The Oxford Guide to Treaties [2 ed.] 019884834X, 9780198848349

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THE OXFORD GUIDE TO TREATIES

The Oxford Guide to Treaties second edition Edited by

DU N C A N B.   HO L L I S

1

3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The Several Contributors 2020 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2012 Second Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Crown copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence Number C01P0000148 with the permission of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2019955606 ISBN 978–​0–​19–​884834–​9 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

For Emily

Preface to the Second Edition It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity . . . Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Dickens provides an apt summation of the current state of treaty law and practice. In some ways, it is the best of times. Today, treaties dominate the international legal landscape. Since I first published The Oxford Guide to Treaties, States and depositaries have registered an additional 8,000 treaties (bringing the total registration rolls from 64,000 up to 72,000, notwithstanding that many States fail to register their treaties or do so only after lengthy delays).1 Among these, States have concluded seminal multilateral treaties, such as the Arms Trade Treaty2 and the Paris Agreement,3 alongside new efforts at global governance on issues such as international trade,4 the environment,5 humanitarian relief,6 dispute settlement,7 and non-​proliferation.8 Whether because of their number or substance, treaties are now ubiquitous in the day-​ to-​day work of international (and in many states, domestic) lawyering.9 Today, judges, diplomats, government lawyers, international organization officials, activists, and academics regularly read, invoke, and interpret treaties in manifold bilateral, multilateral, and multistakeholder settings. Consider, for example, the work of the 24  ‘permanent’ international courts and the 37,000 binding rulings they have issued since the end of the Cold War.10 Treaties provide the foundation for all these cases; they are almost always the source of the court’s jurisdiction and authority, and, in many cases, provide the substantive standards for evaluating litigant behavior. Treaties have played a similar role—​with often-​significant economic repercussions—​in the 676 reported cases of investor-​State

1 See Chapter 11 for more on UN treaty registrations. 2 Arms Trade Treaty (adopted 2 April 2013, entered into force 24 December 2014) [2013] 52 ILM 985. 3 Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740. 4 See eg Protocol to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (adopted 12 November 2012, entered into force 25 September 2018) (I55487) at . 5 See eg Minamata Convention on Mercury (done 10 October 2013, entered into force 16 August 2017) [2016] 55 ILM 582. 6 See eg Food Assistance Convention (adopted 25 April 2012, entered into force 1 January 2013)  2884 UNTS 5. 7 See eg UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (adopted 20 December 2018, not yet in force) CN 154.2019, at https://​uncitral.un.org/​sites/​uncitral.un.org/​f iles/​ media-​d ocuments/​E N/​Texts/​U NCITRAL/​A rbitration/​m ediation_​c onvention_​v 1900316_​e ng.pdf; UN Convention on Transparency in Treaty-​based Investor-​State Arbitration (adopted 10 December 2014, entered into force 18 October 2017) at . 8 See Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (adopted 7 July 2017, not yet entered into force) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​8. 9 For more on the domestic applications of treaties, see Chapter 15. 10 K Alter, The New Terrain of International Law (Princeton Univ Press, Princeton 2014) 4.

viii  Preface to the Second Edition arbitrations.11 Major disputes like those in the South China Sea remind us, moreover, of the dramatic geo-​political implications treaties have even where their existence or meaning is contested.12 Simply put, today’s treaties may have a more prevalent and important role in the construction of international law and international relations than at any other time in human history. And yet, for many treaty lawyers, these are not good times. An AJIL Unbound Agora asked in 2014 if we are witnessing The End of Treaties?13 Although further empirical research is needed, several signs suggest that States and scholars may no longer regard the treaty as the go-​to instrument for international agreement. The World Trade Organization has not reached a major agreement in the decades since its creation,14 while 2017 witnessed the conclusion of the fewest bilateral investment treaties since 1983.15 In the United States, the post-​Cold War boom of multilateral treaty-​making has receded dramatically,16 while its most visible mechanism for joining treaties—​ratification following advice and consent of a supermajority of the U.S. Senate—​is widely viewed as broken.17 In lieu of treaties, States appear to increasingly employ non-​binding ‘political commitments’ (or ‘informal agreements’ to use Timothy Meyer’s term in Chapter 3).18 Whether due to the speed and flexibility that informality allows—​or perhaps the (undemocratic) opportunity to evade often lengthy and uncertain legislative approval processes—​States now use political commitments in lieu of treaties to redress a range global governance issues. When States sought to respond to the 2008 financial crisis, they chose a political commitment—​ Basel III—​to do so.19 Likewise, participants in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) sought to regulate Iran’s nuclear program without employing the classic treaty form.20 The challenge to treaties is not, however, only a matter of competition—​the last decade has witnessed rising distrust in global governance generally and various agreements

11 See RL Wellhausen, ‘Recent Trends in Investor–​State Dispute Settlement’ (2016) 7 J Int’l Dispute Settlement 117, 118 (cataloging recorded arbitrations from 1990–​2014). 12 See eg An Arbitral Tribunal Constituted under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (The Republic of Philippines v The People’s Republic of China), Award on Jurisdiction, PCA Case No 2013-​19 (29 October 2015). 13 ‘Agora, The End of Treaties?’ (2014) 108 AJIL Unbound 30-​78. 14 See T Meyer, ‘Agora, The End of Treaties? Collective Decision-​Making in International Governance’ (2014) 108 AJIL Unbound 30-​36. 15 UNCTAD, ‘Recent Developments in International Development Agreements’ (May 2018)  IIA Monitor No 1, 2. 16 C Galway Buys, ‘Agora, The End of Treaties? An Empirical Look at U.S. Treaty Practice: Some Preliminary Conclusions’ (2014) 108 AJIL Unbound  57, 58. According to Buys, the United States joined 105 multilateral treaties between 1990 and 1999 and only 62 between 2000 and 2009 (the lowest number since the 1960s). Treaty actions in the ensuing decade suggest a further decline. Although the US can join multilateral treaties by other means, it is notable that the US Senate gave advice and consent to only 8 multilateral treaties from 2010–​2018. See US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ‘Treaties’ at . 17 See eg C Bradley, O Hathaway, and J Goldsmith, ‘The Death of Article II Treaties’ Lawfare (13 Dec 2018); Secretary of State John Kerry, ‘Testimony Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs’, House of Representatives, Ser No 114-​93 (28 July 2015) (responding to a question on why the Iran Deal was not concluded as a treaty: ‘frankly, it has become physically impossible. That is why. Because you can’t pass a treaty anymore. It has become impossible to, you know, schedule. It has become impossible to pass’). 18 DB Hollis, Second Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser.Q, CJI/​doc.553/​18 (6 February 2018) [13] (responding to OAS Questionnaire, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay indicate witnessing the increasing use of political commitments). 19 Meyer (n 14) (discussing OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises). 20 See JCPOA (done at Vienna 14 July 2015)  at .

Preface to the Second Edition  ix manifesting it specifically. As Larry Helfer explains in Chapter 26, States have begun to head towards the exits in manifold treaty contexts. Brexit looms large as the most significant—​ and complex—​example.21 But the United States is not far behind, walking back its commitments to both binding (the Paris Agreement) and non-​binding (the JCPOA) international instruments.22 Nor is this a solely Anglo-​American phenomenon. Other States have withdrawn from the Whaling Convention (Japan), the Rome Statute (Burundi, the Philippines) and the Washington Convention establishing the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela).23 UNCTAD reports, moreover, that 2017 marked the first year where the number of BIT terminations (22) outpaced the number of new treaties concluded (18).24 How should international lawyers reconcile these contradictory narratives? On the one hand, we might attempt to declare one descriptively superior to the other. Richard Gowan, for example, suggests that ‘reports of the death of international cooperation appear to be exaggerated, at least for now’.25 Indeed, evidence of US treaty retrenchment may not suggest a global trend so much as an idiosyncratic example. And even if treaties are forming at lower rates, it does not mean the concept is moving towards a definitive end-​point of obsolescence. On the contrary, it might signal the strength and successes of treaty-​making—​the pervasiveness of existing treaties on everything from fish to finances reducing the need for new agreements. Or, treaties’ popularity—​and utility—​may be cyclical in lieu of some one-​ way, downward ratchet. In short, treaty proponents may insist that the proper narrative is one of increasing inter-​dependency where the treaty operates like a Swiss Army knife, performing a variety of necessary and valuable functions related to international cooperation and collective action. Alternatively, treaty-​critics might—​subject to more empirical evidence—​make the case that the treaty (if not international law writ large) has passed its heyday. Even where parties comply with their terms, it is not clear how often treaties are actually effective in achieving the goals that motivated their formation. More agile alternatives like political commitments are readily available when States or other stakeholders agree on the need for international cooperation. Growing populist sentiments may, moreover, call into question the need for (or utility of) such international cooperation in the first place. Taken together, such evidence could predict—​and explain—​increasing resistance to new agreements and/​or the withdrawal from existing ones. In other words, there may be a compelling case for a story of declining treaty-​formations, even if there is not yet sufficient evidence of systemic retrenchment in the law and practice applying all extant treaty commitments. On the other hand, international lawyers may attempt to accommodate both of these tales in lieu of giving one dominion. This is, after all, a sophisticated and widely-​used vehicle for agreement among States and other stakeholders. The breadth and depth of current 21 See P McClean, ‘After Brexit: the UK will need to renegotiate at least 759 treaties’ Financial Times (31 May 2017). 22 See Chapter 26 at 635 (recounting US indications of intent to denounce the Paris Agreement and withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, while also noting US withdrawal from the UN Economic and Social Council (UNESCO) as well as its termination of the 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran and the Intermediate-​Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia). 23 See ibid. 24 UNCTAD, ‘Recent Developments’ (n 15). 25 R Gowan, ‘Multilateralism in Freefall’ Center for Policy Research (UN University, 30 July 2018).

x  Preface to the Second Edition treaty practice may well be broad enough to accommodate a world where treaties are both ascendant and declining, a world where treaties dominate and a world where they are simultaneously suspect. It is this second, more pluralist, approach that motivates this new edition of The Oxford Guide to Treaties. It is neither a paean to treaties nor a eulogy to mark their passing. Rather, it catalogs treaties and their place in the world as complex, even if at times contradictory. Readers familiar with the Guide’s first edition will note some significant changes. This second edition contains four new chapters, two of which reinforce the rising importance of treaties to international legal practice. Jean d’Aspremont joins the volume in Chapter 2—​Current Theorizations about the Treaty in International Law—​explaining the traditional dualist theory international lawyers use to understand treaties and offering three new theoretical perspectives (ie viewing the treaty as icon, text, and progeny). In Chapter 20—​The Interpretation of Treaties over Time, Eirik Bjorge and Robert Kolb examine whether and how interpreters should give meaning to treaty terms where they mean one thing at the time of their formation and another when the interpreter is called to examine them. Meanwhile, two other new chapters examine the treaty through a more critical lens. As noted, Chapter 3—​Alternatives to Treaty-​Making -​Informal Agreements sees Timothy Meyer explain the range of informal agreements now in use and why they remain so popular. In Chapter 4—​Compliance or Effectiveness? Assessing the Reach (and Limits) of Treaty-​Making, Lisa Martin critiques past studies of treaty compliance for missing the larger issue of treaty effectiveness (while offering some practical tips on how to reorient treaties to be more effective). Three other chapters feature new (or different) authors. Carlos Iván Fuentes and Santiago Villalpando wrote Chapter 9—​Making the Treaty; Danae Azaria authored Chapter 10—​ Provisional Application of Treaties; and Arancha Hinojal-​Oyarbide has now become the sole author of Chapter 11—​Managing the Process of Treaty Formation: Depositaries and Registration.26 These contributors crafted their chapter’s contents to accommodate all the current theories, doctrine, and practice relating to their subject matter. Moreover, all of the other chapter contributors have taken the time and effort to fully revise and update their chapters to incorporate developments since the first edition’s publication in 2012. Further details on the volume’s aims and structure are detailed in the Introduction that follows. For now, it is enough to note that The Oxford Guide to Treaties aspires to offer readers a volume they can, like a Tale of Two Cities, return to again and again. It is comprehensive 26 It is with sadness that I note the passing of three of the first edition’s contributing authors: Anthony Aust, David Bederman, and Robert Dalton. Each made impressive contributions, not only to the first edition of the Oxford Guide to Treaties, but across the whole field of international law. I was particularly indebted to Bob Dalton in whose office at the State Department I first found my passion for treaty law and practice; he was a great mentor and colleague. For purposes of the second edition, I have dealt with these losses in different ways. Timothy Meyer authored an entirely new chapter on informal agreements that substitutes for Anthony Aust’s more narrowly focused chapter on MOUs. Danae Azaria authored her own chapter on the topic of provisional application in the spot previously occupied by Bob Dalton. I opted, however, not to include an updated version of David Bederman’s chapter on third party treaty rights and obligations. Interested readers should still be able to access the first edition’s contents in hard copy or on-​line. In addition, this edition no longer contains a separate chapter on treaty signature as that subject is now addressed in sufficient detail in the new version of Chapter 9.

Preface to the Second Edition  xi and quite detailed. It offers a complex and compelling image of the treaty concept, the relevant players, and the various ways treaties may operate in theory and practice. Ultimately, however, it leaves for future analysis (and perhaps some future third edition) an assessment of whether the treaty’s best days are now past, or whether they still await in the future that lies ahead. Duncan B Hollis (September 2019)

Acknowledgements This is a big book. It required a lot of helping hands to come to fruition both originally, and in this, its second edition. I must first and foremost thank my wife Emily, not just for putting up with my long hours toiling away editing all the chapters (twice!), looking at treaty clauses, and drafting my own contributions, but for how much good advice she offered along the way. Similar suffering was endured by my three children, Bram, Maggie, and Arlo, who may have offered less in the way of advice, but inspired me nonetheless with their boundless energy and enthusiasm. I am deeply indebted to John Louth, who guided this project from the start and Merel Alstein who led the effort on this second edition. This book would quite literally not exist without their support and assistance. Similar gratitude goes to the other OUP editors, Jack McNichol, Anthony Hinton, and Briony Ryles for dealing with my sundry questions, delays, and many of the important details that made this idea into a reality. Here at Temple, the Oxford Guide to Treaties has had its own research team of student assistants and graduate fellows. In the last few months, Michael DiPietro, Michael Giordano, David Holmes, Kyle Offenbecher, Miguel Surun, and Corrine Zucker have put in long hours of research and editorial assistance in an effort to have this second edition achieve the rare feat of a sequel that outshines the original. I am so grateful for all their work and input. They were supported in this effort by Kenneth Cramer-​Cohen and Jillian Tadrzynski. At the same time, I must reiterate my thanks to Sarah Happy, Ed Shirreffs, Melissa Mazur, Emma Tuohy, Mary Topper, and Jessica Winchell for all their work ensuring the first edition came into being. They were aided in that effort by earlier contributions from Heather Bourne, Kashish Chopra, John Holovrat, Will Hummel, and last, but certainly not least, Dan Tyman. I must also thank my colleague, office-​mate, and friend, Jeff Dunoff, who provided a nearly constant stream of advice and generous counsel on the framework for the book as well as my chapter and other contributions to it. Finally, I must extend my sincere thanks to those others who have joined me on this journey. I am so honoured to have many of the world’s leading treaty lawyers accept my invitation, whether for the first or second time, and contribute their extensive expertise to the volume. The Oxford Guide to Treaties would not exist without their willingness to take the time to craft works of such relevance, interest, and insight. Of course, I should emphasize, as some of the authors themselves do, I invited them to write in their individual capacities. None of the chapters should be read to represent the views of any government, international organization, or tribunal with which a contributor may currently or previously have an association.

Contents Table of Cases Table of Instruments List of Abbreviations List of Contributors

xix xxxiii lxv lxix

Introduction Duncan B Hollis

1

PA RT I :   F O U N DAT IO NA L I S SU E S 1. Defining Treaties Duncan B Hollis

11

2. Current Theorizations about the Treaty in International Law Jean d’Aspremont

46

3. Alternatives to Treaty-​Making—​Informal Agreements Timothy Meyer

59

4. Compliance or Effectiveness? Assessing the Reach (and Limits) of Treaty-​Making Lisa L Martin

82

PA RT I I :   T H E T R E AT Y- M ​ AKERS 5. Who Can Make Treaties? International Organizations Olufemi Elias

97

6. Who Can Make Treaties? The European Union Marise Cremona

117

7. Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects of International Law Tom Grant

150

8. NGOs in International Treaty-​Making Kal Raustiala

173

PA RT I I I :   T R E AT Y F O R M AT IO N 9. Making the Treaty Carlos Iván Fuentes and Santiago Villalpando

201

10. Provisional Application of Treaties Danae Azaria

229

xvi Contents

11. Managing the Process of Treaty Formation: Depositaries and Registration Arancha Hinojal-​Oyarbide

258

12. Treaty Reservations Edward T Swaine

285

PA RT I V:   T R E AT Y A P P L IC AT IO N 13. The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory Syméon Karagiannis

309

14. Treaty Amendments Jutta Brunnée

336

15. Domestic Application of Treaties David L Sloss

355

16. State Succession in Respect of Treaty Relationships Gerhard Hafner and Gregor Novak

383

17. Treaty Bodies and Regimes Geir Ulfstein

414

18. Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation Christopher J Borgen

432

PA RT V:   T R E AT Y I N T E R P R E TAT IO N 19. The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation Richard Gardiner

459

20. The Interpretation of Treaties over Time Eirik Bjorge and Robert Kolb

489

21. Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights Başak Çalı

504

22. Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: International Organizations Catherine Brölmann

524

PA RT V I :   AVO I D I N G O R E X I T I N G T R E AT Y C OM M I T M E N T S 23. The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties Jan Klabbers

545

24. Reacting against Treaty Breaches Bruno Simma and Christian J Tams

568

25. Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments Malgosia Fitzmaurice

595

26. Terminating Treaties Laurence R Helfer

624

Contents  xvii

PA RT V I I :   T R E AT Y C L AU SE S A N D I N S T RUM E N T S Initial Decisions on Treaty-​Making 1. Distinguishing Treaties from Political Commitments 2. Object and Purpose 3. Participation Conditions for States 4. Participation Conditions for Non-​State Actors 5. NGO Involvement

645 645 647 651 656 665

Conditions on Joining a Treaty 6. Consent to be Bound 7. Reservations 8. Declarations and Notifications

669 669 677 684

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination 9. Languages 10. Annexes 11. Entry into Force 12. The Depositary

690 690 693 695 702

Applying the Treaty 13. Provisional Application 14. Territorial and Extraterritorial Application 15. Federal States 16. Third Party Rights and Obligations 17. Relationships to Other Treaties 18. Derogations 19. Dispute Settlement

705 705 710 716 720 724 732 736

Amendments 20. Standard Amendment Procedures 21. Simplified Amendment Procedures

743 743 750

The End of Treaty Relations 22. Withdrawal or Denunciation 23. Suspension 24. Duration and Termination

762 762 767 769

Index

775

Table of Cases Note: For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES’ RIGHTS The Beneficiaries of the Late Norbert Zongo, Abdoulaye Nikiema alias Abiasse, Ernest Zongo and Blaise Ilboudo and the Burkinabe Movement on Human and Peoples’ Rights v Burkina Faso (App No 013/​2011) ACHPR 28 March 2014����������������������������������������������������� 515–​16 Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group (on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council) v Kenya (App No 276/​03) ACHPR 25 November 2009������� 515–​16 Ingabire v Rwanda, App No 003/​2014, ACtHPR (5 September 2016)��������������������������������������������������631 The Social-​Economic Rights Action Centre and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights/​Nigeria Decision on Communication No 155/​96 (2001) ������������������������������� 512–​13 ARBITRATION COMMISSION OF THE CONFERENCE ON YUGOSLAVIA (BADINTER COMMISSION) Opinion No 1, 29 November 1991 [1992] 31 ILM 1494–​7 ������������������������������������������������������������� 386–​87 Opinion No 3 [1992] 31 ILM 1499������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������405 Opinion No 4 (1993) 4 EJIL 74������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������403 Opinion No 6 (1993) 4 EJIL 77������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������403 Opinion No 7 (1993) 4 EJIL 80������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������403 Opinion No 10 (1993) 4 EJIL 90����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������403 ARBITRATION TRIBUNAL FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE MARITIME BOUNDARY BETWEEN GUINEA-​B ISSAU AND SENEGAL Award of 31 July 1989 (1992) RGDIP 265���������������������������������������������������������������������������386–​87,  555–​56 Australia Al-​Kateb v Godwin [2004] HCA 37��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 372–​73 Hempel and Another v Attorney-​General (Judgment) (1987) 87 ILR (Australian Federal Court)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 574–​75 Koowarta v Bjelke-​Peterson & Others; State of Queensland v Commonwealth of Australia (1982) 68 ILR 238��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������152 Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23, (1992) 175 CLR 1 (High Court of Australia)���������157–​58,  368 Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh (1995) 128 ALR 353����������������������� 359–​60 Morrison v Peacock [2002] HCA 44�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Auth (1998) 153 ALR 490����������������������������������� 358–​59 Austria Swiss–​Austrian dispute relating to the right to acquire real property under a Treaty of Establishment of 1875������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������576 Belgium-​Netherlands Iron Rhine Railway Line Arbitral Tribunal Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway (Belgium/​Netherlands) (2005) XXVII RIAA������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 20, 66, 75, 81, 477, 496

xx  Table of Cases Canada Attorney-​General for Canada v Attorney-​General for Ontario and Others [1937] AC 326 (Labour Conventions Case) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������169 Baker v Canada [1999] 2 SCR 817 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 359–​60 Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v Canada (Attorney General) [2004] 1 SCR 76 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Château-​Gai Wines Ltd v Attorney General of Canada [1970] Ex CR 366����������������������������������� 370–​71 Connaught Laboratories Ltd v British Airways (2002) 61 OR (3d) 2004 (Ont. SCJ)������������������� 369–​70 Haida Nation v British Columbia (Minister of Forests) [2004] 3 SCR 511, [2004] SCC 73��������� 157–​58 Mugesera v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2005] 2 SCR 91����������������������� 369–​70 National Corn Growers Association v Canada [1990] 2 SCR 1324 ����������������������������������������������� 368–​69 Pan American World Airways v The Queen [1981] 2 SCR 565������������������������������������������������������� 358–​59 Pushpanathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [1998] 1 SCR 982�������369,  370–​71 R v Hape [2007] SCC 26��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 368,  372–​73 Schavernoch v Foreign Claims Commission [1982] 1 SCR 1092��������������������������������������������������� 358–​59 Central American Court of Justice San Juan River (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) reprinted in (1917) 11 AJIL 181 ������������������������������������������448 Cyprus Malachtou v Armefti and Armefti (Judgment of the Cyprus Supreme Court of 20 January 1987) (1992) 88 ILR 199��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������576 Dubai-​Sharjah Court of Arbitration Dubai-​Sharjah Border Arbitration (1981) 91 ILR 543����������������������������������������������������������������������������562 Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission Delimitation of the Border between Eritrea and Ethiopia (2002) 130 ILR 1����������������������������������������489 Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission Partial Award, Prisoners of War, Ethiopia’s Claim 4 (The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia v The State of Eritrea), The Hague, 1 July 2003������������������������������������������������������������409 European Commission of Human Rights George Vearncombe and Others v United Kingdom and Federal Republic of Germany (App no 12816/​87) (1989) 59 DR 186 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������331 Ireland v United Kingdom (1976) 19 Ybk 512 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������510 Tyrer v United Kingdom (App no 5856/​72) (1978) Series A no 26 (1978) 2 EHRR 1 ���������������� 315–​16, 497, 503, 512–​13 Wiggins v United Kingdom (App no 7456/​76) (1978) 13 DR 40 ��������������������������������������������������� 313–​14 X v United Kingdom (App no 8873/​80) (1982) 28 DR 99��������������������������������������������������������������� 313–​14 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) Airey v Ireland (App no 6289/​73) (1981) 3 EHRR 305����������������������������������������������������������������������������513 Akdivar v Turkey (App no 21893/​93) 30 August 1996��������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 Al-​Adsani v United Kingdom (App no 35763/​97) (2001) 34 EHRR 273�����������������������516–​17, 564, 566 Al Dulimi and Montana Management v Switzerland (Grand Chamber) (App No 5809/​08) ECHR 21 June 2016������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 Al-​Skeini and Others v UK (App no 55721/​07) ECHR 7 July 2011 ���������������� 332–​33, 334, 518, 519–​20 Andrajeva v Latvia (App no 55707/​00) ECHR 18 February 2009��������������������������������������������������� 516–​17 Appleby and others v United Kingdom (App no 44306/​98) ECHR 6 May 2003����������������������������������509 Assanidze v Georgia (App No 71503/​01) ECtHR 2004-​II 221, §141����������������������������������������������������320 Austria v Italy (App 788/​60) (1961) 4 Yearbook 116 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������581

Table of Cases  xxi Banković and others v Belgium and 16 other NATO States (App no 52207/​99) ECHR 12 December 2001������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 332–​33, 499,  511–​12 Bayatyan v Armenia (Grand Chamber) (App No 23459/​03) ECHR 7 July 2011 ������������������������� 515–​16 Behrami v France and Saramati v France (Joined App nos 71412/​01 and 78166/​01) (2007) 45 EHRR 85������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������435 Belilos v Switzerland (App no 10328/​83) ECHR 29 April 1988, reprinted in (1998) 10 EHRR 466����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������301 Ben El Mahi and Others v Denmark (App no 5853/​06) ECHR 2006-​XV��������������������������������������������333 Cakici v Turkey (App no 23657/​94) ECHR 8 July 1999��������������������������������������������������������������������������510 Catan and others v Moldova and Russia (App No 43370/​04) ECtHR 19 October 2012, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2012:1019JUD004337004 [110] ��������������������������������������������������������������������������331 Chapin and Charpentier v France (App No 40183/​07) ECHR 9 July 2016������������������������������������������515 Chassagnou and others v France (App nos 25088/​94, 28331/​95, 28443/​95) (1999) 29 EHRR 615 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 512–​13 Christine Goodwin v United Kingdom (Grand Chamber) (App No 28957/​95) ECHR 11 July 2002����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 515–​16 Cyprus v Turkey (App no 25781/​94) (2001) ECHR 2001-​IV ��������������������������������������������������������� 332–​33 Demir Baykara v Turkey (Grand Chamber) (App No 34503/​97) ECHR 12 November 2008������� 515–​16 Golder v United Kingdom (App no 4451/​70) Series A No 18 (1975) 1 EHRR ������ 507, 511–​12,  516–​17 Hassan v United Kingdom (App No 29750/​09) ECtHR 16 September 2014, §131, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2014:0916JUD002975009.����������������������������������������330–​31, 507, 517–​18,  519–​20 Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy (App no 27765/​09) ECHR 23 February 2012��������������������������������������330 Ilaşcu and Others v Moldova and Russia (App no 48787/​99) ECHR 2004-​VII ����������������������������������331 Issa and Others v Turkey (App no 31821/​96) ECHR 16 November 2004 ������������������������������������� 332–​33 Ivanţoc and Others v Moldova and Russia (App No 23687/​05) ECtHR 2011, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2011:1115JUD002368705 [109] ��������������������������������������������������������������������������331 Jaloud v Netherlands (App No 47708/​08) ECtHR 20 November 2014 [143] ��������������������������������������334 Johnston v Ireland (App no 9697/​82) (1986) 89 ILR 174 [53]����������������������������������������������������������������499 Jones and others v. United Kingdom (App Nos 34356/​06 and 40528/​06) ECHR 14 January 2014 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 519–​20 Konig v Germany (App no 6232/​73) ECHR 28 June 1978����������������������������������������������������������������������518 Loizidou v Turkey (Preliminary Objections) (1995) 20 EHRR 99���������������������������������������� 287–​89, 324, 332–​33, 334, 512–​13, 518 Loizidou v Turkey (Merits) (App No 15318/​89) 23 EHRR 513����������������������������������������������� 511–​12,  515 M v Denmark (App No 17392/​90) ECtHR 14 October 1992, 73 DR 193, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1992:1014DEC001739290������������������������������������������������������������������������������������334 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v Hungary (App no 18030/​11) (2016) ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:1108 JUD001803011. ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������497–​98,  500–​1 Mamatkulov and Askarov v Turkey (App Nos 46827/​99 and 46951/​99) ECHR 4 February 2005��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 512–​13 Marković and Others v Italy (App no 1398/​03) ECHR 2006-​XIV������������������������������������������������� 332–​33 Matthews v UK (App No 24833/​94) (1999) ECtHR 1999-​I������������������������������������������������������������� 315–​16 Medvedyev and Others v France (App no 3394/​03) ECHR 29 March 2010 ����������������������������������������330 Nait Liman v Switzerland (Grand Chamber) (App No 51357/​07) ECHR 14 March 2018����������� 515–​16 National Union of Belgian Police v. Belgium (App no 4464/​70) [1975] ECHR 2 (27 October 1975) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 492–​93 National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers v The United Kingdom (App No 31045/​10) ECHR 8 April 2014 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 ND and NT v Spain (App Nos 8675/​15 and 8697/​15) ECHR 3 October 2017 ������������������������������������509 Opuz v Turkey (App no 33401/​02) ECHR 9 June 2009 ������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 Piermont v France (App No 15773/​89) (1995) ECtHR Series A No 314��������������������������������������� 315–​16 PJSC Rosneft Oil Company v Her Majesty’s Treasury and Others [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:236������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132–​33 Py v France (App no 66289/​01) ECHR 2005-​I 311��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 315–​16 Quark Fishing Ltd v UK (App No 15305/​06) ECtHR 2006 ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:0919DEC001530506����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 313–​14

xxii  Table of Cases Rantsev v Cyprus and Russia (App No 25965/​04) 51 EHRR 1 7 January 2010������������������������������������507 Selmouni v France (App no 25803/​94) (1999) 29 EHRR 32 ����������������������������������������������������������� 512–​13 Soering v United Kingdom (App no 14038/​88) (1989) 11 EHRR 439����������������������������������� 510,  517–​18 Varnava and Others v Turkey (Grand Chamber) (App No 16064/​90) ECHR 18 September 2009����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 519–​20 Wemhoff v Germany (App no 2122/​64) Series A No 7 (1968) 1 EHRR 55 ����������������������������������486, 514 Witold Litwa v Poland (App no 26629/​95) ECHR Judgment of 4 April 2000��������������������������������������484 European Court of Justice (ECJ)/​Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Administration des Douanes et Droits Indirects v Léopold Legros Case C-​163/​90 [1992] ECR I-​04625����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������317 Air Transport Association of America and Others Case C-​366/​10, 6 October 2011������������������� 132–​33 Attorney General v Burgoa Case 812/​79 [1980] ECR 2787��������������������������������������������������������������������140 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret AS v Ministry of Transport, Energy and Communications Case C-​84/​95 [1996] ECR I-​3953����������������������������������������������������������������������122 Brita Gmbh v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-​Hafen Case C-​386/​08 [2010] OJ C100/​4; [2010] ECR I-​10289������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 135,  168–​69 Budějovický Budvar, národní podnik v Rudolf Ammersin GmbH (Opinion of Advocate General Tizzano) ECR 2003 I-​13617 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������402 Commission v Austria Case C-​205/​06 [2009] ECR I-​01301������������������������������������������������������������������140 Commission v Austria Case C-​475/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9797������������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v Belgium Case C-​471/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9681����������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v Council Case 22/​70 [1971] ECR 263 (ERTA case)������������������������������������������������� 120–​22 Commission v Council Case 45/​86 [1987] ECR 1493��������������������������������������������������������������������122, 130 Commission v Council Case C-​94/​03 [2006] ECR I-​1����������������������������������������������������������������������������125 Commission v Council Case C-​281/​01 [2002] ECR I-​12049 ��������������������������������������������������������122, 130 Commission v Council Case C-​137/​12 [2013] ECLI:EU:C:2013:675 ��������������������������������������������������126 Commission v Council Case C-​114/​12 [2014] ECLI:EU:2014:2151��������������������������������������������� 137–​38 Commission v Council Case C-​425/​13 [2015] ECLI:EU:C:2015:483 ������������������������������������������� 126–​27 Commission v Council Case C-​28/​12 [2015] ECLI:EU:2015:43 ��������������������������������������������������� 128–​29 Commission v Council Case C-​244/​17 [2018] ECLI:EU:C:2018:662 ����������������������������������� 125,  127–​28 Commission v Denmark Case C-​467/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9515��������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v European Parliament and Council Case C-​178/​03 [2006] ECR I-​107������������������������125 Commission v European Parliament and Council Case C-​411/​06 [2009] ECR I-​7585����������������������125 Commission v Finland Case C-​118/​07 [2009] ECR I-​10889������������������������������������������������������������������140 Commission v Finland Case C-​469/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9627������������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v France Case C-​239/​03 [2004] ECR I-​9325��������������������������������������� 133–​34, 135–​36,  146 Commission v Germany Case C-​476/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9855�������������������������������������������136–​37,  138–​39 Commission v Germany Case C-​61/​94 [1996] ECR I-​3989 ����������������������������������������������������������� 132–​34 Commission v Greece Case C-​45/​07 [2009] ECR I-​701 ��������������������������������������������������������� 130–​31,  144 Commission v Ireland Case C-​13/​00 [2002] ECR I-​2943��������������������������������������������������������������� 133–​34 Commission v Ireland Case C-​459/​03 [2006] ECR I-​4635 (Mox Plant case)���������������134, 135–​36, 146 Commission v Luxembourg Case C-​472/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9741��������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v Portugal Case C-​62/​98 [2000] ECR I-​5171��������������������������������������������������������������������140 Commission v Sweden Case C-​246/​07 [2010] ECR I-​3317��������������������������������������������������������������������136 Commission v Sweden Case C-​249/​06 [2009] ECR I-​01335������������������������������������������������������������������140 Commission v Sweden Case C-​468/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9575������������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Commission v UK Case C-​466/​98 [2002] ECR I-​9427 ������������������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Costa v ENEL Case 6/​64 [1964] ECR 585 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 120–​21 Demirel v Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd Case 12/​86 [1987] ECR 3719����������������������������������������������122, 134 Deutscher Handballbund eV v Kolpak Case C-​438/​00 [2003] ECR I-​4135 ����������������������������������������135 El-​Yassini v Secretary of State for Home Department Case C-​416/​96 [1999] ECR I-​1209����������������135 European Parliament v Council Case C-​189/​97 [1999] ECR I-​4741����������������������������������������������������127 European Parliament v Council Case C-​316/​91 [1994] ECR I-​625��������������������������������������� 131–​32,  146 European Parliament v Council Joined Cases C-​317/​04 and C-​318/​04 [2006] ECR I-​4721 (PNR case)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 124, 125, 130, 143 European Parliament v Council Case C-​658/​11 [2014] ECLI EU:C:2014:2025��������������������������� 127–​28

Table of Cases  xxiii European Parliament v Council Case C-​263/​14 [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:435����������������������������� 127–​28 France v Commission Case C-​327/​91 [1994] ECR I-​3641�������������107, 109–​10, 125, 126, 130, 533–​34, 556–​57 France v Commission Case C-​233/​02 [2004] ECJ ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26 Germany v Council Case C-​122/​95 [1998] ECR I-​973 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������130 Germany v Council Case C-​399/​12 [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2258������������������������������������������������������144 Giloy v Hauptzollamt Frankfurt am Main-​Ost Case C-​130/​95 [1997] ECR I-​4291����������������������������136 Gottardo v Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale Case C-​55/​00 [2002] ECR I-​413������������� 138–​39 Haegeman v Belgium Case 181/​73 [1974] ECR 449������������������������������������������������������������������������� 132–​33 Hauptzollampt Mainz v Kupferberg Case 104/​81 [1982] ECR 3641 �������������� 133, 134–​35, 143–​44, 146 Hermès International v FHT Marketing Choice BV Case C-​53/​96 [1998] ECR I-​3603 ����� 136,  144–​45 Internationale Handelsgesellschaft Case 11/​70 [1970] ECR 1125 ��������������������������������������������������������374 Jany v Staatssecretaris van Justitie Case C-​268/​99 [2001] ECR I-​8615����������������������������������� 135,  168–​69 Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P [Grand Chamber, 2008] ECR I-​06531�������������������������� 132–​33, 140, 147–​48, 436, 519, 535, 549 Kadi, Yassin Abdullah v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Union Case T-​315/​01 (21 Sept 2005) [2005] ECR II-​3649 (‘Kadi I CFI’)������������519, 535 Land Nordrhein-​Westfalen v Pokrzeptowicz-​Meyer Case C-​162/​00 [2002] ECR I-​1049����������� 134–​35 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK v Ministerstvo životného prostredia Slovenskej republiky Case C-​240/​09 [2011] OJ C130/​4 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 134–​36 Merck Genéricos-​Produtos Farmacêuticos Lda v Merck & Co Inc Case C-​431/​05 [2007] ECR I-​7001����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 135–​36 Netherlands v Council Case C-​377/​98 [2001] ECR I-​7079������������������������������������������������������������� 132–​33 Office national de l’emploi v Kziber Case C-​18/​90 [1991] ECR I-​199 ������������������������������������������� 134–​35 Opinion 1/​00 [2002] ECR I-​3493��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������129 Opinion 1/​03 [2006] ECR I-​1145�����������������������������������������������������������������������121, 122, 124, 129, 136–​37 Opinion 1/​08 [2009] ECR I-​11129����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������126, 129 Opinion 1/​09 on the draft agreement establishing a European Patent Court [2011] OJ C211/​28��������� 129 Opinion 1/​13 [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2303�������������������������������������������������������������� 129, 130–​31,  136–​38 Opinion 1/​15 on the draft agreement between Canada and the European Union on the Transfer of Passenger Name Record Data [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:592��������������������������������������129 Opinion 1/​75 [1975] ECR 1355���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������128–​29,  136–​37 Opinion 1/​76 [1977] ECR 741������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������121, 129 Opinion 1/​78 [1979] ECR 2871����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������122, 129 Opinion 1/​91 on the European Economic Area agreement [1991] ECR I-​6079�������������������������� 117–​18, 129, 135, 533–​34 Opinion 1/​92 [1992] ECR I-​2821��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������129 Opinion 1/​94 [1994] ECR I-​5267�������������������������������������������������������� 121, 122–​23, 124, 126, 129, 533–​34 Opinion 2/​00 [2001] ECR I-​9713��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 125, 126, 129 Opinion 2/​13 [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2454���������������������������������������������������������������������126–​27, 129, 134 Opinion 2/​15 [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:376 [239]-​[240] ���������������������������������� 121–​22, 123–​24, 129, 138 Opinion 2/​91 [1993] ECR I-​1061���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������121–​22, 129, 131 Opinion 2/​94 on the possibility of EU accession to the ECtHR [1996] ECR I-​1759���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 109, 122–​23, 129, 147–​48 Opinion 3/​15 [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:114��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 137–​38 Opinion 3/​94 [1995] ECR I-​4577������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������129, 130 Parfums Christian Dior SA v TUK Consultancy BV Joined Cases C-​300/​98 and C-​392/​98 [2000] ECR I-​11307��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 134–​35 Polydor Ltd v Harlequin Records Shops Ltd Case 270/​80 [1982] ECR 329��������������������������� 135,  533–​34 Portugal v Council Case C-​149/​96 [1999] ECR I-​8395�����������������������������������������������������132–​33,  134–​35 Portugal v Council Case C-​268/​94 [1996] ECR I-​6177��������������������������������������������������������������������������130 R v Department for Transport Case C-​344/​04 [2006] ECR I-​403��������������������������������������������������� 132–​33 R v HM Treasury and Bank of England Ex p Centro-​Com Case C-​124/​95 [1997] ECR I-​81 ������� 122, 140 R v Secretary of State for the Home Dept, ex p Barkoci and Malik Case C-​257/​99 [2001] ECR I-​6557����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 134–​35 R v Secretary of State for Transport Case C-​308/​06 [2008] ECR I-​4057 ��������������������������������������� 132–​33 Racke GmbH & Co v Hauptzollamt Mainz Case C-​162/​96 [1998] ECR I-​3655 ���������������� 127–​28, 324, 553, 584, 607–​9, 611

xxiv  Table of Cases Région Wallonne v Commission Case C-​95/​97 [1997] ECR I-​1787 ��������������������������������������������� 153–​54 Regione Siciliana v Commission of the European Communities Case C-​417/​04P [2006] ECR I-​03881����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������169 Regione Toscana v Commission Case C-​180/​97 [1997] ECR I-​5245��������������������������������������������� 153–​54 S Z Sevince v Staatssecretaris van Justitie Case C-​192/​89 [1990] ECR I-​3461������������������������������ 134–​35 Saint-​Gobain v Finanzamt Aachen-​Innenstadt Case C-​307/​97 [1999] ECR I-​6161������������������� 138–​39 Slovak Republic v Achmea BV, C-​284-​16 (6 March 2018)��������������������������������������������������������������436, 637 Simutenkov v Ministerio de Educación y Cultura Case C-​265/​03 [2005] ECR I-​2579 ��������������� 134–​35 Soysal v Germany Case C-​228/​06 [2009] ECR I-​01031������������������������������������������������������������������� 134–​35 Syndicat professionnel coordination des pêcheurs de l’étang de Berre v Électricité de France Case C-​213/​03 [2004] ECR I-​07357 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 134–​35 The Queen, on the application of Western Sahara Campaign UK v. Commissioners for her Majesty’s Revenue and customs and others Case C-​266/​16 [2018] ECLI:EU:C:2018:118.��������129 Wightman v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2018] C-​621/​18, EU:C:2018:999����������627 Yusuf & Al Barakaat Case T-​306/​01 [2005] ECR II-​3533�����������������������������������������������������������������������519 France The Court de cassation (France) case of 28 Feb. 2017 regarding the Treaty of Turin of 24 March 1860, the lack of registration of which the court judged not relevant to the effectiveness of the territorial settlement in respect of Savoy: reported at (2017) 63 AFDI 781.��������������������������169 Vigoureux v Comité des Obligataires Danube-​Save-​Adriatique (Tribunal Civil de la Seine) (12 December 1951) 18 ILR 1������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������167 Geneva Tribunal Yukos Capital SARL v Russian Federation, UNCITRAL (Geneva Tribunal)��������������������������������������255 Germany BVerfG, 2 BvR 1481/​04 of 14 October 2004������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 370–​71,  374 BVerfGE 111 307 (2004) (Görgülü), English tr BVerfG, 2 BvR 1481/​04 of 14 October 2004���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​71, 372–​73,  374 BVerfGE 74, 358������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������368 Internationale Handelgesellschaft mbH v Einfuhrund Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel (1974) BverfGE 37, 271, trans in [1974] 2 CML Rev 540������������������������������������������150 Ghana Banful v Attorney General, J1/​7/​2016 [2017] GHASC 10 (Ghana, 22 June 2017) ������������������������������556 India Basu v State of West Bengal [1997] 2 LRC 1����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������371 Dadu alias Tulsidas v State of Maharashtra Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Criminal) 169 of 1999, 12 October 2000 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������369 Jolly George Verhese v Bank of Cochin [1980] 2 SCR 913������������������������������������������������������� 359–​60,  368 MV Elisabeth v Harwan Investment and Trading Pvt Ltd [1992] 1 SCR 1003������������������������������� 359–​60 Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh v Ch Prabhakar Supreme Court of India, Civil Appeal 6131 of 2002, 26 May 2004 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 359–​60 Visaka v State of Rajasthan [1997] 3 LRC �������������������������������������������������������������������������369–​70, 371, 372 Inter-​American Commission of Human Rights Roodal v Trinidad and Tobago, Case 12.342, Inter-​Am Comm’n HR 89, OEA/​ser L/​V/​II114, doc 5 rev (2001) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������631 Inter-​American Court of Human Rights 19 Tradesmen v Colombia (5 July 2004) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 109���������514

Table of Cases  xxv Atala Riffo and Daughters v Chile (24 February 2012) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 239������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 512–​13,  515 Atasoy and Sarkut v Turkey, HRC Communication Nos 1853/​2008 and 1854/​2008 (29 March 2012) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​104/​D/​1854-​1854/​2008��������������������������������������������������������515 Case of Artavia Murillo and others (In Vitro Fertilization) v Costa Rica (Preliminary exceptions, Merits, Reparations, and Costs) (28 November 2012) Inter American Court of Human Rights Series C No 257����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 515–​16 Case of Bámaca-​Velasques v Guatemala Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 70 (25 November 2000) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 Case of the Mapiripan Massacre v Colombia Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 134 (15 September 2005) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 512–​13 Case of the Rochela Massacre v Colombia Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 163 (11 May 2007)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������509 Escher v Brazil (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs) (2009) 25 Inter-​American Ybk H Rts, vol II [219]������������������������������������������������������������������� 320–​21 Garrido v Argentina (1998) 4 Inter-​American Ybk H Rts 3473����������������������������������������������������� 320–​21 Gomes-​Lund et al (Guerrilha do Araguaia) v Brazil (24 November 2010) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 219����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 Ituango Massacres v Colombia (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs) (1 July 2006) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 148������������������������������� 517–​18 Juridical Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (Advisory Opinion) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 18 (17 September 2003)������������������� 512–​13 Proposed Amendments to the Naturalization Provisions of the Constitution of Costa Rica (Advisory Opinion) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 4 (19 January 1984) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������515 Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process Law (Advisory Opinion) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 16 (1 October 1999) ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������512–​13,  516–​17 Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v Paraguay Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 146 (29 March 2006)������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������519 State Obligations Concerning Change of Name, Gender Identity and Rights Derived From a Relationship Between Same Sex Couples (Interpretation and Scope of Articles 1(1), 3, 7, 11 (2), 13, 17, 18 and 24, in Relation to Article 1 of the Inter American Convention on Human Rights) (Advisory Opinion) OC-​24/​17 Inter American Court of Human Rights Series A No 24��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������514 Velasquez Rodriguez v Honduras Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 4 (29 July 1988) ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 517–​18 International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ACP Axos Capital GmbH v Republic of Kosovo (Award) (3 May 2018) ICSID Case No ARB/​15/​22 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������162 CMS Gas Transmission Company v Argentine Republic (Award) (2005) ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​8 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������617, 732 Daimler Financial Services AG v Argentine Republic, ICSID Case No. ARB/​05/​01��������������������������492 Enron Corporation Ponderosa Asset v Argentine Republic (Decision on Liability) (2006) ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​3����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������617, 732 Kardassopoulos v Georgia (Decision on Jurisdiction) (2007) ICSID Case No ARB/​05/​18���������239–​40,  246 LG&E Energy Corp v Argentine Republic (Decision on Liability) (2006) ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​1 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������732 Maffezini v Kingdom of Spain (2000) 124 ILR 1������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 497–​98 Pac Rim Cayman LLC v Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No ARB/​09/​12 (CAFTA) ����������� 477–​78 Sempra Energy Int’l v Argentine Republic (2005) ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​16 ��������������������� 41–​42,  617 SGS Société Générale de Surveillance SA v Republic of the Philippines ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​6 (29 January 2004) 8 ICSID Rep 515��������������������������������������������������������������������������168 SGS v Pakistan (5 May 2004) 8 ICSID Rep 451����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������168 SPP (ME) v Egypt (1994) ICSID Case No ARB/​84/​3, 19 Ybk Commercial Arbitration 51����������������444

xxvi  Table of Cases Tradex Hellas SA v Republic of Albania ICSID Case No ARB/​94/​2 (24 December 1996) 5 ICSID Rep 43������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������167 Zhinvali v Georgia ICSID Case No ARB/​00/​1 (24 January 2003) 10 ICSID Rep 3������������������������������167 International Court of Justice (ICJ) Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo (Advisory Proceedings) (Kosovo Advisory Opinion)��������������������������150, 162, 164–​65, 403 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v Turkey) [1978] ICJ Rep 3 ������������������������ 21, 26, 27, 28, 47–​48, 51, 233, 239, 494, 495–​96 Ambatielos Claim (Greece v United Kingdom) [1952] ICJ Rep 28 ������������47–​48, 493–​94, 497–​98,  528 Anglo-​Iranian Oil Co (United Kingdom v Iran) (Judgment) [1952] ICJ Rep 104��������������� 326–​27,  528 Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council (India v Pakistan) [1972] ICJ Pleadings 422����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 577–​78,  590 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v Serbia) Judgment (Preliminary Objections) [2008] ICJ Rep 412��������������������������������408 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v Serbia) Judgment [2015] ICJ Rep 3 ��������������������������������������������������������������408 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Provisional Measures) (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) [1993] ICJ Rep 3�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������403, 549–​50, 566 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Preliminary Objections) (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) [1996] ICJ Rep 595������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������408 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) [2007] ICJ Rep 43����������������������������� 500,  568–​69 Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia v Greece) (Judgment of 5 December 2011) [2011] ICJ Rep 644����������������������������171 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgium v Spain) (Merits) [1970] ICJ Rep 32������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������583, 591 Border and Transborder Armed Actions (Nicaragua v Honduras) [1988] ICJ Rep 69 ����������������������486 Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of Congo) [2010] ICJ Rep 639��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 426,  520–​21 Case concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Provisional Measures) (Georgia v Russian Federation) [2008] ICJ Rep 353 (15 Oct)������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 246–​47 Case concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation) [2011] ICJ Rep 70����������� 428–​29 Case concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Uganda) [2005] ICJ Rep 168����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������518 Case concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Uganda) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [2006] ICJ Rep 6 (Feb 3) �������������������������������������������������������������������������������33–​34, 291, 294, 563, 584 Case concerning Elettronica Sicula SpA (ELSI) (USA v Italy) [1989] ICJ Rep 15�������������������������������486 Case concerning Legality of Use of Force (Provisional Measures) (Yugoslavia v United States) [1999] ICJ Rep 761������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������294 Case concerning Maritime Delimitation between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v Honduras) [2007] ICJ Rep 659����������������������������������������������������������������������������283 Case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v USA) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1984] ICJ Rep 392����������������������31, 486, 529 Case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v USA) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 65 ������������������������������33–​34, 48–​49, 333, 563, 575–​76 Case concerning Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libya v USA) (Provisional Measures) [1992] ICJ Rep 126 (‘Lockerbie case’)��������������������������������������� 442–​43,  535 Case concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Mali) (Judgment) [1986] ICJ Rep 554������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 33–​34, 385–​86, 405, 604

Table of Cases  xxvii Case concerning the Gabčíkovo-​Nagymaros Project (Hungary/​Slovakia) (Judgment) [1997] ICJ Rep 7�����������������������������������������������������405–​6, 568, 572–​74, 584, 586, 587, 588, 589, 596, 599–​601, 606–​7, 609–​10, 613, 614–​16, 617, 619, 620–​21, 622 Case concerning the Right of Passage over Indian Territories (Portugal v India) (Preliminary Objection) [1957] ICJ Rep 142 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������444 Case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v Thailand) (Merits) [1962] ICJ Rep 6������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 405,  557–​58 Case concerning United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (USA v Iran) [1980] ICJ Rep 3 (‘Tehran Hostages’)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������451, 590 Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1962] ICJ Rep 151����������������������103–​4, 527, 531, 532, 536, 537, 539, 549–​50 Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations [1950] ICJ Rep 7 (‘UN Admissions case’) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������531, 548 Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations (Article 4 of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1948] ICJ Rep 48��������������������������������������������������������������150, 529 Constitution of the Maritime Safety Committee of the Inter-​Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (Advisory Opinion) [1960] ICJ Rep 23 (‘IMCO case’)����� 529,  549–​50 Corfu Channel Case (United Kingdom v Albania) (Merits) [1949] ICJ Rep 4������������������������������������513 Difference relating to Immunity from Legal Process of a Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights [1999] ICJ Rep 62 ������������������������������������������������������������������������531 Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) ICJ Judgment of 13 July 2009 ���������������������������������������������������������������������478–​79, 482, 487, 492, 495 East Timor (Portugal v Australia) [1995] ICJ Rep 90������������������������������������������������������������������������������563 Effect of Awards of Compensation made by the UN Administrative Tribunal (Advisory Opinion) [1954] ICJ Rep 47��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 107, 419, 530 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (Federal Republic of Germany v Iceland) [1973] ICJ Rep 49����������605, 607 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (United Kingdom v Iceland) (Jurisdiction) [1973] ICJ Rep 4����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 605, 607, 611 Fisheries Jurisdiction (Spain v Canada) (Jurisdiction) [1998] ICJ Rep 453�������������������������������������������34 Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt (Advisory Opinion) [1980] ICJ Rep 89 (‘WHO Advisory Opinion’)������������������������������� 103–​4,  529 Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Belgium v Switzerland) ICJ Press Release 2009/​36������������������������������������������������������������������������365 Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy; Greece Intervening) Judgment [2012] ICJ Rep 99 (3 Feb) ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������520–​21,  564–​65 Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana v Namibia) [1999] ICJ Rep 1045�����������2, 21, 471, 475–​76, 479, 495–​96 LaGrand Case (Germany v USA) [2001] ICJ Rep 466���������������������������������������������485, 486, 500, 568–​69 Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria; Equitorial Guinea Intervening) [2002] ICJ Rep 249 ������������������������������������ 12, 28, 247–​48, 554–​56 Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador/​Honduras: Nicaragua intervening) [1992] ICJ Rep 351������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������493 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South-​West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (Advisory Opinion) [1971] ICJ Rep 16����������������������������������������������������� 491–​92, 494, 495–​96, 530, 531, 532, 548, 549–​50, 574–​75, 577–​78, 582–​83 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136������������������������������������������������������328–​29, 531–​32,  616–​17 Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 (Advisory Opinion) ICJ (25 Feb 2019) �������������������������������������������������������������� 163–​65, 171–​72,  563 Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (Request by WHO) (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 66 (‘WHO Legality case’)������������������������������������ 104, 193, 428, 450, 518, 527–​28, 530–​31, 549–​50, 563, 577–​78 Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112���������������������������������� 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31–​32, 51, 66, 75, 169, 203, 233, 246–​47, 282–​83, 484–​85 Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Judgment) [1995] ICJ Rep 6����������27

xxviii  Table of Cases Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya) (Judgment) [2017] ICJ Rep 3,��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������12, 27, 31–​32, 555–​56 North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Federal Republic of Germany v Denmark and Netherlands) (Judgment) [1969] ICJ Rep 3������������������������������������������������������������������������� 48–​49 Nuclear Tests (Australia/​New Zealand v France) [1974] ICJ Rep 267��������������������������������������33, 34, 236 Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v Chile) (Judgement) (1 Oct 2018) General List 153, 47������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 33–​34 Oil Platforms (Iran v USA) (Jurisdiction) [1996] ICJ Rep 803��������������������������������������������������������� 48–​49 Oil Platforms (Iran v USA) (Merits) [2003] ICJ Rep 161����������������������������������������������������������������483, 732 Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay) (Judgment, 20 April 2010) ICJ Rep 14����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 66, 75 Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 98, 99, 150, 419, 530 Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Advisory Opinion) [1951] ICJ Rep 15�������������������������������� 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 297, 449, 527 Rights of Nationals of the United States of America in Morocco (France v United States of America) [1952] ICJ Rep 176������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 495–​96 South West Africa (Ethiopia/​Liberia v South Africa) (Preliminary Objections) [1962] ICJ Rep 331��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������30, 99 Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/​Chad) [1994] ICJ Rep 6 ���������� 405, 440–​41, 480–​81, 528 Western Sahara (Advisory Opinion) [1975] ICJ Rep 12 ������������������������������������������������������������������������157 Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v Japan: New Zealand intervening) Judgment [2014] ICJ Rep 226������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������480 International Criminal Court Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorization of the Situation in the Republic of Burundi, ICC, 27 Oct 2017 (No. ICC-​01/​17-​X-​9-​US-​Exp)����������������������������631 The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-​Bashir, Judgment in the Jordan Referral re Al-​Bashir Appeal, ICC Appeals Chamber, 6 May 2019 (No. ICC-​02/​05-​01/​09 OA2)������������539 International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Čelebići Case (Prosecutor v Delacic et al) [2001] ICTY Case No IT-​96-​21-​A ������������������������������������408 Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic a/​k/​a ‘Dule’ (Decision on the Defense Motion for the Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction), 2 October 1995 ICTY Case No IT-​94-​1-​AR72��������������538 Prosecutor v Furundžija ICTY Case IT-​95-​17/​1 (1998) 121 ILR 213��������������������������������������������564, 566 Tadić (Judgment) ICTY-​1994-​1 (15 July 1999)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������333 International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh/​Myanmar) (Judgment, 14 March 2012) 2012 ITLOS Rep 4��������������������������������������������������������������������������21, 28 Israel Abu Dahar v IDF Commander HCJ 7862/​04, 59 P.D. (5) 368��������������������������������������������������������� 359–​60 Afu v IDF Commander HCJ 785/​87, 42(2) P.D. 4 (English tr [1990] 29 ILM 139)����������������������� 370–​71 Foguel v Broadcasting Authority HCJ 112/​77, 31 P.D. (3) 657 ������������������������������������������������������� 372–​73 Hamoked—​The Center for the Defense of the Individual v IDF Commander HCJ 3278/​02, 57 P.D. (1) 385������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 359–​60 New General Labor Federation v National Labor Court HCJ 7029/​95, 51 P.D. (2) 63����������������� 369–​70 Steinberg v Attorney General Cr. A. 5/​51, 5 P.D. 1061����������������������������������������������������������������������������368 Teichner v Air France F.H. 36/​84, 41 P.D. (1) 589����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Yated—​Friendly Society of Downs Syndrome Children’s Parents v Ministry of Education HCJ 2599/​00, 56 P.D. (5) 834��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������368

Table of Cases  xxix Italy Ferrini v Federal Republic of Germany (Court of Cassation Italy, Judgment of 11 March 2004) (2006) 128 ILR 658����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 564–​65,  566 Lanificio Branditex v Società Azais e Vidal (1975) Italian Ybk Intl L 232��������������������������������������� 608–​9 Kosovo Decision on Petition for Transfer of Luan Goci and Bashkim Berisha, Pn-​Kr 333/​005 (30 January 2006) (Supreme Court of Kosovo)������������������������������������������������������������������������ 161–​62 League of Nations Arbitral Commissions Award of the Arbitrators Appointed by Resolution of the Council of the League of Nations of January 17, 1934 (1935) 29 AJIL 523 (‘1934 Arbitration’)��������������������������������������������������� 166–​67 Libyan Oil Concessions Arbitrations Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO) v Burundi Arbitration (1991) 96 ILR 279 ��������599 NAFTA Tribunal Pope & Talbot v Canada (Award in respect of Damages) [2002] 41 ILM 1347������������������������������������481 Methanex v USA (Merits), Award of 3 August 2005, [2005] 44 ILM 1345������������������������������������ 475–​76 SD Myers Inc v Canada (US-​Canada) (13 November 2000) [2001] 40 ILM 1408 ������������������������������444 Netherlands Administrative Law Division of the Council of State, M.E.D. v State Secretary for Justice 6 November 1995, 28 NYIL 1997, 353��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Central Appeals Court for the Public Service and for Social Security Matters X Y and Z v B.O.Z. Regional Compulsory Insurance Fund 29 May 1996, 30 NYIL 1998, 241������������������������371 Central Appeals Tribunal 21 July 2006, LJN No AY 5560 ��������������������������������������������������������������� 370–​71 Dutch Seamen’s Welfare Foundation [Stichting Zeemanswelzijn Nederland] v The Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, 27 July 2005, Administrative Law Division of the Council of State (200410468/​1, LJN No. AU0095, AB (2006) No. 177)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 534,  537–​38 H v Public Prosecutor Court of Appeal of The Hague, ILDC 636 (NL 2007) ������������������������������� 369–​70 Management Board of Employee Insurance Benefits Agency v X Central Appeals Tribunal, 14 March 2003, 36 NYIL 2006, 466 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������374 The Russian Federation v Hulley Enterprises Limited (C/​09/​481619/​HA ZA 15-​112), Hague District Court, Judgement, 20 April 2016. ����������������������������������������������������������� 240,  245–​46 The Russian Federation v Veteran Petroleum Limited (C/​09/​477160 /​HA ZA 15-​1)��������� 240,  245–​46 The Russian Federation v Yukos Universal Limited (C/​09/​477162/​HA ZA 15-​2)��������������� 240,  245–​46 State Secretary for Finance v X, Supreme Court, 21 February 2003, 36 NYIL 2005, 475������������� 369–​70 Netherlands v Ned Lloyd (District Court of Rotterdam) (1977) 74 ILR 212, 215–​16 ������������������������496 New Zealand v France Arbitration Tribunal New Zealand v France (Arbitration Tribunal) (1990) 82 ILR (Rainbow Warrior Arbitration)���������619–​20 Norway SIA North Star Ltd v Public Prosecuting Authority (2019) ILR (forthcoming) ����������������������������������491 Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) An Arbitral Tribunal Constituted Under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (The Republic of Philippines v The People’s Republic of China), Award on Jurisdiction, PCA Case No 2013-​19 (29 October 2015) (‘South China Sea Arbitration’) ����������������������������������������������������������������������������26, 28, 29, 30, 66, 75

xxx  Table of Cases Arbitration between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Slovenia, Partial Award (30 June 2016) PCA Case No 2012-​04��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 574–​75 Grisbadarna (Sweden/​Norway) (1910) 4 AJIL 226, 231 ����������������������������������������������������������������� 493–​94 Hulley Enterprises Ltd v Russian Federation, Interim Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (2009) PCA Case No AA 226������������������������������������������������������������������� 240, 241, 244 ICS Inspection and Control Services Limited (United Kingdom) v The Republic of Argentina, UNCITRAL PCA Case No. 2010/​09, Award on Jurisdiction, 10 February 2012, para 289��������492 Island of Palmas (Netherlands v USA) Arbitration (1928) 2 RIAA 829����������������������������������������469, 494 Kingdom of Denmark in respect of the Faroe Islands v European Union, Termination Order (23 Sept 2014) PCA Case No. 2013-​30����������������������������������������������������������������������������������159 Rhine Chlorides (Netherlands/​France) (2004) 144 ILR 259, 293 [62]��������������������������������������������������490 Veteran Petroleum Trust v Russian Federation, Interim Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (2009) PCA Case No AA 228 243���������������������������������������� 240, 241, 244–​45, 246–​47 Yukos Universal Ltd (Isle of Man) v Russian Federation, Interim Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility (2009) PCA Case No AA 227�����������������������������������������������240, 241, 243, 244–​45 Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) Case Concerning the Factory at Chorzów (Germany v Poland) (Jurisdiction) [1927] PCIJ Rep Series A No 9����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������603 Case Concerning the Payment in Gold of Brazilian Federal Loans Contracted in France (France v Brazil) PCIJ Rep Series A No 21 (July 12)������������������������������������������������������������������������599 Case Concerning the Payment of Various Serbian Loans Issued in France (France v Yugoslavia) PCIJ Rep Series A No 20 (July 12) ��������������������������������������������������������������599 Case of Customs Regime Between Germany and Austria (Advisory Opinion) [1931] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 41����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������448 Case of the Free Zones of Upper Savoy and District of Gex (France v Switzerland) [1929] PCIJ Rep Series A No 22��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 604–​5 Case of the Free Zones of Upper Savoy and the District of Gex (Switzerland v France) [1932] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 46 95����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 156,  604–​5 Case relating to the Jurisdiction of the European Commission of the Danube between Galatz and Braila [1927] PCIJ Rep Series B No 14��������������������������������������������������������������������������448 Diversion of Water from the Meuse [1937] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 70 ��������������������������������������� 587–​88 Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria (Belgium v Bulgaria) [1939] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 77����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������448 Jurisdiction of the European Commission of the Danube (Advisory Opinion) [1927] PCIJ Rep Series B No 14 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������448 Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (Denmark v Norway) [1933] PCIJ Rep Ser A/​B No 53����������24, 558 Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions (Greece v UK) [1924] PCIJ Rep Series B No 2 ������������������������448 Naulilaa Award (1930) 2 RIAA 1011 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������588, 589 Oscar Chinn Case (UK, Ireland v Belgium) 1934 PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 63�������������448, 548–​49, 551 The Wimbledon (Great Britain, France, Italy & Japan v Germany; Poland intervening) (Judgment of 17 August 1923) PCIJ Rep Ser A No 1��������������������������������������������������������������150, 451 Poland Decision of 9 March 2004, I CK 410/​03 (not published Lex 182080)��������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Judgment of 29 January 2003, V.S.A. 1494/​02 (ONSA 2004 nr 2, item 57) ����������������������������������� 369–​70 K Galstyan, V.S.A. 726/​99 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 370–​71 Singapore Sanum Investments Ltd v Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic [2016] SGCA 57��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 396–​97 South Africa Ferreria v Levin NO 1996 (1) SALR 984 (CC)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 Government of the Republic of South Africa v Grootboom 2001 (1) SALR 46 (CC)������������������ 369–​70 Kolbarschenko v King NO 2001 (4) SALR 336 (C)��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 370–​71

