Fifthly, John, I don’t see how any “[d]ecisions of any international tribunal are always persuasive evidence of the matters under discussion.” Similar to the absence of a rule of prec!ent in international law, I would posit that there is also no rule requiring decisions of international tribunals to be treat! as persuasive. Any decision is persuasive only to the extent that it contains thorough and methodologically sound reasoning and evidence. As such any particular court may take decisions of other courts or tribunals into account, though I also think that academics ought to be particularly rigorous in assessing decisions critically.
Nitpicking a bit here, I’d like to point out that
ICCPR and the irrespective of differences of enforcement, and that lack of enforcement or belize phone number library means of enforcement may simply lead to non-compliance and hence diminish effectiveness.
Lastly, John and Tobias, I think we are in agreement that theoretically a rule might develop allowing a State to invoke its constitution or core foundational rules thereof as justification not to perform an international obligation. However, it seems more likely that in particular instances appeals by States to their constitutions would undermine either opinio juris or, if words are put into practice, State practice. Hence it seems more likely, when it comes to a particular adb directory rule of customary international law, that this will lead to abandonment of the rule concern!.
In the hypothesis of a developing rule
It would inde! be necessary for a State to protest the application of the rule to which cable is best: flexible or rigid? its situation for it to escape the applicability of the rule (all this assuming that ‘persistent objection’ is accept! as a bar to such applicability). Where a significant segment of the international community of States fails to put a certain (alleg!) rule into practice, such as Islamic States with fre!om of religion, this jeopardizes the coherence of State practice and in the absence of protests by other States will make the establishment of opinio juris tenuous.