What is international law & why should we care about it? | LexIcon

What is law in general?
Law is a system of rules that are created by a controlling authority and enforced to regulate behaviour of the members of society. It has two primary purposes: prevention of wrongful behaviour and punishment of wrongful behaviour.

Two primary distinctions

1. Private law v. Public law
Private law is characterised by the horizontality of relations. The examples are contract law and property law. Public law is characterised by the verticality of relations: state v. individual / company; the examples are criminal law and tax law.

2. National law v. International law
National law exists within a state. International law governs relations between various states, such as trade relations, or important rules like the prohibition of genocide.