International Law Problem Questions: How to Answer Them
- Edmarverson A. Santos
- 4 days ago
- 17 min read
Introduction
International law problem questions test whether you can turn a factual scenario into a legally reasoned answer. The task is not to reproduce everything you know about a topic, but to identify which facts matter, isolate the legal issues they raise, establish the applicable rules and authorities, and apply those rules closely enough to reach defensible conclusions. That practical shift from recall to application is what distinguishes a strong problem answer from a descriptive essay.
The difficulty is that one scenario may activate several legal questions that cannot simply be discussed together. A treaty provision can be relied upon as a treaty obligation only if the relevant state is bound by it, although the same rule may sometimes apply independently as customary international law. State responsibility likewise requires attribution and breach to be established as separate elements of the internationally wrongful act (International Law Commission, 2001). If litigation is contemplated, the existence of an obligation must also be kept distinct from whether an international court has jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute.
IRAC can make this reasoning easier to present, but it cannot supply the legal analysis itself. Before arranging an answer into Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion, the student has to work out what the real legal questions are and how they relate to one another. Treaty applicability may precede interpretation; jurisdiction may have to be resolved before the merits; and attribution cannot be collapsed into the separate question of breach. The order depends on the law engaged by the facts, not on the acronym used to write the answer.
Effective issue spotting therefore requires both precision and restraint. Not every detail in the problem deserves discussion, and not every doctrine associated with the subject belongs in the answer. The stronger approach is to identify the rules genuinely triggered by the facts, test their elements and qualifications against the scenario, address serious uncertainty or competing arguments where they exist, and keep concepts such as responsibility, jurisdiction, admissibility, immunity, and enforcement separate when the problem engages them.
1. What International Law Problem Questions Test
Public international law problem questions are built around facts rather than a request to explain a subject in the abstract. An essay may ask whether a doctrine is convincing or how a rule has developed. A problem question instead presents actors, conduct, dates, legal relationships, and claims, then asks the student to determine which rules those facts engage and what follows from applying them.
That distinction controls how much law belongs in the answer. A treaty dispute does not require a general account of treaty law, and a State-responsibility problem does not justify reproducing the entire structure of the ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. The relevant material is the law needed to resolve the scenario: perhaps whether an obligation was in force, whether particular conduct is attributable to a State, whether an exception applies, or whether a court has jurisdiction. Hernández similarly cautions against describing an entire legal regime when only a limited number of rules are relevant to the facts (Hernández, 2022).
Knowing the doctrine is therefore only the starting point. A student may correctly state that an internationally wrongful act requires conduct attributable to the State and a breach of an international obligation, yet still produce a weak answer by never testing either element against the facts. The same problem arises when Articles 31–33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are accurately identified but the disputed treaty language is never actually interpreted.
Issue spotting connects legal knowledge to application. One factual scenario may raise several questions operating at different levels: the legality of force, the classification of an armed conflict, State responsibility, individual criminal responsibility, or the jurisdiction of an international court. A strong answer identifies the questions genuinely raised by the facts and keeps legally distinct inquiries separate rather than compressing them into a general discussion.
2. Read the Facts Before Choosing the Law
Close reading comes before doctrinal recall. Identify who acted, what conduct occurred, where and when it happened, and the legal relationships among the relevant actors. In public international law, a seemingly small factual detail can determine whether a treaty applies, whether conduct is attributable to a State, whether an international court has jurisdiction, or whether a substantive legal threshold has been crossed.
Party status is one example. If both States are parties to a treaty, the next questions may concern whether it was in force between them at the relevant time, whether a reservation affects the provision relied upon, and whether the obligation covers the conduct at issue. Treaty membership does not prove a breach; it establishes part of the legal framework within which breach must be assessed.
The identity of the actor can be equally decisive. Conduct of a State organ is attributable to the State under Article 4 of the ILC Articles, irrespective of whether the organ is legislative, executive, judicial, central, or territorial in character. Conduct by a private company, armed group, contractor, or individual may require a different attribution analysis. Political support or factual association with a State is not, by itself, enough to establish legal attribution (International Law Commission, 2001).
Institutional facts should also be translated into legal questions rather than accepted at face value. The fact that one State has filed an application before the International Court of Justice does not mean that the Court has jurisdiction. A valid jurisdictional basis must still be identified, and its material, personal, and temporal scope may need to be tested. The existence of an international obligation and the availability of a judicial forum remain separate inquiries.
