International law According to Benthams classic definition, international law is a collection of ru les governing relations between states.

It also can be defined as a combination of treaties and customs which regulates the conduct of states amongst themselves , and persons who trade or have legal relationships which involve the jurisdicti on of more than one state. Political culture "Political culture" is potentially a powerful, unifying concept of political sci ence. When it was first proposed by Gabriel Almond (1956) and subsequently emplo yed in The Civic Culture (Almond and Verba, 1963), the term promised to solve in a scientific, cross-culturally valid way the micro-macro problem: the classic p roblem of specifying how people affect their political system, and vice versa. " Culture" (and thus political culture) was understood to transcend the individual , but not to the extent that it negated individual action entirely. True, indivi duals were socialized into their culture, but they also produced and reproduced it. Culture was also understood to constrain political systems, without being id entical to them: only certain systems could "fit" a given culture but the uninte nded consequences of institutions might alter the culture that created them. The success of anthropologists in studying culture assured political scientists tha t, properly defined, "political culture" could be studied in all societies. Alth ough formalizing and operationalizing the concept might require new methods, new data, and new theories, the concept itself seemed unproblematic. Impact International law is a fake term which has being used by the western countires t o remain in power. The real term should be international power. Politics are c hanged by the shifting of the power of the states. All these years US and UK ha s used their powers to over the difficulties they had in maintiaing there power from Iraqu , Kosovo and etc. Hence the impact of the International law on the po litical culture is very biased towards the western countires. Internatinoal law is a law of controlling the rest of the countries.

References Moore, John Bassett, Digest of International Law, 8 volumes (1898) 2.2

Dualist and Monist Systems States see the interaction between international and national law in two differe nt ways. Monism and dualism are used to describe these two different legal tradi tions. Monism In States with a monist system international law does not need to be translated into national law. The act of ratifying an international treaty immediately inco rporates that international law into national law. The ICC Statute, therefore, c an be directly applied and adjudicated in national courts. Monist systems do differ in their approach. Under some Constitutions direct incorporation of international obligations into the domestic law occur on ratification. In other States direct incorporation occurs only for self-executing treaties.

Dualism For States with a dualist system, international law is not directly applicable dom estically. It must first be translated into national legislation before it can b e applied by the national courts. Therefore, for a dualist State ratification of the ICC Statute is not enough and national implementing legislation is necessary. War crimes trials, for example, can only take place when the national legislation is enacted, unless of course such legislation already exists. Example: Holland a monist system, with implementing legislation New national provisions for crimes against humanity, laws on cooperation and tra nsfer of suspects. The Netherlands signed the Rome Statute on 18 July 1998 and ratified it on 17 Ju ly 2001. Despite being a monist system, the view of the Netherlands is that as a State Party it is obliged to implement the Statute through national legislation . The International Criminal Court ment Act were both enacted on 20 force on 1 July 2002, giving the ring suspects to the ICC and for (Implementation) Act and the accompanying Amend June 2002. The Implementation Act entered into Dutch Government a statutory basis for transfer cooperating with the ICC.

War crimes and genocide have for many years been defined as criminal offences un der Dutch law. Therefore persons accused of these crimes could stand trial in th e Netherlands even prior to the ICC Statute coming into force. To make it possib le to try persons accused of crimes against humanity, however, the Netherlands n eeded to translate the relevant ICC Statute provisions into national law. The In ternational Crimes Act was enacted on 19 June 2003 and entered into force on 1 O ctober 2003. This brought Dutch criminal law into line with the ICC Statutes requ irements, and engaged the principle of complementarity. References http://www.peaceandjusticeinitiative.org 2.3 Introduction Courts often administer justice by applying the relevant rules of law and policy . In local cases involving matters of international importance such as state imm unity and prohibition of torture even local courts do not hesitate to determine issues in the light of international law within certain limits. However, the ext ent to which international law is used by courts within the local justice system for the resolution of local legal issues largely depends on the attitude of loc al courts towards international law and the prevailing legal culture. This assig nment endeavours to shed light on the contemporary attitude of the courts in the United States and the United Kingdom towards international law. (B) The United States

