Blackwell Reference Online

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Comment on this article   Over the past few decades, states have radically changed how international law is created and implemented. The most significant developments have been the dramatic expansion in the use of multilateral lawmaking treaties as the foundation for legal obligation in the international community and the use of international conferences to negotiate, draft, and develop such agreements. Moreover, although treaties have existed in various forms for more than a millennium, over the past half century they have become much more comprehensive in both their scope (range of issues covered) and their jurisdiction (the extent of their authority). As such, they are changing the way both political scientists and legal scholars understand international law. Treaties are legally binding agreements concluded between sovereign states, and occasionally between states and international organizations. The term “treaty” is often used as a catchall to describe a wide variety of international agreements – which include conventions, covenants, charters, and statutes – all of which have the status of a legal obligation under international law. The widely accepted Doctrine of Sources (Article 38 of the Statue of the International Court of Justice, ICJ) officially proclaims such agreements as one of four sources of international legal norms. Traditionally, international custom – legal ... log in or subscribe to read full text