International And Municipal Law

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In the quote by James Brown Scott “International law is part of our municipal law; that our courts take judicial notice of.” Scott illustrates how judicial decisions have to consider the same human rights conditions and scope of international and municipal law. There are cases where municipal and international laws disagree with the interpretation of each law, whether is customary law, human rights law, or international treaty law. The verdict of the following cases The Paquete Habana, The La Grand Case, and the Abu Ghraib case will illustrate the different approaches for each case and how their decisions were made. There are several cases that highlight the conflict of different interpretation between international law and human rights law by international and municipal courts. The courts taking on the above stated cases had to battle each other on the final verdict because it violated or over stepped other previous decisions. The political and legal contexts of these cases have to be analyzed in order to understand the decisions that were made in these cases as previously mentioned.
The statue of the international court of justice is a charter that was created by the United Nations with provisions of and accordance “article 38." In Article 38 of the ICJ it articulates that its legal purpose for its existence was to rationally generalize the international rights of identifying the attaining powers to the states. Many of the provisions in article 38 of the ICJ are intended to set a precedent in future cases that arise at an international level.
In a brief summary of the three cases, I will be identifying the international and municipal courts discrepancy to resolve these cases in order to avoid future frustration in similar case...

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... be interpreted as such. The international law in most cases does exceed a countries law because it protects the human rights of all. In the La Grand case the Scott quote stands corrected, meaning that the international law and municipal can work together but international law exceeds and mandates over municipal as shown in the La Grand case of a simple failure to inform the defendant of their rights. The Abu Ghraib case the verdict in the case simulated the Scott quote because it illustrated how courts have similar interpretation of the law and how it can’t be manipulated to a certain group’s advantages.
The Scott quote and the three cases that were identify all accurately highlight the importance of not only the municipal and international laws but also the manner in which all courts interpret the laws to take notice of the imperfections in the judicial systems.

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