The Underdeveloped Nations and the Development of International Law

Abstract

One of the responsibilities of the UN General Assembly is to encourage the progressive development and codification of international law. One method it may use in discharging diis responsibility is the convening of conferences to draft international conventions for submission to governments. The International Law Commission, a subsidiary organ of the Assembly, draws up draft treaties which may be utilized as working documents at such conferences. This method does not differ fundamentally from die normal procedures of creating international law, since, in substance, it involves die drafting and signing of treaties. However, the General Assembly has, at least potentially, other means (the study of which is die subject of this article), which have not been fully utilized and die use of which would perhaps permit a liberalization of the creative process of developing and codifying international law. Here we shall examine, in general terms, only one of tiiese, i.e., die possibilities and limitations of purely declarative codes of customary rules adopted by the General Assembly as means of discharging that organ's responsibilities.