Study On The Theory Of Customary International Law

The customary international law is one of the most important sources of international law. But in contemporary theories of international law, the status of customary international law has been awkward with a lot of theoretical disputes. In order to grasp the essential characteristic of customary international law, the author makes a multidimensional study on its theory and judicial practice from aspects of legal philosophy, international community and analytical positivism, as is expected to build a comparatively full and objective theoretical system for customary international law.This dissertation is divided into three parts including preface, text and epilogue. The text includes five chapters:The Chapter one mainly discusses some basic concepts related with customary international law. Firstly, the author discusses the formation of the concept of customary international law from two aspects, ie., the important influence from the theories of internal customary law and the self-evolvement of the theory of international law. Secondly, the author discusses the definition of customary international law with aim to give a general description of it and makes a necessary discrimination between customary international law and international custom. Thirdly, the author describes the process of the formation of customary international law from traditional stage to modern stage. With this description, the whole developing history of customary international law will be showed clearly before further study on the entities of customary international law is made. Lastly, the author makes a study on the status and function of customary international law within contemporary international community, as is to point out that the contemporary theory of international law has neglected the importance of customary international law in the status and function, indicating the importance of this study.In Chapter two, the author focuses on discussing the relationship between justice and customary international law. This is the first work which one has to do before making systematic study on customary international law, as to disclose the intrinsic and inseparable relationship between customary international law and legal philosophy. Firstly, the author discusses the necessity of making a study on the...