How is International Law Made? – The Stages of Growth of International Law and the Use of its Customary Rules

Abstract

Following the First World War, a group of lawyers and diplomats drafted the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Ever since, the Statute of the World Court has contained an article (Article 38) which indicates the rules the Court should apply when it administers the law. Since that time the complexity of international society has increased considerably, and the need for speedy production of rules of international law has also grown very conspicuously, consequent upon the ever-increasing interdependence of the more than 160 states which are now the main producers of that law. In these circumstances, it seems to me to be of importance to state in as plain terms as possible how international law is made.