Defragmentation of Public International Law Through Interpretation: A Methodological Proposal

Fragmentation of public international law (PIL) is perceived as a growing problem and answers to it are proliferating. International courts and tribunals are adjudicating ever more on issues that would be considered—were they not transnational or international in nature—constitutional problems. In national law, countervailing values, or intra-constitutional conflicts, are reconciled through a balancing of those values that is usually embedded in the application of the proportionality principle. A similar mechanism in PIL remains underdeveloped from a methodological point of view. This article aims to develop a methodological proposal for defragmentation through interpretation, drawing on legal theory, to be more precise on a theory of balancing.