Municipal law is the national, domestic, or internal

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

of a sovereign

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

and is defined in opposition to

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. Municipal law includes many levels of law: not only national law but also state, provincial, territorial, regional, or local law. The state may regard them as distinct categories of law, but international law is largely uninterested in the distinction and treats them all as one. Similarly, international law makes no distinction between the ordinary law of the state and its

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

. Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties from 1969 provides that if a treaty conflicts with a state's municipal law (including the state's constitution), the state is still obliged to meet its obligations under the treaty. The only exception is provided by Article 46 of the Vienna Convention, which is a state's expression of consent to be bound by a treaty being a manifest violation of a "rule of its internal law of fundamental importance". The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Accessed 8 February 2007.

Sources

* Reydams, Luc ''Universal Jurisdiction: International and Municipal Legal Perspectives'', (Oxford Monographs in International Law), (Oxford University Press, 2004) . * Paolo Davide Farah e Piercarlo Rossi, "National Energy Policies and Energy Security in the Context of Climate Change and Global Environmental Risks: A Theoretical Framework for Reconciling Domestic and International Law Through a Multiscalar and Multilevel Approach", European Energy and Environmental Law Review (EEELR), Kluwer Law International, Vol. 20, No. 6, pp. 232–244, 2011.

References

* Legislative legal terminology International law legal terminology {{International-law-stub