Discuss the extent to which there should be body of International Law,

and examine the problems which may arise from implementing

international law.

The term law is referring to the body of rules and regulations for any

society to maintain peace, order and protect harm to person and property.

Law is must for any society. Law can only exist in a society and there can

be no society without a system of law to regulate the relations of its

members with one another.

In this essay I shall be discuss the bodies’ of international law that what

are their powers and what are the problems regarding the implementation

of international law.

International law is a body of laws, regulation and accepted practice by

which different nationals throughout the world interact with each other as

well as with their own citizens and citizens of other countries. There are

two basic categories of international law one public international law and

the other is private international law. Public international law deals with

the relations with countries and persons while private international law

relates to individual concerns regarding civil laws especially laws which

are related to Human Rights (HR). It can also be said that international law

is a branch of ethics rather than of law. (www.wisegeek.com).

There are a number of bodies which play an important role in international

laws. In the important bodies there are Global Courts ( International Court

Of Justice , The international tribunal for laws of sea) , Arbitration

Institutions (The Permanent court of Arbitration, the International Centre

for settlement of Investment Disputes) , International Criminal Court and

Tribunals (the international criminal court the ad-hoc international

criminal tribunals :ICTY and ICTR , hybrid international criminal tribunals) ,

Regional Economic Integration Bodies/Free Trade Agreements (Court of

the European Economic Area , Court of Justice of other Economic

Communities). And the most important Human Rights Bodies like the

European Court of Human Rights , the Inter-American Court of Human

Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights , the African

Commission and Court on Human and Peoples” Rights) The Human Rights

Committee , other UN Treaty bodies and representation and complaint

procedure of the International Labour Organization. There are some other

bodies like The Inspection Panel of the World Bank and the institutions

deal with the procedure in Multilateral Environmental Agreements. There

is no any doubt that all these bodies are providing their great services in

relation to disputes at the international level.

As C John (2000) said that international law is available for the

settlement of general international legal disputes which means disputes

between two states or between state and non-state entity, such as a

private commercial corporation or an international organisation. The

matters upon which conflict may generally arise are related to territory,
state jurisdiction, laws of sea, and laws of treaties, environment, human

rights, trades and crimes.

According to Pollack (1944:p5) and as probably most competent jurists

would today agree , “the essential condition for the existence of law are

the existence of a political community, and the recognition by its

members of settled rules binding upon them in that capacity ,

international law seems on the whole to satisfy these conditions.” Harris

(2004), also postulated that “International law is actually a system of

customary law which is based on conventional law or treaty-made law.” A

customary system of law can never be adequate to the needs of any

society. International law is applied only on those nations who signed the

treaty. First time On 29 July, 1899, a selected group of 28 states adopted

a convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes. The main

draw -back of the international law is that it cannot be applied in the

abstract and that international law has worked primarily through domestic

mechanism. So it is very important that there should be a theoretical

relationship between international law and domestic law. Sometimes this

relationship raises a problem of implementation of international law within

domestic system. In case of Greco-Bulgarian Communities Case:- (1930) ,

PCIJ , ser. , 1930 , No.17 ,p.32 “It is generally accepted principle of

international law that in the relation between powers who are contracting

parties of the treaty the provision of municipal law cannot prevail over

those treaties”.
International law sometimes is not considered as a law. The reasons are

lack of centralized or effective legislature, executive or judiciary that is in

favour of powerful states over the weak states. It often simply mirrors

extant international behaviour and sometimes violated with impunity.

International law scholars such as Goldsmith and Posner (2005) whose

works dominated the scene for decades argued that improper

combination of doctrinarism and idealism has done little to the

implementation of international law and that also, it has made less

progress in explaining how international law works in practice. How it

originates and changes, how it affects behaviour among very differently

endowed states: when and why states act consistently with it and why it

plays such an important role in the rhetoric of international law.

Applicability of any law in any state depends on the interest of that state.

Regarding the implementation of international law it is common that

states act rationally to maximize their interests. States prefer for

compliance with international law will depend on what citizens and

leaders are willing to pay in terms of other things that they care about

such as security or economic growth. Citizens and leaders care about

these latter goods more intensely than they do about international law

compliance that preference for international law compliance tend to

depend on whether such compliance will bring security, economic growth

and related goods.

Certain aspects of the concept of international law cover the area related

to Human Rights. After the Second World War and after the foundation of

United Nation (UN), the modern international concept of Human Rights

came to light. Article 1(3) of united nation charter states that one of the

purpose of united nation is to achieve international co-operation in solving

international problem of economic , social , cultural , or humanitarian

character and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and

for fundamental freedom for all without distinction as to race, sex,

language or religion. (United Nation article 1(3)).

Politics is also a major factor which needs to be considered in the path of

implementation of international law. Bad political relationships are big

problem regarding the implementation of international laws especially

relating to the human rights. The issue of Jammu and Kashmir between

India and Pakistan is a good example of how bad political relationships

between two nations become the reason for not fulfilling the purpose of

United Nation regarding the aspects of human rights. Violence in Jammu

and Kashmir has resulted in the loss of many lives and the displacement

of many families. The controversy over the ownership of Kashmir is

always seen as a major issue between India and Pakistan. But the political

situation in the state has many dimensions. There are also other many

countries of the world which are suffering from such kind of problems. It is

very common that dispute may arise between the states regarding any

matter like dispute in relation to trade.

Sometimes it becomes difficult to take an action against the strong

nations of the world like USA and UK. In recent times no organisation

including the United Nations was in the position to take any strict action

against USA regarding their action against Afghanistan. This is the major

problem that there are no checks and balances upon the powerful and

strong nations of the world and these have serious implications for the

implementation of international laws.

Environmental problem is also a world-wide issue of great discussion.

There are number of laws related to the protection of environment.

Environmental law is a complex body of law made up of global,

international, national, states, treaties, conventions, regulations and

policies which seek to protect the environment and natural resources and

environmental impacts on endangered species through human activities.

Also strong and powerful nations of the world are aware of the importance

of enacting holistic environmental laws which protect countries from

environmental abuse but are rather interested in their own territories.

Some of them while campaigning for lower carbon emission in their

countries export used items such as cars, refrigerators, computers,

phones, electronic gadgets, etc. to developing countries. There have been

incidences of poisonous particles dumped in the coastal areas of these

poor nations. These activities are evidences of abuse of the environments

of weaker nations which are not empowered to respond to these abuses

by stronger nations. This therefore makes the implementation of

international laws difficult.

In the last, there is no doubt that there is a body of international law and it

is playing an important role in international law but on other hand due to

the lack of strong and powerful machinery these bodies are not very

affective over the strong nations of the world. And some of the strong and

powerful countries with the influence of their power abusing the laws and

making difficult the effectiveness implementation of international law.

References

John.C et al (2000) Settlement on Disputes on International Law.

Sir Fredrick Pollack(1944) The outlook of International Law.

Harris D.J (2004) Case Material on International Law. London : Sweet and

Maxwell.

M. Ruth(2010) Manual on International Court and Tribunal

Goldsmith J.L et al(2005) The Limits of International Law. Oxford :

University Press New York.

http:/www.hg.org/environ.html (Accessed on 13 January 2011 )

http:/www.wisegeek.com (Accessed on 9 January 2011)