What is the purpose of public international law if there are no effective enforcement mechanisms to apply it?
The purpose of Public International Law is to provide guidelines for purposeful thought. For instance, if a leader in one country continually violates international law, it provides a means of other leaders to draw a consensus among themsevels and begin a censure process that may include trade embargos, severing of diplomatic ties, restriction of the violator country’s citizens’ ability to travel and other means of making life difficult for that country. There are means of enforcement, but not very always direct means and they are not always effective means, but there are definitely methods that exist.