Table of Cases  xxxi Minister of Health v Treatment Action Campaign (No 2) 2002 (5) SALR 721 (CC)������������������� 369–​70 Potgieter v British Airways 2005 (3) SALR 133 (C)������������������������������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 S v Basson 2005 (1) SALR 171 (CC)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������368 Switzerland Fédération de Russie c Yukos Capital Sarl, Arrêt du 20 Juillet 2017, Cour de droit civil ��������������������255 Russian Federation v A and others, Swiss Federal Supreme Court, 16 Oct 2018, 4A_​398/​2017, ILDC 2961 (CH 2018) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 396–​97 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Annex VII Arbitration Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Republic of Mauritius v United Kingdom) 18 March 2015), UNCLOS, Annex VII�����������������������������������������������������������������������162–​63,  164–​65 United Kingdom A(FC) and others v Secretary of State [2004] UKHL 56�������������������������������������������������������������������������373 Cheng v Conn, Inspector of Taxes [1968] 1 All ER 779������������������������������������������������������������������� 358–​59 Effort Shipping Company v Linden Management [1998] AC 605������������������������������������������������� 484–​85 Garland v British Rail Engineering [1983] 2 AC 751������������������������������������������������������������������������������368 R v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport ex parte European Roma Rights Centre [2004] UKHL 55, [2005] 2 AC 1��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������465 R v Lambert Justices, ex p Yusufu [1985] Times Law Reports 114������������������������������������������������� 369–​70 In Re Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel Group Litigation [2006] 1 AC 495��������������������������������478 Republic of Ecuador v Occidental Petroleum & Production Co [2006] EWHC Comm 345 ������������167 Republic of Ecuador v Occidental Petroleum & Production Co [2005] EWHC Comm 774 ������������167 Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Quark Fishing Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1409; [2002] All ER (D) 450������������������������������������������������������������������������������359 Sidhu v British Airways [1997] 1 All ER 193��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������369 United Nations Human Rights Committee Burgos v Uruguay (1981) 1 Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee 88, Communication No R.12/​52 (1981) UN Doc Supp No 40 A/​36/​40��������������������������������������329, 518 Casariego v Uruguay (1981) 1 Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee 92��������������������329 General Comment 29, States of Emergency (article 4) (2001) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.11 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������514 General Comment No 24: General comment on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the Covenant (4 November 1994) CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.6 ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 301, 304, 519, 538 General Comment No 6, The Right to Life (1982) UN Doc HRI/​Gen/​1/​Rev.7 128����������������������������514 United States Abbott v Abbott 130 SCt 1983 (2010)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������486 Breard v Greene 523 US 371 (1998)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������369 Busby v State of Alaska 40 P.3d 807 (Alaska Ct Appeals 2002) ��������������������������������������������������������������486 Clark v Allen 331 US 503 (1947)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154–​55 Detroit International Bridge Company v. Government of Canada, 133 F.Supp.3d 70, 86-​87 (2015)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154–​55 Ehrlich v Eastern Airlines 360 F.3d 366 (2nd Cir 2004)��������������������������������������������������������������������������486 El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd v Tsui Yuan Tseng 525 US 155, 168 (1999) ��������������������������������������������370, 376 Gandara v Bennett 528 F.3d 823 (11th Cir 2008) ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������371 Graham v Florida 130 S Ct 2011 (2010)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 372–​73 Hosaka v United Airlines 305 F.3d 989 (9th Cir 2002), certiorari denied 537 US 1227��������������� 484–​85 Hugo Princz v Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F 3d 1166 (DC Cir 1994)����������������������������������564, 566 Intl Café SAL v Hard Rock Café Intl (USA), Inc 252 F.3d 1274 (11th Cir 2001)����������������������������������373 Lawrence v Texas 539 US 558 (2003)������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 372–​73 Medellin v Texas 552 US 491 (2008)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 370–​71

xxxii  Table of Cases Murray v Schooner Charming Betsy 6 US (2 Cranch) 64 (1804)������������������������������������������������������������368 Natural Resources Defense Council v EPA 464 F.3d 1 (DC Cir 2006)��������������������������������������������������345 Olympic Airways v Husain 540 US 644 (2004)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������376 People of Bikini, ex rel Kili/​Bikini/​Ejit Local Gov Council v United States 77 Fed Cl 744, 749, 755–​60 (US Ct of Fed Claims 2007)������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������164 Pierre-​Louis v Newvac 584 F.3d 1052 (11th Cir 2009)��������������������������������������������������������������������� 484–​85 Roper v Simmons 543 US 551 (2005)��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������373 Sale v Haitian Centers Council 509 US 155 (1993)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������465 Siderman de Blake v Republic of Argentina, 965 F.2d 699 (9th Cir 1992)������������������������������������564, 566 State of Georgia v State of South Carolina 497 US 376 (1990)����������������������������������������������������������������155 State of Virginia v State of Tennessee 148 US 503, 519 (1893)��������������������������������������������������������� 154–​55 Temengil & Others v Trust Territory of the Pacific Island & Others 881 F.2d 647 (9th Cir 1989)������������164 Texas v New Mexico, 138 SCt 954, 958 (2018).��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154–​55 United States v Belmont 301 US 324 (1937) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������362 United States v Pink 315 US 203 (1942)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������362 Worcester v State of Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������157 US-​France Air Services Agreement Case Concerning the Air Services Agreement of 27 March 1946 (1978) 54 ILR 304������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 497–​98, 586, 587–​88, 589 US-​Libya Deeds of Concession Texaco v Libyan Arab Republic (1977) 53 ILR 389������������������������������������������������������������������������������������12 US-​UK Air Services Agreement (Bermuda 2) US/​UK Arbitration concerning Heathrow Airport User Charges (1992) ch 5 155; (1994) 102 ILR 215����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 31–​32,  467 World Trade Organization (WTO) Canada—​Measures Affecting the Export of Civilian Aircraft—​Decision AB-​1999-​2 (2 August 1999) WT/​DS70/​AB/​R ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 479–​80 European Communities and Certain Member States: Measures Affecting Trade in Large Civil Aircraft—​Report of the Appellate Body (18 May 2011) WT/​DS316/​AB/​R����������������� 145–​46 European Communities: Customs Classification of Certain Computer Equipment—​Report of the Appellate Body (the LAN case) (15 June 1998) WT/​DS62/​AB/​R and WT/​DS67/​AB/​R and WT/​DS68/​AB/​R������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145–​46 European Communities: Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos-​Containing Products—​Report of the Appellate Body (12 March 2001) WT/​DS135/​AB/​R ������������������� 145–​46 European Communities: Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products—​Reports of the Panel (26 September 2006) WT/​DS291/​R, WT/​DS292/​R, and WT/​DS293/​R������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 145–​46 European Communities: Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones) (1997) WT/​DS28 and WT/​DS48������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������444 European Communities: Regime for the Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas (‘Bananas III’)—​Report of the Panel (22 May 1997) WT/​DS27/​R����������������������������������������� 579–​80 European Community: Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs—​Complaint by the United States—​Report of the Panel (15 March 2005) WT/​DS174/​R��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 145–​46 United States: Final Countervailing Duty Determination with Respect to Certain Softwood Lumber from Canada—​Appellate Body Report (2004) WT/​DS257/​AB/​R ��������������������������������486 United States: Measures Affecting the Cross-​Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services—​WTO Appellate Body Report (7 April 2005) WT/​DS285/​AB/​R ��������������������������������486 United States: Sections 301–​10 of the Trade Act of 1974—​Panel Report (22 December 1999) WT/​DS152/​R ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������33, 586

Table of Instruments INSTRUMENTS ON LAW OF TREATIES AND TREATY INTERPRETATION International Law Commission, Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties (with Commentaries) [1966] YBILC, vol II������������������ 13, 25, 26, 34, 202, 219, 305, 310–​11, 318–​19, 460–​61, 463, 464, 468–​69, 470, 475–​76, 480, 507, 574–​75 Art 1��������������������������������������������������������� 25, 150 Art 3����������������������������������������������������������������152 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������202 Art 17(3)(a)–​(b)��������������������������������������������628 Art 17(4), (5)��������������������������������������������������628 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������603 Art 22��������������������������������������������������������������231 Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������568 Art 26������������������������������������������������������� 577–​78 Art 27��������������������������������������������������������������464 Art 37������������������������������������������������������� 574–​75 Art 43(1), (2)��������������������������������������������������598 Art 59��������������������������������������������������������� 602–​3 Harvard Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties 1935 (1935) 29 AJIL (Supp) 653�������������������������������30–​31, 50, 461 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (opened for signature 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331 (‘VCLT’)������ 1–​4, 5–​6, 11, 12–​13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21–​24, 25, 30, 31, 34, 37–​38, 40, 41, 43–​44, 67, 83, 98, 99–​100, 101, 105, 106, 114–​69, 178, 201, 203–​4, 209, 211, 217, 220–​22, 224, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 238, 241, 255–​56, 261, 262, 267–​68, 285, 286, 287–​89, 290, 291, 292–​93, 295–​96, 297–​99, 301, 302–​4, 305, 309, 315, 318–​19, 327, 337–​38, 340–​41, 410, 434, 435, 439, 441–​42, 445, 447, 449, 450, 451, 452–​54, 455, 504, 545, 551–​53, 554–​55, 562–​63, 565, 572–​73, 577–​78, 580, 590, 591, 595, 596, 597, 601, 603, 605, 609–​10, 611–​12, 620, 621, 624, 625 Part II, Section 1��������������������������������������������467 Part IV����������������������������������������������������� 337–​38 Art 1���������������������������������������������������12–​13,  150 Art 1(d) ����������������������������������������������������������285 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������� 12–​13

Art 2(1) ����������������������������������������������������������532 Art 2(1)(a)��������������������������������������������11, 12, 20 Art 2(1)(d)���������������������������������������287,  677–​78 Art 2(1)(h)������������������������������������������������������720 Art 3�������������������������������������13, 22–​23, 100, 150 Art 3(b) ��������������������������������������������������� 168–​69 Art 3(c)�����������������������������������������������������������168 Art 4��������������������������������������������������� 2, 584, 611 Art 5������������������������������������ 37–​38, 526–​27,  541 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������� 102–​3 Arts 7���������������������������� 2–​3, 15–​16, 21–​22,  211 Art 7(1)(b)������������������������������������������������������212 Art 7(2)(a)����������������������������������������������� 212–​13 Art 7(2)(b)������������������������������������������������������213 Art 7(2)(c)���������������������������������������211–​12,  213 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������105 Art 9(1) ����������������������������������������������������������218 Art 9(2) ����������������������������������������������������������218 Art 10��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 219, 475 Arts 11–​18������������������������������������������������� 21–​22 Art 11����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  221 Art 12���������������������������������������2–​3, 221–​22,  669 Art 13����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  222 Art 14�����������������������������������������������2–​3,  222–​23 Art 15����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  223 Art 16������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 17������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 18��������224, 238, 242, 252–​53, 254, 264, 534 Art 18(a) ������������������������������������������������� 252–​53 Art 19����������������������������� 2–​3, 274, 286–​87, 289, 291, 292, 677–​78 Art 19(a)-​(b)������������������������������������������� 291–​92 Art 19(c) ���������������������������������247, 291–​92, 299 Art 20��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 297, 538 Art 20(2) ��������������������������������������������������������339 Art 20(3) ���������������������������������������37–​38,  303–​4 Art 20(4)(a)������������������������������������������� 297, 580 Art 20(4)(b)����������������������������������������������������297 Art 20(5) ��������������������������������������� 293, 294, 297 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������297 Art 21(1)(a)��������������������������������������������� 297–​98 Art 21(3) ����������������������������������������������� 297, 299 Art 22������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 22(1) �����������������������������������������286–​87,  678 Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������299 Art 23(1) ��������������������������������������������������������287 Art 23(2) �������������������������� 286–​87, 297,  677–​78 Art 24��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 225, 260 Art 24(4) �������������������21–​22, 225, 234, 695, 705

xxxiv  Table of Instruments Art 25������������� 2–​3, 230–​31, 232, 235, 238, 241, 242–​43, 246, 249–​50, 253, 255 Art 25(1) ����������������������������������������������� 233, 241 Art 25(1)(a)����������������������������������������������������233 Art 25(1)(b)����������������������������������������������������234 Art 25(2) ������������������ 248–​49, 250, 252, 254–​55 Art 26����������������������������������1–​2, 12–​13, 38, 238, 245–​47, 445, 449, 568, 595 Art 27�����������������������������������������������243,  244–​47 Art 28������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 29�����������������������2–​3, 309–​11, 312–​13, 321, 322, 324, 326–​28, 330, 334–​35, 518 Art 30�����������������������������2–​3, 434, 447, 452, 454 Art 30(1) �����������������������������������������434,  445–​46 Art 30(2) ������������������������������������������������� 445–​46 Art 30(3) ������������������������������������������������� 445–​46 Art 30(4)(b)��������������������������������������������� 445–​46 Art 30(5) �����������������������������������������445–​46,  724 Arts 31–​33������������������������� 5, 313, 525, 528, 647 Art 31������������� 2–​3, 5, 34, 168–​69, 245–​46, 310, 445, 459, 463, 464–​71, 477, 478–​79, 487, 505, 506–​7, 511, 512, 513, 516, 520, 528, 529, 531, 540 Art 31(1) �����������459, 465–​66, 478–​79, 485–​86, 533–​34, 541 Art 31(2) ������������������ 459, 465–​69, 478, 533–​34 Art 31(2)(a)���������������������423, 459, 466–​67, 468 Art 31(2)(b)�������������������423, 459, 466, 467, 468 Art 31(3) ��������������� 459, 465, 466–​69, 478, 506, 516–​17, 518, 537–​38, 540, 541 Art 31(3)(a)�����������������������������440–​41, 459, 468 Art 31(3)(b)�� �� 459, 467, 468, 478–​79, 482, 531 Art 31(3)(c)����������������������������246–​47, 439, 459, 468–​70, 482–​83,  553–​54 Art 31(4) �����������������������310, 459, 465, 478, 506 Art 32��������������� 2–3, 34, 245–46, 459, 463, 464, 466, 467, 470–74, 477, 478, 483–84, 487, 505, 506, 511, 528 Art 32(2)(b)����������������������������������������������������459 Art 33������������������ 2–​3, 5, 460, 475–​76, 485, 487 Art 33(1), (2)����������������������������������������� 460, 475 Art 33(3) ����������������������������������������������� 460, 475 Art 33(4) ��������������������������������������� 460, 475, 486 Art 34������������������������������������������������������� 33, 720 Art 35��������������������������������������������������������������720 Art 36��������������������������������������������������������������720 Art 37������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 38��������������������������������������������������������������720 Arts 39–​41����������������������������������������������� 337–​38 Art 39��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 339, 750 Art 40������������������������ 2–​3, 37–​38, 337, 339, 341 Art 40(1) ��������������������������������������������������������339 Art 40(2) ��������������������������������������������������������352 Art 40(4) ��������������������������������������������������������337 Art 40(5) �����������������������������������������339,  743–​44 Art 41���������������������������������2–​3, 37–​38, 339, 445 Art 41(1) ��������������������������������������������������������352

Art 41(1)(a)����������������������������������������������������352 Art 41(1)(b)����������������������������������� 352, 647, 724 Art 41(2) ����������������������������������������������� 352, 724 Arts 42–​45���������������������������������������551–​52,  624 Art 42�����������������������������������������������552,  553–​54 Art 42(1) ��������������������������������������������������������552 Art 42(2) ���������������������������������� 583–​84,  625–​26 Art 42(2)(a)����������������������������������������������������580 Art 43����������������������������������������������������� 630, 762 Art 44����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  762 Art 44(2) ������������������������������������������������� 577–​78 Arts 46–​52���������������������������������������550–​51,  566 Arts 46–​64����������������������������������������������� 574–​75 Art 46�����������������������������15–​16, 101–​2, 247–​48, 249, 554–​56, 557, 559 Art 46(2) ���������������������������������� 247–​48,  555–​56 Art 47������������������������������������������������������� 554–​55 Art 48������������������������������������������������������� 557–​58 Art 49������������������������������������������������������� 558–​59 Art 50��������������������������������������������������������������559 Art 51������������������������������������������������������� 559–​60 Art 52������������������������������������������������������� 559–​62 Art 53�����������������������������������33, 37–​38, 563, 579 Art 54��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 630, 769 Arts 54–​56������������������������������������������������������624 Art 54(a) ��������������������������������������������������������626 Art 54(b) ���������������������������������627, 633–​34, 769 Art 55�������������������������������������2–​3, 595, 625, 773 Art 56�����������������������������������������������2–​3,  629–​30 Art 56(1) ����������������������������������������� 52, 627, 762 Art 56(2) ��������������������������������������� 627, 629, 762 Art 57�����������������������������������������������2–​3,  767–​68 Art 58���������������������������������� 2–​3, 37–​38,  767–​68 Art 58(1)(b)����������������������������������������������������647 Art 59����������������������������� 2–​3, 445–​46, 595, 603, 625–​26,  723–​24 Art 59(1)(b)��������������������������������������������� 723–​24 Art 60���������� 37–​38, 42, 171, 572–​74, 576–​78, 579, 583, 584–​86, 587–​88, 590–​91,  593 Art 60(1) ������37–​38, 574–​75, 577, 579, 583–​84 Art 60(2) �������������������������574–​75, 577, 579, 580 Art 60(2)(a)������������������������ 42, 577–​78,  581–​82 Art 60(2)(b)���������������������� 577, 580–​81,  583–​84 Art 60(2)(c)���������������������� 577, 582–​84,  590–​91 Art 60(3) �����������������������������������������574–​75,  576 Art 60(3)(a)-​(b) ������������������������������������� 574–​75 Art 60(3)(b)������������������������������������������� 575, 576 Art 60(5) ����������������������������� 37–​38, 504–​5, 569, 578–​79, 580, 589 Art 61 �������595, 596, 600–​1, 618, 619–​20, 625–​26 Art 61(2) �����������������������������������599, 600–​1, 618 Art 62�����������������������595, 602–​3, 604–​5, 606–​7, 609–​10, 611, 618, 621 Art 62(1) ��������������������������������������� 606, 612, 613 Art 62(1)(a)����������������������������������������������������613 Art 62(2)(a)����������������������������������������������� 37–​38

Table of Instruments  xxxv Art 63��������������������������������������������������������������595 Art 64��������37–​38, 438–​39, 551–​52, 595,  625–​26 Arts 65–​68�����������������������566, 583–​84, 601, 624 Art 65���������������������������������������� 583–​84,  611–​12 Art 65(1) ��������������������������������������������������������631 Art 65(1)—​(3)������������������������������������������������611 Art 66��������������������������������������������������������������584 Art 67��������������������������������������������������������������584 Art 68��������������������������������������������������������������267 Art 69������������������������������������������������������� 551–​52 Art 70��������������������������������������������� 2–​3, 251, 624 Art 70(1)(a)������������������������������������������� 630, 769 Art 70(1)(b)������������������������������������������� 630, 769 Art 70(2) ����������������������������������������������� 630, 762 Art 71�����������������������������������������������551–​52,  624 Art 72������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 72(1), (2)������������������������������������������� 767–​68 Art 73���������������������������� 13, 385–​86, 553, 608–​9 Art 76����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  260 Art 77����������������������������������������������������� 2–​3,  260 Art 77(1)(g)����������������������������������������������������277 Art 78������������������������������������������������������������� 2–​3 Art 79���������������������������������������2–​3, 220,  557–​58 Art 80��������������������������������������������� 169, 277, 584 Art 80(1) ����������������������������������������������������������31 Art 84(1) ������������������������������������������������� 229–​30 Annex I ��������������������������������������������������� 583–​84 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543 (‘1986 VCLT’)������������4, 13, 21–​22, 23, 98, 100, 101, 102–​3, 106, 110–​11, 114–​15, 151, 230, 252, 255–​56, 271, 309, 324, 545, 550–​51, 554–​55, 556–​57, 624, 647 Preamble��������������������������������������������������� 102–​3 Art 1(a) ������������������������������������������������������������23 Art 2(1)(b)(bis)����������������������������������������������101 Art 2(1)(d)����������������������������������������������� 677–​78 Art 2(1)(j) ���������������������������������103–​4, 531, 532 Art 5����������������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 6������������������������������������ 101–​3, 104,  324–​25 Art 7����������������������������������������������� 106, 151, 152 Art 7(3)(b)������������������������������������������������������213 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������105 Art 9(2) ����������������������������������������������������������101 Arts 11-​17������������������������������������������������������221 Art 11������������������������������������������������������� 669–​70 Art 11(2) ��������������������������������������������������������669 Art 14��������������������������������������������������������������101 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������101 Arts 19–​23������������������������������������������������� 303–​4 Art 19�������������������������������� 274, 286–​87,  677–​78 Art 23(1) ��������������������������������������������������������287 Art 23(2) ������������������������������������������������� 677–​78

Art 25�����������������������������230, 231, 235, 241, 253 Art 25(1) ��������������������������������������������������������705 Art 25(1)(b)�������������������������������������233–​34,  235 Art 26������������������������������������������������������� 42, 107 Art 27(2) ��������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 29���������������������������������������309, 310, 324–​25 Arts 31–​33������������������������������������������������������528 Art 31(3)(b)����������������������������������������������������531 Art 34��������������������������������������������������������������720 Art 35��������������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 36��������������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 36bis (draft) ������������������������ 107–​8,  131–​32 Art 37��������������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 39�������������������������������������������������101–​2,  750 Art 46������������������ 101–​2, 105, 106, 249, 556–​57 Art 54��������������������������������������������������������������769 Art 56(1) ����������������������������������������������� 627, 762 Art 57������������������������������������������������������� 767–​68 Art 58������������������������������������������������������� 767–​68 Art 60��������������������������������������������������������������569 Art 62������������������������������������������������������� 385–​86 Art 65��������������������������������������������������������� 101–​2 Art 66(b) ��������������������������������������������������������102 Art 70(1)(a)–​(b)��������������������������������������������769 Art 70(2) ��������������������������������������������������������762 Art 73��������������������������������������������������������������102 Art 74��������������������������������������������������������������102 Art 74(3) ��������������������������������������������������������108 Art 78(1)(g)����������������������������������������������������277 Art 81����������������������������������������������������� 169, 277 Art 83��������������������������������������������������������������101 Art 85��������������������������������������������������������������101 Annex��������������������������������������������������������������101 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (adopted 23 August 1978, entered into force 6 November 1996) 1946 UNTS 3 (VCSST)�����������2–​3, 5, 13, 383, 384, 385–​87, 388–​89, 391, 392, 394–​95, 397, 407, 409, 410 Part III����������������������������������������������������� 395–​96 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������383 Art 2(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 386–​87 Art 2(1)(c)����������������������������������������������� 386–​87 Art 2(1)(f)���������������������������������������386–​87,  391 Art 4����������������������������������������������������������������410 Art 6��������������������������������������������������������� 386–​87 Arts 8, 9��������������������������������������������������� 394–​95 Art 9(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 394–​95 Art 11��������������������������������������������������������������386 Art 11(1) ��������������������������������������������������������405 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������� 405–​6 Art 12bis (draft) ��������������������������������������������407 Art 13��������������������������������������������������������������406 Art 15���������������������������������������� 386–​87,  396–​97 Arts 16–​30����������������������������������������������� 395–​96 Art 16������������������������������������������������������� 395–​96

xxxvi  Table of Instruments Art 17������������������������������������������������������� 394–​96 Art 17(3) ����������������������������������������������� 398, 410 Art 18�����������������������������������������������394–​95,  399 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������411 Art 27������������������������������������������������������� 395–​96 Art 30(3)(a)����������������������������������������������������409 Art 31����������������������������������������������������� 386, 398 Art 31(1), (2)��������������������������������������������������398 Art 31(3) ��������������������������������������������������������409 Art 32(6) ��������������������������������������������������������409 Art 33��������������������������������������������������������������399 Art 33(5) ��������������������������������������������������������409 Art 34�������������������������������������399–​400, 402, 404 Art 34(1) �����������������������������������������������399–​400 Art 34(2)(b)����������������������������������������������������409 Art 35����������������������������������������������������� 399, 401 Art 35(c) ��������������������������������������������������������399 Art 36������������������������������������������������������� 411–​12 Art 36(3) ������������������������������������������������� 411–​12 Art 37������������������������������������������������������� 411–​12 Art 37(2) ��������������������������������������������������������409 Art 49(1) ������������������������������������������������� 385–​86 MATERIALS ON RESPONSIBILITY OF STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO), UNGA ‘Report of the International Law Commission’ UN GAOR 63rd Session Supp No 10 (2011) UN Doc A/​66/​10 �������������������� 13–​14, 110–​11, 143, 147, 275 Part 5 ������������������������������������������������������� 110–​11 Art 2(b) ����������������������������������������������������������531 Art 3��������������������������������������������������������� 110–​11 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������� 107–​8 Arts 51–​57������������������������������������������������������569 Art 64��������������������������������������������������������������147 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with Commentaries [2001] YBILC, vol II(2) (ASR) ��������������2–​3, 13–​14, 65, 110–​11, 203–​4, 387, 467, 571, 572–​73, 587–​88,  596 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������170 Art 2�������������������������������������������������170,  572–​73 Art 4�������������������������������������������������170,  376–​77 Art 4(1) ����������������������������������������������������������169 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������169 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������169 Art 10��������������������������������������������������������������169 Art 10(1) ������������������������������������������������� 170–​71 Art 12����������������������������������������������������� 171, 586 Art 13(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 501–​2

Art 22������������������������������������������������������� 572–​73 Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������618 Art 25�����������������������������595, 613, 615, 617, 618 Art 25(2)(a)����������������������������������������������������615 Art 26����������������������������������������������������� 589, 613 Art 28��������������������������������������������������������������613 Art 30������������������������������������������������������� 572–​73 Art 31������������������������������������������������������� 572–​73 Art 33����������������������������������������������������� 613, 615 Arts 40-​41������������������������������������������������������589 Art 42������������������������������������������������������� 590–​91 Art 42(a) ������������������������������������������������� 590–​91 Art 42(b)(i)��������������������������������������������� 590–​91 Art 42(b)(ii)��������������������������������������������� 590–​91 Art 48��������������������������������������������������������������591 Arts 49–​54������������������������ 569, 572–​73,  588–​89 Art 49���������������������������������������586, 587, 590–​91 Art 49(1) �����������������������������������������572–​74,  587 Art 49(2) ��������������������������������������������������������587 Art 49(3) ��������������������������������������������������������587 Art 50����������������������������������������������������� 589, 590 Art 50(2)(a)����������������������������������������������������590 Art 51�����������������������������������������������577–​78,  588 Art 52��������������������������������������������������������������592 Art 52(1) ��������������������������������������������������������592 Art 52 (2)��������������������������������������������������������592 Art 52(3)(a)����������������������������������������������������587 Art 53��������������������������������������������������������������587 Art 54����������������������������������������������������� 590, 591 Art 55��������������������������������������������������������������450 Art 55(5) ��������������������������������������������������������451 Ch II����������������������������������������������������������������171 MULTILATERAL TREATIES AND INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS Aarhus Convention see Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-​ Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters Agreement (Austria-​United Nations-​ IAEA-​UNIDO-​Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization) (entered into force 9 Sept 2016) Art 5����������������������������������������������������������������701 Agreement Concerning the Adoption of Uniform Conditions for Periodical Technical Inspections of Wheeled Vehicles and the Reciprocal Recognition of such Inspections (adopted 13 November 1997, entered into force 27 January 2001) 2133 UNTS 117��������������������������������������������������272

Table of Instruments  xxxvii Agreement Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station (1998) TIAS 12927 Art 25(3)(a)-​(b) ��������������������������������������������699 Art 27��������������������������������������������������������������745 Agreement Concerning the Establishing of Global Technical Regulations for Wheeled Vehicles, Equipment and Parts which can be fitted and/​or be used on Wheeled Vehicles (1998) 2119 UNTS 129 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������670 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������712 Agreement Establishing the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (2001) [2004] ATS 3 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������658 Arts 13–​14������������������������������������������������������652 Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 34��������������42–​43, 70–​71, 131–​33, 134–​35, 141, 185–​86, 434, 443, 525, 570, 587–​88, 636–​37, 733, 735, 736 Art V ������������������������������������������������������� 185–​86 Art V(2)����������������������������������������������������������667 Art IX��������������������������������������������������������������745 Art X(2)����������������������������������������������������������745 Art X(3)����������������������������������������������������������753 Art X(4)����������������������������������������������������������754 Art XI������������������������������������������������������� 131–​32 Art XII������������������������������������������������������������156 Art XII(1)���������������������������������������������� 667, 677 Art XII(1)-​(2)������������������������������������������������664 Art XII(2)�������������������������������������������������������677 Art XVI(5)���������������������������������������296–​97,  679 Annexes 1A, 1C ������������������������������������� 753–​54 Dispute Settlement Understanding see Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes Agreement on the Establishment of the International Vaccine Institute (1996) 1979 UNTS 199 Arts IV–​VI������������������������������������������������������658 Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (2006) [2006] OJ L358/​62 Art 28��������������������������������������������������������������745 Provisional application see Arrangement on Provisional Application of the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project

Agreement on Human Rights, San Jose (26 July 1990) UN Doc A/​44/​971, S/​21541 ������������������������������������������������������166 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (1995) 2167 UNTS 3������������������ 83, 209–​10,  267–​68 Arts 42–​43������������������������������������������������������684 Art 47(2)(a)����������������������������������������������������687 Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (1993) 2221 UNTS 91 Art XII������������������������������������������������������������681 Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (adopted 9 September 2002, entered into force 22 July 2004) 2271 UNTS 3����� 109–​10 Agreement on the Provisional Application of Certain Provisions of Protocol No. 14 Pending its entry into force (Concluded 12 May 2009) CETS No 194����������������������������������������������708 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (adopted 28 July 1994, entered into force 28 July 1996) 2167 UNTS 3 (‘Implementation Agreement’)���������������������������������� 352–​53,  743 Art 7����������������������������������������������������������������233 Art 7(1)–​(2)����������������������������������������������������707 Art 7(3) ����������������������������������������������������������709 Anti-​Personnel Landmines Convention see Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction Arab Charter on Human Rights (adopted 22 May 2004, entered into force 15 March 2008), English trans at (2005) 12 IHRR 893����������������������������������������������509 Art 1(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 327–​28 Arms Trade Treaty (adopted 2 April 2013, entered into force 24 December 2014) 3013 UNTS 1����������������185, 190, 207, 218, 274 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������650 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������667 Art 19��������������������������������������������������������������737 Art 21(1)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������674

xxxviii  Table of Instruments Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������706 Art 24��������������������������������������������������������������763 Art 25��������������������������������������������������������������679 Art 25(2) ����������������������������������������������� 683, 685 Art 25(4)–​(5)��������������������������������������������������688 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������727 Arrangement on Provisional Application of the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (16 December 2006) [2006] OJ L358/​81 Art 4����������������������������������������������������������������250 Art 5������������������������������������������������������� 250, 710 Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (adopted 22 July 1944, entered into force 27 December 1945) (1945) 2 UNTS 39 Art XV(1)�������������������������������������������������������762 Art XXIX(a) ������������������������������������������� 539–​40 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (done 22 March 1989, entered into force 5 May 1992) 1673 UNTS 57�������������������������������103–​4, 348, 422 Art 11(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������730 Art 18(2) ��������������������������������������������������������348 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 9 September 1886, as revised (1967) 828 UNTS 221 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������729 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, as amended (1971) 1161 UNTS 3 Art 35(2)–​(4)��������������������������������������������������765 Cape Town Convention see UNIDROIT Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment CAT see Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment CEDAW see Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women Charter of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (14 March 2008) ��������� 581–​82 Chemical Weapons Convention see Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction

Chicago Convention see Convention on International Civil Aviation CISG see UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods CITES see Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Comprehensive Nuclear-​Test-​Ban Treaty (adopted 10 September 1996, not yet in force) [1996] 35 ILM 1439 ��������� 625, 676 Constitution of the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (1968) 1045 UNTS 173 Para 21������������������������������������������������������������654 Constitution of the Food and Agricultural Organization (with Annexes) (adopted 16 October 1945, entered into force 16 October 1945) 145 BSP 910 (‘FAO Constitution’)�����������342–​43,  351 Arts XX(1)����������������������������������������������� 342–​43 Arts XX(2)��������������������������������������������� 351, 755 Constitution of the International Labour Organisation (adopted 9 October 1946, entered into force 20 April 1948) 15 UNTS 35 (ILO Constitution)���������� 180–​81 Art 3(1), (5)����������������������������������������������������665 Art 5����������������������������������������������������������������665 Art 12(3) ������������������������������������������������� 180–​81 Art 19(1), (5)��������������������������������������������������534 Art 19(7)(a)����������������������������������������������������718 Art 19(7)(b)������������������������������������������� 319, 718 Art 19(7)(b)(i)–​(iv) ����������������������������� 319, 718 Art 26������������������������������������������������������� 579–​80 Art 37������������������������������������������������������� 539–​40 Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union (with Annexes and Optional Protocol) (Concluded 22 December 1992, entered into force 1 July 1994) 1825 UNTS 143����������������������342–​43,  692 Art 4(3) ����������������������������������������������������������346 Art 25(2) ��������������������������������������������������������346 Art 54(1) ��������������������������������������������������������346 Art 54(2)bis, (3)bis����������������������������������������346 Art 54(3)Penter����������������������������������������������346 Art 54(217D)(3 Penter)��������������������������������755 Art 54(218)(4)������������������������������������������������755 Art 54(221A)(5bis)����������������������������������������755 Art 55(3) ��������������������������������������������������������749 Art 55(4), (6)��������������������������������������������������749 Optional Protocol see Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes Relating to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union to the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union and to the Administrative Regulations

Table of Instruments  xxxix Constitution of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (adopted 8 April 1979, entered into force 21 June 1985) 1401 UNTS 3 ������������� 101 Constitution of the World Health Organization (signed 22 July 1946, entered into force 22 July 1946) 14 UNTS 185 (‘WHO Constitution’) ���������530, 531,  549–​50 Art 21�����������������������������������������������346,  534–​35 Art 22������������������������������������������������������� 534–​35 Art 73������������������������������������������������������� 349–​50 Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-​Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (adopted 27 May 2005, not yet in force) [1998] 37 ILM 517����������������������������272 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������425 Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (adopted 26 September 1986, entered into force 26 February 1987) 1457 UNTS 133����������������������������� 2–​3 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������728 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������706 Convention on Biological Diversity (adopted 5 June 1992, entered into force 29 December 1993) 1760 UNTS 79�����������������������������345, 348, 417–​18 Arts 20–​1����������������������������������������������������������43 Art 22(1) ��������������������������������������������������������727 Art 30(2) ��������������������������������������������������������348 Nagoya Protocol see Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons see Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (adopted 25 October 1980, entered into force 1 December 1983) 1343 UNTS 89�������������������������������� 364–​65 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������649 Convention on Cluster Munitions (adopted 30 May 2008, entered into force 1 August 2010) [2009] 38 ILM 354 255������������������������������������������������� 262–​63 Art 11(2) ������������������������������������������������� 262–​63 Art 22������������������������������������������������������� 262–​63

Convention on a Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences (adopted 6 April 1974, entered into force 6 October 1983) 1334 UNTS 15��������������������������������266 Convention on Consent to Marriage (adopted 10 December 1962, entered into force 9 December 1964) 521 UNTS 231��������������266 Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1993) 1819 UNTS 359 Art 3����������������������������������������������������������������649 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������745 Convention on Contact Concerning Children (2003) CETS No 192 Art 25��������������������������������������������������������������678 Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Passengers and Luggage by Road (1973) 1774 UNTS 109 Art 27��������������������������������������������������������������773 Convention on Customs Treatment of Pool Containers Used in International Transport (1994) 2000 UNTS 289 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������683 Art 22(2) ��������������������������������������������������������704 Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (adopted 26 September 1986, entered into force 27 October 1986) 1439 UNTS 275 Arts 2, 6����������������������������������������������������� 38–​39 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������730 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW)������ 182–​83, 300–​1, 340, 510, 517–​18, 629–​30 Art 8��������������������������������������������������������� 424–​25 Art 25(1), (3)��������������������������������������������������672 Art 26(1) ��������������������������������������������������������340 Art 28(3) ��������������������������������������������������������683 Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (1991) 1989 UNTS 309 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������729 Convention Establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (1985) 1508 UNTS 99 Art 66��������������������������������������������������������������713 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (adopted 14 July 1967, entered into force 26 April 1970) 828 UNTS 3������������������������������������������������180 Art 17(3) ����������������������������������������������� 342, 753

xl  Table of Instruments Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (signed 9 April 1965, entered into force 5 March 1967) 591 UNTS 265������������������������������������������������ 346–​47 Arts VI-​VIII ������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 20 March 1966) 559 UNTS 285��������������������������������������������������629 Convention on the High Seas (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 30 September 1962) 450 UNTS 11������322,  490–​91 Convention on the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (done 6 March 1948, entered into force 17 March 1958) 289 UNTS 3 (‘IMO Convention’) Art 66������������������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Convention on International Civil Aviation (signed 7 December 1944, entered into force 4 April 1947) 15 UNTS 295 (‘Chicago Convention’)������39–​40, 345–​46, 349, 534–​35, 540 Art 94��������������������������������������������������������������754 Art 94(b) ��������������������������������������������������������349 Protocol I (on the Authentic Trilingual Text of the Convention) Arts I-​II������������������������������������������������������692 Convention on International Customs Transit Procedures for the Carriage of Goods by Rail Under Cover of SMGS Consignment Notes (2006, not yet in force) Art 25(2), (9)��������������������������������������������������756 Art 27��������������������������������������������������������������756 Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (adopted 29 March 1972, entered into force 3 October 1973) 961 UNTS 187 Art 22������������������������������������������������������� 109–​10 Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (2007) 47 ILM 257 Art 50��������������������������������������������������������������728 Art 58(2) ��������������������������������������������������������702 Convention on the International Right of Correction (1953) 435 UNTS 191 Art IX��������������������������������������������������������������710 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Concluded 3 March 1973, entered into force 1 July 1975) 993 UNTS 243; 27 UST 1087 (‘CITES’)���������������������������������������85,  130–​31 Art XII����������������������������������������������������� 183–​84

Art XII(1)�������������������������������������������������������667 Art XVIII��������������������������������������������������������739 Art XXIII������������������������������������������������� 296–​97 Art XXIII(1)-​(2)��������������������������������������������680 Gaborone amendment 1983����������������� 130–​31 Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary (2006) 46 ILM 649 Art 20(1)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������714 Convention on the Political Rights of Women (adopted 20 December 1952, entered into force 7 July 1954) 193 UNTS 135 Art 8(2) ����������������������������������������������������������625 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents 1973������������������������������������������� 300–​1 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted 9 December 1948, entered into force 12 January 1951) 78 UNTS 277 (‘Genocide Convention’)����������������� 39–​40, 289–​90, 291, 294, 305, 408, 409, 449, 547 Art IX�����������������������������������������������286–​87,  740 Art XII��������������������������������������������������� 315, 713 Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (done 11 September 1998, entered into force 24 February 2004) 2244 UNTS 337 (‘Rotterdam Convention’)����������������� 351–​52 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������746 Art 21(4) ������������������������������������������������� 351–​52 Art 22(2) ��������������������������������������������������������751 Art 22(3) �����������������������������������������351–​52,  751 Art 22(4) �����������������������������������������351–​52,  751 Art 22(5) ������������������������������������������������� 351–​52 Art 24��������������������������������������������������������������673 Art 25(1) ��������������������������������������������������������673 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (adopted 13 February 1946, entered into force 22 July 1946) 1 UNTS 15����������������������������������������������������26 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons, and on Their Destruction (1972) 1015 UNTS 163 Art IV��������������������������������������������������������������715

Table of Instruments  xli Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (opened for signature 3 September 1992, entered into force 29 April 1997) 1974 UNTS 45 ������������������� 85–​86, 237, 262–​63,  268 Art III(1)(a)����������������������������������������������������686 Art VIII������������������������������������������������������������43 Art XV(1)-​(3)������������������������������������������������754 Art XV(4)–​(5)������������������������������������������������757 Art XVI ����������������������������������������������������������754 Art XXII�������������������������������������������296–​97,  680 Verification Annex����������������������������������������753 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 2056 UNTS 241 (Anti-​Personnel Land Mines Convention; Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines; Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty)������181, 416, 417, 418 Art 11��������������������������������������������������������������416 Art 11(1), (4)��������������������������������������������������666 Arts 15–​16������������������������������������������������������673 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������������707 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������633 Art 20(1) ������������������������������������������������� 633–​34 Art 20(3)–​(4)��������������������������������������������������766 Art 21������������������������������������������������������� 262–​63 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (adopted 10 October 1980, entered into force 2 December 1982) 1342 UNTS 137 Art 3��������������������������������������������������������� 112–​13 Art 4(3)–​(5)����������������������������������������������������677 Protocol II (Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-​Traps and Other Devices as amended on 3 May 1996)��������������������������������������� 165, 181 Protocol III (Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons) Art 2(2)–​(3)������������������������������������������������294 Protocol IV (Blinding Laser Weapons)�������112–​13 Protocol V (Explosive Remnants of War)������� 694 Technical Annex����������������������������������������694 Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (adopted 29 May 1993, entered into force 1 May 1995) 1870 UNTS 167������������������������������355 Art 6(1)–​(2)����������������������������������������������������719

Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (adopted 17 March 1992, entered into force 6 October 1996) 1936 UNTS 269 Art 25(4) ��������������������������������������������������������145 Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) 1019 UNTS 175 Art 27������������������������������������������������������� 710–​11 Art 32(3) ��������������������������������������������������������682 Art 32(4) ��������������������������������������������������������681 Convention Relative to the Preservation of Flora and Fauna in Their Natural State 1933����������������������������������������������������183 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, opened for signature 30 March 2007) UN Doc A/​AC.265/​2006/​L.6������������������112–​13, 182, 183, 226, 234, 509–​10 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������649 Art 4��������������������������������������������������������� 509–​10 Art 33��������������������������������������������������������������182 Arts 42–​44������������������������������������������������������662 Art 42��������������������������������������������������������������269 Art 43��������������������������������������������������������������675 Art 44������������������������������������������������������� 109–​10 Art 46-​48��������������������������������������������������������656 Art 46(2) ��������������������������������������������������������683 Convention on the Rights of the Child see UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Convention on Road Traffic (1968) 1042 UNTS 17 Art 45(4) ��������������������������������������������������������688 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 2368 UNTS 3 Art 35��������������������������������������������������������������716 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 1960 (‘SOLAS Convention’) �����342,  346–​47 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 150 (‘Refugee Convention’) ������������������������������������������� 319, 378, 379, 465 Art 1(B)(1)������������������������������������������������������687 Art 42(1) ��������������������������������������������������������679 Art 51��������������������������������������������������������������319 Protocol of 31 January 1967 see Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (adopted 2 December 1949, entered into force 25 July 1951) 96 UNTS 271 Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������315

xlii  Table of Instruments Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil and Commercial Matters (opened for signature 18 March 1970, entered into force 7 October 1972) 847 UNTS 231������������� 41–​42 Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 10 September 1964) 526 UNTS 205 ������������629 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1465 UNTS 85������� 39, 86, 510 Art 2��������������������������������������������������������� 424–​25 Art 2(2) ����������������������������������������������������������732 Art 4������������������������������������������������������������������39 Art 22(1), (8)��������������������������������������������������685 Art 25(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������675 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������675 Optional Protocol see Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (signed 28 May 1999, entered into force 4 November 2003) 2242 UNTS 309 (‘Montreal Convention’)��������������339–​40, 363, 366, 376, 406–​7 Art 53(5) ��������������������������������������������������������703 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air (signed 12 October 1929, entered into force 13 February 1933) 137 LNTS 11 (‘Warsaw Convention’)������������������������������339–​41, 349, 359, 362–​63, 376 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention) (adopted 2 February 1971, entered into force 21 December 1975) 996 UNTS 245 (as amended) Art 8��������������������������������������������������������� 417–​18 Paris Protocol see Protocol to Amend the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat Convention of the World Meteorological Organization (done 11 October 1947, entered into force 23 March 1950) 77 UNTS 143 (‘WMO Convention’) Art 8��������������������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Art 9��������������������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Art 11(b) ������������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Art 28(c) ������������������������������������������������� 349–​50

Disabilities Convention see Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Energy Charter Treaty (17 December 1994) [1995] 34 ILM 360������������������ 239–​40, 241, 244, 245–​46, 247, 655 Parts V, VII ����������������������������������������������������647 Arts 38–​39��������������������������������������������� 655, 673 Art 38��������������������������������������������������������������655 Art 45������������������������������������� 233, 240, 244, 246 Art 45(1) ����������239–​40, 243, 244–​45, 246, 705 Art 45(2) ��������������������������������������������������������705 Art 45(3) ����������������������������������������������� 245, 710 Art 45(3)(a)-​(b) ������������������������������������� 251–​52 Art 45(3)(a)����������������������������������������������������244 Art 45(3)(b)��������������������������������������������� 251–​52 FAO Constitution see Constitution of the Food and Agricultural Organization Food Aid Convention (1995) �����������438–​39,  725 Food Aid Convention (1999) 2073 UNTS 135 Art XXV����������������������������������������������������������772 Art XXVI�����������������������������������������438–​39,  725 Food Assistance Convention (2012) 2884 UNTS 3 Arts 12-​13������������������������������������������������������663 Art 15(2) ��������������������������������������������������������700 Art 17(1) ��������������������������������������������������������764 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (opened for signature 30 October 1947, Provisional application from 1 January 1948) 55 UNTS 187 (GATT)������39, 89, 185–​86 Art III(2)����������������������������������������������������������39 Art XX������������������������������������������������������������733 Art XXXIII ����������������������������������������������������156 Protocol of Provisional Application see Protocol of Provisional Application of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 30 October 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT)������������������������� 733, 745 Arts I-​II����������������������������������������������������������734 Art XX������������������������������������������������������������733 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (1994) 33 ILM 1167 Art II(1)����������������������������������������������������������745 Art XX(1), (3)������������������������������������������������693 Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas (2010) [2010] OJ L141/​3 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������697 Para 8(b) ��������������������������������������������������������705 Geneva Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (opened for signature 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 31 Art 3������������������������������������������ 165–​66,  326–​27 Arts 3–​18������������������������������������������������� 165–​66

Table of Instruments  xliii Art 58��������������������������������������������������������������698 Art 63������������������������������������������������������� 632–​33 Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 135������� 226 Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 287 ���������������� 111, 165, 226, 355,  632–​33 Common Art 3�������������������������������111,  165–​66 Common Art 63������������������������������������� 632–​33 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf (done 29 April 1958, entered into force 10 June 1964) 499 UNTS 311������ 490–​91 Art 6��������������������������������������������������������� 298–​99 Geneva Convention on the Law of the Sea (done 29 April 1958, entered into force 30 September 1962) 450 UNTS 11�������������������������������������322,  490–​91 Genocide Convention see Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Grains Trade Convention 1995������������������������772 Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children 1996����������������������� 144 Hague Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (2019, not yet in force) Art 23��������������������������������������������������������������731 ICJ Statute see Statute of the International Court of Justice ICSID Convention see International Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States ICCPR see International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ILO Constitution see Constitution of the International Labour Organisation ILO Convention No 80 for the Partial Revision of the Conventions adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization at its first twenty-​eight sessions for the Purpose of making Provision for the future discharge of Certain Chancery functions entrusted by the said Conventions to the Secretary-​ General of the League of Nations and introducing therein Certain further

amendments Consequential upon the dissolution of the League of Nations and the amendment of the Constitution of the International Labour Organization (agreed 9 October 1946, entered into force 28 May 1947) 38 UNTS 3���������������277–​78 ILO Convention No 163 (1987) (Concerning Seafarers’ Welfare)��������������534 ILO Convention No 189 (2011) (Domestic Workers Convention) Art 21(2)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������701 Art 22��������������������������������������������������������������764 IMF Articles of Agreement see Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund IMO Convention see Convention on the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization 1982 Interim Agreement Relating to the Civil Air Transport Agreement of August 11, 1952, as Amended, with Record of Consultations, Memorandum of Understanding and Exchange of Letters (Concluded 7 September 1982, entered into force 7 September 1982) 1736 UNTS 284 �������233–​34 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 1986 Art 54��������������������������������������������������������������233 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 2015������������������������������226 Art 30��������������������������������������������������������������706 International Cocoa Agreement 2010 [2011] 50 ILM 673 Art 50��������������������������������������������������������������738 Art 57��������������������������������������������������������������705 Art 62(5) ��������������������������������������������������������773 Art 62(6) ��������������������������������������������������������773 International Coffee Agreement (2007) [2008] OJ L186/​13 ����������������������������� 633–​35 Art 42(1) ��������������������������������������������������������698 Art 42(4) ��������������������������������������������������������700 Art 46��������������������������������������������������������������762 International Convention on Arrest of Ships (adopted 12 March 1999, entered into force 14 September 2011) UN Doc A/​Conf.188/​6 Art 10������������������������������������������������������� 295–​96 Art 10(1) ��������������������������������������������������������681 Art 10(2) ��������������������������������������������������������684 Art 12(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������676 Art 15(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������744 International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-​Fouling Systems on Ships (2001) IMO Doc AFS/​CONF/​26 Art 16(2)(e)(ii)����������������������������������������������752 Art 16(2)(f)����������������������������������������������������752

xliv  Table of Instruments International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January 1969) 660 UNTS 195 ������246–​47,  510 Art 20(1) ��������������������������������������������������������682 Art 20(2) ����������������������������������������������� 293, 682 International Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Controls of Goods (adopted 21 October 1982, entered into force 15 October 1985) 1409 UNTS 3����������������������������������������������227 International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages (adopted 5 September 2004) 2276 UNTS 39 ������������205 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL Convention)��������������������������144 Art 5(4) ����������������������������������������������������������722 International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (adopted 20 December 2006, entered into force 23 December 2010) (I-​48088) [2007] 14 IHRR 582�����������������������266, 510, 629–​30 Art 41������������������������������������������������������� 719–​20 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (adopted 18 December 1990, entered into force 1 July 2003) 2220 UNTS 3 ��������������������������510 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 (Concluded 1 November 1974, entered into force 25 May 1980) 1184 UNTS 2 (‘SOLAS Convention’)���������������������������������39–​40,  342 Art VIII��������������������������������������������������� 346–​47 Art VIII(vii)(2)��������������������������������������� 346–​47 Art VIII(xi)(2)���������������������������������������� 346–​47 International Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (adopted 18 March 1965, entered into force 14 October 1966) 575 UNTS 159�����������������167–​68,  315 Art 70��������������������������������������������������������������315 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (adopted 13 April 2005, entered into force 7 July 2007) 2445 UNTS 89 Art 24(1), (3)��������������������������������������������������658 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������747 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (adopted 9 December

1999, entered into force 10 March 2002) 2178 UNTS 197����������������������� 274–​75 Art 7(3) ����������������������������������������������������������688 Art 11(5) ��������������������������������������������������������725 Art 24(2) ��������������������������������������������������������680 Art 25(1)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������674 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (adopted 15 December 1997, entered into force 23 May 2001) 2149 UNTS 256���������������������������������� 287–​88 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR)������������� 39, 72–​73, 85, 295–​96, 301, 304, 318–​19, 320, 328–​29, 330–​31, 342–​43, 355, 365, 377–​78, 416–​17, 425–​26, 497–​98, 508, 537, 538, 629–​30 Part IV��������������������������������������������������������������43 Art 1��������������������������������������������������������� 39, 406 Art 2��������������������������������������������������������� 377–​78 Art 2(1) ���������������������������� 328–​29, 377–​78,  509 Art 2(2) ��������������������������������������������������� 509–​10 Art 4������������������������������������������������������� 514, 733 Art 7�������������������������������������������������508,  537–​38 Art 19������������������������������������������������������� 497–​98 Art 26������������������������������������������������������� 377–​78 Art 28��������������������������������������������������������������537 Art 40(4), (5)��������������������������������������������������422 Art 48������������������������������������������������������� 112–​13 Art 50��������������������������������������������������������������320 Art 51������������������������������������������������������� 342–​43 First Optional Protocol ����� 41–​42, 43, 295–​96, 416–​17, 629–​30,  636 Second Optional Protocol�������������629–​30,  720 Art 2(1)-​(3)������������������������������������������������681 Art 9������������������������������������������������������������720 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 999 UNTS 3 (ICESCR)������������������ 372, 510, 537 Art 1������������������������������������������������������� 320, 509 Art 11��������������������������������������������������������������538 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������538 Art 29������������������������������������������������������� 342–​43 International Grain Agreement 1995��������������442 International Health Regulations (WHO), Resolution WHA 58/​3 (adopted 23 May 2005, entered into force 7 June 2007)��������� 346 Arts 59, 61, 62������������������������������������������������346 Art 62(5), (9)��������������������������������������������������346 International Space Station Agreement see Agreement Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station

Table of Instruments  xlv International Sugar Agreement (1992) 1703 UNTS 203 Art 37��������������������������������������������������������������651 Art 41��������������������������������������������������������������677 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2001) 2400 UNTS 303 Art 28.1 ����������������������������������������������������������699 International Tropical Timber Agreement (adopted 26 January 1994, entered into force 1 January 1997) 1163 UNTS 81 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������774 Art 36(1) ��������������������������������������������������������670 Art 36(2)(a)����������������������������������������������������670 Art 36(3) ��������������������������������������������������������145 Art 38��������������������������������������������������������������706 Art 44(1)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������771 Art 44(4) ��������������������������������������������������������773 Art 44(6) ��������������������������������������������������������774 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������692 International Whaling Convention (adopted 2 December 1946, entered into force 10 November 1948) 1953 UNTS 74������� 72, 183, 189–​90, 303–​4, 635, 636 Kigali Amendment see Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (opened for signature 11 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) 2303 UNTS 148������59–​60, 64–​65, 75, 93, 205, 295–​96, 341–​42, 348–​49, 351–​52 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������425 Art 17��������������������������������������������������������������423 Art 18�������������������������������������������������72,  426–​27 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������348 Art 21(7) ��������������������������������������������������������342 Art 26������������������������������������������������������� 295–​96 Art 27(3) ��������������������������������������������������������767 League of Nations’ Covenant����������������������������524 Art 18��������������������������������������������� 259, 276, 349 Load Lines Convention 1971���������������342,  608–​9 MARPOL Convention see International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships Marrakesh Agreement see Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works see WIPO Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled

Minamata Convention on Mercury (done 10 October 2013, entered into force 16 August 2017) [2016] 55 ILM 582�����������70–​71 Preamble��������������������������������������������������������727 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������648 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������746 Art 27(3) ��������������������������������������������������������348 Art 27(2)–​(3), (5)������������������������������������������694 Art 30(1) ��������������������������������������������������������674 Art 31(1) ����������������������������������������������� 227, 700 Art 32��������������������������������������������������������������678 Montreal Convention see Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, as adjusted and amended (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3 ����������������������� 75, 183–​84, 205–​6, 226–​27, 345, 416, 421–​22, 481 Art 2(9) ���������������������������� 420–​21, 423–​24,  758 Art 2(9)(c)–​(d)����������������������������������������������351 Art 2a��������������������������������������������������� 38–​39,  41 Art 4�������������������������������������������71, 421–​22, 481 Art 8������������������������������������������������������������������43 Art 10(1) ������������������������������������������������� 421–​22 Art 11(5) ��������������������������������������������������������184 Art 16(1) ��������������������������������������������������������700 Kigali Amendment�������������������205–​6, 351, 416 Art IV��������������������������������������������������� 226–​27 Multilateral Agreement for the Establishment of an International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries (adopted 24 September 2010, entered into force 6 October 2017)�������������������������� 206–​7 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (adopted 10 June 1958, entered into force 7 June 1959) 330 UNTS 38������������������������������319, 362–​63, 364–​65,  376–​77 Art III������������������������������������������������������� 376–​77 Art V ������������������������������������������������������� 376–​77 Art XI��������������������������������������������������������������717 NPT see Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes Relating to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, to the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union and to the Administrative Regulations (1992) 1825 UNTS 3 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������692

xlvi  Table of Instruments Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 18 December 2002, entered into force 22 June 2006) 2375 UNTS 237 Art 11������������������������������������������������������� 416–​17 Art 30��������������������������������������������������������������678 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000) 2173 UNTS 222���������������������������������� 300–​1,  510 Art 3(2) ����������������������������������������������������������686 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������747 Art 9(2) ����������������������������������������������������������656 Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines; Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty see Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction Outer Space Treaty see Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies Paris Agreement (adopted December 12, 2015, entered into force November 4, 2016) UN Doc FCCC/​CP/​2015/​L.9/​ Rev1�������������������48–​49, 70–​71, 173, 212–​13, 224–​25, 341–​42,  348 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������648 Art 4.4 ��������������������������������������������������������������35 Art 16(4) ��������������������������������������������������� 64–​65 Art 16(8) ��������������������������������������������������������666 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������673 Art 21(1) ��������������������������������������������������������698 Art 23(1) ��������������������������������������������������������758 Art 23(2) ��������������������������������������������������������694 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������703 Art 28��������������������������������������������������������������764 Art 29��������������������������������������������������������������691 Patent Cooperation Treaty (adopted 19 June 1970, entered into force 24 January 1978) 1160 UNTS 231 Art 64��������������������������������������������������������������320 POPs Convention see Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 609�������������������� 220–​21, 326–​27,  409

Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-​International Armed Conflicts (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 609����������� 220–​21, 326–​27,  409 Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) 2241 UNTS 507 Art 22(1) ��������������������������������������������������������700 Art 22(2) ��������������������������������������������������������701 Protocol to Amend the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Paris Protocol) (signed 3 December 1982, entered into force 1 October 1986) [1983] 22 ILM 698 �������������������������������� 336–​37 Protocol to Eliminate Trade in Tobacco Products to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) (2012) ������������������������������655 Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Agreement Establishing an International Science and Technology Center (1993) [1994] OJ L64/​2������������������� 708 Arts I-​IV ��������������������������������������������������������708 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 31 January 1967, entered into force 4 October 1967) 606 UNTS 267������������������� 355, 365, 366, 378 Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-​Range Transboundary Air-​ Pollution and Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions (Concluded 14 June 1994, entered into force 5 August 1998) [1994] 33 ILM 1540 Art 11(6) ������������������������������������������������� 351–​52 Protocol to the UNIDROIT Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment (2001) 2367 UNTS 517 Art IV(3)��������������������������������������������������������736 Ramsar Convention see Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat Refugee Convention see Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees Revised General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (1949) 71 UNTS 101 Art 43(1) ��������������������������������������������������������675

Table of Instruments  xlvii Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (adopted 24 July 1993, entered into force 23 August 1995) 2373 UNTS 233���������������������������������103–​4 Rome Statute see Statute of the International Criminal Court Rotterdam Convention see Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade Sale of Goods Convention see UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods SCM Agreement see WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (2006) Art 26(1)(ii)����������������������������������������������������658 Art 27��������������������������������������������������������������725 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended (entered into force 8 August 1975) 976 UNTS 105��������������������272 SOLAS Convention see Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea Statute of the International Court of Justice (26 June 1945) 33 UNTS 993����������14, 209, 267, 269, 271, 500, 656, 675, 722, 723, 736 Art 36(2) ������������������������������������������������� 280–​81 Art 36(5) ��������������������������������������������������������529 Art 38(1) ����������������������������������������������������������14 Art 63��������������������������������������������������������������539 Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 3 (“Rome Statute”)������������ 42, 70, 97, 183, 217, 218, 224, 264, 267, 268, 272, 273, 274, 295–​97, 343–​45, 350, 351, 421, 428, 517–​18, 626, 631, 633, 635, 636 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������428 Art 3����������������������������������������������������������������428 Art 5������������������������������������������ 296–​97,  343–​44 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������421 Art 7����������������������������������������������������������������421 Art 8��������������������������������������������������������� 343–​44 Art 8bis ����������������������������������������������������������421 Art 9�������������������������������������������������296–​97,  421 Art 13��������������������������������������������������������������723 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������666 Art 25����������������������������������������������������������������42 Art 44��������������������������������������������������������������666 Art 98��������������������������������������������������������������723 Art 120������������������������������������������������������������678 Art 121�������������������������������������343–​44, 350, 753 Art 122�����������������������������344–​45, 350, 351, 755 Art 123��������������������������������������������������� 336, 744

Art 124���������������������� 296–​97, 344–​45, 684, 685 Art 126������������������������������������������������������������698 Art 127������������������������������������������������������������763 Art 128������������������������������������������������������������703 Statute of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) (adopted 26 January 2009, entered into force 8 July 2010) [2010] OJ L178/​18������������������145 Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice����������������������������������524 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (adopted 22 May 2001, entered into force 17 May 2004) 2256 UNTS 119; [2001] 40 ILM 532 Annexes D-​F��������������������������������������������������760 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������648 Art 2��������������������������������������������������������� 131–​32 Art 2(a)-​(b)����������������������������������������������������659 Art 18(1)-​(3), (6)�������������������������������������������740 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������348 Art 21����������������������������������������������������� 348, 759 Art 22��������������������������������������������������������������759 Arts 23–​26������������������������������������������������������659 Art 23(2) �����������������������������������������131–​32,  660 Art 25��������������������������������������������������������������660 Art 25(1) ��������������������������������������������������������660 Art 25(2) �����������������������������������������131–​32,  660 Art 25(3) ���������������������������������131–​32, 660, 687 Art 25(4) ��������������������������������������������������������348 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty 1991�������633–​34 Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations (1998) 2296 UNTS 5 Art 14(1) ��������������������������������������������������������679 Trademark Law Treaty (1994) 2037 UNTS 35 Art 21(1)–​(4)��������������������������������������������������680 Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (opened for signature 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970) 729 UNTS 161�������������������������38–​39, 69, 633 Art III���������������������������������������������48–​49,  103–​4 Art VI��������������������������������������������������������� 38–​39 Art X(1)����������������������������������������������������������765 Treaty on Open Skies (1992) Canada Treaty Series 2002/​3 Art XVIII(2) ��������������������������������������������������709 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (opened for signature 18 December 1979, entered into force 11 July 1984) 610 UNTS 205 (‘Outer Space Treaty’)����322 Art 1������������������������������������������������������������39, 41

xlviii  Table of Instruments Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������322 Art 4������������������������������������������������������������������41 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (adopted 7 July 2017, not yet entered into force) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​8�������������� 185, 190, 208, 223, 224–​25 Art 1(1) ����������������������������������������������������� 38–​39 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������686 Arts 13-​14������������������������������������������������������675 Art 17(1)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������772 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������������726 TRIPS Agreement see WTO Agreement on Trade-​Related Aspects of Intellectual Property UN Charter (1945) TS No 993 ������������ 31, 40–​41, 89, 103–​4, 119–​20, 162–​63, 176, 178, 259, 276, 277–​78, 349–​50, 517–​18, 525, 526, 530, 533, 535, 539, 548, 561–​62, 568–​69, 589 Chapter VII�������������������������������40–​41, 570, 723 Chapter XI��������������������������������������������� 160, 161 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������� 40–​41 Art 1(2) ����������������������������������������������������� 40–​41 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������� 40–​41 Art 2(2)–​(6)����������������������������������������������������721 Art 2(4) �����������������������������40–​41, 364, 526, 577 Art 4����������������������������������������������������������������150 Arts 11–​13������������������������������������������������� 40–​41 Art 13�������������������������������������������������176,  207–​8 Art 33�����������������������������������������42, 611–​12, 736 Art 35(2) ��������������������������������������������������������722 Art 39��������������������������������������������������������������538 Art 41��������������������������������������������������������������538 Art 43(3) ����������������������������������������������������������99 Art 50��������������������������������������������������������������722 Art 51����������������������������40–​41, 537–​38,  569–​70 Art 63��������������������������������������������������������������531 Art 71��������������������������������������������������������������178 Art 73������������������������������������������������������� 164–​65 Art 73(b) ������������������������������������������������� 162–​63 Art 74������������������������������������������������������� 164–​65 Arts 75, 77��������������������������������������������������������35 Art 96��������������������������������������������������������������102 Art 98������������������������������������������������������� 277–​78 Art 102������������������������������99, 169, 259, 276–​84, 645, 646, 647, 702 Art 102(1) ��������������������������������������������������������31 Art 102(2) ������������������������������� 32, 169, 283, 645 Art 103���������������������������������������������442–​43,  725 Art 108���������������������������������������������349–​50,  535 Art 109����������������������������������������������������� 349–​50 Regulations to give effect to Article 102 of the Charter of the UN, UNGA Res 97(1) (14 December 1946)��������� 99, 278 UNCLOS see UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

UN Convention Against Corruption (adopted 31 October 2003, entered into force 14 December 2005) 2349 UNTS 41 Art 67(3) ����������������������������������������������� 145, 661 Art 70(1) ��������������������������������������������������������763 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (adopted 20 December 1988, entered into force 11 November 1990) 1582 UNTS 95�����������������������������������42–​43,  300–​1 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1645 UNTS 85�����������39, 86, 330, 424–​25, 510, 675, 685, 732 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (adopted 15 November 2000, entered into force 29 September 2003) 2225 UNTS 209�������� 318–​19 Art 38(1) ��������������������������������������������������������699 Art 39��������������������������������������������������������������749 Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants see Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime UN Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade [2001] 41 ILM 776 Art 35(1)–​(5)��������������������������������������������������714 UN Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/​ or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (1994) 1954 UNTS 3����������������������348 UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (adopted 11 April 1980, entered into force 1 January 1988) 1489 UNTS 3�������������������319, 320,  364–​65 Art 24��������������������������������������������������������������714 Art 26����������������������������������������������������� 685, 714 Art 90����������������������������������������������������� 443, 729 Art 93��������������������������������������������������������������319 Art 94��������������������������������������������������������������688 Art 97��������������������������������������������������������������688 Art 98��������������������������������������������������������������679 UN Convention on International Bills of Exchange and International Promissory Notes (adopted 9 December 1988, not yet in force) UN Doc A/​Res/​43/​165 Art 87��������������������������������������������������������������319

Table of Instruments  xlix UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2019, not yet in force) Art 8(3) ������������������������������������������������� 682, 748 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property (adopted 2 December 2004) UNGA Res 59/​38 (2 December 2004) Art 33��������������������������������������������������������������691 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3 (‘UNCLOS’)������40, 70, 83, 132–​33, 141, 145, 159, 204–​5, 209–​10, 226, 267–​68, 287–​88, 295–​97, 310–​11, 323, 414, 417–​18, 491, 604, 731 Part XI������������������������ 40, 352–​53, 414, 432–​33 Part XII ������������������������������������������������������������41 Part XV �������������������������������������������159,  162–​63 Art 1-​4 ������������������������������������������������������������659 Art 5����������������������������������������������������������������114 Art 5(1) ����������������������������������������������������������145 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������147 Art 8(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 310–​11 Art 17����������������������������������������������������������������40 Art 27(1) �����������������������������������������310–​11,  715 Art 59��������������������������������������������������������������311 Art 77(4) ������������������������������������������������� 490–​91 Art 76(8) ��������������������������������������������������������421 Arts 86, 87, 89����������������������������������������� 11, 322 Art 133����������������������������������������������������� 325–​26 Art 149����������������������������������������������������� 325–​26 Arts 186–​191��������������������������������������������������736 Art 198������������������������������������������������������������323 Arts 264–​265��������������������������������������������������736 Arts 279–​299��������������������������������������������������736 Art 298����������������������������������������������������� 296–​97 Art 305������������������������������������������������������������269 Art 305(1)(b)��������������������������������������������������269 Art 305(1)(c)��������������������������������������������������663 Art 305(1)(d)��������������������������������������������������663 Art 305(1)(e)����������������������������������������� 161, 663 Art 309����������������������������������������������������� 295–​96 Art 310����������������������������������������������������� 287–​88 Art 311����������������������������������������������������� 443–​44 Art 311(1)–​(6)���������������������������������310–​11,  731 Art 317(2) ������������������������������������������������������630 Art 319(2) ������������������������������������������������������418 Annexes V–​VIII��������������������������������������������736 Annex VI��������������������������������������������������� 42–​43 Annex VII�������������������������������159, 162–​63, 164 Annex IX��������������������������������������� 145, 146, 659 Arts 1–​4������������������������������������������������������659 Art 2����������������������������������������������������� 109–​10 Art 3����������������������������������������������������� 109–​10 Art 4(3) ����������������������������������������������� 109–​10 Art 4(4) ������������������������������������������������������114

Art 4(6) ������������������������������������������������������726 Art 5(1) ������������������������������������������������������145 Art 6�������������������������������������110–​11, 145, 147 Fish Stocks Agreement see Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks Implementation Agreement see Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (adopted 28 July 1994, entered into force 28 July 1996) 2167 UNTS 3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3���������������318, 359–​60, 510, 604 Art 2(1) �������������������������������������39, 327–​28, 716 Arts 43–​45��������������������������������������������������������43 Arts 46–​48������������������������������������������������������656 Art 50������������������������������������������������������� 342–​43 Art 51(2) ��������������������������������������������������������679 Optional Protocol see Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child UN Convention on Transparency in Treaty Based Investor-​State Arbitration (adopted 10 December 2014, entered into force 18 October 2017)������������������������ 226 Art 3(3) ����������������������������������������������������������683 Art 7(1)–​(3), 8(1)������������������������������������������661 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Concluded 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 1771 UNTS 107 (UNFCCC)�������������� 64–​65, 183–​84, 204–​5, 261–​62, 348, 416, 423–​24, 648 Art 2(1) ����������������������������������������������������������648 Art 4(2) ������������������������������������������������������������75 Art 7����������������������������������������������������������������184 Art 15(2)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������751 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������751 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������656 Kyoto Protocol see Kyoto Protocol Paris Agreement see Paris Agreement Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 299������������������������42–​43, 525, 570 Annex 2����������������������������������������������������������728 Art 3.2 ��������������������������������������������������������525 Art 22����������������������������������������������������������586

l  Table of Instruments UNESCO Constitution (signed 16 November 1945, entered into force 4 November 1946) 4 UNTS 275 Article XIII(1)���������������������������������349–​50,  351 Article XIV ��������������������������������������������� 539–​40 UNIDROIT Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (2001) 2307 UNTS 285 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������691 Art 6(2) ����������������������������������������������������������728 UNIDROIT Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods (1983) Art 26(1)-​(3)����������������������������������������� 685, 714 UNIDROIT Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will (1973) [1973] 12 ILM 1298 Art VIII����������������������������������������������������������678 Art XVI ����������������������������������������������������������703 UNIDROIT Convention on Substantive Rules for Intermediated Securities (2009) Art 48��������������������������������������������������������������703 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (adopted 24 April 1963, entered into force 19 March 1967) 596 UNTS 261 (VCCR)�������������������������������300–​1, 369,  568–​69 Art 36�����������������������������������������������367,  568–​69 Art 73(2) ��������������������������������������������������������730 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (adopted 18 April 1961, entered into force 24 April 1964) 500 UNTS 95 (VCDR) ������������������������������� 39–​40 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985) 1513 UNTS 293���������� 416 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������743 Warsaw Convention see Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air Warsaw Pact (adopted 14 May 1955, entered into force 6 June 1955) 219 UNTS 3 ������������������������������������������������������323 Whaling Convention see International Whaling Convention WHO Constitution see Constitution of the World Health Organization WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) 2302 UNTS 166�����������������������������������������������181–​82,  192 Art 2(2) ������������������������������������������������������729 Art 8(2) ������������������������������������������������������719 Art 23(5)(g)������������������������������������������������666 Art 29����������������������������������������������������������694 Protocol to Eliminate Trade in Tobacco Products see Protocol to Eliminate Trade in Tobacco Products to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996) 2186 UNTS 121 Art 17��������������������������������������������������������������659 Art 17(1) ��������������������������������������������������������654 WIPO Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled (adopted 27 June 2013) WIPO Doc VIP/​DC/​8������������������������������182 WMO Convention see Convention of the World Meteorological Organization WTO Agreement see Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (1994) 1867 UNTS 493 Art 11(3) ��������������������������������������������������������728 WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (‘SCM Agreement’) ��������������������������������������� 479–​80 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������480 WTO Agreement on Trade-​Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (‘TRIPS Agreement’) Art 4����������������������������������������������������������������745 Art 73��������������������������������������������������������������735 WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding see Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes WTO General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) see General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services see General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) WTO Marrakesh Agreement see Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization REGIONAL INSTRUMENTS Africa African (Banjul) Charter on Human and People’s Rights (adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) 1520 UNTS 217; [1982] 21 ILM 58 ��������������������������������������������������183 Chapter 2�����������������������������������������508,  515–​16 Art 1������������������������������������������������������� 508, 509 Art 47������������������������������������������������������� 579–​80 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (‘Kampala Convention’) (2009) Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������679

