Customary Law Introduction

Introduction The International community has become a vast assortment of treaties and agreements and institutions after WWII. The topic of this paper is on the new international customs developed in response to terrorism focusing on the actions from the US after September 11th 2001.

Part One: What is Customary Law? The international community was built on centuries of traditions, actions and lessons learned. These actions of history were recorded and eventually created into law. This beginning of human action is beginning of custom and customary law that have been codified through acceptance into national and state behavior. Customary law has been usually agreed to as a “general practice, accepted by law.” Treaties that have dated back to around 3000 B.C.E., created customs still used today. One, a realist approach states that States are sovereign and must consent to treaties, and even with treaties can act independently from it. And the custom of pacta sunt servanda, states that countries that have agreed to the treaties are bound to carry out, in good faith the responsibilities in which they have agreed to (Scott 2010, 5). People create customs in history; therefore they are a form of positivism, in which people make the law. Since customs are made by human actions, they are laws made by people that require a longer time to codify (Scott 2010, 78). Every nation and group of people have created a set of norms which their governments have enforced or superseded by advanced mechanisms such as legislatures. The mechanism for the international system is a form of the custom itself, built into 3 levels. The first is the underlying philosophy, idea, or concept, created by natural law, or more basic, norms developed over time. The second level; are the rules and principles, which are related to the operation of the institutions created. And the third level; are the rules and concepts that operate the whole system of world politics. Part Two: The United