ABSTRACT
This chapter considers custom's legitimacy deficit from a deconstructionist perspective and challenges conventional logic's power to define itself as true, objective, and grounded. It analyses the juridical aspects of customary international law; examines custom's historical origin by tracing the genealogy of article (38)(1)(b) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice which is referred to in the writings as the embryo and formal source of custom. The chapter deconstructs some of the leading decisions of the International Court of Justice's jurisprudence on customary international law. It shows that international tribunals' practice on custom was premised on uncritical foundationalist philosophy which enthroned as customary international law norms whose formation could not be said to have complied with the requirements referred to in the formal source of custom. This chapter shows that customary international law's legitimacy is threatened by international tribunals' application of both norm-creating violence and norm-sustaining violence.