Table of Instruments  li African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003) 43 ILM 5 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������725 Amended Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Western Indian Ocean (2010) TRE-​157165 Art 11(2)–​(3)��������������������������������������������������720 Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000) 2158 UNTS 3 Art 29(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������652 Kampala Convention see African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (adopted 28 May 1975, entered into force 1 August 1995) 1010 UNTS 17��������������������������� 103–​4 Art 1������������������������������������������������������������������40 Americas Agreement Concerning the Replacement of Highly Enriched Uranium by Low Enriched Uranium (IAEA-​Mexico-​ US) (2011) 2803 UNTS 49286 Art XII������������������������������������������������������������697 Agreement for the Establishment of the Caribbean Organization and Annexed Statute of the Caribbean Organization (21 June 1960, entered into force 29 December 1961) 418 UNTS 110������������������������������������������� 160–​61 Agreement: Art II����������������������������������� 160–​61 Statute: Art III����������������������������������������� 160–​61 Agreement Establishing the Latin American Energy Organization (1973) 1000 UNTS 117 Arts 1–​2����������������������������������������������������������650 Amazon Cooperation Treaty (1978) 1202 UNTS 51 Art XVIII��������������������������������������������������������727 Art XXVII������������������������������������������������������651 Art XXVIII ����������������������������������������������������651 American Convention on Human Rights (adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 June 1978) 1144 UNTS 123�����������������������������477, 510, 514, 519, 636 Art 1(1) �����������������������������������327–​28, 509, 716 Art 1(2) ����������������������������������������������������������509 Art 19��������������������������������������������������������������477 Art 28(2) ������������������������������������������������� 320–​21 Art 45������������������������������������������������������� 579–​80 Art 78��������������������������������������������������������������765 Art 78(2) ����������������������������������������������� 630, 765

Convention for the Strengthening of the Inter-​American Tropical Tuna Commission (2003) XXVII(1)��������������������������������������������������������661 XXVII(1)(c) ��������������������������������������������������661 XXVII(2)��������������������������������������������������������661 XXVIII(1)������������������������������������������������������664 Inter-​American Convention on Personality and Capacity of Juridical Persons in Private International Law (1984) 1752 UNTS 237 Art 13��������������������������������������������������������������681 Inter-​American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (1985) OAS Treaty Series No 67 Arts 18, 20������������������������������������������������������654 Memorandum of Understanding between the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the Latin American Energy Organization (16 and 25 February 2009) (2009) UNJY 56����������������������������������� 101 North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (Canada-​ Mexico-​US) (1993) 32 ILM 1480 ��������������� 184 Art 14(1) ��������������������������������������������������������667 North American Free Trade Agreement (‘NAFTA’) (Canada–​Mexico–​US) (signed 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) [1993] 32 ILM 296 and [1993] 32 ILM 605 ���������������������31, 70–​71, 339, 725 Art 1131����������������������������������������������������������481 Art 2202����������������������������������������������������������339 Art 2203����������������������������������������������������������697 USMCA Protocol see Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada Protocol Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (7 September 1977, entered into force 1 October 1979) [1977] 16 ILM 1022����������������������������������556 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������723 Protocol to Amend the 1949 Convention on the Establishment of an Inter-​American Tropical Tuna Commission 1999 [2000] 40 ILM 1494����������������������������������������������������� 112–​13 Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA) (2018, not yet in force) Para 1������������������������������������������������������� 724–​25

lii  Table of Instruments Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (1967) 634 UNTS 281 Art 24��������������������������������������������������������������740 Antarctic Antarctic Treaty (adopted 1 December 1959, entered into force 23 June 1961) 402 UNTS 71�������������������322, 416, 418–​19, 420 Art I ������������������������������������������������������������������41 Art III����������������������������������������������������������������41 Art VI��������������������������������������������������������������715 Art VII������������������������������������������������������������322 Art IX���������������������������������������418–​19, 420, 421 Art X����������������������������������������������������������������722 Art XII(1)(a)–​(b) ������������������������������������������767 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991) 30 ILM 1455 Art 4(2) ����������������������������������������������������������443 Art 5(1)–​(2)����������������������������������������������������728 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)������������������������������������������������416 Art XXXI(1)-​(2)��������������������������������������������766 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (signed 4 October 1991, entered into force 14 January 1998) [1991] 30 ILM 1461 Art 4(2) ������������������������������������������������������443 Art 5(1)–​(2)������������������������������������������������728 Asia Agreement for the Establishment of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (1993) [1996] ATS 20 Art XXI(1)������������������������������������������������������764 Agreement for the Establishment of the Regional Commission for Fisheries (1999) Art I.2��������������������������������������������������������������673 Art IV��������������������������������������������������������������673 Art XIII(1)-​(2) ����������������������������������������������673 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network (2003) 2323 UNTS 37 Art 17��������������������������������������������������������������693 Minutes on Settlement of Disputes Regarding Joint Boundaries (Qatar-​ Bahrain-​Saudi Arabia) (adopted 25 December 1990) 1641 UNTS 239������������282 Pact of the League of Arab States (signed 22 March 1945, entered into force 10 May 1945) 70 UNTS 237 Art 19������������������������������������������������������� 349–​50

Atlantic Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (with Annexes) (done 24 October 1978, entered into force 1 January 1979) 1135 UNTS 369 Arts X–​XII����������������������������������������������� 347–​48 Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-​East Atlantic��������������������������� 432–​33 North Atlantic Treaty (adopted 4 April 1949, entered into force 24 August 1949) 34 UNTS 243 (‘NATO Treaty’) ���������������������������������������������112–​13, 442, 541 Art 5��������������������������������������������������������� 375–​76 Art 8������������������������������������������������������� 442, 727 North-​East Atlantic Fisheries Convention (with Annex) (signed 24 January 1959, entered into force 27 June 1963) 486 UNTS 157 Arts 5–​8��������������������������������������������������� 347–​48 Art 12������������������������������������������������������� 347–​48 Europe (See also European Union) Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2015) OJ L159/​17 Art 10 [2]��������������������������������������������������������699 Agreement with a View to the Administrative and Technical Re-​organization of the Southern Railway Company’s System (Austria-​Hungary-​Italy-​Serbs, Croats and Slovenes-​Southern Railway Company (Südbhan)) (29 March 1923) 23 LNTS 336 (‘Rome Agreement’)�����������������������������������167–​68 Agreement on Initialing the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (‘Dayton Agreement’) (1995) 194 Arts I-​II����������������������������������������������������������676 Agreement of Minsk of 8 December 1991 [1992] 31 ILM 145 Art 12��������������������������������������������������������������390 Agreements on the Protection of the Rivers Meuse and Scheldt (Belgium (Brussels-​ Capital, Flanders, Wallonia Regional Governments)-​France-​Netherlands) (26 April 1994) [1995] 34 ILM 851������153–​54,  657 Agreement relating to Community Patents (1989) OJ L401/​1 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������723 Central European Free Trade Agreement (Czech Republic of Hungary-​The Republic of Poland-​Slovak Republic) (1992) 34 ILM 8 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������690

Table of Instruments  liii Convention Establishing the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Art 43������������������������������������������ 103–​4,  141–​42 Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (‘LRTAP Convention’)������������������������������416 Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (1992) 1764 UNTS 3 Art XXV����������������������������������������������������������737 Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea (1992) 2099 UNTS 195 Arts 34–​35������������������������������������������������������652 Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region (1997) 2136 UNTS 3 Art XI.1 ����������������������������������������������������������655 Art XI.9(1)������������������������������������������������������703 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������691 Council of Europe Agreement on the Provisional Application of Certain Provisions of Protocol No. 14 Pending its entry into force (Concluded 12 May 2009) see Agreement on the Provisional Application of Certain Provisions of Protocol No. 14 Pending its entry into force Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) 45 ILM 12 Art 40(1) ��������������������������������������������������������729 Art 41����������������������������������������������������� 319, 321 Council of Europe Convention on Contact Concerning Children see Convention on Contact Concerning Children Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (adopted 23 November 2001, entered into force 1 July 2004) CETS No 185 (2001) 2296 UNTS 167��������������������������������������������������319 Art 41(1)-​(3)��������������������������������������������������718 Art 42��������������������������������������������������������������680 Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (adopted 16 May 2005, entered into force 1 May 2008) CETS No 198 Art 52(4) ��������������������������������������������������������132 Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (2014) CETS No 215 Art 35��������������������������������������������������������������715

Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property (2017) CETS 221 Art 30(2) ��������������������������������������������������������683 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (adopted 11 May 2011, entered into force 1 August 2014) CETS No 210 Art 44��������������������������������������������������������������329 Art 75��������������������������������������������������������������662 Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (adopted 16 May 2005, entered into force 1 June 2007) CETS No 196 Art 14��������������������������������������������������������������329 Additional Protocol see Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs (2015) CETS No 216����������������������������������������������655 Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (1999) CETS No 173 Explanatory Report: Para 27������������������������719 Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (1995) 1 CETS No 157������������������������� 48–​49 Council of Europe Protocol amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (2010) CETS No 208 Art IX(1) ��������������������������������������������������������655 European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (2000) Art 10(1) ��������������������������������������������������������654 European Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (AGTC) (adopted 1 February 1991, entered into force 20 October 1993) 1746 UNTS 3������� 272 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������756 European Agreement Relating to Persons Participating in Proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights (1996) 2135 UNTS 181 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������713 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 Nov 1950, entered into force 3 Sept 1953) 213 UNTS 222 (as amended) (‘European Convention on Human Rights’; ECHR)�������������������������109, 112–​13, 509, 510 Art 1�����������������������������������������327–​28, 334, 509

liv  Table of Instruments Art 32��������������������������������������������������������������739 Art 33������������������������������������������������������� 579–​80 Art 34��������������������������������������������������������������667 Art 53��������������������������������������������������������������729 Art 55��������������������������������������������������������������739 Art 56(1) ��������������������������������������������������������315 Art 56(3) ������������������������������������������������� 315–​16 Art 59(2) ��������������������������������������������������������663 Protocol 6 (on the abolition of the death Penalty)������������������������ 38–​39,  629–​30 Protocol 7 (on Crime and family)����������������332 Protocol 14 (Court Procedures) Art 59(2) ����������������������������������������������������663 Protocol 15 (Principle of subsidiarity)��������516 European Economic Area Agreement [1994] OJ L1/​3 Art 2(c)���������������������������������������������������� 141–​42 European Patent Convention 1973 [1974] 13 ILM 348 Art 69������������������������������������������������������� 466–​67 Exchange of Letters relating to the Provisional Application of the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EC-​Denmark/​Greenland) (2006) [2007] OJ L27/​17 Art 13��������������������������������������������������������������769 Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environment Programme in the Russian Federation (2003) [2003] OJ L155/​37 Art 16(1) ��������������������������������������������������������651 Art 18(7) ��������������������������������������������������������705 General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe (adopted 2 November 1949)��������������������109 German Unification Treaty [1991] 30 ILM 463 Arts 11, 12����������������������������������������������� 397–​98 Peace of Westphalia (1648)�����������������41–​42,  231 Peace Treaty with Italy 1946 Art 10(2) ��������������������������������������������������������581 Annex IV��������������������������������������������������������581 Protocol of 28 September 1984 to the 1979 Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution on Long Term Financing of the Cooperative Programme for Monitoring and Forwarding of the Long Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe (EMEP) (adopted 28 September 1984, entered into force 28 January 1988) 1491 UNTS 167������������������� 416 Art 11(6) ������������������������������������������������� 351–​52 Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 of the European Patent Convention, Munich, 1973 [1974] 13 ILM 348����������������������������������������������� 466–​67

Statute of the Council of Europe (with Amendments) (signed 5 May 1949, entered into force 3 August 1949) CETS No 1 Art 41������������������������������������������������������� 349–​50 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1990) 2443 UNTS 3 Art XVI ����������������������������������������������������������738 Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany (adopted 28 June 1919, entered into force 10 January 1920) UKTS 1919 4 (Treaty of Versailles) ���������������� 70, 176, 191, 276, 349, 391–​92, 561, 604–​5 Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria (Treaty of St Germain-​en-​Laye) (10 September 1919)��������������������������������� 166–​67 Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and the Serb-​ Croat-​Slovene State (adopted 10 September 1919) UKTS 1919 17 [Cmd 461]����������������������������������������������������99 Treaty of Trianon ��������������������������������������� 391–​92 Art 304����������������������������������������������������� 166–​67 European Union (EU) Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (2000) (States of the Benelux Economic Union-​ France-​Germany) OJ L239/​19 Art 26(1)(a)����������������������������������������������������722 EU Treaties �������������������117–​18, 119–​20, 121–​22, 124–​25, 126–​27, 128–​29, 133, 135, 136–​37, 140–​42, 147–​48, 316, 317, 525, 533–​34, 536, 613 Euratom Treaty������������������������������������������� 432–​33 Schengen Agreement see Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community [1994] OJ L1/​3������������������������������������������������� 131–​32 Treaty Establishing the European Community (EC Treaty) [2002] OJ C325/​33�����������������������������������107–​8,  117 Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (adopted 25 March 1957, entered into force 1 January 1958) 298 UNTS 3 (Treaty of Rome) ���������������������117, 120, 140, 439–​40 Treaty of Amsterdam 1997 ���������������118–​19,  130

Table of Instruments  lv Treaty of Lisbon Amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (2007) [2007] OJ C306/​1��������������� 112, 117–​19, 123, 127, 129, 130, 136–​37, 140, 317, 657 Art 6 ����������������������������������������������������������������698 Art 6(1) ����������������������������������������������������������672 Treaty of Maastricht 1992 ������������������������� 118–​19 Treaty on European Union (EU) [2002] OJ C325/​5 ��������������������������������������������������117 Treaty on European Union (TEU) [2010] OJ C83/​13��������������������������������������������������117 Art 4(3) ������������������������������������ 117–​18,  138–​39 Art 5(1) ����������������������������������������������������������120 Art 5(2) ����������������������������������������������������������120 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������127 Art 6(2) ����������������������������������������������������������117 Art 8������������������������������������������������������� 123, 127 Art 21(2) ��������������������������������������������������������117 Art 36������������������������������������������������������� 127–​28 Art 37��������������������������������������������������������������123 Art 47������������������������������������������������������� 118–​19 Art 48��������������������������������������������������������������760 Art 50���������������������� 140, 141–​42, 613, 627, 766 Art 50(2) ��������������������������������������������������������627 Art 52��������������������������������������������������������������325 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) [2010] OJ  C83/​47 Declaration 18������������������������������������������������137 Art 1��������������������������������������������������������� 117–​18 Art 2(2) �������������������������������������������134,  137–​38 Art 3(2) �������������������������������������������124,  137–​38 Art 49������������������������������������������������������� 138–​39 Art 78(2)(g)����������������������������������������������������123 Art 79(3) ��������������������������������������������������������123 Art 191(4) ������������������������������������������������������123 Art 192������������������������������������������������������������123 Art 198������������������������������������������������������������316 Art 207��������������������������������������������������� 120, 123 Art 209(2) ��������������������������������������������� 123, 127 Art 212������������������������������������������������������������127 Art 212(3) ������������������������������������������������������123 Art 214(4) ������������������������������������������������������123 Arts 216–​219������������������������������������������� 117–​18 Art 216���������������������������������������������117–​18,  122 Art 216(1) ���������������������������������������123–​24,  138 Art 216(2) ��������������������107–​8, 132–​33,  139–​41 Art 217������������������������������������������� 120, 123, 127 Art 218���������������������������������������������126,  127–​28 Art 218(8) ������������������������������������������������������129 Art 218(9) ����������������������������������������������� 126–​27 Art 218(10)��������������������������������������������� 127–​28 Art 218(11)���������������������128–​29, 130, 133, 134 Art 219������������������������������������������������������������126

Art 256����������������������������������������������������� 579–​80 Art 258����������������������������������������������������� 133–​34 Art 259����������������������������������������������������� 133–​34 Art 263������������������������������������������������������������130 Art 267���������������������������������������������132–​33,  135 Art 288������������������������������������������������������������535 Art 289������������������������������������������������������������535 Art 344������������������������������������������������������������134 Art 349������������������������������������������������������������317 Art 351��������������������������������������������������� 140, 726 Art 352����������������������������������������������������� 122–​23 Art 355������������������������������������������� 316, 317, 325 Art 355(1)-​(5)������������������������������������������������711 Annex II������������������������������������������������� 316, 317 Pacific Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-​Pacific Partnership (Canada-​ Australia-​Japan-​Mexico-​New Zealand-​Singapore-​Vietnam)  (2019) Art 30.1 ����������������������������������������� 186, 653, 693 Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (adopted 5 September 2000, entered into force 19 June 2004) 2275 UNTS 43, [2001] 40 ILM 277 �����������������������41,  746–​50 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������161 Art 22��������������������������������������������������������������161 Art 35(2) ��������������������������������������������������������654 Art 40��������������������������������������������������������������748 Memorandum of Understanding as to Taiwan������������������������������������������������156 Convention for a North Pacific Marine Science Organization (1990) Art XVII 770��������������������������������������������������773 Protocol 1 to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (1986) 1971 UNTS 470 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������712 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (signed 6 August 1985, entered into force 11 December 1986) 1445 UNTS 171��������������������������������������������� 39–​40 BILATERAL TREATIES AND INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS AFGHANISTAN –​GERMANY Treaty Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (done 19–​20 April 2005, entered into force 12 October 2007) ����������������������������������������������� 39,  42–​43

lvi  Table of Instruments AFGHANISTAN –​ USA Acquisition Agreement (30 December 2012) 12 TIAS 1230 Article IV��������������������������������������������������������696 ALBANIA –​ USA Agreement on the Settlement of Certain Outstanding Claims (US-​Republic of Albania) (1995) 34 ILM 597 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������691 ANDORRA –​GERMANY Agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Principality of Andorra on the exchange of information relating to tax returns (2010) 2810 UNTS 49301 Article 12(2) ��������������������������������������������������696 ANGOLA –​NETHERLANDS Air Services Agreement (2018) 2019 Trb 199 Art 24��������������������������������������������������������������671 ARGENTINA –​ USA Treaty Concerning the Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investment (1991) 31 ILM 124����������� 41–​42 Art VII(2)–​(3)������������������������������������������������741 AUSTRALIA –​BELGIUM Agreement on ‘Working Holiday’ Arrangements (2002) [2004] ATS 13 Art 8����������������������������������������������������������������772 AUSTRALIA –​COMMISSION FOR THE CONSERVATION OF SOUTHERN BLUEFIN TUNA Headquarters Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1998) [1999] ATS 6 Art 27(2) ��������������������������������������������������������772 AUSTRALIA –​ EU Agreement on Certain Aspects of Air Services (2008) [2008] OJ L149/​65 Art 7(2) ����������������������������������������������������������707 AUSTRALIA –​ FRANCE Extradition Treaty����������������������������������������������314

AUSTRALIA –​INDONESIA Agreement on the Framework for Security Cooperation (2006) [2008] ATS 3 Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������745 AUSTRALIA –​ ITALY Agreement on Social Security (1993) [2000] ATS 29 Art 23(1) ��������������������������������������������������������672 AUSTRALIA –​NEW ZEALAND Bilateral free-​trade agreement��������������������������359 AUSTRALIA –​ USA Agreement Concerning Cooperating Communications Networks (1990) [1990] ATS 5 Art VII(19) ����������������������������������������������������771 Agreement Concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Information (2002) [2002] ATS 25 Art 21(6) ��������������������������������������������������������771 Agreement Concerning Space Vehicle Tracking and Communications Facilities of 29 May 1980, as amended (done by Exchange of Notes, 2000) [2000] ATS 32����������������������701 Agreement for the Sharing of Visa and Immigration Information (2014) 2014 ATS 39 ����������������������������������������������650 Free Trade Agreement (2004) [2005] ATS 1 Art 23.1 ����������������������������������������������������������674 AUSTRIA –​CZECH REPUBLIC Austria -​Czech Republic bilateral treaties�����������������������������������������������399–​400 AUSTRIA –​SLOVENIA Agreement on the use of Two Tracks of the Slovenian State Territory in the area of the ‘Dreilaendereck’ Skiing Region (1995) 2404 UNTS 307 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������769 BELGIUM –​NETHERLANDS Agreement on the Arbitration relating to the Reactivation and Modernization of the Iron Rhine (adopted 22 July 2003, entered into force 1 July 2005) (2003) 2332 UNTS 481 ��������������������� 20, 708

Table of Instruments  lvii BELIZE –​NETHERLANDS Agreement on the Export and Enforcement of Social Security Benefits (2005) 2387 UNTS 319 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������712

CANADA –​ ISRAEL Agreement on Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Development (2006) CTS 2006/​9 Art VI(3)����������������������������������������������� 770, 771

BELIZE –​ USA Air Transport Agreement 2018 TIAS 18-​1016 Art 18����������������������������������������������������� 670, 690

CANADA –​ ITALY Framework Agreement on the Reciprocal Recognition of Driver’s Licenses for Exchange Purposes (2017) CTS E105275 Art 3����������������������������������������������������������������737

BERMUDA –​ JAPAN Agreement for the Exchange of Information for the Purpose of the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion and the Allocation of Rights of Taxation With Respect to Income of Individuals (2010) Preamble��������������������������������������������������������665 Art 20(1) ��������������������������������������������������������670 BERMUDA –​ USA Preclearance Agreement (15 January 1974) 928 UNTS 95 ����������������������������������160 CANADA –​DENMARK Memorandum of Understanding Concerning a Working Holiday Program (Denmark-​Canada) (2005) 2374 UNTS 283 s 5��������������������������������������������������������������������768 CANADA –​ GABON Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital (2002) CTS 2008/​5 Art 29(1) ��������������������������������������������������������672 Art 29(2) ��������������������������������������������������������702 CANADA –​ EU Agreement on Air Transport (2009) CTS 2019/​9 Art 26��������������������������������������������������������������730 Agreement on Civil Aviation Safety (2011) Canadian No E105195 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������649 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (adopted 30 October 2016, entered into force 21 September 2017)����������������������������������������186 CANADA –​GERMANY Agreement on Audio-​visual Relations (2004) Canadian No E104998 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������670

CANADA –​ JORDAN Agreement for Co-​operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2009) CTS 2009/​9 Art XIII ����������������������������������������������������������744 Art XIV(1)������������������������������������������������������744 CANADA –​ LATVIA Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of investments (1995) 2012 UNTS 13 Art XVII(2)-​(3)����������������������������������������������735 CANADA –​SLOVAK REPUBLIC Agreement between the Slovak Republic and Canada for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (2010) 2817 UNTS 49389 Art XV������������������������������������������������������������697 CANADA –​SOUTH AFRICA Treaty on Extradition (2001) CTS 2001/​20 Art 22(3) ��������������������������������������������������������745 CANADA –​ UK Agreement on British Armed Forces’ Training in Canada (2006) CTS 2006/​17 Art 11��������������������������������������������������������������696 CANADA –​ USA Agreement on Air Quality (1991) 1852 UNTS 79 Art XIV(1)������������������������������������������������������736 Art XV������������������������������������������������������������728 Agreement with Respect to Social Security (US–​Canada) (11 March 1981) 35 UST 3403 Art XX��������������������������������������������������� 155, 664 Understanding and Administrative Arrangement between the USA and the Government of Quebec (30 March 1983) TIAS No 10,863������������155

lviii  Table of Instruments CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC –​ EU Agreement on the status of the European Union-​led Forces in the Central African Republic (2008) [2008] OJ L136/​46 Art 19(1) ��������������������������������������������������������772 CHINA –​JAMAICA Agreement Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (China-​Jamaica) (1994)�������������������������������������������649 CHINA –​NEW ZEALAND Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (1988) 1787 UNTS 185 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������714 CHINA –​PORTUGAL Joint Declaration of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Portugal on the Question of Macao (signed 13 April 1987) 1498 UNTS 229������������������������������������������� 396–​97 CHINA –​ SPAIN Agreement on Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (adopted 6 February 1992, entered into force 1 May 1993) 1746 UNTS 185���������39–​40 Art 1(4) ����������������������������������������������������������715 CHINA –​ UK Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong (signed 19 December 1984) 1399 UNTS 61������������������������������������� 396–​97 Annex 1, §XI��������������������������������������������������156 COOK ISLANDS –​NEW ZEALAND Agreement on the Exchange of Information with respect to Taxes (13 December 2011)����������������������������������159 CONGO –​ IAEA Protocol Additional to the Agreements for the Application of Safeguards (Congo-​IAEA) (2011) IAEA INFCIRC/​831/​Add.1 Art 16��������������������������������������������������������������758

CZECHOSLOVAKIA–​ HUNGARY Treaty Concerning the Construction and Operation of the Gabcikovo-​ Nagymaros System of Locks (Czechoslovakia-​Hungary) (16 September 1977) 1109 UNTS 235����������606–​7, 614–​15,  616 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������� 600–​1 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������� 606–​7 Art 19��������������������������������������������������������� 606–​7 Art 20�����������������������������������������606–​7, 613, 615 EAEC –​ INDIA Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Fusion Energy Research between the European Atomic Energy Community and India (2009) [2010] OJ L242/​26 Art XI��������������������������������������������������������������671 EGYPT –​FINLAND Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (2004) 2309 UNTS 261 Art 17(3) ��������������������������������������������������������764 ESA –​ EU Agreement on the Security and Exchange of Classified Information (2007) [2008] OJ L219/​59 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������������763 EU –​CELAC (COMMUNITY OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARRIBEAN STATES) Agreement establishing the EU-​LAC International Foundation (2016) OJ L288/​3 Art 25(1) ��������������������������������������������������������699 EU –​ GHANA Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade in Timber Products into the Community (EC -​Ghana) (2009) [2010] OJ L70/​3 Art 25��������������������������������������������������������������768 EU –​ ICC Agreement between the EU and the ICC Art 2(1) ����������������������������������������������������������131 Art 3����������������������������������������������������������������131 EU –​ JAPAN Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (2009) [2010] OJ L39/​20 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������692

Table of Instruments  lix EU –​ KOREA Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one Part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other Part ���������������������� 131–​32 EU –​ RUSSIA Agreement on the Participation of the Russian Federation in the European Union military operation in the Republic of Chad and in the Central African Republic (2008) [2008] OJ L307/​16 739 Art 8(2) ����������������������������������������������������������739 EU –​SOLOMON ISLANDS Fisheries Partnership Agreement (2010) [2010] OJ L190/​3 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������694 EU –​TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO Agreement on the short-​stay visa waiver (2015) OJ L173, 66 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������691 EU –​ USA Agreement on Extradition (2003) 43 ILM 749 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������������730 Agreement on intensifying and broadening the Agreement of 28 May 1997 on customs co-​operation and mutual assistance in customs matters to include co-​operation on container security and related matters (2004) [2004] OJ L304/​34 Art 7����������������������������������������������������������������696 Agreement on mutual legal assistance [2003] OJ L181/​34 Art 3(2) ����������������������������������������������������������119 Agreement on the Processing and Transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for the Purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (2010) [2010] OJ L195/​5 Art 21��������������������������������������������������������������768 Agreement on Trade in Bananas (2010) [2010] OJ L141/​6 Art 6����������������������������������������������������������������697 Air Transport Agreement (US/​EU Open Skies Agreement) (2007) 46 ILM 470 Art 22(1)–​(2)��������������������������������������������������725 Art 25��������������������������������������������������������������707

FINLAND –​TANZANIA Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (2001) 2201 UNTS 61 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������734 FRANCE –​ RUSSIA Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Internal Security and the Fight against Crime between the French Republic and the Russian Federation (2003) 2476 UNTS 145 Art 2����������������������������������������������������������������727 FRANCE –​ UK Convention of 14 June 1898 regulating the Boundaries between British and French Colonial Possessions������������� 440–​41 FRANCE –​ USA Treaty for the Cession of Louisiana (signed 30 April 1803, entered into force 21 October 1803) ����������������������� 38–​39 GERMANY –​ USA FCN Treaty (29 October 1954) 7 UST 1839��������������������������������������������� 439–​40 GUATEMALA –​ BELIZE Special Agreement Between Guatemala and Belize to Submit Guatemala’s Territorial, Insular, and Maritime Claim to the International Court of Justice (adopted 8 December 2008, entered into force 30 July 2018) ��������������225 HONG KONG SAR –​ UK Double Taxation Agreement and Protocol (2010)����������������������������������������������������������741 HONG KONG SAR –​UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region-​United Arab Emirates) (2019, not in force) Art 15������������������������������������������������������� 696–​97 IAEA –​ NORWAY Agreement Concerning the Participation of the Government of the Kingdom of Norway in the Work of the [International Atomic Energy] Agency (1975) 14 ILM 641 ����������������������709

lx  Table of Instruments INDIA –​ USA Agreement for Cooperation on a Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center between the US Dept of Energy and the Republic of India Planning Commission (2010) Art VIII(4)������������������������������������������������������763

MALTA –​ USA Agreement Concerning Cooperation to Suppress the Proliferation of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, their Delivery Systems, and related Materials By Sea (2007) Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������650

IRAN –​ USA Declaration of the Government of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria (20 January 1981) [1981] 20 ILM 224 (Algiers Accords)��������������������31

MEXICO –​ UK Agreement Concerning Mutual Assistance in the Investigation, Restraint and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime other than Drug Trafficking (1996) 1945 UNTS 317 Art 14��������������������������������������������������������������713

IRAQ –​ KUWAIT Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters (Adopted 4 October 1963) 485 UNTS 321��������������������������������282 IRELAND –​ POLAND Exchange of Notes Constituting an Agreement in regard to the Mutual Abolition of Visas (1992) 1745 UNTS 77��������������������������������������������769 IRELAND –​ UK Agreement Providing for the Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (1974) 990 UNTS 69 Art 19��������������������������������������������������������������712 ISRAEL –​SLOVAKIA Free Trade Agreement (Israel-​Slovakia) (1996) 1995 UNTS 3 Art 15��������������������������������������������������������������733 ITALY –​ QATAR Agreement on the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (2003) 2296 UNTS 239 Testimonium��������������������������������������������������691 JERSEY –​ USA Tax Information Exchange Agreement 2002 ����� 160 KOSOVO –​ TURKEY Agreement on the Mutual Abolition of Visas between Kosovo and Turkey (Adopted 13 January 2009)����������������������162

NETHERLANDS –​PHILIPPINES Agreement on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters (2011) 2011 Trb 67 Art 22��������������������������������������������������������������697 NEW ZEALAND –​ UK Treaty of Cession between Great Britain and New Zealand (Treaty of Waitangi) (5/​6 February 1840) 89 CTS 473��������������������������� 157 NEW ZEALAND –​ USA Agreement Concerning Defense Communications Services (1992) 1937 UNTS 283 Art III(4)��������������������������������������������������������736 PAKISTAN –​ USA Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation of June 25, 2003 as Extended (Pakistan-​ US) (2019) TIAS 03 1016-​1������������������������� 770–​71 PANAMA –​SOUTH KOREA Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (2001) Art 12(2)-​(3)��������������������������������������������������765 PHILIPPINES –​THAILAND Treaty Relating to Extradition (1981) 1394 UNTS 3 Art IV(1)��������������������������������������������������������716 POLAND –​UZBEKISTAN Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters (2003) 2369 UNTS 171 Art 13��������������������������������������������������������������735

Table of Instruments  lxi RUSSIA –​ UK Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (1996) 1945 UNTS 351 Art VII������������������������������������������������������������727 RUSSIA –​ USA Agreement regarding Cooperation to Facilitate the Provision of Assistance (1992) 2264 UNTS 11 Art V ��������������������������������������������������������������729 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START Agreement) (2010) 50 ILM 340����������������� 184 Art XIV(1)��������������������������������������������� 693, 696 Art XIV(4)������������������������������������������������������724 SOUTH KOREA -​ US Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement of June 25 and July 6, 2004 on Mutual Airlift Support (2019) (Republic of Korea-​United States) ������ 671–​72 SPAIN –​UNITED NATIONS Exchange of Letters constituting an agreement between the United Nations and Spain regarding the hosting of the Expert Group Meeting entitled ‘Making it work—​ Civil Society Participation in the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ (concluded 15 November 2007, entered into force provisionally 23 November 2007) 2486 UNTS 5 ��������������������������� 233–​34 SWITZERLAND –​URUGUAY Agreement on the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (adopted 7 October 1988, entered into force 22 April 1991) 1976 UNTS 389���������������������277–​78 TAJIKISTAN –​UKRAINE Free Trade Agreement (2001) Art 9����������������������������������������������������������������726 UK –​ USA Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Taxes, for the Cayman Islands (signed 27 November 2001, entered into force 10 March 2006) TIAS 13175��������������������161 Art 1����������������������������������������������������������������712

Agreement on the Use of Ascension Island (Signed 25 March 1985) 1443 UNTS 25������������������������������������������������������41 Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in the United States and Canada (adopted 16 August 1916, entered into force 7 December 1916) 2478 UNTS 33����������������������������������41 Preclearance Agreement (US-​Bermuda) (15 Jan 1974) 928 UNTS 95����������������������160 Treaty between the United States and Great Britain Relating to Boundary Waters between the United States and Canada (signed 11 January 1909) 36 Stat 2448 Art 4������������������������������������������������������������������39 Treaty Concerning Defense Trade Cooperation (2007) Senate Treaty Doc No 110–​7 Art 18��������������������������������������������������������������736 Art 20��������������������������������������������������������������766 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (1994) 1967 UNTS 101 Art 3(1)(a)������������������������������������������������������735 UKRAINE –​ USA Agreement Concerning the Succession of Ukraine to Bilateral Treaties between the United States and the Former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with Annex (Exchange of Notes at Kiev 10 May 1995) reprinted in (1995) 89 AJIL 761–​2�����������������������399–​400 UNITED NATIONS –​SIERRA LEONE Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leona on the Establishment of a Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (2010) 2871 UNTS 50115 Art 14��������������������������������������������������������������696 USA –​ USSR Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-​Ballistic Missile Systems (signed 26 May 1972, entered into force 3 October 1972) 944 UNTS 13 (ABM Treaty)���������������������184, 609–​11, 621 Art XIII ����������������������������������������������������������610 Art XIII(2)������������������������������������������������������610 Art XIV ����������������������������������������������������������610 Art XIV(2)������������������������������������������������������610

lxii  Table of Instruments Art XV������������������������������������������������������������633 Art XV(2)�������������������������������������������������������609 YEMEN (AR) –​YEMEN (PDR) Agreement between the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen on the Establishment of the Republic of Yemen (done 22 April 1990, entered into force 21 May 1990)����������������������������392 POLITICAL COMMITMENTS Basel Committee Guidelines on Banking Supervision, ‘International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards: A Revised Framework’ (Basel II) (2004)����������������������������������������� 59–​60, 62, 77 Codex Alimentarius (FAO)������������������������� 59–​60 Conference on Security and Co-​operation in Europe (CSCE), ‘Final Act’ (Helsinki 1975) [1975] 14 ILM 1292������� 647 Copenhagen Accord, ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Fifteenth Session, held in Copenhagen from 7 to 19 December 2009, Addendum Part Two: Action taken by the Conference of the Parties at its Fifteenth Session’ UN Doc FCCC/​CP/​2009/​11/​Add.1, Decision 4/​CP.15 �������������������������64–​65,  645 CSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-​ Military Aspects of Security (1994) DOC.FSC/​1/​95 Part X(39) ������������������������������������������������������646 European Energy Charter (adopted 17 December 1991) ������������������������� 647, 655 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation [1997] 36 ILM 1007 (NATO–​Russia Founding Act)��������������������������������������������646 Framework Document of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria������������������������������������������������175 Greenhouse Gas Protocol (World Resources Institute and World Business Council)����������������������������������������63 Helsinki Accords see Conference on Security and Co-​operation in Europe (CSCE), ‘Final Act’ Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action concluded between Iran and China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and

the European Union (14 July 2015) (‘Iran Deal’, ‘JCPOA’)��������� 61–​62, 65, 76, 77 Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for Rough Diamonds����������������������������������77 Memorandum of Principles and Procedures between the Republic of Moldova and the State of North Carolina (USA) Concerning their Desire to Strengthen their Good Relations (2015)����������������������������������������646 Memorandum of Understanding between Environment Canada and the US Department of the Interior for the Conservation and Management of Shared Polar Bear Populations (8 May 2008)����������������������������������������������646 Non-​legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests 1992������������������������������������������������������������646 Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines����������������69 OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: Decision of the Council (June 2000) ��������������������������������������������������65 Organization for Security and Co-​operation in Europe (OSCE) Charter of Paris 1990��������������� 414, 524, 645 Political Declaration, International Carbon Action Partnership (2007)���������646 Recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force 2003������������������������������92 Rules of Evidence and Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest (International Bar Association)����������������������������������� 64–​65 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) UN Doc A/​ CONF.151/​26 Vol I 61������������������������������646 Shanghai Communiqué, Joint Communiqué (US-​China) (1972) Dept State Bull 435��������������������������������������60 Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-​Use Goods and Technologies, WA-​DOC (17) PUB 001 (2017)��������� 59–​60 INSTRUMENTS AND ACTS OF LEGISLATION OR REGULATION Argentina Constitution Art 75��������������������������������������������������������������372 Australia Broadcasting Services Act 1992 ����������������������359

Table of Instruments  lxiii Austria Constitution Art 16������������������������������������������������������� 153–​54 Belgium Constitution of Belgium (17 February 1994 as amended) Art 167(3) ����������������������������������������������� 153–​54 Bosnia Constitution of Bosnia in General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (14 December 1995) [1996] 35 ILM 75 Annex 4, Art III(2)(a) ����������������������������������155 Canada Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms s 25�������������������������������������������� 157–​58,  377–​78 Constitution Act 1982 Part II s 35(1)������������������������������������������� 157–​58 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act ����������������������������������������������������������� 379–​80 Chile Constitution Art 54(1) ����������������������������������������������������������15 China Constitution ������������������������������������������������������156 Czech Republic Proclamation of the Czech National Council to all Parliaments and Nations of the World (17 Dec. 1992) ������� 404 European Union Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Republic of Croatia and the adjustments to the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, OJ 2012 L 112/​21 Art 6(1) ��������������������������������������������������� 139–​40 Regulations EU Implementing Regulation, EUOJ, L223, 21 August 2013��������������������������������159 Directives Council Directives for the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and

Investment Partnership between the European Union and the United States of America, 17 June 2013, Council Doc 11103/​13, declassified 9 October 2014����������������������������������� 126–​27 Council Directives for the negotiation of a modernised association agreement with Chile, 8 November 2017, Council Doc 13553/​17 ADD 1 DCL 1, declassified 22 January 2018��������� 126–​27 Decisions Council Decision (EC) 91/​586 suspending the application of the Agreement between the European Community, its Member States and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [1991] OJ L315/​47������������������127 Council Decision on the EC–​PLO and EC–​Israel Association Agreements (2 June 1997) [1997] OJ L187����������� 168–​69 Decision of the Council and Commission on the EC–​PLO and EC–​Israel Association Agreements (19 April 2000) [2000] OJ L147, 3��������������������� 168–​69 Council Decision (EU) 2006/​313 Concerning the Conclusion of the Agreement between the International Criminal Court and the European Union on Cooperation and Assistance [2006] OJ L115/​49����������130 Council Decision (EC) 2008/​431 of 5 June 2008 authorising Member States to ratify or accede to the 1996 Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children and authorising Certain Member States to make a declaration on the application of the relevant internal rules of Community law [2008] OJ L151/​36 ������������������������������������144 France Constitution 1958������������������������������������������������15 Law No 99–​209 (19 March 1999) (giving New Caledonia authority to conclude international conventions in respect, inter alia, of exploration, exploitation and conservation of marine resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone) JO 21 March 1999 4197–​99 Arts 21, 22��������������������������������������������� 161, 314

lxiv  Table of Instruments Germany Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (23 May 1949) Art 32(3) ������������������������������������������������� 153–​54

South Africa Constitution �������������������������������363, 368, 373–​74 s 39(1)��������������������������������������������������������������372 s 231(4)�����������������������������������������������������������362

India Constitution ������������������������������������������������������372 Kosovo Constitution ������������������������������������������������������162

Switzerland Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation (18 April 1999) Art 56��������������������������������������������������������������153 Art 172������������������������������������������������������������153

Mexico Ley de tratados [treaty law] (1992)�������������������22, 153–​54,  170

United Arab Emirates Constitution of the United Arab Emirates (2 December 1971)������������������������������������155

Netherlands Aliens Act 2000��������������������������������������������������379 Kingdom Act on the Approval and Publication of Treaties (20 August 1994) Art 7(d) 30������������������������������������������������� 31–​32

United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998��������������������������� 373, 380 Instruments of Entrustment����������������������������160 Lancaster House Agreement��������������������� 163–​65

Russia Constitution of the Russian Federation�����153–​54 Federal Law on International Treaties 1995������� 15 Slovak Republic Proclamation of the National Council of the Slovak Republic to the Parliaments and Peoples of the World (3 Dec.1992)������������� 404 Slovenia Republic of Slovenia Assembly Constitutional Law of the Enforcement of the Basic Constitutional Charter on the Autonomy and Independence of the Republic of Slovenia (25 June 1991) Art 3����������������������������������������������������������� 403–​4 Spain Tratados y otros Acuerdos Internacionales, Ley 25/​2014 (27 November 2014) Art 2������������������������������������������������������������������15

United States 1 USC s 112b(a)��������������������������������������� 24,  31–​32 16 USC s 1802������������������������������������������������������11 22 USC s 3301 133���������������������������������������������156 22 CFR 181.2��������������������������������������������������������15 Act of 3 March 1871, 16 Stat 566����������������������157 Clean Diamond Trade Act 2003������������������������77 Constitution �������������������������70, 157, 372–​73, 716 Art I, s 10 Cl 1����������������������������������������� 154–​55 Art I, s 10 Cl 3����������������������������������������� 154–​55 Art II, s 2, Cl 2��������������������������������������������15, 70 Art II, s 3 ������������������������������������������������� 379–​80 Art VI, Cl 2 ����������������������������������������������������378 Federal Arbitration Act 1970 ss 201–​8��������������������������������������������������� 362–​63 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) 2015��������������������������������������77 Native American treaties����������������������������������157 Refugee Act 1980, PL No 96–​212, 94 Stat 102 (17 March 1980) 392��������������������������378 Trade Act 1974 ss 301–​310������������������������������������������������������586

List of Abbreviations ABA ABM Treaty ACHR ACtHPR AJIL ARIEL ASR ATCM ATS BIOT BIT BJPS BYBIL CBD CCAMLR CEDAW

Australian Broadcasting Authority Anti-​Ballistic Missile Treaty American Convention on Human Rights African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights American Journal of International Law Austrian Review of International and European Law Articles of State Responsibility Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting Australian Treaty Series British Indian Ocean Territory Bilateral Investment Treaty British Journal of Political Science British Yearbook of International Law Convention on Biological Diversity Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women CERD Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights CETS Council of Europe Treaty Series CFCs chlorofluorocarbons CFSP common foreign and security policy CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers CIL customary international law CIS Community of Independent States CISG UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora CJEU Court of Justice of the European Union CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CML Rev Common Market Law Review  CNs Circular Notifications COE Council of Europe Comecom Council for Mutual Economic Assistance COP Conference of the Parties CSFR Czechoslovak Federative Republic CSSR Czechoslovak Socialist Republic CTS Consolidated Treaty Series CUP Cambridge University Press CWC Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction DARIO Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations DR Decisions and Reports (European Commission of Human Rights)

lxvi  List of Abbreviations DSS dispute settlement system EAEC European Atomic Energy Community EC European Community ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States ECHR European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ECLAC Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean ECOSOC Economic and Social Council ECR European Court Reports ECSC European Coal and Steel Community ECT Energy Charter Treaty ECtHR European Court of Human Rights EEA European Economic Area Agreement EEC European Economic Community EEZ exclusive economic zone EFTA European Free Trade Association EHRR European Human Rights Reports EJIL European Journal of International Law EPIL Encyclopedia of Public International Law ERTs Expert Review Teams EU European Union Euratom European Atomic Energy Community FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FCN Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation FMLN Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación FRG Federal Republic of Germany GA General Assembly GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GDR German Democratic Republic HFCs hydrofluorocarbons HRC Human Rights Committee HRQ Human Rights Quarterly IACtHR Inter-​American Court of Human Rights IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency IAJC Inter-​American Juridical Committee IASB International Accounting Standards Board IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization ICBL International Campaign to Ban Landmines ICC International Criminal Court ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ICJ International Court of Justice ICLQ International and Comparative Law Quarterly ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICs international courts and tribunals ICSID International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia IDI Institute of International Law IFIs international financial institutions

List of Abbreviations  lxvii IHR IHRR IJIL ILA ILC ILIB ILM ILO ILR IMF IMO IO IPCC ITLOS ITU IUCN IWC JCPOA JEPP JIDS LGBTQ LJIL LNTS LRTAP Convention MEAs MLR MOP MOU MPEPIL MSENs MTDSG MTLP MUP NAFO NAFTA NAMMCO NATO NEAFC NGO NLMs NTLP OAS OECD OIC OJ OPCW OUP PCA PCIJ PLO

International Health Regulations International Human Rights Reports Indian Journal of International Law International Law Association International Law Commission International Law in Brief International Legal Materials International Labour Organization International Law Reports International Monetary Fund International Maritime Organization International Organization Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea International Telecommunication Union International Union for Conservation of Nature International Whaling Commission Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Journal of European Public Policy Journal of International Dispute Settlement lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning Leiden Journal of International Law League of Nations Treaty Series Convention on Long-​Range Transboundary Air Pollution multilateral environmental agreements Modern Law Review Meeting of the Parties Memorandum of Understanding Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law Multisource Equivalent Norms Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General Modern Treaty Law and Practice (CUP, 3rd edn, 2013) Manchester University Press North Atlantic Fisheries Organization North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission North Atlantic Treaty Organization North-​East Atlantic Fisheries Commission non-​governmental organization national liberation movements National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, 2005) Organization of American States Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development Organisation of the Islamic Conference Official Journal (EU) Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Oxford University Press Permanent Court of Arbitration Permanent Court of International Justice Palestine Liberation Organization

lxviii  List of Contributors RBDI RcD REIO RGDIP RIAA RSFSR SARs SFRY SOLAS Convention SPLOS TEU TFEU Trb UAR UKTS UN UNCED UNCITRAL UNCLOS UNCRPD UNCTAD UNECE UNEP UNESCO UNFCCC UNGA UNJY UNMIK UNSC UNTC UNTS USC UST VCCR VCLT VCSST VJIL WHO WIPO WMO WTO YBILC YJIL

Revue Belge de Droit International Recueil des cours de l’Académie de droit international Regional Economic Integration Organization Revue générale de droit international public Reports of International Arbitral Awards Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic special administrative regions Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea UNCLOS Meeting of States Parties Treaty on European Union Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Tractatenblad (Dutch Treaty Series) United Arab Republic United Kingdom Treaty Series United Nations UN Conference on Environment and Development UN Commission on International Trade Law United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities United Nations Conference on Trade and Development United Nations Economic Commission for Europe United Nations Environment Programme United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations General Assembly United Nations Juridical Yearbook UN Interim Administration in Kosovo United Nations Security Council United Nations Treaty Collection United Nations Treaty Series United States Code United States Treaties and International Agreements Vienna Convention on Consular Relations 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties Virginia Journal of International Law World Health Organization World Intellectual Property Organization World Meteorological Organization World Trade Organization Yearbook of the International Law Commission Yale Journal of International Law

List of Contributors Dr Danae Azaria is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Laws, University College London (UCL), and a Senior Humboldt Fellow (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) at the Humboldt University Berlin, Faculty of Law (2019–​20). She is the author of numerous publications in Public International Law, a laureate of the Paul Guggenheim Prize in Public International Law (2016) for her monograph, Treaties on Transit of Energy via Pipelines and Countermeasures (OUP 2015), a recipient of a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) (2019) on her research project on State Silence, and a United Nations (UN) consultant training government officials in the law of treaties and the law of the sea on the UN Regional International Law courses. Eirik Bjorge is a Professor of Law at the University of Bristol. He is the author of The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties  (OUP 2014)  and  Domestic Application of the ECHR:  Courts as  Faithful Trustees (OUP 2015).  Christopher J Borgen is Professor of Law and Co-​Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at St John’s University School of Law in New  York City. He has served as Co-​ Rapporteur for the International Law Association's Committee on Recognition and Non-​Recognition in International Law, was the principal author of Legal Aspects of the Separatist Crisis in Moldova, a report issued by the New  York City Bar, and is a ‘core expert’ for the Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations. He was a co-​founder of Opinio Juris and was previously the Director of Research and Outreach at the American Society of International Law. Catherine Brölmann is an Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Law. She has published widely on questions of the law of treaties and of international organizations. She is co-​Editor-​in-​Chief of Oxford International Organizations (OXIO). Jutta Brunnée is a Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law where she holds the Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law. She has authored numerous books and articles on international law. From 2006 to 2016, she served on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law. In 2017, she was elected Associate of the Institut de Droit International. In January 2019, she delivered a course at the Hague Academy of International Law. Başak Çalı is Professor of International Law at the Hertie School, Berlin where she is also the Director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights. She has authored numerous publications on the interpretation of international human rights law, legitimacy of human rights courts, implementation of human rights judgments, as well as on theories of international law, reception of international law before domestic courts, and standards of review in international law. Marise Cremona is Professor Emeritus at the European University Institute in Florence and a member of the Editorial Board of the Common Market Law Review. She is the co-​editor of EU Foreign Relations Law: Constitutional Fundamentals (Kluwer Law International 2008), editor of Structural Principles in EU External Relations Law (Hart Publishing 2018), co-​editor of EU Law Beyond EU Borders: The Extraterritorial Reach of EU Law (OUP 2019), and the author of numerous articles on EU law and EU external relations. Jean d’Aspremont is Professor of International Law at Sciences Po School of Law and at the University of Manchester. He is General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law

lxx  List of Contributors and co-​Editor-​in-​Chief of Oxford International Organizations (OXIO). He has published widely on various questions of international law. Olufemi Elias is Registrar (UN Assistant Secretary-​General) at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. He was previously the Legal Adviser at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Executive Secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal, and legal adviser at the UN Compensation Commission. He is a Visiting Professor in International Law at Queen Mary, University of London, and co-​author with Malgosia Fitzmaurice of Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing 2005). Malgosia Fitzmaurice holds a Chair of Public International Law at the Department of Law, Queen Mary, University of London. She specializes in the law of treaties and international environmental law and has published widely on both subjects, including co-​authoring with Olufemi Elias Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing 2005)  and co-​editing Issues of State Responsibility before International Judicial Institutions (Hart 2004). She published in 2015 a monograph Whaling and International Law (CUP 2015). In 2020, her book Treaties in Motion:  From Formation to Termination (co-​authored with Panos Merkouris) will be published by Cambridge University Press. She teaches Law at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Kobe. Carlos Iván Fuentes is a Legal Officer in the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. He previously served in the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea and the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, and at the Administrative Law Section of the United Nations Office of Human Resources Management. He is the author of Normative Plurality in International Law:  A Theory of the Determination of Applicable Rules (Springer 2016). Richard Gardiner practised as a barrister and was then a legal adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for some twelve years. For the next two decades he was a member of the Faculty of Laws at University College London where he is now a Visiting Professor. He is the author of Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP 2015) and International Law (Pearson/​Longman 2003). Tom Grant is a fellow of Wolfson College and the Lauterpacht Center for International Law at the University of Cambridge. His books include Admission to the United Nations: Charter 4 and the Rise of Universal Organization (Martinus Nijhoff 2009), Aggression Against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law (Palgrave Macmillan 2015), and The Recognition of States: Law and Practice in Debate and Evolution (Praeger 1999). He has served on the legal teams in a number of ICJ cases and international arbitrations and is a co-​founder (and until 2019 Associate Editor) of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement. Gerhard Hafner is a Professor of International Law at the University of Vienna, a member of the Institut du Droit International, a Chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (France), and a past member of the International Law Commission. The author of over a hundred works, Professor Hafner’s research interests include inter alia the codification of public international law and the succession of States. Laurence R Helfer is the Harry R Chadwick, Sr Professor of Law at Duke University Law School and co-​director of its Center for International and Comparative Law. He is also a Permanent Visiting Professor at iCourts: Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen and co-​Editor-​in-​Chief of the American Journal of International Law. Helfer has authored more than seventy-​five publications relating to his diverse research interests, which include interdisciplinary analysis of international law and institutions, treaty design, international adjudication, and human rights.

List of Contributors  lxxi Arancha Hinojal-​Oyarbide joined the United Nations in 1993. She most recently headed the Treaty Section of the UN Office of Legal Affairs and earlier oversaw the legal areas of the registration of treaties under Article 102 of the UN Charter and the depositary functions of the UN Secretary-​General. Before taking up her position at the UN Office of Legal Affairs, she served at the UN Department of Administration and Management where she dealt with administration of peace-​keeping operations. She has also served in legal and judicial affairs positions with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Duncan B Hollis is Laura H Carnell Professor of Law at Temple University’s James E Beasley School of Law and a non-​resident Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together with Allen Weiner, he published the seventh edition of International Law (Wolters Kluwer 2018), one of the leading casebooks in the field. He is an elected member of the OAS Inter-​American Juridical Committee, where he serves as Rapporteur for Binding and non-​Binding Agreements. He is also a member of the American Law Institute, and from 1998 to 2004 served in the US State Department Legal Adviser’s Office, including several years as the Attorney-​Adviser for Treaty Affairs. Syméon Karagiannis is Professor for Public Law at the University of Strasbourg, France. He is occasionally legal expert for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (eg report on ‘Some Recent Security Council Attitudes Concerning Human Rights. On Sanctions Committee’s “Black Lists” ’ (2007), in French) and has been counsel for a State at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. His main fields of teaching and academic research cover general international law, the law of the sea, European law, and human rights law in which he has written numerous articles, mostly in French, and co-​edited Environnement et renouveau des droits de l’homme (Environmental Law and New Human Rights) (Documentation française 2006) and Le médiateur européen. Bilan et perspectives (The European Ombudsman. An assessment and the Prospects) (Bruylant 2007). Jan Klabbers is Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law. He has written extensively on the law of treaties, including The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer Law International 1996)  along with numerous works on international subjects, including Treaty Conflict and the European Union (CUP 2008), An Introduction to International Institutional Law (3rd edn CUP 2015), International Law (2nd edn CUP 2017), and with Anne Peters and Geir Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP 2009). His most recent book is The Challenge of Inter-​ legality (CUP 2019, co-​edited with Gianluigi Palombella). Robert Kolb is a Professor of Public International Law at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Lisa L Martin is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-​Madison. She is the author of numerous articles and books on international institutions, agreements, and cooperation. Timothy Meyer is Professor of Law and Director of International Legal Studies at Vanderbilt University Law School. He is an expert in public international law, with specialties in international trade and investment law, as well as international environmental law. Gregor Novak is a JSD candidate at Yale Law School and a Fox International Fellow. Prior to 2016, Gregor served as an Associate Legal Officer at the International Court of Justice. He holds degrees from the University of Vienna and Yale University. Kal Raustiala is the Promise Professor of Comparative and International Law at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Director of the UCLA Ronald W Burkle Center for International Relations. A past Vice-​President of the American Society of International Law, he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, Hebrew University, Melbourne University, National University of Singapore, and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

lxxii  List of Contributors Bruno Simma served as a Judge on the International Court of Justice from 2003 to 2012. From 1987 to 1996 he was a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; from 1997 to 2003 he served on the International Law Commission. Since 2012, he is one of the three non-​Party appointed Arbitrators/​Judges at the Iran-​United States Claims Tribunal. He has held faculty positions at the University of Munich Faculty of Law and the University of Michigan Law School, to which he returned as a Professor of Law in 2012 (currently on leave). He has written extensively on a great variety of subjects of international law and taught the 2009 Hague Academy of International Law General Course on ‘The Impact of Human Rights on International Law’. More recently, he has also served as an arbitrator both in inter-​State cases and in investment arbitrations. He is a Member of the Institute of International Law. David L Sloss is the John A and Elizabeth H Sutro Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He has published three books and a few dozen book chapters and law review articles. His scholarship focuses on the relationship between domestic law and international affairs. His most recent book, The Death of Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (OUP 2016), won prestigious book awards from the American Society of International Law and from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. Edward T Swaine is the Charles Kennedy Poe Research Professor at the George Washington University Law School. He teaches and writes in the areas of international law, foreign relations law, and international antitrust. He is the co-​author of U.S. Foreign Relations Law: Cases, Materials and Simulations (5th edn West 2017) and served as a reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law (Fourth), Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He is a longstanding member of the Advisory Committee on Public International Law for the US State Department, and previously served as the Counselor on International Law at the State Department. Christian J Tams is Professor of International Law at the University of Glasgow and an academic member of Matrix Chambers, London. He has published widely, notably on questions of State responsibility (eg Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (CUP 2005/​2010)), dispute resolution (eg The Statute of the International Court of Justice: A Commentary (3rd edn OUP 2019)) and the law of treaties (eg Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar 2014)). He is the Review Editor of the European Journal of International Law and sits on the Council of the German Society of International Law. In addition to his academic work, Christian has advised States in proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Geir Ulfstein is Professor of International Law at the Department of Public and International Law, University of Oslo, and Co-​Director of PluriCourts—​Centre for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order. Ulfstein is Co-​chair of the International Law Association’s Study Group on the ‘Content and Evolution of the Rules of Interpretation’ and is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law, Luxembourg. Ulfstein has been a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of International Law (2010–​16). He is President of the Norwegian Branch of the International Law Association (ILA) and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Santiago Villalpando is the Legal Adviser of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He previously served as chief of the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs as well as Registrar of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal in New York. He holds a PhD in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Introduction Duncan B Hollis

The treaty is an august instrument. Since antiquity, treaty-​makers have recognized the sacrosanct nature of commitments embedded in treaty form. The Bible, for example, records the obligatory character of a treaty forged by Joshua and the Gibeonites. The Hebrew God had directed Israelites to destroy all neighbours living in the promised land of Canaan—​‘save nothing alive that breathes’1—​but permitted them to spare foreigners from distant lands. The inhabitants of Gibeon lived in Canaan and knew they faced extinction. They sent a mission to the Israelite leader, Joshua, using worn sandals, cracked wineskins, and mouldy bread to disguise themselves as a delegation from afar. Joshua fell for their deception and made a treaty of peace with Gibeon that Israelite leaders ratified by oath. When the Israelites learned the Gibeonites’ true identity days later, they proposed to ignore that covenant and annihilate the city. But their leaders refused to breach the treaty with Gibeon: ‘We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them . . . let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them’.2 The Gibeon story reveals both the treaty’s power and its sacred origins. Despite clear fraud in its formation, Israel considered the treaty binding. It did so by viewing the treaty to include not one, but two promises: first, a secular promise between Israel and Gibeon to behave in certain ways; and, second, a divine promise by the Israelites to their God to perform the first promise. Whatever irregularities characterized that first promise, the second (divine) promise remained. As a result, the treaty’s original binding authority depended not so much on promises amongst parties, but on the divine pledges accompanying them to guarantee performance.3 Today, of course, we no longer associate treaties with divine promises. Starting (loosely) with the Peace of Westphalia, international relations secularized. In the process, the existence and force of divine pledges and oaths in treaty-​making eroded and has now largely disappeared. So, what gives modern treaties their binding authority? The standard response is pacta sunt servanda. Article 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) defines this principle as follows: ‘[e]‌very treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’.4 But pacta sunt servanda does not make 1 Deuteronomy 20:10–​18 (English Standard Version). 2 Joshua 9:3–​21 (English Standard Version); see also FC Fensham, ‘The Treaty between Israel and the Gibeonites’ (1964) 27 The Biblical Archaeologist 96–​100. 3 In one of the earliest surviving treaty texts—​a 1259 bce treaty between Egypt and the Hittite Empire—​the two rulers call upon the Gods of Egypt and Hatti to bear witness to their promises. See G Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts (Scholars Press, Atlanta 1996) 92 (Treaty between Hattusili III of Hatti and Ramses II of Egypt). A  few centuries later in China, Sun Tzu advised that ‘peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot’. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (L Giles trans) (El Paso Norte Press, El Paso 2009) 30. The Romans, however, did not rely on promises, but demanded hostages to ensure the performance of their agreements. See D Bederman, International Law in Antiquity (CUP, Cambridge 2001) 190. 4 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (opened for signature 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331, Art 26; ibid preamble (noting pacta sunt servanda ‘rule’ is ‘universally recognized’).

2 Introduction treaties binding simply because a treaty says so, even one as venerable as the VCLT. Basing the binding character of treaties on consent to a treaty has obvious tautological problems (as do explanations based on State consent through customary practice).5 Rather, pacta sunt servanda exists as a general principle of ‘natural law’, independent of party promises or State practice.6 As such, it is a secular cousin to the divine law family of pledges that gave earlier treaties force. Unlike those oaths, however, pacta sunt servanda requires no secondary promises (to the divine or otherwise); it flows directly from the primary promise(s) among treaty parties. Pacta sunt servanda thus serves as the necessary starting point for any study of treaties; it identifies an important function—​to obligate performance—​that treaties serve. But it is just a starting point. To say treaties are binding, says nothing about what qualifies as a treaty in the first place, who can make one, or how a treaty should be applied, interpreted, avoided, or ended. Those questions are addressed in the law of treaties’ seminal document—​the VCLT. For more than five decades, this instrument, its travaux préparatoires, and the critical earlier work of the International Law Commission (ILC) and its four Special Rapporteurs have served as the lens through which States and their lawyers address treaty questions.7 Today, the VCLT has 116 States parties, but that number understates its true reach. Much of the VCLT codified or has since come to constitute customary international law.8 But even the VCLT affords an incomplete image of the treaty. Its provisions do not deal with all types of treaties or the questions they raise. Some further illumination may be gleaned from the far less widely invoked, but often still useful, 1978 and 1986 Vienna Conventions,9 or more recent ILC work.10 But even considered collectively, those sources 5 See eg TM Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (OUP, Oxford 1990) 187 (‘ “Why are treaties binding?” is a question usually answered by the superficial assertion that “treaties are binding because states have agreed to be bound” . . . But the binding force . . . cannot emanate solely from the agreement of the parties. It must come from some ultimate unwritten rule of recognition, the existence of which may be inferred from the conduct and belief of states’); A Rubin, Ethics and Authority in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 1997) 15 (consent must be ‘a natural law rule or a rule that rests on prior consent, thus introducing an infinite regress’). 6 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law’ in Symbolae Verzijl (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1958) 153, 164 (‘the rule pacta sunt servanda . . . does not require to be accounted for in terms of any other rule. It could neither not be, nor be other than what it is. It is not dependent on consent, for it would exist without it’). ‘Natural law’ generally refers to international law sources that exist independent of State consent whether based on divine dictates or secular moral argument. See eg A Verdross and HF Koeck, ‘Natural Law: The Tradition of Universal Reason and Authority’ in RJ Macdonald and D Johnston (eds), The Structure and Process of International Law: Essays in Legal Philosophy, Doctrine and Theory (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1983) 31 (discussing religious-​based approaches to natural law); FR Tesón, A Philosophy of International Law (Westview Press, Boulder 1998) 2 (articulating a Kantian conception of international law based on certain ‘morally legitimate’ principles). 7 The ILC first took up the law of treaties in 1949. Four renowned British international lawyers served as Special Rapporteurs—​JL Brierly, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, and Sir Humphrey Waldock. Together, they authored sixteen reports on the law of treaties between 1950 and 1966. The ILC reported on its progress to the UN General Assembly in 1959, and in 1966 forwarded draft articles on the law of treaties and accompanying commentary, which formed the basis for the VCLT negotiations. Online access to all of the ILC’s work is available at . 8 Indeed, the VCLT’s pull is so strong that it is often applied without regard to the fact that VCLT Art 4 purports to limit its application to treaties concluded after the VCLT’s 1980 entry into force. See eg Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana/​Namibia) [1999] ICJ Rep 1059, [18] (applying VCLT’s interpretative provisions to 1890 treaty). 9 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543 (1986 VCLT); Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (adopted 23 August 1978, entered into force 6 November 1996) 1946 UNTS 3. 10 Eg ILC, ‘Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts’ ILC Report of 51st Session (3 May–​23 July 1999) UN Doc A/​56/​10; ILC, ‘Text of the Guide to Practice, comprising an introduction, the guidelines and commentaries thereto, an annex on the reservations dialogue and a bibliography’ [2011]

Introduction  3 still leave important issues unaddressed such as treaty-​making by other subjects of international law, the role of non-​governmental organizations (NGOs), or the application of treaties in domestic law (to say nothing of how to situate treaties theoretically within the international legal order or evaluate their effectiveness in practice). Moreover, even where the VCLT or its companions do deal with a topic, it is often without great detail, and may even, in some cases, leave a false impression of actual practice. Such outcomes are a necessary by-​product of the VCLT’s celebrated flexibility—​the fact that its ‘rules’ are frequently drafted so that States may contract around them or choose from among a list of available options.11 With a few notable exceptions (the prohibition on treaties that violate peremptory norms or jus cogens), the law of treaties that the VCLT presents is a default one. The Oxford Guide to Treaties endeavours to tackle all of the major treaty-​related topics in a single volume. It provides a comprehensive and current guide to treaty law and practice, including (but not limited to) issues raised in the VCLT and later codification efforts. Although recent years have seen a large uptick in treaty-​related scholarship, there remains a need for such an overarching and comprehensive treatment. Many earlier, important works on treaty law are now dated (although still quite useful).12 Several (impressive) recent works have focused on the Vienna Convention(s) exclusively with article-​by-​article commentaries.13 Other scholarship purports to offer an introduction to treaties,14 to address a subset of treaty topics,15 or to deal with a single topic in particular.16 The most comprehensive treatment is undoubtedly the late Anthony Aust’s Modern Treaty Law and Practice.17 It is superb in many respects, but it has not been updated since 2013, reflects the views of only a single author, and, in any case, does not ‘presume to be an academic work’.18 The Oxford Guide to Treaties seeks to explore treaty questions from current theoretical, doctrinal, and practical perspectives. Thus, in addition to reviewing the relevant rules and case law, it offers some theoretical grounding for that doctrine and, where necessary, YBILC, vol II(3); ILC, ‘Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties (with commentaries)’ ILC Report of 70th Session (30 April–​1 June and 2 July–​10 August 2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10, ch IV, s E. 11 Thus, the VCLT frequently frames its rules or some of their elements as endorsing the application of whatever the treaty provides (eg Arts 10, 12–​17, 19–​20, 22, 24–​25, 28–​31, 33, 40–​41, 44, 54–​58, 72, 76–​78). It also regularly authorizes parties to ‘otherwise agree’ (eg Arts 11, 22, 25, 37, 44, 70, 72, 77, 79) or to allow the establishment of a different intention to vary the rule’s application (eg Arts 7, 12–​15, 28–​29, 37, 39, 44, 59). 12 Eg P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traités (2nd ed Presses universitaires de France, Paris 1985); I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984); H Blix and J Emerson, The Treaty Maker’s Handbook (Oceana, Dobbs Ferry 1973); A McNair, Law of Treaties (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 1961). 13 O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018); O Corten and P Klein, The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011); ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009). 14 Eg R Kolb, The Law of Treaties: An Introduction (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2016). 15 Eg S Chesterman, DM Malone, and S Villalpando, The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2019); MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis, Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018); CJ Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2013); E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011); G Ulfstein and others, Making Treaties Work: Human Rights, Environment and Arms Control (CUP, Cambridge 2007); DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee, and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law & Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005); M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven Publishing, Utrecht 2005). 16 Eg R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015); J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer, The Hague 1996); S Rosenne, Breach of Treaty (CUP, Cambridge 1985). 17 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013). 18 Ibid 2. Despite this caveat, Aust’s volume is well earmarked in academic circles.