A useful issue-spotting habit is to convert material facts into questions before drafting. “Both States are parties to the treaty” becomes “Was the relevant obligation applicable between them at the time?” “The ministry ordered the conduct” becomes “Is the conduct attributable to the State, and does it breach an applicable obligation?” “State A brought proceedings before the ICJ” becomes “What is the basis of jurisdiction, and does it cover this dispute?” This prevents the answer from being driven by whichever doctrine comes most readily to mind.
Missing facts should not be invented to make the problem easier. If the result depends on treaty participation, consent, the status of an actor, the intensity of violence, or the terms of a jurisdictional declaration, identify the uncertainty. Where appropriate, explain how the legal conclusion would change under the plausible alternatives. That is more rigorous than silently assuming the fact needed to reach a preferred answer.
3. Build the Legal Framework Before IRAC
After identifying the issues, establish the legal basis for each substantive proposition. Article 38(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice provides the conventional starting framework by referring to international conventions, international custom, and general principles of law, with judicial decisions and scholarly writings treated as subsidiary means for determining rules of law (United Nations, 1945). For a problem answer, the practical question is not simply which category appears on a list, but where the alleged rule comes from and why it applies to the actors before you.
Treaty and customary arguments require different reasoning. A treaty provision relied upon as a treaty obligation must be applicable to the relevant parties and facts, subject to matters such as entry into force, reservations, temporal scope, and any other legally relevant qualification. Customary international law requires a basis in general practice accepted as law. Judicial decisions may provide highly persuasive authority for identifying or interpreting rules, but an ICJ judgment does not operate as legislation binding every State in later disputes; Article 59 confines its binding force to the parties and the particular case.
Institutional and non-binding materials require the same care. A General Assembly resolution is not automatically binding because it uses legal language, although it may contribute to evidence of opinio juris or the identification of customary law in an appropriate context. ILC draft articles and conclusions likewise have to be characterized according to their actual legal status. Some formulations are widely relied upon as reflecting customary international law, but citation alone does not transform an ILC text into a treaty.
This is what prevents the “Rule” component of IRAC from becoming a list of treaty provisions and famous cases. A useful rule statement identifies the source and status of the rule, the actor it binds, the legal test or elements, and any material qualification before moving to application. The question is always whether that particular authority helps resolve the facts in front of the student.
Treaty interpretation illustrates the method. Where the meaning of a provision is disputed, Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties requires interpretation in good faith according to the ordinary meaning of the terms in their context and in light of the treaty's object and purpose, together with the matters specified in Article 31(3). Article 32 provides for supplementary means in the circumstances it identifies, and Article 33 deals with treaties authenticated in two or more languages (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969). The analysis should therefore establish what the obligation means before comparing the State's conduct with what that obligation required.
4. Put International Law Issues in the Right Order
IRAC provides a way to present legal reasoning, but it does not determine the sequence of the law. In international law problem questions, one issue may have to be resolved before another can sensibly be addressed. The order of analysis should therefore follow legal dependency, not simply the sequence in which the student notices the issues.
Treaty problems show the point clearly. Before alleging breach, it may be necessary to determine whether the treaty binds the relevant parties, whether the provision applies to the facts and time period, and what the provision means. If interpretation is disputed, that inquiry logically precedes the conclusion that the obligation has been violated. Termination or suspension may raise further questions, but neither should be used as a shortcut around establishing the obligation in the first place.
State responsibility has a different but equally important structure. Article 2 of the ILC Articles identifies two separate elements of an internationally wrongful act: conduct attributable to the State and conduct constituting a breach of an international obligation. Attribution does not establish breach, and the existence of a breach does not by itself establish that the conduct is attributable to the State against which responsibility is alleged. Circumstances precluding wrongfulness, consequences such as cessation and reparation, and questions about who may invoke responsibility arise only after the relevant earlier issues have been addressed (International Law Commission, 2001).
Jurisdiction creates another dependency. In proceedings before the ICJ, a persuasive argument on the merits cannot compensate for the absence of State consent to jurisdiction. The jurisdictional basis and its scope must therefore be examined before the Court is treated as competent to decide the substantive claim. Admissibility remains a further and separate inquiry. Jurisdiction asks whether the Court has legal authority to decide the dispute; admissibility concerns whether a claim that falls within that jurisdiction is properly before it.
