welcome to lexicon your visual guide to public international law today we will finally speak about sources of international law but first a little bit of history so in 1920 during of Nations is established it had its own judicial organ which was called the permanent Court of international justice after the Second World War in 1945 the United Nations is established together with its own court the International Court of Justice or the ICJ in the year after the PC I J the previous court got completely replaced by the ICJ and the statute of the International Court of Justice article 38 contains sources of international law it says the court whose function is to decide in accordance with international law such disputes as are submitted to it shall apply international conventions whether general or particular establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting States international custom as evidence of a general practice accepted as law the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations and finally traditional decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations let's begin with the international conventions which are in fact treaties treaty is an international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law so whether general or particular means that it can have any subject matter establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting States this means then when signing the treaty states have themselves agreed to these rules here are some examples of the treaties that you definitely have heard of 20th century 1939 Malta Ribbentrop pact then the United Nations Charter for example the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO or the Schengen Agreement 21st century treaties the Minsk protocol of 2014 first climate agree or the brexit withdrawal agreements let's now move towards custom evidence of a general practice accepted as long as you can see it has two elements first general practice when certain practice becomes common among States and second accepted as law when there is a belief that a certain practice is a legal obligation this is called opinion URIs so we have a legal area of a problem and not say part of it is regulated by a written or a codified treaty and so customary international law would govern parts that are not governed by treaty general principles of law there are quite abstract nature because the content is not written down and there is no precise list of such principles but to give you some examples good faith principle that the conduct shall be honest and fair respect for human dignity that protection of human rights is an important principle of humanitarian and human rights law principle for personality but certain matters beat court measures punishment certain interference or anything else shall be proportionate to the purpose that it aims to achieve in fact two approaches exist here first approach provides that treaty law customary international law and general principles of law are all separate and autonomous the second approach provides that the general principles of law are part of treaty law and customary international law you decide which one you agree with finally judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists article 38 itself provides that these are subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law so these are traditionally viewed as supplementary means used for interpretation application and development of law there is a distinction between primary and secondary sources and some authors claim that treaties and custom are primary and then the rest are secondary sources however approach of the international law Commission is that general principles of law also fall under primary sources of international law is there any hierarchy among these no main or primary sources of international law are not in a hierarchical relationship among themselves so treaty law customary international law and general principles of law are all equal that is it for today I hope this has been useful if you have any questions definitely leave them below and I see you very soon