4 Introduction explores the actual practice, particularly if it differs from the VCLT’s terms. In terms of structure, the Guide is divided into seven parts. The first six parts contain twenty-​six chapters on treaty issues by leading international lawyers and political scientists who hail from the academy, diplomatic service, international courts and tribunals, and various international organizations (IOs), including the United Nations. As the leading experts on their respective topics, these contributors were tasked with describing a particular treaty-​related concept, rule, or practice and, where applicable, existing challenges and areas of disagreement. Contributors were also invited, where appropriate, to offer normative claims and discuss the need for some evolution or change in their respective areas. Thus, each chapter constitutes a stand-​alone essay. Read together, however, the chapters present an overarching survey of the current state of treaty law and practice as well as the tensions and pressure points that arise in today’s treaties. Part I addresses foundational issues. Chapter 1 explores the definitional question of what is a treaty, while Chapter 2 explores traditional approaches to theorizing the place of treaties in the international legal order, with new candidates for (re)conceiving the treaty’s role as an icon, a text, and a progeny. Chapter 3 contrasts the ‘binding’ treaty with alternative ‘informal’ agreements in various contexts, including negotiations, legal effects, and questions of identification. It asks why States conclude informal agreements and how they may match the effectiveness and accountability usually accorded to treaty-​making (combined with practical advice on how to improve the formation and identification of such agreements). Chapter 4 takes a similar approach in dealing with how international law conceptualizes compliance with treaties and their effectiveness. It differentiates these two concepts and explains why issues of treaty effectiveness deserve more attention than treaty compliance, alongside practical advice for actually making treaties more effective. Part II surveys the relevant players in treaty law and practice, asking who can make treaties. Treaty-​making (and thus treaty law) is most often associated with States. But a host of non-​State actors also now purport to make treaties, raising questions about their authority, the circumstances in which they do so, and complicated issues of procedure and responsibility. Chapter 5 explores these questions with respect to IOs, and the import of the 1986 VCLT in the process. Chapter 6 looks at the EU’s robust and complex treaty-​making. Chapter  7 takes on a rarely addressed topic—​treaty-​making by ‘other subjects of international law’ including overseas dependencies, sub-​federal territorial units, and insurgencies. In contrast to those actors, NGOs generally lack the formal capacity to make treaties. Nonetheless, as Chapter 8 explains, NGOs are highly visible and occasionally influential actors in the multilateral treaty context. Part III moves beyond the initial topics of conceptualizing treaties and treaty-​making capacity to examine issues surrounding treaty formation. Chapter  9 surveys the often-​ complicated process of treaty-​making. It gives particular attention to treaty negotiations, while also addressing the treaty’s conclusion, expressions of consent to be bound, and entry into force, exploring both the law and relevant practice at each stage. Chapter 10 focuses on the provisional application of treaties, examining whether and how international law accommodates treaty-​makers’ desire to apply their treaties sooner than the text’s entry-​ into-​force provisions (or, more pertinently, domestic legal requirements) allow. Chapter 11 surveys the role of the depositary and the legal requirements of registering and publishing treaties once they are in force, with particular attention to the predominant actor:  the United Nations. Part III concludes with the issue most likely to complicate a treaty’s

Introduction  5 formation—​unilateral statements, particularly reservations. Chapter 12 surveys the history of reservations and examines how to evaluate their permissibility and legal effects, particularly in cases of objections by other States. Part IV addresses treaty application issues such as where, to whom, how, and when treaties apply once they are in force. Chapter 13 assesses the rules as to where a treaty applies, examining the general rule of integral territorial application, ‘non-​territorial’ treaty applications, and (more controversial) issues of when and how a treaty may bind a State extraterritorially. Chapter 14 explores treaty amendments, an area where the practice regularly departs from the VCLT’s default rules, including procedural mechanisms that affect amendments without requiring each party’s explicit consent. Of course, treaties are not just applied internationally; in terms of a treaty’s efficacy, its application under one or more domestic laws may be as (if not more) important than international law. Chapter 15 surveys how domestic legal systems approach treaty application and the varied treatment that results from different treaty types and domestic actor preferences. Chapter 16 returns to the international frame, asking how treaties apply in cases of disruption to the international legal order—​State succession—​a topic addressed (albeit not entirely successfully) by the 1978 Vienna Convention. The final two chapters of Part IV examine treaty application beyond the confines of the treaty text itself. Chapter 17 takes up the recent phenomenon by which treaties create so-​ called ‘treaty bodies’. It considers why and how States establish them, and what authority they have to flesh out a treaty’s commitments via substantive decision-​making, compliance efforts, or coordination with other international actors. Chapter 18 examines treaty conflicts and the systemic fragmentation of international law more generally. It explains why and how treaties may conflict and surveys techniques for resolving conflicts, whether by drafting or interpreting around them, relying on the VCLT’s default rules, or employing classic canons of treaty construction: lex posterior, lex prior, and lex specialis. Part V focuses on a critical treaty issue—​its interpretation. Chapter 19 offers a nuanced account of one of the VCLT’s seminal contributions to international law—​a single set of interpretative ‘principles’ if not actual rules. Chapter 20 then turns to an issue that has garnered sustained attention by States and international courts and tribunals in recent years—​ the potential to allow (or deny) evolutionary interpretations to treaty terms (that is, whether to interpret a term according to its meaning at the time of a treaty’s formation or at the time the need for interpretation arises). Both of these chapters examine VCLT Articles 31–​33 as a universal regime. That uniformity, however, operates in some tension with claims that certain treaties’ nature warrants exceptional, or at least specialized, interpretative frameworks. This Guide offers two case studies of such claims. First, Chapter 21 asks whether VCLT Article 31 is sufficiently flexible to apply to normative treaties, including those involving human rights. It concludes that the VCLT can accommodate interpretative rules specialized for human rights treaties and that the principle of effectiveness in particular is a necessary application of these treaty provisions (rather than some extra-​legal choice to elevate human rights treaties above other treaties). Second, Chapter 22 examines the extent to which the VCLT interpretative rules apply to treaties that constitute an IO and the boundaries between IO law and the law of treaties. Part VI concludes the substantive chapters with an examination of the rules and practices associated with avoiding or exiting treaty commitments. Chapter 23 discusses the importance of validity rules to the law of treaties, while reviewing the relative dearth of practical

6 Introduction examples implementing VCLT rules for invalidating treaties because of constitutional concerns, error, fraud, corruption, coercion, or jus cogens. Chapter 24 catalogues the various remedies available when a party breaches a treaty commitment. It explains how reliance on the law of State responsibility or treaty-​specific provisions are better options than VCLT provisions on termination or suspension in cases of material breach. Chapter 25 examines various claims of exceptional circumstances—​including supervening impossibility of performance, fundamental change of circumstances, and necessity—​that a State may invoke to try to exit a treaty commitment or excuse its non-​performance. Finally, Chapter 26 brings the experts’ contributions to a close with an overview of the various ways to denounce, withdraw from, or terminate a treaty alongside a discussion of how and why international law governs treaty exit, including the VCLT’s key provisions. The Guide to Treaties seventh and final part adopts a different approach. In 1973, Hans Blix and Jirina Emerson edited the Treaty Maker’s Handbook to help newly emerging States appreciate the intricacies of treaty-​making as a matter of both domestic and international law post-​decolonization.19 One of the work’s lasting legacies was the inclusion of sample provisions drawn from existing treaties on various treaty topics such as participation, duration, and amendment. The volume remains a staple among treaty negotiators even as it has become increasingly dated.20 Part VII offers a new set of sample clauses, building off the Treaty Maker’s Handbook framework with several modifications. First, based on current practice, Part VII includes samples of clauses not found in Blix and Emerson’s earlier work (eg participation clauses for regional integration organizations, NGO participation clauses, clauses signalling an intent to conclude a political commitment). Second, this new treatment reorganizes the treatment of other topics Blix and Emerson did consider; for example, in lieu of simply reproducing Preambles, clauses that implicate a treaty’s object and purpose are presented instead. This change reflects a third key difference in the current sampling. The Treaty Maker’s Handbook was compiled at a time when newly emerging States needed a how-​to manual to build their own treaty law and practice, often from scratch. Thus, that volume included samples of constitutional provisions on treaty-​making and treaty-​related instruments (eg full powers, instruments of ratification). In contrast, today, most States and other treaty-​makers have developed and standardized their own rules, practices, and instruments for treaties and treaty-​making. As a result, there is less need for a compilation of such rules or instruments, and they are not included in the Guide.21 Instead, the current set of sample clauses focuses on illustrating variations and precedents in treaties themselves. Doing so, it is hoped, may better inform those who actually work with treaties when they encounter future issues of treaty formation, application, interpretation, or exit. 19 Blix and Emerson (n 12) Foreword. 20 The UN and the Council of Europe have issued their own highly useful explanations of treaty-​making, including similar samplings of treaty clauses, all of which are available online. UN Office of Legal Affairs, Treaty Handbook (rev’d edn 2012) ; UN Office of Legal Affairs, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook (2003) ; Committee of Ministers, Council of Europe, Model Final Clauses for Conventions, Additional Protocols and Amending Protocols concluded within the Council of Europe (5 July 2017) Doc CM/​Del/​ Dec(2017)1291/​10.1 . 21 Modern compilations of such rules and instruments are, in any case, available elsewhere. See eg Aust (n 17) Appendices B–​J, L–​O (modelling treaty and MOU forms and various treaty-​related instruments); Hollis and others (n 15) (including national treaty-​related legislation and documentary samples from nineteen representative States); see also Treaty Handbook (n 20); Final Clauses Handbook (n 20).

Introduction  7 So, who should read this book? Certainly, Part VII and many of the earlier chapters are drafted for international lawyers and policy-​makers who attend treaty conferences, negotiations, and meetings of States parties. But, it would be a mistake to characterize this book as some sort of practitioner’s manual. Although there is a largely unspoken expectation in international law that written work will adopt either an academic or practical approach (but never both), The Oxford Guide to Treaties rejects this dichotomy as a false one. Theories about treaties and explanations of actual treaty practice are neither mutually exclusive nor adversarial in nature. Practitioners who operate without understanding the scope and rationale for a particular treaty rule are short-​handing themselves when it comes to working with that rule in the novel situations that inevitably arise. Similarly, those who focus only on theoretical explanations for treaty-​making without understanding how States and others actually use them risk making disabling assumptions. In other words, a true guide to treaties requires an appreciation of the theories that generated a particular treaty law, the content of that law, and the ways that law is (or is not) applied in practice. It is such a holistic approach that lies at the root of the current compilation. Thus, The Oxford Guide to Treaties is designed to serve as a primary reference point for everyone who works with treaties, whether international lawyers, diplomats, IO officials, NGO representatives, academics, or students. Today, treaties are an essential vehicle for organizing international cooperation and coordination. In both quantitative and qualitative terms, they are the primary source for existing international legal commitments and, indeed, international law generally. States, IOs, and other subjects of international law have concluded tens of thousands of treaties; to date, some 72,000 treaties have been registered with the United Nations alone.22 From a qualitative perspective, treaties dictate the content (and contours) of every field of international law, from trade to the environment, from human rights to aviation. They now occupy, in whole or in part, most areas of international relations and quite a few areas of domestic regulation as well. As the 2006 ILC Study Group argued, moreover, the law of treaties may prove key to accommodating international law’s fragmentation as different treaty obligations pull States (or other stakeholders) in different directions and multiple institutions claim authority to address the same legal issue or situation.23 Simply put, a facility with treaties has become an indispensable part of the job description for all those who work in the fields of international law or international relations. Chances are that when a lawyer or policy-​maker confronts a question of international law today, it is likely (if not inevitable) that one or more treaty provisions will prove relevant to the inquiry. The Oxford Guide to Treaties seeks to broaden and deepen how we approach and answer such questions and to assist all those who study treaties in appreciating the potential (and limits) of this august form of international agreement.

22 See Chapter 11, Section II. 23 See ILC Study Group, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’ (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.682, 15 (finalized by M Koskenniemi).

PART I

F OU N DAT IONA L  I S SU E S

1

Defining Treaties Duncan B Hollis

Introduction What is a treaty? Simply put, it is an international legal agreement. But unpacking the treaty concept further—​whether in terms of the nature of that agreement, its legality, or its ‘international’ character—​depends on the context in which the concept is used. Different contexts can produce different meanings for the same term. International law offers, for example, a specific meaning for the term ‘high seas’ that may differ from the one given by a State’s domestic law,1 let alone those used in more colloquial settings. Even within the same context—​say, the international legal order—​a concept may be defined using different formulations. Many (if not most) definitions are constitutive; they explain what a concept ‘is’ by listing its essential elements or the processes for its creation. Thus, for purposes of international law, three essential elements comprise the ‘high seas’: (a) an area of open ocean; (b) shared by all States; (c) in which no State may exercise territorial sovereignty.2 Alternatively, definitions may be differential, looking outward to explain a concept by its relationship to—​and differences from—​other concepts. Under this approach, international law defines the ‘high seas’ as ‘all parts of the sea that are not included in the exclusive economic zone, in the territorial sea or in internal waters of a State, or in the archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State’.3 Other definitions are functional—​they give meaning by explaining what a concept does or how it works. From this perspective, the ‘high seas’ delineates an area subject to specific international legal rights (or ‘freedoms’) in the absence of sovereign authority.4 Unlike differing contexts, these definitional approaches—​ constitutive, differential, and functional—​do not generate alternative meanings. Rather, they express the same meaning in different ways depending on whether the definition needs to explain how to (a) identify; (b) differentiate; or (c) evaluate a concept. When it comes to the ‘treaty’, a conventional (in both senses of that word) definition already exists. Article 2(1)(a) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) provides that: For the purposes of the present Convention: (a) ‘treaty’ means an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation. 1 Eg 16 USC §1802 (defining ‘high seas’ for US fisheries law as ‘all waters beyond the territorial sea of the United States and beyond any foreign nation’s territorial sea’). 2 See UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Arts 87, 89 (UNCLOS). 3 Ibid Art 86 (emphasis added). 4 See ibid Art 87 (describing six freedoms of the ‘high seas’).

12  Foundational Issues This definition is widely accepted. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has suggested it reflects customary international law.5 Most States endorse it,6 and scholars frequently cite it when defining the treaty concept.7 For all its popularity, however, the VCLT treaty definition is incomplete and underdeveloped.8 Its reach is (expressly) limited to the VCLT; it does not address other contexts where the term ‘treaty’ requires definition. Moreover, Article 2(1)(a) adopts an almost exclusively constitutive approach. It identifies elements necessary to constitute a treaty—​namely (a)  an international agreement; (b)  concluded between States; (c)  in writing; (d)  governed by international law—​while dismissing other elements—​the title(s) and number of instruments—​as non-​essential. In doing so, the VCLT does not explicitly differentiate the treaty from other concepts of commitment or agreement. And the VCLT definition says little, if anything, about how treaties function. This chapter aims to produce a more comprehensive and robust overview of the treaty than the VCLT’s now-​standard treatment. Section I elaborates three contexts beyond the VCLT where the ‘treaty’ acquires a different definition, and what purposes that definition serves in each setting. Section II unpacks the treaty’s meaning in a specific context—​international law—​along constitutive, differential, and functional lines. It explains how to constitute a treaty using Article 2(1)(a) as a baseline, but clarifying and supplementing its list of ingredients. It differentiates the treaty from other concepts of commitment (unilateral statements) and agreement (contracts and political commitments) while acknowledging questions about the mutual exclusivity of these concepts. Finally, this chapter adopts a functional perspective to explain the evolution in what treaties do across several distinct dimensions. It concludes by asking if the treaty concept might benefit from further clarification or disaggregation as these treaty functions continue to evolve.

I.  Defining Treaties in Context The VCLT cabins its definition of a ‘treaty’ to a specific context. Article 1 limits its application ‘to treaties between States’, while Article 2 says it does so just ‘for the purposes

5 See Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya) (Judgment) [2017] ICJ Rep 3, 21 [42]; Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria; Equatorial Guinea Intervening) [2002] ICJ Rep 303, 429 [263]. Other international tribunals take the same position: eg Texaco v Libyan Arab Republic (1977) 53 ILR 389, 474. 6 DB Hollis, ‘A Comparative Approach to Treaty Law and Practice’ in DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee, and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) 9 (NTLP) (among nineteen representative States, ‘virtually every state surveyed’ accepts the VCLT treaty definition); DB Hollis, Second Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.553/​ 18 (6 February 2018) [8]‌(‘Hollis, Second Report’) (nine out of ten OAS Member States responding to Juridical Committee questionnaire accept the VCLT definition in their own law and practice; the tenth did not provide any views on the issue). 7 Eg J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1996) 40 (VCLT definition is ‘the obvious starting point’ for investigating the nature of treaties); see also A Aust, Modern Treaty Law & Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 14; M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, Utrecht 2005) 6–​25. 8 Klabbers questions if a definition of ‘treaty’ is even possible, preferring to focus instead on explaining the ‘concept of treaty’. Klabbers (n 7) 8.

Defining Treaties  13 of the present Convention’.9 Thus, the VCLT definition serves a specific purpose—​to identify inter-​State agreements subject to the VCLT’s other eighty-​four articles, which deal with the conclusion, application, interpretation, amendment, invalidation, and termination of such treaties. Of these, undoubtedly the most important is pacta sunt servanda: ‘Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’.10 As noted, the VCLT definition’s influence now expands well beyond its original confines. But it would be a mistake to suggest that it represents a universal definition. On the contrary, definitions of a ‘treaty’—​and the consequences that flow from that label—​can vary by context. To say what a treaty ‘is’ thus requires knowing whether the question is posed for purposes of (a) international law, (b) domestic law, or (c) pursuing international coordination or cooperation.

A.  The ‘treaty’ for purposes of international law Today, most States accept the VCLT definition of ‘treaty’ as customary international law.11 But, as the VCLT itself acknowledges, this definition is not comprehensive. Article 3 emphasizes that the VCLT’s exclusion of (i) agreements concluded between States and other subjects of international law; (ii) between such other subjects of international law; and (iii) unwritten international agreements, does not affect ‘the legal force of such agreements’.12 Such agreements may also qualify as ‘treaties’ for purposes of international law. The international law context provides distinct consequences for calling an agreement a treaty as well. First, like the VCLT, the international law ‘treaty’ triggers an associated set of rules and procedures—​the so-​called ‘law of treaties’—​including pacta sunt servanda. The VCLT and the two ‘other’ Vienna Conventions13 now codify many, but not all, of these rules and procedures. Thus, the law of treaties exists independently of these conventions and with a wider ambit than the VCLT alone.14 Second, the binding quality of pacta sunt servanda means that, once in force, treaties constitute a source of international obligations for parties. International obligations implicate a separate area of international law—​the law of responsibility. The breach of an ‘international obligation’ attributable to a State constitutes an internationally wrongful act, which is subject to an increasingly well-​developed set of customary international law rules and

9 The International Law Commission (ILC) had advocated for such qualifications. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 188 [1]‌; H Waldock, ‘Fourth Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1965] YBILC, vol II, 11 [1] (‘Waldock, Fourth Report’). 10 Art 26 VCLT. 11 See n 6; Aust (n 7) 14 (VCLT treaty ‘elements now represent customary international law’); ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 83 (same). 12 The ILC originally proposed these exclusions. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 188–​9 [5]‌, [7]. 13 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543 (1986 VCLT); Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (adopted 23 August 1978, entered into force 6 November 1996) 1946 UNTS 3. 14 For example, none of the Vienna Conventions deal with oral treaties or how armed conflicts affect treaties. See eg Arts 3 and 73 VCLT.

14  Foundational Issues remedies.15 Thus, when international law defines a State’s agreement as a treaty, its operation (including questions of breach and termination) may become subject to both the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility.16 And, although the rules and remedies are less well developed (and more complicated) for breaches of international obligations attributable to international organizations (IOs), similar consequences may flow from their ‘treaties’ as well.17 Third, beyond the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility, applying the ‘treaty’ label may have an even more important role—​identifying a source of international law itself. The ICJ Statute lists treaties, or ‘conventions’, as one of three primary sources—​along with custom and recognized general principles—​for the Court to apply to a dispute before it.18 Most international lawyers view this list as a roster for the sources of international legal rules generally. There are some theoretical difficulties with assigning treaties such status; Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice questioned whether treaties can operate as a source of law if they only bind parties.19 And, aside from a few ‘objective regimes’, treaties generally do bind only parties.20 Nonetheless, conventional wisdom has largely overlooked such finer points and treaties are now widely regarded as one of the primary sources of international law.21

B.  Defining treaties for purposes of domestic law Most existing studies of the treaty focus on differences in meaning under the VCLT and international law.22 But this overlooks an equally, if not more important, context in which the treaty exists and requires definition—​the domestic level. Although domestic law (occasionally supplemented by practice) differs from State to State, invariably treaties are defined within this context in at least two distinct ways. First, domestic law defines the treaty for purposes of elaborating the conditions for its formation. Second, domestic law also defines treaties to specify whether and how they operate within the national legal order.23 15 ILC, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Report on the Work of its Fifty-​first Session (3 May–​23 July, 1999) UN Doc A/​56/​10, 55 [3]‌ (ASR). 16 For a discussion of how this affects remedies for breach or exceptional circumstances as grounds for treaty exit, see Chapters 24 and 25, respectively. 17 On IO responsibility, see Chapter 5, Section III, 107 et seq.; on EU responsibility, see Chapter 6, Section II.C, 143–44 et seq; see also ILC, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations, UNGA, Report of the International Law Commission, UN GAOR 63rd Session Supp No 10 (2011) UN Doc A/​66/​10. 18 Statute of the International Court of Justice (26 June 1945) 33 UNTS 993, Art 38(1). 19 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law’ in Symbolae Verzijl (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1958) 153, 157. 20 For more on this issue, see Chapter 13 of this volume’s first edition: D Bederman, ‘Third Party Rights and Obligations in Treaties’ in DB Hollis, The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) 341 et seq. If a treaty codifies or comes to express customary international law, it may bind non-​parties, but in such instances, it is the customary international law rule that does so, not its placement within a treaty. 21 Martti Koskenniemi opined that we do this ‘by default’ because of continuing controversy over other potential sources and differing theories about the international legal order’s structure. M Koskenniemi, ‘Introduction’ in M Koskenniemi (ed), Sources of International Law (Ashgate, Dartmouth 2000) xii; see also DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters—​Non-​State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl L 137, 142; S Besson and J D’Aspremont (eds), The Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2017). 22 Eg Aust (n 7)  5; Klabbers (n 7)  8; K Widdows, ‘What is an Agreement in International Law?’ (1979) 50 BYBIL 117. 23 Some States also use domestic law to impose procedures on a State’s exit from its treaty commitments. See eg LR Helfer, ‘Treaty Exit and Intra-​Branch Conflict at the Interface of International and Domestic Law’ in C Bradley (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) 355.

Defining Treaties  15 To be clear, domestic laws do not have to define treaties differently than international law. Some States (eg Japan, Russia) simply mimic the VCLT definition for domestic purposes.24 But other States do depart from the VCLT formula, defining treaties by their requisite domestic procedures. France limits its domestic definition of treaties (traités) to agreements receiving Presidential ratification; other international agreements (accords internationaux) are subject to parliamentary approval. Despite differing domestic law terminology, France regards both concepts as identical for purposes of international law.25 In 2014, Spain enacted a new ‘Treaties and Other International Agreements Act’ that also differentiates international treaties (tratado internacional) from international administrative agreements (acuerdo internacional administrative) based on the need for legislative approval of the former (even though both qualify as treaties under international law).26 In the United States, a ‘Treaty’ is an international agreement approved by two-​thirds of the US Senate followed by Presidential ratification.27 Other ‘international agreements’ arise through different procedures—​congressional approval, reliance on Presidential powers, or authorization by a prior Treaty.28 Like France and Spain, the United States views both ‘Treaties’ and ‘international agreements’ as treaties in the international law sense of that term.29 Chile and the Netherlands make similar domestic distinctions.30 For purposes of domestic law, therefore, treaty definitions implicate the State’s allocation of international treaty-​making capacity among domestic political actors. Every State empowers its executive to represent the State in negotiating and concluding treaties.31 Frequently, however, States counterbalance this authority by allowing other domestic actors (most often the legislature, but sometimes courts, sub-​national units, or even the general populace) to exercise their interests by having a say in what treaties the State makes.32 As noted, some States (like France, Spain, and the United States) explicitly use their ‘treaty’ definition to do this by requiring additional democratic approval via legislative participation for instruments so labelled, while excluding others that nonetheless qualify as ‘treaties’ 24 Eg T Kawakami, ‘Japan’ in NTLP (n 6) 415, 416 (Art 4 of Japan’s Law for the Establishment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tracks the VCLT definition); WE Butler, ‘Russia’ in NTLP (n 6) 537, 540 (1995 Russian Federal Law on International Treaties incorporates the VCLT definition verbatim). 25 PM Eisemann and R Rivier, ‘France’ in NTLP (n 6) 253–​4; ibid 276–​7 (1958 French Constitution, Art 52). 26 See Ley 25/​2014, 27 November 2014, Tratados y otros Acuerdos Internacionales, Artículo 2, available at ; C Espósito, ‘Spanish Foreign Relations Law and the Process for Making Treaties and other International Agreements’ in Bradley (n 23) 213–​14. 27 US Constitution, Art II, §2, cl 2. 28 See eg R Dalton, ‘United States’ in NTLP (n 6)  770–​1, 780–​5. Unfortunately, it is not always clear which agreements go through which processes. See eg O Hathaway, ‘ “Treaties” End: The Past, Present and Future of International Lawmaking in the United States’ (2008) 117 Yale L J 1236. 29 US federal regulations suggest that even considered together, ‘Treaties’ and ‘international agreements’ do not include all international law treaties; US ‘international agreements’ must meet additional requirements of significance—​‘minor or trivial undertakings, even if couched in legal language and form are not considered international agreements’—​and specificity, including objective criteria for determining enforceability. 22 CFR 181.2 (1981, as amended 2006). 30 FO Vicuña and FO Bauzá, ‘Chile’ in NTLP (n 6) 123, 142 (Chile Constitution, Art [54](1)); ibid 123–​4; JG Brower, ‘The Netherlands’ in NTLP (n 6) 485–​6 (distinguishing ‘treaties’ requiring parliamentary approval from other ‘administrative agreements’). 31 Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 20–​1; Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 14 [46]. Not every State empowers the same officials that Art 7 VCLT (and customary international law) empowers with treaty-​making authority. Israel, Japan, and Switzerland deny their Head of State such authority; the Netherlands denies it to the Head of Government; while Colombia does so for its Foreign Minister. Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 20–​1. 32 Colombia, for example, conditions ratification of many treaties on Constitutional Court approval; France and Switzerland put certain treaties to a popular referendum. Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 30. Germany involves its Länder in federal treaty-​making. H Beemelmans and HD Treviranus, ‘Germany’ in NTLP (n 6) 329.

16  Foundational Issues for purposes of international law. But even States that do not limit their domestic treaty definition this way, still define the ‘treaty’ (or different categories of ‘treaties’) with an eye to the domestic procedures involved in their formation and implementation.33 And where those procedures are not followed, domestic law may not regard the resulting agreement as a ‘treaty’.34 Beyond procedures, States also define treaties domestically to situate them within the national legal order. All States may endorse pacta sunt servanda as a matter of international law, but States have not interpreted that principle to require any particular priority for treaties as a matter of domestic law. In the national context, the State’s constitutional framework, not international law, dictates the legal status of treaties. Some States do not regard treaties as part of their domestic legal order at all, relying on new or existing legislation to implement treaty obligations domestically.35 Other States give some treaties (but never all of them) direct effect as domestic law, whether upon the treaty’s entry into force internationally or the completion of some domestic procedures (eg publication).36 Moreover, States that grant treaties direct legal effect adopt differing approaches to their positions in the domestic law hierarchy. Some prioritize treaties over all national laws, including the Constitution; some subordinate them below all national laws; and some States afford treaties an intermediate status, equating them, for example, to statutes enacted by the national legislature.37

C.  Defining treaties for purposes of international cooperation and coordination Defining the ‘treaty’ has clear legal consequences with respect to both international and national law. But lawyers are not the only actors interested in treaties; they also matter to those working on transnational issues. Negotiators (and the policy-​makers they represent) are more interested in a treaty’s capacity to be effective—​to achieve its desired goals—​than in the specific legal criteria by which treaties are defined.38 Treaty goals vary but most often 33 The Dominican Republic, for example, requires parliamentary approval of all treaties. Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 15 [49]. Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom require no parliamentary involvement in treaty formation (as distinct from treaty implementation). Intermediate positions include States such as Chile, Colombia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and South Africa, who specify exceptions to a general requirement of legislative approval. Austria, China, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Israel, Russia, and Thailand have specific lists of treaties that do (or do not) require legislative approval. Whatever approach a State uses, legislative involvement appears more likely if the treaty requires changes to domestic law or has political, social, or economic significance. See Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 19–​38; Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 15–​16 [49]. 34 Ecuador, for example, conditions its domestic definition of a treaty to ‘understandings with subjects of international law that also comply with the formalities required under Ecuadorian domestic laws’. Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 4 [9]‌(quoting Ecuador response to 2017 OAS Questionnaire). For purposes of international law, a failure to follow domestic procedures will not invalidate the treaty absent a manifest violation of a rule of fundamental importance. Art 46 VCLT; see also Chapter 23, Section III.A, 555 et seq. 35 See eg Shaheed Fatima, ‘The Domestic Application of International Law in British Courts’ in Bradley (n 23) 490–​7; Amichai Cohen, ‘International law in Israeli Courts’ in Bradley (n 23) 521. 36 On the role of treaties in domestic law, see Chapter 15; Aust (n 7) ch 10; Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 39–​49. 37 Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 47–​9. For more recent treatments, See eg René Urueña, ‘Domestic Application of International Law in Latin America’ in Bradley (n 23) 566–​7 (discussing the domestic status of international law, including treaties, in Latin American States); Ernest Yaw Ako and Richard Frimpong Oppong, ‘Foreign Relations Law in the Constitutions and Courts of Commonwealth African Countries’ in Bradley (n 23) 591–​4 (describing the status of international law, including treaties in eighteen Commonwealth African States). 38 For more on treaty effectiveness (and more granular issues of treaty compliance), see Chapter 4.

Defining Treaties  17 involve (a) international cooperation that would otherwise not occur due to a collective action problem, or (b) international coordination of future behaviour that might otherwise be dissonant.39 Cooperation and coordination may arise through a coincidence of interests, coercion, or pursuant to a commitment. In this context, the treaty is one of several forms of commitment (others include unilateral declarations and political commitments). For political scientists, a treaty may be defined by its ability to enhance the credibility of the commitments it contains.40 What makes a treaty commitment credible? It appears to come from the seriousness and stability such instruments provide.41 Treaties are serious because their legal form communicates to States, their respective domestic constituencies, and third parties an expectation of performance that may not accompany the same commitment in a non-​legal form.42 Their stability derives from the treaty’s existence under both international and national laws. In international law, the law of treaties provides default rules that create shared expectations for how treaty commitments will be formed, applied, and interpreted. The law of treaties also explicitly prefers treaty continuity; it has relatively few options for (and significant restrictions on) unilateral exit. Moreover, violations of treaty commitments may trigger reputational consequences that treaty parties likely wish to avoid.43 Meanwhile, at the national level, procedural conditions on State consent help to ensure that information about the treaty is distributed internally within the State. Participation by domestic actors other than the executive in a treaty’s formation can also increase expectations of performance. For States giving treaties direct domestic legal effect, additional mechanisms—​judicial interpretation and enforcement—​may further ensure continued treaty performance. Thus, for those concerned with international cooperation and coordination, the treaty cannot be defined solely in international or national law terms, but requires a separate, more hybrid, definition. At the same time, questions have arisen about using treaties as a discrete category of international commitment. International relations scholars often think of international commitments in terms of legalization, a concept that can be disaggregated along three independent dimensions: (i) obligation, which asks the extent to which a commitment is legally binding; (ii) precision, which involves the clarity of the commitment and expected means of performance; and (iii) delegation, which entails the extent to which third parties (eg courts and administrative organs) are designated to implement the commitment.44 Although the 39 Why individual actors agree to pursue (or continue) cooperation and coordination is a hard question, the answers to which have generated entire schools of thought in international relations. Realism explains cooperation and coordination as a product of self-​interested State action and a function of the distribution of power among States; liberal theory emphasizes domestic political actors as the driving influence of State behaviour; institutionalism describes the need to reduce uncertainty and transaction costs to correct for ‘market failures’; while constructivism highlights the impact of a social context from which a shared identity, subjective understandings, and norms emerge. See generally J Dunoff and M Pollack (eds), International Law and International Relations: Insights from Interdisciplinary Scholarship (CUP, Cambridge 2012). 40 K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581, 592. 41 See eg J Goldsmith and E Posner, The Limits of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2005) 91–​9; C Lipson, ‘Why are Some International Agreements Informal?’ (1991) 45 IO 495, 508. 42 Goldsmith and Posner (n 41) 98–​9. 43 R Brewster, ‘Unpacking the State’s Reputation’ (2009) 50 HILJ 231, 235; see also A Guzman, How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory (OUP, New York 2008). Treaties may also provide compliance mechanisms or dispute settlement procedures that enhance the treaty’s seriousness and stability (although these mechanisms are no guarantee that the treaty itself will be effective). For more, see Chapter 4. 44 KW Abbott and others, ‘The Concept of Legalization’ (2000) 54 IO 401, 401; CM Chinkin, ‘The Challenge of Soft Law: Development and Change in International Law’ (1989) 38 ICLQ 850, 865–​6.

18  Foundational Issues legalization perspective does not redefine the treaty, this approach to international coordination and cooperation impacts the treaty concept in two key ways.45 First, evaluating the extent of a commitment’s ‘obligation’ suggests that its ‘bindingness’ exists along a continuum of possibilities. Thus, unlike the traditional binary approach to defining treaties (where a commitment is either a legally binding treaty or it is not), this view highlights the possibility that negotiators may vary how strongly (or weakly) a commitment legally binds its participants. The existence of a legal obligation thus shifts from a black-​or-​white issue to one encompassing various shades of grey. Second, by emphasizing variables other than obligation—​precision and delegation—​the essentiality of legal obligations is called into question. A commitment may be fully binding but of little practical use if its content is imprecise or there are no external checks on implementation. Conversely, a non-​binding or ‘soft’ obligation might effectively achieve cooperation or coordination if it is stated in highly precise terms and/​or delegates responsibility for implementation to third parties.46 Taken together, a graduated view of bindingness and an emphasis on precision and delegation suggest that the treaty may not be an optimal (let alone essential) vehicle for achieving international cooperation and coordination. On the other hand, whatever explanatory value legalization may have for analysing cooperation and coordination, it remains contested. Some scholars deny any ‘spectrum of legality’, insisting that the legal quality of a commitment cannot be differentiated, rejecting any concept of ‘soft law’ in the process.47 For them, the treaty remains a highly relevant category. States, moreover, appear to agree: they regularly and consciously employ the treaty concept in a binary fashion, choosing it as the label for those commitments they intend to create legal obligations and using other labels (eg political commitment) for other forms of agreement.48 Nor are these labels merely international rhetoric. At the domestic level especially, the treaty concept implicates domestic law in ways distinct from the impact (if any) of other international commitments. Those impacts, moreover, may be precisely what give the treaty commitment its credibility and hence its utility in facilitating international cooperation and coordination.49 The foregoing highlights a range of contexts in which the treaty concept appears: international law, national law, and international relations. In each, the treaty’s meaning varies, even as the core concept of an international legal agreement remains. Moreover, each context defines the treaty for very different purposes. Sketching out these differences does not, of course, tell us exactly what the treaty ‘is’ in any particular context. The remainder of this chapter endeavours to do so for a specific context: international law. It examines how to identify a treaty; how to distinguish it from other commitments and agreements; and what functions it may perform. 45 See Abbott and others (n 44) 403 (declaiming any intent to define (or redefine) law). For an effort that explores the meaning of—​and criteria for—​‘legality’ through a theory about the social construction of international law, see J Brunnée and SJ Toope, Legitimacy and Legality in International Law—​An Interactional Account (CUP, Cambridge 2010). 46 Hence the rise in attention to ‘soft law’. K Abbott and D Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’ (2000) 54 IO 421; Chinkin (n 44) 850. 47 Raustiala (n 40) 588; J Klabbers, ‘The Redundancy of Soft Law’ (1996) 65 Nordic J Int’l L 167, 181; P Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law’ (1983) 77 AJIL 413. 48 See Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 8 [21]. 49 For a recent international relations study focused on examining variations in treaty design for purposes of achieving international cooperation, see B Koremenos, The Continent of International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2016).

Defining Treaties  19

II.  Defining the ‘Treaty’ in International Law A. The constitutive definition: identifying treaties by their ingredients For those concerned with identifying what constitutes a treaty for purposes of international law, the VCLT provides a natural starting point. As noted, it lists four basic ingredients, namely (a) an international agreement; (b) concluded among States; (c) in writing; (d) governed by international law. It also takes two potential ingredients—​the agreement’s designation and its number of instruments—​off the table. As the context shifts from the VCLT to customary international law, this basic recipe requires some variations and substitutions. The resulting formula provides some clarity in deciding whether to apply the ‘treaty’ label to an agreement. But, like other recipes, debates continue on how to procure specific ingredients and their relative importance to the treaty concept itself.

1. An international agreement In international law—​as in all contexts—​a treaty requires an international agreement. The universality of this criterion, however, belies its ambiguity. International law offers little guidance on what qualifies as an ‘agreement’ let alone an ‘international’ one.50 Nonetheless, this criterion adds value to the treaty concept in three distinct ways. First, by requiring an ‘international agreement’, the VCLT definition clarifies that treaties are a specific category of agreement. All treaties qualify as agreements, but not all agreements qualify as treaties.51 It is not clear, however, what else the ‘international’ qualification does. It has not, for example, been interpreted to constrain treaties to specific ‘international’ subjects. During the Vienna Conference, Spain proposed deleting the adjective as ‘unnecessary and liable to cause confusion’,52 but the Drafting Committee declined, without explanation, to do so. Today, the ‘international’ qualification is best understood as bounding the scope of agreement, whether in terms of the international actors who make it or its basis of obligation in international law, which the rest of the definition then proceeds to clarify.53 Second, although the International Law Commission (ILC) gave the idea of ‘agreement’ little attention,54 this requirement significantly impacts our understanding of the treaty. It 50 Klabbers (n 7) 51; Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 7) 10. In practice, States often explicitly state their intention to make an agreement. Samples of such statements are excerpted in No 6 of Section VII of this Guide. For more on intent, see Section II.A.4 of this chapter. 51 Villiger (n 11) 77. This point was repeated throughout the ILC’s preparatory work. See JL Brierly, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ (1950) YBILC, vol II, 227 [19] (‘Brierly, First Report’); Waldock, Fourth Report (n 9) 11 [1]‌; [1965] YBILC, vol I, 10 [10] (Briggs). 52 UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of First Session, UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11, 23 [20] (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’); UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Official Records: Documents of the Conference, UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11/​Add.2, 111 (‘Vienna Conference, Official Records’); see also Klabbers (n 7) 54. Several States supported Spain’s proposal. Eg Vienna Conference, First Session, 21 [2]‌(Chile); ibid 25 [7] (Syria). The United States favoured retaining the ‘international’ qualifier. Ibid 31 [115]. 53 This follows from Waldock’s earlier understanding. H Waldock, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1962] YBILC, vol II, 32, Art 1(a) (defining an ‘international agreement’ as ‘an agreement intended to be governed by international law and concluded between two or more States or other subjects of international law’) (‘Waldock, First Report’); see also Villiger (n 11) 78. 54 Although they used the term ‘agreement’ throughout their work, none of the four ILC Special Rapporteurs offered a specific definition for the term. Eg Brierly (n 51) 227 [19]–​[20]; H Lauterpacht, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 90, 93–​4 (Art 1) (‘Lauterpacht, First Report’); GG Fitzmaurice, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1956] YBILC, vol II, 117 (‘Fitzmaurice, First Report’); Waldock, First Report (n 53) 31 (Art 1(a)).

20  Foundational Issues has (at least) two elements. Agreements do not arise from a single actor sua sponte; they involve mutuality—​an interchange or communication among multiple participants.55 Furthermore, an agreement’s interchange must generate a normative commitment—​a shared expectation of future behaviour whether in terms of a change from the status quo or a continuation of existing behaviour.56 Communications limited to explaining a particular position, or even articulating an ‘agreed view’, are generally not agreements. The depth of a commitment may vary widely. It may also be one-​sided; agreements do not require an exchange of commitments (or what the common law calls ‘consideration’)—​a single commitment by one party to another party or parties will suffice. Third, by simply requiring an agreement, the definition leaves open the question of where the agreement lies. On the one hand, an agreement (and consequently a treaty) could be defined as the actual mutual expectation of commitment—​the parties’ subjective ‘meeting of the minds’.57 Alternatively, an agreement might refer to the instrument(s) recording the parties’ expectations. In other words, do we define treaties as obligations or instruments?58 That choice has important interpretative consequences, particularly where one side claims the instrument purporting to be the treaty does not fully capture the parties’ actual commitment(s). VCLT Article 2(1)(a)’s ‘agreement’ reference might appear to conceptualize the treaty in terms of the commitment, rather than the instrument that conveys it.59 But, the remainder of the VCLT undercuts this view; almost all of its provisions on the formation, application, interpretation, and termination of treaties turn on the text of the treaty instrument. Of course, the VCLT’s instrument-​centred approach need not govern the treaty concept in the wider ambit of international law. But the other Vienna Conventions and State practice suggest that it presently does so. Thus, a treaty requires an international agreement evincing a sense of mutuality and commitment manifested through one or more specific instruments. Given these conditions, how do States and other stakeholders identify the existence of an international agreement? In some cases, its authors make things easy by conceding its existence. In the Pulp Mills case, for example, neither Argentina nor Uruguay disputed that their Presidents had reached an agreement via a 31 May 2005 press release; their dispute revolved around whether the agreement was binding (ie governed by international law) or not.60 Similarly, in the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway arbitration, both Belgium and the Netherlands acknowledged that they had reached an agreement in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) but that the MOU was not a ‘binding instrument’.61

55 DB Hollis and JJ Newcomer, ‘ “Political” Commitments and the Constitution’ (2009) 49 VJIL 507, 522; Klabbers (n 7) 51–​3. As Brierly emphasized, agreements’ mutuality distinguishes them from unilateral declarations. Brierly (n 51) 227 [19]-​[20]. 56 Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 522; Klabbers (n 7) 51–​3; Raustiala (n 40) 584–​5 (discussing ‘depth’ by reference to the departure an agreement requires from what States would do in the absence of agreement). 57 Villiger and Widdows both define agreements this way. Widdows (n 22) 119 (first element of a treaty is the agreement, the ‘consensus ad idem’); Villiger (n 11) 77 (linking VCLT usage of term ‘agreement’ with a ‘meeting of the minds’ or synallagma). For his part, Brierly viewed the agreement as the ‘essence of a treaty’ and linked it to ‘consensus’. Brierly, First Report (n 51) 227 [19]–​[20] (emphasis added). 58 See eg S Rosenne, Breach of Treaty (CUP, Cambridge 1993) 3–​5; Widdows (n 22) 118. 59 See Villiger (n 11) 77. 60 Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay) (Judgment) [2010] ICJ Rep 14, 63–​4 [132]–​[133]. 61 Award in the Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (2005) 27 RIAA 35, [156].

Defining Treaties  21 In other cases, States may not all accept the existence of an agreement. In the Aegean Sea case, Greece and Turkey disputed both the agreement’s existence and its status as legally binding. The ICJ emphasized resolving such disputes by looking at the written text with ‘regard above all to its actual terms and to the particular circumstances in which it was drawn up’.62 That test provides a useful framework for identifying the conditions of an agreement: mutuality and commitment. In the Aegean Sea case, for example, the Court reviewed prior communications and the language used in a Joint Communiqué between Greece and Turkey’s Prime Ministers, concluding that the Communiqué did not constitute a ‘commitment’ to submit the States’ dispute to the Court.63 The ICJ affirmed this approach in Qatar v Bahrain, examining a set of ‘Agreed Minutes’ signed by Qatar and Bahrain’s Foreign Ministers and finding that they constituted an agreement; they were ‘not a simple record of a meeting . . . they do not merely give an account of discussions and summarize points of agreement and disagreement. They enumerate the commitments to which the Parties have consented’.64 The ICJ continued this approach in the Case Concerning Kasikili/​Sedudu Island, reading the varying views over a boundary location contained in exchanges of notes and letters between South Africa and Bechuanaland and finding that they ‘demonstrate the absence of agreement’.65 For its part, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has suggested that otherwise ‘conditional’ language in a shared text can preclude assigning it the status of an agreement.66 International tribunals have also declined to identify an agreement where one side is non-​responsive to an offer made by the other side. ITLOS refused to find Japan had, by its silence, agreed to a methodology for setting bonds that Russia presented in certain joint meetings and recorded subsequently in written Protocols between the two States.67 Similarly, a Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Tribunal declined to find that Jordan had reached an agreement to arbitrate when it failed to respond to two letters from an Italian Ambassador asserting that the two States had concluded an oral agreement to that effect.68

2. ‘Concluded among States’ or other subjects of international law Assuming the existence of an international agreement, the VCLT requires that a treaty be ‘concluded among States’. This criterion implicates the timing of the treaty’s creation and the identity of its creators. As a temporal matter, a treaty must be ‘concluded’ to exist. What constitutes conclusion? Loosely, it refers to the entire process from the negotiations’ end to a ‘definitive engagement

62 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v Turkey) (Judgment) [1978] ICJ Rep 3, [95] (emphasis added). 63 Ibid [107]. 64 Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, [24]. 65 Case Concerning Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana v Namibia) (Judgment) [1999] ICJ Rep 1045, [63]. 66 Delimitation of the Maritime Boundary in the Bay of Bengal (Bangladesh/​Myanmar) (Judgment, 14 March 2012) 2012 ITLOS Rep 4, [92] (‘The Tribunal considers that the terms of the 1974 Agreed Minutes confirm that these Minutes are a record of a conditional understanding reached during the course of negotiations, and not an agreement within the meaning of article 15 of the Convention. This is supported by the language of these Minutes, in particular, in light of the condition expressly contained therein that the delimitation of the territorial sea boundary was to be part of a comprehensive maritime boundary treaty’). 67 See ‘Hoshinmaru’ (Japan v Russian Federation) (Prompt Release, Judgment, 6 August 2007) 2007 ITLOS Rep 18, [85]–​[87]. 68 Salini Construttori SpA and Italstrade SpA v The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Award, 31 January 2006) ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​13, [98].

22  Foundational Issues that the parties are bound by the instrument under international law’.69 Pinpointing the exact moment of conclusion is a bit more difficult. For some, that moment does not occur until after the parties express their consent to be bound by the treaty and no ‘further formalities’ are required.70 In practice, however, a treaty is usually considered concluded at an earlier point: when the parties adopt the treaty text or it is opened for their signature.71 The VCLT’s structure favours this second formulation.72 In either case, it is clear that a treaty can be ‘concluded’ even if it has not yet entered into force (or it never does so73); conclusion and entry into force are not synonymous.74 Pacta sunt servanda only applies to a subset of treaties, namely those ‘in force’. Thus, it is important to differentiate the legal effects that arise when a treaty merely exists from those imposed upon its entry into force.75 In terms of party identity, a VCLT ‘treaty’ only involves States. But States may still conclude treaties at different levels. Some treaties will be done on behalf of (and in the name of) the State itself; others may be done by the State’s government or one of its agencies, ministries, or departments. Austria, China, Germany, India, and Russia all conclude treaties at State-​to-​State, government-​to-​government, and agency-​to-​agency levels.76 Some States, however, prohibit their agencies from engaging in treaty-​making.77 Regardless of the level at which the agreement is concluded, international law generally treats the ‘State’ as the responsible party. A few States (notably France and Mexico) have domestic laws suggesting that their agency-​level agreements only bind their agencies,78 but it is not clear if international law respects such attempts to limit State responsibility. More importantly, although treaty-​making was historically the province of States, that limitation no longer holds.79 The ILC clearly limited its attention to inter-​State agreements as a matter of expediency rather than any sense of legal mandate.80 As VCLT Article 3 69 Villiger (n 11) 78–​9. This was Waldock’s view. Waldock, First Report (n 53) 30 [9]‌. Fitzmaurice noted ‘conclusion’ could refer to either a process or a specific point in time. Fitzmaurice, First Report (n 54) 121 [48]–​[52]. Brierly supported linking treaty conclusion to the establishment of the agreed text in final form. JL Brierly, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1951] YBILC, vol II, 70–​1. 70 Villiger (n 11) 79; see also R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) 232–​5. 71 Gardiner (n 70) 209; Aust (n 7) 86. 72 Arts 7–​10 VCLT discuss the ‘text of the treaty’ when referring to full powers, adoption and authentication of a treaty text, but then refer to the ‘treaty’ in Arts 11–​18, which elaborate various means of expressing consent to be bound. See Gardiner (n 70) 233–​4. The 1986 VCLT adopts the same approach. 73 Unperfected treaties—​those that do not enter into force—​are thus still considered treaties. 74 Aust (n 7) 86; Villiger (n 11) 79. 75 See eg Art 24(4) VCLT (noting various provisions of ‘a treaty’ that ‘apply from the time of the adoption of its text’ rather than on entry into force). 76 G Hafner, ‘Austria’ in NTLP (n 6) 59, 64; X Hanqin and others, ‘China’ in NTLP (n 6) 155, 159; Beemelmans and Treviranus (n 32)  317, 319–​20 (Germany); K Thakore, ‘India’ in NTLP (n 6)  352, 352; Butler (n 24)  540 (Russia); see also Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [24] (Jamaica authorizes its ministries to conclude treaties). 77 Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [25] (Colombia, Dominican Republic, and Peru do not authorize their agencies to conclude treaties); see also NJ Botha, ‘South Africa’ in NTLP (n 6) 581, 584 (South Africa generally does not authorize its agencies to conclude treaties); Kawakami (n 24) 417 (with few exceptions, ministries other than Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have no authority to conclude international agreements). 78 Eisemann and Rivier (n 25) 254–​5 (discussing French practice of arrangements administratifs that ‘do not bind the State, only the signatory agency’); L Díaz, ‘Mexico’ in NTLP (n 6) 450 (discussing Mexican Treaty Law authorization of inter-​institutional agreements that ‘are only binding upon those agencies, which have entered into them’); Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [25] (re Mexico’s position). 79 A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) 755 (‘Fifty years ago it might have been possible to say that only States could conclude treaties, but today any such statement would be out of date’). 80 All four ILC Special Rapporteurs proposed including non-​State actors (whether IOs or ‘other subjects of international law’) within their treaty definition, and thus within the codification project itself. See Brierly, First Report (n 51) 223; Lauterpacht, First Report (n 54) 90, 94; Fitzmaurice, First Report (n 54) 117; Waldock, First Report (n 53) 32, 35. By 1965, after debate and government input, the ILC decided to focus solely on ‘treaties of States’. Waldock, Fourth Report (n 9) 11 (citing ILC decision at its 14th session).

Defining Treaties  23 notes, it was understood at the time that ‘other subjects of international law’ could conclude treaties as well.81 Who are these ‘other subjects’? For starters, IOs may have a treaty-​making capacity. To the extent it reflects customary international law, the 1986 VCLT now defines the treaty in terms of IO agreements.82 Much less attention has been paid to the possibility of treaties involving actors other than States or IOs such as the UN or EU. In practice, however, various ‘other subjects of international law’ may conclude treaties, including (i) federal territorial units, (ii) external territories, (iii) insurgent groups, and maybe (iv) even (very rarely) private actors.83 The fact that IOs and other subjects of international law can make some treaties does not mean that these actors can make all treaties. International law imposes two qualifications on their treaty-​making: internal authorization and external consent. IOs can only make a treaty where (a) member States have authorized it in the constituent treaty or acquiesced to it in practice; and (b) other States, IOs, or subjects of international law are willing to conclude such a treaty with that IO.84 Similarly, sub-​State actors require ‘(1) the consent of the State responsible for the sub-​State actor; and (2) the willingness of the sub-​State actor’s treaty partners to regard it as capable of entering into treaties’ on the subject matter.85 Where authorization is absent or potential treaty-​partners unavailable, IOs and other subjects of international law cannot make treaties.

3. ‘In written form’ or otherwise recorded The VCLT requires a treaty to be in writing. The form of that writing is not terribly relevant. Signature, for example, is not required.86 Nor is publication.87 What is required is some permanent and readable evidence of agreement.88 Thus, the ILC’s first Special Rapporteur, JL Brierly, noted a treaty may exist via ‘typewriting and printing and, indeed, any other permanent method of recording’.89 Aust adds more modern forms, including ‘telegram, telex, fax message or even an e-​mail’.90 As the Information Age evolves, this list could expand to newer forms of electronic communication, such as text messages or use of social media.

81 See eg P Gautier, ‘Article 1 Convention of 1969’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, 22–​4; Villiger (n 11) 57–​8; Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 7) 16–​18; Klabbers (n 7) 47–​9; S Rosenne, Developments in the Law of Treaties 1945–​1986 (CUP, Cambridge 1989) 10–​23. At the Vienna Conference, US and Vietnamese efforts to expand the VCLT treaty definition to include ‘other subjects’ fell short. See Vienna Conference, First Session (n 52) 20 [64]; Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 52) 110. The Vienna Conference instead adopted a resolution recommending the ILC study IO treaty-​making. Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 52) 285. 82 1986 VCLT (n 13) Art 1(a). IO treaty-​making is the subject of Chapters 5 and 22; Chapter 6 deals specifically with EU treaty-​making. 83 Chapter 7, Section I.A.1–​4, C.7-​S4-​S7 et seq, discusses treaties and each of these ‘other subjects’. See also Hollis (n 21) 146–​55; Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [25]–​[28] (reviewing OAS Member State responses to questionnaire on treaty-​making capacity of their sub-​national territorial units). 84 See Chapter 5, Section IV, 111–14 et seq. 85 Hollis (n 21) 163. 86 Gautier (n 81)  38; Aust (n 7)  24–​5; Pulp Mills case (n 60)  [132]–​[150] (ICJ treats unsigned joint press communiqué as a binding ‘agreement’). 87 Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 7) 23–​4; Klabbers (n 7) 85–​6. 88 Aust (n 7) 16–​17. 89 Brierly, First Report (n 51) 227. Fitzmaurice implied Brierly’s formulation required clarification, asking if it would include an ‘oral agreement, recorded . . . on a disc or tape recorder . . .’? Fitzmaurice, First Report (n 54) 117 n4. The topic was not, however, discussed at the Vienna Conference. Klabbers (n 7) 50. 90 Aust (n 7) 16.

24  Foundational Issues Are oral agreements treaties? The VCLT excluded them for practical reasons and without prejudice to their legal force.91 Today, many States accept that, in principle, customary international law may recognize oral agreements as treaties.92 US domestic law goes so far as to require the commitment of oral international agreements, once made, to writing.93 Other States, however, oppose concluding oral treaties, raising questions about their current status in international law.94 Moreover, actual practice is quite sparse. There are just a handful of recorded ‘oral treaties’, the most notable being the so-​called ‘Ihlen Declaration’.95 A more recently cited example is Finland and Denmark’s oral settlement of their Great Belt bridge dispute.96 Assuming oral agreements can constitute treaties, serious questions remain as to the applicable rules. It is not clear what evidence demonstrates the existence of an oral treaty; must it be recorded in some permanent and observable form—​such as an audio/​video recording or written transcription—​akin to an original writing, or can later testimony alone establish the existence of a prior oral treaty? Lauterpacht’s charge that ‘what matters is the existence of a record of an agreement’97 cautions against finding oral treaties absent some record of the treaty’s existence and its content. What other requirements surround oral treaties is also murky. To the extent it codifies customary international law, some VCLT rules may govern oral treaties,98 but others (ie those on signature or ratification) are obviously inapplicable. To date, there have been few efforts to identify the relevant rules, presumably because of the rarity with which such agreements arise.

4. ‘Governed by international law’ Undoubtedly, the most important (and most controversial) of a treaty’s ingredients is the final one—​the requirement that it be ‘governed by international law’. When questions arise as to whether a particular instrument is a treaty, debate almost always centres on this criterion. This may be due to the tautology inherent in saying that, for purposes of international law, a treaty is an ‘agreement . . . governed by international law’. This allows the phrase to operate as a sort of empty vessel that can be deployed for multiple purposes. 91 Art 3 VCLT. The ILC emphasized it focused exclusively on written agreements ‘in the interests of clarity and simplicity’ and had ‘not intended to deny the legal force of oral agreements under international law or to imply that some of the principles contained in later parts of the Commission’s draft articles on the law of treaties may not have relevance in regard to oral agreements’. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 189 [7]‌. 92 See eg Hollis (n 6) 12–​13 (surveying treaty law and practice of States, including Canada, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, which accept the possibility of oral treaties even if they do not make them). 93 See 1 USC § 112b(a). 94 Eg Brower (n 30) 486 (Dutch government has opposed practice of oral agreements since 1983); G Cavelier, ‘Colombia’ in NTLP (n 6) 196 (Colombia not bound by verbal agreements because of domestic promulgation requirements); Thakore (n 76) 352 (oral agreements ‘are not resorted to in Indian practice’); Botha (n 77) 583 (neither South African law or practice makes any provision for oral agreements and they lack official sanction). 95 See Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (Denmark v Norway) [1933] PCIJ Rep Ser A/​B No 53, 22–​3, 69–​73 (viewing Norwegian Foreign Minister Ihlen’s oral promise not to interfere with Danish claims to sovereignty in Eastern Greenland (after Denmark agreed not to interfere with Norwegian claims to Spitzbergen) as an internationally legally binding obligation); ibid 91 (dissent of Judge Anzilotti). Its status as an oral treaty remains, however, contested. See n 177 and accompanying text. 96 (1992) 3 Finnish Ybk Intl L 610; Aust (n 7) 7–​8; Klabbers (n 7) 50 n71; but see Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 527 n78 (suggesting Great Belt settlement might be a political commitment instead). See also Gautier (n 81) 39 n38 (citing oral declaration by Canada on signing a treaty on deep seabed mining accepted by other delegations on hand); McNair (n 79) 8–​9 (characterizing Silesian loan affair as an oral treaty). 97 [1953] YBILC, vol II, 160. 98 Art 3 VCLT (‘The fact that the present Convention does not apply . . . to agreements not in written form, shall not affect: . . . (b) the application to them of any of the rules set forth in the present Convention to which they would be subject under international law independently of the Convention’).

Defining Treaties  25 For starters, ‘governed by international law’ need not be read as an ingredient for making a treaty at all; rather, it can be read as the consequence of doing so. In other words, it describes the effect that follows from a recorded international agreement among States, IOs, and other qualified subjects of international law. That perspective was clearly at work in the ILC’s origination of the phrase.99 At the Vienna Conference, however, efforts to elaborate on a treaty’s functions were unavailing. Chile proposed defining the treaty as an agreement ‘governed by international law, which produces legal effects’ but its amendment was not adopted.100 The Chilean proposal, however, highlighted another motivation for the ‘governed by international law’ qualification—​to distinguish treaties from other forms of agreement. The ILC clearly viewed treaties as distinct from agreements governed by ‘national’ law101 and agreements not governed by law at all.102 At the Vienna Conference, clarifications were proposed first by Mexico and Malaysia,103 and later by Switzerland,104 to make such distinctions more explicit. But the Drafting Committee considered such proposals ‘superfluous’ and the original formula remained unaltered.105 The real controversy over ‘governed by international law’, however, comes in its employment in claiming (or denying) treaty status for an agreement. The ILC’s Special Rapporteurs had proposed identifying treaties based on their legal content and/​or the authors’ intentions. For Brierly, a treaty had to establish ‘a relationship under international law’.106 His successor, Lauterpacht, took a different tack, defining treaties as agreements ‘intended to create legal rights and obligations’.107 Fitzmaurice originally combined these approaches, defining the treaty as ‘an international agreement . . . intended to create legal rights and obligations, to establish relationships, governed by international law’.108 Ultimately though, Fitzmaurice fell back on the simpler ‘governed by international law’ criterion, which the ILC (and later the VCLT) adopted.109

99 Eg [1959] YBILC, vol II, 95 [3]‌(‘the Commission felt that the element of subjection to international law was so essential an aspect of a treaty . . . that this should be expressly mentioned in any definition or description’). 100 Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 52) 111. Thus, it becomes difficult to define treaties—​if not international law more generally—​based on their normative effects. See J Pauwelyn, ‘Is it International Law or Not and Does it Even Matter?’ in J Pauwelyn and others (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (OUP, Oxford 2012) 125,  158–​9. 101 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 189 [6]‌; [1959] YBILC, vol II, 95 [3]. At the Vienna Conference, Waldock emphasized that: ‘The phrase “governed by international law” serves to distinguish between international agreements regulated by public international law and those, which although concluded between States, are regulated by the national law of one of the parties (or by some other national law system chosen by the parties)’. Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 52) 9 [6]. 102 Eg [1959] YBILC, vol II, 96–​7 [8]‌(‘instruments which, although they might look like treaties, merely contained declarations of principle or statements of policy, or expressions of opinion, or voeux, would not be treaties’). 103 Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 52)  111–​12; Vienna Conference, First Session (n 52)  23 [26] (Mexican delegate distinguishes treaties from ‘declarations of principle or political instruments’); ibid 28 [65]. 104 The Swiss government proposed to exclude ‘agreements concluded between States at the international level but not constituting treaties, such as declarations of intent, political declarations and “gentleman’s agreements” ’. UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of Second Session, UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11/​Add.1, 225 [13] (‘Vienna Conference, Second Session’). 105 Ibid 346 [21]–​[22]; RD Kearney and R Dalton, ‘The Treaty on Treaties’ (1970) 64 AJIL 495, 504–​5. 106 Brierly, First Report (n 51) 223. 107 Lauterpacht, First Report (n 54) 93. 108 [1959] YBILC, vol II, 96. Fitzmaurice reintroduced Brierly’s ‘legal relations’ component to include agreements that might only create legal rights and obligations by implication, such as where a peace treaty just establishes a particular relationship among the parties. Fitzmaurice, First Report (n 54) 117 [6]‌. 109 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 187 (draft Art 1(a)).

26  Foundational Issues Given this history, the intent to create a treaty emphasized by Lauterpacht and Fitzmaurice is widely thought to be subsumed in the ‘governed by international law’ element. That was certainly the ILC’s understanding.110 The Vienna Conference delegates agreed.111 Thus, any question as to whether the parties intended to create a treaty (not to mention what relevance to attach to their intentions) ends up being discussed under the ‘governed by international law’ heading. Whatever its pedigree, the role of intent in treaty-​making today implicates a doctrinal quandary. On the one hand, many—​perhaps most—​States and scholars regard it as the essential criterion for identifying an agreement as a treaty.112 Several prominent international courts and tribunals have agreed.113 In the South China Seas arbitration, for example, the Tribunal emphasized ‘[t]‌o constitute a binding agreement, an instrument must evince a clear intention to establish rights and obligations between the parties’.114 Earlier, in the Aegean Sea case, the ICJ emphasized that the Joint Communiqué did not exhibit the necessary shared intention to bind Turkey to its general jurisdiction.115 Taken together, these opinions support a subjective or ‘intentional’ method for defining treaties. Simply put, if qualified parties intend their agreement to be a treaty, it is a treaty; if they lack this intent, the agreement will be denied treaty status. On the other hand, the intent test has its detractors. During the ILC debates, Roberto Ago and others resisted the idea ‘that states could always pick and choose from among various legal systems’ since international law might regard agreements on certain subjects (eg boundaries, territorial seas) as treaties regardless of what States parties intended.116 In lieu of intent, several States and scholars thus favour a more ‘objective’ test, where a treaty’s existence depends on its subject matter, language, or clauses.117 110 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 189 [6]‌(‘The Commission concluded that, in so far as it may be relevant, the element of intention is embraced in the phrase “governed by international law”, and it decided not to make any mention of the element of intention in the definition’). 111 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 104)  346 [22] (Drafting Committee ‘considered the expression “agreement . . . governed by international law” . . . covered the element of intention to create obligations and rights in international law’). 112 Hollis, Second Report (n 6)  [16] (Five OAS Member States—​Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States—​specifically invoked ‘intent’ as the deciding criterion for identifying a treaty in response to an OAS Questionnaire); Pauwelyn (n 100) 134 (intent is ‘the criterion generally accepted under international law for purposes of distinguishing what is international law and what is not’); Aust (n 7) 17 (‘It is the negotiating states that decide whether they will conclude a treaty, or something else’); Klabbers (n 7) 68 (‘Notwithstanding its awkwardness, there is virtual unanimity among international lawyers that, at the very least, intent is one of the main determinants of international legal rights and obligations’); see also Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 517–​18; Widdows (n 22) 120–​39. On intent in the interpretative process, see Chapter 19, Section II.B, 470–74. 113 See eg An Arbitral Tribunal Constituted Under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (The Republic of Philippines v The People’s Republic of China), Award on Jurisdiction, PCA Case No 2013-​19 (29 October 2015) [213] (‘South China Sea Arbitration’); France v Commission, C-​233/​02 (ECJ, 23 March 2004) (‘the intention of the parties must in principle be the decisive criterion for the purpose of determining whether or not the Guidelines are binding’). For a detailed review of earlier international tribunal analyses, see Klabbers (n 7) Chs VI–​VII. 114 South China Seas Arbitration (n 113) [213]. 115 Aegean Sea case (n 62) 43. Scholars disagree whether this was because the Communiqué was not intended to be legally binding or because its scope did not trigger ICJ jurisdiction on the facts presented. Compare Aust (n 7) 20 (‘The Court found that there had been no intention to conclude an international agreement to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court’); with C Chinkin, ‘A Mirage in the Sand? Distinguishing Binding and Non-​Binding Relations Between States’ (1997) 10 LJIL 223, 234 (‘The Court did not dismiss the [Joint Communiqué] as being without any legal effect but only as insufficient to support a unilateral application of the dispute to the Court’). 116 [1962] YBILC, vol I, 52 [19]. 117 See Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [16] (in response to an OAS Questionnaire, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Uruguay listed the agreement’s structure and the language used as determining factors in identifying treaties); Pauwelyn (n 100) 131–​41 (surveying different schools for distinguishing between law and non-​law); Klabbers (n 7) 249.

