A.  Introduction

  While International Law becomes more and more specialized, a tendency towards Fragmentation becomes visible: more and more sub-regimes of International Law emerge, leading to an increased number of rules. With the creation of more sub-regimes, cases are becoming more likely in which more than one sub-regime is involved and the question arises, which sub-regime's rules take precedence. Recent examples for such collisions of regimes include the relation between Free Trade and the Protection of the Environment in the Yellowfin-Tuna Case between the United States and Mexico which was settled only in January 2002, the Tadic-Nicaragua Debate and the Swordfish Case between the European Community and Chile, including the need for some form of internal order or hierarchy within International Law.

  Twenty Years after Weil's pioneering - yet critical - article, based on an earlier French text, the idea of Relative Normativity in International Law remains a controversial one. Yet three recent developments indicate that Relative Normativity has found its place in the international legal system. Shelton identifies the following factors as the main causes for the growing interest in the issue:  (1) the reduced importance of state consent for the creation of International Law; (2) the expansion of International Law as such, which in turn makes the international legal system more complex than ever before; and (3) the emergence of International Criminal Law and the subsequent need to define the relationship between rules of International Criminal Law on the one hand and jus cogens as well as obligations erga omnes on the other hand.[10]

  In this article we will examine the role of both jus cogens and Relative Normativity in contemporary International Law and the potential for a Constitutional Dimension of International Law to give a place to the (few) common values the international community can agree on and finally ask if and how...