In the following, I will try to describe the elements of natural law and positive law, also referred to as legal positivism, thereby also describing various differences and similarities between the two seemingly different law schools. I will discuss the main principles of both notions and give examples of so-called real-life applications, in which the principles may have been used to shape certain real-life situations.
Positive law is often defined as simply the written law. It disregards any adoption of norms emerging in society, as long as these norms are not clearly defined in a legal document. This interpretation of the law makes it easy for people to understand what is considered right and wrong, it does not separate just from law. The concepts are considered identical. What is legal, is what is to be lived by could be said to be the motto of the proponents of legal positivism.
Positive laws are what you may find written in many multilateral, multinational organizations such as NATO, UN, etc. As opposed to natural law, positive law is what is considered legal. So, in considering legal positivism, one must also take into account that having a legal system does not imply having a just system, since its very nature does not consider natural laws, everything which is considered just and right, but rather implies that laws have been applied to the specific system, whether it involves a nation, a multinational organization or a treaty between different nations. .
Positive laws often arise from what is customary, and therefore considered natural laws in many aspects. The laws may have existed as norms in a society in a longer period of time without ever having been formally laws, and then one legal case may set precedence, and the specific law thereby often becoming a positive law. An example of this is what in many commentators" view happened when NATO decided to intervene in Yugoslavia in 1999.
