The term modern international law was invented by Jeremy Bentham in 1789 and was established in the 19th century. International law is the term given to the rules governing relations between states. This chapter takes up this notion and introduces you to the role of international legal norms as a particular medium for the social regulation of international affairs. In a famous judgment in the Lotus case, the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague, the main judicial organ of the League of Nations, predecessor of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the United Nations (UN), declared in 1927 (The Case of the S.
If you translate the situation of the settlement on the plane international law and replacing families with states, will obtain an image of international law characterized by states as the main actors. This value consists of certainty, predictability and a sense of common purpose in international affairs that derives from the existence of a set of rules accepted by all international actors. International lawyers, as a particular group of professionals, learn techniques to determine what legal standards exist and which are applicable to relevant actors in a given situation. An international tribunal, the Permanent Court of International Justice, was established to arbitrate disputes between nations without resorting to war.
Among the greatest achievements of the United Nations is the development of a body of international law, which is fundamental to promoting economic and social development, as well as promoting international peace and security. It is a controversial question in international law whether a territorial entity obtains the legal status of a sovereign state based solely on a series of factual criteria (such as the existence of a population, territory, effective government and capacity to enter into international relations) or whether this also requires a formal recognition by other states. The strict distinction between the law of peace and the law of armed conflict has been somewhat blurred with the emergence of international human rights law and international criminal law. In addition to the decisions of international judicial bodies, the decisions of a domestic court may amount to a statement of what that court considers international law on a given matter.
The International Law Commission and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law report to the General Assembly. It is this description of international law that often culminated in the question of whether international law was really law. There are countless bilateral and multilateral contracts between states (called treaties or conventions in international law), and more than 5,000 intergovernmental organizations and their different bodies participate in the regulation and administration of almost every aspect of international life. When considering responses to a particular international situation, states often consider relevant international laws.
The development of international law, both of its rules and of its institutions, is inevitably determined by international political developments. At the end of the century, Immanuel Kant believes that international law, as a law that can justify war, no longer serves the purpose of peace and therefore argues in Perpetual Peace (Zum Ewigen Frieden, 179) and The Metaphysics of Morality (Metaphysik der Sitten, 179) to create a new type of international law.
