaid system of law nor juxtaposed the same with other categories and notions immuneto International Law. Meanwhile, the said term continuously coexists in international lawand its research along with other concepts, also covered by the range of designationspertaining to principles — ‘fundamental principles’, ‘general principles of law recognizedby civilized Nations’, jus cogens, etc., which fact, in turn, requires appropriate orientation.The present piece, having relied upon the historiographical approach and theoreticalpositions substantiated by international legal science, is deemed to attempt to elucidatesome queries related to the core issues regarding the subject-matter of the article —the ‘generally recognized principles and norms of international law’– and its constituentelements, as well as its relationship and links with other afore-referred phenomena,i.e. “fundamental principles of international law”, firstly, and the norms of jus cogens(‘peremptory norms of general international law’), secondly. This approach allowed topenetrate into the essence of the analyzed categories. The outcome of the work of the UNInternational Law Commission (UN IL Commission) related to the topic of ‘jus cogens’ isa matter of special attention in the course of analysis.
For citation: Anufrieva L.P. (2019) Enigma of the Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993: “Generally Recognized Principles and Norms of International Law”. Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki, no 3, pp. 4–25 (in Russian) DOI: 10.17-323/2072-8166.2019.3.4.25