International Law

International Law. International law is sometimes viewed as a by‐product of the rise of the nation state in the seventeenth century. Others trace it to the Jus Gentium (Law of the Nations) of the Holy Roman Empire. In any event, by the time the United States was founded, international law was acknowledged to comprise rules binding nations in their relations with one another. While earlier concepts of international law focused only on the relationships between and among sovereign states, the twentieth century has gradually brought the individual to the foreground.

International and regional tribunals such as the International Court of Justice, the Court of European Communities, the Inter‐American Court, and the European Court of Human Rights try cases alleging violations of international law. National courts are also competent to try cases alleging violations of international law, as long as their rules and procedures meet a minimum international standard.

The International Court (which succeeded the Permanent Court of International Justice established by the League of Nations) can issue advisory opinions as well as resolve disputes. The United States, as a party to the agreement establishing the court, accepts as the source of international law the enumeration it sets forth. These include “international conventions” (which include bilateral and multilateral agreements between and among nations); “international custom” (“as evidence of a general practice accepted as law”); “the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations”; and, as a subsidiary means of finding the law, “judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations.”

The rules for interpreting international conventions and determining under what circumstances they are binding are collectively known as “treaty law.” A Convention on the Law of Treaties, an international equivalent of the codification of national rules of contract, sets forth these rules. Increasingly, nations have attempted to create bodies of law through agreements drafted at international conferences. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Law of War was the subject of such conferences. The Law of the Sea agreements and commercial agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) resulted from post–World War II conferences. Recently environmentalism has been the subject of international agreements: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (1973); the Montreal Protocol on Ozone (1985–1987); and the conventions adopted at a 1992 United Nations‐sponsored Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro to combat climate change, protect the world's wildlife and plants, resist the spread of deserts, and reduce “greenhouse gas” emissions.

Such international agreements often establish an organization with ongoing responsibilities for a given subject matter and provide a mechanism for resolving disputes. The United Nations (UN), itself established by international agreement in 1945 as a successor to the League of Nations, has spawned a multitude of specialized agencies responsible for specific subject areas. Many regional organizations have also been created by international agreement.

Customs accepted as binding by nations are also a developing source of international law. Controversy exists over when such a law can be imposed on a nation that does not itself accept such a custom, particularly on issues of great importance. For example, to apply international customary law relating to a nuclear issue would be difficult if a nuclear power objected, since the objection itself would belie the existence of uniform custom. On the other hand, alleged customary international law relating to the oceans could not as readily be challenged by a landlocked country, since that nation could not easily participate in activities creating the custom.

International law is dynamic. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a new focus on the individual and the gradual erosion of nation‐state sovereignty. Now individuals increasingly are viewed as having both rights and responsibilities under international, as well as national, law. At the 1945–1946 Nuremberg Trials of alleged Nazi War criminals, an international tribunal, acting under an agreement of the four World War II Allies occupying Germany, for the first time held individuals liable for certain crimes under international law. And a few post–World War II human‐rights agreements granted to individuals whose rights had been infringed by their own governments the right to petition an international body. In the later 1990s, for the first time since Nuremberg, International Crime Tribunals were again convened as a result of conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. After years of discussion concerning the need for a permanent international criminal court, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted in July 1998. In a nonrecorded vote, 120 states favored it, 7 states (including the United States) opposed it, and there were 21 abstentions. As of September 2000, 19 states had ratified the statute. Sixty states must ratify it for the statute to enter into force. Developing international law relating to the environment also seemed likely in the future to bring an increasing focus on individual rights.
See also Collective Security; Environmentalism; Human Rights, International; Internationalism; San Francisco Conference; War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg and Tokyo.

Bibliography

Fernando R. Tesón , Humantarian Intevention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality, 2d ed., 1997.
Hofstra Law and Policy Symposium , War Crimes and War Crimes Tribunals: Past, Present, and Future, vol. 3, 1999.
Mark W. Janis , An Introduction to International Law, 3d ed., 1999.
Paul W. Kahn , Nuclear Weapons and the Rule of Law, vol. 93, American Journal of International Law (January 1999): 349–415.
Frances Nicholson and Patrick Tworney, eds., Refugee Rights and Realities: Evolving International Concepts and Regimes, 1999.
Henry J. Steiner and and Philip Alston , International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, 2d ed., 2000.

Jane M. Picker