history of international law india

7/27/2019 history of international law india

1/21

PAGE|1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.3

2. RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY.4

3. INTRODUCTION5

4. OBJECTIVES..7

5. NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF INT. LAW8

HISTORY OF INT. LAW..9

(1)ANCIENT TIME.9

(2)MIDDLE AGE.10

(3)CLASSICAL AGE.11

6. HUGO GROTIUS11

7. TREATY OF WESTPHILIA.12

8. INT. LAW IN THE 19 CENTURY.........................................................13

9. Origin and background of the development and codification of international law..................1410.HISTORY OF INT. LAW IN USA..15

11.ROLE OF UNITED NATIONS IN INT. LAW..16

12.INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISION .18

13.OTHER MULTILATERAL BODIES..

14.CRITICISM OF INT. LAW19

15.CONCLUSION.20

16.REFERENCES..21

7/27/2019 history of international law india

2/21

PAGE|2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have made this project work, and on the way of completing it, I have learned a lot of things for

which I am thankful to Ms. Shraddha Rajput, faculty of Legal methods and administration of

HNLU, Raipur, who collectively gave me the opportunity to do this project work and guided me

all the way. I would also like to thank my friends, and colleagues, for their opinions, suggestions

and critical analysis, which has helped me to improve this project. I also thank the HNLU library

and the people working there. Their silent work is the reason behind the completion of this

project.

I thank God, He has been very generous on me, to have kept me in good health and make the

conditions favorable for me to complete this work in time.

Lastly, I thank my parents. Without their continuous support and belief in me, I would never

have been able to make this project.

SUYASH PANDE

7/27/2019 history of international law india

3/21

PAGE|3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research is based on secondary sources. Literature review has been done extensively in order

to make a comprehensive presentation. Books from the universitys library have been used.

Articles and reports from different websites have been used in order to get comprehensive data

on the subject

7/27/2019 history of international law india

4/21

PAGE|4

INTRODUCTION

What is Law?

It is possible to describe law as the body of official rules and regulations, generally found in

constitutions, legislation, judicial opinions, and the like, that is used to govern a society and to

control the behaviour of its members, so Law is a formal mechanism of social control.

Legal systems are particular ways of establishing and maintaining social order.

What is International law?

International law is a body of legal rules, regulations and accepted practices by which countries,

organizations and people throughout the world interact with each other and with citizens of

different countries. There are two basic categories of this type of law: public and private. Public

international lawdeals with relationships between nations or between a nation and organizations

or people from other countries.Private international lawdeals with disputes between citizens of

different countries or businesses from different countries, especially when there is a question of

which country's laws apply or where the dispute should be resolved. There are certain courts and

bodies, such as theUnited NationsSecurity Council, that have the power to decide cases

of international law.

International Law, unlike most other areas of law, has no defined area or governing body, but

instead refers to the many and varied laws, rules and customs which govern, impact and deal

with the legal interactions between different nations, their governments, businesses and

organizations, to include their rights and responsibilities in these dealings.

The immense body that makes up international law encompasses a piecemeal collection of

international customs; agreements; treaties; accords, charters (i.e. the United Nations Charter);

protocols; tribunals; memorandums; legal precedents of the International Court of Justice (aka

World Court) and more. Without a unique governing, enforcing entity, international law is a

largely voluntary endeavor, wherein the power of enforcement only exists when the parties

7/27/2019 history of international law india

5/21

PAGE|5

consent to adhere to and abide by an agreement. Their application covers all the facets of

national law, to include substantive law, procedure, and remedies. There are three main legal

principles recognized in much of international law, which are not required, but are based chiefly

on courtesy and respect:

Principle of Comity - In the instance where two nations share common public policy ideas, one

of them submits to the laws and judicial decrees of the other.

Act of State Doctrine - respects that a nation is sovereign in its own territory and its official

domestic actions may not be questioned by the judicial bodies of another country. It dissuades

courts from deciding cases that would interfere with a countrys foreign policy.

Doctrine of Sovereign Immunity - deals with actions brought in the court of one nation against

another foreign nation and prevents the sovereign state from being tried in court without its

consent. In the U.S., this is governed by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of 1976.

To be determined a sovereign state a nation must run its own government, with its own territory

and population. There are both national laws and international agreements which govern/regulate

international business transactions, which include investments, offshore banking, contracts,

imports/exports, tariffs, dumping, trade and more. Although there is no definitive governing

body overseeing international law, the United Nations is the most widely recognized and

influential international organization and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is its judicial

counterpart.

