What a Normative Response Is

In one line

The international community answers a problem with an instrument, and the kind of instrument it chooses decides in advance how much the answer can achieve.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: a normative response is the creation by the international community of a standard of conduct addressed to States and, sometimes, to others, in response to a development that existing law does not adequately govern. Such responses take several forms, of which the important distinction is between a treaty, which binds those States that consent to it, and soft law, which does not bind but which states an agreed standard, guides interpretation, and may in time contribute to binding law.

Why the classification matters before anything else

Every question on topic 6 is really a question about force. A candidate who can recite the contents of the 1975 Declaration and cannot say whether a State is obliged to comply with it has answered the smaller half.

Three consequences follow from the classification of an instrument, and they are the three things to establish first about any text.

Who is bound. A treaty binds only its parties. A General Assembly declaration binds nobody, though it is addressed to all States.

What happens on breach. A treaty may carry a reporting mechanism, a complaints procedure, or none. A declaration carries none.

And how it is used in argument. A binding instrument is cited as the source of the obligation. A non-binding instrument is cited as the agreed meaning of an obligation that exists elsewhere, which is exactly how [Access to the Internet] shows the Kerala High Court using international material: read into the fundamental rights where there is no inconsistent domestic law occupying the field.

The forms, with the book's own examples

Treaty, convention, covenant

What it is. An agreement between States, in written form, governed by international law, binding on those that become parties by ratification or accession.

What it can do. Create obligations, establish institutions, and provide for supervision.

What it cannot do. Bind a State that has not consented. So the number of parties is part of the answer to any question about its reach.

In this book. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966, whose article 15 is the binding form of the right to science and is worked in [Article 15 of the Covenant Read Whole]; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 1965; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 1979; and, outside India's participation, the Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185) and the UN Convention against Cybercrime.