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According to Holland, International law is the vanishing point of jurisprudence. That is, it is no true law.

• The reason for the same (i.e. international law is no true law), according to him is that, that rules of international law are followed by “courtesy only” and hence it should not be kept in the category of law.
• His two main contentions while comparing it with municipal law is that-
  • a.) Rules of Public International Law lacks sanction which is an essential element of municipal law. (Austin also supports this point).
  • b.)There is no judge/arbiter to decide international disputes.

Note-> These two contentions formed Holland’s core opinion that international law is based on courtesy.

Contemporary Scenario & Rebuttal to Holland’s two main propositions.

It is to be noted that Holland’s view is far from truth if we assess the changed character of international law today.

The rebuttal is as follows:->

a.) It can be accepted that sanctions behind international law are much weaker in comparison to municipal law yet it cannot be successfully contended that there are no sanctions at all behind international law.

Example– If there is a threat to international peace and security; it is to be noted that under chapter VII¹ of the U.N. Charter, the United Nations Security Council can take necessary actions.

Example– Other sanctions also exists under different international organizations, viz., International Labour Organization (ILO), World Health Organization (WHO), International Civil Aviation Organizations (ICAO), etc.

Note-> “Public Opinion” serves as the “ultimate sanction” behind any law.

Note->The principal reason why state obey international law appears to be fear and self-interest.

b.) The International Court of Justice (ICJ) serves as the judicial organ to resolve international disputes through judicial decision. But it is also a fact that decisions of ICJ and municipal courts (domestic courts of relevant country) are not equivalent in nature.

Note-> Article 59 of ICJ, Article 36(2) of ICJ² (that is compulsory jurisdiction of ICJ) and Article 94 of the U.N. Charter provides reasonable effectiveness to the judicial organ and its decisions.

Conclusion

In many treaties between states, they have accepted international law to be a law between themselves, which has a binding force.

And thus, it proves that international law is a law and it is wrong to say that international law is the vanishing point of jurisprudence.

Thank you for reading. Hope it helped.

1. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7 ↩︎
2. https://www.icj-cij.org/statute ↩︎