General principles of law

Prabhakar Singh

Chapter 22 in Research Handbook on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), 2025, pp 253-263 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The ‘general principles of law recognised by civilized nations’ has generated more heat than light due to the presence of the term ‘civilized’ in the Statute of the International Court of Justice, 1945. This chapter argues that, since 1920, the phrase ‘civilized nations’ has referred to nations with either common or civil law systems. The settler states in Latin America were civil law (Spanish/Portuguese) from the start while the semi-colonized states turned into civil law systems due legal reforms under western coercion. Effectively, besides the western states, the ‘civilized nations’ included those non-western states that had reformed their criminal laws (to get rid of local customary punishments) while also ensuring the economic and physical protection of aliens. The frequent postwar use of the ‘general principles of law’ by Latin, Asian and African judges proves this.

Keywords: Sources; Civilized nations; Legal reform; Common law; Civil law; Protection of aliens (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781789901511
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