(a) Peaceful settlement of international disputes has been developed on the principles of International Law concerning friendly…

Peaceful settlement Peaceful settlement is the Charter-based duty of States to resolve legal or political disputes without threat or force. Article 2(3) obliges States to settle disputes by peaceful means; Article 2(4) prohibits force and is the clearer jus cogens norm. Chapter VI, especially Articles 33–38, assigns the Security Council primary responsibility to encourage parties to negotiate, mediate, use good offices, arbitration or judicial settlement. The General Assembly may recommend peaceful measures under Articles 10–14 and 35. The means are political—negotiation, mediation, conciliation, good offices—and legal—arbitration and the ICJ. Under Article 36 of the ICJ Statute, States may submit disputes by special agreement, treaty clause or optional clause; jurisdiction remains consensual. The 1970 Friendly Relations Declaration, a UNGA resolution, is not a treaty codification but an authoritative statement reflecting customary principles, including free choice of means. The obligation is one of conduct: States must seek peaceful settlement, not guarantee a particular result. It has an erga omnes dimension because it protects the collective interest in peace, though it is not generally treated as peremptory like the prohibition of force. Examples include the Indus Waters Treaty arbitration between India and Pakistan and the South China Sea arbitration, illustrating compulsory arbitration where consent existed.

Economic order The post-1945 economic order rests on Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF and World Bank—and the trade architecture that began as GATT and was transformed in 1995 into the WTO, with GATT 1994 as an annexed agreement. Its core is free movement of goods, services and technology through most-favoured-nation treatment, national treatment and tariff bindings, which reduce discrimination and create predictable markets. This causal logic assumes that competition and enterprise generate growth, which then spreads through trade and investment. The New International Economic Order and the 1974 Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, along with dependency theory, argued that formal market freedom often reproduced North-South inequality by allowing capital mobility while restricting development policy space. India has pressed for flexibility in TRIPS, agriculture subsidies and special and differential treatment, while also seeking rules on digital trade and technology transfer. Thus the present order is not a neutral free market but a negotiated structure in which liberalisation coexists with developmental exceptions.

International and municipal law The relationship between international and municipal law is explained by monism, dualism and transformation. Monists such as Kelsen, through the grundnorm, and Lauterpacht saw international law as part of one legal order; dualists such as Triepel and Anzilotti treated them as separate systems requiring domestic adoption. Transformation theory, closer to Indian practice, holds that international obligations bind States internationally, but domestic effect depends on constitutional procedure. India is dualist in form: treaties are not automatically enforceable as municipal law. Article 51(c) directs the State to respect international law, while Article 253 gives Parliament special overriding legislative competence to implement treaties on matters that may otherwise fall within state competence, not an exclusive power. In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) and Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India (1996), the Supreme Court used international norms to interpret fundamental rights and fill gaps where no inconsistent domestic law existed, without treating treaties as self-executing. The automatic versus legislative incorporation debate persists, though recent judgments show a trend of harmonious construction, using unimplemented treaty principles as interpretive aids, as in PUCL v. Union of India (2014), while preserving parliamentary supremacy.

Together, these themes show a layered order: peaceful settlement supplies the political-legal framework, the economic order supplies material rules, and the international-municipal interface determines how global norms enter domestic life. The system is neither fully unified nor fragmented; it operates through consent, institutions and judicial interpretation.