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63 Nordic J. Int'l L. 3 (1994)
Application of Public International Law by Swedish Courts

handle is hein.journals/nordic63 and id is 11 raw text is: Application of Public International Law by Swedish Courts Michael Bogdan* 1. Introduction Sweden is a relatively small jurisdiction with some eight million inhabit- ants and a legal system belonging to the Romano-Germanic family of laws.' Although lacking large codifications such as a Civil Code or a Commercial Code, Swedish law is basically composed of written statutory provisions. The statutes leave, however, many questions unanswered, thus forcing the courts to look for solutions in legislative preparatory materials (these are given great weight), available precedents and the works of legal writers, although none of these tools is, strictly speaking, considered to be a source of binding legal rules. As could be expected with regard to the size of the country's population, the existing case law is rather limited and the same is true regarding the Swed- ish legal literature. Many legal issues remain open and without a clear answer. This paper deals with one such matter, namely the applicability of public inter- national law (international law, law of nations) in Swedish courts. International law may be invoked in domestic courts in a variety of situa- tions. In some cases, international law may be relevant for the outcome without, however, requiring that the court decide in a certain way. For exam- ple, the validity of a foreign expropriation or confiscation may be attacked in Swedish courts after the seized property has been moved to Sweden on the ground that the seizure had violated international law. International law may certainly make certain takings of this kind illegal, but it does not require that they be considered null and void by courts in other countries. It is, therefore, for each country to decide whether it will regard takings violating international law to be valid or not, the question being open as far as Sweden is concerned.2 This article focuses, however, on a different type of case, namely those where international law, whether customary or treaty-based, imposes certain obligations on Sweden regarding the judiciary activities of Swedish courts. An * Professor of Law, University of Lund, Sweden Nordic Journal of International Law 63: 3-16, 1994. 3 © 1994 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.