Download or read book Legitimacy Deficit in Custom written by Ben Chigara and published by Ashgate Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word custom is part of everyday vocabulary in all languages, meaning the habitual behaviour of people in a particular community. Once adopted by lawyers it becomes necessary to distinguish legal customs from non-legal customs. That distinction focuses on the creation of legal norms of customary law. In international law, the creation of rules of customary law has been the subject of much commentary. Customary international law has been described as a mysterious phenomenon that has lost its utility. Some have called for its abandonment and others for a radical reformulation of the doctrine. A former judge of the International Court of Justice perceived it to be both delicate and difficult. However, the majority of rules of international law are customary in nature. Therefore, the transparency, consistency and determinacy of custom - the process by which rules of customary law are created is central to the legitimacy of rules of customary law. This book examines the issues at the heart of this complex problem and recommends a deconstructionist approach to custom as a means of resolving the legitimacy deficit in custom.