maintain that international law consists of those rules which
the wills of the various States have accepted by a process of voluntary self-restriction It teaches that international law is the outcome of the exercise of self-limitation by States, and that the basis of its validity is the wills and voluntarism of States The self-limitation doctrine proclaims that States are sovereigns, whose wills reject any type of external limitation, and if their sovereignty is in any way limited, that limitation cannot be from any external force, but only be imposed by the States themselves. will of the State by consenting to be bound by customary and conventional rules of international law places limitations on its sovereignty The rules of international law derive their binding force by self-limitation of the sovereign will of States through consent. The will of the State being sovereign could not be subordinated to any external power unless it consented to it. CRITICISMS OF THE THEORY OF AUTO LIMITATION self-imposed limitation "is no limitation at all. In the absence of a superior legal order and authority, the State can revoke its voluntary self-limitation internally by altering the constitutional functions of its organs, and internationally by revoking its voluntary observation of rules of conduct.125