Is International Law Really Law? A Critical Analysis

Introduction: Defining International Law

Law is generally understood as a set of rules used to govern citizens within a society. International law is a body of law designed to govern the legal relationships between or among sovereign states. However, scholars have long debated whether it truly constitutes law or whether it is better understood as a form of international relations (d'Amato, 1984). Within a country, the legislative branch creates rules, the judiciary interprets them, and the executive ensures they are enforced. In most cases, a police force compels citizens to abide by those rules (Thirlway, 2019).

International law, by contrast, lacks equivalent legislative, executive, judicial, and policing frameworks to enforce its provisions. However, the absence of a central enforcement authority does not necessarily mean there is no law. On that basis, international law can still be considered law, albeit with a special and distinctive status (Roberts, 2017).

The Enforcement Problem in International Law

The absence of a reliable enforcement mechanism is one of international law's most significant challenges. Any body of law is only meaningful when it is applied equally to everyone. The question becomes: what happens when a corporation, a private individual, or a sovereign state violates the established rules? Domestic law depends on processes of guilt or innocence determination, penalty assignment, and penalty application. In international law, enforcement remains the central problem (d'Amato, 1984).

Two broad measures exist to address this gap. The first relies on international bodies such as the International Criminal Court and the United Nations to enforce the law. The second depends on self-enforcement by individual states. However, the judgments of international law are themselves contested (Roberts, 2017). International law exhibits many inconsistencies and weaknesses in enforcement, generating doubt about whether it truly qualifies as law. Most states are known to comply with international law only when doing so aligns with their own interests. Some scholars, however, argue that international law does constitute law precisely because it influences international behavior (d'Amato, 1984).

International Law as a Tool of Power

Economic realists and structuralists regard the concept of meaningful international law as largely irrelevant. In their view, international law functions as an oppressive device used by powerful corporations and nations to manipulate weaker ones. International treaties, conventions, statutes, and declarations are recognized as international legal instruments, and many countries have adopted them. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Rome Statute are prominent examples. Several states have signed and incorporated such declarations into their domestic law. However, some powerful states — most notably the United States — have never ratified the Rome Statute, which defines and prohibits crimes against humanity. This selective adoption reinforces the argument that superpower nations exploit international law to serve their own self-interest (Guicherd, 1999).

Conclusion

In reality, there is nothing like international law that exists in practice. The current international law as founded has no significant difference from international relations (Malanczuk, 2002).

References

d'Amato, A. (1984). Is international law really law? Northwestern University Law Review, 79, 1293.

Guicherd, C. (1999). International law and the war in Kosovo. Survival, 41(2), 19–34.

Malanczuk, P. (2002). Akehurst's modern introduction to international law. Routledge.

Roberts, A. (2017). Is international law international? Oxford University Press.

Thirlway, H. (2019). The sources of international law. Oxford University Press.