International law vs Treaty vs International agreement What is the difference between International law, treaty and international agreement? What are the consequences if one country fails to obey international law or fails to meet obligations?are they all the same thing? Are the consequences the same in all of the 3 cases? For example if a country that signed the treaty fails to comply the Outer Space Treaty, what will happen? Will there be war?
(Preliminary remark: Your "question" contains at least six questions, half of which are so broad that you might be better served by studying some introductory material on international law.) (Re ¶1) International law is "the legal system governing the relationships between countries; more modernly, the law of international relations, embracing not only countries but also such participants as international organizations and individuals (such as those who invoke their human rights or commit war crimes)." Black's Law Dictionary (11th edn, Thomson Reuters 2019). "International law" does not refer to some big book of statutes (if that is what you mean), it's just the totality of all the treaties, agreements, regulations, etc. that exist. A treaty is "an agreement formally signed, ratified, or adhered to between two countries or sovereigns; an international agreement concluded between two or more states in written form and governed by international law". Id. Similarly, the Vienna Convention defines "treaty" as "an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation". Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969, art 2(a). As one can infer from that, agreement is a broader term (encompassing informal agreements, for instance). Of course, the fact that something is called an agreement does not mean it is not, technically, also a treaty. (Re ¶¶2&amp;3) The consequences depend on the particular treaty and on what the parties have agreed on. The WTO, for instance, operates a sophisticated dispute resolution mechanism (see the Wikipedia article). If a particular treaty contains no such stipulations, it us up to the parties to decide what course of action they intend to pursue if they believe that another party does not fulfill its treaty obligations. States are generally bound by art 2(3) of the UN Charter, which provides that "all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered". In resolving disputes, they must furthermore obey art 33(1): "The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice." Judicial means of dispute resolution are available, most notably in the form of arbitration courts/panels and the ICJ; however, this always requires that the two countries agree to bring their dispute before such a body. It is important to keep in mind that there is no "World Court". If country A believes that country B violates a treaty and B refuses to take action, then that's it. This might be cause for political sanctions by other countries, but there is no body that could somehow "make" B comply with its treaty obligations.
Choice of law (also called conflict of laws) arises when a legal dispute occurs across legal boundaries. For example, suppose I live in New York, and sign a contract to buy computers from you, a company headquartered in California. If we have a dispute about the contract, we need to decide which state's law and which courts (and juries) will be used to resolve the dispute. The law that applies to our dispute is called the applicable or governing law. In many cases, it doesn’t matter which law or court we use. But in some cases, it matters a lot. For example, the California law may be friendlier to customers, or a jury in New York may be friendlier to me than to a California companies. Since we know that the choice of law and court may matter, we may specify in the contract which laws and courts will be used to resolve any disputes. (These may not be the same. The contract could say that our case will be heard in the SDNY using CA law.) The clause that says which laws apply, and which courts will apply them, is called a governing or applicable law clause. Here’s an example many of us have used, probably without realizing it: APPLICABLE LAW By using any Amazon Service, you agree that the Federal Arbitration Act, applicable federal law, and the laws of the state of Washington, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Conditions of Use and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and Amazon.
The law applicable to immovables is the law of the situs (lex rei sitae), i.e. the law of the country where the immovable property is located. This is important because this law changed after the annexation. Therefore, the mortgage may not exist anymore as a security. The lex rei sitae in regard to immovables is usually not subject to a choice of law agreement. Consequently, the law of the country of the creditor, which applied to the mortgage agreement is not applicable. As far as the loan is concerned, the courts in the new country have jurisdiction over a claim for payment under the loan agreement and may apply the law of the country of the creditor and order payment. If you are unable to make payments, your house maybe subject to insolvency rules and sold, the proceeds then paid to your creditors. The country of the creditor may also have jurisdiction, if you are still a national of this country and nationality is a ground for jurisdiction in that country. Assuming the property is your only valuable asset, a judgment in favour of the creditor needs to enforced in the "new" country. Whether this actually happen, depends on the law of the "new" country, and most importantly probably on the relationship between the two countries after the annexation.
Different socities, including some that are not considered sovereign nations, create laws, that is enforceable rules of conduct, in different ways. Not all write them down. But they are all Law in that they are rulwa that societies can and will enforce mon their members. I recommend reading Legal Systems Very Different from Ours by David D. Friedman (Professor of Law at Santa Clara University). There are free versions available on the web, and the final version is available from Amazon. It includes chapters on several systems where law is not written, including: Pirate Law Prisoners’ Law Romani Law Comanche, Kiowa and Cheyenne: The Plains Indians Somali Law Other chapters deal with systems where law may have been written, but its method of formation and operation are very different from the models usually discussed on this site. This include Roman law, Imperial Chinese law, Jewish law, Early Irish Law, and the law of saga-period Iceland.
