ABSTRACT
In the Corfu Channel Case the International Court of Justice (ICJ) inaugurated as customary international law the following principles: the principle of elementary considerations of humanity; and the principle of the freedom of maritime communication. The probability that the requisite practice and feeling of obligation setting up this new norm of customary law could have by-passed it is remote. To the extent that the ICJ did not prove that this principle merits to be labeled as customary international law it could be argued that this principle is not a properly constituted norm of customary international law. Necessarily, norms constructed so that they reflect in the duties they create explicit hierarchical oppositions require in their application that a further privileging occurs of one set of values over another. The level of expectation between the Albanian Guards and the expectant "experts" is a variable, which obviously affects the distances, referred to by the ICJ.
