CASES ANDMATERIALS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW.docVIP

CASES AND MATERIALS ON INTERNATIONAL LAW Third Edition Martin Dixon And Robert McCorquodale 1 THE NATURE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW Introductory note Open a newspaper, listen to the radio or watch television, and you will be confronted with events having significance in international law. United Nations’ resolutions and peacekeeping forces; the claims for independence by groups around the world; conferences on the environment and on trade; the changing political and social situation in Africa, Asia and Europe; allegations of human rights abuses in many States; attempts to control terrorism and drugs; debates concerning the future of the United Nations; and the increasing impact of European laws on the member States of the European Union, are but a few examples. Overall, as the twenty-first century begins, there is an increased interdependence of the international community. It is these events and this interdependence that international law addresses by analyzing the legal principles arising from interactions between States, actions by States and certain actions by individuals ,corporations, international organizations and other actors o the international plane. International law has effects on, and is affected by, international relations, political thought and communications as well as by the awareness of women and men in every States that they are among those addressed by the United Nations Charter as being ‘We, the Peoples of the United Nations’. International law is really a description of an entire legal system: the international legal system. It is an international legal system by which legal rules are created in order to structure and organize societies and relationships. It acknowledges the influence of political, economic, social and cultural processes upon the development of legal rules. Within this international legal system are, for example, constitutional laws, property laws, criminal laws and laws about obligations, although these terms are not norm