Defining Treaties  27 Following the Aegean Sea case, the ICJ’s more recent cases appear to favour the objective approach. In Qatar v Bahrain, the ICJ found that the parties had concluded a legally binding agreement accepting ICJ jurisdiction in the form of Agreed Minutes, notwithstanding protestations by Bahrain’s Foreign Minister that he had not intended to do so.118 The Court viewed the Agreed Minutes as a treaty based on the ‘terms of the instrument itself and the circumstances of its conclusion, not from what the parties say afterwards was their intention’.119 Anthony Aust suggested that the Court might simply have been emphasizing the intention expressed in the Agreed Minutes over later, self-​serving claims of intention issued in anticipation of litigation.120 For others like Christine Chinkin, however, the Court’s approach suggests that objective criteria—​for example, the language and types of clauses included in the instrument, and perhaps even its very subject matter—​will dictate whether it is a treaty or not.121 The Court’s more recent cases—​Pulp Mills and Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean—​endorse this latter view.122 Both cases identified agreements governed by international law, not based on any evidence of party intent, but on the terms of the instruments themselves. The Court’s opinion in Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean, for example, reasoned that the ‘inclusion of a provision addressing the entry into force of the MOU is indicative of the instrument’s binding character’.123 At present, therefore, international law appears to accommodate two different methods for defining which agreements are governed by international law (and thus constitute treaties)—​(i) an ‘intent’ test, and (ii) an ‘objective’ test. This situation is not entirely surprising. More than three decades ago, Martti Koskenniemi noted the ‘oscillation between subjective and objective approaches’ in defining treaties.124 Nor are these two tests in constant conflict; cases in which they produce divergent results are likely to be limited. Identifying subjective intent is notoriously difficult among individuals, let alone institutional entities such as States or IOs. Thus, States and scholars focused on intentions will usually rely on the manifest intent of the parties. As Oscar Schachter noted, ‘inferences as to such intent have to be drawn from the language of the instrument and the attendant circumstances of its conclusion and adoption’.125 As such, adherents of the intent test often turn to the very same evidence employed by those who rest a treaty’s existence on objective criteria.126

118 Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) [27]. 119 Ibid (‘The two Ministers signed a text recording commitments accepted by their Governments, some of which were to be given immediate application. Having signed such a text, the Foreign Minister is not in a position to say that he intended to subscribe only to a “statement recording a political understanding”, and not to an international agreement’); see also Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Judgment) [1995] ICJ Rep 6. 120 Aust (n 7) 48–​9; see also Widdows (n 22) 94 (in determining an agreement’s status, ‘the views of one party at the time of conclusion of the instrument will be of some assistance, subject to all other considerations being equal, but one party’s statements made at a later stage should be disregarded . . . as self-​serving’). 121 See Chinkin (n 115) 236–​7; Klabbers (n 7) 212–​16. Fitzmaurice and Elias question how broadly to read the Qatar opinion, suggesting that the ICJ’s approach might be limited to agreements to accept ICJ jurisdiction, rather than for use in identifying treaties more generally. Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 7) 26–​7. 122 Pulp Mills (n 60) [128]; Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya) (Judgment) [2017] ICJ Rep 3, [42]. 123 Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (n 122) [42]. 124 M Koskenniemi, ‘Theory:  Implications for the Practitioner’ in P Allott and others (eds), Theory and International Law: An Introduction (BICIL, London 1991) 19–​20. 125 O Schachter, ‘The Twilight Existence of Nonbinding International Agreements’ (1977) 71 AJIL 296, 297. 126 DB Hollis, Binding and Non-​binding Agreements: Fifth Report, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​ Ser.Q/​, CJI/​Doc.593/​19 (22 July 2019) 39 (Commentary to Draft Guideline 3.2) (‘Hollis, Fifth Report’).

28  Foundational Issues In the easiest case, parties may simplify the definitional inquiry by indicating within the instrument itself whether or not they regard it as a treaty. They may label it a treaty, for example, or expressly declaim any intent to create one.127 Doing so offers evidence to satisfy proponents of both the intent and objective tests. More broadly, State practice and scholarship tend to associate treaty-​status with instruments that use certain language, including particular –​ –​ –​ –​

Verbs (‘shall’, ‘must’, ‘agree’, and ‘undertake’); Terms (‘parties’, ‘articles’, ‘obligations’); Adjectives (‘binding’, ‘authentic’, ‘authoritative’); or Clauses (including those on consent to be bound, entry into force, the depositary, amendment, termination, compulsory dispute settlement).128

At the same time, non-​treaty instruments are often associated with different linguistic signposts, including a different set of –​ Verbs (‘should’, ‘intend’, ‘expect’, ‘promote’, ‘understand’); –​ Terms (‘participants’, ‘understanding’, ‘arrangement’, ‘declaration’, ‘commitments’, ‘expectations’, ‘best efforts’, ‘principles’); –​ Adjectives (‘political’, ‘voluntary’, ‘effective’, ‘equally valid’); or –​ Clauses (including those providing only for signature, the instrument ‘coming into effect’, or modifications).129 As with an express choice of law (or non-​law), such language can serve simultaneously as evidence of the parties’ intentions and objective indicia of an agreement’s legal status. Similarly, advocates of both the intent and objective tests may examine evidence in the surrounding circumstances or the authors’ subsequent conduct to determine whether or not an instrument qualifies as an agreement governed by international law.130 Challenges can occur, however, if the two tests attach different weight to the same evidence. For example, the objective test might sometimes operate automatically—​the use of specific terms or clauses warrant labelling an instrument as a treaty. In contrast, the intent test tends to reject the idea that ‘magic words’ create treaties (or deny agreements such

127 For examples of the latter, See No 1 of Part VII, of this volume. 128 Hollis, Fifth Report (n 126) 42–​6 (Draft Guideline 3.4 and accompanying Commentary). 129 Ibid. 130 In Bay of Bengal, for example, the ITLOS Tribunal emphasized that ‘the circumstances’ in which the Agreed Minutes were adopted ‘do not suggest that they were intended to create legal obligations’. Bay of Bengal (n 66) [93] (emphasis added); Accord Aegean Sea (n 62) [107]. Although the objective test may prioritize text, it also does not exclude analysis of external evidence where the actual text is ambiguous or contradictory. Thus, the ICJ’s more objective analysis in Qatar v Bahrain was expressly contingent on considering the circumstances surrounding an agreement’s conclusion. Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) [23]. In addition to the surrounding circumstances, both intentional and objective methods may also invoke the parties’ subsequent conduct. For example, in searching for the parties’ intentions, the South China Seas Tribunal concluded that an agreement was not intended to be a treaty given China’s repeated use of the term ‘political document’ to describe it after its conclusion. South China Sea Arbitration (n 113) [218]. Subsequent behaviour may, however, also be cast in an objective light. The ICJ has found the parties’ subsequent behaviour in making technical corrections to an agreement indicative of a binding commitment. See Cameroon v Nigeria (n 5) [253].

Defining Treaties  29 status). Instead, intent is derived from a more holistic approach, where textual evidence might be outweighed by external manifestations of party intent.131 Other difficulties may arise where evidence about the agreement’s legal status is ambiguous or inconsistent. It is not hard to imagine treaty texts artfully papering over parties’ differences on whether to create a treaty. Or, external manifestations of consent may differ from those manifested in the text itself. In the South China Sea arbitration, for example, the agreement contained language—​such as ‘undertake’ and ‘agree’—​usually treated as objective evidence of a treaty.132 Nonetheless, the Tribunal discounted such language given the context in which it was used and the parties’ subsequent characterization of the instrument as a ‘political document’.133 That Tribunal was, however, clearly employing the intent test.134 Tracking the objective approach of Qatar v Bahrain or Pulp Mills might have produced a different result; holding the language used in the agreement itself sufficiently determinative to forgo any need to consult the travaux préparatoires or later statements by States of their intentions.135 In a more potentially concrete example, before its withdrawal, US officials insisted that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran was not an international agreement governed by international law.136 Such statements provided strong evidence of its non-​binding status from a subjective standpoint, notwithstanding that some of the objective evidence in the JCPOA text itself pointed to a treaty.137 Iran, however, may not have viewed the parties’ intentions as determinative, given its claims that Iranian performance followed by a violation would constitute ‘a blatant violation of international law’.138 Such a statement suggests that Iran regarded the JCPOA as an international agreement governed by international law notwithstanding the views—​or intentions—​of the United States (or other participants).139 Ultimately, determinations of which international agreements are governed by international law could be resolved by imposing a presumption. Where its authors have a treaty-​making capacity, the treaty status of instruments concluded among States or IOs might simply be presumed.140 This would not mean such agreements would always be treaties; presumptions may be rebutted by countervailing evidence, whether in the text, the 131 Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [20] (Jamaica and the United States take a holistic view to identify treaties); but see ibid (Colombia’s reply to OAS Questionnaire suggests specific terminology will be determinative of treaty status). 132 South China Sea Arbitration (n 113) [216]. 133 Ibid [217]–​[218]. The Tribunal undertook a similar analysis of several bilateral joint statements, finding that they were non-​binding despite containing language like ‘agree’. Ibid [231], [242]. 134 Ibid [213]. 135 See Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) [27] (‘The Court does not consider it necessary to consider what might have been the intentions of the Foreign Minister of Bahrain or, for that matter, those of the Foreign Minister of Qatar’). 136 Matthew Weybrecht, ‘State Department Affirms that Iran Deal is Only a Political Commitment’ (28 November 2015) Lawfare at . 137 The JCPOA text points in both directions. On the one hand, it references ‘agreed limitations’ and includes elaborate dispute resolution provisions, suggesting a treaty. See Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 14 July 2015 at , [36]–​[37]. At the same time, it references ‘participants’ and ‘voluntary measures’, language often used in political commitments. Ibid 6 and 8 [8]‌. 138 See Jake Miller, Iran: GOP Letter on Nuclear Negotiations a ‘Propaganda Ploy’ CBS News (9 March 2015) at . 139 Alternatively, it is possible that Iran believed that a violation of international law would follow due to the international legal principle of estoppel, rather than from treating the JCPOA as a treaty. 140 The opposite presumption might apply to ‘other subjects of international law’ since their treaty-​making capacity is usually so limited.

30  Foundational Issues surrounding circumstances, or subsequent conduct. Nor would it guarantee a resolution in all cases (especially if rebutting the presumption implicated subjective and objective evidence pointing in different directions). But it would provide a clear starting point—​a default rule on which States and other actors could rely in making choices about whether and how to satisfy the ‘governed by international law’ prong of the treaty definition. To date, there is strong (but not universal) support for imposing such a presumption.141

5. Non-​essential ingredients: designation, number of instruments, and registration International law defines the treaty as ‘an international agreement  . . .  governed by international law’, but does so largely without regard to the form that agreement takes or the formalities that accompany its conclusion. The oaths that used to accompany treaty-​making are long gone. Now the VCLT provides that a treaty will exist ‘whatever its particular designation’. Thus, the VCLT (and by extension international law more generally) do not require a treaty to be titled as such, or indeed, to bear any particular appellation.142 In practice, international agreements bear an impressive array of titles, including act, agreed minute, charter, convention, covenant, declaration, memorandum of agreement, MOU, note verbale, protocol, statute, and, of course, treaty. There is little rhyme or reason to the selection of a particular title.143 But the term ‘treaty’ is widely accepted as a generic label for ‘all kinds of international agreements in written form’.144 Thus, the name an international agreement bears should not determine its treaty status. It may, however, have relevance in other respects. For example, a document concluded by States bearing the title ‘treaty’ likely evidences an intent that international law govern the agreement, which may, in turn, make it a treaty. Caution should be exercised in making such inferences, particularly as so many of the titles used for treaties (eg declaration, charter, MOU) are often also used in documents not governed by international law, namely political commitments.145 Like its title, the number of instruments used will not prevent an agreement from having treaty status; treaties may be ‘embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments’.146 Traditionally, the treaty was a single, formal instrument in contrast to less formal agreements such as an exchange of notes or letters.147 The ILC debated whether to maintain that distinction, but by a close vote (six to five) opted to group all of these

141 Klabbers devoted an entire book to establishing this presumption. For others favouring it, see A Aust, ‘The Theory and Practice of Informal International Instruments’ (1986) 35 ICLQ 787, 798; Widdows (n 22) 142; H Lauterpacht, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1954] YBILC, vol II, 125. In contrast, some have suggested a presumption against treaty-​making absent a clearly manifested intent to do so. See Schachter (n 125) 297; JES Fawcett, ‘The Legal Character of International Agreements’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 381, 400. 142 See eg Pulp Mills (n 60) [138] (finding a ‘Press Release’ comprised a treaty); Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) [21]–​[30] (analysing 1990 ‘Agreed Minutes’ as a treaty); see also South China Seas Arbitration (n 113) [214] (‘The form or designation of an instrument is . . . not decisive of its status as an agreement’); South West Africa (Ethiopia/​Liberia v South Africa) (Preliminary Objections) [1962] ICJ Rep 319, 331 (‘terminology is not a determinant factor as to the character of an international agreement’). 143 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 188 [3]‌; Waldock, First Report (n 53) 31. The one exception is the concordat, which is reserved for agreements involving the Holy See. Klabbers (n 7) 43 n33. 144 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 188 [3]‌. 145 See Section II.B.2, 35–36 et seq. 146 Art 2(1)(a) VCLT. 147 The 1935 Harvard Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties originally excluded exchanges of notes from its treaty definition. (1935) 29 AJIL (Supp) 653, 698.

Defining Treaties  31 international agreements under the treaty concept.148 Thereafter, any controversy over the question died away. Today, a treaty may still arise via a single, formal instrument. But a treaty may also arise through multiple texts. In the traditional exchange of notes (or letters), one party proposes an agreement in a first note, which the other party’s reply note accepts; the agreement consists of both notes considered collectively.149 More complex combinations are also possible; the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), for example, consisted of an original agreement along with a series of subsequent notes, signed on 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992.150 The Algiers Accords embodied commitments of the United States and Iran to settle claims reproduced in two declarations by Algeria, accompanied by a US–​Iranian undertaking and an Escrow Agreement.151 Even instruments that appear as unilateral declarations might actually constitute acceptance of an earlier offer of agreement, thus creating a treaty. That seems to be the case with the Ihlen Declaration, while similar claims are made for unilateral declarations accepting the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction.152 Finally, there is a question left unaddressed by the VCLT—​whether the fact that an agreement is registered with the UN is determinative of its status as a treaty? In short, the answer is no.153 The UN Charter154 and the VCLT155 both require treaty registration, but neither requirement denies unregistered agreements the status of a treaty. Like its title, registration may indicate an intent (albeit of only the registering party) that the agreement constitutes a treaty. But since States do not regularly monitor treaty registrations, registration says little, if anything, about the other State(s)’ intentions. Moreover, the UN is careful to regularly indicate that the Secretariat’s acceptance of an instrument for registration ‘does not confer on the instrument the status of a treaty or an international agreement if it does not already have that status’.156 Even if it is not determinative, the ICJ has signalled that registration may be among the (objective) factors it considers in assigning treaty status to an agreement. In its 2017 Somalia v Kenya opinion, the ICJ cited Kenya’s registration and the lack of any Somali objection for five years as among the reasons the MOU qualified as a treaty.157 That said, the same weight 148 [1950] YBILC, vol I, 78; ibid 68–​78. It took the ILC until 1966 to decide a related issue, including treaties done in ‘simplified form’ (ie without ratification) within its treaty definition. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 188 [3]‌. 149 In practice, the reply note will often reproduce the text of the first note verbatim. 150 NAFTA (Canada–​Mexico–​US) (signed 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) [1993] 32 ILM 296 and [1993] 32 ILM 605. 151 All four documents of the Algiers Accords are reprinted in [1981] 20 ILM 224 et seq. 152 Lauterpacht initially endorsed treating ICJ declarations this way. Lauterpacht, First Report (n 54) 101. The ICJ itself indicated ‘unilateral acts’ accepting ICJ jurisdiction comprise a ‘series of bilateral engagements with other States accepting the same obligation’. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1984] ICJ Rep 392, 418 [59]. 153 Accord Aust (n 7) 301–​3; Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 7) 23; Klabbers (n 7) 84; D Hutchinson, ‘The Significance of the Registration or Non-​Registration of an International Agreement in Determining Whether or Not it is a Treaty’ (1993) Current Legal Problems 257, 265–​76. 154 Art 102(1) UN Charter (‘Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it’). In contrast, Art 18 of the League of Nations’ Covenant indicated that ‘a treaty or international engagement’ was not binding until registered. 155 Art 80(1) VCLT (‘Treaties shall, after their entry into force, be transmitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations for registration or filing and recording, as the case may be, and publication’). 156 Secretary-​G eneral, ‘Note by the Secretariat’ 2486 UNTS XXXV. In cases of doubt, the UN favours registration, but it has occasionally refused to register a text that it did not consider a treaty. See Chapter 11, 280 et seq. 157 Somalia v Kenya (n 5) [42]. The Court also emphasized the MOU’s terms—​particularly language that it would enter into force on signature—​and the circumstances showing the MOU was signed by representatives of the two States with appropriate full powers as establishing its status as a treaty. Ibid [43]–​[46]. In doing so, the ICJ

32  Foundational Issues may not attach to non-​registration in terms of denying treaty status. The UN Charter provides that parties may not invoke an unregistered ‘treaty’ before any UN organ, but that did not stop the ICJ from examining an unregistered exchange of letters in Qatar v Bahrain.158 States have, moreover, continued to endorse making ‘secret’ treaties.159 For other treaties, the obligation to register is often ‘honoured in the breaking’ whether as a result of inattention or a conscious choice to avoid publicity. As a result, the ICJ has noted that ‘[n]‌on-​ registration or late registration . . . does not have any consequence for the actual validity of the agreement, which remains no less binding upon the parties’.160

B. A differential definition: distinguishing the treaty from its alternatives The foregoing suggests that, for international law purposes, a treaty is an (a) international agreement (b) among States (or other subjects of international law with the necessary internal authority and external consent to engage in treaty-​making) that is (c) recorded in a way that evidences (d) either a shared and manifest intent or other objective evidence that the agreement be governed by international law (e) without regard as to its form. Most questions of treaty identification can be resolved using these criteria. But questions remain, particularly on the margins. Some of this may be due to the need to further elaborate specific elements, particularly how to identify when an agreement exists or the role of intent in identifying treaties governed by international law. Part of the problem, however, lies in the limitations of a constitutive definition. A constitutive approach seeks to explain the treaty concept from the inside-​out, unpacking its individual components. But it is also possible to understand a concept from the outside-​in; to explore what a treaty is by elaborating its boundaries with surrounding concepts. For example, international law acknowledges that commitments may arise not only via treaty, but also through unilateral acts or declarations. Similarly, not all international agreements are treaties; other possibilities include political commitments, which are not governed by law, and contracts, which are governed by domestic—​as opposed to international—​law.

rejected Somalia’s arguments that the MOU’s failure to receive the approvals required under its domestic law allowed it to invoke Art 46 VCLT or otherwise deny its consent to be bound by the MOU. Ibid [48]–​[50]. 158 See Art 102(2) UN Charter; Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) 123 [31]–​[33]. The two opinions may actually be inconsistent, although Danae Azaria has suggested that the Court might simply be attaching different evidentiary value when the parties’ conduct aligns (registration followed by a failure to protest as in Somalia v Kenya) than when behaviour is contradictory (registration followed by an objection as in Qatar v Bahrain). In the former situation, registration helps confirm the existence of a treaty even as the ICJ is likely to determine treaty status on the agreement’s actual contents. D Azaria, ‘Secret Treaties in International Law and the Faith of States in Decentralized Enforcement’ (2018) AJIL Unbound 469, 471. 159 Several States’ domestic laws acknowledge the possibility of secret treaties. See eg 1 USC 112b (a) (U.S. congressional reporting requirements for international agreements whose public disclosure would be ‘prejudicial to the national security’); Kingdom Act on the Approval and Publication of Treaties (20 August 1994) (The Netherlands) Art 7(d) reprinted in Brower (n 30) 512–​14 (noting ‘in exceptional circumstances of a compelling nature’ that a ‘treaty should remain secret or confidential’). For more on secret treaty-​making see M Donaldson, ‘The Survival of the Secret Treaty: Publicity, Secrecy, and Legality in the International Legal Order’ (2017) 111 AJIL 575; A Deeks, ‘A (Qualified) Defense of Secret Agreements’ (2017) 49 Az St L J 713. 160 Qatar v Bahrain (n 64) 122 [29]. The failure to register or publish a 1983 US–​UK MOU was, however, a factor in the Heathrow Arbitration’s decision to regard it as non-​legally binding. Award on the First Question, US/​UK Arbitration concerning Heathrow Airport User Charges (1992) ch 5, 155 [6.5].

Defining Treaties  33

1. Unilateral declarations

In the Nuclear Tests case, the ICJ found that France was bound under international law by public statements of its President and Foreign and Defence Ministers to cease nuclear tests in the South Pacific, obviating the need for the Court to rule on the case at hand.161 Based on this ruling, in 2006, the ILC articulated a basic Guiding Principle: ‘Declarations publicly made and manifesting the will to be bound may have the effect of creating legal obligations’.162 What obligations such declarations create is a function of ‘their content, of all the factual circumstances in which they were made, and of the reactions to which they gave rise’.163 Examples of unilateral declarations include Egypt’s 1957 Declaration on the Suez Canal, Jordan’s 1988 waiver of claims to the West Bank, US representations before the World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body in the 1974 Trade Act case, and (at least potentially) Cuba’s 2002 declarations about the supply of vaccines to Uruguay.164 International law thus treats unilateral declarations as a form of international legal commitment.165 What distinguishes them from treaty commitments? There are, in fact, many similarities. Like treaties, unilateral declarations may be formulated orally or in writing, by ‘heads of State, heads of Government, and ministers for foreign affairs’.166 Pre-​emptory norms (jus cogens) limit both categories of commitment.167 And unilateral declarations do not bind other States unless they ‘clearly accepted such a declaration’.168 Like treaties, moreover, there appears to be continuing confusion over what role intent plays in identifying unilateral declarations. Contrary to its more objective approach in the treaty context, the ICJ has indicated that the existence of a binding unilateral declaration ‘all depends on the intention of the State in question’.169 To find such intent, the ICJ has signalled that it will look not only at the text of the declaration but also the context in which it was issued. Thus, in the Nicaragua case, the Court declined to find certain statements from the Nicaraguan junta indicating an intention to hold free elections to constitute an offer or a binding unilateral declaration. Instead, the Court interpreted the various statements 161 Nuclear Tests (Australia/​New Zealand v France) [1974] ICJ Rep 253, 267–​8 [43]–​[50]. Although the underlying principle is now widely accepted, its application in this case was controversial. Klabbers (n 7) 196–​9; A Rubin, ‘The International Legal Effect of Unilateral Declarations’ (1977) 71 AJIL 1–​30. 162 ILC, Guiding Principles applicable to unilateral declarations of States capable of creating legal obligations, with commentaries thereto (2006) 58th Session, UN Doc A/​61/​10, Guiding Principle 1 (‘ILC, Unilateral Acts’). VR Cedeño served as Special Rapporteur and issued nine reports on the topic. See generally ILC, Analytical Guide:  Unilateral Acts of States, . Several States, including Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, questioned the utility of the ILC project given the wide range of unilateral acts. See ILC, ‘Unilateral Acts of States, Replies of Governments to the Questionnaire’ (6 July 2000) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​51,  2–​5. 163 ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 3. 164 Other than the WTO example, these are all discussed in VR Cedeño, ‘Eighth Report on Unilateral Acts of States’ (26 May 2005) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​557. For the WTO’s views, see United States—​Sections 301–​310 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Report of the Panel) (1999) WT/​DS152/​R [7.118]–​[7.123]. 165 ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 2. Neither the ICJ nor the ILC has opined on whether this principle extends to IOs or other subjects of international law. 166 Ibid Guiding Principles 4 and 5. Other State representatives may make unilateral declarations within areas of their competence. Ibid Principle 4; accord Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment) [2006] ICJ Rep 6, [46]–​[48]. 167 See Art 53 VCLT; ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 8. 168 Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 9 and commentary [1]‌(analogizing to Art 34 VCLT). 169 Case concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Republic of Mali) (Judgment) [1986] ICJ Rep 554, [39]; Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Bolivia v Chile) (Judgment) (1 October 2018), General List 153, 47 [148] (finding ‘no evidence of an intention on the part of Chile to assume an obligation to negotiate’ that would constitute a unilateral act governed by international law).

34  Foundational Issues to be a ‘political pledge’ without legal effect.170 Likewise, in Armed Activities, the ICJ read the Rwandan Minister’s statements as a ‘declaration of intent’ rather than a legally binding promise to withdraw a reservation.171 For its part, the ILC noted—​but declined to resolve—​ two competing approaches to unilateral declarations: (i) where the intention to be bound constitutes the requisite juristic act for generating an international legal obligation; versus (ii) where the audience’s reasonable reliance on the declaration drives its legal force via the principle of estoppel.172 In either case, unilateral declarations may operate under a different interpretative framework than treaties. The ILC’s Guiding Principles propose a cautious approach: in ‘cases of doubt as to the scope of obligations resulting from such a declaration, such obligations must be interpreted in a restrictive manner’.173 But neither the VCLT nor State practice favour a restrictive approach when it comes to treaties.174 Moreover, the law of unilateral declarations adds an additional requirement where the unilateral statement’s terms must be clear and specific to bind the declaring State.175 More fundamentally, treaties differ from unilateral declarations by virtue of their mutuality. Unilateral declarations are just that—​unilateral commitments by a single State. Their legal effect derives from the general principle of ‘good faith’, whether because a State intends other States to rely on its statement or the reasonable reliance of such other States estops the declaring State from walking back the commitment made.176 In contrast, the treaty rests on an agreement where there is a shared expectation among two or more parties as to the existence of an international legal commitment. And although good faith certainly plays a role, the legal effect of treaty commitments depends not on reliance, but pacta sunt servanda. Since treaties and unilateral declarations both decry formalities, however, it can be difficult at times to distinguish instances of mutual agreement from unilateral action. Debates persist, for example, as to whether the Ihlen Declaration constituted an oral treaty or a unilateral declaration.177 Similar problems arise in categorizing declarations accepting the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction; the ICJ has suggested they are sui generis,178 while the ILC declined to address them in its Guiding Principles. In practice, therefore, it may be difficult to differentiate the acceptance of an earlier offer to make a treaty from a unilateral commitment.

170 Case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America) (Judgment) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, [167], [261]. 171 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (n 166) [49]–​[52]. 172 ILC, Report of the Working Group on Unilateral Acts of States (20 July 2006)  UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.703, Introductory note, Preamble; see also E Kassoti, ‘Unilateral Legal Acts Revisited:  Common Law v.  Civil Law Approaches and Lessons from the International Law Commission's (Failed) Attempt to Codify Unilateral Acts of States’ (2013) 26 Hague YB Int’l L 168. 173 ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 7. The ILC’s Commentary suggests this principle is analogous to one of the VCLT rules of interpretation—​Art 31. But that article is not overtly restrictive and operates in concert with other rules (eg Art 32 VCLT). 174 See L Crema, ‘Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation(s)’ (2010) 21 EJIL 681, 686–​8. 175 ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 7; Armed Activities in the Territory of the Congo (n 166) [50]–​ [52]; Nuclear Tests (n 161) [44]. 176 ILC, Unilateral Acts (n 162) Guiding Principle 1. Actual reliance, however, is not required; a unilateral declaration arises based on the public setting and specific intentions of its maker. 177 Klabbers (n 7) 178. Cedeño sees it as a unilateral declaration and implies the PCIJ did so too. See Cedeño (n 164) 21–​2 [116]–​[126]. McNair viewed it as an ‘international agreement’. McNair (n 79) 10. 178 Fisheries Jurisdiction (Spain v Canada) (Jurisdiction) [1998] ICJ Rep 432, [46].

Defining Treaties  35

2. Political commitments Political commitments (or ‘non-​binding agreements’) are agreements made by States that establish non-​legal commitments of an exclusively political or moral nature.179 Like treaties, they involve mutuality and a shared expectation of commitment. They are most often differentiated from treaties based on the authors’ intentions.180 Just as States can make treaties governed by international law, States can constitute political commitments without legal force if that is their intention.181 The concepts exist largely in contraposition; political commitments do not have any legal force, while treaty commitments are, by definition, binding under international law (pacta sunt servanda).182 State practice in making political commitments is now quite robust and overlaps the subjects of treaty-​making in many respects.183 Exploring the rationales for—​and boundaries between—​political commitments and treaties is thus critical to refining the treaty concept. Chapter 3 of this Guide takes up that task specifically, examining ‘non-​binding’ political commitments under the banner of ‘informal agreements’. For present purposes, it is sufficient to note that political commitments complicate our understanding of the treaty in two respects. First, if intent is the dominant criterion in identifying both treaties and political commitments, that doubles the evidentiary possibilities for how parties express their intentions. Just as there may be positive evidence that States meant to constitute a treaty or negative evidence that they did not, there may also be positive evidence that States meant to create a political commitment or (more rarely perhaps) negative evidence that they lacked such intent. Similar evidentiary avenues would present themselves if treaties arise based on objective criteria independent of their authors’ intentions.184 The challenge in such cases would be to the role intent plays in identifying political commitments (it would be possible, for example, for a court like the ICJ to invoke objective evidence to find a treaty notwithstanding State statements that they had only intended a political commitment). Second, even if political commitments are not treaties in the sense that they do not contain any commitments with legal force, the inverse may not follow. Treaties can contain provisions that lack legal force alongside those that do. Thus, although the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is undoubtedly a treaty, its central provision—​Article 4.4—​was negotiated to be non-​binding, lest the United States refuse to join.185 179 See Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 517. Although the topic is understudied, it seems there is no bar to non-​ State actors making political commitments. Ibid 521. 180 Ibid 522. 181 Ibid 522–​3; Schachter (n 125) 296–​7; Aust (n 7) 20. 182 Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 518–​20. Confusion could arise if behaviour based on a political commitment generated legal effects because of the good faith reliance by other States. In such cases, however, the legal effects flow from the underlying behaviour rather than by ascribing any legal force to the political commitment itself. I Sinclair, ‘Book Review: The Concept of Treaty in International Law’ (1997) 91 AJIL 748, 750. 183 See Hollis, Second Report (n 6) 4 [11] (‘all Member State responses acknowledged a separate category of non-​binding agreements or . . . “political commitments” ’); Hollis and Newcomer (n 55) 528–​35 (offering a typology of political commitments). Although States widely accept the political commitment practice, Klabbers has critiqued it at an ontological level. See generally Klabbers (n 7); J Klabbers, ‘Not Re-​visiting the Concept of Treaty’ in A Orakhelashvili and S Williams (eds), 40 Years of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (BIICL, London 2010)  29–​40. 184 See nn 112–​124 and accompanying text. 185 Paris Agreement on Climate Change (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016) available at , Art 4.4 (‘Developed country Parties should continue taking the lead by undertaking economywide absolute emission reduction targets  . . .’) (emphasis added); Joshua Keating, ‘The One Word that Almost Scuttled the Climate Deal’ (14 December 2015)  Slate, at ; see also South West Africa (n 142) 139–​40 (ICJ characterizes Arts 75 and 77 UN Charter as imposing ‘political or moral duties’ rather than legal obligations on mandatory States). 186 See n 58 and accompanying text. 187 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 189 [6]‌. 188 To say a contract is governed by domestic law does not mean it can never have international legal effect. Depending on the circumstances, international legal responsibility may follow a State’s breach of contract. But, as the ILC noted, ‘this did not entail the consequence that the undertaking itself, or rather the instrument embodying it, was . . . a treaty or international agreement. While the obligation to carry out the undertaking might be an international law obligation, the incidents of its execution would not be governed by international law’. [1959] YBILC, vol II, 95 [3]‌. 189 See Hollis, Second Report (n 6) [15]; Hollis, Comparative Approach (n 6) 14 (surveying State practice). 190 See nn 112–​139 and accompanying text (re treaties); nn 169–​172 and accompanying text (re unilateral declarations); and n 184 and accompanying text (re political commitments). 191 See nn 140–​141 and accompanying text. 192 In addition, there may be questions about whether the selected domestic law is limited to its substantive provisions, or includes its choice of law rules. 193 Lauterpacht was of this view, as was the ILC, at least initially. Lauterpacht, First Report (n 54) 100; [1959] YBILC, vol II, 95.

Defining Treaties  37 agreement. Paul Reuter, for example, proposed redefining the treaty to be ‘principally governed by international law’ since he noted it ‘often happens that a legal situation is covered as a whole by international law but some of its aspects are subject to the rules and concepts of national law’.194 The ILC did not adopt Reuter’s proposal. Nevertheless, the prospect of contractual provisions within a treaty complicates the treaty concept in much the same way as the notion of treaties including political commitment provisions. Overall, the treaty may be better understood by differentiating it from other forms of international commitment: unilateral declarations, political commitments, and contracts. By existing in contradistinction to the treaty, each of these concepts helps illuminate the treaty within broader categories of commitment and agreement. Each highlights the importance of addressing—​and weighing—​subjective and objective evidence in the process of identification. At the same time, the boundaries among these concepts are not as clear in practice as the theory might suggest. There is room for (reasonable) debate over how to qualify a commitment. Further complications arise from the prospect that treaty instruments themselves may contain commitments that are not only legal internationally, but also political or contractual in nature.

C. A functional definition: understanding treaties by what they do Ninety years ago, Lord McNair described the treaty as the ‘only and sadly overworked instrument with which international society is equipped for the purposes of carrying out its multifarious transactions’.195 In many respects, that characterization remains true today. Certainly, there have been attempts to disaggregate the treaty concept along various lines, whether by party identity (eg distinguishing bilateral and multilateral treaties) or subject matter.196 McNair himself proposed four categories based on whether the treaty’s functions were akin to: (a) conveyances; (b) contracts; (c) law-​making (whether constitutional or ordinary); or (d) charters of incorporation.197 Neither the VCLT definition nor its customary international law analogue, however, differentiate treaties by their functions.198 At most, these definitions establish that treaties are ‘governed by international law’. This is not to suggest that the law of treaties ignores all functional distinctions. Several VCLT rules do focus only on multilateral treaties and one exists

194 P Reuter, ‘Third Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 139 (emphasis added); see also Widdows (n 22) 145–​6 (noting there might be ‘an agreement constituting a “treaty” in international law and a “contract” under a private law system at the same time’). 195 A McNair, ‘The Functions and Differing Legal Character of Treaties’ (1930) 11 BYBIL 100, 101. For similar sentiments see Kearney and Dalton (n 105) 495; V Lowe, ‘The Law of Treaties; Or, Should this Book Exist?’ in CJ Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014) 3. 196 See M Fitzmaurice, ‘Treaties’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2010) online at . 197 McNair envisioned different rules for each category:  eg treaties involving conveyances would survive war; travaux préparatoires would be more relevant to contractual treaties than law-​making ones. McNair (n 195) 101–​18. 198 Brölmann suggests that this was because Waldock and the ILC focused their work more on treaty form than functions. See C Brölmann, ‘Law-​making Treaties: Form and Function in International Law’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Intl L 383, 390; C Brölmann, ‘Typologies and the “Essential Juridical Character” of Treaties’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 79.

38  Foundational Issues just for bilateral treaties.199 There are two special rules for treaties relating to IOs.200 And there are a few cases where what the treaty regulates matters; for example, the standard grounds for termination/​suspension in case of material breach are not available for ‘provisions relating to the protection of the human person contained in treaties of a humanitarian character’.201 Likewise, claims of fundamental change of circumstances are unavailable for boundary treaties.202 But such distinctions are exceptional. The conventional approach is to conceive of the treaty as a single, uniform concept. The treaty thus serves as a sort of Swiss army knife for international law. By design, it incorporates several tools within a single instrument capable of performing multiple functions. The standard constitutive treaty definition describes only the unopened knife; it does not differentiate what treaties do or to what ends. A functional treaty definition opens up the concept by examining different ways treaties work. This examination might be done multiple ways. For present purposes, the goal is simply to outline the contours of such an approach. Doing so reveals that treaty functions have evolved along (at least) three distinct spectrums, how treaties regulate, what they regulate, and who enforces their regulations. Describing such variation is more than a merely taxonomic exercise. It helps explain why there are ongoing efforts to devise specialized (or even exceptional) rules for certain types of treaties. Indeed, a functional approach may actually provide support for such differentiation. More importantly, focusing on treaty functions creates space to evaluate the treaty’s utility more generally. In the end, the treaty, like the Swiss army knife, may be a merely serviceable—​as opposed to optimal—​tool for some of the functions that international law asks it to perform.

1. How treaties regulate Customarily, treaties regulate by mandating what ‘must be performed’.203 Treaty ‘obligations’ impose a duty of performance (whether in terms of action or inaction) with which the party bound must comply. Much (if not most) attention on how treaties work has focused on the various ways treaties obligate future behaviour and the remedies available in cases of breach. Indeed, regulation by obligation is an extraordinarily flexible tool that varies widely in terms of its (a) normativity, (b) precision, and (c) duties established. Normativity refers to the extent of expectation accompanying a treaty obligation. Expectations may relate to efforts or results. Some treaties require parties to guarantee a specific result (eg promises to abolish the death penalty).204 Others may obligate effort irrespective of whether it leads to a particular result, such as where parties promise to negotiate,

199 Arts 40, 41, 58, and 60 VCLT have provisions on multilateral treaties; Art 60(1) addresses material breach of a bilateral treaty. 200 Art 5 VCLT (VCLT applies to IO treaties and treaties adopted within an IO ‘without prejudice to any relevant rules of the organization’); Art 20(3) VCLT (reservations to IO’s constituent treaty require ‘the acceptance of the competent organ of that organization’). 201 Art 60(5) VCLT. 202 Art 62(2)(a) VCLT; see also Arts 53, 64 VCLT (voiding treaties in conflict with jus cogens). 203 Art 26 VCLT (emphasis added). 204 Eg Protocol No 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms Concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty (28 April 1983)  [1983] 22 ILM 539, Art 1; see also Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, as adjusted and amended (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3, Art 2A (requiring certain parties to reduce consumption and production of chlorofluorocarbons to zero by specific dates).

Defining Treaties  39 notify, or consult.205 Expectations may equally vary in terms of whether the anticipated behaviour involves a dispositive act(s) that constitutes performance or an ongoing obligation to act so long as the treaty is in force. For example, a treaty of cession involves a single, dispositive act in which a sovereign transfers a territory, while a treaty requiring nuclear non-​ proliferation requires that the expected behaviour be repeated over time.206 By contrast, precision relates not to the extent of expectation in the obligation, but to its content. Participating States may convey the same level of normativity in two treaties, stating in each that parties ‘shall do X’. But ‘X’ can vary greatly in generality or specificity. For example, obligations may take the form of rules, standards, or principles.207 Rules bind parties to respond in specific, determinate ways when certain facts exist; once the facts are clear under a rule, so too is the expected behaviour.208 Standards afford decision-​makers more discretion to decide (often ex post) on what behaviour satisfies an obligation by either widening the range of relevant facts (often a totality of the circumstances) or authorizing direct application of some background policy or value.209 Principles, in contrast, set forth broad considerations for evaluating future behaviour without providing any particular norm for the behaviour itself.210 Obligations may also differ in the scope of the duties they impose. The classic treaty obligation was contractual—​traités contrat—​involving rights and duties paired reciprocally in a synallagmatic manner.211 Bilateral treaties often take this form, but certain multilateral treaty obligations do so too.212 However, as Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice 205 See eg Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (opened for signature 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970) 729 UNTS 161, Art VI (duty to negotiate in good faith towards cessation of the nuclear arms race); Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (adopted 26 September 1986, entered into force 26 October 1986) 1439 UNTS 275, Arts 2, 6 (duties to notify and consult in case of nuclear accident). 206 For an example of a dispositive obligation see Treaty for the Cession of Louisiana (US–​France) (signed 30 April 1803, entered into force 21 October 1803) Art 1. Boundary treaties and treaties settling/​waiving claims may also involve dispositive obligations. The Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, in contrast, centres on a continuing obligation. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (adopted 7 July 2017, not yet in force), available at , Art 1(1) (‘Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to: (a) Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices’). 207 See eg R Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1977) 22–​8; D Bodansky, ‘Rules vs Standards in International Environmental Law’ (2004) 98 Proc Am Socy Intl L 275; KM Sullivan, ‘The Justices of Rules and Standards’ (1992) 106 Harvard L Rev 22, 57–​9. 208 Sullivan (n 207) 58. For examples of rules see Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (opened for signature 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1465 UNTS 85, Art 4 (rule requiring parties to criminalize all acts of torture); Treaty Between the United States and Great Britain Relating to Boundary Waters Between the United States and Canada (signed 11 January 1909) 36 Stat 2448, Art 4 (rule prohibiting pollution of certain waters ‘on either side to the injury of health or property on the other’). 209 Sullivan (n 207) 59. For examples of standards see Convention on the Rights of the Child (opened for signature 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3, Art 2 (1) (imposing non-​discrimination standard on performance); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (opened for signature 30 October 1947, provisional application from 1 January 1948) 55 UNTS 187, Art III(2) (providing a national treatment standard for internal taxes); Treaty concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (Germany–​ Afghanistan) (done 19–​20 April 2005, entered into force 12 October 2007)  (establishing a ‘fair and equitable’ treatment standard for covered investments). 210 For examples of principles see Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (opened for signature 18 December 1979, entered into force 11 July 1984) 610 UNTS 205, Art 1 (subjecting Outer Space to the common heritage of mankind principle) (‘Outer Space Treaty’); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (opened for signature 19 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 1 (affirming principle of self-​ determination) (ICCPR). 211 Rosenne (n 81) 182–​3. 212 Eg Agreement on Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (People’s Republic of China–​ Spain) (adopted 6 February 1992, entered into force 1 May 1993)  1746 UNTS 185; Vienna Convention on

40  Foundational Issues noted,213 other multilateral obligations may be ‘interdependent’, where one party’s duty to perform depends on performance by all other parties, as, for example, in a disarmament treaty.214 Finally, there are what Fitzmaurice called ‘inherent’ treaty obligations, where one party’s duty to perform is not linked to any other party’s performance (eg treaties prohibiting genocide or child labour).215 Treaties in this third category are often described as law-​ making or traités loi because the duties they impose are akin to domestic law rules of general application. That analogy, however, would also support including treaty ‘regimes’ such as those for the maritime or aviation environments within the inherent duty category.216 Even as treaty obligations vary greatly in terms of their normativity, precision, and duties, it would be a mistake to characterize treaty regulations solely in obligatory terms. As complicated as the available options are for crafting performance obligations—​not to mention the emphasis pacta sunt servanda gives them—​treaties do not always require action (or inaction) from the parties. Treaty provisions may employ at least three other regulatory options. First, treaties may empower or facilitate behaviour that parties may elect—​but are not obligated—​to undertake. Thus, UNCLOS allows a right of innocent passage without requiring States to exercise it.217 In addition to requiring and prohibiting certain conduct, the Geneva Conventions actually facilitate specific conduct—​such as killing—​that would otherwise be legally impermissible.218 Second, treaties can create new subjects of international law, including IOs or treaty bodies. Such provisions express agreement on, and in fact ‘constitute’ the new entity, detail the purpose(s) it will serve, and the specific authorities delegated to it.219 Finally, not all treaty regulations involve so-​called ‘primary rules’ regulating conduct by international actors; treaties may also devise secondary rules—​that is, rules on the formation, modification, or termination of primary rules.220 The VCLT may be the paradigmatic example of this phenomenon as the ‘treaty on treaties’. A single treaty instrument may contain multiple provisions that mix and match these regulatory functions. The UN Charter, for example, simultaneously: (a) constitutes the UN as an IO with specific objectives and distinct powers;221 (b) imposes varying levels of obligation on member States, ranging from the rule prohibiting the threat or use of force222 to Diplomatic Relations (adopted 14 April 1961, entered into force 24 April 1964) 500 UNTS 95. For an analysis of whether WTO obligations are bilateral or multilateral in nature, see J Pauwelyn, ‘A Typology of Multilateral Treaty Obligations’ (2003) 14 EJIL 907. 213 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 31. 214 See generally South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (signed 6 August 1985, entered into force 11 December 1986) 1445 UNTS 171. For a more recent example, see the Arms Trade Treaty (adopted 2 April 2013, entered into force 24 December 2014) [2013] 52 ILM 985. 215 See generally ILO Convention (No 182)  Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (adopted 17 June 1999, entered into force 19 November 2000) 2133 UNTS 161; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted 9 December 1948, entered into force 12 January 1951) 78 UNTS 277. 216 See eg International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, as updated and amended (adopted 1 November 1974, entered into force 25 May 1980), at ; Convention on International Civil Aviation, as amended (adopted 7 December 1944, entered into force 4 April 1947) 15 UNTS 295, at . 217 UNCLOS (n 2) Art 17. 218 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 31, Arts 3–​18. 219 See eg Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (adopted 28 May 1975, entered into force 1 August 1995) 1010 UNTS 17, Art 1. 220 See generally HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 1994) 94–​9. 221 Arts 1, 11, 12, 13 UN Charter. 222 Art 2(4) UN Charter.

Defining Treaties  41 the principle that member States promote human rights;223 (c) empowers and facilitates State behaviour such as the right of self-​defence;224 and (d) includes secondary rules for the maintenance of international peace and security, namely Chapter VII. The extensive variation in how treaties regulate—​by obligation, empowerment, constitution, or secondary rules—​raises questions about the existing uniformity of the treaty concept and its associated rules. A treaty obligating an immediate result via a precise rule in a reciprocal relationship is a very different creature than one laying out secondary rules or constituting an IO. Such differences help to explain why the VCLT gave IO treaties specialized treatment; it also explains calls to adopt more specialized methods of treaty interpretation for provisions on IO authorities and those establishing inherent obligations (eg human rights treaties).225 The lack of differentiation in the current treaty concept, however, gives such efforts an ad hoc quality. A more concerted effort to disaggregate the treaty along functional lines might illuminate additional areas where ‘how’ a treaty regulates warrants distinct treatment under the law of treaties itself. That has yet to happen, but as the diversity in how treaties regulate continues to evolve, such efforts may gain traction.

2. What treaties regulate Just as treaties customarily mandated performance, they traditionally required this of a single set of actors—​States. Treaties regulated inter-​State conduct. Today, many treaties retain that function. But they now frequently regulate in other ways as well. Modern treaties may regulate how States interact with a geographic space (eg the oceans, outer space, Antarctica) as well as how States interact with each other in that space.226 Similarly, treaties regulate States’ use of shared or public goods, whether migratory birds, fisheries, or atmospheric conditions such as the ozone layer or greenhouse gas emissions.227 Undoubtedly, the most significant shift in what treaties regulate relates to their regulation of persons (whether corporate or individual). As long ago as the Peace of Westphalia, treaties regulated States’ behaviour toward individuals with respect to religious freedom.228 Modern human rights treaties can be seen as a continuation of this phenomenon albeit in broader and more robust terms. These treaties are also novel in that they give individuals avenues to hold States accountable for compliance. Certain human rights treaties allow individuals to petition a human rights treaty body about alleged violations of their treaty rights.229 Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) also grant private investors a right to binding dispute settlement against host States.230 Most notably, treaties have begun to regulate 223 Arts 1(2), 2 UN Charter. 224 Art 51 UN Charter. Admittedly, self-​defence is described as an ‘inherent’ right which exists outside the Charter. Still, Art 51 frames State authority to engage in self-​defence and thus helps empower or facilitate it. 225 See Chapters 21–​22 for discussion of specialized interpretative rules for human rights treaties and treaties constituting IOs. 226 See eg UNCLOS (n 2) Part XII; The Antarctic Treaty (adopted 1 December 1959, entered into force 23 June 1961) 402 UNTS 71, Arts I, III; Outer Space Treaty (n 210) Arts 1, 4. 227 See eg Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in the United States and Canada (US–​UK) (adopted 16 August 1916, entered into force 7 December 1916)  2478 UNTS 33; Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (adopted 5 September 2000, entered into force 19 June 2004) [2001] 40 ILM 278; Montreal Protocol (n 204); Paris Agreement on Climate Change (n 185). 228 L Gross, ‘The Peace of Westphalia 1648–​1948’ (1948) 42 AJIL 20, 33–​4. 229 Eg First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (opened for signature 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171. 230 Eg Sempra Energy Int’l v Argentine Republic (2005) ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​16 (re California company arbitration claim under US–​Argentine BIT).

42  Foundational Issues individual behaviour itself. The Rome Statute holds individuals responsible for certain heinous acts.231 The various Hague conventions on private law also regulate how individuals conduct themselves vis-​à-​vis other individuals.232 Except with respect to its rules on boundary and humanitarian treaties, international law does not presently differentiate among treaties according to the objects they regulate. Indeed, in the human rights context, the ILC has specifically declined to do so.233 Nonetheless, certain interpretative principles—​for example, the principle of effectiveness for human rights treaties—​ may be explained as an implicit recognition of such distinctions. If such recognition was more explicit, the functional approach might support new rules; for example, extending the VCLT’s support for the stability of boundary treaties to other treaties involving public goods and shared spaces.

3. Who enforces treaty regulations The existing international legal order is notable for its essentially horizontal organization, where the makers of international law—​States—​are also most often its subjects. Similarly, in the absence of global or universal enforcement mechanisms, international law leaves treaty enforcement to States. As a matter of ‘good faith’, States making treaty commitments are primarily responsible for their own compliance.234 Where self-​ enforcement fails, however, other peaceful mechanisms such as counter-​ measures, retorsion, or a claim for reparations may be brought to bear.235 These mechanisms may be structured bilaterally, in which a single party—​usually limited to the party ‘injured’ by the breach—​exercises a right of response. On occasion, these mechanisms have been extended to multilateral settings.236 For its part, the VCLT allows for the possibility of termination or suspension (although technically these focus on the treaty relationship itself, rather than inducing wayward parties to return to compliance).237 Today, many treaties rely exclusively on these State-​centred approaches to compliance and enforcement. But, the relative weakness of this system of individualized and collective enforcement has generated treaties that transfer compliance or enforcement functions to third parties.238 The 231 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 3, Art 25. 232 Eg Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil and Commercial Matters (opened for signature 18 March 1970, entered into force 7 October 1972) 847 UNTS 231. 233 See Chapter  12, Section IV, 297–303 (discussing ILC decision not to craft separate reservation rules for human rights treaties). 234 Thus, Louis Henkins’s oft-​cited, albeit anecdotal, formulation that ‘almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all of the time’. L Henkin, How Nations Behave (Columbia University Press, New York 1979) 47. IOs would appear to have a similar role. 1986 VCLT (n 13) Art 26. Treaty compliance by other subjects of international law may vary since the responsible State could take the lead in ensuring the ‘other subject’ performs the obligation assumed. See also Chapter 4 for an assessment of whether treaty compliance or effectiveness is the appropriate metric for evaluating its success. 235 Art 33 UN Charter. Countermeasures involve a State responding to unlawful activity with behaviour that itself would be unlawful but for the fact that it comes in response to a prior breach; retorsion is the use of otherwise lawful measures to induce a breaching party to cease internationally wrongful acts. 236 The threshold for such action is frequently high—​for example, collective action requires unanimity for suspension or termination under the VCLT. Art 60(2)(a) VCLT. 237 Art 60 VCLT restricts the availability of both options, limiting suspension or termination to cases of ‘material’ breach and then only for cases of unanimity, ‘specially affected’ parties, or if it ‘radically changes the position of every other party with respect to the further performance of its obligations’. For details on these rules, see Chapter 24, Sections II–​III, 575–84 et seq. 238 The weakness of the existing system reflects the reality that, as Leo Gross noted, ‘each state has a right to interpret the law, the right of autointerpretation, as it might be called’. L Gross, ‘States as Organs of International Law and the Problem of Autointerpretation’ in GA Lipsky (ed), Law and Politics in the World Community (University

Defining Treaties  43 most obvious example is the ICJ; numerous treaties empower the World Court to judicially resolve treaty questions or disputes and impose appropriate remedies.239 Other treaties create their own court to perform this function, such as the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea or the European Court of Human Rights.240 The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding provides a multi-​level approach to consideration of WTO compliance questions.241 Treaty provisions calling for arbitration (whether through a permanent or ad hoc forum) perform a similar function.242 As Karen Alter writes, these provisions have generated a ‘paradigm change’ that has produced a ‘judicialization of international relations and diminishing government control over how international legal agreements are understood domestically and internationally’.243 Aside from judicial and quasi-​judicial actors, treaties may also designate a ‘treaty body’ to serve in one or more compliance or enforcement roles. In the human rights context, treaty bodies provide general comments about the treaty; specific comments on a single party’s performance; and responses to individual petitions.244 Certain arms control treaties empower the Secretariat or the IO’s plenary body to supervise party compliance.245 In the environmental context, treaty bodies have adopted an explicitly non-​adversarial approach through the adoption of non-​compliance procedures. Here, treaty bodies provide technological or financial assistance to ‘assist’ parties in returning to compliance or ‘naming and shaming’ them into doing so.246 Thus, they tend to adopt a ‘managerial’ approach to compliance questions in lieu of the more traditional ‘enforcement’ model.247 As with the issues of how and what treaties regulate, the singularity of the treaty concept does not acknowledge the growing diversity in how treaties task third parties with compliance and enforcement functions. The VCLT (and its 1986 companion) largely ignore questions of compliance and enforcement, viewing them as subjects for the law of State responsibility. But States often prefer to draft their own treaty-​ specific approaches rather than relying on State responsibility generally.248 Nothing in the treaty concept (or the law of treaties generally) precludes this. At the same of California Press, Berkeley 1953) 59. A State’s view, however, remains just that—​one interpretation, not a final decision on the law’s content or applicability. Ibid. Hence the move by States to agree on more definitive vehicles for discerning compliance and enforcing treaty commitments. 239 See eg UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (adopted 20 December 1988, entered into force 11 November 1990) 1582 UNTS 95, Art 32. 240 Eg UNCLOS (n 2) Annex VI. 241 See Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 299. 242 Eg Afghanistan–​Germany BIT (n 209) Arts 10–​11. 243 K Alter, The New Terrain of International Law (Princeton University Press, Princeton 2014) 3, 5. 244 See eg Rights of the Child Convention (n 209) Arts 43–​45; ICCPR (n 210) Pt IV; ICCPR First Optional Protocol (n 229). 245 See eg Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (opened for signature 3 September 1992, entered into force 29 April 1997) 1974 UNTS 45, Art VIII, Verification Annex. 246 See eg Montreal Protocol (n 204) Art 8 (directing parties to adopt non-​compliance procedures); Convention on Biological Diversity (opened for signature 5 June 1992, entered into force 29 December 1993) 1760 UNTS 79, Arts 20–​1 (providing financial resources and a mechanism to assist developing parties in meeting the treaty’s obligations). 247 A Chayes and AH Chayes, The New Sovereignty:  Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1995) 230. For more on treaty compliance and effectiveness, see Chapter 4. 248 On this phenomenon, see Chapter 24, Section I.B, 570–71 et seq.

44  Foundational Issues time, however, the treaty concept has not adapted to incorporate these new actors and mechanisms. The law of treaties remains largely geared toward a world of bilateral engagements (even within the multilateral setting) that may be ill-​suited to dealing with multi-​stakeholder issues. A functional definition of the treaty concept, therefore, aids our understanding of the treaty concept, not by refining it so much as suggesting the possibility (and perhaps even some need) for its further disaggregation. Differentiating treaties by the types of obligations, objects, or compliance functions they employ helps to explain areas of on-​going contestation and potential areas for specialization.

Conclusion Today, the treaty is the dominant instrument through which international law operates. The aim of this chapter has been to illuminate its defining characteristics on two levels. First, it demonstrates that what a treaty ‘is’ and the consequences for its use vary by context. The treaty may be born of international law, but it is equally at home within domestic legal systems, and remains a key form of commitment for those seeking international coordination and cooperation. Second, in the context of international law, this chapter sought to explain and expand upon the VCLT’s definition of the treaty. It shows how the existing list of treaty ingredients is both incomplete (excluding oral treaties and treaties involving IOs and other subjects of international law) and underdeveloped (in terms of what constitutes an ‘international agreement’ and what ‘governed by international law’ means, especially in terms of the parties’ intentions). It is difficult, however, to understand treaties solely by dissection. Thus, this chapter also explored how differentiating the treaty from other forms of commitment (unilateral declarations) and agreements (political commitments and contracts) informs our understanding of treaties themselves. Finally, this chapter has surveyed the widely divergent functions the treaty concept serves. Its flexibility—​and the law of treaties’ openness to contracting around default rules—​has generated a spectrum of approaches in how treaties operate, what they regulate, and who acts as a regulator. The range of the modern treaty suggests that the single, generic approach to defining ‘the’ treaty and its associated rules ought to be revisited. This need not mean dispensing with international law’s existing definition, but perhaps augmenting it to situate various species of treaties within a larger treaty genus. In the end, the project of defining treaties reveals the strength of McNair’s ‘sadly overworked’ label for the treaty concept and raises a key question: should treaty-​making remain the primary method for regulating all international problems? If international law owes much of its success to the treaty concept, might that concept also be responsible for some of its failures? The current chapter does not seek to answer these questions. But it lays the necessary foundation for such analysis by offering a deeper and more comprehensive approach to the treaty concept. In doing so, it may also aid treaty practitioners in identifying what ‘is’ a treaty, distinguishing it from other instruments, and appreciating the treaty’s limits. Defining treaties may not be a simple task, but given the present state of international law, it is a critical one.

Defining Treaties  45

Recommended Reading A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) Chs 2–​4 C Bradley (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) C Brölmann, ‘Law-​Making Treaties: Form and Function in International Law’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Intl L 383 C Brölmann, ‘Typologies and the “Essential Juridical Character” of Treaties’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 79 C Chinkin, ‘A Mirage in the Sand? Distinguishing Binding and Non-​Binding Relations between States’ (1997) 10 LJIL 223 O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, London 2018) JES Fawcett, ‘The Legal Character of International Agreements’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 381 M Fitzmaurice, ‘Treaties’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2010) online at M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, Utrecht 2005) Ch 1 DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) DB Hollis and JJ Newcomer, ‘ “Political” Commitments and the Constitution’ (2009) 49 VJIL 507 J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1996) V Lowe, ‘The Law of Treaties; or, Should this Book Exist?’ in CJ Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014) 3 A McNair, ‘The Functions and Differing Legal Character of Treaties’ (1930) 11 BYBIL 100 J Pauwelyn, ‘Is it International Law or Not and Does it Even Matter?’ in J Pauwelyn, RA Wessel, and J Wouters (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (OUP, Oxford 2012) ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) K Widdows, ‘What is an Agreement in International Law?’ (1979) 50 BYBIL 117

2

Current Theorizations about the Treaty in International Law Jean d’Aspremont

The treaty occupies a very special place in both international legal practice and in the consciousness and imagination of international lawyers. It is the founding document of most of the international legal order’s regimes and institutions of which international lawyers are supposedly the guardians. With more than 70,000 registered treaties,1 the treaty is the main—​ and formal—​container of obligations that international lawyers may authoritatively interpret. And whether they involve sources, hierarchy, statehood, immunity, succession, etc the treaty is the formal repository of key doctrines that international lawyers are trained to deploy. More broadly, the treaty embodies the progress that international lawyers associate with international law, every treaty being celebrated as a greater advance of the international law project. Likewise, the treaty is the tool that international lawyers privilege when they feel the need to manage the world’s problems—​for example, global warming, cybersecurity, injustice, disregard for human dignity, movements of populations. As a result, the treaty—​ including its meaning, making, effects, history, drawbacks—​is one of the most discussed objects in international legal literature.2 The treaty is also the key marker around which international lawyers construct their historical narratives, often associated with history-​ changing moments in the common histories of international law. All told, in international legal practice, the treaty epitomizes order, progress, peace, history, prosperity, human dignity, order, unity, systematicity, and disciplinary identity. The treaty has surprisingly little theorization in international legal studies.3 This is especially true in comparison with the other sources of international law.4 Moreover, even as attempts to theorize the treaty are scarce, the nature and scope of the theorizing that does 1 See generally the United Nations Treaty Collection available at . 2 For an illustration of an attempt to classify treaties, see G Fitzmaurice, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 31; K Schmalenbach, ‘Article 2’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 33–​5. For an old classification, see H Triepel, Droit international et Droit Interne (Pedone, Paris 1920) 52. For an overview of classifications, see M Fitzmaurice, ‘Treaties’ in (2010) MPEPIL [8]‌, [25]–​[28]. 3 For one of the rare attempts to theorize the notion of treaty, see A Rasulov, ‘Theorizing treaties:  The Consequences of the Contractual Analogy’ in C Tams, A Tzanakopoulous, A Zimmermann, Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2016) 74–​122; see also K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581; DB Hollis, ‘Why State Still Matters—​Non-​State Actors, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Int’l L 137. For an earlier attempt, see J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 1996). 4 For some theoretical works on customary law, see BD Lepard, Customary International Law: A New Theory with Practical Applications (CUP, Cambridge 2010); M Koskenniemi, ‘The Normative Force of Habit: International Custom and Social Theory’ (1990) 1 Finnish Ybk Int’l L 77; BS Chimni, ‘Customary International Law: A Third World Perspective’ (2018) 112 AJIL 1; A Carty, ‘The Need to be Rid of the Idea of General Customary Law’ (2018) 112 AJIL 319–​23; M Meguro, ‘Distinguishing the Legal Bindingness and Normative Content of Customary International Law’ (2017) 6(11) ESIL Reflection 1.

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  47 occur is cabined by very strong dualist theoretical thinking (albeit with a sophistication that ought not to be underestimated). This chapter has two primary aims. First, it sketches out the existing theorizations about treaties, elaborating the various dualist modes of thinking currently dominating international legal thought and practice. Second, this chapter seeks to supplement current theorizations with some new perspectives. Specifically, this chapter identifies three overlooked uses of the idea of the treaty in contemporary legal thought and practice that may further current theorizations about treaties. In particular, the second part of this chapter shows the extent to which the idea of the treaty allows (i) the creation of conceptual anachronisms in the making of historical narratives about international law, (ii) the simplification of the processes of its interpretation, and (iii) the construction of a magic descendance that shields those invoking the treaty from any responsibility for anything that is made in the name of the treaty. These three uses of the treaty may be captured via a three-​tiered heuristic5 that presents the treaty respectively as an icon, a text, and a progeny. The chapter closes with a few concluding remarks on the need to pay more attention to the anonymity which the treaty grants to all those invoking it and the shield provided by the magical creature called ‘the Parties’ for any action undertaken in the name of the treaty. Before exploring the idea of the treaty further, two preliminary remarks are in order. First, for the sake of this chapter, theorization is understood as the activity whereby one ventures into the building of a theory. In turn, theory refers to the organization of thinking about a certain object in a way that creates a self-​explanatory totality around that object.6 The purpose of this chapter is, however, not to propose any theory of treaties. Rather, more modestly, this chapter attempts to draw attention to new uses of the idea of treaty in contemporary thought and practice beyond the dualist frames employed to date. Second, the following paragraphs are fed by French and Anglo-​Saxon literature. They do not account for scholarly discussion about the treaty in other languages and non-​Western parts of the world. In that sense, the literary materials from which this discussion builds are highly selective—​and hence defective. Yet, this literature is not used empirically as the ground for anything that should be an exhaustive and comprehensive representation of the state of the debate. Instead, the references made here are used opportunistically and functionally, aiming to infuse the debates on treaties with some refreshing idiosyncrasy and, ultimately, new thoughts.

I.  Dualist Thinking: The Treaty as a Binary Artefact Among international lawyers, the treaty is commonly understood as a binary artefact.7 It is a rule and a norm. It has a form and a substance.8 It is a signifier and has a signified. It is legal 5 For a useful definition of the heuristic method of inquiry in international legal studies, see C Dupont and T Schultz, ‘Towards a New Heuristic Model: Investment Arbitration as a Political System’ (2016) 7 J Int’l Disp Settlement 3. 6 Compare TW Adorno, Negative Dialectics (EB Ashton trans) (Routledge, London 1973). 7 P Reuter, ‘Traités et transactions. Reflexions sur l’identification de certains engagements conventionnels’ in International Law at the Time of Its Codification. Essays in Honour of Roberto Ago (Giuffrè, Milan 1987) 399, 402–​3; Raustiala (n 3) 581; M Fitzmaurice, ‘The Identification and Character of Treaties and Treaty Obligations Between States in International Law’ (2003) 73 BYBIL 141. 8 This is a common assumption of the International Court of Justice. See Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v Turkey) [1978] ICJ Rep 3, [96].

