Basic PIL Questions

Question 1

What are the sources of international law? Is there a hierarchy among the sources?

Answer 1

Article 38 (1) of ICJ statute:

a. International conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
b. International custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
c. The general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
d. Subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.

Hierarchy:
Article 38 suggests that treaties, customary law and general principles enjoy primacy over the subsidiary means of determining the law. Formally speaking, three categories are equally capable of general legal norms of comparable weight.