Jurists and Unilateral Denunciation

Abstract

It is often asserted that the jurists are not the makers of the rules and principles of international law. There is a great deal of truth in this assertion in the sense that the jurists lack necessary authority to legislate rules binding upon the states in their mutual intercourse.¹ Their opinions carry persuasive authority, not binding authority. However, there is no denying the fact that they have rendered incalculable service to the community of nations not merely as dispassionate researchers and expert expositors or interpreters of the existing law but also as advocates of what ought to be law. Their attempts to extract principles and rules from the mass of precedents of state practice, reason and analogy have indeed enhanced their role both as witnesses ² of the sentiments, usages and customs of the nations of the world and as innovators or contributors to the development of international law.¹ The fourth heading of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice expressly recognises the opinions of jurists as a subsidiary means for the determination of the rules of international law. This in effect means that the opinions of jurists may legitimately be resorted to as a source of international law; but they cannot be used to justify a disregard of international conventional or customary international law.