ABSTRACT
A legal system would be fully objective in the sense of being determinate if it provided a concise, unambiguous answer to every conceivable question about the legality of every act that falls. The decisions of the Courts of every country show how the law of nations, in a given case, is understood in that country, and will be considered in adopting the rule which is to prevail. The most important point, with significant potential to disenfranchise courts from the process of judicial dialogue on customary international law, is the question of the rank accorded to the rules of customary international law in the respective domestic legal order. Distinguishing between deference and judicial self-restraint is crucial, because a certain degree of self-restraint seems advisable not only from the perspective of domestic democratic legitimacy and the separation of powers, but also from the perspective of the international legal order.
