ABSTRACT
Public international law and socio-economic development both rest on the belief that individuals, and more belatedly, peoples, are meant to live in circumstances that grant them certain rights and freedoms fundamental to their humanity. To this end, international law seeks to provide peace and security, mechanisms of good governance and the protection of human rights and freedoms. Likewise, the United Nations General Assembly has defined ‘development’ as the ‘multi-dimensional undertaking to achieve a higher quality of life for all people’ in the contexts of peace, the economy, environmental protection, social justice and democracy.1 The nation state, another modern concept, has established itself as an instrumental conduit of both international law and development.
