One can rightfully speak of the 21st century as an era of exacerbation of civilizational conflicts and confrontation of civilizations at a new qualitative level.

International law, its principles and basic norms help to resolve the problem, which determine its nature and create support for its other norms and institutions, contributing to the stability of international relations. They represent the foundation of the international law and order. Violation of the basic principles of international law affects the rights and interests of most other members of the international community. International law is a system of legal principles and norms governing relations between states. International organizations can also act as subjects of international law. Sources of international law are international treaties and custom recognized by states. As there is no supranational authority over sovereign states, the international law is the law between states, not over them.

Which law is more important: International or National, the answer to this question depends on the legal traditions of a particular country. Most legal theorists believe that globalization processes will only become aggravated in the future. Problems that require joint efforts, such as transnational crime, ecological and technogenic safety; prevention of armed conflicts; protection of human rights will come to the fore. This will lead to the prevalence of international norms of law over national ones. Already, many countries have fixed in the basic laws the provision for such a priority. International law in most of its norms, which are recognized by all states of the world, is universal. In the part recognized not by all, but by most countries of the world, it is called general. The norms of international law established by the countries of one region create regional international law. The norms established by states in any field, for example, in energy, or in the field of production and marketing of oil, in navigation or air traffic, are called sectoral.

The norms establishing the rights and obligations between the two states are contained in numerous bilateral treaties.

At present, the central part of international law is the UN Charter, which contains the basic principles of modern international relations, obligatory for execution by all countries and possessing supremacy in relation to all other norms of international law.

Under the charter of the United Nations Organization, states pledged to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, to fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed under the charter, to observe the principle of sovereign equality of all UN members, to resolve their international disputes by peaceful means in such a way as not to jeopardize the international peace, security and justice, to refrain in their international relations from the threat of force or using the force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other way, commit acts inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations (UN). In addition, the UN Charter approved the principle of non-intervention in matters, essentially included within the domestic jurisdiction of any state (this principle, however, does not affect the application of compulsory measures on the basis of the Charter).

The basic principles of the UN Charter were confirmed and expanded in the declaration on principles of International Law, concerning friendly relations and cooperation among states in accordance with the UN Charter (October 24, 1970), and later in the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, adopted in 1975 in Helsinki.