The Role of Customary Law Functions in the Creation of Global Security Architecture in the 21st Century

The article examines the peculiarities of the theory and practice of international customary law enforcement in the procedures of creating the international security system. In the first part of the article, the author carefully examines the research terminology of the legal problem paying special attention to the temporal component of the key terms: “custom” and “habit”. He formulates the theoretical paradoxes associated with the definition of the customary law’s attributes as theoretical constructs and the experience of their application in the international conflict of laws. The main paradox is the international legal declassification of social consensus (the key element of customary law) and the concepts “society”, “people” and “nation”, along with the consistent replacement of all of the above-mentioned elements of the concept “state” with all the ensuing procedural aspects and practical conclusions. The main element of the sources of the study is a series of the UN International Law Commission’s reports. The author considers the terminological contradictions associated with the mismatch of the theoretical constructs “International Security” and “International Law” to be the key problem. In the context of the contract law’s destabilization, the author states the absence of a conscious theoretical process of defining the role of custom in the architectonics of the global security nowadays. In the second part of the article, the above-mentioned theoretical postulates are exemplified on the specific law enforcement practice in the field of human life safety and a sustainable health care system within the framework of collisions foregrounded in connection with the coronavirus pandemic. The author argues that, by the middle of the 21st century, global security and its architectonics will depend on international legal practice and international custom. However, nowadays it is too early to discuss the systematic nature of this phenomenon. Now the elements and connections between them are evident, and in the future they will form a stable system “beyond the contract law” within the law of international security. By way of example, the author analyzes a number of actions taken by Russia and its “associates” beyond the international contract law in the framework of mutual assistance in the pandemic context. According to the author, these actions currently create not only a series of precedents, but also form a habit spreading over the countries of the Near, Middle, and Far East, South and Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and South America. A system of mutual rapid relief and medical assistance is being created in a number of countries to fight against the pandemic.

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