The Nature of Customary Law: Legal, Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

by Edited by Amanda Perreau-Saussine , James B. Murphy

• ISBN13: 9780521115568
• ISBN10: 0521115566
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Some legal rules are not laid down by a legislator but grow instead from informal social practices. In contract law, for example, the customs of merchants are used by courts to interpret the provisions of business contracts; in tort law, customs of best practice are used by courts to define professional responsibility. Nowhere are customary rules of law more prominent than in international law. The customs defining the obligations of each State to other States and, to some extent, to its own citizens, are often treated as legally binding. However, unlike natural law and positive law, customary law has received very little scholarly analysis. To remedy this neglect, a distinguished group of philosophers, historians and lawyers has been assembled to assess the nature and significance of customary law. The book offers fresh new insights on this neglected and misunderstood form of law.

Table of Contents

List of contributors

Table of cases

The character of customary law: an introduction

Custom and Morality: Natural Law, Customary Law, And Ius Gentium

Pitfalls in the interpretation of customary law

The moral role of conventions

Habit and convention at the foundation of custom

Custom, ordinance and natural right in Gratian's 'Decretum'

Vitoria and Suarez on Ius Gentium, natural law, and custom

Custom and positivity: an examination of the philosophic ground of the Hegel-Savigny controversy

Custom and Law: Custom, Common Law, and Customary International Law

Custom in medieval law

Siege warfare in the early modern age: a study on the customary laws of war

The idea of common law as custom

Three ways of writing a treatise on public international law: textbooks and the nature of customary international law

Custom, common law reasoning and the law of nations in the nineteenth century

Custom in international law: a normative practice account

Customary international law and the quest for global justice

Index of names

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