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Summary International Law, ISBN 9789001871574 (Noordhoff)
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A comprehensive summary of International Law 1 of Chapters 1,3,5,6,7,12 and 13. The entire summary is written in English.
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International Law summaryChapter 1:
The organization of just behavior:
Law organizes just behavior in a society using two types of legal rules:
- Substantive law is composed of legal rules that define the content of just behavior. These
rules are about the content of what people are supposed to do, or not to do.
- Formal law is composed of legal rules that maintain substantive law
Substantive and formal legal rules are necessary to regulate two types of relations:
- Public law is the law that regulates the relation between a government and its citizens.
Public law is equality (legal relationship between two citizens or a company and a citizen)
- Private law is the law that regulates the relation between citizen or who act as citizens.
Privat law is power (legal relationship between the government and citizen/government)
The meaning of “just” differs per society, but in general its divided by three basic values that are
commonly shared by in every society:
- Justice
- Opportuness
- Legal certainty
Justice is the moral conviction of a given society expressed in law (rechtvaardigheid).
The law expresses a certain moral conviction that is supported in a society.
Opportuness is the expression of effectiveness by a given society in law.
To effectively regulate something in society, for instance, the choice to drive a car on either the left
side or the right side of the road.
Legal certainty is the expression of legality in a given society.
The idea is that every citizen and the relevant government should be able to know the legal
consequences of their actions beforehand, and not afterwards. Law should be predictable.
Legal sources: the following sources are generally used:
- Codified standards
- The application of law
- Customary law
- Legal principles
, International Law summary
In these legal systems there are differences in the usage and hierarchy of legal sources. All sources
have elements of both positivist law and natural law within them, however the balance is different.
Two extremes are: codified standards and legal principles.
General information about legal sources:
There are two “natural law” theories about two different things: a natural law theory of morality, or
what’s right and wrong, and a natural law theory of positive law, or what’s legal and illegal.
A codified standard, can never be fully comprehensive and offer a clear solution to each individual
legal conflict. There is always need for a certain room for interpretation.
This means that written standards always need a certain flexibility, so that they can be applied in
various cases. The written text needs to leave some room for elements of natural law that create
this flexibility that is necessary to apply the law on various differing cases.
On the other hand, a legal principle is sometimes considered to be too vague and imprecise to apply
to a real case, and in the eyes of the positivist may not be legitimately applied without the consent of
a legislature. Therefore, a legal principle might need some support in written standards in order to
be specific enough to be effectively used.
1. Codified standards
Legal positivist assume that the codification of legal rules is the ultimate source of law. In
various parts of the world, the codification of law developed as an important source of law.
Codified standards are written rules produced by a legislator.
International codified standards:
On the international level, written standards are usually created in the form of a contract
between states. Such a contract is often referred to as a treaty.
Treaty is a written contract between two or more states who consider themselves bound to
its content relative to each other.
A bilateral treaty is a treaty to which two states are party.
Such treaties deal with matters that primarily relate to the interest of the two involved
countries only.
, International Law summary
A multinational treaty is a treaty to which more than two states are party.
Such treaties deal with matters that relate to the interest of more than two countries.
While the approach differs per country, the state’s consent to be bound by a treaty is usually
expressed in two steps: the signature and the ratification of the treaty.
The signature of a treaty implies the consent of the responsible negotiator on behalf of the
state to the treaty.
A treaty is drafted during a negotiation process of the involved states. These states are
represented by an authorised negotiator. This could be depending on the significance of the
treaty ( a high official or a member of the government, such as a minister or a head of state).
In most legal systems, the signature on behalf of the state must be approved by a legislative
body, to guarantee some political control over the performance of then negotiator.
- The ratification of a treaty implies the consent of the responsible legislator on behalf of the
state to the treaty
Usually, when the legislator consents to the signing of the treaty, the state expresses the
final approval and considers itself bound to the treaty.
Domestic codified standards:
In the domestic legal order of a state, the authorised legislature will adopt written codes in
various levels. The exact type of rules and its scope will differ per state and greatly depend
on its constitutional organisation.
2. The application of law
A legal standard, either codified or not, needs to be applied in specific cases. Usually, the
application is not an automatic process in which the legal standard can be applied just like
that. After all, a legal standard will always be some sort of a generalization of the context in
which a case appears that needs to be concretized in specific cases. The applicator or the
legal standard will then always provide a certain interpretation of that standard.
On a worldwide scale most law application is performed by courts and tribunals, the
administration and the military.
Case law is a chain of authoritative legal rulings in which the same reasoning pattern of the
court is applied in similar cases.
Stare decisis is a legal principle in which courts have to follow the legal reasoning as applied
in previous cases.
This usually means that lower courts may not rule in contradiction with the legal reasoning of
a higher court in similar legal matter. Besides that, it is assumed that in case of equal courts,
the precedent of a previous ruling should be expected.
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