The approach of Indian courts towards international law has been consistently evolving. Initially, the Indian constitutional framework provided a flexible basis for the application and use of international law, the reasons for which could be seen in the socio-political context of India as a developing country. India, for its part, continued to argue that it remained essentially at the periphery of the mainstream international law, as it had no role in formulating some of the basic principles of international law. For the Indian courts the first substantive encounter with international law emerges in the context of several territorial-related issues. The socio-political context forms the next phase, for the Indian courts to have recourse to diverse international legal norms relating to the environment and human rights and applying them as a persuasive tool. Later, the development context brings a complex array of commercial, environmental, and other related international legal norms into the Indian legal system. For Indian courts, in the present context, the correct sourcing and identification of international legal norms and their application remain a huge challenge. The majority of the legal systems of developing countries for varied historical reasons continue to treat international law as an exotic legal tool to be used sparingly, perhaps only to broaden the interpretation of or sustain a comparable domestic legal norm.