Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Customary international law isn't something you've read about in a civics textbook, but this judicial doctrine is important to today's homeschoolers. Join Mike Farris on Home School Heartbeat to find out why.

Michael Farris:
The modern judicial doctrine of customary international law rests on what the Founders called the "Law of Nations." The Law of Nations was not a written law like those passed by the United States' Congress. Rather, it was the set of rules that governed the interactions of countries. It originated in natural law and in customs and treaties between nations.

There is little doubt that the Founders' view of the Law of Nations was different in two principal ways from the emerging modern view.

First, the source of the Law of Nations was primarily found in a Christian understanding of natural law rather than in a positivist view. In other words, the natural law on which the Law of Nations stood was not made by man, but originated in the created order of the universe. Today's legal scholars attempt to interpret the Law of Nations as positive laws that nations and bodies such as the UN establish to govern themselves.

Second, the Law of Nations was limited to the conduct of affairs between nations. It did not control the way a government could treat its own citizens within its own territory. Modern courts, however, have used the doctrine of customary international law to apply unratified treaties to strictly domestic cases.

This perversion of the Law of Nations is taking hold in modern courts through customary international law. Tomorrow, we'll look at some of the ways this doctrine has been misapplied in recent judicial decisions.

I'm Mike Farris.