National law is the set of laws that governs a particular country. It can be federal (enacted by Congress) or state law.

The difference between federal and state law can be confusing, but it’s important to understand that federal laws are enacted by the President of the United States. State laws are enacted by the legislatures of each state, but they can be signed into law without the President’s signature.

Generally, there are two ways to recognize a law as federal or state: first, it must have a popular name that identifies it as such; and second, it must be arranged by subject in the United States Code, which is the code of the American government.

Some countries’ constitutions have provided for a national legal system with international obligations integrated into it. These are called treaties or conventions and can be used as a basis for creating national laws.

In addition, a treaty can grant national jurisdiction to supranational tribunals. These can include the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.

When a tribunal finds that national law is inadequate to deal with a particular issue, it will often proceed to apply international law or principles of justice and principles common to various states other than the host state’s. This practice is called a rule of recognition and has been employed in several early awards, including Klockner v Cameroon.

When international law primarily applies, the lex causae will be deemed to be a corrective and complementary source of rules rather than a sequential or hierarchical one. This will occur in situations where national law is deemed to be unable to address the issue or when there is a conflict between the applicable national law and a fundamental rule of international law.