International law may further be broken down aspublic orprivate. Public International law

covers the rules, laws and customs that govern and monitor the conduct and dealings between

nations and/or their citizens. The UN deals largely with public international law. Private

International law (Conflict of laws) handles disputes between private citizens of different

nations.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

6/21

PAGE|6

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this project work are as follows:

1. To study International Law and its functions.

2. To understand the implication of Law on different states.

3. To explain the role which International law can play.

4. To study in detail the work which International Law has been doing through its various

organs and institutions, by making guidelines and taking proper steps to conform the

balance between various states.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

7/21

PAGE|7

The nature and development of international law

has always been played by the idea of lawthe idea that order is necessary

and chaos inimical to a just and stable existence. Every society, whether

it be large or small, powerful or weak, has created for itself a framework

of principles within which to develop. What can be done, what cannotbe done, permissible acts, forbidden acts, have all been spelt out within

the consciousness of that community. Progress, with its inexplicable leaps

and bounds, has always been based upon the group as men and women

combine to pursue commonly accepted goals, whether these be hunting

animals, growing food or simply making money.

Law is that element which binds the members of the community to-

gether in their adherence to recognised values and standards. It is both

permissive in allowing indiv iduals to establish their own legal relations

with rights and duties, as in the creation of contracts, and coercive, as

it punishes those who infringe its regulations. Law consists of a series o

rules regulating behaviour, and re ecting, to some extent, the ideas and

preoccupations of the society within which it functions.

And so it is with what is termed international law, with the impor-

tant difference that the principal subjects of international law are nation-

states, not individual citizens. There are many contrasts between the

law within a countr y (municipal law) and the law that operates out-

side and between states, international organisations and, in certain cases,

individuals.

International law itself is div ided into con ict of laws (or private in-ternational law as it is sometimes called) and public international law

(usually just termed international law).

For example if two englishman make a contract in France to sell goods situated in Paris,the

English courts will apply French law.

In the long march of mankind from the cave to the computer a central role

7/27/2019 history of international law india

8/21

PAGE|8

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Ancient times

For a vivid indication of how persons from even the most diverse cultures can relate to one

another in a peaceful, predictable, and mutually bene, cial fashion, it is di< cult to top

Herodotuss description of silent trading between the Carthaginians and an unnamed North

African tribe in about the sixth century BC. When the Carthaginians arrived in the tribes area by

ship, they would unload a pile of goods from their vessels, leave them on the beach and then

return to their boats and send a smoke signal. e natives would then come and inspect the goods

on their own, leave a pile of gold, and retire. en the Carthaginians would return; and, if satis, ed

that the gold represented a fair price, they would take it and depart. If not satis, ed, they would

again retire to their ships; and the natives would return to leave more gold. e process would

continue until both sides were content, at which point the Carthaginians would sail away with

their gold, without a word exchanged between the two groups. ere is perfect honesty on both

sides, Herodotus assures us, with no problems of theB or con. Ict is silent trading arrangement

may have been successful in its way, but a process of interaction so in. exibly ritualistic and so

narrow in subject matter could hardly sue for political interactions between States, even in

ancient times. Most people probably have the feeling that something rather more elaborate is

required to merit the grand name of international lawWith the advent of the great universal

religions, far more broadly-based systems of world order became possible. One outstanding

example was the Islamic empire of the seventh century AD and aB erwards. Signi, cantly, the

body of law on relations between States within the Muslim world (the Dar al-Islam, or House of

Islam) was much richer than that regarding relations with the outside world (the Dar al-Harb, or

House of war). But even with in, del States and nationals, a number of pragmatic devices

evolved to permit relations to occur in predictable wayssuch as temporary truces (in lieu of

treaties) or safe-conducts issued to individuals In Western history, the supreme exemplar of the

multinational empire was Rome. But the Roman Empire was, in its formative period, a

7/27/2019 history of international law india

9/21

PAGE|9

somewhat tentative and ramshackle air, without an over-arching ethical or religious basis

comparable to the Islamic religion in the later Arab empire we could expect to , and the best

evidence for a nascent international law in the three areas of ancient Eurasia that were

characterized by dense networks of small, independent States sharing a more or less common

religious and cultural value system: Mesopotamia (by, say, the fourth or third millennium BC),

northern India (in the Vedic period aB er about 1600 BC), and classical Greece. Each of these

three State systems was characterized by a combination of political fragmentation and cultural

unity. is enabled a number of fairly standard practices to emerge, which helped to place inter-

State relations on at least a somewhat stable and predictable footing.

