TITLE:
The Contours of the Systematicity of International Law
AUTHORS:
Diego Fernandes Guimarães
KEYWORDS:
International Legal Order, Norm on Legal Production, Theory of the Sources of Law, Inter-Legal-Order Relations
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.17 No.2,
June
5,
2026
ABSTRACT: This article addresses the contours of the systematicity of international law from a perspective that contrasts with the distorted image shaped by the paradigm of the state-centeredness of law. Adopting a dialectical methodological approach and employing documentary and bibliographical research techniques, it aims to question the contours of that image in light of the process of institutionalization of international society and the proper operability of the basic concepts of the General Theory of Law. It is observed that the process of institutionalization of international society has given rise to a normative reality of its own, that is, to an effective legal order composed of norms endowed with objective validity and safeguarded by an institutionalized mechanism of sanction, whose primary norm of legal production lies in inter-State consensus. The lower degree of institutionalization of sanctions and the existence of soft norms do not affect its juridicity. Custom and treaties constitute primary sources of law, whereas secondary sources correspond to the law-making activity of international organizations. Since each legal system regulates, from an endogenous perspective, its relations with other legal orders, it may be stated that there is no a priori answer to the question concerning the relational design between international law and domestic law. However, a proper examination of this inter-legal-order relationship must dissociate the attributes of originality and independence.