Tools of the theory of critical phenomena, namely the scaling analysis anduniversality, are argued to be applicable to large complex web-like networkstructures. Using a detailed analysis of the real data of the InternationalTrade Network we argue that the scaled link weight distribution has anapproximate log-normal distribution which remains robust over a period of 53years. Another universal feature is observed in the power-law growth of thetrade strength with gross domestic product, the exponent being similar for allcountries. Using the 'rich-club' coefficient measure of the weighted networksit has been shown that the size of the rich-club controlling half of theworld's trade is actually shrinking. While the gravity law is known to describewell the social interactions in the static networks of population migration,international trade, etc, here for the first time we studied a non-conservativedynamical model based on the gravity law which excellently reproduced manyempirical features of the ITN.
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