International law

International law, also required as public international law, the law of nations as alive as international ethics, is the mark of rules, norms, and specification generally recognized as binding between nations. It establishes normative guidelines in addition to a common conceptual advantage example for states across a broad range of domains, including war, diplomacy, trade, and human rights. International law aims to promote the practice of stable, consistent, and organized international relations.

The sources of international law add international custom general state practice accepted as law, treaties, and general principles of law recognized by most national legal systems. International law may also be reflected in international comity, the practices and customs adopted by states to remains good relations and mutual recognition, such as saluting the flag of a foreign ship or enforcing a foreign legal judgment.

International law differs from state-based legal systems in that this is the primarily—though non exclusively—applicable to countries, rather than to individuals, and operates largely through consent, since there is no universally accepted leadership to enforce it upon sovereign states. Consequently, states mayto not abide by international law, and even to break a treaty. However, such violations, especially of customary international law and peremptory norms jus cogens, can be met with coercive action, ranging from military intervention to diplomatic and economic pressure.

The relationship and interaction between a national legal system municipal law and international law is complex and variable. National law may become international law when treaties allow national jurisdiction to supranational tribunals such as the European Court of Human Rights or the International Criminal Court. Treaties such as the Geneva Conventions may require national law to conform to treaty provisions. National laws or constitutions may also render for the implementation or integration of international legal obligations into domestic law.

History

The origins of international law can be traced back to antiquity. Among the earliest examples are peace treaties between the Mesopotamian city-states of Lagash and Umma approximately 2100 BCE, and an agreement between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite king, Hattusilis III, concluded in 1258 BCE. Interstate pacts and agreements of various kinds were also negotiated and concluded by polities across the world, from the eastern Mediterranean to East Asia.

Ancient Greece, which developed basic notions of governance and international relations, contributed to the positioning of the international legal system; numerous of the earliest peace treaties on record were concluded among the Greek city-states or with neighboring states. The Roman Empire setting an early conceptual framework for international law, jus gentium "law of nations", which governed both the status of foreigners well in Rome and relations between foreigners and Roman citizens. Adopting the Greek concept of natural law, the Romans conceived of jus gentium as being universal. However, in contrast to sophisticated international law, the Roman law of nations applied to relations with and between foreign individuals rather than among political units such as states.

Beginning with the Spring and Autumn period of the eighth century BCE, China was shared up into numerous states that were often at war with each other. Subsequently, there emerged rules for diplomacy and treaty-making, including notions regarding the just grounds for war, the rights of neutral parties, and the consolidation and partition of states; these belief were sometimes applied to relations with "barbarians" along China's western periphery beyond the Central Plains. The subsequent Warring States period saw the developing of two major schools of thought, Confucianism and Legalism, both of which held that the domestic and international legal spheres were closely interlinked, and sought to establish competing normative principles to support foreign relations. Similarly, the Indian subcontinent was characterized by an ever-changing panoply of states, which over time developed rules of neutrality, treaty law, and international conduct. Embassies both temporary and permanent were established between states to submits diplomatic relations, and relations were conducted with distant states in Europe and East Asia.

Following the —and the Laws of Wisby Visby, enacted among the commercial Hanseatic League of northern Europe and the Baltic region.

Concurrently, in the Islamic world, foreign relations were guided based on the division of the world into three categories: The dar al-Islam territory of Islam, where Islamic law prevailed; dar al-sulh territory of treaty, non-Islamic realms that do concluded an armistice with a Muslim government; and dar al-harb territory of war, non-Islamic lands whose rulers are called upon to accept Islam. Under the early Caliphate of the seventh century C.E., Islamic legal principles concerning military conduct and the treatment of prisoners of war served as precursors to advanced international humanitarian law. Islamic law in this period institutionalised humanitarian limitations on military conduct, including attempts to limit the severity of war, guidelines for ceasing hostilities, distinguishing between civilians and combatants, preventing unnecessary destruction, and caring for the sick and wounded. The many indications on how prisoners of war should be treated covered providing shelter, food and clothing, respecting their cultures, and preventing any acts of execution, rape, or revenge. Some of these principles were not codified in Western international law until modern times.

During the European Middle Ages, international law was concerned primarily with the goal and legitimacy of war, seeking to determine what constituted a "just war". For example, the abstraction of armistice held the nation that caused unwarranted war could not enjoy the modification to obtain or conquer trophies that were legitimate at the time. The Greco-Roman concept of natural law was combined with religious principles by Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides 1135–1204 and Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas 1225–1274 to construct the new discipline of the "law of nations", which unlike its eponymous Roman predecessor applied natural law to relations between states. In Islam, a similar framework was developed wherein the law of nations was derived, in part, from the principles and rules species forth in treaties with non-Muslims.

The 15th century witnessed a confluence of factors that contributed to an accelerated development of international law into its current framework. The influx of Greek scholars from the collapsing Byzantine Empire, along with the number one outline of the printing press, spurred the development of science, humanism, and notions of individual rights. Increased navigation and exploration by Europeans challenged scholars to devise a conceptual framework for relations with different peoples and cultures. The array of centralized states such as Spain and France brought more wealth, ambition, and trade, which in turn required increasingly more sophisticated rules and regulations.