The American position on the relationship between municipal law and customary in ternational law is very similar to the British practice. However, the way in whi ch international law is interpreted by American courts varies and it is thus dif ficult to generalise. Furthermore, the theories which have been developed in the

context of constitutional and statutory interpretation seem to have affected th e interpretive attitudes of American courts. For instance in Hamdi v Rumsfeld, t he 4th Circuit deprived an American citizen of habeas corpus relief, upholding t he power of the President as Commander-in-Chief to keep in custody individuals c aptured in the course of an armed conflict. The petitioner had no entitlement to challenge the factual assertions made by the executive that he was an enemy com batant captured in a zone of active combat abroad. Nor would further judicial in quiry be proper either to test the validity of such assertions or to exercise ju dicial review on the issue of whether or not hostilities had ended in the meanti me, as the petitioner demanded. The Court held that litigation cannot be the driv ing force in effectuating and recording wartime detentions. The military has bee n charged by Congress and the executive with winning a war, not prevailing in a possible court case. Although the petitioner relied on Article 5 of the Third Ge neva Convention on prisoners of war, his argument failed as the Court characteri sed the Convention as non-self-executing and not suitable for creating private r ights of action enforceable before domestic courts. The court justified its deci sion on the ground that constitutional allocation of war powers affords the Pres ident extraordinarily broad authority as Commander in Chief and compels courts t o assume a deferential attitude in reviewing exercises of this authority . (C) The United Kingdom

As a matter of public policy the courts in the United Kingdom give effect to cle arly established rules of international law and is evident from the decision of the House of Lords in Jones v Saudi Arabia where the claimants, some private ind ividuals, who had allegedly been severely and systematically tortured by Saudi g overnment officials, claimed damages from Saudi Arabia. The claimants key submiss ion was that the proscription of torture by international law, having the author ity it does, precludes the grant of immunity to states or individuals sued for c ommitting acts of torture, since such cannot be governmental acts or exercises o f state authority entitled to the protection of state immunity. The House of Lor ds in this case had to consider the balance that exists at present in internatio nal law between the condemnation of torture as an international crime against hu manity and the principle that states must treat each other as equals not to be s ubjected to each other s jurisdiction. Having considered these principles the Ho use of Lords ultimately came to the conclusion that the claims of the claimants do indeed come within the scope of the defense of sovereign immunity. (D) Conclusion

The approach of the United Kingdom appears to be more liberal than that of the U nited States. For instance, as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Ch ung Chi Cheung v The King stated the Courts acknowledge the existence of a body o f rules which nations accept amongst themselves. On any judicial issue they seek to ascertain what the relevant rule is, and, having found it, they will treat i t as incorporated into the domestic law, so far as it is not inconsistent with r ules enacted by statues or finally declared by their tribunals.

3.3 Statehood Conditions for Statehood Under traditional international law an aspiring state had to meet the following requirements: have a defined territory a permanent population an effective government; and the capacity to enter into relations with other states

e.g. The Montevideo Convention, art. 1 lays the most widely accepted criteria of statehood in international law. It states The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. Even today, these conditions continue to be regarded as the fundamental elements of statehood, but they are neither exhaustive nor immutable. Other factors migh t be relevant such as self-determination and recognition, but one thing is clear the relevant framework revolves essentially around territorial effectiveness. The need for defined territory focuses upon requirement for a particular territo rial base upon which to operate. Therefore, for this reason at least, the State o f Palestine which was declared in November 1988 in Algiers cannot be regarded as valid state. The Palestinian organizations did not control any part of the terri tory they claim. Note, there is no need for clearly defined boundaries. E.g. Alb ania, prior to WWI was recognized by many countries as an independent state, alt hough its borders were in dispute. Similarly, Israel has been accepted by the ma jority of nations, as well as the UN as a valid state, although its borders have not been finally settled and despite its involvement in hostilities with its Ar ab neighbors. The existence of a permanent population is naturally required and there is no sp ecification of a minimum number of inhabitants. As to whether a state has an effective government, the emphasis has been on the control the state exercises over the relevant territory, at the exclusion of all other entities. The degree of control required varies depending on how a state came to existence. Where the prior sovereign over the territory has consented to the creation of a new state under a new government, a low degree of control may

be sufficient in satisfying this requirement. The existence of an effective gov ernment is not a prerequisite for the recognition of a State. Recent practice wi th regard to the new states of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina suggests a mod ification of the criterion of effective exercise of control by a government thro ugh its territory, since both states were recognized as independent at a time wh en non-governmental forces controlled substantial areas of the territories in qu estion in civil war conditions. The capacity to enter into relations with other nations States are not the only international law subjects who have this capacity, but this capacity is essentia l to statehood. Where this element is not present, there cannot be a state. The essence of such capacity is independence; it is a formal statement that the stat e is subject to no other sovereignty.

3.4 State Responsibility