You could almost define a country as, "an entity that can defend itself against invasions." Non-sovereign entities are indeed generally prohibited from deploying lethal autonomous defense systems like booby-traps. But governments and state-like actors, as a matter of practice, choose their own rules. laws-of-war and international-law are not like "regular" law: When it comes down to it, states only follow international conventions and treaties to the extent that they consider it to be in their own interest to do so. If you start mining your property, you will probably be forced to stop by local law enforcement. If a warlord starts mining his borders, he's going to get away with it until someone with more power convinces or forces him to stop. Was it "illegal" for Turkey to shoot down a Russian military aircraft? One could cite all sorts of laws and conventions to answer that question. But in practice the consequences of that act are limited to whatever Turkey allows, or to what Russia and its allies can impose on Turkey.
The term avoidance, as opposed to cancellation, is an implicit reference to Articles 81-84 of the Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG), which uses the term &quot;avoidance&quot; rather than &quot;cancellation.&quot; This multilateral treaty language is referenced because the CISG is the governing law for most International Commercial Sale of Goods Contracts. Why does the CISG itself use of the term &quot;avoidance&quot; rather than the term &quot;cancellation&quot;, which is more familiar and idiomatic in American legal English? Probably because the term &quot;avoidance&quot; produced the most understandable and consistent translations into the multiple languages in which equally authoritative version of the CISG are drafted.
Not going to hold up. Dutch Supreme Court confirmed 2012-09-21 in LJN BW6135 that arbitration is still covered by the the right to an independent judge, as established in Golder v UK, ECHR 1975-02-21, nr. 4451/70. Stack Exchange can't decide the rules themselves. (The Dutch case confirms that sector-wide arbitration is in fact legal, with regard to a standard arbitration clause commonly used in the Dutch building sector. The arbiter was found to be independent in that case precisely because they weren't picked by the builder involved.) The GDPR is only indirectly relevant, but the fact that it's mentioned does mean that there is an indisputable intent to provide services to EU consumers. (See section 23 of the GDPR, or its national equivalents). As such, you can't hide behind a US business address. If you intend to do business in the EU, it's under EU laws - all of them. You can't say that only the GDPR applies, and not other rules. I'm having a bit of a problem finding a source, but I'm fairly confident that consumers have the right to sue at their own, local court, overruling the default of suing in the court where the counterparty is located. Finally, I have the right under national law (Dutch: BW 6:236 start and sub-n) to strike the arbitration clause up to 30 days after the conflict arises, and demand a court decision. That's not 30 days after I accept the "Public Network Terms", that's 30 days after the arbitration is invoked. Dutch law explicitly allows arbitration abroad, and arbiters may apply foreign law, but as written the arbitration clause has no legal basis in the Netherlands, and any arbitration resolution would therefore not be considered valid. You may wonder if it matters to Stack Exchange that the arbitration decision would not hold in the EU. Well, consider a clause like Indemnification, which demands the user indemnifies Stack Exchange. That's a pretty empty demand if it's not enforceable.
The general rule is, anything is allowed unless it is forbidden (and not that you can only do things that are expressly permitted). The logical structure of law may be a bit more challenging than procedural programming logic, since it may require a global knowledge and evaluation of the entire code (typically but not absolutely, the scope of the search for "unless otherwise" conditions is restricted to "in this chapter"). In other words, the law is a set of propositions which must all be true, and unlike actual execution of instructions in a sequence, law is to be interpreted simultaneously but hierarchically (that is: the order in which clauses are written is not significant). The appearance that the law is self-contradictory is largely illusory, though the resolution of the conflict may require a careful reading of the law and knowledge of jurisdictional hierarchy (federal law is superior to state law, which entails a particular resolution of the apparent conflict). Sometimes there are real conflicts, which usually result from using words in conflicting ways (note the practice of re-defining words "in this chapter/section/title"). The reason why law is not a science is that law is normative, not descriptive: it dictates what is allowed (a determination made through the political process), and does not attempt to discover what independently is. The reason why the legal process cannot be implemented in software is that software does not yet correctly interpret natural language, and law is written in natural language following interpretations based on judgments of what choices a reasonable would make. Perhaps if you propose a piece of law that you think is contradictory, it would be possible to show how the contradiction is illusory.