This chapter examines the sources of international law. International legal rules are not as easily located as their domestic law counterparts. Whereas at the domestic level, only a relatively small number of bodies are endowed with law-making powers, at the international level, all states have law-making capacity. Moreover, state acts are not the only source of international legal rules. The result is a mosaic of law-making processes, forums, and regimes. The chapter focuses on the two most significant sources of international law: treaties and customary international law. It then turns to the relationship between international law-making and the principle of state sovereignty. Finally, the chapter considers the body of non-binding norms, which increasingly permeates and regulates all facets of international life. This so-called soft law takes many forms; it is often highly influential in its own right and may harden into binding law over time.
Chapter
3. Locating law in the international system
Chapter
Human Rights in International Law
Rhona K. M. Smith
This chapter
focuses on human rights within international law. It discusses the principal
monitoring systems that ensured states complied with their international human
rights treaty obligations. Some human rights agreements involved the abolition
of slavery, humanitarian law, and labour rights. The chapter then lists
treaties, customary international law, and soft law as the sources of
international human rights law. States generally indicate their acceptance of
international human rights law by agreeing to treaties, but they could avoid the
full impact of legal obligations through reservations, derogations, and
declarations. Thus, the existing mechanisms for monitoring human rights have a
light touch that encouraged states to comply with treaties through constructive
dialogue instead of any court processes.
Chapter
8. International Law
This chapter describes the broad challenges involved in establishing global order under conditions of anarchy through international law. The fact that there is no world government with powers akin to national governments means that maintaining cooperative relations between and among states is always a careful balancing act, given the problem of enforcing international law in the absence of a single, overarching sovereign authority. The chapter looks at law in the global sphere through the notion of rule of law. It then considers the emergence of international law in broad historical perspective. Moving on to international law in the twentieth century, and up to the present period, the chapter examines the nature of treaties, charters, and covenants which operate in multiple issue areas from postal services, trade, and aviation to communications, the environment, and human rights. It also focuses on two major international courts: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Finally, the chapter reflects on how the principles and practices of a rules-based international order are faring in the contemporary period with a focus on Russia, China, and the US.