This note intends to answer the following questions: What is international law (sometimes called the law of nations)? How different is public international law from private international law? And how different is international law from municipal (domestic) law? How different is (international) politics from international law, and how do they shape each other? And is international law law?
This note will discuss how international law manifests in the Ghanaian legal system. Towards this end, the note will discuss the recognition of international law under the Ghanaian legal system, the execution and ratification of treaties, the legal status of treaties post-ratification, and how international law interacts with domestic law.
Gives a brief overview of the four sources of international law
This note will discuss the meaning of treaties as a source of international law and their recognition as a source of international law.
This note will discuss the meaning of conclusion of treaties, the processes involved in the conclusion of a treaty, and how States conclude treaties through their representatives. The processes to be discussed are negotiation, adoption of the text of the treaty, authentication of the text of the treaty, and expression of consent to be bound by the treaty
This note will discuss the meaning of being party to a treaty, entities that can become parties to a treaty under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, and how those entities become party to a treaty.
In a previous note, we discussed how a state can become party to a treaty. In this note, we will discuss the obligation imposed on a state to observe the terms or provisions of a treaty after it becomes party to a treaty and observance of treaties in Ghana.
In a previous note, we discussed the obligation imposed on a State after it becomes party to a treaty. At its core, this obligation required States to observe the terms of a treaty to which they are a party. In this note, we will discuss how a State may, through reservation, reduce the extent to which it is obliged to observe the terms of a treaty. In doing so, we will discuss the meaning of reservation, its purpose, its effects, when it can and cannot be formulated, and how a reservation may be formulated and withdrawn.
This note briefly highlights the ways in which a state can cease to be a party to a treaty. These ways are extensively explained in subsequent notes
One of the ways a State may cease to be a party to a treaty is by the invalidation of its consent to be bound by the treaty. This can be through a manifest violation of the State’s internal laws, ultra vires acts of its representatives, fraud, error, and the corruption or coercion of its representatives. This note will discuss how these grounds may be invoked by a State to invalidate its consent to be bound, when a State’s consent to be bound can be invalidated on the forementioned grounds, and the effect of a successful invocation.
In a previous note, we discussed how a State may cease to be a party to a treaty by successfully invoking certain grounds to invalidate its consent to be bound. In this note, we will discuss how a party to a treaty may cease to be a party through the invalidation of the treaty or the declaration that the treaty is void. The grounds to be discussed are the use of force and the violation of a jus cogens.
This note will discuss eight ways in which a treaty, validly concluded and to which consent to be bound has been validly expressed, can be terminated. The ways to be discussed are: express provisions in the treaty, consent of the parties, withdrawal of a party from a bilateral treaty, conclusion of a later treaty, material breach of the provisions of the treaty, confliction of a treaty with a new peremptory norm (jus cogens), impossibility of performance (force majeure), and fundamental change of circumstances.
This note will discuss the meaning and recognition of customs as a source of international law, how they are developed, and some examples of customs in international law.
This note will discuss the relationship between customary international law and treaties and their similarities and differences.
One of the sources of law under Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice are the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations. This note will discuss its meaning and purpose, and highlight some examples of rules that may fit the description of general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.
The sources to be discussed are: Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens), Unilateral Declarations, Acts and Decisions of International Organisations, and Draft Articles of the International Law Commission.
This note discusses the concept of state responsibility in international law
This chapter will assess the use of force in international law. Amongst others, it will discus the general prohibition of the use of force in article 2(4) of the U.N Charter, the exceptions to the prohibition in article 51 and article 24 of the U.N charter. It will further explore topics such as the use of force in international history, pre-emptory self-defence, the doctrines of necessity and proportionality in self-defence, nuclear weapons, non-state actors amongst others.
This note will discuss the concept of diplomatic immunity in international law. In doing so, the note will examine the meaning of diplomatic immunity, its rationale, its scope in terms of the entities it covers and the extent of the coverage, some instances under which it may be waived, and how the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 attempts to limit the potential for the abuse of diplomatic immunity.