As long as there continues to be coordination and cooperation between states and its international organisations, international law will continue to be successful – operating as it should through horizontal enforcement.

It has often been questioned whether international law has been successful in regulating state behavior. Skepticism about international law focuses on the lack of enforceability in international law.

International law seems to lack enforceability because we are inclined to view it through the domestic law paradigm. It is naïve to do so when comparing the two legal systems. Domestic law has a centralized system where command of sovereignty is ‘enforced’ through a vertical chain of enforcement. How it conventionally works in the national level is that states mandate to its institutions, the police and the courts to compel its citizens to abide by its laws.

International law however, operates in a completely different way – through – horizontal enforcement. The different enforceability structure of international law is effective because the objective of international law is markedly different to domestic law. The purpose of international law is to influence and change state behavior, which is consistent with why it was created in the first place – to help maintain international stability and order. Unlike domestic law, international law is not preoccupied with deterrence: it doesn’t seek to punish states for their alleged misdemeanors as a warning to other states. And the fact that international law sometimes doesn’t work because states sometimes breach it is hardly an argument against it: even domestic law is often unable to stop a person who has decided to commit a crime, whether it be stealing or murder.

Instead of punishment and deterrence, international law aims to change how states interact with one another and also attempts to ensure that the interaction maintains certain standards. International law codifies as law standards already in agreement between states, which consequently encourages more general state compliance with international law. Once these standards are then observed by a large number of states and remain consistent over time, the standards become norms and there is an expectation that all states are accountable. Even before the Law of the Sea was codified, states observed the rights of weaker states with regards to their territorial waters and adhered to maritime sovereignty more generally as part of their relations with each other.

Even though, international law gains its effectiveness from consensus, it should not be equated with the idea that states have an element of choice or ‘voluntariness’ in being subject to international law. International law does take on a ‘legal nature’ when identified and applied. It is impossible for states to perpetrate grave violations and escape the consequences of international law.  The consequences can manifest themselves in several ways, through severance of friendly relations, loss of prestige, credit and other interests of the sanctioned state.  There are also avenues for criminal prosecution. It is very clear that these consequences encourage states to regulate their behavior. This is habitually shown by state’s attempts to rationalize as lawful, action that might be seen as a breach of the law.

International law is enforceable through coordination and cooperation between members but also through consequences for breaching the law. Therefore, for the most part, states do observe international law, a fact often overlooked because of the tendency to compare the enforceability of international law to that in domestic systems. Since the purpose of domestic law is punishment and deterrence, it is different from international law.

 Noel Kwon is an Arts and Law student at the University of New South Wales, majoring in Development Studies and minoring in International Relations. She was an assistant editor at the Typewriter.org, staying abreast of a variety of International Relations issues and separately wrote for the Typewriter.org and on the UNSW Representative Council Women’s Zine commentary on women’s issues. Noel’s areas of interest are in international law (as a law student) in addition to East Asian politics (through her Arts degree).