40. […] It is known omnibus lippis et tonsoribus that the international community lacks any central government with the attendant separation of powers and checks and balances. In particular, international courts, including the International Tribunal, do not make up a judicial branch of a central government. The international community primarily consists of sovereign States; each jealous of its own sovereign attributes and prerogatives, each insisting on its right to equality and demanding full respect, by all other States, for its domestic jurisdiction. Any international body must therefore take into account this basic structure of the international community. It follows from these various factors that international courts do not necessarily possess, vis-à-vis organs of sovereign States, the same powers which accrue to national courts in respect of the administrative, legislative and political organs of the State. Hence, the transposition onto the international community of legal institutions, constructs or approaches prevailing in national law may be a source of great confusion and misapprehension. In addition to causing opposition among States, it could end up blurring the distinctive features of international courts.

^{Footnote 53} See Tadić Appeal Judgement, para. 225 (where the ICTY Appeals Chamber held that to rely upon domestic legislation and case law as a source of an international principle or rule under the doctrine of the general principles of law recognized by the nations of the world “it would be necessary to show that, in any case, the major legal systems of the world take the same approach to [a] notion”).