. the middle ages: the natural law era

The European Middle Ages became the great age of natural-law thought. During this period,

natural-law conceptions developed under the umbrella of the Catholic Church. But it must be

remembered that the idea was not specifcally Christian in its inception, but rather was a legacy of

the classical Stoic and Roman legal traditions.

Natural law is one of the many parts of international law that have never received the systematic

study that they merit. In the present context, only a few of its most salient features can be noted.

Perhaps its single most outstanding feature was its all-embracingcharacter. It encompassed and

regulated the natural and social life of the universe in all its in, nite varietyfrom the

movements of the stars in their courses to the gurgling of the four humours through the veins

and arteries of the human body, from the thoughts and deeds of all of the creatures of land, sea,

and air, to those of human beings and the angels in the heavens. Its strictures applied universally

to all cultures and civilizations, past, present, and future. Certain aspects of the conduct of war

witnessed a high level of resenement in the Middle Agesmost notably the law on the

ransoming of prisoners of war (a welcome step forward from the alternatives of enslavement

and summary killing). The law of arms (as it was known) was expounded in the fourteenth

century, , first by John of Legnano and later by a monk named Honor de Bonet (or Bouvet),

whose book entitled The Tree of Battles, of the 1380s, became very influential. Accounts of

medieval warfare, however, incline observers to harbour grave doubts as to whether even these

practical rules exerted much real. In short, medieval international law was a jumble of different

7/27/2019 history of international law india

10/21

PAGE|10

beliefs and practicesfrom the rared conceptions of the law of nature, to the more serviceable

rules by which various communities conducted their actual day-to-day business, from warfare

and diplomacy, to buying and selling.

The classical age (1600-1815)

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a new spirit entered into doctrinal thought on

international law. This is sometimes put in terms of a secularization of natural-law thought.That,

however, is a very misleading characterization, since natural-law itself was (and had always

been) primarily secular in nature. What was new in the seventeenth century was a willingness to

give a degree of formal recognition to State practice as a true source of law, rather than

regarding it as merely illustrative of natural-law principles. The

result was a kind of dualistic outlook, with natural law and State practice maintaining a wary,

and rather uneas

y, form of co-existencea state of affairs much in evidence to the present day.

Hugo Grotius

Several scholars sought to compile them all into organized treatises. The most important of these

wasHugo Grotius, whose treatiseDe Jure Belli Ac Pacis Libri Tresis considered the starting

point for modern international law. BeforeHugo Grotius, most European thinkers treated law as

something independent of mankind, with its own existence. Some laws were invented by men,

but ultimately they reflected the essential natural law. Grotius was no different, except in one

important respect: Unlike the earlier thinkers, who believed that the natural law was imposed by

a deity, Grotius believed that the natural law came from an essential universal reason, common

to all men.

Thisrationalistperspective enabled Grotius to posit several rational principles underlying law.

aw was not imposed from above, but rather derived from principles. Foundation principles

included the axioms that promises must be kept, and that harming another requires restitution.

These two principles have served as the basis for much of subsequent international law. Apart

7/27/2019 history of international law india

11/21

PAGE|11

from natural-law principles, Grotius also dealt with international custom, or voluntary law.

Grotius emphasized the importance of actual practices, customs and treatieswhat "is" done

as opposed to normative rules of what "ought to be" done. Thispositivistapproach to

international law strengthened over time. As nations became the predominant form of state in

Europe, and their man-made laws became more important than religious doctrines and

philosophies, the law of what "is" similarly became more important than the law of what "ought

to be."

Treaty of Westphali a

The Westphalian treaties of 1648 were a turning point in establishing the principle ofstate

sovereigntyas a cornerstone of the international order. However the first attempts at formulating

autonomous theories of international law occurred before this, in Spain, in the 16th century.Most prominent among the early theorizers were the Roman Catholic theologians Francisco de

VitoriaandFrancisco Surez. Surez is especially notable in this regard in that he distinguished

between ius inter gentes and ius intra gentes which he derived from ius gentium (the rights of

peoples). Ius inter gentes corresponds to modern international law.

