Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Source this is the basis or foundation to which all other laws or statutes
follow.
Norm - a general and consistent practice of states followed by the people
residing therein from a sense of legal obligation.
b) Distinction between formal sources and material sources
The notion of practice establishing a customary rule implies that the practice is followed
regularly, or that such state practice must be "common, consistent and concordant".
Given the size of the international community, the practice does not have to encompass
all states or be completely uniform. There has to be a sufficient degree of participation,
especially on the part of states whose interests are likely be most affected, and an
absence of substantial dissent. There have been a number of occasions on which the
ICJ has rejected claims that a customary rule existed because of a lack of consistency
in the practice brought to its attention.
2. International treaties
a) Concept, definition and categories
- an international agreement concluded between States in written form and
governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more
related instruments and whatever its particular designation.
- The different kinds of treaties may be classified from the standpoint of their
relevance as source of international law.
The first are multilateral treaties open to all states of the world. They create
norms which are the basis for a general rule of law. They are either codification treaties or
law-making treaties or they may have the character of both.
Another category includes treaties that create a collaborative mechanism. These
can be of universal scope or regional. They operate through the organs of the different
states.
The third and largest category of treaties are bilateral treaties. Many of these are
in the nature of contractual agreements which create shared expectations such as trade
agreements of various forms. They are sometimes called contract treaties.
b) Conclusion of treaties
c) Reservations to international treaties
- a unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State, when
signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty, whereby it purports to
exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their
application to that State
The rules on reservations are found in Articles 19 to 23:
Article 19. Formulation of reservations.