Judicial abdication in foreign affairs and the effectiveness of international law

Moving from the assumption that judicial abdication in foreign affairs represents a major hurdle to domestic implementation of international law (and thus to its effectiveness), the present article investigates its legal and prudential foundations, having particular regard to the political question doctrine (or political act doctrine, in civil law parlance). A comparative analysis reveals the threefold nature of these doctrines, to the extent that they operate either as a jurisdictional limitation, or as a non-justiciability argument, or as a form of prudential self-restraint. Each of these aspects will be discussed in detail in order to demonstrate a) that all the arguments employed to justify judicial abdication are devoid of grounds or overestimated; and b) that more viable solutions are available with a view to balancing judicial control and political prerogatives in foreign affairs cases.