Still, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the idea of natural law as a basis for international law

remained influential, and were further expressed in the works ofSamuel von

PufendorfandChristian Wolff. Yet, in the second half of the 18th century, a shift occurs towardspositivism in international law. In addition, the idea of international law as a means for

maintaining international peace is challenged due to the increasing tensions between the

European great powers (France,Prussia,Great-Britain, Russia andAustria). This tension

between legal norms and political imperatives is well reflected in the century's most important

treatise on international law,Emer de Vattel'sDu Droit des Gens(1758). At the end of the

century,Immanuel Kantbelieves that international law as a law that can justify war does not

serve the purpose of peace anymore, and therefore argues inPerpetual Peace(Zum Ewigen

Frieden, 1795) and theMetaphysics of Morals(Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797) for creating a new

kind of international law.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

12/21

PAGE|12

International Law in the 19th century

That brings into place the basic elements of international law in the second half of the 19th

century: International law developed as the expression of a shared European consciousness and

culture.1. International Law in the 19th Century: The Civilization of International Law In the

mid-1860s, it became apparent to some that an international system dominated by absolute

monarchies hostile to any idea of representative government could no longer do.

In 1862, Brussels became home to the Association Internationale pour le Progrs des Sciences

Sociales, with G. Rolin and J. Westlake its most prominent and vitalizing members. The

association undertook to promote liberal principles and ideas of tolerance. And the same goals

inspired, in 1868, the founding of the international-law journal Revue de droit international et

de legislation compare.1 Afterward, in 1872, this group of liberal thinkers started working with

J. C. Bluntschli, who came to them proposing a charter for what would become the Institut de

Droit International in Ghent. Bluntschli based his own extension on a similar rationale, for he

saw international law as advancing in parallel with Western imperialism, the former being an

expression of the latter. He would mention, for example, the peace of That brings into place the

basic elements of international law in the second half of the 19th century: International law

developed as the expression of a shared 75European consciousness and culture.

Economic inequality grew steadily even as growth accelerated .The subjection of much of the

world to the European imperial powers, together with the gun-boat diplomacy that sometimes

followed in the wake of legal claims, stored up a strong reservoir of ill-will between the

developed and the developing worlds. Nor did the Concert of Europe prove adequate, in the

longer term, to the maintenance of international peace. The Franco-Prussian War of 187071

proved, all too dramatically, that war between major powers, on the continent of Europe, was far

from unthinkableand the steady advance in weapons technology and armaments stockpiles

promised that future wars could be far more deadly than any in the past. In due course, the Great

War of 191418 delivered spectacularlyon that menacing promise.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

13/21

PAGE|13

Origin and background of the development and codification of international law

The idea of developing international law through the restatement of existing rules or through theformulation of new rules is not of recent origin. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century

Jeremy Bentham proposed a codification of the whole of international law, though in a utopian

spirit.Since his time, numerous attempts at codification have been made by private individuals,

by learned societies and by Governments. Enthusiasm for the codification movement the

name sometimes given to such attempts generally stems from the belief that written

international law would remove the uncertainties of customary international law by filling

existing gaps in the law, as well as by giving precision to abstract general principles whose

practical application is not settled. While it is true that only concrete texts accepted by

Governments can directly constitute a body of written international law, private codification

efforts, that is, the research and proposals put forward by various societies, institutions and

individual writers, have also had a considerable effect on the development of international law.

Particularly noteworthy are the various draft codes and proposals prepared by the Institut de

Droit International, the International Law Association (both founded in 1873) and the Harvard

Research in International Law (established in 1927), which have facilitated the work of various

diplomatic conferences convened to adopt general multilateral conventions of a law-making

nature. Intergovernmental regulation of legal questions of general and permanent interest may be

said to have originated at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), where provisions relating to the

regime of international rivers, the abolition of the slave trade and the rank of diplomatic agents

were adopted by the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Paris of 1814. Since then, international

legal rules have been developed at diplomatic conferences on many other subjects, such as the

laws of war on both land and sea, the pacific settlement of international disputes, the unification

of private international law, the protection of intellectual property, the regulation of postal

services and telecommunications, the regulation of maritime and aerial navigation and various

other social and economic questions of international concern.

