Positive Law

Law actually ordained or established, under human sanctions, as distinguished from the law of nature or natural law, which comprises those considerations of justice, right, and universal expediency that are announced by the voice of reason or of revelation. Municipal law is chiefly, if not essentially, positive; while the law of nations has been deemed by many of the earlier writers as merely an application of the law of nature. That part of the law of nations which rests on positive law may be considered in a threefold point of view: First, the universal voluntary law, or those rules which become law by the uniform practice of nations in general, and by the manifest utility of the rules themselves; second, the customary law, or that which; from motives of convenience, has, by tacit but implied agreement, prevailed not necessarily among all nations nor with so permanent a utility as to become a portion of the universal voluntary law, but enough to have acquired a prescriptive obligation among certain states so situated as to be mutually benefited by it (1 Taunt. 241); third, the conventional law, or that which is agreed between particular states by express treaty, a law binding on the parties among whom such treaties are in force. 1 Chit. Com. Law, 28. POSITIVI JURIS (Law Lat.) Of positive law. "That was a rule positivi juris; I do not mean to say an unjust one." Lord Ellenborough, 12 East, 639. POSITO UNO OPPOSITORUM NEGAtur alterum. One of two opposite positions

Law ordained and enforced by sovereign political authority, as distinguished from the law of nature.

Law enforced by a sovereign political authority, as distinct from laws of honor, laws of nature, etc.