Aims

Teach the basic rules of the international community, which is primarily composed of States, and analyse various difficulties resulting from their application in domestic legal orders, mainly in Belgian law.

Main themes

The course must present a synthetic view of the main themes which are usually considered to be the basic requirements of the study of public international law - or the Law of Nations. It must stress the close relationship between public and private international law.

Main themes are:
- generalities;
- subjects of international law (States, International organizations, etc.)
- sources of international law (customary law, treaties, etc.)
- international responsibility of States
- sanctions (counter-measures, etc.)

For each of those main themes, focus is on the study of general rules. This does not prevent that some attention is paid to specific rules which are more of a concern in Belgium (treaty law, rivers…). Special attention is paid to the multilateral treaties that are said to be codifying international law, as well as to the relevant law-making UN General Assembly resolutions.