International humanitarian law shows how factual classification can control the substantive rules that follow. The first question is ordinarily whether the situation constitutes an international armed conflict, a non-international armed conflict, or violence below the threshold of armed conflict. If an international armed conflict exists, a further question may be whether territory is occupied, because occupation triggers its own body of rules within the law of international armed conflict. Beginning with targeting, detention, or status rules before establishing the applicable legal framework risks applying the right doctrine in the wrong legal setting.
Jurisdiction and immunity must also remain distinct. Jurisdiction concerns the legal authority to prescribe, adjudicate, or enforce; immunity may prevent the exercise of otherwise existing jurisdiction against a particular State or official. In Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000, the International Court of Justice held that the incumbent Congolese foreign minister enjoyed immunity and inviolability from foreign criminal jurisdiction while in office, while leaving unresolved the broader legality of Belgium's asserted universal jurisdiction (ICJ, 2002). The case demonstrates why the existence of jurisdiction and the availability of immunity cannot be collapsed into one question.
The same discipline matters when several international legal regimes arise from one event. The legality of resorting to force is separate from compliance with international humanitarian law once an armed conflict exists. State responsibility is distinct from individual criminal responsibility. An IHL violation does not automatically constitute a war crime. Even familiar terms may conceal different legal tests: proportionality in self-defense is not the same inquiry as proportionality in attack under IHL or proportionality in human rights analysis.
A well-structured public international law problem answer therefore develops through a sequence of smaller legal determinations. IRAC can organize each determination, but the more important skill is recognizing which conclusion depends on another. Once those dependencies are identified, the answer becomes easier to control: each issue has its own legal basis, factual application, qualification, and conclusion, without merging responsibility, jurisdiction, immunity, admissibility, or enforcement into a single undifferentiated argument.
5. Use IRAC as a Writing Tool, Not a Legal Test
IRAC is useful because it gives each legal issue a visible structure: identify the issue, state the governing rule, apply that rule to the material facts, and reach a conclusion. In public international law, however, the acronym should organize reasoning that has already been worked out. It cannot tell the student whether treaty applicability comes before interpretation, whether jurisdiction must be addressed before the merits, or whether attribution is distinct from breach.
Nor is IRAC a universal academic requirement. Some courses use ILAC or another problem-solving structure, while others prescribe no particular acronym. Where assessment instructions specify a method, those instructions take priority. The underlying task remains the same: formulate the legal question precisely, identify the applicable law, test that law against the facts, and state what follows.
The Rule component needs more than a treaty citation or case name. Writing “Article 2(4) of the UN Charter” or citing Nicaragua v United States does not by itself explain the governing rule. The answer should identify the proposition supported by the authority, its legal status, the relevant elements or conditions, and any exception or qualification that matters on the facts.
Cases require the same discipline. A judgment should be cited for the proposition it actually supports, with attention to whether the point concerned jurisdiction, admissibility, the merits, or another procedural stage. In the ICJ system, Article 59 of the Court's Statute confines the binding force of a judgment to the parties and the particular case, even though the Court's reasoning may carry considerable authority beyond that dispute.
Application deserves the most space because it is where legal knowledge becomes analysis. Each element of the test should be compared with the facts. A point that is clearly satisfied may need only brief treatment; an element affected by ambiguous facts, competing legal interpretations, or an exception requires more careful reasoning.
Conclusions should match the strength of the analysis. Where the law and material facts point clearly in one direction, a firm conclusion is appropriate. Where the result depends on an unresolved fact or contested legal position, the better answer identifies that dependency and explains why one interpretation is stronger. Qualification is not weakness when the law itself does not permit certainty.
6. Worked Example: From Facts to a Defensible Answer
Consider a fictional dispute between State A and State B. Both are parties to the River Lumen Protection Treaty, which is in force between them. Article 6 provides that neither State shall release untreated toxic industrial waste from State-operated facilities into the River Lumen where the discharge causes significant transboundary environmental harm. Article 20 allows either party to submit a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the treaty to the International Court of Justice after sixty days of unsuccessful negotiations.
Following unusually heavy rainfall, a State-operated chemical-storage facility in State A faces a risk of structural collapse. State A's Ministry of Infrastructure orders an emergency release of contaminated water into the River Lumen. The discharge reaches State B, contaminates agricultural land and temporarily closes a municipal water-treatment facility.
