Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Customary international law
Summary
Customary international law is an aspect of international law involving the principle of custom. Along with general principles of law and treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its member states to be among the primary sources of international law.
Many governments accept in principle the existence of customary international law, although there are differing opinions as to what rules are contained in it. Customary international law has two elements: sufficient state practice and opinio juris.
In 1950, the International Law Commission listed the following sources as forms of evidence of customary international law: treaties, decisions of national and international courts, national legislation, opinions of national legal advisors, diplomatic correspondence, and practice of international organizations. In 2018, the Commission adopted Conclusions on Identification of Customary International Law with commentaries. The United Nations General Assembly welcomed the Conclusions and encouraged their widest possible dissemination.
The International Court of Justice Statute defines customary international law in Article 38(1)(b) as "a general practice accepted as law". This is generally determined through two factors: the general practice of states and what states have accepted as law (opinio juris sive necessitatis). This means that many states need to engage in the practice (in particular, great powers) and that states engage in the practice out of a sense of legal obligation (rather than custom or habit).
There are several kinds of customary international laws recognized by states. Some customary international laws rise to the level of jus cogens through acceptance by the international community as non-derogable rights, while other customary international law may simply be followed by a small group of states. States are typically bound by customary international law, regardless of whether the states have codified these laws domestically or through treaties.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.