The Introduction provides an overview of the four streams of thought about the legal significance of resolutions. It shows that General Assembly resolutions do not fit the paradigm of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and, in any case, the traditional signposts contained in that provision do not explain the basis of legal obligation in the contemporary international society. It provides an argument for developing an empirically grounded analysis of how resolutions acquire legal significance in different contexts through state practice. It subsequently outlines the structure of the analysis, which culminates with the formulation of an original theory of legal significance of resolutions. The latter develops in three different contexts – namely, at the adoption stage, within domestic law and in international practice.

This chapter provides an innovative analysis of the concept of legal significance of resolutions. It evaluates the common traits of state practice related to the attribution of legal significance of resolutions in relation to three contexts – at the adoption stage, within domestic law and in international practice. Subsequently, it evaluates whether it is possible to predict the presence of legal significance of resolutions by providing a critique of the existing tests of legal significance devised by scholars. It concludes by arguing that there is a significant discrepancy between the findings of this study and scholarly positions on the normative value of resolutions. The latter tend to focus on the legal significance at the adoption stage, thus underplaying the relevance of state practice as a signpost of legal significance at the implementation stage – both domestic and international.