1. What is Public International Law and how do you distinguish it from private international law?

First and foremost is to define what is International law? According to Stephen Hall in International Law, international law is the system of legally binding rules and principles which regulated relation exclusively among sovereign states. This means that States were held to be the only subjects of international law and only entities possessing legal personality rights at international level. It could also be defined as a body of rules and principles which regulates relations: i) Among states and public international organisation inter se; ii) Between states and individuals in the field of international human rights; and iii) Between the international society and individuals who have committed international crimes.

Public international law is a uniform and autonomous system of norms regulating relations among its subjects, private international law consists of norms developed within States as part of their own domestic legal orders to resolve disputes between private parties where a foreign element is involved. Private international law on the other hand determines the choice of law applicable to a legal dispute, whether a particular court or tribunal has jurisdiction where there is a cross-border element and whether it should exercise any such jurisdiction, and whether a domestic court may order the enforcement of a foreign courts judgement. 2. Explain the doctrine of supranational power.

Refers to the formal transfer of legal authority and decision-making power from member states to an institution or international body. In this context Moravcsik distinguishes between pooled sovereignty when governments agree to make future decisions by voting procedures other than unanimity; and delegated sovereignty when supranational actors are given the authority to take certain sorts of decisions without either a vote amongst affected governments or the capacity of states to veto the decision. Although often used loosely to describe any set of institutions above the state, the term refers more properly to a particular characteristic of international institutions and international legal authority. The clearest examples of supranational institutions can be found in the European Union, where the Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Court of Justice, constitute common political structures with supranational authorityin contrast to the Council of Ministers, which is based on intergovernmental modes of decision-making. Supranational institutions played a key role in neofunctionalist accounts of European integration. Neofunctionalists argued that high and rising levels of interdependence and cross-border exchange would generate increasing demands for the creation of supranational institutions to solve common problems.

This, in turn, would catalyse a process of ever expanding collaboration between member states, leading eventually to political integration. More recently, theorists have challenged intergovernmental accounts of European integration both by highlighting the formally supranational components of the European Union but also by challenging the view that member-states have simply delegated certain powers for particular purposes and, as principals, remain in full control of an increasingly complex set of institutions and integration processes.

3. Article 1 of the Montevideo convention provides the state as a person of international law should possess the following qualification a) a permanent population b) a defined territory c) government and d) capacity to enter into relations with other states.

a)

a permanent population; there must be some people to establish the existence of a State but there is not a specification of a minimum number of people and again there is not a requirement that all of the people be national of the state1

b) territory; the second qualification is territory where the permanent population live on. However, there is not a necessity of having well- established boundaries as the international Court of Justice said in the North Sea Continental Shelf cases, ... there is... no rule that the land frontiers of a state must be fully delimited and defined. The well known example is the uncertainty of the land frontiers of Israel when it was admitted as a State.

c)

government; A State requires a government that functions as a political body within the law of the land. But it is not a condition precedent for recognition as an independent State. There must be a executive and legislative bodies of the said nation where there are government functions, in another word whether the nation is being controlled by a single group of people known to the subjects of the states.

d) capacity to enter into relations with other states; the fourth and last qualification is about independency, in other words independence is indicated by the criterion of capacity to enter into relations with other states. Or whether is it still bound to another country or sovereignty. For instance, Tibet and China relationship. Whether Tibet could go into a contract of sales of firearm from Russia or will Tibet be bound to the decision of China?

I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, (7th. ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008) 70; Shaw, n 4 above 199; Warbrick, n 8 above 232;

4. Identify three main differences between the Anglo- American common law system and the Roman- Germanic civil law system

Firstly, common law is found from principles set and decided in the precedents. Precedents are the previous cases decided which has overlapping similarity in principles of law or even facts at times. The decision of the judge in the precedent is binding to the future cases which is called as the stare decisis. On the other hand, civil law has it main source of law from the legislation made by the executive or legislative. The precedent will not be taken as important as the common law. Cases are not bound to the precedent. Secondly, common law is an unwritten law. Not all laws and principles of the law will be found in the statute. Whereas as compared to civil law, every single principles and law is codified. The judge of the common law is allowed to make law as the famous belief that the advantages arise when the facts of the cases would be unique in different time and place. In civil law, the judge is bound to follow the law stated and laid down in the codified statutes. Last but not least, common law is adopting an adversarial system where the counsels in the case will represent each party either the defendant or the plaintiff before an impartial individual( judge or jury). It is the responsibility of the counsel to find evidence and present before the court. Civil law on the other hand adopted the inquisitorial. n the inquisitorial system, the presiding judge is not a passive recipient of information. Rather, the presiding judge is primarily responsible for supervising the gathering of the evidence necessary to resolve the case. He or she actively steers the search for evidence and questions the witnesses, including the respondent or defendant. Attorneys play a more passive role, suggesting routes of inquiry for the presiding judge and following the judge's questioning with questioning of their own. Attorney questioning is often brief because the judge tries to ask all relevant questions.

The goal of both the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system is to find the truth. But the adversarial system seeks the truth by pitting the parties against each other in the hope that competition will reveal it, whereas the inquisitorial system seeks the truth by questioning those most familiar with the events in dispute. The adversarial system places a premium on the individual rights of the accused, whereas the inquisitorial system places the rights of the accused secondary to the search for truth.

Question 5

First of all, opinion juris is defined as subjective obligation, a sense on behalf of a state that it is
bound to the law in question. Usus means customary law is confirmed through the actions of states (objective criteria) in accordance with what is expected of them by international jurisprudence. States' actions are manifested through their official statements and actual actions. Agreements are only legally binding on states that signed and also ratified them. The basis of Treaty law is the rule of law pacta sunt servanda, which means, that agreements must be honoured, and adhered to. However, only the states that signed and agreed to the agreements could be bound by the treaty.

Since X is not the member state to the treaty, he is not bound to abide to the restriction in the treaty. However, if the act of annexing the moon is against the norm or customary law, then it would be considered as Usus. However, assuming there is no such customary law, then it is non usus. Eventhough there is opinion juris but it is only binding to those who accepted the treaty which X is not part of the participants. However, the international communities and parties involved in the treaties could have just not recognised the territorial annexed by X belongs to him. There will be no valid declaration of territorial belonging to X.