International Law

The ascertainment of the sources of international law lies at the heart of the system. The discovery of the law on any given point in domestic legal orders is not usually too difficult a process. In the English legal system, for example, one looks to see whether the matter is covered by an Act of Parliament (or possibly a statutory instrument) and, if it is, the law reports are consulted as to how it has been interpreted by the courts. If the particular point is not specifically referred to in a statute, court cases will be examined to elicit the required information. In other words, there is a definite method of discovering what the law is. In addition to verifying the contents of the rules, this method also demonstrates how the law is created, namely, by parliamentary legislation or judicial case-law. This gives a degree of certainty to the legal process because one is able to tell when a proposition has become law and the necessary mechanism to resolve any disputes about the law is evident. It reflects the hierarchical character of a national legal order with its gradations of authority imparting to the law a large measure of stability and predictability.