State Practice and Opinio Juris at the Intersection of Customary International Law and General Principles of Law

Starting from a reflection on the legacy of Benedetto Conforti’s scholarship and his construction of general principles of law as a sui generis category of customary international law, this essay discusses the issue of the distinction between general principles and customary rules. It focuses on the recent work of the International Law Commission, and argues that the solutions offered in the Draft Conclusions on General Principles of Law, provisionally adopted in 2023, are far from satisfactory as regards both principles derived from national legal systems and principles formed within the international legal system.