INTERNATIONAL LAW AND MUNICIPAL LAW: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF DOMESTICATION OF TREATIES

Abstract

International law has long debated how international treaties, and international law in general, should be applied within the territorial jurisdiction of sovereign states. There are a lot of more international treaties now than there were before World War I. Nearly 44,000 treaties were signed by the United Nations between 1945 and 2007. The line between local and international law has grown more brittle due to the quickening pace of globalization. As a result of this, States are using treaties more frequently to control actions that were previously only subject to domestic law regulation. States are ratifying many members of treaties related to international human rights law, international refugee law, terrorism, regulation of the environment, and humanitarian law in general. As a result, there is a growing overlap between domestic and international law as a result of the quantity of treaties. This pertinent question concerns the relationship between domestic and international law, which has long been the subject of debate between dualist and monist legal theories, respectively. In the municipal realm, there is no set procedure for putting international law into practice or applying it. Theoretical frameworks, application, implementation, incorporation, workability, interpretation, and the relative importance of treaty commitments vs regular statute legislation are all examined and shown to differ significantly between states.