Nature, Origin and Historical Development of International Law

An Air India flight from Mumbai to London crosses the airspace of several countries, lands at Heathrow, and nobody asks whether India's Parliament or Britain's Parliament is in charge of the journey. A cargo ship flying the flag of one country unloads at Nhava Sheva for a buyer in another. There is no world government, no world parliament and no world police force, yet these movements run on rules. What kind of law is it that has no legislature above the states, and where did it come from?

In two minutes

International law is the body of rules that governs the relations of states, international organisations and, to a limited extent, individuals; it is made by the states themselves through treaty and custom, and its enforcement is decentralised, not absent.

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