48  Foundational Issues and it is normative. It has a container and a content, which, in a more sophisticated way, but still in the same vein, may be encompassed by the idea of a treaty as an instrumentum (the container) and a negotium (the content).9 This—​perceived—​binary character of the treaty has generated very dualist10 discourses and modes of thinking about it.11 For instance, the determination of the legal nature of the treaty is said to be a question of sources whilst the determination of its normative content is meant to raise a question of interpretation. Likewise, it is contended, each of these two dimensions of the treaty is subject to different modes of interpretation.12 Interestingly, in these dualist treaty narratives, the two dimensions of the treaty are meant to be reunited by the supposed voluntarist nature of treaty-​making. It is commonly accepted that treaty-​makers have a mastery over both dimensions of the treaty-​making process, that is complete control over both the content (negotium) and the container (instrumentum). This means that they can organize each of these aspects distinctively and independently.13 They can decide to make the container for their agreement a legal agreement or not. At the same time, they determine the extent of the content’s normative character and thus whether the agreement puts in place strict or loose obligations, or no obligations at all. This means, for instance, that treaty-​makers can decide to make a treaty whose content is barely normative.14 This possibility has been acknowledged

9 Such a distinction was already made by Kelsen. See H Kelsen, ‘Theorie du droit international public’ (1953-​ III) 84 RcD 1, 136. This distinction was also made by Brierly as ILC Special Rapporteur. JL Brierly, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1950] YBILC, vol II, 228 [30] (‘Brierly, Report’); see also G Fitzmaurice, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1956] YBILC, vol II, 110 (art 14), 119 (commentary); see also Ambatielos Claim (Greece v United Kingdom) [1952] ICJ Rep 28, 169 (J Basdevant, dissenting); cf JP Jacqué, Elements pour une théorie de l’acte juridique en Droit international public (LDGJ, Paris 1972) 47–​56 (drawing distinction between the negotium-​ instrumentum dichotomy and the act-​norm dichotomy). 10 Dualism is not used here to describe a certain treatment of the treaty by domestic law, and especially the need for the treaty to be recognized with a separate existence under domestic law by virtue of a material transposition in a domestic law instrument (on this understanding of Dualism, see Chapter  15 by David Sloss). Dualism refers here to discourses and modes of thinking articulated around two distinct but interdependent dimensions or principles. Understood in this way, dualism is a mode of thinking or a type of discourse associated with modernity. 11 Such dualism is also occasionally witnessed with respect to customary international law. This is especially the case in the French-​speaking scholarship. See P Haggenmacher, ‘La doctrine des deux éléments en droit coutumier dans la pratique de la Cour internationale’ (1986) 90 RGDIP 5, 9–​10. See also S Sur, Les Dynamiques du Droit international (Pedone, Paris 2012) 77–​8. The change of title of the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) on custom—​and more specifically the change from ‘Formation and evidence of customary international law’ to ‘Identification of customary international law’—​epitomizes these two facets of custom in international legal discourses. See UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.3186 (2013). See also ILC Report, UN Doc A/​68/​10 (2013) ch. VII, [76]–​[77]. Such dualism is also found in legal theory and jurisprudence. See eg G Postema, Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World (Springer, Berlin 2001) 390–​3; R Dworkin, Law’s Empire (Harvard, Cambridge 1986)  65–​7. 12 J d’Aspremont, ‘The Multidimensional Process of Interpretation:  Content-​ Determination and Law-​ Ascertainment Distinguished’ in A Bianchi, D Peat, and M Windsor (eds), Interpretation in International Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) 111–​29. 13 In the same vein, Raustiala (n 3); H Hillgenberg, ‘A Fresh Look at Soft Law’ (1999) 10 EJIL 499, 504–​5. For a criticism of the idea that States can freely decide to activate—​or not activitate—​international law, see Klabbers (n 3). 14 Numerous treaties nowadays enshrine what can be called a soft negotium. One of the most obvious examples is provided by the 1995 Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities, which deliberately falls short of defining the concept of minorities, leaving it to the parties to determine whether there are national minorities on their territory. 1 CETS No 157; see also Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (opened for signature 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970) 729 UNTS 161, Art III.4; A Kiss, ‘Les traités-​cadres:  une technique juridique caractéristique du droit international de l’environnement’ (1993) 39 Annuaire français de droit international 792; RJ Dupuy, ‘Declaratory Law and Programmatory Law: From

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  49 by international courts,15 and illustrated in practice by the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.16 Conversely, those making an agreement containing very precise and demanding prescriptions can leave it devoid of any legal nature as illustrated by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) concluded between Iran, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and the European Union.17 It is important to highlight, however, that despite some degree of sophistication, such dualist thinking about the treaty has never coalesced in a proper theory about the treaty. Thus, the bindingness of the treaty cannot be explained through the abovementioned dualist narratives, but must derive from supplementary constructions like pacta sunt servanda. Such constructions have themselves necessitated additional moves,18 like the resort to customary law,19 jus cogens,20 the idea of inherent validity and natural law,21 or the idea of a ‘rule of recognition’.22 This dependence of dualist-​treaty thinking on supplementary non-​dualist constructions shows that—​whilst undoubtedly denoting some sophisticated theorization—​it falls short of providing any actual theory about the treaty. Still, if not a theory, it does represent a theoretical ‘move’ that has deeply informed international legal thought and practice on the treaty.23 Most international lawyers—​at least in the West—​have remained faithful to the aforementioned dualist thinking and construed a treaty’s origin and functioning through these two dimensions—​the container (instrumentum) and the content (negotium).24 Such continuous attachment to this dualist understanding is observed in the (many) attempts to revamp or refine the way in which the container and the content of the treaty are articulated and interrelate. Revolutionary Custom to “Soft Law” ’ in R Akkerman and others (eds), Declarations of Principles. A Quest for Universal Peace (Sijthoff, Leiden 1977) 247, 254. 15 For instance North Sea Continental Shelf Cases (Republic of Germany v Denmark and the Netherlands) [1969] ICJ Rep 3, [72], Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v USA) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, [259]–​[261]; Oil Platforms (Iran v USA) (Jurisdiction) [1996] ICJ Rep 803, [28], [31]. 16 See D Bodansky, ‘The Paris Climate Change Agreement:  A New Hope?’ (2016) 110 AJIL 288–​319; D Bodansky, ‘The Legal Character of the Paris Agreement’ (2016) 25 Rev European, Comparative and Int’l Env L 142–​50; L Rajamani and J Brunnée, ‘The Legality of Downgrading Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement: Lessons from the US Disengagement’ (2017) 29 J Env L 537–​51. 17 M Martellini and M Zucchetti, ‘The Iranian Nuclear Agreement: A Scientifically Reliable, Transactional and Verifiable Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ in JL Black-​Branch and D Fleck (eds), Legal Aspects of the Use of Nuclear Energy for Peaceful Purposes (Asser Press, Cologne 2016) 471–​88. 18 See this volume, Chapter 1, at 1; On the idea that pacta sunt servanda cannot be a rule, let alone a source, see H Thirlway, The Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2014) 32. 19 On the idea that pacta sunt servanda is customary international law, see H Lauterpacht, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 90, 106 (‘Lauterpacht, First Report’); see also AT Guzman, How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory (OUP, Oxford 2008) 204–​5. 20 On the idea that pacta sunt servanda is jus cogens, see Thirlway (n 18) (citing P Fois). 21 On the idea of the inherent validity of pacta sunt servanda, see G Fitzmaurice, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law’ in Symbolae Verzijl (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1958) 153, 164; see also this volume, Introduction, at 1–2. 22 For an illustration of the idea that pacta sunt servanda is rooted in a ‘rule of recognition’ of sorts, see T Frank, ‘The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations’ (OUP, Oxford 1990) 187; J Barberis, ‘Le Concept de “traité international” et ses limites’ (1984) 30 Annuaire français de droit international 239, 268. 23 Whilst the treaty has been the object of much attention in International Relations literature, it is noteworthy that international lawyers have not resorted to International Relations constructions to supplement their dualist thinking about the treaty. On the extent to which International Relations theory has come to colonize international legal theory, see JL Dunoff and M Pollack, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations (CUP, Cambridge 2013) (especially Chapters 1 and 18). 24 See eg Raustiala (n 3); Reuter (n 7) 403.

50  Foundational Issues One paradigmatic illustration of an attempted reorganization of the relation between the container (instrumentum) and the content (negotium) of the treaty—​which perpetuates dualist thinking about the treaty—​is found in the flip-​flopping of the much revered Hersch Lauterpacht over the question of treaty-​identification. From 1952 to 1954, Lauterpacht served as the Second Special Rapporteur of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the law of treaties. In his first report to the ILC in 1953, Lauterpacht criticized the earlier treaty definition proposed by his predecessor, James L. Brierly, which provided that ‘a treaty is an international agreement recorded in writing between two or more states or international organisations which establishes a relationship under international law between the parties thereto’.25 Brierly’s emphasis on creating ‘relations under international law’—​which originated in the treaty definition of the earlier Harvard Draft Convention26—​is an explicit reference to the content (negotium) of the treaty, which would have the effect of elevating the treaty’s normative content into a constitutive element of the treaty. Interestingly, Lauterpacht departed from Brierly’s definition by playing down the role of the content (negotium) and the actual creation of legal rights and obligations. Instead, he emphasized the parties’ intent to create legal rights and obligations. Thus, Lauterpacht’s Draft Article 1 defined treaties as ‘agreements between states, including organisations of states, intended to create legal rights and obligations of the parties’.27 During later ILC debates, Lauterpacht made clear his view that intention alone is determinative of the legal nature of the agreement. In other words, treaty-​making arose from intention and, as such, treaty-​ascertainment ought to be exclusively content-​independent.28 The ensuing definitional debates during the codification of the law of treaties led to a very inconclusive and tautological definition of the notion of treaty.29 For present purposes, this definition is not important because of its exegetic value but because of what Lauterpacht made of it once on the bench of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Simply put, he changed his approach to the relationship between the content (negotium) and the container (instrumentum) of a treaty. On two occasions, Judge Lauterpacht strove to elevate the content (negotium) into a formal criterion to ascertain the legal character of a legal act (instrumentum).30 Although his later—​and rather

25 Brierly, Report (n 9) 223. 26 Harvard Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties (1935) 29 AJIL Supp 657, 686 (a treaty is a ‘formal instrument of agreement by which two or more States establish or seek to establish a relation under international law between themselves’). 27 Lauterpacht, First Report (n 19) 90 (emphasis added) 28 H Lauterpacht, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1954] YBILC, vol II, 123, 123–​5 (‘the fact that the extent of the application of the instrument is left in some respects to the appreciation of the parties and that, as the result, the scope of the obligation is indefinite and elastic, is not a decisive factor for denying that there is in existence a legal duty to be fulfilled in good faith . . . In a sense these provisions, which leave for future agreement the determination of the extent of the substantive obligations of the parties, are no more than pacta de contrahendo. They are further weakened by qualifications such as that the amount of assistance shall be such as the Government in question shall authorize. Nevertheless, it would not be accurate to maintain that an instrument of that character is no more than a pious statement of intention as distinguished from an assumption of binding legal obligations’). It should be emphasized, however, that the content-​independentness promoted by Lauterpacht was informed by his firm belief that an obligation can always be found and extracted. 29 P Gautier, ‘Article 2’ in P Klein and O Corten (eds), Les Conventions de Vienne sur le Droit des Traités. Commentaire article par article (Bruyland, Brussels 2006) 42, 56; ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 2009) 8; Fitzmaurice (n 7) 165–​84. 30 Case of Certain Norwegian Loans (France v Norway) [1957] ICJ Rep 9, 48 (J Lauterpacht, Separate Opinion: ‘An instrument in which a party is entitled to determine the existence of its obligation is not a valid and enforceable legal instrument of which a court of law can take cognizance. It is not a legal instrument. It is a

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  51 marginal31—​position pertained to a legal act that was not of a treaty character, it can hardly be reconciled with the earlier definition of treaties that he defended during his stint as Special Rapporteur.32 What matters to highlight is that Lauterpacht, notwithstanding his radical change of approach, always remained loyal to an understanding of the treaty as a binary artefact. Nor was Lauterpacht alone in shifting the understanding of the relationship between the content (negotium) and the container (instrumentum). Similar flip-​flopping can possibly be found in the ICJ case law itself. In its 1978 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf judgment, the Court—​albeit with a great deal of ambiguity—​seems to have indicated that the parties’ intention as to the nature of the act or transaction ought to be inferred from the terms and the particular circumstances of its making, thereby putting the emphasis on the container (instrumentum) and the circumstances in which it was made.33 In contrast, in its 1994 judgment in Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain, the ICJ seems to have inferred the legal nature of the act from its prescribing rights and obligations, that is, from its content (negotium).34 Unsurprisingly, the see-​sawing of the Court on this matter did not go unnoticed in the literature.35 Although further examples of a dualist framing of the idea of the treaty exist,36 the foregoing should suffice to show how international lawyers’ repeated attempts to reorganize the relationship between content (negotium) and container (instrumentum) have remained congruent with an understanding of the treaty as a binary artefact. As such, efforts to revamp the construction of the treaty and its two primary constituent elements have been nothing more than variants of the common dualist thinking about the treaty.

declaration of a political principle and purpose’); see also Interhandel Case (Switzlerand v USA) [1959] ICJ Rep 6, 116 (J Lauterpact, dissenting opinion). Lauterpacht’s position has found some support in the literature. See eg Gautier (n 29) 62; P Gautier, Essai sur la définition des traités entre Etats (Bruylant, Brussels 1993) 63–​74; Barberis (n 22) 253; K Widdows, ‘What is an Agreement in International Law?’ (1979) 50 BYBIL 117, 139. 31 The dominant position is that it is the animus contrahendi and thus the intention to be bound rather than the content of the agreement that determines the legal character of the latter. For a classical affirmation of that position see P Reuter, Introduction au Droit des Traités (3rd edn Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1995) 30 et seq; C Rousseau, Principes Généraux du droit international public (Pedone, Paris 1944) vol 1, 156–​7; J Basdevant, ‘Règles générales du droit de la paix’ (1936) 58 RcD 208. For a criticism of that conceptual construction according to which States, through the choice of instrumentum, can freely decide to activate international law (or not), see Klabbers (n 3). 32 For a similar—​marginal—​position, albeit expressed in different terms, see R Ago, ‘Positive Law and International Law’ (1957) 51 AJIL 691, 727–​8. 33 See Aegean Sea (n 8) [107] (‘Accordingly, having regard to the terms of the Joint Communiqué of 31 May 1975 and to the context in which it was agreed and issued, the Court can only conclude that it was not intended to, and did not constitute an immediate commitment by the Greek and Turkish Prime Ministers, on behalf of their respective Governments, to accept unconditionally the unilateral submission of the present dispute to the Court’). 34 See Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, [25] (‘the Minutes are not a simple record of a meeting, similar to those drawn up within the framework of the Tripartite Committee; they do not merely give an account of discussions and summarize points of agreement and disagreement. They enumerate the commitments to which the Parties have consented. They thus create rights and obligations in international law for the Parties. They constitute an international agreement’). 35 See eg C Chinkin, ‘A Mirage in the Sand? Distinguishing Binding and Non-​Binding Relations Between States’ (1997) 10 LJIL 223–​47. 36 For another example, see H Cohen, ‘Finding International Law: Rethinking the Doctrine of Sources’ (2007) 93 Iowa L Rev 65; see also Raustiala (n 3).

52  Foundational Issues

II.  Beyond Dualist Thinking: The Treaty as Icon, Text, and Progeny The previous section explained how dualist thinking about the treaty—​and thus the very idea of the treaty as a binary artefact—​has thrived unabated in international legal thought and practice even as international lawyers repeatedly attempted to revamp their binary understanding. This section offers a counter-​point to the common dualist thinking about the treaty with three new images of the treaty. Each reveals an overlooked use of the treaty idea in contemporary legal thought and practice: (i) the creation of conceptual anachronisms in the making of historical narratives about international law; (ii) the simplification of the process of interpretation; and (iii) the construction of a magic descendance that shields those invoking the treaty from any responsibility for anything that is made in the name of the treaty. These three specific uses are captured by virtue of a three-​tiered heuristic, presenting the treaty respectively as an icon, a text, and a progeny.

A.  The treaty as icon: the marvels of conceptual anachronism The treaty is undoubtedly an icon. As an icon, it is a much-​venerated symbol whose legal relevance is taken for granted. As an icon, the treaty enjoys an autonomous symbolic existence outside international law; indeed, it needs no legal foundation as it even pre-​dates international law. This iconic dimension of the treaty is nowhere more visible than in the disciplinary historical discourses about international law as a whole, and especially in international lawyers’ dominant contention that treaties constitute an immemorial form of international agreements. Most authors engaging with the idea of treaty in international law affirm—​in one way or another—​the precedence of the treaty over modern international law. They emphasize that treaties have been concluded since ancient times.37 Thus, most international lawyers assert that one of the first known international treaties was concluded after the Battle of Kadesh between Ramses II and the Hittites around 1274 bc.38 Mention is also made of the friendship and commerce agreement between the Kings of Elba and Ashur concluded in the middle of the third century bc, which could constitute the oldest treaty whose full text remains available.39 It is even sometimes argued that the existence of treaties is acknowledged in the Bible.40 Such understandings construct the treaty as an ancient and pre-​ modern phenomenon. From this perspective, the treaty pre-​dates the very system of thoughts to which it owes its existence by several thousands of years, a construction amounting to a severe conceptual anachronism.

37 See eg Fitzmaurice (n 2) [5]‌; C Brölmann, ‘Law-​Making Treaties: Form and Function in International Law’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Int’l L 383–​404; O Dörr, ‘On the Role of Treaties in the Development of International Law’ in Dörr and Schmalenbach (n 2) 1–​8. 38 Dörr (n 37) 1–​8; see D Hollis, ‘A Comparative Approach to Treaty Law and Practice’ in DB Hollis, M Blakeslee, and B Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (ASIL and Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 2005) 1, 9; PM Dupuy, ‘L’unité de l’ordre juridique international: cours général de droit international public’ (2002) 297 RcD 80–​3. Wikipedia mentions an even older treaty, namely the Border agreement between the rulers of the city-​states of Lagash and Umma in Mesopotamia. See . 39 Dörr (n 37) 1 (citing KH Ziegler); see also Fitzmaurice (n 2) [9]‌. 40 See this volume, Introduction, at 1.

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  53 Conceptual anachronisms are very common in international legal discourses.41 Here, however, the conceptual anachronism accompanying the common narrative about the ancient, pre-​modern origins of the treaty is understood as epitomizing the latter’s iconic dimension. Thanks to such a severe conceptual anachronism, the treaty can thrive as not only a central legal category of international law, but one that does not owe its existence to international law; it has a symbolic existence on its own. By virtue of its iconic status, the treaty is placed outside the common genesis of international legal concepts and doctrines and can survive any conceptual anachronism: it can be construed to have an ontological centrality in need of no other justification than itself. (Re)envisioning the treaty as an icon could have important theoretical consequences. For starters, if the treaty is seen as an icon along the lines suggested here, it becomes possible to move beyond dualist thinking. In fact, if one understands iconic modes of thinking—​ just like mythical modes of thinking—​as conflating content and form,42 the treaty, once construed as an icon, can be unchained from all the dualist narratives commonly built around it.

B.  The treaty as a text: operational, calibrating, and total interpretations Whatever else it is, the treaty can be conceptualized as text. As a text, the treaty serves as the repository of the immense hermeneutic creativity of international lawyers and the object of countless interpretations.43 Traditionally, international lawyers have conceived of these interpretations in a unified way. As a text, however, a treaty may actually give rise not to one, but multiple, distinct interpretive moments. The following paragraphs identify three such interpretative moments that surround any invocation of the treaty as a text. In doing so, they rebut the idea that treaty interpretation must comprise a ‘single combined operation’.44 Before spelling out these interpretive moments, it must be recalled that, as a text, the treaty is constitutive of an argumentative space in which those invoking the treaty can build a great—​albeit not infinite—​variety of legal arguments. Within this argumentative space, certain arguments are possible and others are not. It is uncontested, moreover, that the treaty comes to constitute an argumentative space as the result of an act of interpretation; by giving meaning to the treaty text those invoking it constitute an argumentative space. Interestingly, like the cabining of acceptable legal arguments around the treaty text itself, the interpretation that constitutes the treaty’s argumentative space takes place in a constrained space. In other words, constituting the argumentative space is the result of a constrained act of interpretation of the text of the treaty.

41 In this respect, I argue that anachronism is conducive to new insights in the evaluation of contemporary practice and thinking such that international lawyers should not seek any historically methodological purity. See A Orford, ‘On International Legal Method’ [2013] 1 London Rev Int’l L 166, 172, 175. 42 See the idea of ‘mythèmes’ and that of ‘paquet de relations’ developed by Claude Lévi-​Strauss, in ‘La structure des mythes’, Anthropologie structural (Plon, Paris 1958) ch XI; see also C Lévi-​Strauss, ‘The Structural Study of Myth’ (1955) 78 J American Folklore 428–​44; J Pouillon, ‘L’analyse des myths’ (1966) 6 L’Homme 100–​5. 43 See generally A Bianchi, ‘The Game of Interpretation in International Law: The Players, the Cards, and Why the Game is Worth the Candle’ in Bianchi and others (n 12) 34–​57. 44 ILC, ‘Draft conclusions on subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties with commentaries’ UN Doc A/​73/​10 [2018] YBILC, vol II, pt II, 21 [11]; see also [1966] YBILC, vol II, 219, [8]‌(‘ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements’).

54  Foundational Issues The constraints that inform the interpretation of the treaty text and shape its argumentative space are diverse. They include the very words of the text, the present and past context of the making of the treaty, the present and past context of the invocation of the treaty, the function and goals associated with the text, the conscious and unconscious preferences of the authors of the treaty, the past text and past context, the conscious and unconscious preferences of those invoking the treaty themselves, the individual imagination of the interpreter, the collective imagination of the society, etc.45 Each of these possible constraints bears upon the way meaning can be given to the treaty text (and the argumentative space constituted requires yet another act of interpretation whereby these constraints are provided with a content and thus with their constraining effects). In fact, whether of a textual, contextual, behavioural, historical, psychological, symbolic, or imaginary nature, any constraint on the interpretation of the text—​and the constitution of the argumentative space of the treaty—​require interpretation by those invoking the treaty with a view to calibrating them; that is, to determine their constraining power and their actual weight against one another. This preliminary observation makes it possible to introduce three distinct moments of interpretation. First, accepting the treaty-​as-​text idea should suffice to demonstrate that the interpretation of the treaty text must necessarily be preceded by an interpretation of the constraints that are meant to guide the interpretation of the text. The interpretation of the constraints on interpretation may be called the calibrating interpretation. Although they may not be consciously distinguished from other interpretive moments, calibrating interpretations are conducted independently from the text of the treaty and relate only to the interpretive yardsticks that will subsequently apply to the interpretation of the treaty text.46 Second, only after the conclusion of the calibrating interpretation can an interpreter carry out the interpretation meant to determine the content of the text of the treaty. This subsequent interpretation—​focused on content-​determination—​can be called an operational interpretation.47 Operational interpretations consist of the application of the constraints produced by the calibrating interpretation to the text of the treaty, with a view to giving an operational meaning to the latter for the sake of its invocation. In doing so, they produce an argumentative space where certain legal arguments are possible and others are impossible. In addition to these two well-​known and oft-​discussed interpretive moments, a prior—​ and third—​moment of interpretation exists. This interpretive moment relates to what Duncan Hollis has called ‘existential interpretation’48 but which I would rather call here total interpretation. This is the interpretation whereby the treaty-​as-​text is interpreted as eligible for invocation.49 This interpretation is ‘total’ because it determines whether the treaty 45 See generally D Kennedy, ‘A Left Phenomenological Critique of the Hart/​ Kelsen Theory of Legal Interpretation’ in D Kennedy, Legal Reasoning, Collected Essays (Davies Group, Aurora 2008) 153. 46 It is interesting to note that the ILC—​despite explicitly recognizing that criteria of interpretation ought to be organized and weighted against one another—​denies that this calibration constitutes an act of interpretation. See ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements (n 44) 22 [14], 52 [4]‌–[​ 5]; see also ibid 70–​71 (Conclusion 9). 47 Elsewhere, I have called this ‘content-​determination’ interpretation. See J d’Aspremont, ‘Sources in Legal-​ Formalist Theories: The Poor Vehicle of Legal Forms’ in S Besson and J d’Aspremont (eds), The Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2017) 365. 48 Duncan Hollis, ‘The Existential Function of Interpretation in International Law’ in Bianchi and others (n 12) 78. 49 On the idea that treaty-​ascertainment entails an act of interpretation, see M Virally, Sur la notion d’accord, Festschrift für Rudolf Bindschedler (Staempfli, Berne 1980) 159–​72.

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  55 text can become a text that belongs to the totality of international law. By virtue of a total interpretation, the words of the text, the piece of paper, even the webpage, and all the components of the artefact become a text that may exist for the sake of international law and may be known to international law. Without an explicit (or implicit) total interpretive moment, the treaty text would simply be left out of the totality of international law. Thus, total interpretation comes before all other moments of interpretation. Only after the treaty text has been interpreted as a text that can be known to international law does invocation of the treaty become possible such that calibrating and operational interpretations can take place. As a text, the treaty can therefore channel hermeneutic creativity through three specific interpretive moves—​total, calibrating, and then operational. Each takes place at distinct moments, subject to various constraints and formal modes of argumentation. Understanding the treaty-​as-​text this way may help international lawyers move away from the monolithic understandings of interpretation that commonly accompany dualist thinking about the treaty (and which purport to focus exclusively on questions of the content).

C.  The treaty as progeny: the non-​responsibility of magic descendance Last but not least, the treaty may be understood as a progeny. Specifically, the treaty is the progeny of a magical creature called ‘the Parties’. ‘The Parties’ refers to the idea of a unified and mighty ‘genitor’50 whose ‘will’ is said to be reflected in the treaty and to inform both its origin and functioning. Importantly, both the Parties’ existence as the genitor and its actual engendering of the treaty lie outside of time and out of space. Simply put, it is not possible to trace the moment where the genitor gives life to the treaty.51 In that sense, the treaty enjoys a magic descendance. Every now and then, the name of this magic genitor must be invoked. This is usually whenever the treaty’s nature or its content are debated. Yet, because the treaty’s genitor is out of time and space, it can not be located, found, or traced. It can—​at best—​be constructed, imagined, and projected. In other words, whenever the name of the genitor of the treaty must be invoked, a difficult exercise of reconstruction and personalization of the magic genitor is required. Indeed, invoking the name of the treaty genitor requires inventing an intellectual creature. Doing so, in turn, simultaneously requires the invention of a time and a space: the treaty must have been made by the genitor at some given point and in a given place. This is the function performed by the idea of ‘the Parties’; it allows the projection of an intellectual creature located in time and space whose authority can be invoked to address debates on the treaty’s nature or content. The common dualist treaty narratives sketched out above amply accommodate the invocation of ‘the Parties’ and manifests this need for a genitor of the treaty. The need to reference ‘the Parties’ arises on two main occasions in the dualist-​treaty thinking. First, those invoking the treaty often feel the need to refer to the genitor when the nature of the treaty as a treaty must be vindicated. In that case, a law-​ascertainment genitor must be created. This

50 Although the word ‘genitor’ comes with a male pointer in British English, the term is used here without denoting any type of gender. 51 On the uncertainty of that moment, see generally the remarks of R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford, 2015) 232–​5.

56  Foundational Issues law-​ascertainment genitor is commonly found and located by virtue of a sophisticated52 construction of an animus contrahendi of ‘the Parties’,53 itself built on a presumption that all those involved in treaty-​making necessarily have a legal conscience whereby they know whether they want the repositories of their agreement to be law or not.54 Second, a genitor must also be created when content must be given to the treaty text via the guidance supposedly found in the will or conduct of ‘the Parties’.55 The finding of a unified will or conduct of ‘the Parties’ for the sake of content-​determination corresponds to finding a content-​determination genitor. Such efforts have been the object of an enormous amount of study, scholarly discussion,56 and ILC discussions57 that do not require further elaboration here. The present value in thinking of the treaty as a progeny lies in its capacity to shed light on some aspects of the treaty idea not apprehended in the dominant, dualist thinking. In particular, the treaty—​as the progeny of a magic genitor—​can be shrouded in an anonymity of sorts of which those invoking the treaty can conveniently take advantage. Since this magic genitor is out of time and space (it is, after all, simply invented whenever the treaty’s content or nature are debated), the treaty-​making process becomes anonymous. Although the invocation of ‘the Parties’ attempts to project the image of an intellectual creature located in time and space, the treaty remains a magic progeny whose descendance cannot be found, located, or traced other than in ‘the Parties’. By virtue of such anonymity, the treaty—​and all that is claimed under its name—​enjoys a life of its own out of time and space. This product of magical descendance can be passed from one generation to another, each of them pinning new hopes, new projects, new interpretations, new significance, new frustrations, new enmity, new criticism on the treaty, constantly reinventing it behind the veil of ‘the Parties’’ will or actions.58

52 For a review of all the numerous indicators used by international lawyers to build this animus, see A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (1st edn CUP, Cambridge 2007) 33–​7; Klabbers (n 3) 68–​89; O Schachter, ‘The Twilight Existence of Nonbinding International Agreements’ (1977) 71 AJIL 296, 296–​7. It has been noted that the finding of such animus remains a highly speculative operation. See Klabbers (n 3) 11 et seq; GM Danilenko, Law-​ Making in the International Community (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1993) 57; Chinkin (n 35) 245–​6. 53 On intent as the dominant treaty-​ascertaining criterion, see Hollis (n 38) 15; A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2007) 20; R Jennings and A Watts (eds), Oppenhein’s International Law (OUP, Oxford 1992), vol I, 1202; Klabbers (n 3) 68; Fitzmaurice (n 7) 145, 165–​6; I Seidl-​Hohenveldern, ‘Hierarchy of Treaties’ in J Klabbers and R Lefeber, Essays on the Law of Treaties. A Collection of Essays in Honour of Bert Vierdag (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1998) 7; Jacqué (n 9) 121; Chinkin (n 35) 223–​47; Schmalenbach (n 2) 39–​ 40; Schachter (n 52) 296. 54 Klabbers (n 3) 65 (intent ‘imbues those who conclude agreements with a psychological state they may never really have had’). 55 See [1964] YBILC, vol II, 204–​5 [15] (‘the Commission’s approach to treaty interpretation was on the basis that the text of the treaty must be presumed to be the authentic expression of the intentions of the parties, and that the elucidation of the meaning of the text rather than an investigation ab initio of the supposed intentions of the parties constitutes the object of interpretation . . . making the ordinary meaning of the terms, the context of the treaty, its object and purpose, and the general rules of international law, together with authentic interpretations by the parties, the primary criteria for interpreting a treaty’); see also ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements (n 44) 23, 24 (commentary), 31. 56 See the abundant literature cited by D Peat and M Windsor, ‘Playing the Game of Interpretation. On Meaning and Metaphor in International Law’ in Bianchi and others (n 12) 3–​31. 57 ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements (n 44) Pt 2. 58 This echoes some debates unfolding in international institutional law regarding the will of the organization. See N Blokker, ‘International Organizations and their Members’ (2004) 1 Int’l Org L Rev 139–​61; J Klabbers, ‘Two Concepts of International Organization’ (2005) 2 Int’l Org L Rev 277–​93; J d’Aspremont, ‘The Law of International Organizations and the Art of Reconciliation: From Dichotomies to Dialectics’ (2014) 11 Int’l Org L Rev 428–​53.

Current Theorizations about the Treaty  57 This is not benign. As a result of the anonymity of its genitor, and its life out of space and time, the treaty not only permits but facilitates non-​responsibility: no one is made responsible for the treaty and what is claimed under its name. The treaty, as magic progeny, allows those invoking the treaty to evade responsibility for both the good and the sufferance caused in a treaty’s name. As a result of such magic progeny, those invoking the treaty can conveniently look like naive followers, having no power other than choosing to walk the path blazed by the treaty’s magic genitor and being preceded by it in any interpretation they venture to offer. They can in other words simply walk behind the treaty. Shedding light on the extent to which the treaty rests on a magic progeny and provides anonymity to those invoking the treaty allows one to appreciate the culture of irresponsibility prevailing in international law.

Concluding remarks Both in international legal practice and in the consciousness and imagination of international lawyers, the treaty is about form and substance. It is a rule and a norm. It has a container and a content. It is legal and normative. That has been—​and will likely remain—​the dominant and dualist understanding of the treaty. This chapter has argued that there is nothing inevitable about such a dualist concept of the treaty. It has proffered three alternative ideas, namely the treaty as an icon, text, and progeny. The chapter’s three-​tiered heuristic may supplement the dualist thinking of contemporary thought and practice about the treaty with refreshing and idiosyncratic imagery. More importantly, the heuristic offered in this chapter may provide new insights on the extent to which the treaty as an idea is used to build justificatory histories about the discipline; how it functions to elaborate an argumentative space that is neither simple nor uniform; and when its capacity to anonymize all those invoking the treaty behind a magical creature called ‘the Parties’ helps shield those who invoke it from any responsibility. When thought of as an icon, a text, and a progeny, the treaty becomes something new—​and unknown—​to international lawyers generally, and those invoking it specifically. As such, the alternative theorizations suggested in this chapter show just how much remains to be explored in relation to the very idea of treaty and what international lawyers actually do with it.

Recommended Reading C Chinkin, ‘A Mirage in the Sand? Distinguishing Binding and Non-​Binding Relations Between States’ (1997) 10 LJIL 223–​247 M Craven, ‘The Ends of Consent’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 103–​135 J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1996) J Klabbers, ‘Not Re-​Visiting the Concept of Treaty’ in A Orakhelashvili and S Williams (eds), 40 Years of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (BIICL, London 2010) 29–​39 J Klabbers, ‘Qatar v. Bahrain: The Concept of “Treaty” in International Law’ (1995) 33 Archiv des Völkerrechts 361–​376 D Kritsiotis, ‘The Object and Purpose of a Treaty’s Object and Purpose’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 237–​302

58  Foundational Issues R Lesaffer, ‘Treaties within the History of International Law’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018)  43–​76 A Rasulov, ‘Theorizing Treaties:  The Consequences of the Contractual Analogy’ in C Tams, A Tzanakopoulous, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2016) 74–​122 K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581

3

Alternatives to Treaty-​Making—​ Informal Agreements Timothy Meyer

In an Oval Office press conference on the status of trade negotiations with China, US President Donald Trump brought the subject of informal agreements new prominence.1 Chinese and American negotiators had spent the week working out the terms of an agreement to resolve the trade war between the two nations. They had labelled the agreement a Memorandum of Understanding, or ‘MOU’. Upon hearing this news, President Trump—​ seated across from the top Chinese negotiator as well as his own Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer—​announced that ‘I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything’.2 Ambassador Lighthizer attempted to persuade the President otherwise, arguing that ‘An MOU is a binding agreement between two people. It’s detailed. It covers everything in great detail’.3 To which the President responded, ‘By the way, I disagree’.4 Who was right? Is an MOU the same thing as a legally binding international agreement? How can one tell the difference between a legally binding and a non-​binding agreement? If MOUs are legally non-​binding, are they worth the paper on which they are written? Do they change how States behave?5 Why would negotiators use them? Questions like these have fascinated international lawyers and scholars for decades,6 although they have received increasing attention since the turn of the century. The end of the Cold War and the spurt of institution-​building in the 1990s caused scholars to focus on the role of legalization in the international system.7 In a decade that saw treaties like the Kyoto Protocol (as well as treaties establishing institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization), some struggled to understand why governments do not use formal treaties to codify the outcomes of all of their negotiations. Yet States continued to rely on multilateral non-​binding agreements in a wide range of areas, ranging

1 J Jacobs and J Sink, ‘Trump’s Trade Chief Lectures His Boss and Gets Earful in Return’ Bloomberg (22 February 2019) at . 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 In some contexts, including perhaps the context in which Ambassador Lighthizer used it, a ‘binding’ agreement might be one that spells out how States are to behave and encourages them to change their behaviour. However, I use the term ‘binding’ to refer to a legal obligation under international law, and thus use the term ‘non-​ binding’ to refer to anything that is not a legal obligation under international law. This distinction allows for us to think about how casting an obligation as one under international law (ie making it binding) can change behaviour. Using ‘binding’ to refer to any instrument that might change behaviour conflates the instrument with its effects, making this kind of analysis more difficult. 6 P Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law?’ (1983) 77 AJIL 413, 414–​15 n7. 7 See eg KW Abbot and others, ‘The Concept of Legalization’ (2000) 54 IO 401.

60  Foundational Issues from banking regulation8 to food safety9 to arms control.10 States exhibit similar diversity in concluding a range of non-​binding bilateral agreements on matters such as competition law,11 diplomatic relations,12 and even wartime relationships.13 At the same time, scholars also began to notice that actors other than States participate in international norm-​making in ways that bear some similarities to norm-​making among States.14 These alternatives to formal treaty-​making produced a wide range of instruments with many different kinds of labels, such as MOUs, soft law, and political commitments. For their part, scholars sought to understand both the kinds of tradeoffs that States or non-​State actors face when deciding between formal treaty instruments and the range of informal instruments available to them, as well as how treaties and informal international agreements differ in their influence on State behaviour. This chapter reviews the existing literature and practice on informal lawmaking. Section I  begins by reviewing basic definitional issues, as well as three contexts in which international lawyers confront non-​binding agreements. Section II canvasses the existing literature on why States and non-​State actors turn to informal agreements. Section III turns to normative matters, arguing that non-​binding agreements are not significantly less efficacious or accountable than binding international agreements. The chapter ends with a call for States to continue to develop guidelines for informal lawmaking—​work already begun by the Inter-​American Juridical Committee (IAJC).

I.  What is Informal Lawmaking? Informal agreements are usually defined in opposition to formal agreements, that is, treaties.15 As such, there is an inherent fuzziness to the category.16 Pauwelyn, for instance, argues that informality can come in terms of outputs, processes, or actors involved.17 Abbott and Snidal describe international agreements as ‘soft’ along three dimensions: (i) legality, which corresponds to bindingness; (ii) the vagueness of the substantive obligations; and (iii) the degree of delegation to third parties, such as courts.18 Along with these conceptual differences comes a cacophony of terminology. Aside from ‘informal’ law and 8 See eg Basel Committee Guidelines on Banking Supervision, ‘International Convergence of Capital Measurement and Capital Standards: A Revised Framework’ (2004) at . 9 See eg Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, ‘About Codex Alimentarius’ at . 10 See eg Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-​Use Goods and Technologies, WA-​DOC (17) PUB 001 (2017) at . 11 See eg M Matsushita, ‘International Cooperation in the Enforcement of Competition Policy’ (2002) 1 Wash U Global Stud L Rev 463. 12 DB Hollis and JJ Newcomer, ‘ “Political” Commitments and the Constitution’ (2009) 49 VJIL 507, 511 (describing the Shanghai Communiqué, a non-​binding accord that normalized relations between the United States and China). 13 Ibid (describing the Atlantic Charter, which laid the foundation for the Allies’ cooperation during the Second World War). 14 See eg PS Berman, ‘Global Legal Pluralism’ (2007) 80 USC L Rev 1155. 15 J Pauwelyn, ‘Informal International Lawmaking:  Framing the Concept and Research Questions’ in J Pauwelyn, RA Wessel, and J Wouters (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (OUP, Oxford 2012) 13, 15. 16 O Perez, ‘Fuzzy Law: A Theory of Quasi-​Legality’ in P Glenn and L Smith (eds), Law and the New Logics (CUP, Cambridge 2016). 17 Pauwelyn (n 15) 15–​20. 18 KW Abbott and D Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’ (2000) 54 IO 421.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  61 ‘soft’ law, authors also commonly use the term ‘political commitments’ to describe agreements that are not binding under international law.19 Given the lack of consensus about either terminology or definitions, authors must be careful to define their terms. This chapter therefore focuses on non-​binding instruments, and uses the terms ‘informal’ and ‘soft’ interchangeably with, and essentially to mean, non-​ binding.20 This definition tracks the most common and influential use of these terms,21 as well as the common core of more expansive definitions. The bindingness of an international instrument under international law has also been a particular preoccupation of international lawyers and international institutions.22 Therefore, while there is no objectively correct use of either terms or definitions, a discussion of binding versus non-​binding agreements may most helpfully shed light on key issues of contemporary State practice. At the outset, we must ask why binding and non-​binding agreements should be considered alongside each other.23 Precisely because non-​binding agreements are not legally binding under international law, a number of scholars have objected that they are not, in fact, part of international law at all.24 These authors often prefer the term ‘political commitment’ or ‘pledge’ to better reflect the binary nature of legality.25 This objection is partially semantic, focusing on the use of terms like ‘informal law’ and ‘soft law’ to describe non-​binding instruments. The objection has a substantive component as well, though. Commentators have worried that conflating the two categories risks undermining the normative pull of binding international law,26 or expanding the rule of lawyers to issues better left to the realm of politics.27 Binding and non-​binding instruments are, however, closely related in three aspects of international practice—​negotiation, legal effect, and identification—​and therefore merit joint consideration.

A.  Negotiation The relationship between binding and non-​ binding instruments is most obvious at the stage of legal practice that receives disproportionately small coverage in academic 19 See eg Hollis and Newcomer (n 12)  517; CA Bradley and JL Goldsmith, ‘Presidential Control over International Law’ (2018) 131 Harvard L Rev 1201, 1217–​18. 20 More specifically, as I explain later, I define soft law to mean a subset of non-​binding agreements—​those that, despite being non-​binding, have legal consequences of some kind. See n 48 and accompanying text. 21 A Aust, ‘The Theory and Practice of Informal International Instruments’ (1986) 35 ICLQ 787. 22 DB Hollis, Preliminary Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, 91st Regular Session, OEA/​Ser.Q, CJI/​doc.542/​17 (6–​16 August 2017) at . 23 J Pauwelyn, ‘Is it International Law or Not, and Does it Even Matter?’ in Pauwelyn and others (n 15) 125; M Goldmann, ‘We Need to Cut Off the Head of the King: Past, Present, and Future Approaches to International Soft Law’ (2012) 25 LJIL 335. 24 See eg K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581, 586; J Klabbers, ‘The Redundancy of Soft Law’ (1996) 65 Nordic J Int’l L 167; Weil (n 6) 414–​15. 25 Hollis and Newcomer (n 12) 520–​521; Raustiala (n 24) 582. However, many authors that use the term ‘soft law’ also view legality as a binary distinction. See generally Abbott and Snidal (n 18); AT Guzman and T Meyer, ‘Soft Law’ [2010] 2 J Legal Analysis 171. For authors like Abbott and Snidal or Michael Reisman, ‘soft law’ often refers to other aspects, aside from legality, of an agreement. WM Reisman, ‘The Supervisory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice: International Arbitration and International Adjudication’ (1997) 258 RDC 1, 180–​1 26 See generally Klabbers (n 24); Weil (n 6). 27 J d’Aspremont, ‘Softness in International Law:  A Self-​Serving Quest for New Legal Materials’ (2008) 20 EJIL 1075.

62  Foundational Issues commentary: the negotiation of international instruments. Government officials frequently negotiate legal bindingness as a component of a larger agreement. Indeed, after President Trump objected to a trade agreement with China taking the form of a non-​binding MOU, reporters overheard Ambassador Lighthizer lean over to Chinese Vice Premier Liu He to seek the latter’s assent to change the form of the agreement.28 Similarly, during the negotiations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, the legal status of the agreement appeared up in the air. US Secretary of State John Kerry emphasized that the administration wished to pursue a non-​binding agreement that focused on enforcement,29 while the Iranian government publicly argued that any agreement would be binding under international law.30 Looking further back, the United States and the United Kingdom (as well as other Commonwealth countries) have disagreed on whether agreements captioned as MOUs can be binding. The United States’ view is that MOUs can be legally binding (hence Ambassador Lighthizer’s statement in the Oval Office). The United Kingdom’s view, on the other hand, has historically been that they are not. In 1991, following a dispute about the legal status of MOUs between the two countries regarding military cooperation, the US Defense Department directed its negotiators to avoid any non-​binding language, including the use of the term MOU, in agreements with the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.31 These examples attest to the fact that the bindingness of an agreement can be traded off against other features of an agreement, such as the language or precision of obligations or the existence of dispute settlement provisions.32 For this reason, non-​binding agreements are appropriately analysed alongside binding international agreements. They are two possible outcomes of the same process of negotiating inter-​State pacts. Informal lawmaking might also include instruments or commitments negotiated by actors that do not traditionally participate in formal lawmaking. Some commentators, such as Pauwelyn, include in this group government officials that are not normally engaged in diplomatic work.33 This view finds support in the practice of countries like France that do not recognize as treaties agreements concluded by administrative agencies.34 Governance through networks of domestic regulators, such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, are also sometimes considered informal.35 Distinctions based on the role of government officials who are not diplomats can be overstated, however. Delegations negotiating formal treaties are regularly staffed by officials from interested ministries and departments, regardless of whether those officials would ordinarily be considered diplomats. Indeed, many countries, such as the United States, 28 Jacobs and Sink (n 1). 29 AB Lerner, ‘State Department: Iran Deal “Non-​binding” ’ Politico (11 March 2015) at . 30 JL Goldsmith and M Lederman, ‘The Case for the President’s Unilateral Authority to Conclude the Impending Iran Deal is Easy Because it Will (Likely) be a Non-​binding Agreement Under International Law’ Lawfare (11 March 2015) at . 31 JH McNeill, ‘International Agreements:  Recent US–​ UK Practice Regarding the Memorandum of Understanding’ (1994) 88 AJIL 821, 825. 32 See generally Raustiala (n 24); Guzman and Meyer (n 25); Abbott and Snidal (n 18). See also Section I.B. (providing examples of non-​binding instruments that contain verification and dispute resolution provisions). 33 Pauwelyn (n 15) 20. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid; see also AM Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton University Press, Princeton 2004) (discussing regulation by networks).

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  63 recognize agreements between domestic agencies as binding commitments when the other requirements for such status are satisfied. Nor are the procedures used in bodies consisting of domestic agencies necessarily less formal than those used in diplomatic conferences.36 On the other side of the coin, diplomats often participate in relatively unstructured negotiations among governments. Indeed, precisely because technological changes have made it easier for a wider range of government officials to communicate with their foreign counterparts, distinguishing formal from informal lawmaking on the basis of who the State chooses to represent it may make little sense. The emergence of instruments or commitments negotiated, promulgated, or joined by non-​State actors, however, does mark a notable departure from formal lawmaking.37 To be sure, non-​State actors frequently participate in and influence the contours of treaties.38 But under traditional rules of international law, such non-​State actors do not have the capacity to create international law at all. This absence has not stopped non-​State organizations from creating a wide range of international instruments. The climate change area has a particularly rich array of such instruments, including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, created by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and rules issued by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, a consortium of business and environmental groups.39 Such ‘transnational’ governance is an important alternative—​as well as complement—​to treaties. Private transnational governance can mitigate or render irrelevant lax regulatory positions taken by States. Again, in the climate context, private transnational governance has provided an important alternative to State-​led initiatives that have addressed climate change haltingly at best. The regulation of cyberspace also accords an important role to non-​binding instruments, such as the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace.40 Such instruments can more easily include the multiple transnational stakeholders relevant to governing cyberspace. States can also encourage private transnational governance, or at least choose not to pre-​empt it.41 For instance, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) is a private non-​profit organization that develops international accounting standards. The majority of its funding, however, comes from governmental contributions.42 Likewise, nations remain free to adopt any accounting standards they like, meaning they can pre-​empt or ignore the IASB’s work. In this way, transnational governance can fill gaps left by State-​based regulation, can push States to tackle new regulatory problems, or can solve regulatory problems that States prefer not to deal with themselves.

36 See A Bradford, ‘The Brussels Effect’ (2013) 107 Nw L Rev 1, 59 n 292. 37 See eg GC Shaffer and MA Pollack, ‘Hard Law v. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance’ (2010) 94 Minn L Rev 706, 719; Berman (n 14); A Boyle and C Chinkin, The Making of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2007) 41–​5. I use the term ‘non-​State actor’ to exclude intergovernmental organizations, which are the subjects of separate chapters in this Volume. See Chapters 5 and 6. 38 See Chapter 8 in this Volume; see also MJ Durkee, ‘The Business of Treaties’ (2016) 63 UCLA L Rev 264. 39 For a more complete description of non-​State actors working on climate governance, see KW Abbott, ‘The Transnational Regime Complex for Climate Change’ (2012) 30 Env & Planning C: Government & Pol’y 571. 40 See M Finnemore and DB Hollis, ‘Beyond Naming and Shaming:  Accusations and International Law in Cybersecurity’ EJIL (forthcoming 2020) 11, draft available at . 41 See KW Abbott, C Kauffmann, and J Lee, The Contributions of Trans-​Governmental Networks of Regulators to International Regulatory Cooperation (OECD Regulatory Policy Working Papers, No 10, 2018). 42 International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, . The IASB is a part of, and funded by, the IFRS Foundation.

64  Foundational Issues

B. Legal effects Binding and non-​binding agreements can also have similar effects, although there are important differences. The similarities are clearest if one differentiates between purely political commitments and non-​binding commitments intended to have some legal effect (ie soft law). Some line must separate such informal lawmaking from acts that have no legal significance whatsoever. Pauwelyn, Wessel, and Wouters distinguish informal lawmaking from non-​lawmaking based on whether the instrument constrains a State’s behaviour in some way.43 Under their view, a political commitment could seemingly count as informal lawmaking if it limits the freedom a State enjoys going forward. In this way, Pauwelyn and other’s definition seems to treat any instrument that has behavioural effects as ‘legal’. This view is problematic, however, because it equates effectiveness—​the degree to which an agreement constrains or changes State behaviour44—​with legality. On the one hand, many formal international agreements (that is, treaties) may have little to no effect on State behaviour. A  wealth of literature examines so-​called ‘shallow’ agreements that require States to do little to change their behaviour.45 Some studies on compliance have argued that certain treaties, such as human rights agreements, appear not to prompt States to make efforts to comply with the legal standards established by the agreements.46 On the other hand, many kinds of joint action that do effectively constrain or change State behaviour do not seem legal at all. For instance, joint statements by heads of State at a press conference, or the decision to hold or cancel a summit, might change State behaviour going forward, yet seem to have little indicia of legality.47 For this reason, other authors take a different view. I have argued that soft law agreements are those that, while non-​binding under international law, have consequences in some legal systems.48 These legal consequences distinguish soft law agreements from entirely non-​ legal acts.49 For instance, the Basel Accords, which establish international banking standards, are non-​binding as a matter of international law, but they are the basis for binding domestic regulations of the banking industry.50 Soft law agreements might also have legal consequences in international law. This can occur in a number of different ways. In dispute 43 Pauwelyn (n 15) 16. 44 L Martin, ‘Against Compliance’ in JL Dunoff and MA Pollack, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art (CUP, Cambridge 2012) 591. 45 See eg G Downs, D Rocke, and P Barsoom, ‘Is the Good News About Compliance Good News About Cooperation’ (1996) 50 IO 379. 46 O Hathaway, ‘Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference’ (2002) 111 Yale LJ 1935; but see BA Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights (CUP, Cambridge 2009). States may agree to obligations that they already are in compliance with, or which they have no intention of complying with, for a variety of reasons, such as appeasing domestic constituencies or gaining access to certain benefits, such as foreign assistance, not directly related to the agreement. 47 As Pauwelyn rightly notes, sometimes such seemingly informal interactions can be legally binding. Pauwelyn (n 15) 16. Unilateral Statements can, for instance, be legally binding, and oral agreements can also be treaties if States indicate an intent to be bound (although such treaties are not subject to the VCLT, which by its terms only applies to written agreements). What makes these instruments seem legal, however, is precisely the intent to be bound. Where that is absent, treating decidedly non-​legal actions or instruments as forms of informal lawmaking conflates the legal with the political. 48 T Meyer, ‘Soft Law as Delegation’ (2009) 32 Fordham Int’l LJ 888, 891. 49 To be clear, this distinction accepts the view that bindingness itself is a binary distinction. Rather, it seeks to distinguish among different kinds of non-​binding commitments based on how they interact with the legal system. This distinction among non-​binding commitments is also the reason this chapter does not widely use the term ‘political commitments’, which lumps all non-​binding instruments into the same category. 50 See C Brummer, Soft Law and the International Financial System (CUP, Cambridge 2015).

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  65 resolution, for instance, international arbitrators or judges may rely on soft law instruments to resolve disputes in a binding fashion.51 As Kaufmann-​Kohler explains, international investment tribunals regularly rely on non-​binding rules—​such as the International Bar Association’s Rules of Evidence and Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest—​to establish procedures through which to adjudicate disputes in a binding fashion.52 And Schill documents the use by investment tribunals of non-​binding instruments to fill gaps in international investment agreements.53 Non-​binding obligations may expand on or interpret a binding legal obligation. Binding legal instruments, for instance, often contain non-​binding obligations that may clarify or provide context for binding obligations in the same instrument. For instance, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change contains a non-​binding target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels—​an obligation relevant to understanding how States should approach the binding commitments established by the treaty. Similarly, decisions of treaty bodies, such as a Conference of the Parties (COP), are often non-​binding but can supplement or expound on binding obligations.54 By way of example, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, like many agreements, empowers its COP to ‘make, within its mandate, the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation’.55 These decisions could shape how member States understand the obligations of the Paris Agreement itself, thereby giving them legal effect. Of course, non-​binding agreements are not subject to the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility would not appear to apply to them.56 And, as I explain below, although reputational sanctions attach to non-​conformance with both binding and soft law instruments, they are weaker for the latter. But soft law agreements do often have enforcement mechanisms that give them meaningful bite. The JCPOA, for instance, includes a verification programme and the possibility of sanctions if Iran breached the terms of the agreement.57 The Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development’s (OECD’s) non-​binding Guidelines for Multilateral Enterprises can be interpreted prospectively by the Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises through a dispute-​ resolution-​like process.58 The mere fact of non-​bindingness thus does not preclude States from building in enforcement mechanisms similar to those found in binding instruments and designed to create legal effects.

51 See eg AK Bjorklund and A Reinisch (eds), International Investment and Soft Law (Edward Elgar, London 2012); but see J Klabbers, ‘International Courts and Informal International Law’ in Pauwelyn and others (n 15) 219 (arguing that international tribunals treat ostensibly non-​binding instruments as presumptively binding if the text evinces an intent to enter into commitments of some kind). 52 G Kaufmann-​Kohler, ‘Soft Law in International Arbitration:  Codification and Normativity’ (2010) 1 JIDS 283. 53 SW Schill, ‘Sources of International Investment Law: Multilateralization, Arbitral Precedent, Comparativism, Soft Law’ in J d’Aspremont and S Besson (eds), The Oxford Handbook on the Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2017) 1095. 54 For more on treaty bodies, see Chapter 17; for more on treaty interpretation, including the import of subsequent practice or subsequent agreements, see Chapters 19–​20. 55 Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016) UN Doc FCCC/​CP/​ 2015/​L.9/​Rev1, Art  16.4. 56 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries [2001] YBILC, vol II(2), UN Doc A/​56/​10, as corrected (ASR) (‘[F]‌or responsibility to attach to the act of the State, the conduct must constitute a breach of an international legal obligation in force for that State at that time’). 57 Although the United States maintains that the JCPOA is non-​binding, the existence of these mechanisms may be part of the reason that Iran argues that the JCPOA is, in fact, binding. 58 The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises:  Decision of the Council (June 2000), available at .

66  Foundational Issues

C.  Identification Lastly, faced with existing international instruments, international lawyers must also take on the difficult task of determining whether an agreement is legally binding or not. Such a determination can affect the application of the law of treaties, the law of State responsibility, the jurisdiction of international tribunals, and the application of domestic approval processes associated with different kinds of international commitments. Such a task is, of course, a necessarily comparative exercise. What kinds of evidence indicate an instrument is governed by international law so as to qualify as a treaty? Inter-​governmental organizations like the IAJC,59 as well as scholars,60 have bent themselves to the task of formulating an approach to identifying binding versus non-​binding commitments. International tribunals have also developed a jurisprudence aimed at distinguishing binding and non-​binding commitments. In Qatar v Bahrain61 and Pulp Mills,62 for instance, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the minutes of meetings between officials from the governments in question constituted binding agreements. In these cases, the ICJ applied an objective test, looking to the text of the instruments in question to determine whether the parties had made commitments to each other. Once it determined that they had made such commitments, the ICJ did not ask whether the parties intended those commitments to be legally binding, instead equating the existence of commitments with the existence of legal commitments.63 In other cases, such as the Iron Rhine and the South China Seas Arbitration, tribunals have considered the intent of the parties, asking whether the parties intended to make binding legal commitments or merely non-​binding (or ‘political’ or ‘aspirational’) commitments.64 I return to this subject in subsequent parts of this chapter.

II.  Why Do States Make Law Informally? Informal lawmaking has a number of potential drawbacks. Precisely because it is informal, it may exert less of a compliance pull on States.65 Under a ‘broken windows’ theory of international lawmaking, the increased use of informality could reduce the normative pull of formal international law.66 Informality might also be used as a way to short circuit the

59 See Hollis, Preliminary Report (n 22). 60 See eg J d’Aspremont, Formalism and the Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2011). 61 Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112. 62 Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay) (Judgment) [2010] ICJ Rep 128. 63 See Klabbers (n 51) 228–​9. 64 In the Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Award) (24 May 2005) RIAA XXVII 35, 92 (‘A key factor in distinguishing a “non-​ legally binding instrument” from a treaty is the intention of the parties. To ascertain this intention, the Tribunal will, first, review the circumstances that preceded the signature of the March 2000 MoU. It will then set out the content and determine the legal significance of this particular instrument. Finally, it will summarize the circumstances that followed the signature of the March 2000 MoU, and that ultimately led to the present arbitration between the Parties’); In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration (Award on Jurisdiction) (29 July 2015) PCA Case No 2013-​19 [243]. 65 AT Guzman, How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory (OUP, Oxford 2008) 142–​6. 66 See generally Weil (n 6) 414–​15; see also I Wuerth, ‘International Law in the Post-​Human Rights Era’ (2018) 96 Tex L Rev 279.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  67 ordinary mechanisms of accountability that comes with formal lawmaking.67 Why, then, do States rely on informal lawmaking? The traditional answer to this question has been flexibility. As Lipson describes informal agreements, ‘[t]‌hey are willows, not oaks’.68 On Lipson’s account, informal agreements are thought to be more flexible for several reasons. First, they are, it is claimed, more easily amended.69 Second, they need not be as specific as formal agreements, which means they make fewer informational demands on parties during negotiations.70 Third, informal agreements tend to be less prominent and subject to fewer legal formalities in their approval, reducing the costs of entering into informal agreements.71 Taken together, the lack of precision and reduced costs of entering into and amending the agreement make it easier for States to walk away from their commitments if circumstances change. This flexibility rationale has an intuitive appeal to it, but on closer inspection certain aspects of the flexibility rationale do not hold up, while others require greater specification. More specifically, we might ask: how do informal agreements create flexibility, and when is that flexibility valuable?

A.  Reduced penalties for violation Informal agreements’ flexibility flows primarily from reduced penalties associated with violating informal agreements. These reduced penalties have both a formal legal dimension and a practical one. As noted above, informal agreements are not subject to the law of State responsibility.72 One does not speak of a ‘breach’ of a non-​binding agreement in the same doctrinal sense that one speaks of a breach of a treaty.73 Indeed, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) would simply not apply to non-​binding agreements.74 In this sense, when States conclude non-​binding agreements they are making a (non)choice of law. Treaties are agreements between States governed by international law. States can also conclude contracts governed by some nation’s domestic laws.75 Or they can conclude non-​ binding agreements, which opt out of both of these sets of laws. Beyond the absence of sanctions associated with international law as such, non-​binding agreements also often carry fewer real-​world penalties for violation. In part, this can come from the absence of rules authorizing retaliation—​or countermeasures—​for violation. Although a State could consent in a soft law instrument to the withdrawal of a benefit if it fails to conform to the soft law instrument,76 background institutions and rules providing these mechanisms do not exist for non-​binding instruments. But it also flows from the 67 Pauwelyn (n 15) 22–​30. 68 C Lipson, ‘Why are Some International Agreements Informal?’ (1991) 45 IO 495, 500. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 But see J Klabbers, ‘Informal Agreements in International Law: Towards a Theoretical Framework’ (1994) 5 Finnish Ybk Int’l L 267 (arguing that informal agreements should be presumed binding unless evidence to the contrary can be shown). 73 Cf Hollis, Preliminary Report (n 22) [43]–​[46]. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 If the State consented in the soft law instrument to the withdrawal of the benefit in the event of non-​ conformance, the withdrawal of the benefit by another State would not itself be an internationally wrongful act.

68  Foundational Issues reduced reputational sanctions for violation. Binding and non-​binding agreements can be compared to contracts and pledges in the domestic system.77 A contract creates firm expectations in the mind of a counterparty. A pledge, by contrast, creates considerably weaker expectations. Put in everyday terms, think of two different responses to an invitation to a party. ‘I will be there’ creates a firm expectation that you will attend the event. ‘I will try to attend’ creates a much weaker expectation. This distinction matters when expectations are disappointed. Just as people have a reputation for abiding by their word, so too do States. Failing to live up to the expectations one has created hurts that reputation. A good reputation for compliance with one’s commitments is valuable to a State because it allows other States to more effectively rely on the State’s promises.78 This reliance makes international agreements more valuable, especially in the international system in which no central enforcement of legal obligations exists, and may help a State extract more valuable concessions from its partners. As a State’s reputation gets worse, it loses the ability to extract those valuable promises from other States. Other States cannot rely as accurately on its word, and so will demand more, either in terms of substantive concessions or guarantees, before they are willing to enter into an agreement. Entering into a binding agreement thus represents a risk for States. They are placing their reputation at risk if they later breach the agreement. Non-​binding agreements involve a less serious pledge of a State’s reputation. If a State fails to honour a non-​binding commitment, other States will not update their view of the ‘violating’ State in the same way, precisely because they never had the same kind of firm expectation that the State would behave in a particular way. Non-​binding agreements thus create flexibility by allowing States to violate their commitments at reduced cost. Significantly, though, this is true for both parties to an agreement. It is thus not obvious that States should want this kind of flexibility. The benefits from one’s own flexibility, in other words, come with the costs of other States’ flexibility. Only in some circumstances will this reciprocal flexibility make sense. These circumstances can arise either because of compliance concerns or as a way to ease negotiations. In economic terms, compliance flexibility will make sense when the marginal costs from higher sanctions are more than the marginal benefits from the sanctions. This, in turn, will occur when States face a high risk of unavoidable violations. Reputational costs, after all, are not like monetary damages. What one party loses represents a joint cost to the parties. States may rationally seek to avoid these joint costs. This ‘loss avoidance’ rationale explains why non-​ binding commitments are more prevalent than it might seem at first blush. The reduced costs associated with violating a non-​binding agreement also have implications for amending such agreements. States, after all, are not only the subjects of international law but also its authors. They can use non-​compliance with international agreements as a renegotiation tactic.79 Non-​compliance creates costs for other States. That is true for binding commitments, as well as non-​binding commitments. A failure by one country to adhere to the Basel Accords, for instance, could implicate the stability of financial institutions in other countries. In some circumstances, these costs can give States the leverage to renegotiate existing norms.

77

See generally Raustiala (n 24). AT Guzman, ‘A Compliance-​Based Theory of International Law’ (2002) 90 Calif L Rev 1823, 1849–​50. 79 JK Cogan, ‘Noncompliance and the International Rule of Law’ (2006) 31 YJIL 189, 205. 78

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  69 Non-​compliance can be used to renegotiate treaties and informal agreements alike. President Trump, for instance, likely put the United States in violation of its trade obligations by imposing tariffs on a wide range of Chinese products during 2018–​19.80 Those tariffs led to negotiations with China that could, in principle, change trade law. But lowering the costs of non-​compliance by making an agreement non-​binding makes this renegotiation tactic easier. Non-​compliance becomes cheaper, so States are more willing to engage in it as a vehicle to change the law. Sometimes States may choose soft law precisely because they wish to enable this kind of non-​compliance. In such situations, the choice of soft law may enable a powerful State to act as a leader in updating norms.81 For instance, the non-​binding nature of the Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines—​rules on trade in technology that can be used to make nuclear weapons—​has allowed the United States to push the boundaries of the rules in order to normalize civilian nuclear trade with India. Such trade was not permitted under the Guidelines because India was not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Using non-​binding guidelines to coordinate State policies on nuclear trade, though, allowed the United States to act as a leader in revising its own rules, which ultimately caused the Nuclear Suppliers Group to update multilateral rules.82 Similarly, Mark Pollack and Greg Shaffer have argued that States may choose to use soft law precisely because it conflicts with a pre-​existing hard law agreement.83 Soft law makes it easier for States to strategically establish conflicting rules as a means of changing the law—​ a process they refer to as hard law and soft law operating as antagonists. These conflicts work through essentially the same mechanism as the threat of violation. By reducing the penalty for violation, soft law agreements make it easier for States to create conflict that States then resolve by changing hard law agreements through amendment or interpretation. For instance, Iceland and Norway spearheaded the formation of the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO). They did so because they were unhappy with the binding moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).84 But NAMMCO does not promulgate binding rules that conflict with the moratorium. Instead, NAMMCO publishes non-​binding recommendations and guidelines on the harvesting of whales and small cetaceans.85 These guidelines aim to show that responsible rules can permit sustainable harvesting of whales without the IWC’s moratorium. More generally, the establishment of a rival regime like NAMMCO is easier for States precisely because the existence of non-​binding agreements lowers the costs associated with conflict among legal rules.

80 J Tankersly and K Bradsher, ‘Trump Hits China with Tariffs on $200 Billion in Goods, Escalating Trade War’ New York Times (17 September 2018). 81 T Meyer, ‘Shifting Sands: Power, Uncertainty and the Form of International Legal Cooperation’ (2016) 27 EJIL 161, 168. 82 Ibid. 83 Shaffer and Pollack (n 37) 743–​8. 84 See D Caron, ‘The International Whaling Commission and the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission: The Institutional Risks of Coercion in Consensual Structures’ (1995) 89 AJIL 154, 159–​65. 85 See eg North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO), Shooting Trials on Heads of Dead Pilot Whales: Guidelines to Test the Efficiency of Rifle Ammunition Used for Hunting and Euthanasia of Small Whales (March 2006) 14–​16; NAMMCO, Report of the Twentieth Meeting of the Scientific Committee (13–​16 November 2013) (discussing conservation and hunting efforts).

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B. Procedural flexibility Non-​binding agreements are also regularly thought to create more flexibility as a procedural matter. If an agreement is non-​binding, the thinking goes, States do not have to go through the same formalities in order to obtain approval for the agreement.86 While this difference in formalities is real in some circumstances, the difference does not drive behaviour in the way the literature often supposes. The claim that non-​binding agreements create procedural flexibility usually focuses on the different domestic procedures that governments use to approve international agreements. The US Constitution, for instance, requires that the Senate—​the upper chamber of the legislature—​gives advice and consent prior to the ratification of treaties.87 The Senate has been the graveyard for treaties for years. It famously failed to approve the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War, and foundational treaties like the VCLT and the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention have languished for decades. More recently, President Clinton felt he could not win approval of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocol, prompting his successor—​President Bush—​to ‘unsign’ the treaties.88 Legislative approval is not the only roadblock for binding agreements. In some countries, government agencies other than the foreign ministry lack the authority to conclude binding agreements. For instance, France does not recognize arrangements administratifs as binding agreements under international law.89 Similarly, a survey of American States done by the IAJC, acting through Special Rapporteur Duncan Hollis, revealed variation both in whether agencies other than the foreign ministry could conclude binding agreements, as well as the domestic procedures States use to conclude such agreements.90 In countries in which agencies lack the capacity as a matter of domestic law to enter into binding agreements, the willingness and resource capacity of the foreign ministry—​which may have little experience or interest in the subject matter of a particular agreement—​can constrain a State’s ability to enter into a binding agreement. In such situations, a non-​binding agreement may be an attractive—​and in some cases unregulated—​alternative. Although domestic hurdles to creating binding agreements can sometimes push States to use non-​binding agreements, one must be careful not to overstate the role domestic procedural flexibility plays in choosing non-​binding agreements over a binding alternative. In the United States, for instance, the impediment posed by the US Senate does not meaningfully constrain the executive branch from entering into binding international agreements. Under US law, the executive branch can make binding commitments in a very wide range of circumstances without Senate approval. Examples include major trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing 86 See eg J Galbraith and D Zaring, ‘Soft Law as Foreign Relations Law’ (2014) 99 Cornell Law Rev 735, 749. 87 US Constitution Art II, § 2[2]‌(‘[The President] shall have power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties provided two thirds of the Senators present concur’). 88 ET Swaine, ‘Unsigning’ (2003) 55 Stanford L Rev 2061, 2061–​2. States cannot technically ‘unsign’ treaties, and the United States is still listed as a signatory to these treaties. The legal significance of the US action is to clarify that the United States no longer intended to ratify the treaties, thereby removing any obligation under Art 18 VCLT and customary international law not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaties. 89 Pauwelyn (n 15) 19–​20. 90 See DB Hollis, Second Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.553/​18 (6 February 2018) [24]–​[28].

