Public International Law: Why Embassies Are Not Foreign Soil
How a world with no global government still makes binding law: treaties, custom, statehood, the sea, war and the world court.
Try 3 questions
1. Article 38 of the ICJ Statute lists judicial decisions and the writings of scholars as what?
- Subsidiary means for determining the law
- The highest sources of international law
- Binding precedents for every state
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Answer: Subsidiary means for determining the law
Treaties, custom and general principles are the main sources; court rulings and scholarship help identify the law but do not create binding precedent.
2. Customary international law requires general state practice plus what?
- Approval by the UN Security Council
- Opinio juris, a sense of legal obligation
- Ratification by two-thirds of states
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Answer: Opinio juris, a sense of legal obligation
States must act a certain way and do so because they believe the law requires it; habit or courtesy alone does not create custom.
3. A treaty between two states agreeing to permit slavery would be void because it conflicts with what?
- The wishes of the General Assembly
- The rules of the law of the sea
- A peremptory norm (jus cogens)
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Answer: A peremptory norm (jus cogens)
Under the Vienna Convention, treaties that conflict with peremptory norms, such as the bans on slavery and genocide, are void.
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