What gives rise to binding obligations at international law? There are many international agreements, declarations, and norms. Which of these give rise to obligations that are binding on nation states at international law?
Generally: treaties, customary international law, and unilateral declarations can give rise to binding obligations The most well-accepted sources of international law are summarized in Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice: a. international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states; b. international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law; c. the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations; d. subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law. Sources of obligations are treaties (also called conventions or agreements) and customary international law (see generally, John H. Currie, Public International Law, p. 99-100). A third—unilateral declarations—has also been recognized, but it is less well developed as a source (see Currie at p. 111-117; Nuclear Tests (Australia v. France), [1974] I.C.J. Rep. 253, p. 266): It is well recognized that declarations made by way of unilateral acts, concerning legal or factual situations, may have the effect of creating legal obligations. Declarations of this kind may be, and often are, very specific. When it is the intention of the State making the declaration that it should become bound according to its terms, that intention confers on the declaration the character of a legal undertaking, the State being thenceforth legally required to follow a course of conduct consistent with the declaration. An undertaking of this kind, if given publicly, and with an intent to be bound, even though not made within the context of international negotiations, is binding. In these circumstances, nothing in the nature of a quid pro quo nor any subsequent acceptance of the declaration, nor even any reply or reaction from other States, is required for the declaration to take effect, since such a requirement would be inconsistent with the strictly unilateral nature of the juridical act by which the pronouncement by the State was made. Treaties Treaties (also sometimes called &quot;conventions&quot;, &quot;charters&quot;, &quot;covenants&quot;, &quot;protocols&quot;, &quot;pacts&quot;, &quot;acts&quot;, &quot;statutes&quot;, or &quot;agreements&quot; (Currie, p. 125)) express the will of the parties to be bound by their terms. The law of treaties is itself largely governed by a treaty: the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The Vienna Convention describes the ratification process and how treaties come into force. It specifies that treaties are binding upon the parties and that treaties must be performed in good faith. Customary International Law It is also widely recognized that there exists customary international law that creates or reflects binding obligations on states. For something to be customary international law, a rule must satisfy two elements (see Currie, p. 188): general and uniform state practice; and opinio juris (the requirement that states believe that the rule is legally obligatory). See also Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, 2020 SCC 5: [77] There are two requirements for a norm of customary international law to be recognized as such: general but not necessarily universal practice, and opinio juris, namely the belief that such practice amounts to a legal obligation. [citations omitted] [78] To meet the first requirement, the practice must be sufficiently general, widespread, representative and consistent. To meet the second requirement, opinio juris, the practice “must be undertaken with a sense of legal right or obligation”, as “distinguished from mere usage or habit.” [citations omitted] [80] When an international practice develops from being intermittent and voluntary into being widely accepted and believed to be obligatory, it becomes a norm of customary international law. [82] Once a practice becomes a norm of customary international law, by its very nature it “must have equal force for all members of the international community, and cannot therefore be the subject of any right of unilateral exclusion exercisable at will by any one of them in its own favour.” [citations omitted] Jus cogens There are some elements of customary international law that are &quot;non-derogable&quot; (Currie, p. 206; Vienna Convention, art. 53). These are called jus cogens or peremptory norms. These cannot be derogated from even by treaty. See Nevsun Resources Ltd. v. Araya, 2020 SCC 5: [83] Within customary international law, there is a subset of norms known as jus cogens, or peremptory norms, which have been “accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole . . . from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.” This Court acknowledged that “a peremptory norm, or jus cogens norm is a fundamental tenet of international law that is non-derogable.” [citations omitted] Relationship to domestic law Treaties do not change domestic law. States must take actions in good faith towards implementing treaties in their domestic law. This is known as the dualist approach. However, even in countries that take a dualist approach to treaty implementation, the dominant approach to customary international law is that it is directly and automatically incorporated into domestic law (see Nevsun, paras. 86-89, in particular the empirical study of Professors Pierre-Hugues Verdier and Mila Versteeg cited at para. 88): [P]erhaps the most striking pattern that emerges from our data is that in virtually all states, CIL [Customary International Law] rules are in principle directly applicable without legislative implementation. . . . [M]ost countries that require treaty implementation do not apply the same rule to international custom, but rather apply it directly.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights agrees in Art. 8 that The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure...(d) The right to strike, provided that it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country. &quot;Exercised in conformity with the law&quot; does allow some restrictions on striking. In the US, the NLRB sets rules governing legal vs. illegal strikes, for example a strike in the face of a no-strike contract provision, or a strike to compel an employer to fire an employee who doesn't pay union dues when no union-security agreement is in effect. So you would have to look at the labor law of Israel to see what strikes are legal vs. illegal, and that also requires looking at individual union contracts. Theoretically, a nation could enact a law authorizing any one-day strike as a form of political protest, but there is no such law in Israel as far as I can tell (this article introduces the various relevant laws of Israel). The point is that international law on this point requires corresponding national law, as state above. ICCPR does not create a special right to conduct political strikes against a third party.
