What is international law? Who passes these laws? Is the US required to follow to any part of it?
International law is derived both from treaties and from customary practice.
Treaties may be bilateral (between two parties, like an arms control agreement), multilateral (between many parties), self-executing (where the terms of the treaty lay are strictly binding by virtue of the parties ratifying the treaty), non-self-executing (lays out general principles that are more vague, but countries are expected to either follow the principles therein or enact legislation to carry out the terms), and many other types I won’t bother to get into right now. The UN Charter, for example, is a multilateral, non-self executing treaty.
Customary international law evolves though how countries act: to put it simply, when everyone condemns a state for doing something, then customary international law is pretty much viewed as prohbiting that act. Less formal agreements among nations can also be a source of customary international law.
Many people think that there is no such thing as international law, because countries can’t be arrested and thrown in jail. It is probably more accurate to think of international law as a code of conduct, whereby if a country breaks that code, they can face sanctions raging from mean words to WTO-approved retaliation in increased tariffs on trade to a UN-authorized invasion of the country.
Customary international law is expected to apply to all countries, unless it is superceded by treaties. The United States is bound to carry out the terms of the treaties that it is a party of by virtue of the Constitution, which makes treaties the law of the land (just like acts of Congress).
A couple of relevant links:
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/dep...r/docs/1mon.pdf
http://www.walter.gehr.net/default.html
“Is the US required to follow to any part of it?”
Yes. However, the US is the closest thing to the proverbial 800 pound gorilla you’ll find in international law.
When a state becomes powerful enough, international law starts being enforced only under the honor system. Nobody is going to invade us if we start refusing to abide by international postal agreements, for example.
One of the most basic elements of international law- analogous with “murder is bad”- is that invading a sovereign state without provocation (ie. an attack on your own state or your allies) is illegal. Attacking, say, Nicaragua to remove the Sandinistas from power was thus a violation of international law.
The only way the U.S. can be subject to international law is when it benefits reciprocally. Extradition treaties are observed because we need criminals extradited back here sometimes too. We (occasionally) pay our U.N. dues because New York’s economy gets a big boost from having UN HQ there. (don’t kid yourself- neither Congress nor the Presidents has seen much value in that “fellowship of nations” stuff since about 1960)
So, yes, we’re required to follow it, but we don’t unless we really have to. One day a bigger gorilla will come along, and then we will have to.