Although many of these conventions were isolated events dealing with particular problems and

in some cases applied only to certain geographic regions, a substantial number of them resulted

7/27/2019 history of international law india

14/21

PAGE|14

from a sustained effort of Governments to develop international law by means of multilateral

conventions at successive international conferences. The protection of industrial property, for

instance, has been the subject of successive conferences held since 1880, and the Paris

Convention on the subject, first adopted on 20 March 1883, has been progressively revised six

times and amended once. Similarly, the codification of international law contained in the four

Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 regarding the protection of war victims and in the

Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 8 June 1977is the direct descendant of the

Geneva Red Cross Convention of 22 August 1864. The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and

1907, drawing upon the work and experience of preceding conferences on the laws of war and

upon the previous practice of some Governments regarding the pacific settlement of international

disputes, reached agreement on several important conventions and thus greatly stimulated the

movement in favour of codifying international law. The Second Peace Conference of 1907,

however, feeling the lack of adequate preparation for its deliberations, proposed that some two

years before the probable date of the Third Peace Conference, a preparatory committee should be

established with the tasks of collecting the various proposals to be submitted to the conference,

of ascertaining what subjects are ripe for embodiment in an international regulation, and of

preparing a programme which the Governments should decide upon in sufficient time to enable it

to be carefully examined by the countries interested.Arrangements for the Third Peace

Conference were being made when the First World War broke out.

HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL IN U.S.A.(COLOMBIA)

Columbia Law School has been "internationalizing" U.S. legal education since its founding

before the American Civil War. Long before global markets and instant worldwide

communications forced U.S. practicing lawyers to become aware of laws outside the territory of

the United States, and decades before most American law schools offered even introductory

courses in international, comparative, or foreign law, Columbia faculty and its students were

developing the precepts and principles of public international law, international economic law,

comparative law, as well as sub- specialities such as comparative constitutional law.

Today, Columbia's commitment to international and comparative law, reflected in the breadth of

its permanent faculty who specialize in these fields, in the preeminence of its international and

comparative curriculum and law library collections, in its path-breaking regional centers, in its

7/27/2019 history of international law india

15/21

PAGE|15

efforts to pursue inter-disciplinary insights, in an unprecedented number of relevant student

journals, and in the depth of its alumni in the United States and abroad, has no peer among U.S.

law schools.

.Columbia's preeminent role in public international law continued with the appointments of

Charles Cheney Hyde, then Solicitor of the U.S. Department of State, to succeed Moore as

Hamilton Fish Professor, and Philip C. Jessup, an assistant to Hyde, as a lecturer in the subject.

The addition of Hyde, a highly regarded practitioner who had long been engaged in the problems

of securing world peace, and the prescient appointment of his less well known assistant helped to

secure Columbia's place in the field for much of this century.

Role of the United Nations in International LawUnited Nations contributes to the development of international law

The United Nations was founded not only to save succeeding generations from the scourge of

war and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, but also to establish conditions under

which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of

international law can be maintained (Preamble of the United Nations Charter). Encouraging the

development of international law as a way to regulate international relations has been a major

objective of the United Nations since its very beginning.

In a globalized world, where people, commerce and ideas cross borders with ever-increasing

frequency, countries have long recognized that international norms and standards are essential

for modern society to function. These international rules are spelled out in the more than 550

treaties that have been deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, covering a

wide range of subjects, such as human rights, disarmament, refugees, the environment and the

law of the sea. They are also contained in many other treaties deposited with Governments or

other entities.

The 2011 Treaty Event will provide an opportunity for Member States to demonstrate theircontinuing commitment to the central role of the rule of law in international relations by signing,

ratifying or acceding to treaties deposited with the Secretary-General to which they are not yet a

party.

The Charter of the United Nations provides in Article 102 that Every treaty and every

international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations .. shall as soon as

7/27/2019 history of international law india

16/21

PAGE|16

possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it. Thepublication of treaties is

designed to ensure transparency, accountability and fairness in international relations.

General Assembly as a forum for adopting multilateral treaties

The General Assembly is composed of representatives from each Member State of the United

Nations and is the main deliberative body on matters relating to international law. Many

multilateral treaties are in fact adopted by the General Assembly and subsequently opened for

signature and ratification.

The Legal (Sixth) Committee assists the work of the General Assembly by providing advice on

substantive legal matters. The Committee is also made up of representatives from all Member

States of the United Nations.

The General Assembly has adopted a number of multilateral treaties throughout its history,

including:

- Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)

- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966)

- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966)

- International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1966)

- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)

- United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982)

- Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)

- Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (1996)

- International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997)

- International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999)

- International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005)

- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006)

- United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or

Partly by Sea (2008)

- Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

(2008)

7/27/2019 history of international law india

17/21

PAGE|17

International Law Commission

The General Assembly established in 1948 an expert legal body, the International Law

Commission (ILC), to promote the progressive development of international law and its

codification.Progressive development is defined as the preparation of draft conventions on

subjects which have not yet been regulated by international law or in regard to which the law has

not yet been sufficiently developed in the practice of States, whereas codification is defined

as the more precise formulation and systematization of rules of international law in fields where

there already has been extensive Statepractice, precedent and doctrine.