Websites are not ships that can choose a flag of convenience to govern which country's laws govern them. Generally speaking an analysis of which jurisdiction's law applies (which is strictly speaking a "choice of law" question as much as it is a jurisdiction question) isn't undertaken on a website by website, or business by business basis. Instead, jurisdiction and choice of law are evaluated on a claim by claim basis. The owners of a website may be subject to some claims in India, to some in Bhutan, and to others in the United States, depending upon the claim. Without knowing who is trying to sue for what, you can't know. Generally speaking, a business that operates in multiple jurisdictions, like a website, will be subject to the laws of all of the jurisdictions in which it does business in regard to claims with a connection to those jurisdictions. Of course, as a practical matter, only claims that can be enforced against the owners of the website are relevant, which usually means that only claims brought where the owners reside or own assets are relevant. If the website owners own property or have amounts payable to them in India, there is a very good chance that India can, as a practical matter, assert jurisdiction over them. And, it is likely, as a practical matter, that Saudi Arabia or China would not be able to assert jurisdiction over them in a meaningful way. The fact that businesses can be conducted through legal entities further complicates the analysis. But, at any rate, the place to begin is to realize that the question "Under which country's jurisdiction does a website fall?" is basically a category error. You need to ask "Under which country's jurisdiction does a website fall when it is sued or prosecuted for X kind of matter by someone who lives in Y?" So, really, this one question is actually dozens or hundreds of questions that each have to be analyzed individually.
Documents from countries which did not sign (or to be received by non-signatory countries) must be certified by the foreign ministry of the source country (or its equivalent) and then further certified by the foreign ministry of the receiving country, before such documents can be used in legal proceedings. The Wikipedia article says: A state that has not signed the Convention must specify how foreign legal documents can be certified for its use. Two countries may have a special convention on the recognition of each other's public documents, but in practice this is infrequent. Otherwise, the document must be certified by the foreign ministry of the country in which the document originated, and then by the foreign ministry of the government of the state in which the document will be used; one of the certifications will often be performed at an embassy or consulate. In practice this means the document must be certified twice before it can have legal effect in the receiving country. For example, as Canada is not a signatory, Canadian documents for use abroad must be certified by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa or by a Canadian consular official abroad, and subsequently by the relevant government office or consulate of the receiving state. This seems to answer the question rather completely.
should you tell the third party to sign it using the standards of the U.S.? In most cases signing a contract is not subject to country-specific standards. All that matters is that it can be ascertained from the contract who the parties are as well as and their willful, informed formation of that contract. It is more typical for a contract to specify that it is governed by the laws of country X and/or jurisdiction Y. That places on the counterparty(-ies) the burden of ensuring that they know the legal framework that underlies the contract at issue. Lastly, note that a party entering a contract is &quot;by definition&quot; not a third party. At most, a third party might sign a contract in a witness capacity, not than in the capacity that implicates rights and duties pursuant to that contract.
The source of the power of the United States government to do the things that it does are the people themselves. (United States Constitution) The people have decided on three branches of government (judicial, executive, and legislative). The expression of the will of the people through these three branches of government results in the government having authority to enforce laws within the borders of the United States. It is not through any contract, agreement, certificate, registration, or other that you come under the jurisdiction of the United States, but simply by your presence. (There are some limited exceptions for foreign diplomats and tribal sovereignty.)
Under Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution, The Congress shall have power... To declare war but does not say what follows from "declaring war", nor does it say what form such a declaration shall take. This rather long document analyzes the notion of "declaration of war". The primary significance of a "declaration of war" lies in international law, see the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Articles 1 and 2 say: The Contracting Powers recognize that hostilities between themselves must not commence without previous and explicit warning, in the form either of a reasoned declaration of war or of an ultimatum with conditional declaration of war and The existence of a state of war must be notified to the neutral Powers without delay, and shall not take effect in regard to them until after the receipt of a notification, which may, however, be given by telegraph. Neutral Powers, nevertheless, cannot rely on the absence of notification if it is clearly established that they were in fact aware of the existence of a state of war So if the US were to declare war on Canada, we would need to officially notify the government of Canada of this fact, which we could do because there is a country Canada whose government we can inform. This is not possible with "terrorism", which is not a nation. There were official declarations for the War of 1812, against Mexico, Spain, and WW I, WW II (11 declarations). Since "the South" was not (from the perspective of "the North") a separate country, the United States did not declare war on itself to conduct the Civil War. In fact, since the congressional action authorizing military action against the Algerine Cruisers (the 2nd Barbary War) in 1815, the actions authorized by Congress have not used the word "war" (except in mentioning a specific law, the War Powers Act), except in the aforementioned declared wars. Instead, the resolution described what could be done: it shall be lawful fully to equip, officer, man and employ such of the armed vessels of the United States as may be judged requisite by the President of the United States for protecting effectually the commerce and seamen thereof on the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and adjoining seas "Declared war" is a fairly limited genre of use of force, but "being at war" in the broadest sense, is common and can involve concepts and things (terrorism, poverty, drugs).
Here is a substantial collection of interpretive canons; this article discusses rules vs. canons. This article discusses contract interpretation from both the perspectives of drafting and litigating. These are all from the perspective of common law systems. This article (in English) and this chapter (English, paywall) reminds us that French contract law is different, to which I would add this which focuses on the French subjective theory of contracts – starkly distinct from the common law theory. This page (en français) will probably be of most interest to you. The 2016 modification to the civil code added art. 1190 (and other articles) which says Dans le doute, le contrat de gré à gré s'interprète contre le créancier et en faveur du débiteur, et le contrat d'adhésion contre celui qui l'a proposé which is contra proferentem. The Latin name is not officially assigned to this law, and being a new addition to French law, it's too early to tell if it will be so named in French legal practice.