State A argues that the release was necessary to prevent the facility from collapsing and causing substantially greater contamination. The facts also state that engineers had previously warned of maintenance deficiencies and that officials considered another containment measure, although they disagreed about whether it could be implemented quickly enough. State B begins negotiations and files an ICJ application ten days later.
The legal questions should be separated before the answer is drafted. Article 6 supplies the primary treaty obligation. The Ministry's conduct raises attribution. The discharge raises breach. State A's justification raises the possible application of necessity. If responsibility is established, the consequences of the wrongful act must then be considered. The ICJ application raises a separate jurisdictional issue under Article 20.
Attribution is comparatively straightforward. Under Article 4 of the ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, conduct of a State organ is attributable to the State. An order issued by State A's Ministry of Infrastructure in its governmental capacity is therefore attributable to State A (International Law Commission, 2001). That conclusion establishes whose conduct is involved; it does not establish that the conduct was unlawful.
Breach requires comparison between that attributable conduct and Article 6. The treaty is stated to be in force between the two States, the release came from a State-operated facility, untreated toxic material entered the river, and significant transboundary consequences occurred in State B. On the stated facts, there is a strong basis for concluding that the conduct falls within the prohibition in Article 6.
State A's necessity argument requires closer analysis. Article 25 of the ILC Articles permits necessity to preclude the wrongfulness of otherwise unlawful conduct only under strict conditions. The act must be the only way for the State to safeguard an essential interest against a grave and imminent peril, and it must not seriously impair an essential interest of the State or States toward which the obligation exists, or of the international community as a whole. Necessity is also unavailable if the international obligation excludes reliance on it or if the invoking State has contributed sufficiently substantially to the situation (International Law Commission, 2001).
The threatened collapse and prospect of greater contamination support State A's argument that an essential interest faced a grave and imminent peril. The more difficult question is whether releasing the contaminated water was genuinely the only way to safeguard that interest. The alternative containment measure matters because the Article 25 standard is stricter than asking whether State A chose a reasonable response. If another lawful means was actually available, even if it was more inconvenient or costly, necessity would be difficult to establish.
State B's interests must also be considered. Contamination of agricultural land and closure of a municipal water-treatment facility may amount to serious impairment of an essential interest, depending on the severity, duration, and consequences of the harm. The facts are insufficient to resolve that question conclusively, so a strong answer should identify it rather than assume that preventing greater damage in State A automatically satisfies Article 25.
The maintenance warnings create a further obstacle. If State A's failure to address known deficiencies contributed sufficiently substantially to the emergency, Article 25(2)(b) may prevent reliance on necessity. Nothing in the fictional treaty indicates that Article 6 itself excludes necessity, so Article 25(2)(a) does not appear to bar the plea on the stated facts.
If necessity fails, State A's attributable breach engages the secondary rules of State responsibility. A responsible State must cease any continuing wrongful conduct and make full reparation for injury caused by the wrongful act. Depending on the injury, reparation may include restitution, compensation, satisfaction, or a combination of those forms (International Law Commission, 2001).
Even if necessity succeeds, the analysis does not simply end. Article 27 preserves the duty to comply with the underlying obligation once the circumstance precluding wrongfulness has ceased and leaves open the question of compensation for material loss caused by the conduct. State B's agricultural and municipal losses could therefore remain legally relevant even if State A successfully establishes necessity.
The ICJ question must be treated independently from the merits. Article 20 provides a possible basis of consent because the dispute concerns the application of Article 6, but its wording makes submission conditional on sixty days of unsuccessful negotiations. On the facts given, that requirement appears to be part of the parties' consent to submit the dispute. State B's application after only ten days would therefore likely be premature under the fictional clause, even though its substantive treaty claim may be strong.
The necessity issue can then be written in IRAC form without reducing the reasoning to a formula. The issue is whether State A may invoke necessity to preclude the wrongfulness of the discharge. The governing law is Article 25 and its cumulative conditions. Application requires attention to the threatened collapse, the possible alternative containment measure, the harm caused to State B, and State A's earlier maintenance failures. The conclusion should reflect those unresolved points rather than simply state that an emergency either existed or did not.
7. Common Errors That Weaken Problem Answers
A recurring weakness is doctrinal recitation without factual application. A student may correctly reproduce the elements of customary international law, State responsibility, treaty interpretation, or self-defense and still fail to answer the problem because none of those elements is tested against the scenario. Legal knowledge earns its place in a problem answer through application.