The Commission concerns itself primarily with public international law, though it is not

precluded from entering the field of private international law. The Commission, for example, has

worked extensively in the field of international criminal law, culminating in the completion of

the draft Statute for an International Criminal Court (1994) and the draft Code of Crimes against

Peace and Security of Mankind (1996). It also drafted the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic

Relations (1961), the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), and the draft articles on

the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (2001).

The Commission is composed of 34 members, experts in their individual capacity, who do not

act as representatives of their governments. They are elected by the General Assembly for five-

year terms and meet for a period of 10-12 weeks each year in Geneva.

Other multilateral bodies

Throughout the United Nations system, treaties are also developed by the specialized agencies of

the United Nations, such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health

Organization (WHO), by the subsidiary organs of the United Nations, such as the United Nations

Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and the United Nations Office on Drugs

and Crime (UNODC), and by multilateral negotiating bodies, such as the Commission on

Disarmament.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

18/21

PAGE|18

CRITICISM OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

1. International Law is not the command of a Determinate Human Superior to an Inferior:

Law is command of a superior (sovereign) to inferior. There is no such superior to command

international law.

2. International Law does not enjoy the sanction of any coercive authority:

Law is obeyed because of fear of punishment. State law is backed by its coercive authority. The

international law on the other hand has no such sanctions.

3. There are no competent courts to interpret International Law:

The state law is interpreted by courts and enforced accordingly. There is no such machinery in

international field.

4. International Law comes in conflict with the sovereignty of State:

International law is negation of the sovereignty of the State. Every state is internally sovereign

and its authority over its subjects is absolute and unlimited. A sovereign state does not recognize

any superior in international relations.

Austin and his followers point out that recognition of international law as law would involve a

limitation on the external sovereignty of the state and this would mean that the states arc not

sovereign.

7/27/2019 history of international law india

19/21

PAGE|19

CONCLUSION

Looking at the aspirations of international law through the lens of rule compliance leads to

inadequate scrutiny and understanding of the diverse complex purposes and projects thatmultiple actors impose and transpose on international legality, and especially a tendency to

oversimplify if not distort the relation of international law to politics.

States, as well as other actors corporations for example instead of simply 'complying' with

international legal rules may bargain in light of them, and around them. Given that there are

transaction costs of negotiating, the rules will have an effect on the bargain, but one that will not

be observed if what one is focused on is rule compliance.

In altering the focus and agenda of states and nonstate actors in dealing with conflict and post-

conflict transitions, international law may have raised expectations too high that where politics

and economics, and for that matter moral idealism, have failed to solve enduring human

problems, law will succeed.

International law may create benchmarks for a wide range of private decision making, and this

even when in the first instance the rules in question have not been explicitly addressed, at least

not traditionally to nonstate actors. Such benchmarks may affect to whom firms lend, with whom

they deal as suppliers or subcontractors, design specifications for products such as ships and

aircraft, the terms of such diverse transactions as the adoption of children, the transportation of

hazardous products and the transfer of high technology. Private actors may simply adopt these

benchmarks as common terms of commerce regardless of the extent to which they have been

'implemented' by states.

International law (norms and/or institutions such as courts and tribunals) may shift in whole or in

part decision-making, interpretative and/or legitimating power from one set of elite actors to

another (for example from diplomats, foreign policy analysts and military planners to legal

professionals such as judges, lawyers and law professors).

7/27/2019 history of international law india

20/21

PAGE|20

REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AGGARWAL H.O..INTERNATIONAL LAWAND HUMAN

RIGHTS 16 EDITIONALLAHBAD Central Law Publication2006

Koslenniemi Martti THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

TODAYRechtsgeschichte 2004

Shaw QC Malcom N.INTERNATIONAL LAWEDITION 5 U.K.

Cambridge University Press 2003

WEBLIOGRAPHY

www.cambridge.org

www.oup.com/uk/orc

http://treaties.un.org

www.heinonline.org/HeinDocs/HistoryofIntlLaw www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/...

www.law.columbia.edu

www.un.org

7/27/2019 history of international law india

21/21

PAGE|21

1

1