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19 Int'l Comm. L. Rev. 1 (2017)

handle is hein.journals/intlfddb19 and id is 1 raw text is: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY LAW REVIEW 19 (2017) 1-8 1 R BRILL NIJHOFF brill.com/icIr Introductory Note: Beyond the Identification of International Customary Rules Vassilis P Tzevelekos University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice VTzevelekos@liverpooLac.uk This special issue of the International Community Law Review hosts selected papers from a conference on international customary law that I co-organised in July 2015 as a member (at the time) of the McCoubrey Centre for International Law. Custom is a mysterious source of international law.' Every generation of lawyers has painstakingly strived to demystify it, by explaining its formation and by endeavouring (in vain?) to encapsulate it in such a way so that it fits into the tidy boxes and channels through which law is formally constructed by society, its subjects and their institutions. Yet, the inherent spontaneity2 of a construct that emerges from the society (through conduct of its members that, somehow, transforms itself into a legal rule) is in sharp contrast with the very premises and physiognomy of posited law that promises certainty (as to its validity and content) through formalism. Perhaps customary law and legal positivism make odd bedfellows. Or it may simply be that lawyers (even the greatest among them) do not possess the tools (i.e. methodological equip- ment) that would allow them to tame customary law. * I wish to thank the ICLR for hosting the papers on international customary law published in this issue, its Editor-in-Chief, Professor Malgosia Fitzmaurice, its Managing Editor, Dr Sarah Singer, the authors contributing to the issue, the ILC Special Rapporteur, Sir Michael Wood, Mr Omri Sender, the anonymous reviewers and, last but not least, the McCoubrey Centre for International Law. 1 Prosper Weil, Le droit international en qubte de son identit, 237 Recueil des cours de lAcadimie de droit international de La Haye (1996) p. 161 and Georges Abi-Saab, Cours g~ndral de droit international public, 207 Recueil des cours de lAcadimie de droit internatio- nal de La Haye (1996) pp. 174-175. 2 Among others, Roberto Ago, Science juridique et droit international, 90 Recueil des cours de lAcadimie de droit international de La Haye (1957) pp. 851 and following and especially pp. 932 and following. @ KONINKLIJKE BRILL NV, LEIDEN, 2017 DOI 10.1163/18719732-12341345

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