ABSTRACT
The term ‘source of law’ refers to the medium through which the rules of international law are created and accepted as valid and binding. Treaties lead the list of sources of international law. Terms used as synonyms of treaties are agreement, pact, convention, understanding, protocol, charter, statute, act, covenant, declaration, engagement, arrangement, accord, regulation and provision. Treaties are the major instruments of cooperation in international relations and, therefore, are often instruments of change. Treaties are the maids-of-all-work in international law. In contrast to treaties that embody rules consented to by States-parties to a dispute before the International Court, customary law is “evidence of a general practice accepted as law”. State practice can consist not just of doing, or abstention from doing, certain things, but of views and positions that react to such conduct and form a view of it.
