THEORY OF AUTO-LIMITATION

maintain that international law consists of those rules which

the wills of the various States have accepted by a process of
voluntary self-restriction
It teaches that international law is the outcome of the
exercise of self-limitation by States, and that the basis of its validity
is the wills and voluntarism of States
The self-limitation doctrine
proclaims that States are sovereigns, whose wills reject any type of
external limitation, and if their sovereignty is in any way limited,
that limitation cannot be from any external force, but only be
imposed by the States themselves.
will of the State by consenting to be
bound by customary and conventional rules of international law
places limitations on its sovereignty
The rules of international law
derive their binding force by self-limitation of the sovereign will of
States through consent. The will of the State being sovereign could
not be subordinated to any external power unless it consented to
it.
CRITICISMS OF THE THEORY OF AUTO LIMITATION
self-imposed
limitation "is no limitation at all.
In the absence of a superior legal order and
authority, the State can revoke its voluntary self-limitation
internally by altering the constitutional functions of its organs, and
internationally by revoking its voluntary observation of rules of
conduct.125