1 Introduction: The Modern Splendour of Customary International Law

This chapter depicts the discursive splendour of customary international law, which is portrayed as a splendid mechanism by virtue of the sophisticated discursive performances it enables and demands. It introduces the success and plausibility of any argument about customary international law in international legal thought and practice that commonly hinge on a myriad of discursive performances. It also sheds light on the discursive splendour of a legal doctrine that is too often perceived as miserably simple, plain, or malfunctioning doctrine. The chapter provides an overview of the discursive performances of customary international law, which are construed as responses to the formal requirement of ascertaining the constitutive elements of customary international law. It elaborates how the customary international law provides international law with a law-creative process that is not dependent of the adoption of a formal written instrument.