Comment by xdennis

Law is defined as "a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior".

International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations".

When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig".

The primary differentiation is enforcement.

People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal".

Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.