Bjorklund, Andrea K. --- "Assessing the Effectiveness of Soft Law Instruments in International Investment Law" [2012] ELECD 632; in Bjorklund, K. Andrea; Reinisch, August (eds), "International Investment Law and Soft Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: International Investment Law and Soft Law

Editor(s): Bjorklund, K. Andrea; Reinisch, August

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781003213

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Assessing the Effectiveness of Soft Law Instruments in International Investment Law

Author(s): Bjorklund, Andrea K.

Number of pages: 31

Extract:

4. Assessing the effectiveness of soft
law instruments in international
investment law
Andrea K. Bjorklund*

The term `soft law' entered the international lexicon in the 1970s as a
descriptive and differentiating phrase:1 soft law was anything that was not,
in fact, hard law promulgated by a governmental body authorized to enact
it, but that nonetheless was designed to affect, or actually did affect,
behavior and that might in time solidify into hard law or otherwise affect
the development of hard law.2 Though the phraseology was perhaps new,
the existence of non-binding written instruments designed to influence the
development of the law or designed themselves to become law at an



* ´
I thank Lee Ann Bambach and Sean Duggan for helpful suggestions.
1
Lord McNair is usually credited with the first use of the expression. Dinah
Shelton, `Introduction: Law, Non-Law and the Problem of ``Soft Law''' in Dinah
Shelton (ed), Commitment and Compliance: The Role of Non-Binding Norms in the
International Legal System (OUP 2000) 1, 22. See also Jan Klabbers, `Reflections
on Soft International Law in a Privatized World' (2005) XVI Finnish YB Int'l L 313,
314 (noting that prior to the introduction of `soft' law one did not need to describe
law as `hard'.).
2
There are numerous definitions of soft law. Francis Snyder describes soft
law as `rules of conduct which, in principle, have no legally binding force but which
nevertheless may have practical effects'. Francis Snyder, `Soft Law and
Institutional Practice in ...