Custom

Abstract

The third of the three traditionally main sources of law is Custom. The standard view of contemporary analysis is that the importance of custom historically is great, but, from the point of view of current legal practice, its importance is slight. This is so both in the common law and the civil law traditions. The only exception is in the case of international law, where customary law is still of great importance: The sources of international law will be considered separately in Section 8.4 below. Customary law is still important, of course, in communities where the mode of existence, application, and enforcement of binding social norms is primarily informal: The law, or “law,” of such communities is not discussed here.