Sources of International Law

If you want to know the law on, say, cheque bounce in India, you open the Negotiable Instruments Act and look at the section. Where do you look to find the law on whether a warship may enter another country's waters, or whether a state may expel a diplomat? There is no single statute book. International lawyers look to a short list of places where rules come from, and the list is usually taken from one article of the statute of the International Court of Justice. What are those places and how much weight does each carry?

In two minutes

Article 38(1) of the ICJ Statute lists the sources the Court applies: treaties, international custom, general principles of law, and, as subsidiary means, judicial decisions and the writings of jurists; equity and General Assembly resolutions have a supporting role.

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