ENG ELC 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Statute Of The International Court Of Justice, Customary International Law, Positive Law
Document Summary
Introduction: sources of law determine the rules of legal society contain the legal answers to the questions that cannot be answered in national law. In domestic law: identification of relevant legal sources rarely a problem. In parliamentary legislation and potentially relevant court cases lawyers identify relevant information: hierarchical nature of the domestic legal order. In international law: lack of a universal legislature and a system of courts with compulsory jurisdiction: task of uncovering the law more difficult, decentralized legal system legal rights/obligations may derive from more than one particular source. Legal sources: enable to distinguish between legal and political/moral/ethical norms. Including a state that has not taken part in the formation of the practice: norms need not be universal in scope, right of passage over indian territory; icj stated that: Long continued practice between 2 states accepted by them as regulating their relations can form the basis of mutual rights and obligations between those states.