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  71 the World Trade Organization, and major environmental agreements, like the Minamata Convention on Mercury and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.91 Some of these agreements are approved by the full Congress, while others—​like the Minamata Convention and the Paris Agreement—​are not submitted for legislative approval at all. This flexibility in domestic procedures means that the US executive branch can avoid cumbersome legislative approval processes while still securing a binding international commitment.92 Tighter regulation of non-​binding agreements can also diminish the procedural flexibility such agreements afford, making them less attractive. The French government appears to discourage the use of non-​binding agreements among administrative agencies.93 States like Columbia, Mexico, and Peru often have their Foreign Ministry participate in the formation of non-​binding international agreements. Meanwhile, Panama refers most non-​binding agreements to its legislature for approval, meaning that concluding such an agreement does not allow the government to evade legislative oversight.94 The procedural flexibility of non-​binding agreements plays a more important role at the international level. The creation of binding international law is bedevilled by the problem of State consent.95 While customary international law does not require a State to consent before being bound,96 treaties do. As a consequence, getting agreement among States on the terms of cooperation can be quite difficult. States can use various ways to pressure each other to join agreements,97 but they have little legal recourse if a State continues to hold out. As a result, it is often said that States face a tradeoff between the breadth and depth of international agreements.98 States can make the substantive obligations of an agreement weaker in order to attract more participants, or they can have a tough agreement that binds only a smaller number of States. Non-​binding instruments offer a way to soften this breadth–​depth tradeoff. They do so in several ways. First, soft law agreements can complement hard law agreements.99 A number of scholars, for instance, argue that informal or soft law instruments can help build consensus among States.100 On this account, informal lawmaking can allow States to develop shared ideas, build trust, and ultimately form non-​binding rules that can harden into

91 NAFTA (Canada–​Mexico–​US) (signed 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) [1993] 32 ILM 296 and [1993] 32 ILM 605; Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 299; Minamata Convention on Mercury (adopted 10 October 2013, entered into force 16 August 2017) [2016] 55 ILM 582. 92 Such agreements might be considered ‘informal’ because they do not go through the most rigorous available approval process. See S Voigt, ‘The Economics of Informal International Law: An Empirical Assessment’ in Pauwelyn and others (n 15) 81 (treating binding international agreements not submitted to the US Senate for advice and consent as ‘informal’). 93 Pauwelyn (n 15) 19–​20. 94 Hollis, Second Report (n 90) [54]–​[55]; DB Hollis, Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements: Third Report, Inter-​ American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser.Q/​, CJI/​Doc.563/​18 (15 July 2018) [3]‌. 95 See eg AT Guzman, ‘Against Consent’ (2011) 52 VJIL 747, 748–​9. 96 Ibid 775. 97 For instance, the Montreal Protocol contains provisions on trade sanctions for non-​members. See Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, as adjusted and amended (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3, Art 4. 98 M Gilligan, ‘Is There a Broader-​Deeper Trade-​off in International Multilateral Agreements?’ (2004) 58 IO 459, 459–​60. 99 See Shaffer and Pollack (n 37) 726 (discussing the literature on soft law as complements). 100 D Trubek and others, ‘ “Soft Law” “Hard Law” and EU Integration’ in G de Burca and J Scott (eds), Law and New Governance in the EU and the US (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2006); DM Trubek and LG Trubek, ‘Hard and Soft Law in the Construction of Social Europe: The Role of the Open Method of Co-​ordination’ (2005) 11 Euro LJ 343.

72  Foundational Issues binding rules at some future date.101 Much of this scholarship views soft law as a second-​ best option, relative to hard law,102 except insofar as soft law makes an eventual hard law agreement easier.103 Others, however, argue that soft law can be a valuable alternative to hard law in its own right.104 By allowing States to reach agreement in situations in which they would not otherwise be able to, informal lawmaking expands the range of issues over which States can cooperate.105 In this sense, informal lawmaking complements formal lawmaking on the micro scale when it allows States to use soft law to develop interpretations of binding agreements. But it also complements hard law on a macro scale by giving States more tools to use in their pursuit of cooperative endeavours. This tool can soften the breadth–​depth tradeoff that formal lawmaking often faces. Informal lawmaking can also soften the breadth–​depth tradeoff by circumventing the consent requirement. International institutions often have the power to make determinations about the interpretation or implementation of international agreements. In certain circumstances, these determinations are binding. For instance, the IWC, discussed earlier, has the power to set legally binding catch limits for whales.106 Likewise, the decisions of the ICJ or the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body are binding on the parties to the dispute. Beyond those fairly limited circumstances, though, the decisions of international institutions tend to be non-​binding. As a result, most of the decisions of COPs, and indeed of international tribunals (at least with respect to parties not before the tribunal), are non-​ binding. For instance, the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change contemplated the creation of an enforcement system. That enforcement system, the treaty suggested, could be binding or non-​binding.107 If the COP adopted a system ‘entailing binding consequences’, that system would have to be approved by the members as an amendment to the treaty, meaning that each State would have to consent before it could be bound. Instead, the COP established the Kyoto compliance mechanism by a simple decision of the parties.108 That procedure allowed the adoption of a compliance system that could result in member States losing rights under the treaty (in this case, emissions rights) without each State individually having to approve the amendment. Decisions and opinions of bodies like the UN Human Rights Committee, an expert body convened under the auspices of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, have a similarly non-​binding effect. The Committee, and others like it under a variety of human rights agreements, issue interpretations of the treaties that create them. 101 See eg D Shelton, ‘Introduction:  Law, Non-​Law and the Problem of “Soft Law” ’ in D Shelton (ed), Commitment and Compliance (OUP, Oxford 2000) 1, 13; CM Chinkin, ‘The Challenge of Soft Law: Development and Change in International Law’ (1989) 38 ICLQ 850, 866. 102 See JJ Kirton and MJ Trebilcock, ‘Introduction’ in JJ Kirton and MJ Trebilcock (eds), Hard Choices, Soft Law: Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment, and Social Governance (Routledge, London 2004) 3. 103 F Sindico, ‘Soft Law and the Elusive Quest for Sustainable Global Governance’ (2006) 19 LJIL 829. 104 Raustiala (n 24) 398; Guzman (n 78) 1879–​81. 105 See Abbot and Snidal (n 18) 423. 106 See International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (done 2 December 1946, entered into force 10 November 1948) 161 UNTS 72, Art V. 107 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 10 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) 2303 UNTS 162, Art 18 (describing the procedures for adopting an enforcement system and providing that if those procedures are binding, they shall be adopted in the form of an amendment). 108 D Bodansky, The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2010) 248.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  73 These interpretations are non-​binding, but they shape the expectations States have as to what counts as compliance with the underlying binding obligation. In this way, expert committees operate as a backdoor vehicle around the consent requirement. A treaty body may be able to adopt interpretations of a treaty that the parties themselves would not agree to through the ordinary treaty-​making process. Nevertheless, if States’ views about what constitutes compliance are informed by these interpretations, then they have some legal significance. The same is true of non-​binding decisions from international tribunals. Of course, advisory opinions from the ICJ are not binding. Moreover, as noted above, decisions of most tribunals are not binding with respect to parties not before the tribunal. Despite this fact, many States may not be in a position to resist the development of a non-​binding jurisprudence that constitutes a gloss on their binding legal obligations. Indeed, part of the current crisis at the WTO—​in which the United States, under both Presidents Obama and Trump, have blocked the appointment of new members of the WTO’s Appellate Body—​stems from the United States’ belief that the Appellate Body had made decisions creating obligations to which it had not agreed and had applied a system of effectively binding precedent despite the lack of authorization to do so.109 In principle, the objection of a powerful State like the United States can check the growth and influence of this form of non-​binding law. However, even a State as powerful as the United States has not been able to dictate Appellate Body reform, and weaker States are in an even less enviable position in that regard. In short, despite the absence of formally binding effect, the WTO’s Appellate Body has managed to significantly change how States understand their WTO obligations.

III.  The Challenge of Informal Lawmaking Informal lawmaking faces a number of potential objections. Here I want to consider two: (i) the claim that informal lawmaking undermines the efficacy of formal lawmaking; and (ii) the claim that informal lawmaking is less accountable than formal lawmaking.

A.  The efficacy of international law The idea that informal international law undermines formal international law rests on the claim that the existence of informal lawmaking will either (i) cause States to conclude fewer binding agreements, thereby reducing their ability to coordinate behaviour effectively, or (ii) muddy the waters with respect to what counts as a binding agreement, thereby again reducing the incentive to comply with binding agreements. On close inspection, both of these arguments fall short. As discussed above, States are often reluctant to agree to formally binding obligations. The availability of informal obligations allows States to coordinate their behaviour in a range of circumstances in which they otherwise would not. To be sure, if given a choice between formalized cooperation and no 109 T Miles, ‘U.S. Blocks WTO Judge Reappointment as Dispute Settlement Crisis Looms’ Reuters (27 August 2018) at .

74  Foundational Issues cooperation, in some situations States might choose formal cooperation. But these circumstances are likely to be less in number and of less consequence than situations in which, in a world without informal cooperation, States simply forego cooperation entirely. Such a choice, after all, would reflect the status quo. More importantly, though, the idea that removing informal cooperation would boost the efficacy of formal law overlooks the fact that States do not bargain only on the dimension of legality. When negotiating international agreements, States have a host of tools that they can change in order to reach agreement. They can, for instance, make obligations vaguer or more precise; they can cover a topic comprehensively or leave issues unregulated or the subject of future negotiations; and they can include dispute resolution or some other form of delegated monitoring.110 Removing the legality of the agreement would simply mean that more tradeoffs are made on the other issues. In practice, that would mean that international legal obligations would often require less of States than a comparable informal agreement and would be less likely to include dispute resolution. Put differently, informal lawmaking can promote more meaningful and deeper cooperative terms precisely because it does not force States to make concessions on substance in order to reach agreement. Equally importantly, informal lawmaking allows States to update the law when circumstances have changed. The status quo bias of formal treaty-​making, in which each State must agree before it can be bound by amendments, means that a world with only formal lawmaking risks the irrelevance of that law.111 Instead, informal lawmaking acts as grease to the international legal system, making its overall functioning more fluid. This fluidity is especially valuable in situations in which States are uncertain about the future State of the world, such as in the presence of scientific uncertainty, and States have common interests.112 Where States have common interests, choosing non-​binding agreements does not necessarily carry with it a compliance cost, because States wish to comply with international norms anyway. But where States are uncertain about the future State of the world, they may wish to amend rules in response to new information. Formally, of course, a single State can prevent such an amendment, even when the amendment is in the interest of most States. Non-​binding agreements allow individual States to violate the existing agreement as a way to pressure holdouts to agree to amendments. In effect, it reduces the veto power of holdouts when States have a common interest in amendment. In the absence of common interests, on the other hand, States may—​even in the presence of uncertainty—​prefer a binding agreement that is more difficult to amend. The relative difficulty of using violation to induce change prevents States from being coerced into undesirable amendments. The existence of informal international law, and the related uncertainty about whether an obligation is binding might, in principle undermine the efficacy of formal international law. After all, the fact that not all agreements are legally binding will surely increase doubt about a range of instruments, some of which would not necessarily have had their legality in doubt. Indeed, States may strategically inject doubt on the subject.

110 See eg Abbott and Snidal (n 18) 422. 111 This may also explain the rising use of ‘tacit’ amendment procedures in various multilateral treaties. For more, see Chapter 14. 112 Meyer (n 81) 162.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  75 This concern, although a real one, is not as serious as it might first seem. After all, international lawyers regularly are called upon to determine the legality of an instrument or obligation. Indeed, identifying the legal bindingness of an instrument is one of the core tasks of foreign ministry lawyers. The fact that lawyers must make judgment calls, and that the existence of informal lawmaking may increase the number of circumstances in which they must do so, is not an objection to informal lawmaking writ large (although as I discuss below, some harmonization in approaches to identifying non-​binding agreements could also reduce the role of lawyers in making difficult interpretive judgments). And, in cases such as Qatar v Bahrain,113 Pulp Mills,114 and the Iron Rhine,115 international courts and tribunals have had little reluctance identifying which agreements are binding and which are not. Outcomes may, of course, differ. In part, these differences may reflect differences between an objective approach (Qatar v Bahrain, Pulp Mills) versus an intent-​based standard (Iron Rhine, South China Sea). But both objective and intent-​based standards will accord weight to the instrument itself, meaning that the kinds of evidence at issue may not be as starkly different under these two standards. Tribunals may also differ on whether they equate commitments among states with treaties,116 or whether they allow greater space for states to make non-​legally binding commitments. Moreover, international instruments often contain non-​binding obligations within them. For instance, Article 4.2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change—​surely a binding agreement—​contains a non-​binding commitment on governments to return their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.117 At least to the extent that informal lawmaking equates to non-​binding commitments, then, informal lawmaking is inescapable.

B.  The accountability of informal lawmaking The questions of whether informal lawmaking—​understood, again, to refer to non-​binding instruments—​is less accountable presents a somewhat more difficult challenge. Clearly, governments sometimes choose the form of international agreements to avoid domestic oversight, especially through legislatures. At the same time, though, informal international lawmaking must be compared to other forms of lawmaking, as well as realistic expectations for what accountability means. Viewed in this light, non-​binding instruments are not, as a category, less accountable than more formal means of lawmaking. At the outset, one must define what one means by accountability. Pauwelyn, for instance, focuses on the role of oversight mechanisms, transparency, and participation, while also highlighting the important temporal relationship between the lawmaking act and the opportunity for accountability to take place.118 Grant and Keohane have broken the 113 Qatar v Bahrain (n 61). 114 Pulps Mills (n 62). 115 Iron Rhine (n 64) 116 Klabbers (n 51) 228–​9 (suggesting that the ICJ’s jurisprudence equates the existence of a commitment with the existence of a legally binding commitment). 117 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 9 May 1992, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1771 UNTS 107, Art 4.2 (‘. . . with the aim of returning individually or jointly to their 1990s levels these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol’). 118 Pauwelyn (n 15) 22–​8.

76  Foundational Issues concept down even further, distilling seven different types of accountability: hierarchical, supervisory, fiscal, legal, market, peer, and reputational.119 These different methods of accountability typically involve different processes and different stakeholders. International institutions that depend on the financial support of governments, for example, are accountable to those governments that provide the bulk of such support. Once such broad views of accountability have been adopted, evaluating informal lawmaking as a category becomes extremely difficult. The extent to which particular rules or institutions are ‘accountable’ will vary based on the characteristics of the institution or rules, as well as the issue area, more than on the formality of the rules. The non-​binding (in the view of the United States) JCPOA regarding Iran’s nuclear programme received considerably more attention, and was therefore considerably more ‘accountable’ to public will than are run-​of-​the-​mill extradition treaties that are clearly binding. Moreover, the accountability of informal lawmaking should be compared to the alternative. Formal international law and international legal institutions are often perceived to suffer from a democracy deficit of their own.120 This view tends to privilege a notion of accountability to the people from whom national governments are thought to derive the right to rule. On this account, international law suffers from an accountability problem because it is further removed from the people, and in some versions because people of one nation are subject to rules negotiated by governments representing other peoples and nations. These criticisms do not flow from the characteristics of international law, but rather from its supranational nature. As such, these criticisms should apply equally to formal and informal international law. Indeed, on this view, informal international law may actually be more accountable. For instance, proponents of a strong view of national sovereignty sometimes object to international institutions because they constrain democratic choice at the national level. International law, in other words, becomes a way to tie the hands of future elected representatives.121 As discussed above, however, informal agreements are more easily broken. They therefore remain more accountable to the people because later governments are less constrained. A group of US senators relied on this very feature of the JCPOA in arguing that a future US president would be able to undo the deal.122 Even those with a more favourable view of international law might worry about informal lawmaking due to the different domestic procedures associated with its creation.123 The lack of legislative review, in particular, could lead to less democratic monitoring of the kinds of informal commitments into which States enter. In this sense, the rise of non-​binding agreements internationally would reinforce an ongoing trend in democratic countries like the United States or the EU in which power is increasingly concentrated in an executive that

119 R Grant and R Keohane, ‘Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics’ (2005) 99 Am Pol Sci Rev 1. 120 See JO McGinnis and I Somin, ‘Should International Law be Part of Our Law?’ (2007) 55 Stanford L Rev 1176; S Wheatley, ‘A Democratic Rule of International Law’ (2011) 22 EJIL 525. 121 On another view, this hands-​tying aspect is a feature, rather than a bug. See eg A Moravcsik, ‘Is there a “Democratic Deficit” in World Politics? A Framework for Analysis’ (2004) 39 Gov’t and Opposition 336, 344–​6 122 ‘Letter from Senate Republicans to the Leaders of Iran’, New York Times (9 March 2015) at 123 See generally Hollis and Newcomer (n 12) 575 et seq (discussing the circumstances in which the US Congress should be involved in the creation of non-​binding agreements); see also MD Ramsey, ‘Executive Agreements and the (Non)treaty Power’ (1998) 77 NC L Rev 133, 143.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  77 may be relatively less sensitive to the multitude of interests within the country than a legislature would be.124 This concern is a real one. As the IAJC’s ongoing study of non-​binding commitments demonstrates, many countries do not have established procedures governing the formation of non-​binding commitments.125 As such, a whole category of international commitments may evade legislative oversight. Once again, though, this concern is not unique to informal commitments. Formal international commitments frequently do not receive legislative review, either. Many countries are, of course, not democracies and thus no international commitments, formal or not, receive meaningful legislative review. In Westminster-​style governments, the executive rises from the legislature and thus the latter can usually be relied upon to approve agreements negotiated by the former, often with minimal oversight.126 And, as noted above, in countries like the United States the executive branch enjoys some discretion in choosing how and whether formal agreements will be legislatively approved, minimizing the differences between formal and informal agreements. Informal agreements can also be subject to legislative oversight, or other forms of scrutiny, if the obligations are domesticated. Legislatures might enact statutes codifying non-​binding international commitments, as some countries have done for the Kimberly Process.127 In other cases, non-​binding commitments may be domesticated through ordinary administrative rulemaking. The United States, for instance, has used administrative rulemaking—​subject to legislative oversight, if not express approval—​to domesticate the banking rules coming from the Basel Committee.128 Finally, the subject matter of an agreement may do more to determine the kind of oversight it receives. As the fate of the JCPOA—​the agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear programme—​in the United States illustrates, simply taking a high-​profile agreement away from the legislature does not insulate it from oversight. The US Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Review Act, which provided for some legislative review of the JCPOA.129 Despite these procedures, the JCPOA remained highly controversial in terms of its subject matter, and the Obama Administration’s decision to frame it as a non-​binding agreement not requiring congressional approval even became a political liability for the agreement. Ultimately, Donald Trump campaigned for and won the presidency with a promise to roll back the agreement if elected—​the ultimate kind of accountability. Ultimately, the accountability problem for international agreements of all stripes stems from the growing scope and detail of international cooperation. Globalization has increased the demand for international cooperation on an ever-​broader range of subjects. Democratic institutions, to say nothing of voters, frequently lack the attention or resources to monitor all that is done in their name. The result is, indeed, a lack of accountability, but one that flows more from the modern world and the demands it places on governments than from the legality of the commitments chosen. 124 See J Nzelibe, ‘The Fable of the Nationalist President and the Parochial Congress’ (2006) UCLA L Rev 1217; T Meyer and G Sitaraman, ‘Trade and the Separation of Powers’ (2020) 107 Calif L Rev 100. 125 See Hollis, Second Report (n 90) [53]–​[56]. 126 The UK Parliament’s (multiple) rejections of the May government’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement is a notable exception. 127 See eg Clean Diamond Trade Act, Pub. L. 108–​19, 117 Stat. 631 (2003). 128 PH Verdier, ‘U.S. Implementation of Basel II: Lessons for Informal Lawmaking’, in Pauwelyn and others (n 15) 437. 129 Pub. L. No. 114–​17, 129 Stat. 201 (2015).

78  Foundational Issues

C.  Guidelines for informal agreements? Having said that, much can be done both to boost the efficacy of informal agreements and to ensure that that they do not become an end-​run around political accountability. The IAJC’s draft OAS Guidelines for Binding and Non-​binding Agreements offers a good start in thinking about how to clarify issues around non-​binding agreements. The proposed guidelines cover a number of issues. Here, I want to touch on two: (i) the development and transparency of domestic norms regarding international agreements; and (ii) a set of principles on distinguishing binding from non-​binding instruments. First, the proposed Guidelines reaffirm that States are free to organize their domestic authorities as they like. At the same time, the Guidelines also call on States to develop and publish procedures governing the creation of non-​binding instruments.130 The Guidelines similarly call for governments to make public these authorities (as well as similar authorities for binding agreements), and also to track and publicize at least the most important non-​ binding commitments.131 The Guidelines also put forth an important call for governments to train their officials on how to handle international agreements of all stripes, because ultimately the effectiveness of any internal rules depend on those who must implement them.132 These proposals are eminently sensible. Non-​binding agreements still entail consequences, both for a State’s reputation and its relationships with other States; in many cases they can entail legal consequences for the State itself or for market participants. Developing internal rules to limit this exposure can help a State avoid finding itself in a difficult situation. Publicizing those rules, as well as the resulting agreements, can avoid misunderstandings with other States. In developing internal rules, however, States must also be sensitive to the considerations that may make non-​binding agreements attractive in the first place. If governments do, in fact, use non-​binding agreements in part to avoid the procedures associated with binding agreements, imposing procedures on binding agreements may have unintended consequences. The result may be that non-​binding agreements become unattractive and governments or agencies develop yet a new alternative. This danger is particularly acute if the role of coordinating non-​binding agreements is given to already-​overtaxed foreign ministries. Those foreign ministries may have difficult relationships with agencies handling foreign affairs on specific issues (defence, trade) that would be further burdened by putting the foreign ministry in the position of supervising how other ministries interact with their counterparts. Worse, a foreign ministry without adequate resources for this new task might find itself overwhelmed, leading either to a backlog of agreements or circumvention of the new domestic procedures. One way to ameliorate this difficulty lies in the second issue, how to distinguish non-​ binding and binding agreements. The Draft Guidelines do an admirable job of canvassing textual indications of an agreement’s binding or non-​binding status.133 Agreement among governments on how these textual clues should be interpreted would be a step forward. But, as the Guidelines themselves note, merely agreeing on these indicators would only narrow the possibility for confusion. States may still look at conflicting evidence and reach different 130 See DB Hollis, Fourth Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, Annex I, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.580/​19 (11 February 2019), Draft Guideline 4. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid Draft Guideline 6. 133 Hollis, Third Report (n 94), Draft Guideline 3. For more on these two approaches, see Chapter 1, at 27.

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  79 conclusions, a problem compounded by the fact that there are at least two approaches—​a subjective test focused on intent, and an objective test focused on text and structure—​for assessing the bindingness of an international instrument.134 For this reason, the Guidelines make an important call for States to do what domestic contracting lawyers have long been taught to do: include an explicit statement as to the legal status of an agreement.135 Doing so would have a number of salutary effects. Most obviously, it would be the single biggest step States could take to remove the confusion about an instrument’s legal effect.136 In some instances, of course, States may wish to be deliberately vague about the legal status of an instrument, perhaps because they have difficulty reaching agreement on its status, or because one side wishes to claim for domestic purposes that it is binding and the other side wishes to claim it is non-​binding.137 In such situations, States would remain free to rely on existing standards for evaluating legal status. But in most situations, removing the possibility of confusion would greatly increase the efficacy of both binding and non-​binding instruments. Including what amounts to a choice-​of-​law clause in international agreements would also circumvent disputes about how different countries interpret evidence of bindingness.138 Resolving disagreements about how to interpret particular pieces of evidence is fraught. Governments will typically have followed one approach for a number of years and may worry that changing their approach as part of a harmonization exercise may destabilize existing agreements negotiated under prior understandings. A choice-​of-​law clause would allow all governments to retain their existing views with respect to their existing agreements. Third, a choice-​of-​law clause would also alleviate the internal pressure on governments. While some central monitoring of both binding and non-​binding agreements would remain advisable, giving government lawyers standard language they could use in their agreements with their foreign counterparts would go a long way towards standardizing approaches within and across governments. It would reduce monitoring costs internally by limiting the discretion of government lawyers to the selection of a clause (binding or not), rather than allowing lawyers to make a range of choices that might affect how one views bindingness in a subsequent interpretative effort. The benefits of a choice-​of-​law clause all are improved if governments are able to agree on standard language for such clauses. Absent such agreement, the interpretation of such clauses could in principle recreate existing disputes about how to interpret the binding effect of text. Moreover, having agreed choice-​of-​law language internationally would also make it easier for governments to adopt internal procedures. Instead of each country generating its own language, countries could simply copy the international model. For this reason, the OAS draft Guidelines or similar projects should debate various formulations in an effort to secure widespread support among countries for specific clauses. 134 Ibid Draft Guideline 3.2 and accompanying commentary. 135 Ibid Draft Guideline 3.3. 136 A statement of intent still might not conclusively resolve an instrument’s status in all circumstances. During the International Law Commission’s discussions leading to the VCLT, for instance, Ago argued that international law might treat agreements among States on certain subject matters, such as territory or borders, as treaties regardless of States’ intentions. [1962] YBILC, vol I, 52 [19]. 137 Such a disagreement took place regarding the status of the JCPOA, with the United States and Iran taking opposite sides as to the agreement’s binding status. Similarly, the United States and the United Kingdom differed in the 1980s over the legality of a number of MOUs related to defence cooperation. See McNeill (n 31). 138 Disputes about the significance of the word ‘will’ spring to the mind of foreign ministry lawyers past and present.

80  Foundational Issues Finally, it is worth considering whether States should agree on a default rule for interpreting bindingness. Like a choice-​of-​law clause, a default rule would reduce reliance on interpretative methods that increase the uncertainty as to how an agreement will be viewed later in time. Klabbers has argued for such a rule and, in fact, sees one in the practice of certain international tribunals.139 His proposed default is that agreements between States (at least those evincing consent by the relevant actors) are binding unless a presumption in favour of bindingness can be rebutted. Such a presumption has much to recommend it. It preserves the normative nature of the legal system, puts States on notice they are likely to be expected to honour their commitments under the rule of pacta sunt servanda, and increases incentives to honour international commitments. At the same time, though, the opposite rule—​ a presumption in favour of non-​ bindingness—​has benefits as well. Most importantly, such a rule prevents States from unintentionally agreeing to more than they intended. Put differently, it places the burden on the State wishing to call the binding force of law into effect to make plain its intention. By so doing, leaders are not taken off-​guard if informal documents such as communiqués are treated as binding,140 and lower level officials do not as easily run afoul of domestic restrictions on the creation of binding agreements. Such a default rule also preserves the benefits of informal lawmaking, benefits that have been widely recognized by States and in academic commentary. A presumption in favour of bindingness risks eliminating those benefits by treating considerably more international agreements as binding, reducing the flexibility States enjoy in bargaining over the terms of international cooperation. A presumption in favour of non-​bindingness allows States to build agreements from the ground up, and ensures that more serious commitments receive more serious attention to their legal effects.

Conclusion Informal international law is neither new, nor is it likely to go out of style any time soon. As States expand the range of issues on which they cooperate, they are likely to need an ever-​ larger array of tools. Non-​binding agreements are an important part of a State’s toolkit. At the same time, though, the prevalence of such agreements also means that there are benefits from harmonizing how States approach them. International lawyers should not fear this push to regularize informal agreements. The presence of binding international agreements does not require a subordinate role for non-​binding agreements. Indeed, given the pressures on States to use non-​binding instruments, the efficacy of binding international law may increasingly depend on standardizing how alternative instruments are used.

Recommended Reading KW Abbott and D Snidal, ‘Hard and Soft Law in International Governance’ (2000) 54 IO 421 A Aust, ‘The Theory and Practice of Informal International Instruments’ (1986) 35 ICLQ 787 Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112

139 140

Klabbers (n 51) 231. See ibid (discussing examples).

Alternatives to Treaty-Making  81 Case Concerning Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina v Uruguay) (Judgment) [2010] ICJ Rep 128 J d’Aspremont, ‘Softness in International Law: A Self-​Serving Quest for New Legal Materials’ (2008) 20 EJIL 1075 AT Guzman and T Meyer, ‘Soft Law’ (2010) 2 J Legal Analysis 171 AT Guzman and T Meyer, Goldilocks Globalism (OUP, Oxford 2020) DB Hollis, Preliminary Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, 91st Regular Session, OEA/​Ser.Q, CJI/​doc.542/​17 (6–​16 August 2017) DB Hollis, Second Report on Binding and Non-​ Binding Agreements, Inter-​ American Juridical Committee, 92nd Regular Session, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.553/​18 (6 February 2018) DB Hollis, Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements: Third Report, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, 93rd Regular Session, OEA/​Ser.Q/​, CJI/​Doc.563/​18 (15 July 2018) DB Hollis, Fourth Report on Binding and Non-​ Binding Agreements, Inter-​ American Juridical Committee, Annex I, 94th Regular Session, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.580/​19 (11 February 2019) DB Hollis and JJ Newcomer, ‘ “Political” Commitments and the Constitution’ (2009) 49 VJIL 507 In the Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Award) (24 May 2005) RIAA XXVII 35 In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration (Award on Jurisdiction) (29 July 2015) PCA Case No 2013-​19 JJ Kirton and MJ Trebilcock (eds), Hard Choices, Soft Law:  Voluntary Standards in Global Trade, Environment, and Social Governance (Routledge, London 2004) J Klabbers, ‘Informal Agreements in International Law: Towards a Theoretical Framework’ (1994) 5 Finnish Ybk Int’l L 267 J Pauwelyn, RA Wessel, and J Wouters (eds), Informal International Lawmaking (OUP, Oxford 2012) (and chapters therein) K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581 GC Shaffer and MA Pollack, ‘Hard Law v Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance’ (2010) 94 Minn L Rev 706 D Shelton (ed), Commitment and Compliance (OUP, Oxford 2000) (and chapters therein)

4

Compliance or Effectiveness? Assessing the Reach (and Limits) of Treaty-​Making Lisa L Martin

Introduction Can treaties work if their members do not comply with the treaty’s terms? On its face, this may seem a silly question. This chapter argues that it is not at all silly, but probably misleading. Treaty effectiveness has only a minimal relation to compliance as generally understood by treaty lawyers and scholars. Treaty lawyers tend to focus first and foremost on divining the contours of agreement—​what terms can be negotiated and concluded? Once a treaty exists, their concerns shift to implementation with an eye to making—​or avoiding—​ claims that a member has breached whatever obligations the treaty imposes. Treaty scholars may be more familiar with the idea of effectiveness—​examining the treaty’s import for the underlying problem or issue that catalyzed its formation—​but they still emphasize compliance since it can be somewhat easier to measure than effectiveness, particularly if scholars default to studying secondary compliance. As such, the literature on treaties has often studied compliance rather than effectiveness. From the perspective of a social scientist with little interest in the concept of ‘technical compliance’, I find this direction in the literature (and practice) unproductive. Moreover, I believe that both treaty scholars and practitioners should reach a similar conclusion and re-​orient their efforts around effectiveness in creating and managing treaty commitments. This chapter begins by describing how the extant literature conceptualizes and measures treaty compliance and effectiveness. It then focuses on distinguishing these two concepts, and emphasizes how questions of treaty effectiveness, not compliance, deserve higher priority. The chapter’s final section offers some practical advice and principles for pursuing more effective treaty-​making.

I.  Conceptualizing and Measuring Treaty Compliance It is not unusual for scholars to interpret the question of how to ‘make treaties work’ as a matter of maximizing compliance.1 Compliance is a legal rather than political concept, and is quite narrowly defined. As we will see, it is important to distinguish the concept of compliance from related concepts such as implementation, effectiveness, or effects.

1 See G Ulfstein (ed), Making Treaties Work:  Human Rights, Environment and Arms Control (CUP, New York 2007).

Compliance or Effectiveness?  83 Neyer and Wolf provide a useful definition of compliance: ‘[a]‌ssessing compliance is restricted to the description of the discrepancy between the (legal) text of the regulation and the actions and behaviors of its addressees’.2 Compliance is therefore essentially about the behaviour of States who have joined a treaty that is in force.3 In order to determine whether a State is in compliance, one needs to interpret the treaty’s behavioural requirements and to measure the gap between those requirements and observed behaviour. According to this definition, the concept of compliance cannot apply to States that have not agreed to be bound by a treaty; asking if a State that has not consented is compliant has as little meaning as asking whether a car driving on a freeway is ‘compliant’ with the speed limit on a busy city street. It is also common for States to consent to a treaty, but for that treaty to be delayed coming into force (if it ever does). In this circumstance, the treaty imposes no obligations on States, and compliance is not an issue. However, it is possible that the not-​in-​force treaty nevertheless has an impact on State behaviour. Likewise, treaties to which a State has not consented may nevertheless channel that State’s behaviour. The United States, for example, has a legal community that often takes the lead on promoting ambitious international treaties. At the same time, divided government and a rigorous domestic ratification process sometimes leads to the United States failing to consent to the treaty. Important examples include the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. However, even as the United States has failed to ratify these treaties, its policy and practice track their provisions.4 Compliance is distinct from implementation, which refers to the process of translating treaty requirements into domestic legislation and administration. Governments could fully succeed in the implementation process, but unless this process has the necessary impact on behaviour, the State could remain out of compliance.5 For example, Cole finds that implementation of human-​rights treaties is closely linked to State capacity, but does not pursue the question of how implementation changes State practices.6 I discuss the concepts of effectiveness and effects more fully in the following section. For now, it is worth noting that it is possible for States to comply with a treaty but for it to be ineffective, and vice versa. For example, most treaties have loopholes and escape clauses that States can invoke, thus being in compliance but perhaps undermining treaty effectiveness. It is also possible that a treaty has significant impact on desired State behaviour—​such as moving polluting States toward environmental goals—​but so long as behaviour falls short of those goals, States may nonetheless remain out of compliance.

2 J Neyer and D Wolf, ‘The Analysis of Compliance with International Rules:  Definitions, Variables, and Methodology’ in M Zürn and C Joerges (eds), Law and Governance in Postnational Europe: Compliance Beyond the Nation-​State (CUP, Cambridge 2005) 40–​64 [42]; see also K Raustiala and A Slaughter, ‘International Law, International Relations and Compliance’ in W Carlsnaes, T Risse, and B Simmons (eds), Handbook of International Relations (Sage, Thousand Oaks 2002) 535–​58. 3 For more on the processes of treaty-​making, including consent to be bound and entry into force, see Chapter 9. 4 My thanks to Duncan Hollis for suggesting these examples. 5 Some treaties prescribe results that States should achieve, such as stopping the production of certain chemicals, without requiring specific procedural steps to achieve this goal. Others obligate States to legislate in a certain manner, for example criminalizing individuals who engage in production of those chemicals. When such procedural requirements are specified in a treaty, it is likely that implementation and compliance are more congruent than in cases where procedures are not specified. 6 W Cole, ‘Mind the Gap:  State Capacity and the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2015) 69 IO 401–​41.

84  Foundational Issues Some authors also distinguish between primary and secondary compliance. Primary compliance refers to the ultimate goals of the treaty, such as reducing pollution, limiting an arms race, or reducing abuses of human rights. Secondary compliance refers to the measures that the treaty specifies to further those ultimate goals. These measures might include reporting requirements, participation in dispute-​resolution procedures, or enforcing sanctions against non-​compliant treaty members. It is often the case that secondary compliance is relatively easy to observe by, for example, seeing whether the required reports have been filed. However, studies of secondary compliance may well have little to tell us about primary compliance, or treaty effectiveness more generally. The theoretical literature on compliance can be organized into three main lines of analysis.7 One camp, into which many legal scholars fall, is the ‘managerialist’ school.8 In this view, States intend to comply with the treaties that they join. Cases of noncompliance are relatively rare, and usually caused by either a lack of capacity or by treaties that are ambiguous. Improving compliance rates, according to this perspective, requires drafting treaties with clear expectations and building capacity as necessary. Empirical studies in the areas of environmental, human rights, and security agreements provide evidence regarding the positive effects of both capacity-​building and relatively ‘soft’ enforcement mechanisms.9 A second perspective sees high rates of compliance as a misleading indicator of institutional effects, while also being pessimistic about institutions’10 potential to lead to deep cooperation.11 In this view, compliance occurs only because most treaties do not actually require much policy change. In addition, because consenting to be bound by a treaty is voluntary, a screening effect keeps out potential members who object to the treaty’s demands. A third, more recent, view suggests that even if screening is a key treaty function, screening mechanisms can actually enhance cooperation among those who make it past the screen, so that dismissing such a mechanism as ‘just screening’ that results in no causal effect of the institution is inaccurate. Martin, for example, argues that a costly screening mechanism can be informative about States’ intention to cooperate, thus allowing deep cooperation to emerge.12 Baccini and Urpelainen find that substantial policy adjustment takes place between the time a State signs a treaty and its later ratification, so that measuring policy change only post-​ratification underestimates the treaty’s causal effects.13 A 2007 edited volume on ‘Making Treaties Work’ exemplifies the focus on compliance as the key to treaty effectiveness.14 That volume’s chapters, considering the issue-​areas of human rights, environmental agreements, and arms control, devote little space to examining the impact of treaties on State policies, instead drawing attention to the ‘compliance

7 See B Simmons, ‘Compliance with International Agreements’ (1998) 1 Int’l Rev of Political Science 75–​93. 8 See eg A Chayes and A Chayes, ‘On Compliance’ (1993) 47 IO 175–​205; A Chayes and AH Chayes, The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements (CUP, New York 1995); J Tallberg, ‘Paths to Compliance: Enforcement, Management, and the European Union’ (2002) 56 IO 609–​43. 9 See E Weiss and H Jacobson, Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords (MIT Press, Cambridge 1998); Ulfstein (n 1). 10 I use the term ‘institutions’ in the manner it is used by scholars of international relations, to refer to coherent sets of norms and rules that prescribe and proscribe behaviour. 11 G Downs, M Rocke, and P Barsoom, ‘Is the Good News about Compliance Good News about Cooperation?’ (1996) 50 IO 379–​406. 12 L Martin, ‘International Institutions: Weak Commitment and Costly Signals’ (2017) 9 Int’l Theory 353–​80. 13 L Baccini and J Urpelainen, ‘Before Ratification: Understanding the Timing of International Treaty Effects on Domestic Politics’ (2014) 58 Int’l Stud Q 29–​43. 14 See Ulfstein (n 1).

Compliance or Effectiveness?  85 mechanisms’ that various treaties employ. The chapters in this volume do look at the effectiveness of reporting mechanisms, thus drawing attention to the role of secondary compliance. For example, Zimmerman discusses the International Labour Organization (ILO), which has extensive reporting requirements. Many ILO members are in arrears on these requirements. Various ILO bodies can request special reports and issue comments indicating the degree of compliance of member States. However, this compliance control system lacks any enforcement capacity beyond this series of reports.15 Similarly, Scheinin examines the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), noting that the treaty does create legally binding commitments, but that it lacks actual enforcement mechanisms. However, Scheinin argues that the ICCPR could nevertheless be more effective if it had stronger backing from the community of States: ‘[I]‌t is not necessarily the lack of treaty provisions on the formally binding legal force of findings made by the Human Rights Committee that is the cause of the insufficiently efficient implementation.’ Scheinin notes some successes of the ICCPR through mechanisms largely consistent with the managerial approach, but notes widespread lack of compliance on multiple levels.16 Reeve provides an interesting discussion of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CITES is an unusual environmental agreement in that it specifically calls for trade sanctions for members that are found to be out of compliance.17 However, Reeve notes that these trade sanctions are not mandatory, and that there has been no survey to determine the extent to which members comply with recommendations to implement them.18 In addition, CITES provides significant loopholes, in that members are only required to enact legislation to comply with four basic CITES requirements; many other ‘requirements’ do not actually demand compliance. Reeve concludes that ‘[i]‌t is difficult to comment on the effectiveness of CITES compliance and enforcement mechanisms since there has been little empirical study or on-​site verification of compliance except in a few cases of serious generalized non-​compliance. Nevertheless, it is possible to conclude that the CITES compliance procedures have had effect, and most parties have moved toward compliance, at least on paper’.19 Thus, a study of how to make a treaty ‘work’ defaults to examining implementation and secondary compliance rather than actual policy changes. In contrast, an entire edited volume on making CITES work, with contributions by environmental scientists rather than legal scholars, barely addresses trade sanctions or compliance issues, focusing instead on issues such as preservation of habitat and optimal levels of allowed trade in species.20 Tabassi extends an empirical analysis to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC). Much of her discussion shows the verbal semantics that can make the 15 A Zimmerman, ‘Dispute Resolution, Compliance Control and Enforcement in Human Rights’ in Ulfstein (n 1) 15, 24–​6. 16 M Scheinin, ‘The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ in Ulfstein (n 1) 48, 69. 17 R Reeve, ‘The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)’ in Ulfstein (n 1) 134–​60 (‘Reeve, CITES’). See also R Reeve, Policing International Trade in Endangered Species: The CITES Treaty and Compliance (Routledge, Abingdon on Thames 2004). 18 Reeve, CITES (n 17) 153. 19 Ibid  152–​3. 20 J Hutton and B Dickson (eds), Endangered Species, Threatened Convention: The Past, Present and Future of CITES (Earthscan Publications, London 2000).

86  Foundational Issues concept of compliance not particularly meaningful. First, she notes that the CWC initially set deadlines for members to take particular steps. However, these deadlines were not adjusted for late joiners; therefore, these late joiners were automatically out of compliance when they joined the treaty. This created a situation where some States may see this arrangement as punitive and so not join at all.21 For the 167 States that have not declared that they possess chemical weapons or former chemical weapons production facilities, moreover, it is not clear what form compliance with the CWC’s deadline could take. In 2006, the CWC intensified efforts to get all members to take legislative or administrative measures toward implementation and set a deadline for these steps. ‘As the deadline approached, consultations on the results and possible follow-​up became intense as disagreement among State parties over the usage of the terms “non-​compliance” and “measures” became apparent . . .’22 At base, parties were challenging the idea that they could be labelled non-​compliant for failure to engage in secondary compliance measures; they argued that compliance should only be assessed with respect to fundamental chemical-​weapons-​related policies.23 States that possess large stockpiles of chemical weapons, including the United States, have also failed to meet deadlines. One analysis, while highly critical of the United States, does acknowledge that disarmament treaties cannot demand the impossible or jeopardize the entire agreement if unavoidable delays occur.24 Measuring primary compliance can be very difficult, perhaps explaining why so many empirical studies of compliance default to examining secondary compliance. Fariss presents an intriguing, if complex, approach to identifying a latent compliance variable. He begins by noting a perplexing puzzle relating to human rights measures overall. In spite of multiple human rights agreements and institutions coming into existence since the end of the Second World War, most datasets on human rights practices show no improvement in observed behaviour. Fariss argues this may be the case, not because actual State practices are stagnant, but because the various rating agencies and States have been applying higher standards of accountability over time. Applying his latent variable model, Fariss shows that respect for human rights has actually improved over time. For example, a simple linear model of the effect of the Convention Against Torture shows a decline in practices after ratification; the latent variable model in contrast shows a significant improvement in behaviour after ratification.25 Kapiszewski and Taylor provide an extensive discussion of the conceptualization and measurement of compliance in the context of judicial rulings. They importantly argue that ‘if compliance is to be understood as a meaningful indicator of judicial power, public authorities’ behavior must not only be in line with a judicial ruling but must be caused by 21 L Tabassi, ‘The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention)’ in Ulfstein (n 1) 273–​300. 22 Ibid 294. 23 M Asada, ‘The OPCW’s Arrangements for Missed Destruction Deadlines Under the Chemical Weapons Convention: An Informal Noncompliance Procedure’ (2014) 108 AJIL 448–​74 (discussing the mechanisms put in place when States with chemical weapons provided notice that they would not meet specified deadlines). A Kurzrok and G Hund, ‘Beyond Compliance: Integrating Nonproliferation into Corporate Sustainability’ (2013) 60 Bull of Atomic Scientists 31–​42 (proposing a completely new approach to meeting non-​proliferation goals, by directly engaging corporations rather than focusing on State-​level compliance). 24 DA Koplow, ‘Train Wreck: The US Violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention’ (2012) 6 J Nat’l Sec L & Pol’y 320. 25 C Fariss, ‘Respect for Human Rights has Improved Over Time:  Modeling the Changing Standard of Accountability’ (2014) 108 Am Polit Sci Rev 297, 313.

Compliance or Effectiveness?  87 it—​implying an overlap in descriptive and causal inference’.26 They go on to argue that the causal inference challenges inherent in both measuring and explaining compliance require multi-​method approaches. In a departure from most of the literature, they claim that ‘[m]‌ost scholars would probably agree that a practical—​and operationalizable—​definition of compliance must reference some change in behavior (or the avoidance of some prohibited behavior), and most would likely concur that in addition to full compliance and complete noncompliance, partial compliance is an empirical possibility that our definition and measurement strategies should accommodate’.27 While I fully agree that compliance can be partial, I do not agree with the claim that compliance can only constitute changed behaviour. Such an understanding would lead to the somewhat absurd claim that leaders in treaties—​States that already have in place policies consistent with treaty demands when the treaty comes into force—​are ‘out of compliance’ because the treaty did not lead to a change in their behaviour. Hillebrecht offers a persuasive approach to measuring compliance on a continuum rather than as a dichotomous variable in her study of Libya’s compliance with the International Criminal Court (ICC).28 Appel provides a more general assessment of the ICC’s deterrent effects, which may be understood as separate from (and far more interesting than) compliance with the ICC.29 Assessing compliance becomes especially difficult when multiple treaties and institutions operate in a single issue-​area. Raustiala and Victor (2004) developed the concept of ‘regime complexes’ to describe such situations. Compliance theory points out the clear danger that such complexes will raise the probability of noncompliance. It is unlikely that multiple institutions and treaties prescribe precisely the same criteria for compliance. States can therefore forum-​shop, search for the lowest common denominator, or claim legal obligations to one treaty that prevent compliance with another treaty, as a strategy to implement their own preferred policy.30 As an example, Panke and Staple find that structures of overlapping regionalism reduce compliance in Europe, as well as undermining organizational effectiveness. They also point out that when organizations overlap and their rules and norms are not consistent with one another, the chances of noncompliance rise.31 This is, of course, logically correct. However, the consequences of necessary noncompliance (when States belong to multiple organizations with incompatible rules) for effectiveness remain unclear.32 Pratt introduces a novel strategy for reducing the probability that regime complexes undermine compliance and effectiveness. He argues that many international organizations explicitly defer to others within a complex to set standards. Patterns of deference mitigate conflicting rules and norms and narrow the space within which States can avoid compliance. He finds that pressures of both power and functional capacity determine patterns of deference.33 Likewise, Abbott identifies patterns of orchestration, 26 D Kapiszewski and M Taylor, ‘Compliance:  Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Explaining Adherence to Judicial Rulings’ (2013) 38 Law & Social Inquiry 803, 804. 27 Ibid 806. 28 C Hillebrecht, ‘The Deterrent Effects of the International Criminal Court: Evidence from Libya’ (2016) 42 Int Interact 616–​43. 29 B Appel, ‘In the Shadow of the International Criminal Court: Does the ICC Deter Human Rights Violations?’ (2016) 56 J Conflict Resolut 516–​46. 30 See K Raustiala and D Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’ (2004) 58 IO 277–​309. 31 D Panke and S Stapel, ‘Overlapping Regionalism in Europe: Patterns and Effects’ (2018) 20 British J Politics & Int’l Rel 239–​58. 32 See Chapter 18 for a discussion of treaty conflicts and broader issues of the fragmentation of international law. 33 T Pratt, ‘Deference and Hierarchy in International Regime Complexes’ (2018) 72 IO 561–​90.

88  Foundational Issues by which certain international organizations steer the activities of multiple actors—​ including formal organizations, nongovernmental organizations, States, and private actors—​and coordinate regulatory and mobilization activities on the international level. Strategies such as deference and orchestration can coordinate standards and expectations in ways that mitigate the potential for State noncompliance in regime complexes.34 Compliance, while simple to define, thus turns out to be extremely difficult to measure in a meaningful way. Arguments about compliance, both among policymakers and scholars, can quickly devolve into semantics that overlook the underlying questions of whether treaties are working as intended. The next section more directly addresses this distinction between compliance and effectiveness.

II.  Contrasting Compliance and Effectiveness Asking about the ‘effectiveness’ of a treaty means asking whether the treaty is reaching its intended goals. These goals can be assessed on two levels. One is behavioural: is the treaty inducing the desired behavioural change among its members? The second is on the level of ultimate outcomes: does the induced behavioural change lead to the desired outcome, such as greater flows of trade or a reduction in global warming? It is worth nothing that ‘effectiveness’ is not necessarily the same as ‘effects’, as treaties and institutions may have undesired or unintended effects that differ starkly form the treaty’s goal(s). For example, Prorok finds that the ICC can have the unintended and undesired effect of prolonging civil conflicts. Because the ICC presents a threat of punishment for both State and rebel leaders, its active presence in a conflict can lead those leaders to avoid ending it in order to avoid such punishment.35 Treaty effectiveness should also be understood as distinct from primary compliance. A treaty may be effective in moving States toward intended outcomes even if they are not fully in compliance. In addition, as discussed below, States may find ways to claim that they are compliant even while they actively undermine the treaty’s intent. In spite of the clear and important distinction between treaty compliance and treaty effectiveness, authors in both legal studies and international relations continue to commonly substitute one for the other, or to use the term ‘compliance’ when they are actually interested in effectiveness, or treaty effects more generally. Martin notes some prominent examples of such usage, suggesting that social scientists who are interested in measuring and explaining the effects of agreements and institutions should entirely refrain from using the term compliance, as it introduces substantial confusion to the analysis.36 Agon finds a similar tendency in the literature on the performance of international law and institutions. She argues that ‘particularly among jurists, [prominent] has been the tendency to approach the effectiveness of

34 K Abbott and others, International Organizations as Orchestrators (CUP, Cambridge 2015). 35 A Prorock, ‘The (In)compatibility of Peace and Justice? The International Criminal Court and Civil Conflict Termination’ (2017) 71 IO 213–​43. Prorock finds that this negative effect of the ICC is conditional on the likelihood of domestic punishment. When this likelihood is high, the ICC’s negative effect dissipates. Ibid. 36 L Martin, ‘Against Compliance’ in J Dunoff and M Pollack (eds), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art (CUP, New York 2013) 591–​610.

Compliance or Effectiveness?  89 international law, and international courts in particular, through the prism of compliance with international norms and decisions’.37 Agon argues that the focus on compliance as the measure of effectiveness is especially notable in studies of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) dispute settlement system (DSS). The DSS moved strongly in the direction of legalization when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was replaced by the WTO, and thereafter many analysts used the measure of compliance with DSS rulings to establish effectiveness.38 Some have even gone as far as to assume ‘a causal relationship between judicial decisions and State practice, leading to a convergence of the two’.39 Agon specifies the blindspots that result when DSS effectiveness is assessed as compliance. She notes in particular that DSS goals are multiple and shift both over time and across issues. It is not possible to determine whether the DSS is reaching these complex, evolving goals with a one-​dimensional measure of compliance. Agon presents an alternative, goal-​based, approach, involving interviews with WTO staff to determine goals that serve as benchmarks for State behaviour and DSS effectiveness.40 Similarly, Hurd argues that the meaning of compliance—​and violations—​in the context of the United Nations Charter change over time. Because compliance is often a matter of interpretation, and interpretations are dynamic, the relationship between behaviour and compliance can become quite loose. Even when States apparently violate the Charter it exerts influence, and its role in the international system is determined by both international law and international politics.41 As argued more generally throughout this chapter, treaties can be effective independent of compliance, and compliance can be high without necessarily leading to effectiveness. When governments face domestic pressure to not comply with underlying norms, but pressure from international law to comply, one way to balance these pressures is to evade. States find ways to read laws narrowly or selectively so that they are not found noncompliant, while allowing norm violation to continue occurring. Búzás provides a fascinating study of racial equality norms in Europe. He develops the concept of ‘evasion’, by which States can technically comply with international law but continue to violate underlying norms. The potential for evasion can arise during the legalization process itself, as lawmakers’ attempts to translate norms into law leave intentional or unintentional gaps. Gaps between norms and law can also arise post-​legalization.42 Búzás describes a process of drifting, by which legal interpretations of the law become narrower over time, opening space for evasion.43 It is also possible for agents to intentionally steer law in ways that allow for evasion. Búzás finds numerous instances of egregious evasion, including the French expulsion of Roma immigrants and school segregation of Roma children in the Czech Republic.44 In order to make sense of these patterns of behaviour, he develops two other concepts—​deep compliance (where compliance conforms with norms as well as law) and deep violation (where 37 S Agon, ‘Is Compliance the Name of the Effectiveness Game? Goal-​Shifting and the Dynamics of Judicial Effectiveness at the WTO’ (2016) 15 World Trade Rev 671, 671–​2. 38 Ibid. 39 Y Shany, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts:  A Goal-​Based Approach’ (2012) 106 AJIL 225, 261. 40 See Agon (n 37). 41 I Hurd, ‘The UN Security Council and the International Rule of Law’ (2014) 7 Chinese J Int’l Pol 361–​79. 42 Z Búzás, ‘Is the Good News About Law Compliance Good News About Norm Compliance? The Case of Racial Equality’ (2018) 72 IO 351–​85. 43 See ibid 357–​8. 44 See ibid nn 35–​6.

90  Foundational Issues there are violations of both norms and law)—​as well as evasion.45 Once we consider the potential for evasion, and identify this practice as widespread, as Búzás does, it becomes even more clear that using measures of compliance to identify treaty effectiveness is inappropriate. Conforming behaviour to treaty terms is no guarantee of a solution to the underlying problems. Nor does the existence of enforcement mechanisms (eg an international court or administrative tribunal) change the analysis. As Helfer and Voeten argue, counting on courts alone to bring about social change is a ‘hollow hope’.46 If compliance is insufficient to assure treaty effectiveness, what does make a treaty work? Effective treaties exert their influence through many different mechanisms. The early literature on international institutions focused attention on strategic situations that involved significant negative externalities, in that a State deviating from the norms and rules of the institution imposed costs on other members.47 Many such situations have a ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ structure. For example, in an arms control treaty a State cheating and building improper armaments imposes costs on the other member(s) while gaining a unilateral advantage. In contrast, mutual restraint is jointly beneficial. Situations like this require a monitoring capacity so that cheating is quickly detected; and enforcement can take place through decentralized mechanisms of reciprocity. If a State cheats and is caught, it can anticipate that other members will likewise cheat, leaving everyone worse off. In this strand of the literature, the mechanisms that lead to effectiveness lie on the international level, through centralized monitoring and State-​to-​State enforcement. However, many treaties address issues that do not exhibit significant negative cross-​ border externalities or a Prisoner’s Dilemma-​type structure. The literature has increasingly examined effectiveness mechanisms in these settings, with attention turning from reciprocity to domestic-​level dynamics. For example, in the human-​rights issue-​area, one government’s abuse of its own citizens rarely has a direct negative effect on other States unless the level of abuse is so egregious that it creates massive refugee flows or other cross-​ border impacts. In settings like this, reciprocity cannot work as an enforcement mechanism; a State’s threat to abuse its own citizens in response to such behaviour in another State is nonsensical. Instead, treaties like this gain effectiveness largely through domestic dynamics or reputational mechanisms. Simmons finds that domestic lobbying groups and judicial systems can use international agreements to mobilize and pressure governments to adjust their behaviour in a pro-​compliance direction.48 Dai discusses ‘compliance constituencies’ at the domestic level, noting that they coexist with anti-​compliance constituencies. The effectiveness of agreements depends on the political balance between these two constituencies; in democracies, it comes down to their electoral power.49 Brutger and Strezhnev provide an interesting twist on this line of analysis by showing the role of the media in mobilizing anti-​compliance constituencies, leading to a backlash against treaties.50 While compliance constituencies make up one domestic mechanism that can lead to treaty effectiveness, other scholars have identified reputation concerns as an alternative 45 Ibid 360. 46 L Helfer and E Voeten, ‘International Courts as Agents of Legal Change: Evidence from LGBT Rights in Europe’ (2014) 68 IO 77–​110. 47 See eg R Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton University Press, Princeton 1984) 48 B Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics (CUP, New York 2009). 49 D Xinyuan, International Institutions and National Policies (CUP, New York 2007). 50 R Brutger and A Strezhnev, ‘International Disputes, Media Coverage, and Backlash Against International Law’ (2018) (working paper, manuscript on file with author).

Compliance or Effectiveness?  91 mechanism. If reputations matter in international politics, so that a good reputation leads to more cooperation with other States in the future or greater flows of goods such as development aid, a government’s concern for its own reputation may lead it to move toward the goals specified in treaties even in the absence of possible enforcement.51 It is worth noting that the literature on reputation as an effectiveness mechanism often overlooks the question of ‘reputation for what?’ For example, in the context of human rights, do States live up to the terms of an agreement because they want a reputation of being compliant or cooperative; or because they want a reputation of being a promoter of human rights? If the latter, we might expect States to promote human rights even in the absence of a particular international agreement. Echoing the overall theme of this chapter, it is vital to distinguish between compliance and substantive State behaviour; in the context of reputational arguments, such a distinction is necessary if we are to learn about underlying causal mechanisms. Overall, if we are interested in understanding whether a treaty is leading to the desired change in member behaviour, there really is no alternative to looking directly at behavioural change and asking about the extent to which it is driven by the treaty. Looking instead at measures of compliance can be highly misleading.

III.  Drafting Treaties for Effectiveness Drawing on the lines of analysis and empirical studies summarized above, we can begin to outline some principles for the drafting of treaties. In this section, I first take a look at work that examines the factors that lead individual elites to worry about future compliance when deciding whether to join a treaty. I then identify some of the key considerations that should go into treaty drafting if treaty effectiveness becomes the greater priority. Hafner-​Burton, LeVeck, and Victor present experimental work that provides an intriguing perspective on the role of enforcement mechanisms in making treaties effective. They note that elites who are considering making an international commitment, but are concerned that their government may fail to comply, could be reluctant to make the commitment and so are screened out of signing the treaty, let alone ratifying it. Long-​term concerns about compliance could therefore hinder cooperative efforts as States self-​select out of agreements.52 This conclusion can be read as providing partial support for the managerial school, in that excessive focus on enforcement provisions may not only be unnecessary, but counterproductive. The authors design an experiment to test the role of enforcement mechanisms in this potential screening effect. Some of their elite experimental subjects are exposed to a treatment that describes a trade treaty as including enforcement mechanisms, while the rest have described a trade treaty with no enforcement. The authors find that subjects who are told that there is a substantial (>50 per cent) chance that their State will fail to comply are more averse to signing than those who are not informed of a high default risk. In attempting to identify the source of this aversion, the authors find, surprisingly, that the existence of 51 See G Downs and MA Jones, ‘Reputation, Compliance, and International Law’ (2002) 31 J Legal Stud S95–​ S114; AT Guzman, How International Law Works: A Rational Choice Theory (OUP, Oxford 2008); R Brewster, ‘Unpacking the State’s Reputation’ (2009) 50 HILJ 231. 52 E Hafner-​Burton, B LeVeck, and D Victor, ‘No False Promises: How the Prospect of Non Compliance Affects Elite Preferences for International Cooperation’ (2017) 61 Int’l Stud Q 136–​49.

92  Foundational Issues enforcement mechanisms has no effect on this aversion to signing. It appears that other factors, such as concern for one’s reputation and being far-​sighted, are more consequential than the prospect of enforcement. While one should not read too much into a single experiment, their work suggests that membership decisions may be only weakly linked to potential enforcement. To put this another way, it appears that enforcement mechanisms may not deter States from joining agreements, alleviating one concern of the managerial school.53 This review of the compliance and effectiveness literature suggests the following principles for drafting effective treaties that negotiators may employ: • Do not attempt to reduce assessment of a treaty’s effectiveness to a single compliance indicator, even if compliance is understood to be on a continuum rather than an either-​ or choice. Recognize the treaty’s multiple goals and develop benchmarks to assess progress toward those goals that are focused on desired changes in members’ behaviour. Regularly re-​evaluate these goals, examining whether they need revision in the light of new information or changed circumstances. Treaties should have flexibility provisions that allow for regular review of goals. • To the extent that compliance is measured, direct resources to the measurement of primary rather than secondary compliance. The point can perhaps be made most clearly with an example of an environmental agreement. As discussed, most such agreements include regular self-​reporting requirements. Scholarly analysis of treaty effectiveness should put less emphasis on whether such reports are filed in a timely manner and more on whether parties to the treaty are changing their environmental policies and outputs in the prescribed manner. • Assess the institutional structure of the issue-​area into which the treaty is being introduced. Do multiple authoritative institutions and agreements already populate this issue, so that a regime complex exists? If so, consider the potential for States to shop among these institutions and exploit conflicting standards of behaviour among them. Consider strategies such as deference and orchestration to clearly align expectations and minimize evasion that is technically compliant. Deference occurs when certain organizations allow others to take the lead in setting policy and standards. For example, when the United Nations Security Council imposes financial sanctions to combat terrorism, it defers to the Financial Action Task Force, avoiding the creation of a complex web of rules that actors could easily circumvent.54 Orchestration involves the use of material and ideational support in pursuit of joint governance goals.55 For example, development agencies engage in orchestration when they work with groups of nongovernmental organizations to implement projects. Orchestration can limit practices that work at cross-​purposes. • The managerial approach and the enforcement approach are not incompatible with one another.56 Capacity-​building can coexist with clear enforcement powers, and minimal evidence exists that suggests that strong enforcement mechanisms deter States from agreeing to cooperate. Enforcement, effectiveness, and compliance have no necessary, fixed relationship to one another. Mechanisms to promote effectiveness need 53 See ibid. 54 See Pratt (n 33). 55 K Abbott and others, ‘Two Logics of Indirect Governance: Delegation and Orchestration’ (2015) 46 Brit J Polit Sci 719–​29. 56 See Tallberg (n 8).

Compliance or Effectiveness?  93 to be tailored to specific issues and groups of consenting States, and should be regularly re-​examined. • Consider possible differential effects of the treaty on different sorts of members. Many multilateral agreements have members who are leaders—​who fully support the goals of the agreement and likely have already taken large steps toward these goals—​and laggards, States that will need time and support to make progress towards those goals. The mechanisms that lead to treaty effectiveness will vary between these two groups. Legal scholars have developed the concept of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ to apply to situations where members are highly differentiated in their capacities and current policies, as is the case in many environmental agreements.57 While this flexibility is often necessary to promote effectiveness, it can also have the undesired effect of deterring States that would have the most stringent obligations from joining the agreement, as was the case with the United States and the Kyoto Protocol. • Consider the relationship between the underlying strategic problem among members and appropriate monitoring, enforcement, capacity-​building, and socialization mechanisms. Reciprocity will only work as an enforcement mechanism when the strategic situation has significant cross-​border negative externalities. If information about State behaviour is abundant or readily provided by third parties such as NGOs, investing resources in centralized monitoring is unlikely to enhance effectiveness. If an existing agreement is not having the desired effect, members should look into the agreement’s provisions for renegotiation or revised implementation terms in an effort to enhance effectiveness.

Conclusion: The Limits of Treaty-​Making This chapter has sought to explain how compliance and effectiveness are two entirely distinct concepts, and substituting one for the other leads to serious causal inference problems for practitioners and scholars alike. Compliance is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for treaty effectiveness. And while litigators will necessarily care about compliance in the context of their cases, negotiators and academics should focus instead on effectiveness. Efforts to draft treaties with an eye not only to the possible areas of agreement, but also the underlying goals that brought the negotiators to the table may bear more fruit. Scholars, moreover, should emphasize the effectiveness question to identify more accurately what treaty frameworks or elements can make treaties more effective, thereby furthering these instruments’ real-​world utility. In other words, it is time to orient the literature on making treaties effective, turning away from the study of compliance.

Recommended Reading K Abbott and others, International Organizations as Orchestrators (CUP, Cambridge 2015) S Agon, ‘Is Compliance the Name of the Effectiveness Game? Goal-​Shifting and the Dynamics of Judicial Effectiveness at the WTO’ (2016) 15 World Trade Rev 671–​72



57

CD Stone, ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities in International Law’ (2004) 98 AJIL 276–​301.

