International Law > Overview

International Law deals with issues such as treaties, trade, political regimes, international institutions, and dispute resolution. Classic divisions of International Law are Public International Law, Private International law, and Comparative Law. Public International Law concerns itself with questions of rights between several nations or nations and the citizens of other nations. Private International Law deals with controversies between private persons arising out of situations having significant relationship to more than one nation. Main practice areas related to private and public international law are trade, commercial, human rights, war & peace, intellectual property, and litigation. Comparative law is the comparison of legal systems. Major issues in comparative law include intellectual property, environmental concerns, tax policies, human rights, criminal law, women's rights, labor relations, and conflict of law jurisprudence.

International Law includes the basic concepts of law in national legal systems, namely status, property, obligation, and tort. It also includes substantive law, procedure, process and remedies. Customary law and Conventional law are the primary sources of international law. Customary international law are practices generally followed by states out of a sense of legal obligation. Customary law has been codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Conventional international law derives from international agreements. Agreements should not conflict with the basic standards of international conduct or the obligations of a member state under the Charter of the United Nations. General principles common to systems of national law is a secondary source of international law. If neither conventional nor customary international law can be applicable, then general principle may be invoked as a rule of international law.

International law does not restrict any nation from making laws governing its own territory. The International Court of Justice is established by the UN Charter is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.