The opposite error is discussing every doctrine remotely connected to the facts. A treaty dispute does not automatically require treatment of jus cogens, recognition, diplomatic protection, international criminal law, or the use of force. More law does not necessarily mean more analysis. The strongest answer selects the doctrines that the facts actually engage.
Source errors can undermine the entire argument. Treaty participation should not be assumed. General Assembly resolutions should not automatically be treated as binding law. Judicial decisions should not be cited as though they were statutory provisions of universal application. The legal status of the authority matters because it determines what proposition the material can support.
Closely related concepts also need to remain separate. Attribution is not breach. State responsibility is not jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is not immunity or enforcement. An IHL violation is not automatically a war crime. Where the problem raises more than one of these questions, each requires its own legal test.
Artificial certainty causes similar problems. If a material fact is missing, the answer should not invent it. If the law is contested, the answer should identify the competing position rather than conceal it. A conclusion is stronger when it states exactly what follows from the available law and facts.
Before submitting an answer, check:
Has each major issue been identified from the facts?
Is there an identifiable legal source for every rule relied upon?
Has the answer established why the rule applies to the relevant actor, State, conduct, and time period?
Are the legal test, elements, exceptions, and qualifications stated accurately?
Has each important element been applied to the material facts?
Have genuine counterarguments and unresolved facts been addressed?
Are attribution, breach, responsibility, jurisdiction, admissibility, immunity, and enforcement kept separate where relevant?
Does each issue end with a conclusion no stronger than the law and facts justify?
For students who understand this method but still lose time locating the underlying rules, authorities, and doctrinal distinctions, a consolidated public international law reference can make the next stage of preparation more efficient. The Public International Law Study Guide is designed for that purpose.
Recommended Study Guide
The Public International Law Study Guide is most useful for students and examination candidates who understand how a problem answer should be structured but need more systematic access to the substantive law required to build one. Knowing that an issue must be identified is of limited assistance if the difficulty lies in remembering the test for State responsibility, the bases of ICJ jurisdiction, the structure of treaty interpretation, or the distinction between neighboring doctrines.
The 91-page guide covers sources, treaty law, legal personality and statehood, jurisdiction and immunities, State responsibility, peaceful settlement and international courts, use of force, international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. Its revision material also connects major cases to specific legal propositions and includes “do not confuse” distinctions, issue-spotting checklists, authority tables, a glossary, and a final revision checklist.
That makes the guide a continuation of the method developed here rather than a substitute for it. The article explains how to turn a factual scenario into a structured legal analysis. The guide is more useful when the remaining difficulty is retrieving the relevant doctrine, distinguishing similar concepts, identifying authorities, or revising several areas of the public international law syllabus in a coherent way.
Not every reader will need it. A student who already has comprehensive, current course materials, reliable case notes, and well-organized revision tools may only need the problem-question method itself. The guide is a closer fit where fragmented materials or uncertainty about the underlying law are slowing down the analysis.
Also read
Conclusion
A strong answer to international law problem questions begins before IRAC. The student first identifies the legally significant facts, converts them into precise issues, establishes the source and scope of the applicable rules, and determines which questions depend on earlier legal findings.
IRAC can then make that reasoning easier to follow, but it cannot replace the substantive analysis. The central skill is knowing why a rule applies, what its legal test requires, which facts satisfy or complicate that test, and how far the available law and evidence permit the conclusion to go.
Once that habit becomes routine, unfamiliar fact patterns become easier to control. The student is no longer searching for a memorized answer or attempting to reproduce an entire topic. The facts identify the legal questions, the applicable law determines their order, and careful application produces the conclusion.
References
Hernández, G.I. (2022) ‘Responding to “problem questions” in exams’, Critical Thinking Frameworks in International Law, supplementary online resource to International Law, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at: https://learninglink.oup.com/protected/files/content/file/1649665268140-4.-Problem-questions-2e.pdf (Accessed: 1 September 2026).
International Court of Justice (1986) Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America), Merits, Judgment, 27 June 1986, I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14.
International Court of Justice (2002) Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Belgium), Judgment, 14 February 2002, I.C.J. Reports 2002, p. 3.
International Law Commission (2001) Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries. Yearbook of the International Law Commission 2001, vol. II, Part Two. New York and Geneva: United Nations.
Statute of the International Court of Justice (1945), signed 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945, 33 UNTS 993.
United Nations Charter (1945), signed 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI.
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), adopted 22 May 1969, opened for signature 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980, 1155 UNTS 331.
