International Law has currently become very relevant in a modern world which is primarily dominated by the process of globalization. There are many issues that countries want to tackle together and as a result there is International Law which is an aspect or an issue which is wide-spreading and goes across all national boundaries and borders. The United Nations Organization even has an International Court of Justice which sits at Hague. The purpose of this court is to solve and arbitrate over issues of international importance or relevance.

There are three defining aspects of International Law and these are public international law, private international law and the law of supranational organisations. Let us look at all these three aspects separately.

First there is Public International Law. This defines the relationships between all the sovereign countries. There are many ways in which public international law is defined and developed and these defining factors include general customs and traditions, the existing treaties and agreements that exist between these countries like the Geneva Conventions and so on. Public International Law can be created through forming world organizations like the United Nations, the international body which came into being after the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War. Other organizations also include International Labour Organization, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and so on. There are no international police forces to enforce public international law but there is the International Court of Justice.

The second aspect is the Private International Law. This is also called the conflict of laws. This is about disputes between private parties and how they should be solved as jurisdiction often changes across national boundaries. Many business enterprises shift capital and labour supply across different states and other countries as well. Here the jurisdiction becomes a problem as different states have different laws, as do other countries. Also, there are trading relationships between business enterprises across different countries as well. This is why many such commercial enterprises apply for a commercial arbitration under the New York Convention of 1958.

Lastly there is the supranational legal framework and as of now, history has provided us with only one such framework and that is of the European Union, or rather, the European Union Law. In the day and age of globalization, there is a lot of integration that is happening and many other countries are aiming to follow the example of the European Union and one such example of an upcoming supranational legal framework is the Union of South American nations. Within the structure of the European Union, all the independent or sovereign nations have brought together their authority and legal power through the formation of courts and other political institutions. The function of these institutions is to apply and at times, enforce certain rules and regulations against the other member states which also operate within the European Union. This kind of enforcement is not feasible nor possible through public international law. According to the European Court of Justice, the law of the European Union is a “”a new legal order of international law” which are being applied for the betterment of all the member states.