What is Public International Law?

Public International law is the law which regualtes the behaviour of nation states in the international system.  It deals with the stratospheric levels of international diplomacy, politics and the great tide of history.  Concepts of public international law have existed since the time of the treaty of Westfailia, otherwise known as the Peace of Westfalia in 1648 and the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries saw the growth of the concept of the sovereign nation state, which consisted of a nation controlled by a centralized system of government.  This concept came to outgrow the notion of monarch as a ruler appointed by divine right.  This decline of monarchy and the rise of the nation state coincided with the growth of nationalism and people’s changing policitcal identity towards a member of a national citizenry and the assumption by individuals of a national identity composed of a specific lanaguage and set of cultural attitudes and beliefs.  Through the course of the American Civil War and this period in world history, this pattern developed and became of greater imortance, probably reaching its greatest intensity during the mid to late 20th Century.   The sources of legal authority which began to develop during this great sweep of history were brought into greater focus by World War I and the development of the League of Nations which arose out of a desire to prevent the tragic bloodshead which occurred in World War I.  The collapse of this system during the Great Depression and World War II lead to a new conviction of the need for an international legal system focussed around the creation of peaceful relations between states and it is in the context of this point of history that the present regime of international law is born.  It has been argued that the events of September 11 2001 represented a fundamental shift in the landscape of internnational relations to one dominated by conflicts between states and subnational groups who do not have any particular affiliation with a monolithic nation state, however, this has yet to emerge as a dominant form of legal authority in the international system.

Public International law has specifically defined sources, under Article 38 of the Statutes of the International Court of Justice the sources of public international law are international treaties, custom, general principles of law and judicial decisions and teachings.   Some of the most important documents which establish the priniciples of public international law were originally the charter of the international league of nations was a source but since its collapse it has been replaced by the Charter of the United Nations and the Statutes of the International Court of Justice as the fundamental documents which define public international law.  In terms of the interpretation of international law, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Vienna on 23 May 1969) si one of the key treaties which is used to interpret other treaties and for this reason may be seen as a source of law on the interpretation of treaties.  Public International law is a very complicated are and there is a great deal of detail which can be examined in relation to this field.  Perhaps one of the greatest challenges faced in Public International law , at least as far as lawyers are concerned is the problem of enforcement.  In domestic legal systems enforcing the law is relatively simple because there are operative judicial systems in place which operate to enforce the law, however, no such system exists at an international level.  For this reason, relying on the tenets  of public international law is a some what dubious occupation.  If you would like to know more about this area of the law, we have international lawyers available who specialise in exactly this type of work.  Please email us to obtain assistance in relation to this area of the law.