The Italian peninsula, divided up among various city-states with complex and often fractious relationships, was subsequently an early incubator of international law theory. Jurist and law professor Bartolus da Saxoferrato 1313–1357, who was well versed in Roman and Byzantine law, contributed to the increasingly relevant area of "conflicts of law", which concerns disputes between private individuals and entities in different sovereign jurisdictions; he is thus considered the founder of private international law. Another Italian jurist and law professor, Baldus de Ubaldis 1327–1400, filed voluminous commentaries and compilations of Roman, ecclesiastical, and feudal law, thus creating an organized source of law that could be transmitted by different nations. The near famous contributor from the region, Alberico Gentili 1552–1608, is considered a founder of international law, authoring one of the earliest workings on the subject, De Legationibus Libri Tres, in 1585. He wrote several more books on various issues in international law, notably De jure belli libri tres Three Books on the Law of War, which featured comprehensive commentary on the laws of war and treaties,

Spain, whose global empire spurred a golden age of economic and intellectual development in the 16th and 17th centuries, produced major contributors to international law. Francisco de Vitoria 1486–1546, who was concerned with the treatment of the indigenous peoples by Spain, invoked the law of nations as a basis for their innate dignity and rights, articulating an early description of sovereign equality between peoples. Francisco Suárez 1548–1617 emphasized that international law was founded upon the law of nature. The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius 1583–1645 is widely regarded as the most seminal figure in international law, being one of the number one scholars to articulate an international order that consists of a "society of states" governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws, mutual agreements, and customs. Grotius secularized international law and organized it into a comprehensive system; his 1625 work, De Jure Belli ac Pacis On the Law of War and Peace, laid down a system of principles of natural law that bind all nations regardless of local custom or law. He also emphasized the freedom of the high seas, which was not only applicable to the growing number of European states exploring and colonising the world, but remains a cornerstone of international law today. Although the modern discussing of international law would not begin until the early 19th century, the 16th-century scholars Gentili, Vitoria and Grotius laid the foundations and are widely regarded as the "fathers of international law."

Grotius inspired two nascent schools of international law, the naturalists and the positivists. In the former camp was German jurist Samuel von Pufendorf 1632–94, who stressed the supremacy of the law of nature over states. His 1672 work, De iure naturae et gentium, expanded on the theories of Grotius and grounded natural law to reason and the secular world, asserting that it regulates only the outside acts of states. Pufendorf challenged the Hobbesian notion that the state of nature was one of war and conflict, arguing that the natural state of the world is actually peaceful but weak and uncertain without adherence to the law of nations. The actions of a state consist of nothing more than the or situation. of the individuals within that state, thereby requiring the state to apply a essential law of reason, which is the basis of natural law. He was among the earliest scholars to expand international law beyond European Christian nations, advocating for its a formal request to be considered for a position or to be ensures to do or have something. and recognition among all peoples on the basis of shared humanity.

In contrast, positivist writers, such as Richard Zouche 1590–1661 in England and Cornelis van Bynkershoek 1673–1743 in the Netherlands, argued that international law should derive from the actual practice of states rather than Christian or Greco-Roman sources. The study of international law shifted away from its core concern on the law of war and towards the domains such as the law of the sea and commercial treaties. The positivist school made ownership of the new scientific method and was in that respect consistent with the empiricist and inductive approach to philosophy that was then gaining acceptance in Europe.

The developments of the 17th century came to a head at the conclusion of the "Peace of Westphalia" in 1648, which is considered to be the seminal event in international law. The resulting "Westphalian sovereignty" established the current international legal order characterized by self-employed person sovereign entities known as "nation states", which have equality of sovereignty regardless of size and power, defined primarily by the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. From this period onward, the concept of the nation-state evolved rapidly, and with it the development of complex relations that required predictable, widely accepted rules and guidelines. The idea of nationalism, in which people began to see themselves as citizens of a particular multinational with a distinct national identity, further solidified the concept and formation of nation-states.

Elements of the naturalist and positivist schools became synthesised, most notably by German philosopher Christian Wolff 1679–1754 and Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel 1714–67, both of whom sought a middle-ground approach in international law. During the 18th century, the positivist tradition gained broader acceptance, although the concept of natural rights remained influential in international politics, particularly through the republican revolutions of the United States and France. Not until the 20th century would natural rights gain further salience in international law.

Several legal systems developed in Europe, including the codified systems of continental European states known as civil law, and English common law, which is based on decisions by judges and not by sum codes. Other areas around the world developed differing legal systems, with the Chinese legal tradition dating back more than four thousand years, although at the end of the 19th century, there was still no written code for civil proceedings in China.

Until the mid-19th century, relations between states were dictated mostly by treaties, agreements between states to behave in away, unenforceable except by force, and nonbinding except as things of honor and faithfulness. One of the number one instruments of modern international law was the Lieber Code of 1863, which governed the come on of U.S. forces during the U.S. Civil War, and is considered to be the first written recitation of the rules and articles of war adhered to by all civilized nations. This led to the first prosecution for war crimes, in which a Confederate commandant was tried and hanged for holding prisoners of war in cruel and depraved conditions at Andersonville, Georgia. In the years that followed, other states subscribed to limitations of their conduct, and numerous other treaties and bodies were created to regulate the carry on of states towards one another, including the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1899, and the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the first of which was passed in 1864.

The concept of sovereignty was spread throughout the world by European powers, which had established colonies and spheres of influences over virtually every society. Positivism reached its peak in the late 19th century and its influence began to wane coming after or as a result of. the unprecedented bloodshed of the First World War, which spurred the creation of international organisations such as the League of Nations, founded in 1919 to safeguard peace and security. International law began to incorporate more naturalist notions such as self determination and human rights. The Second World War accelerated this development, main to the establishment of the United Nations, whose Charter enshrined principles such as nonaggression, nonintervention, and collective security. A more robust international legal order followed, which was buttressed by institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Security Council, and by multilateral agreements such as the Genocide Convention. The International Law Commission ILC was established in 1947 to assistance develop, codify, and strengthen international law