INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR SUCCESSION OF STATES: SELECTED THEORETICAL ISSUESSummaryThe succession of states is considered one of the most disputed areas of international law. It depends to a large extent on a state’s policy; the same events may be given completely different evaluations if viewed from different perspectives. Often the norms applied are not detailed enough or they are merely supplementary to settlements made by the states involved. Sometimes the opinion is voiced that succession is nothing more than a kind of practice which is determined only by the fundamental principles of international law, but is not sanctioned by opinio iuris. That is why succession may take so many forms which the theoreticians of international law did not manage arrange in a systematic way until the second half of the 20th century, when they classified its forms according to two general formulas: universal succession and partial succession. Nonetheless the practices different states pursue are still diversified and inconsistent.

Standardized Awareness. National and European Identity as a Matter of the European Union LawSummarySince the very beginning of the European integration process, the national identity has constituted a problematic issue for the integration as such. The main question was, whether the national identity is an opportunity or an obstacle to the European Union. The national identity constitutes collective awareness – comprising such elements as “material culture” (history, literature, arts, music, folklore), language, spiritual culture (customs, public morality, religion) and legal culture.Initially, the European Union welcomed these distinguished characteristics. The European Union founders believed that for its durability the community needs not only an open economic area but also social diversity. Hence, the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union includes an article guaranteeing the national identity of the European Union member states. The obligation to respect the national identity is associated with instruments that are left to the disposal of the member states. In this respect, two groups of treaty provisions are to be distinguished. Some of the existing treaty provisions require that the European Community operate to preserve the national identity (to stimulate, to support and to supplement the member states activities in the field of propagation of culture and history, preservation of national heritage and in non-commercial exchange of literary and art works). Other treaty provisions block Brussels’ (the European Union’s organs) actions against those member states which for the purpose of preserving national identity, infringe the regulations of the European Community.In the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, its authors introduced a system reconstruction of the ideological foundations of the European Union. Although the national identity has not been replaced with the supranational identity, the new axiological fundament of the united Europe was defined. It should be stressed that the Amsterdam Treaty created so called “European identity” existing parallel to the national identity One of the treaty goals is to transform the national-particularistic way of thinking about the European Union citizens into the “European awareness”. The European Union is obliged not only to support the State Parties’ culture but also to display all of the axiological elements that are common for the entire European continent. Hence, national identity as a sociological value is no more autonomic. The European Union started to create a substrate of the European culture that has gone beyond the simple sum of national’s cultures, which would be the basis for the future European statehood.What remains unanswered is whether the European identity created in such a way poses a threat to the national ties or not. National and European identities are autonomous institutions only on the surface. European standards of human rights protection go far beyond political and economic rights. These standards interfere in customs and traditions and in public morality of nations, trying to find a balance between them. In reality, the danger of such a process is correlated with the nature of the economic integration as well. In the process of creation of the law of the European Union , economic issues are treated with priority. Hence, free trade undermines the protection of works of art, open borders create favourable conditions for the transfer of pornography as well as the trend to re-define the history. Therefore, the authors of the treaties have created a “safety valve” – all of the aforementioned norms which constitute legal instruments of protection of the national values. Hence, the problem consists in their proper use by the member states.

Niewypłacalność państwa jest znana prawu międzynarodowemu i relacjom międzypaństwowym od wieków. Na szeroką skalę problemem tym prawo międzynarodowe zajęło się jednak dopiero w latach osiemdziesiątych XX w., choć już w tym czasie specyfika problemu, zmiany społeczno-ekonomiczne oraz ewolucja systemu prawnego narzuciły już temu zjawisku cechę multidyscyplinarności. Zjawisko niewypłacalności państwa warunkuje specyfika państwowej podmiotowości (suwerenność) i jej nadrzędnej pozycji w szeregu systemów prawnych. Oczywiście specyfika ta ewoluuje. Dziś nie tyle państwa dysponują katalogiem instrumentów, które pozwalają im uchylać się od zapłaty długów, ile wierzyciele, szczególnie prywatni, ciągle nie mają wystarczającego zestawu narzędzi do oddziaływania wobec krajów dłużników. Jednak prawdą jest też stwierdzenie, że pozycja wierzycieli i możliwości ich oddziaływania systematycznie rosną. Opis tego instrumentarium zawiera artykuł. Warto jednak wspomnieć, że interesującym wątkiem procesu budowy norm z obszaru niewypłacalności państw są próby stworzenia jednolitych ram prawnych na poziomie uniwersalnym w postaci Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism. Znaczenie jednolitych reżimów prawnych odnoszących się do spraw niewypłacalności podkreśla też rozwój tego rodzaju rozwiązań regionalnych (UE). Całość zmian w prawie zmierza w kierunku przedefiniowania pozycji prawnej państwa dłużnika, uznanej za niesłusznie uprzywilejowaną w okresie rosnącej liberalizacji handlu i przepływu środków finansowych, w kierunku zbliżenia jej do pozycji wierzyciela prywatnego. Efektem tych zmian będzie niewątpliwie zwiększenie pewności międzynarodowego obrotu gospodarczego.

Summary The article discusses the essence of international law by focusing on three issues: (1) its origin; (2) its name and the normative content related thereto; (3) its role in the contemporary world. The author applies two research methods: the historical and legal method as well as the dogmatic one. The text has a three-part structure. The first part presents an analysis of the moment in which the legal regime emerged whose task was to regulate the functioning of socio-political subjects. At that point, the author analyses two main views expressed in scholarship. In his opinion one should depart from Grotius’ conception regarding the origin of international law. What is a sign of the existence of that legal regime is not the equality of subjects, but their very existence and consent to base their relations on certain rules (law). Equality constitutes just one – and not the only one possible – principle among the standards regulating relations of the subjects in a certain community. Hence, what is considered as the beginning of international law is the period during which the first socio-political constructions emerged, and not equal and sovereign states in the sense of the European civilisation. The second part deals with the moment in which the name – that is used to this day – of the said regime (international law) developed. The author reminds however that in reality the regime under discussion had existed earlier although its scope and name were different. He explains what normative content is related to each name of that regime and, at the same time, discusses the process concerning the structural and material evolution of international law. The whole is summarised with the conclusion that the name used today does not reflect the essence of that order. The evolution of its content would require another change in that regard. It is also indicated that such proposals have already been put forward in scholarship (transnational law, global law). To finish his considerations, the author reminds of the classic role of international law, which has been to regulate the functioning of the subjects belonging to that order. Against this background, he indicates that also nowadays this role is fading. International relations are evolving substantially, causing international law to lose its long-standing purpose and meaning. And although all this is changing, the order itself is not collapsing. This is the case because international law still has a stigmatising power – a unique force which does not allow to explicitly reject it. International law still provides politics with a certain framework of decency. Proving that a given country has violated norms of international law automatically depreciates it in the eyes of the international community. This may not only result in international sanctions but also in diminishing the position of such a country in the international community. Therefore, even the largest states never allow to be directly accused of breaching legal standards. As soon as their activity is criticised in light of a given norm, they immediately seek justification in other legal rules or create a complicated interpretation to reject the accusation. Sometimes they blame another subject to justify their conduct with self-defence or retortion. What makes this possible is the structurally complicated situation of international law, which is characterised by constant evolution.

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