International Law and India: Exploring their Engagement

International law is omnipresent and permeates the conduct of States, corporations, and even individuals. In today’s time, we find an astounding amount and diversity of treaties encompassing a broad range of regulatory areas - multilateral, plurilateral, and bilateral. This has occurred hand in hand with an increase in the international fora’s institutional scope and practice. Despite its seemingly wide and progressive acceptance of international law, the Supreme Court of India’s jurisprudence is incapable of contributing to the formulation, crystallization, and future evolution of international law norms due to its lack of accuracy. Additionally, this corpus of jurisprudence, in taking authority from Parliament, is subject to the allegation of denying democracy, regardless of how beneficial the decisions of specific cases may be. This is especially troubling given constitutional provisions that seem to entrust the administration with unfettered treaty-making authority. Thus, the constitutional architecture has facilitated the executive and judiciary usurping power, with little authority being left to the legislature, which is the elected body.