94  Foundational Issues Z Búzás, ‘Is the Good News about Law Compliance Good News about Norm Compliance? The Case of Racial Equality’ (2018) 72 IO 351–​85 A Chayes and A Chayes, ‘On Compliance’ (1993) 47 IO 175–​205 W Cole, ‘Mind the Gap: State Capacity and the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2015) 69 IO  401–​41 G Downs, M Rocke, and P Barsoom, ‘Is the Good News about Compliance Good News about Cooperation?’ (1996) 50 IO 379–​406 D Kapiszewski and M Taylor, ‘Compliance: Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Explaining Adherence to Judicial Rulings’ (2013) 38 Law Social Inquiry 803–​35 L Martin, ‘Against Compliance’ in J Dunoff and M Pollack (eds), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art (CUP, New York 2013) 591–​610 D Panke and S Staple, ‘Overlapping Regionalism in Europe: Patterns and Effects’ (2018) 20 British J Politics & Int’l Rel 239–​58 T Pratt, ‘Deference and Hierarchy in International Regime Complexes’ (2018) 72 IO 561–​90 K Raustiala and D Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’ (2004) 58 IO 277–​309 Y Shany, ‘Assessing the Effectiveness of International Courts: A Goal-​Based Approach’ (2012) 106 AJIL  261–​70 B Simmons, ‘Compliance with International Agreements’ (1998) 1 Int’l Rev of Political Science 75–​93 B Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics (CUP, New York 2009) J Tallberg, ‘Paths to Compliance: Enforcement, Management, and the European Union’ (2002) 56 IO  609–​43 D Xinyuan, International Institutions and National Policies (CUP, New York 2007) M Zürn and C Joerges (eds), Law and Governance in Postnational Europe: Compliance Beyond the Nation-​State (CUP, Cambridge 2005)

PART II

T HE T R E AT Y-​M A K E R S

5

Who Can Make Treaties? International Organizations Olufemi Elias

Introduction International organizations (IOs) are subjects of international law typically created by agreement between States, usually through treaties, for the achievement or furtherance of a common objective of the IO’s creators. Modern international organizations play a variety of direct and indirect roles in the treaty process.1 Indirectly, IOs provide a permanent forum where technical and legal experts may gather to facilitate treaty-​making. Bodies such as the International Law Commission (ILC) or the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) regularly identify and research issues worthy of treaty-​making, drafting texts that may form the basis for agreement among nation States.2 IOs also frequently set the agenda for treaty-​making, initiating and hosting treaty negotiations that, depending on the IO and the subject, may produce treaties involving a limited number of States (for example, the Council of Europe’s 2017 Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property) or those having universal aspirations (for example, the UN-​initiated 1998 Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court). Once a treaty exists, moreover, IOs can have extensive involvement in supervising the legal regime or directing its evolution.3 Modern treaties: often embrace a ‘managerial’ framework that  . . .  provide[s]‌for continuing interpretation/​ modification or for supervision/​monitoring through an existing IO, an IO created by the treaty itself, or ‘treaty organs’ that may or may not constitute an ‘international organization’ with distinct legal personality or a secretariat of its own.4

Through all of these indirect mechanisms, IOs have undoubtedly and substantially changed how nation States form, apply, and interpret treaties.5 1 On the roles of IOs in the treaty-​making process, see Chapters 9, 11, 14, 16, and 17; P Sands and P Klein, Bowett’s Law of International Institutions (6th edn Sweet & Maxwell, London 2009) 282 (distinguishing between ‘real law making by international organizations’ and ‘the preparation of inter-​state law-​making within an international organization’); see also JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-​makers (OUP, Oxford 2005) 269–​ 400 (‘Alvarez’); C Brölmann, The Institutional Veil in Public International Law: International Organisations and the Law of Treaties (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2007) Chs 5–​7; J Klabbers, An Introduction to International Organizations Law (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2015) Chs 3, 4, 8, and 12; JE Alvarez, The Impact of International Organizations on International Law (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2016) 233–​43 (‘Alvarez 2016’). 2 In recent times the ILC has seemingly turned away from its core task of proposing inter-​State negotiations for a treaty based on an ILC draft, preferring the issuance of ‘soft tools’ instead. Alvarez (n 1) 365. 3 See Chapter 17, 439 et seq. on how ‘treaty bodies’ play this role. 4 Alvarez (n 1) 317. 5 Whether these changes have improved treaty-​making is a separate question. On the one hand, IO permanence improves the availability of information and technical expertise. It may also facilitate greater transparency

98  The Treaty-Makers But IOs also play a direct role in treaty-​making. They have the capacity to—​and regularly do—​become parties to treaties in their own right, within the scope of their competencies and where other parties are willing to enter into treaty relations with them.6 This direct role is the focus of this chapter. In the 1949 Reparation for Injuries case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded that the UN exercised and enjoyed functions and rights that could only be explained on the basis of its possession of a large measure of international legal personality.7 One of the considerations on which the Court based this conclusion was that ‘practice—​in particular the conclusion of conventions to which the Organization is a party—​has confirmed the character of the Organization, which occupies a position in certain aspects in detachment from its Members’.8 Today, more than sixty years on, the treaty-​making capacity of IOs is certainly beyond doubt, as is clearly evident from the extensive literature on the subject9 and the ILC’s work leading to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (1986 VCLT or 1986 Convention).10 This chapter begins with an overview of the early practice regarding IOs as parties to treaties. Section II reviews the main issues in the 1986 VCLT, including the ways in which it differs from the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). Section III considers who is bound when an IO is a party to a treaty and Section IV reviews the types of treaties to which IOs are parties.

particularly by expanding the diversity of actors involved in treaty-​making, namely less powerful governments, non-​governmental organizations, and the growing ranks of the international civil service. On the other hand, IOs may be perceived to favour one group of States over others, leading to forum shopping by interested States. IOs themselves, meanwhile, may seek to expand their authority or work to justify their continued existence in ways that may not be efficient for the international system as a whole. See the excellent treatment of this question by Alvarez (n 1) Ch 6. 6 See DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters: Non-​State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl Law 137, 161–​5. 7 Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174,  178–​9. 8 Ibid 179. 9 See eg R Higgins, The Development of International Law through the Political Organs of the United Nations (OUP, Oxford 1963); H Chiu, The Capacity of International Organizations to Conclude Treaties and the Special Legal Aspects of Treaties so Concluded (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1966); K Zemanek (ed), Agreements of International Organizations and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer Verlag, Vienna 1971) 38 Österreichisches Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Supplementum 1; P Reuter, ‘First Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1972] YBILC, vol II, 171; P Reuter, ‘Second Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1973] YBILC, vol II, 75; P Reuter, ‘Third Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 135; P Reuter, ‘Fourth Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1975] YBILC, vol II, 25; P Reuter, ‘Fifth Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1976] YBILC, vol II(1), 137; P Reuter, ‘Sixth Report on the Question of Treaties Concluded Between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’ [1977] YBILC, vol II(1), 119; J Dobbert, ‘Evolution of Treaty-​making Capacity of International Organizations’ in The Law and the Sea: Essays in Memory of Jean Carroz (FAO, Rome 1987) 21–​102; H Schermers and N Blokker, International Institutional Law: Unity Within Diversity (6th edn Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2018) esp §§ 1742–​1800; Brölmann (n 1); Klabbers (n 1) Ch 4. 10 (Adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  99

I.  Recognizing the Capacity of IOs to Become Parties to Treaties The traditional view was that only States had the capacity to make treaties.11 Examples of treaty-​making by IOs existed in the period before the Second World War but were uncommon.12 In their 1962 Joint Dissenting Opinion in the South-​West Africa cases, Judges Spender and Fitzmaurice expressed doubts as to whether international legal opinion in the 1920s would have accepted the conclusion that the League of Nations ‘could have a legal personality separate and distinct from their Members and rank as entities “subjects of international law” ’.13 After the Second World War, however, doubts as to the distinct treaty-​ making capacity—​and related legal personality—​of IOs all but disappeared. The ability to enter into agreements was deemed necessary for IOs, in particular the nascent UN, to function.14 Article 43 of the UN Charter provided for the Security Council to conclude agreements with member States on the provision of armed forces, assistance, and facilities for the maintenance of international peace and security.15 The regulations adopted by the General Assembly to give effect to Article 102 of the Charter expressly contemplated that the UN, specialized agencies, and intergovernmental organizations could be parties to a treaty.16 The ICJ opinion in the Reparation case further confirmed these developments.17 Seyersted famously wrote in 1964 that the treaty-​making capacity of IOs derived from customary law to the effect that all intergovernmental organizations have inherent general treaty-​making capacity: ‘it has never been claimed in a concrete case that any of these treaties are invalid because the organization did not have the power under any provision of its constitution to conclude them, provided that no constitutional provision precluded it from so doing’.18 This view was supported by the ILC’s draft articles that were to become the VCLT. There, the ILC asked not whether IOs had treaty-​making capacity, but rather whether it was desirable to include treaties concluded by IOs alongside those concluded between States.19 All four Special Rapporteurs in the first, second, third, and fourth ILC sessions20 favoured

11 See Chiu (n 9) 4. 12 See eg ibid 8–​15 (noting examples of agreements the League of Nations entered into in the 1920s, including the Treaty between the Principal and Allied and Associated Powers and the Serb-​Croat-​Slovene State (adopted 10 September 1919) UKTS 1919 17 [Cmd 461]. Such treaties were concluded and placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations and Chiu argues that the acceptance of this function by the Council of the League of Nations was equivalent to its concluding treaties). 13 South West Africa Cases (Ethiopia v South Africa; Liberia v South Africa) (Preliminary Objections) [1962] ICJ Rep 465, 475 n1 (Joint Dissenting Opinion of Sir Percy Spender and Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice). 14 See Higgins (n 9)  241–​9. See J Klabbers, ‘The EJIL Foreword:  The Transformation of International Organizations Law’ (2015) 26 EJIL 22. 15 Art 43(3) UN Charter (‘the agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory States in accordance with their respective constitutional processes’). 16 See UNGA Res 97(1) (14 December 1946) (Arts 4(1)(a) and 10(a) of the ‘Regulations to give effect to Article 102 of the Charter of the UN’). For more discussion of these Regulations, see Chapter 11, at 258 et seq. 17 Reparation case (n 7). 18 See F Seyersted, ‘International Personality of Intergovernmental Organizations: Do Their Capacities Really Depend Upon Their Constitutions?’ (1964) 4 Indian J Intl L 1, 9–​10; see also F Seyersted, Common Law of International Organizations (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2008) 401–​5 (‘Seyersted 2008’); Chiu (n 9) 34. 19 See Dobbert (n 9) 5–​10. 20 JL Brierly, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, and Sir Humphrey Waldock served as Special Rapporteurs from the ILC’s first session in 1949 and in 1952, 1955, and 1961 respectively. For an excellent account of relevant discussions in the ILC, the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly, and at the 1968–​69 Vienna Conference, see Brölmann (n 1) Ch 8.

100  The Treaty-Makers the inclusion of IOs within the scope of the VCLT, but this was ultimately rejected by the Commission.21 The ILC acknowledged the possibility that IOs may enter into treaties but left the rules to govern their treaty-​making capacity to be determined elsewhere, thereby paving the way for a dual legal regime:  both the VCLT and a new Convention that would be adopted later. The ILC decided not to include IOs in the final draft because ‘it would both unduly complicate and delay the drafting of the present [1969] articles if it were to attempt to include in them satisfactory provisions concerning treaties of international organizations’.22 Hence the VCLT applies only to States.23 However, Article 3 VCLT provides: The fact that the present Convention does not apply to international agreements concluded between States and other subjects of international law or between such other subjects of international law, or to international agreements not in written form, shall not affect: (a) the legal force of such agreements; (b) the application to them of any of the rules set forth in the present Convention to which they would be subject under international law independently of the Convention; (c) the application of the Convention to the relations of States as between themselves under international agreements to which other subjects of international law are also parties.

Moreover, in reviewing the ILC report on the work of its 21st session, regarding the VCLT, the General Assembly adopted a resolution ‘recommending that the International Law Commission should study . . . the question of treaties concluded between States and international organizations or between two or more international organizations, as an important question’.24 The ILC was furthermore mandated to consult with principal IOs as appropriate.25 In 1982, the ILC, with Paul Reuter as Special Rapporteur, submitted draft articles for a new Convention on treaties concluded between States and IOs or between IOs to the UN General Assembly. A conference was convened in 1986 that ended with the 1986 VCLT’s adoption. It is noteworthy that many IOs were reluctant to participate in the 1986 conference, perhaps out of fear that this Convention would impede the liberties they already enjoyed in the field of treaty-​making.26 Relatively few organizations were invited to participate, and even fewer actually participated.27

21 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 9 [12]. The travaux préparatoires of the VCLT reveal that some participants—​eg, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)—​cautioned against creating a dual system. 22 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 187. See Dobbert (n 9) 25–​6. 23 There are, however, references to IOs in Arts 2, 3, 5, and 20 VCLT. 24 UNGA Res 2501 (XXIV) (12 November 1969). 25 Ibid. 26 Klabbers (n 1) 269. 27 Brölmann (n 1) 185–​90 (also noting that IOs did not have the right to vote, and that proposals put forward by organizations could not be put to a vote unless formally supported by a State). IOs of the UN system were in favour of a non-​binding declaration that would serve as the basis for the development of customary law, rather than a binding treaty, on the basis, inter alia, that the 1969 VCLT provided an adequate legal framework. See Administrative Committee on Co-​ordination Decision 1982/​17 (December 1982) UN Doc A/​C.6/​37/​L.12.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  101

II.  The 1986 Convention Though the 1986 VCLT has yet to enter into force, its provisions are generally accepted as the applicable international law.28 In its work on the draft articles that led to the 1986 VCLT, the ILC’s approach was to take ‘the text of each provision in the 1969 VCLT in turn and consider what changes of drafting or substance were needed to adapt it to treaties concluded between States and international organizations or between international organizations’.29 As a result, the 1986 VCLT bears a striking resemblance to its 1969 counterpart.30 In this sense, the 1986 VCLT was anticlimactic, especially given the background assumption that IOs had a special nature warranting special treatment in the treaty context.31 The 1986 VCLT does, however, differ from the 1969 VCLT in a number of respects.32 In most cases, as may be expected, references were added to IOs in provisions where the 1969 VCLT only referred to States. In fewer cases, provisions dealing specifically with IOs were inserted into the 1986 Convention.33 Key differences contained in the 1986 Convention include the following: • the use of the term ‘act of formal confirmation’ in place of ‘ratification’ in some of the provisions on entry into force of treaties (eg Articles 2(b)(bis), 14, 16, and 83);34 • the insertion of references to the governing role of ‘the (relevant) rules of the organization’ (eg Article 5 on the applicability of the Convention to constituent instruments of IOs and to treaties adopted within IOs; Article 6 on the capacity of IOs to conclude treaties; Articles 27(2) and 46 on the inability of an IO to avoid treaty obligations by referring to its own rules or violations thereof; Articles 35–​37 on rights and obligations of third States or organizations; Article 39 on the consent of an organization to

28 Art 85 of the 1986 VCLT requires ratification by thirty-​five States—​not IOs—​for its entry into force. IOs may deposit an instrument of formal confirmation or accession to the Convention, but this does not serve to bring the Convention into force. Thus, while the Convention has been ratified by forty-​four parties as of May 2019, only thirty-​two of these are States. The thirty-​two States are:  Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Gabon, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, Moldova, Senegal, Slovakia, the State of Palestine, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay. IOs that have formally confirmed or acceded to the 1986 VCLT are:  the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Criminal Police Organization, the International Labour Organization, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-​Ban Treaty Organization, the UN, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Universal Postal Union, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). 29 Dobbert (n 9) 8; see also Brölmann (n 1) Ch 10. 30 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 347. Aust states that while the 1969 VCLT did not apply to IOs, its rules were already applicable to IOs as a matter of customary international law. 31 See Brölmann (n 1) 197. 32 In a few cases, these differences are not related to differences between States and IOs. Art 9(2) of the 1986 VCLT, for example, states that the procedure for adopting the text of a treaty at an international conference is to be determined by the participants, and if this fails to produce agreement, the procedure adopted by two-​thirds of the participants present and voting would apply. Its 1969 VCLT counterpart contains only the two-​thirds rule. Another example is the Annex to the 1986 Convention, setting out rules relating to the arbitration and conciliation procedures under Art 66, which are more detailed and elaborate than those set out in the 1969 VCLT. 33 See Brölmann (n 1) Ch 10 (analysing the ILC debates and the drafting Conference); ibid 273–​81 (describing actual differences between the two VCLTs). 34 The procedures by which an IO consents to be bound by a treaty are referenced in Chapter 9, 221 et seq, Chapter 11, 265, and Part VII, 658 et seq and 669 et seq.

102  The Treaty-Makers the amendment of treaties; and Article 65 on the procedure for invoking defects in consent); • the insertion of a reference to Article 96 of the UN Charter (on the ICJ’s advisory jurisdiction, which is open only to IOs) in Article 66(b) on dispute settlement; • a clarification that where there is overlap with the 1969 VCLT—​for example where two State parties to the 1969 VCLT enter into a multilateral treaty with an IO—​the 1969 VCLT will prevail as between the States (Article 73); and • provisions indicating that the 1986 VCLT shall not prejudge questions regarding (i) the international responsibility of an IO; (ii) the termination of the existence of an IO; (iii) the termination of a State’s membership in an IO; and (iv) the establishment of obligations and rights for States members of an IO under a treaty to which that organization is a party (Article 74).35 In spite of the otherwise striking likeness between the two Conventions, the doctrinal division of opinion regarding the international legal personality of IOs, of which their capacity to conclude treaties is an important indicator, remains.36

A.  The capacity of IOs to conclude treaties Article 6 of the 1969 VCLT states clearly that ‘every State possesses capacity to conclude treaties’, but the formulation of a general provision on the capacity of IOs was more difficult; indeed, it had been one of the reasons why IOs were excluded from the scope of the 1969 VCLT. ILC discussions revealed divergent views. Some held the view that international legal capacity could only be conferred by the States parties to the constituent documents and that ‘an organization’s capacity to conclude treaties depends only on the organization’s rules’.37 Others held the view that IOs, in and of themselves, had the capacity to conclude treaties that were necessary for them to function.38 Article 6 of the 1986 Convention provides that ‘the capacity of an international organization to conclude treaties is governed by the relevant rules of that organization’. The ILC’s commentary to its draft articles explained that this provision reflects the absence of a general capacity for all IOs to conclude treaties. Any treaty-​making capacity must, instead, be derived from the individual circumstances of each IO: ‘It reflects the fact that every organization has its own distinctive legal image which is recognizable, in particular, in the individualized capacity of that organization to conclude

35 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1783–​800 for a discussion of the legal character, validity, binding force, conclusion, entry into force, and termination of agreements to which IOs are a party. See also Klabbers (n 1) Ch 4. 36 For recent discussion of this long-​standing issue, see eg Alvarez (n 1)  129–​45; Klabbers (n 1)  generally. Brölmann provides a sustained examination of the conceptualization of IOs as legal subjects, and argues that their ‘dual image’ as both vehicles for their Member States and as independent legal actors ‘cannot fully be accommodated in the current one-​dimensional system of international law’. Brölmann (n 1) 1. 37 [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 299. Since the late 1990s, a practice of explicitly bestowing international legal personality upon newly created IOs in their constituent documents has emerged, in particular regarding (but not limited to) Asian and Pacific IOs. See N Blokker, ‘Asian and Pacific International Organizations: Mainstream or Sui Generis? An International Institutional Law Perspective’ in CJ Cheng (ed), A New International Legal Order (Brill/​ Nijhoff, Leiden 2016) 188–​221. 38 See Blokker (n 37) 298–​9. For a recent account of the ‘functionalist’ theory, its historical developments, and its limits, see Klabbers (n 14) 9–​82.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  103 treaties.’39 However, that is not to say that international law does not recognize the general capacity of IOs to conclude treaties; the 1986 VCLT’s preamble states that ‘IOs possess the capacity to conclude treaties, which is necessary for the exercise of their functions and the fulfilment of their purposes’.40 Thus, the effect of Article 6 is to contextualize the general treaty-​making capacity of IOs—​international law empowers IOs to conclude treaties as long as ‘the rules of the organization’ are observed. The phrase ‘the rules of the organization’, according to Article 2(1)(j) of the 1986 Convention refers to a number of sources, ‘in particular, the constituent instruments, decisions and resolutions . . . and established practice of the organization’. The constituent instruments are typically the primary source for identifying the rules of the organization, and usually contain provisions that accord specific treaty-​making capacity to the organizations they establish.41 IOs may also be competent to conclude treaties on the basis of the necessary intendment of the provisions of their constituent instrument or other treaties; that is, they may be empowered to conclude treaties even where their constituent instruments do not expressly empower the organization to do so.42 Decisions of the competent organs of the organization, or the development of the law of IOs, may subsequently vest the organization with this capacity.43 Consistent with the ICJ’s ruling in the Certain Expenses case, an 39 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 24. See also Brölmann (n 1) 83–​90, 203–​5 (referring to the criticism levelled at Art 6 for not resolving this debate). On the related distinction between IO ‘capacity’ and ‘competence’ to conclude treaties, see G Hartmann, ‘The Capacity of IOs to Conclude Treaties’ in Zemanek (n 9) 127–​63, especially 149–​51. This is, however, a distinction that is largely unavailing in practice. See Klabbers (n 1) 267–​9; Brölmann (n 1) 90–​4. 40 See F Seyersted, ‘Treaty-​making Capacity of Intergovernmental Organizations: Article 6 of the International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations’ (1983) 34 Österreichisches Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 261, for a forceful defence of this view that the capacity of IOs must derive from international law. 41 The treaty establishing the Economic Community of West African States, for example, empowers the Community to enter into cooperation agreements with other regional communities, non-​Member States and other organizations. See Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (adopted 24 July 1993, entered into force 23 August 1995) 2373 UNTS 233, Arts 79–​85; see also Convention Establishing the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Art 43 (empowering the EFTA Council to enter into agreements with other States or IOs). 42 See eg Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (adopted 1 July 1968, entered into force 5 March 1970) 729 UNTS 61, Art 3. Art 3 provides that non-​nuclear weapons States shall enter into agreements on acceptable safeguards with the IAEA in accordance with the IAEA Statute and its safeguards system, even though the IAEA Statute preceded the Non-​Proliferation Treaty in time. By decision of the competent organ pursuant to Art XVI of the IAEA Statute, the IAEA may thus accept rights and obligations assigned to it by a treaty other than its own Statute. 43 Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1750. See, for example, Decision VI/​3 of the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, in which the Conference of the Parties adopted a ‘core set of elements for inclusion in the Framework Agreement to be signed between the secretariat of the Basel Convention (on behalf of the Conference of the Parties) and the representative of the host countries’ Governments’ for the purposes of establishing Regional Centres for the organization. UNEP, ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal’ (10 February 2003) UN Doc UNEP/​CHW.6/​40, 36. In its WHO Advisory Opinion, the ICJ noted that ‘in the World Health Assembly and in some of the written and oral statements before the Court there seems to have been a disposition to regard international organizations as possessing some form of absolute power to determine and, if need be, change the location of the sites of their headquarters and regional offices’. Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt (Advisory Opinion) [1980] ICJ Rep 73, 89 [37]. Regarding headquarters agreements, it is noteworthy that, while the UN Charter expressly authorizes the conclusion of agreements only with specialized agencies, the UN has signed agreements with the IAEA (per UNGA Res 1145 (XII) (14 November 1957)) and the OPCW (per UNGA Res 55/​283 (24 September 2001)) which are not specialized agencies. See Seyersted 2008 (n 18) 357–​71; HD Phan, ‘The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, International Legal Personality and its Treaty-​Making Power’ (2016) 13 IOLR 273–​307 (providing for a historical overview of ASEAN’s treaty-​making practice prior and after the adoption of the ASEAN Charter (adopted 20 November 2007, entered into force 15 December 2008), whose Art 3 and 41(7) explicitly conferred legal personality to ASEAN and invested it with the power to conclude agreements with countries or sub-​regional,

104  The Treaty-Makers IO’s treaty-​making power may also be implied when ‘appropriate for the fulfilment of one of the stated purposes of the [organization]’.44 Thus, even in the absence of express provisions in its constituent documents, the right to conclude treaties that relate to its headquarters and to the privileges and immunities of its staff is regarded as inherent to an IO.45 Article 2(1)(j) of the 1986 Convention also identified practice as a source of the ‘rules of the organization’. The ILC cautioned, however, against the temptation to regard the reference to practice as establishing a general capacity for all IOs to conclude treaties, noting that ‘the reference in question is in no way intended to suggest that practice has the same standing in all organizations; on the contrary, each organization has its own characteristics in that respect’.46 Article 6 thus sought to specify that treaty-​making capacity may be governed by the practice of a particular organization. There is some circularity in the reasoning here; the ILC explained in its commentaries to Article 6: that the question how far practice can play a creative part, particularly in the matter of international organization’s capacity to conclude treaties, cannot be answered uniformly for all international organizations. This question, too, depends on the ‘rules of the organization’; indeed, it depends on the highest category of those rules.47

The intention, however, was to underscore the importance of giving due consideration to the IO’s specific circumstances when determining the extent of its treaty-​making capacity.48

B.  Excess of competence As the ICJ stated in the Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict case: international organizations are subjects of international law which do not, unlike States, possess a general competence. International organizations are governed by the ‘principle of speciality’, that is to say, they are invested by the States which create them with powers, regional, and international organizations, pursuant to specific procedures prescribed by the ASEAN Coordinating Council in consultation with the ASEAN Community Councils). 44 Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1962] ICJ Rep 151, 168. 45 Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1751. 46 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 21. 47 Ibid 24. 48 The ILC further noted in its commentaries: It is theoretically conceivable that, by adopting a rigid legal framework, an organization might exclude practice as a source of its rules. Even without going as far as that, it must be admitted that international organizations differ greatly from one another as regards the part played by practice and the form which it takes, inter alia in the matter of their capacity to conclude international agreements. There is nothing surprising in this; the part which practice has played in this matter in an organization like the United Nations, faced in every field with problems fundamental to the future of all mankind, cannot be likened to the part played by practice in a technical organization engaged in humble operational activities in a circumscribed sector. Ibid.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  105 the limits of which are a function of the common interest whose promotion those States entrust to them.49

Thus, even if an IO may clearly have the capacity to conclude some treaties, it does not follow that it has the capacity to conclude any treaty. Article 46 of the 1986 Convention is the principal rule dealing with issues of competence arising from the rules of the organization. It provides that an IO: may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of the rules of the organization regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of fundamental importance.

This provision replicates Article 46 of the 1969 VCLT, and accords priority to the preservation of legal relations at the international level, rather than allowing the rules of an organization to govern the validity of the agreement.50 Thus, an IO, save for exceptional circumstances, is bound by the obligations under a treaty concluded by an organ that had not been appropriately vested with the competence to do so.51 The condition of a ‘manifest’ violation of a rule was the subject of considerable ILC discussion. The Commission apparently intended that, in determining whether a violation is ‘manifest’, the knowledge of the other parties to the treaty was to be considered to ascertain whether they could in good faith rely on the treaty’s validity. Accordingly, if the other party was aware, or ought to have been aware, of the violation, the IO may be able to invoke this against that party so as to invalidate the IO’s consent.52 This puts the onus on the other party to ensure that the IO is competent to conclude the treaty. This seems reasonable where an IO concludes a treaty with its own members—​as its members would have knowledge and, indeed, an interest in ensuring that the organization acts in accordance with the competence accorded to it—​but less so where IOs conclude treaties with non-​parties or other IOs. It seems doubtful that an IO’s governing body would be able to successfully argue that a treaty to which it was a party was invalid on the grounds that its consent to be bound was expressed in ‘manifest violation’ of a rule of that organization ‘of fundamental importance’. This is not much different, however, from the situation facing States; difficulties were acknowledged in relation to the equivalent provision in the 1969 VCLT, since ‘practical cases in which they could be invoked will be rather rare’.53 In the case of IOs, it is similarly difficult to imagine a situation in which an IO acts in accordance with the will of its Member States but in so doing manifestly violates a rule of that IO that is of fundamental importance.54 49 (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 66, [25]. The Court further explained that ‘in order to delineate the field of activity or the area of competence of an international organization, one must refer to the relevant rules of the organization and, in the first place, to its constitution’. Ibid [19]. 50 For further discussion of Art 46 of the 1969 VCLT, see Chapter 23, 554–55 et seq. 51 The General Conditions of the World Bank Group’s International Development Association (IDA) conservatively provides that parties to a financing agreement may invoke neither a violation of a law of any State nor a violation of the IDA’s Articles of Agreement in asserting a claim that the financing agreement is invalid or unenforceable. General Conditions for IDA Financing: Investment Project Financing, LEG5.03-​POL.105, 14 July 2017; See also Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1784. 52 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 52. 53 I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 172. 54 Klabbers makes the point most eloquently:

106  The Treaty-Makers The way Article 46 operates in the context of the compromise reflected in the 1986 VCLT also warrants some reflection. As we have seen, the 1986 VCLT reflects a compromise between the view that ‘an organization’s capacity to conclude treaties depends only on the organization’s rules’ and the view that ‘international law lays down the principle of such capacity’.55 Article 46, however, clearly assumes the latter view, that is, that IOs have the capacity to enter into treaties as a matter of international law. Indeed, Article 46 necessarily implies that an IO can be bound by treaty obligations even when its membership may have not expressly permitted it to do so under its internal rules. This reflects the pervasive tension between the view that strictly ties IO treaty-​making capacity to the will of its members and the view imposing a much less strict connection that underlies the 1986 VCLT—​a tension masked by the similarity between the 1969 and 1986 VCLT. Specific questions may also arise with respect to the IO’s internal distribution of any treaty-​making power it possesses. Such powers are usually entrusted to the supreme governing body of the organization composed of its full membership.56 Some organizations provide for other subsidiary organs to bear the exclusive competence to conclude agreements in their field of activity.57 The competence to conclude treaties on certain matters may thus be delegated from the plenary governing body to a subsidiary organ or to the Secretariat.58 Ultimately, however, the governing body retains supervision over the exercise of this competence. What happens when the governing body determines that the subsidiary organ or the Secretariat has exceeded its delegated competence to conclude a treaty is, however, less clear. Article 7 of the 1986 Convention provides that a person is considered as representing an IO for the purpose of: expressing the consent of that organization to be bound by a treaty, if: (a) that person produces appropriate full powers; or (b) it appears from the circumstances that it was the If supported by all members (or even by only a majority) three possible arguments may be used in support of the conclusion of the agreement in question. First, the members were of the apparent conviction that the agreement was intra vires . . . Second, if the power to conclude an agreement is not expressly provided for in the organization’s constituent document, it may nonetheless be implied in it. Third . . . the conclusion itself qualifies as subsequent practice of the organization and, if meeting with support, can be deemed to be acquiesced in . . . In other words, the main mechanism that exists so as to protect an organization’s members from excess of authority (i.e. the doctrine of ultra vires) may always be manipulated out of existence by those very same member states. Klabbers (n 1) 271. Recall, furthermore, that Art 8 of both the 1969 and 1986 VCLT allows for subsequent confirmation of acts relating to the conclusion of a treaty by persons without the required authority. 55 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 24. 56 Brierly, the ILC’s first Special Rapporteur for the law of treaties, took the view that ‘in the absence of provision in its constitution to the contrary, the capacity of an international organization to make treaties is deemed to reside in its plenary organ’. JL Brierly, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1950] YBILC, vol II, 231. Most organizations do not have detailed rules regarding the form and procedure for concluding treaties; the Rules of Procedure for the Conclusion of International Agreements by ASEAN, adopted on 17 November 2011, and the FAO’s ‘Principles and Procedures’ and ‘Guiding Lines’ are notable exceptions. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1789–​90; Phan (n 43) 297–​301. 57 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1765 (citing as examples the UN Security Council on matters of peace and security, UNICEF and UNDP in their fields, and the boards of the IMO, ICAO, and IAEA on several matters specifically attributed to them). 58 See H Neuhold, ‘Organs Competent to Conclude Treaties for International Organizations and the Internal Procedure Leading to the Decision to be Bound by a Treaty and Negotiation and Conclusion of Treaties by International Organizations’ in Zemanek (n 9) 195. For an example, see Rule 8(5) of the Rules of Procedure for the Conclusion of International Agreements by ASEAN, pursuant to which the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting may appoint the Secretary-​General of ASEAN to sign an international agreement on behalf of ASEAN.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  107 intention of the States and international organizations concerned to consider that person as representing the organization for such purposes, in accordance with the rules of the organization, without having to produce full powers.

In drafting this provision, the ILC felt that, similar to States, representatives of IOs should be subject to the requirement for full powers. But it appears that the ILC’s primary purpose in requiring full powers was only to identify the individual who could represent the organization and sign the treaty, rather than to determine the extent of that individual’s competence (in terms of the matters on which that representative could commit the organization). In the rare circumstances in which this problem presents itself in practice, however, Article 46 will almost certainly provide the solution, in favour of upholding the validity of a treaty concluded as a result of any excess of competence.

III.  Who is Bound When the IO is a Party to a Treaty? Under the principle of pacta sunt servanda set out in Article 26 of the 1986 VCLT, the organization itself is bound by the treaty it concludes, and accordingly it bears the incumbent responsibilities and duties. This is also true where an organ of the organization59 or the secretariat has concluded the agreement on the basis of delegated powers. When the organization is bound by the treaty, all its organs are bound to act in accordance with these obligations. In its Advisory Opinion on the Effect of Awards case, the ICJ confirmed this in the context of the binding force of judgments of the UN Administrative Tribunal regarding employment contracts concluded by the Secretary-​General with UN employees.60 The effect of treaties concluded by IOs on its Member States or its member IOs61 is, however, less straightforward. Are States bound by the obligations of the organization of which they are members? Rules 1 and 2 of the 2011 Rules of Procedure for the Conclusion of International Agreements by ASEAN, for instance, explicitly distinguish between international agreements ‘which create rights and obligations for ASEAN as a distinct entity from its member States’, and international agreements ‘concluded by all ASEAN member States collectively which create obligations upon individual member States’. In contrast, Article 216(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU, formerly Article 300 of the EC Treaty) makes it clear that States are bound in providing that ‘Agreements concluded by the Union are binding upon the institutions of the Union and on its Member States’. Where the position is not stated so clearly, competing views have been expressed. One early view saw IO treaty-​ making as essentially an act of its Member States, suggesting that IOs do not have legal personality but for the collective legal personality of its Member States.62 The ILC, however, adopted 59 See Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission [1994] ECR I-​3641 (European Court of Justice confirmed that an agreement entered into by the Commission binds the European Community in its entirety). For discussion of the allocation of responsibility in treaties to which the EU is a party, see Chapter 6, 118–19 et seq. 60 Effect of Awards of Compensation made by the UN Administrative Tribunal (Advisory Opinion) [1954] ICJ Rep 47, 53. 61 See Art 18 of the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO), in UNGA ‘Report of the International Law Commission’ UN GAOR 63rd Session Supp No 10 (2011) UN Doc A/​66/​10, 55. 62 See eg H Lauterpacht, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 100 (‘the treaty-​making power of international organizations is one of the significant instruments for their proper functioning and it seems desirable that that instrument should receive adequate recognition and elaboration. In fact, there would appear to be no

108  The Treaty-Makers a different view. Its draft Article 36bis sought to clarify the obligations incumbent upon IO members where an IO entered into a treaty: Obligations and rights arise for States members of an international organization from the provisions of a treaty to which that organization is a party when the parties to the treaty intend those provisions to be the means of establishing such obligations and according such rights and have defined their conditions and effects in the treaty or have otherwise agreed thereon, and if: (a) the States members of the organization, by virtue of the constituent instrument of that organization or otherwise, have unanimously agreed to be bound by the said provisions of the treaty; and (b) the assent of the States members of the organization to be bound by the relevant provisions of the treaty has been duly brought to the knowledge of the negotiating States and negotiating organizations.63

In proposing this draft article, the ILC had in mind instances where an IO treaty specifically contemplates the creation of rights and obligations for its Member States;64 and even then, Member States could become third parties to the treaty only when such a result was explicitly specified and accepted by those same Member States.65 Ultimately, the proposal was not adopted,66 but draft Article 36bis demonstrates that there was significant consensus within the ILC that an IO, and not its Member States, bears the legal consequences of its treaty relations. Still, there are real difficulties with this position: [I]‌f it is true that decision making (including decisions to conclude treaties) usually takes place by the unanimous consent of member States, then it follows that the will of the organization is identical to the will of all its members. Therefore, whatever the will of the organization may be, it can usually be considered to be the aggregate will of the member States, rather than the distinct will of the international organization. With that in mind, organizations could simply be regarded as exercising a delegated power: there would be no need for specific acts of consent, because it would be clear that all the organization’s acts would be based on consent reason why, in the sphere of the treaty-​making power, States acting collectively should not be in the position to do what they can do individually’). 63 [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 43. 64 In Professor Paul Reuter’s 10th report to the ILC on the ‘Questions of Treaties Concluded between States and International Organizations or Between Two or More International Organizations’, he observed: ‘what is beyond dispute is that the functions of international organizations lead them to conclude treaties which by their very nature will establish rights and obligations for their member States. This is the case with headquarters agreements between an organization and a host State; this is the case when an international organization is empowered to conclude certain agreements on economic matters, for the implementation of which States members are at least partially responsible’. [1981] YBILC, vol II(1), 67. 65 The ILC referred to the need for the initial consent not only of the States parties to the treaty concluded by the IO, but also the consent of the States members of that organization. The ILC included an additional condition that the consent of those Member States must have been brought to the knowledge of the States and organizations that participated in the negotiation of the treaty. [1982] YBILC, vol II(2), 46. 66 The debates in the ILC revealed divergent views on the part of members of the ILC and IOs, as well as a range of objections to the idea of considering Member States as bearing rights and obligations on the basis of treaties concluded by IOs. For a full discussion, see Brölmann (n 1) 212–​25. The remnants of draft Art 36bis are set out in Art 74(3) of the 1986 VCLT: ‘The provisions of the present Convention shall not prejudge any question that may arise in regard to the establishment of obligations and rights for States members of an international organization under a treaty to which that organization is a party’.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  109 anyway . . . Such a conception, however, would mean getting rid of the element of the distinct will, and therefore getting rid of an important justification for the existence of organizations. For if an organization does not have a distinct will, then why establish one to begin with?67

In some cases, the IO may not itself be a party to the treaty, but States may enter into agreements on its behalf. This concept is illustrated by some agreements on the privileges and immunities of IOs. The 1949 Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe, for example, is a treaty between the Member States only.68 An IO may thus become a party to a treaty that has been concluded by its members on its behalf, rather than by an organ of the organization itself.69 Special questions with regard to identifying the entity that is bound by agreements of IOs are raised by so-​called ‘mixed agreements’.70 Both Member States and the organization are parties to mixed agreements, each in respect of its own area of competence as determined by the rules of the organization, usually where the subject matter of the agreement falls partly within the competence of each. Where the IO’s entire membership subscribes to the treaty together with the IO itself, such mixed agreements provide a degree of reassurance to the other contracting party that the treaty will be deemed valid and the obligations performed. In such cases, questions as to whether the IO exceeded its competence to enter into an agreement would become an internal matter to be resolved between the organization and its Member States; it appears that such excess will not serve to invalidate the treaty with respect to the other contracting parties.71 Incomplete mixed agreements—​where an IO enters into a treaty but not all its Member States follow suit—​pose more difficulties. Situations could arise in which some of the treaty’s obligations apply in the territory of the Member States by virtue of their IO membership, while other parts of the treaty falling within the competence of Member States (eg rules on implementation and enforcement of the treaty by national authorities) would not be applied by those States that are not parties to the treaty as such.72 Such a situation is not necessarily problematic; it should be remembered that 67 Klabbers (n 1) 279. See also Klabbers (n 14) 24–​36, for a critical analysis of the principal-​agent relationship between Member States and IOs under the ‘functionalist’ theory. 68 The Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (adopted 9 September 2002, entered into force 22 July 2004) 2271 UNTS 3, is another treaty concluded by States parties. It was adopted by the Assembly of States Parties, an organ of the Court, in 2002, but was opened for ratification, acceptance, or approval by signatory States and entered into force when the requisite number of States became parties. The Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations (adopted 13 February 1946, entered into force 22 July 1946) 1 UNTS 15, was concluded by the Member States and adopted by the General Assembly in 1946. See also Chiu (n 9) 71; Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1763–​4. 69 This does not mean that, when a majority of its Member States has ratified a treaty, an IO is bound by such treaty. See eg Advisory Opinion on Accession by the Community to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Opinion 2/​94 (28 March 1996) ECJR, I-​1783. The ECJ recalled that although the European Community (now European Union) is not bound by the provisions of the ECHR, the Convention has ‘special significance’ given that its Members are predominantly party to the convention. See G Le Floch, ‘Responsibility for Human Rights Violations by International Organizations’ in R Virzo and I Ingravallo (eds), Evolutions in the Law of International Organizations (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2015) 382–​91. See also Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1577–​8. 70 Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1756–​62. The EU is the greatest contributor to the practice regarding the conclusion of mixed agreements and is the subject of Chapter 6. 71 See France v Commission [1994] (n 59). Where a State becomes a new member of an IO, it will, generally speaking, be bound by the agreements already entered into by that organization. Schermers and Blokker argue that these new members should be required to adhere to the mixed agreements as a condition for their membership, citing as an example Art 5(2) of the 2003 Act concerning the accession of ten new Member States to the EU, OJ L 236 (adopted 23 September 2003, entered into force 1 May 2004). Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1761. 72 See eg 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994)  1833 UNTS 3 (UNCLOS) (Annex IX, Art 2 authorizes an IO to sign the Convention if the

110  The Treaty-Makers the decision whether to accept selective participation depends on the preferences of the drafters, who may have agreed to tolerate such partial adherence.73 Another facet of the question of which entities are bound by the IO’s treaty obligations lies in identifying where responsibility and liability ultimately lie in case of a breach of the agreement. The matter goes beyond the law of treaties, and is the subject of debate. For those who view the separate legal personality of IOs as paramount, it is the IO that is responsible and liable for breach of the treaty.74 On the other hand, those who view IOs as mere vehicles for their members find it easier to assume the responsibility and liability of the members: injured parties ought to be protected through ‘indirect’ or ‘secondary’ responsibility of the members of the IO.75 The view taken by the ILC in the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO) adopted in 2011 is that membership in an IO alone does not imply or create a presumption of responsibility for the acts of that IO.76 Under the DARIO, the responsibility of the IO is the rule, and the responsibility majority of its members are signatories while Art 3 provides for an IO to confirm or accede to the Convention if the majority of its members have done so. Art 4(3) of Annex IX provides that ‘an international organization shall exercise the rights and perform the obligations which its member States which are Parties would otherwise have under this Convention, on matters relating to which competence has been transferred to it by those member States’. Art 5 sets out the requirement that the other parties to the treaty be notified, upon formal confirmation or accession, of the allocations of competences between an organization that becomes a party to a treaty and its Member States). See also Convention on International Liability for Damage caused by Space Objects (adopted 29 March 1972, entered into force 3 October 1973) 961 UNTS 187, Art 22 (references to States shall be deemed to apply to organizations which have declared their acceptance of the rights and obligations of the Convention if a majority of the members of the organization are parties to the Convention); Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 May 2008) 2015 UNTS 3, Art 44 (providing that IOs ‘shall declare, in their instruments of formal confirmation or accession, the extent of their competence with respect to matters governed by the present Convention. Subsequently, they shall inform the depositary of any substantial modification in the extent of their competence’). 73 See eg Schermers and Blokker (n 9)  §§1759–​61 (describing the Memorandum of Understanding of 19 September 1974 between the United States on the one hand and Euratom and some of its Member States on the other concerning nuclear science and technology information, in which the United States agreed that it would receive information on the research carried out by Euratom and some of its Member States, and would for its part provide information ‘which would be beneficial’ to all members of Euratom, including those that were not party to the Memorandum). 74 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1583–​62. 75 For further discussion of the question of responsibility and liability beyond the confines of the law of treaties, see ibid §§1582–​90; Klabbers (n 1) Ch 14, esp 306–​8; R Higgins, ‘Report of the Institut de droit international on the Legal Consequences for Member States of the Non-​Fulfilment by International Organisations of Their Obligations toward Third Parties’ (1995) 66 Ybk Institute Intl L 251; CF Amerasinghe, ‘Liability to Third Parties of Member States of International Organisations: Practice, Principle and Judicial Precedent’ (1995) 85 AJIL 259; M Hirsch, The Responsibility of International Organisations towards Third Parties: Some Basic Principles (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1995); I Brownlie, ‘The Responsibility of States for the Acts of International Organizations’ in M Ragazzi (ed), International Responsibility Today: Essays in Memory of Oscar Schachter (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005); Seyersted 2008 (n 18) Ch 10. 76 See DARIO (n 61) 80–​1, 157–​68 (Draft Art 3 and Part 5, and the commentary thereto, which include the comments of States and IOs). The ILC’s work has been criticized, inter alia, for failing to sufficiently distinguish the rules on the responsibility of IOs from the rules applicable to States. It has been argued that the DARIO merely reproduce the Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (also known as the State responsibility articles or ASR). UNGA ‘Report of the International Law Commission’ UN GAOR 58th Session Supp No 10 (2003) UN Doc A/​58/​10. This criticism is unfounded: while the ILC naturally took the ASR as a starting point, in order to maintain a coherent body of rules on international responsibility, it did not work under the assumption that solutions applying to States would necessary be applicable to IOs. On the contrary, the ILC adopted an approach based on the adaptation of the ASR to the specific nature of IOs whenever the study of particular issues relating to IOs produced results that differed from those reached by the ILC in its study of State responsibility. See UN Doc A/​58/​10, 30. Part V of the DARIO (dedicated to the responsibility of Member States for the acts of an IO), for example, deals with a subject that was not included in the ASR. It should also be noted that the similarity between the DARIO and the ASR is not as marked as the similarity between the 1969 VCLT and the 1986 VCLT. The ILC’s approach has been commended, and it has been stated that the DARIO were successful in ‘respect[ing] the idiosyncrasy of international organizations’. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1590A–​1590C.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  111 of its Member States, the exception. Only in a few exceptional circumstances can Member States be responsible for the wrongful acts of an IO.77 In cases of mixed agreements, the allocation of liability for a breach may prove much more difficult, depending on a determination of the allocation of competences between the IO and its Member States. Treaties rarely address this issue, although Annex IX of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides for joint and several liability between an IO and its Member States should they fail to inform other contracting parties of how they divide responsibility for specific matters covered by that treaty.78

IV.  Types of Treaties Concluded by IOs IOs have concluded treaties on a wide range of issues with their own Member States, with non-​Member States, and with other IOs.79 The types of treaties IOs actually conclude are a function of their competence to act and the acceptance of that competence by the other contracting parties.80 IOs most often enter into bilateral agreements such as headquarters agreements delineating their status within host States and relationship agreements in which they coordinate activities with another IO or a State. An IO may have the competence to enter into law-​making treaties (such as the 1986 Convention) but there is little evidence of IO adherence to such treaties,81 especially human rights treaties.82 This paucity of practice may be attributed to the limited powers of the organization to effectively and fully meet the obligations incumbent in such treaties. In considering the question of UN accession to the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims,83 the UN Office of Legal Affairs issued a memorandum stating: [T]‌he United Nations is not substantively in a position to become a party to the 1949 Conventions, which contain many obligations that can only be discharged by the exercise of juridical and administrative powers which the Organization does not possess, such as the authority to exercise criminal jurisdiction over members of the Forces, or administrative competence relating to territorial sovereignty. Thus the United Nations is unable to

77 See DARIO (n 61) 157–​68 (Part V). For further discussion, see Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1590B. 78 UNCLOS (n 72) Annex IX, Art 6. 79 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1749–​50, 1769–​82 for a discussion of the varied subject matter of agreements concluded by IOs. In terms of numbers, by 1983, the UN Treaty Series had published more than 2,000 treaties to which IOs were parties. Ibid §1749 n278. See also Brölmann (n 1) Ch 7. Treaties concluded by IOs must be distinguished from ‘internal’ agreements concluded between different organs of the same IO, or other agreements relating to the functioning of the organization, as these agreements are governed by the internal law of the IO. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1746. For the same reason, other agreements may not be considered as treaties but rather as declarations of policy or political instruments. Ibid § 1783. For example, because members of NATO did not wish to create legal relations with the Russian Federation, the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation was concluded as a political instrument and is not a treaty; the test being whether the agreement in question is governed by international law. [1997] 36 ILM 1006; see also Chapter 3 on informal agreements. 80 See Hollis (n 6) 163. 81 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1775, noting that general economic treaties sometimes expressly provide for the participation of the European Union or other IOs. 82 See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1773–​5. 83 Eg Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 287, Art 3.

112  The Treaty-Makers fulfil obligations which for their execution require the exercise of powers not granted to the Organization, and therefore cannot accede to the Conventions.84

The Office of Legal Affairs explained that it takes steps to ensure compliance with the Geneva Conventions, through ‘exchanges of letters’ and ‘regulations issued by the organization’,85 but was reluctant to enter into the treaty knowing that it was unable to perform the obligations therein.86 Other institutional and legal complexities may impede the adherence of IOs to human rights treaties. While the accession of the European Union to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) has been discussed since the late 1970s,87 and despite the introduction of an explicit competence for the European Union to accede to the ECHR into the Treaty on European Union (TEU) by the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon,88 the European Court of Justice recently blocked accession, considering that the draft agreement (5 April 2013) providing for the accession of the European Union to the ECHR was not compatible with the founding treaties of the European Union.89 In its Opinion, the Court expressed concerns that accession could upset the underlying balance of the European Union and undermine the specific characteristics and autonomy of EU law.90 Even if an IO has the competence to perform the treaty’s obligations, its ability to join will also depend on its acceptance by the other contracting parties. Some treaties limit participation exclusively to States.91 Thus, even if an organization such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is competent (whether by itself or in concert with its Member States) to comply with the obligations of certain international humanitarian law treaties, often these treaties lack provisions for IO membership.92 In such cases, as with new treaty negotiations, the participants must consent to the IO becoming a contracting party.93 However, 84 UN Office of Legal Affairs, ‘Memorandum on the Question of the Possible Accession of Intergovernmental Organizations to the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims’ (1972) UNJY 153 [3]‌. 85 Ibid  [4]‌. 86 Schermers and Blokker indicate, nonetheless, that IOs such as regional organizations are required to apply the main substantive provisions of regional lawmaking treaties such as the ECHR, arguing that the legal foundation of this obligation lies ‘not in its character as an international treaty but rather in its character as a general principle of law codified by treaty’. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1577. 87 Memorandum on the accession of the European Communities to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Commission of 4 April 1979, Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 2/​79 (adopted by the Commission on 4 April 1979). 88 Article 6(2) TEU, as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, provides that the European Union ‘shall accede to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Such accession shall not affect the Union’s competences as defined in the Treaties’. 2007/​C 306/​0 (signed on 13 December 2007, entered into force on 1 December 2009). 89 Case C-​2/​13, Opinion 2/​13 of the Court pursuant to Article 218(11) TFEU, 18 December 2014, §258. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1576, 1774A. 90 Case C-​2/​13 (n 89) §§ 178–​258. 91 This is often true of major human rights treaties. See eg International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 19 December 1996, entry into force 3 January 1976) 999 UNTS 3 (ICESCR) Art 26; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1996, entry into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR) Art 48. 92 For example, the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (adopted 10 October 1980, entered into force 2 December 1982) 1342 UNTS 137, Art 3, limits membership to States, but several of its Protocols restrict or prohibit contracting parties from using certain weapons in conflict, obligations with which NATO could comply. See eg Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons (Protocol IV) (adopted 13 October 1995, entered into force 30 July 1998) 1380 UNTS 370. 93 See eg the 1999 Protocol to Amend the 1949 Convention on the Establishment of an Inter-​American Tropical Tuna Commission [2000] 40 ILM 1494, pursuant to which the parties to the Convention amended it to permit EC (now EU) participation and to prohibit the participation of EU Member States unless those States represented

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  113 the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), adopted on 13 December 2006,94 is open for signature by ‘regional integration organizations’.95 The European Union has since completed the procedure of conclusion by depositing its instrument of formal confirmation with the UN Secretary-​General in New York on 23 December 2010, and the UNCRPD entered into force with respect to the European Union on 22 January 2011.96 IOs may also enter into agreements for the establishment of a new IO, although they cannot do so independently.97 In creating a new IO by treaty, negotiating States may agree to participation in that IO by other IOs. But, the UN Office of Legal Affairs has expressed the view that IOs, as entities with a will distinct from its members, may not establish other IOs: The capacity to establish international intergovernmental organizations having separate legal personality is, under international law, conferred upon States through the conclusion of agreements. International intergovernmental organizations which are the creation of States cannot in and of themselves create new international organizations, endowed with the same international legal personality, unless they are specifically mandated to do so by States.98

Thus, if an IO wishes to enter into an agreement for the establishment of a new organization, it must carry with it the will of its Member States. This was achieved by the UN and the FAO through the passing of parallel resolutions in the governing body of their respective organizations in order to establish the World Food Programme.99 Other entities, such as joint programmes or networks between IOs, may also become IOs with full international legal personality, as demonstrated by the transformation of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR), an informal network of public and private sector entities brought together by the World Bank in 1971, into an ‘independent international

territory outside the EU. See also European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) 213 UNTS 222 (ECHR) Art 59 (reserving accession to members of the Council of Europe), Protocol No 14 to ECHR (entered into force 1 June 2010) CETS 194 (amending the ECHR to provide a legal basis for the European Union’s accession). However, the European Union is, so far, the only IO allowed to accede to the ECHR. 94 UNCRPD (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 May 2008)  2515 UNTS 3; see also UNGA Resolution 61/​106 (13 December 2006). 95 UNCRPD (n 94) Art 44(1) (‘regional integration organization’ is defined as an organization ‘constituted by sovereign States of a given region, to which its member States have transferred competence in respect of matters governed by the [Convention]’. Such organizations shall declare, in their instruments of formal confirmation or accession, the extent of their competence with respect to matters governed by the UNCRPD). See Le Floch (n 69) 382–​91. 96 As of May 2019, no other IO has acceded to the UNCRPD. See eg Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §1577. 97 Klabbers gives one example of an organization established solely by other organizations: the Joint Vienna Institute, created by the Bank for International Settlements, EBRD, IMF, and OECD. Klabbers (n 1) 292. 98 UN Office of Legal Affairs, ‘Legal Capacity of International Intergovernmental Organizations to Establish Other International Organizations—​Legal Capacity of the United Nations Development Programme to Participate in the Establishment of Other International Organizations or to Establish its own Subsidiary Organs’ (1991) UNJY 296 [4]‌. Schermers and Blokker argue, however, that once IOs have been accepted as subjects of international law, they should be permitted to participate fully in the establishment of new IOs. Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1776–​8. 99 UNGA Res 1496 (XV) (27 October 1960); UNGA Res 1714 (XVI) (19 December 1961); UNGA Res 2095 (XX) (20 December 1964); and FAO Resolution 1/​61 (FAO, ‘Report of the Conference of FAO 11th Session’ (1961) [54]) and FAO Resolution 4/​65 (FAO, ‘Report of the Conference of FAO 13th Session’ (1965) [119]).

114  The Treaty-Makers organization with full international legal personality’, with the support of a number of States.100 IOs often enter into agreements with other IOs on a multitude of issues, such as cooperation on technical activities or the sharing of facilities. Where there is an overlap between the membership of the IOs that are party to the treaty, this creates an anomalous situation when one organization seeks to enforce an obligation under the treaty. Those Member States seeking enforcement would be calling upon themselves to comply with the obligations set forth in the treaty, or to compel the organization to which they are members to do so.101 IOs may also enter into agreements so that they can become members, alongside their Member States, of other IOs. In such cases, specific rules must be adopted to determine that IO’s role in decision-​making. This often entails an arrangement between the member IO and the States that are members of both organizations to determine, for example, where the member IO may speak (and vote) on behalf of the States, and where it cannot,102 and, where applicable, how the member IO will be represented in the organs of the other organization, and the respective liabilities of the organization and its Member States for financial contributions.103

Concluding Remarks The purposes for which an IO was established plays an essential role in delimiting the scope of its powers, including its treaty-​making powers.104 It is no surprise then that the 1986 Convention, including especially Article 6, leaves decisions regarding particular issues arising from the exercise of treaty-​making power to be decided on a case-​by-​case basis depending on the particular rules of the organization in question. Nevertheless, the deliberations surrounding the conclusion of the 1986 Convention and academic research have identified a number of outstanding issues. Most notably, there is a continuing tension between the status of IOs as independent subjects of international law distinct from Member States, on the one hand, and the fact that these organizations—​like international law—​are the creation of sovereign States who retain that status in several important respects, even as

100 Agreement Establishing the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers as an International Organization (signed 13 September 2011, entered into force 20 July 2012) Art 1(1). The Consortium is explicitly vested with the capacity to enter into treaties by Art 1(1)(a) of the Agreement. Membership is open to Member States of the UN, the specialized agencies of the UN, and the IAEA. See Klabbers (n 1) 300 for other examples. 101 See Klabbers (n 1) 292, 299. 102 Klabbers gives the example of the EU practice in FAO meetings where the EU declares the distribution of powers between itself and its members on various issues on the agenda. Ibid 295. Klabbers also argues that if the Member States of the member organization contribute to the budget of the target IO, it is unlikely that the member organization would be required to do the same, ‘save perhaps to cover any additional costs arising out of its separate membership’. Ibid 296; see also UNCLOS (n 72) Art 4(4) of Annex IX (‘Participation of such an international organization shall in no case entail an increase of the representation to which its member States which are States Parties would otherwise be entitled, including rights in decision-​making’); UNCRPD (n 94) Art 44(4) (whereby a member IO is granted a number of votes equal to the number of its Member States that are parties to the UNCRPD, but may be deprived of that right to vote if any of its State members exercises it in its stead. Hence, the participation of an IO to the UNCRPD is not independent from that of its Member States). 103 The draft agreement providing for the accession of the European Union to the ECHR addressed such practical issues as the election of a judge in respect of the European Union, and the European Union Participation in the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. See Schermers and Blokker (n 9) §§1762 and 1774A. 104 But see Klabbers (n 1) Ch 4, for an account of the challenges faced by the implied powers doctrine.

Who Can Make Treaties? IOs  115 they operate behind the institutional veil. As a result of this ‘constant oscillation between the position of the organization as a party in its own right, and the position of the organization as a vehicle for its own member States’,105 issues remain over who is bound and the division of competences, responsibility, and liability. These ambiguities are often masked by the similarities between the provisions of the 1969 and 1986 VCLT. Despite this tension, with the notable exception of the rich jurisprudence developed by the European Court of Justice, in practice, major problems have not arisen with any significant frequency.106 And any problems relating to treaty-​making capacity are but a subset of broader issues relating to the (independent) personality of IOs. Since IOs are corporate entities that must be, to a greater or lesser extent, vehicles for their Member States, who retain important roles in decision-​making, it may be expected that most of the conceivable problems will be addressed internally within the organization. The fact that the 1986 VCLT is not in force over thirty years after its adoption should be of limited concern. As noted above, most of the rules set out in the Convention are considered to reflect customary law, and would therefore be applicable regardless of the status of the Convention. It has been written that ‘[w]‌hile the equal and independent status of organisations is the most likely cause for the reluctance of States to bind themselves to the 1986 Convention, for organisations this would rather be the apprehension that the Convention will curtail IGO treaty-​making practice’.107 Whatever the reason, contemporary international relations require IOs to conclude treaties as a matter of course on a wide range of matters, and organizations routinely do, and indeed must, conclude such agreements. Thus, the fact that the Convention has not entered into force does not detract from the competence of IOs to enter into treaties. In the conclusion and operation of such treaties, reference to the provisions of customary law and the 1986 VCLT—​and ironically, the 1969 VCLT108—​ will continue to be instructive.

Recommended Reading JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-​makers (OUP, Oxford 2005) JE Alvarez, The Impact of International Organizations on International Law (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2016) N Blokker, ‘Asian and Pacific International Organizations:  Mainstream or Sui Generis? An International Institutional Law Perspective’ in CJ Cheng (ed), A New International Legal Order (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2016) 188–​221 C Brölmann, The Institutional Veil in Public International Law: International Organisations and the Law of Treaties (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2007) H Chiu, The Capacity of International Organizations to Conclude Treaties and the Special Legal Aspects of Treaties so Concluded (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1966) G do Nascimento e Silva, ‘The 1986 Vienna Convention and the Treaty-​making Power of International Organizations’ (1986) 29 German Ybk Intl L 68 J Dobbert, ‘Evolution of Treaty-​making Capacity of International Organizations’ in The Law and the Sea: Essays in Memory of Jean Carroz (FAO, Rome 1987)

105 Ibid 269. 106 As noted earlier, the phenomenon of mixed agreements has generated a considerable amount of jurisprudence to a very large extent in the context of European law. See Chapter 6, 117 et seq.; Klabbers (n 1) 281. 107 Brölmann (n 1) 192–​3. 108 Ibid (noting, for example, that ‘the European Court of Justice, when relying on the international law of treaties, always refers to the 1969 Convention and not to the 1986 Convention’).

116  The Treaty-Makers M Footer, ‘International Organizations and Treaties: Ratification and (Non)-​implementation of the Other Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ in A Orakhelashvili and S Williams (eds), 40 Years of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (BIICL, London 2010) G Gaja, ‘A “New” Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations:  A Critical Commentary’ (1987) 58 BYBIL 253 R Higgins, The Development of International Law through the Political Organs of the United Nations (OUP, Oxford 1963) DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters: Non-​State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl L 137 H Isak and G Loibl, ‘The United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or Between International Organizations’ (1987) 38 Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 49 J Klabbers, An Introduction to International Organizations Law (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2015) J Klabbers, ‘The EJIL Foreword: The Transformation of International Organizations Law’ (2015) 26 EJIL  9–​82 G Le Floch, ‘Responsibility for Human Rights Violations by International Organizations’ in R Virzo and I Ingravallo (eds), Evolutions in the Law of International Organizations (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2015) 382–​405 P Reuter, ‘La conférence de Vienne sur les traités des organisations internationals et la securité des engagement conventionnels’ in F Capotorti and others (eds), Du droit international de l’intégration: Liber Amicorum Pierre Pescatore (Nomos, Baden-​Baden 1987) H Schermers and N Blokker, International Institutional Law: Unity Within Diversity (6th edn Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2018) especially §§1742–​1800 F Seyersted, ‘International Personality of Intergovernmental Organizations:  Do Their Capacities Really Depend Upon Their Constitutions?’ (1964) 4 Indian J Intl L 1 F Seyersted, Common Law of International Organizations (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2008) K Zemanek (ed), Agreements of International Organizations and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer Verlag, Vienna 1971) 38 Österreichische Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Supplementum 1

6

Who Can Make Treaties? The European Union Marise Cremona

Introduction The European Union is unique as a treaty-​making actor. It is one of the most prolific makers of treaties, and although it is certainly true that treaties in general have gained in importance as a source of law over the last century, the EU’s use of the treaty as a key component of its foreign policy is striking. The EU uses treaties to structure and define its relations with third countries, to devise different models of agreement for groups of partners, and to promote its vision of ‘an international system based on stronger multilateral cooperation and good global governance’.1 It engages actively in the construction of new multilateral conventions and campaigns for their ratification. At the time of writing, according to the EU’s treaty office, the EU is party to 977 bilateral and 289 multilateral treaties.2 Despite an initially relatively narrow scope of activity, the EU now engages in treaty-​making over a very wide field beyond its core competence for trade agreements, ranging from private international law to air services, from climate change to organized crime. As such, the EU’s treaty-​making activity has profoundly affected the Member States, not so much because they have been replaced as treaty parties, but in that they now operate alongside the EU and the other Member States in negotiating treaties and implementing their treaty obligations. The Member States may, with some exceptions, continue to conclude treaties but in so doing they are constrained by both substantive and procedural EU law obligations. All international organizations (IOs) that possess treaty-​making power exhibit the tension that flows from being both a creation and a creator of international law. In the case of the EU, this tension is particularly pronounced as a result of the evolution of its founding Treaty (now Treaties) into a ‘constitutional charter’.3 The relationship between the EU and its Member States represents a level of mutual trust and interdependence greater than is normally implied by IO membership,4 and this affects the way that the EU and its Member States engage in treaty-​making. While the form of integration represented by the EU may be described as supranational,5 or as containing elements of federalism,6 the EU is nonetheless 1 Treaty on European Union (TEU) Art 21(2). Treaty references: the abbreviation ‘TEU’ refers to the Treaty on European Union [2010] OJ C83/​13 (the version in force after 1 December 2009), while ‘TFEU’ refers to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [2010] OJ C83/​47. ‘EC’ refers to a provision of the Treaty Establishing the European Community [2002] OJ C325/​33 (the version in force until 30 November 2009); similarly, ‘EU’ refers to the Treaty on European Union [2002] OJ C325/​5 (the version in force until 30 November 2009). 2 See European Commission, ‘Treaties Office Database’ (last visited 4 April 2019). 3 Opinion 1/​91 [1991] ECR I-​6079 [21]. 4 See eg the ‘principle of sincere cooperation’ established by Art 4(3) TEU. 5 For a discussion of the spectrum between intergovernmental and supranational politics and the way in which different EU policies may be placed and move along the spectrum, see A Stone Sweet and W Sandholtz, ‘European Integration and Supranational Governance’ (1997) 4 JEPP 297. 6 R Schütze, From Dual to Cooperative Federalism: The Changing Structure of European Law (OUP, Oxford 2009).

118  The Treaty-Makers an (advanced form of) IO. It is perhaps in its external relations and in its treaty-​making that this is most clearly felt; in defining its external treaty-​making powers the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has developed key doctrines including implied powers, exclusivity, and the autonomy of the Union legal order. At the same time the CJEU has regularly affirmed the key principle of conferred powers: the EU only has those powers which have been granted to it, expressly or impliedly, by its Member States in the EU Treaties.7 Thus, the EU legal order may possess autonomy (by which the CJEU means the power to determine its relations with other legal orders) with respect both to the domestic law of its Member States and international law, but the EU does not possess sovereignty, nor in the last resort the ability to determine its own powers. A further special feature of the EU has been the evolution of its architecture. In its initial phase, the European Economic Community was one of three separate Communities (alongside the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom)) each with its own separate legal personality and external treaty-​making powers, although soon sharing institutions. The single institutional framework was maintained on the creation of the European Union by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, and the relation between the European Union and the European Communities (as the renamed European Community—​EC—​ECSC, and EAEC were termed) was legally intricate.8 The three European Communities retained their separate legal personalities, and since the Treaty of Maastricht made no express grant of legal personality to the EU, the international legal capacity of the Union was subject to debate.9 Although the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 still did not expressly mention the legal personality of the Union, it gave the EU treaty-​making capacity in the fields of foreign and security policy and criminal justice cooperation.10 In the following decade, therefore, what was known collectively as the ‘European Union’ actually encompassed four treaty-​making organizations: the EU itself, the EC, the EAEC, and until 2002 the ECSC.11 The three European Communities frequently concluded treaties jointly, but only once, in the context of the Schengen acquis agreement with Switzerland, did the EU and EC conclude a treaty together. The Member States preferred to keep to the traditional formula of the ‘mixed agreement’ (an agreement concluded by both the EC and Member States) where an agreement contained foreign policy-​related provisions. The Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force in December 2009, made major structural changes to this system. The European Union ‘replaced and

7 The term ‘EU Treaties’ is used in this chapter to denote the founding treaties of the EU and in particular the current TEU and TFEU. The latter simply use the term ‘the Treaties’ to refer to these two treaties together (Art 1 TEU and Art 1 TFEU), EU Treaties being used here to avoid confusion. Similarly, it will be noticed that the CJEU will normally refer simply to ‘the Treaty’ or ‘Treaties’ by which it means the EC Treaty or TEU and TFEU Treaties respectively. EU instruments generally refer to treaties in the generic sense as ‘international agreements’. See eg Arts 216–​19 TFEU. 8 DM Curtin and IF Dekker, ‘The European Union from Maastricht to Lisbon: Institutional and Legal Unity out of the Shadows’ in P Craig and G de Búrca (eds), The Evolution of EU Law (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2011). 9 J Klabbers, ‘Presumptive Personality: The European Union in International Law’ in M Koskenniemi (ed), International Law Aspects of the European Union (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1998); RA Wessel, ‘Revisiting the International Legal Status of the EU’ (2000) 5 EFA Rev 507; R Gosalbo Bono, ‘Some Reflections on the CFSP Legal Order’ (2006) 43 CML Rev 337, 354–​7. 10 Formally, these were commonly referred to as the second and third pillars; the European Communities representing the ‘first pillar’. The treaty-​making powers for the EU were at that time based on Arts 24 and 38 EU, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997. 11 The ECSC Treaty was concluded for only fifty years and since its powers could be exercised by the EC this Community was allowed to die in 2002.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  119 succeeded’ the European Community (Article 1 TEU) and was granted an explicit legal personality (Article 47 TEU). The EU’s former rather limited treaty-​making powers therefore now encompass the more extensive treaty-​making powers of the former European Community.12 The EU institutions often rightly stress the special nature of the EU as an international actor and seek specific solutions for EU participation in treaties.13 And the EU’s treaty partners certainly do need to appreciate its specificities. However, the EU works within the same international legal framework as its treaty partners and is constrained not only by its own constitutional requirements but by what its partners will accept and expect. Although the focus of this chapter is therefore on the perspective of EU law, it does address the ways in which international treaty law and practice has—​or has not—​accommodated the EU. The first section of the chapter deals with the EU’s treaty-​making capacity, from the perspective first of EU law, and then of international treaty practice. In determining the rules which govern EU treaty-​making, we need to consider first the principle of conferral, express and implied powers, and the importance of identifying a legal basis in the EU Treaties, then treaty-​making procedures within EU law, and the role of the CJEU in reviewing the EU’s powers. We next examine the ways in which international treaty-​making practice has accommodated EU participation in bilateral and, especially, in multilateral agreements. The chapter’s second section discusses the legal effects of treaties concluded by the EU, first as regards the EU legal order, including their enforcement and interpretation by the CJEU and the legal effects of mixed agreements. A discussion of the impact of EU treaty-​making on the powers of the Member States follows: through the doctrines of exclusivity and pre-​ emption, the impact of EU law on treaties concluded by the Member States, and finally EU treaty-​making from the perspective of international responsibility.

I.  The European Union’s Capacity to Make Treaties The EU’s treaty-​making capacity depends on two factors: the treaty-​making power granted by its Member States, and external acceptance of such power. First, the Member States must by the EU Treaties have conferred on the EU competence over the subject matter of the proposed agreement, and the authority to enter into international agreements on such matters. As discussed below, under the EU Treaties that authority may be expressed or implied and its exercise is subject to specific procedural requirements and judicial review. Second, even if the EU has authority to conclude a treaty, its ability to do so depends on the acceptance of that authority by any potential treaty partners. The EU may participate in lieu of its Member States or alongside them in what is known as a mixed agreement, depending on the nature of the EU’s powers in relation to the treaty’s subject matter. In the case of multilateral mixed agreements, increasingly States have agreed to EU treaty participation through the use of a particular formula allowing Regional Economic Integration Organizations (REIOs) to join the treaty alongside its Member States. In the case of certain older treaties such as the UN Charter and treaties concluded under the auspices of some of the UN agencies, 12 It should be noted that the EAEC (Euratom) was not replaced and succeeded by the European Union and still retains its separate constitutive Treaty, its legal personality, and its treaty-​making power. 13 M Licková, ‘European Exceptionalism in International Law’ (2008) 19 EJIL 463.

120  The Treaty-Makers participation by IOs is not envisaged and the EU still cannot consent to the treaty notwithstanding any internal competence to do so.

A.  The treaty-​making powers of the European Union 1. The conferral of EU treaty-​making powers (i) Establishing express and implied treaty-​making powers The extent to which the EU may exercise its capacity to act externally is defined, first and foremost, by the scope of the competences granted to it by its Member States in the EU Treaties. The EU has limited, albeit extensive, powers and operates under the principle of conferral.14 The CJEU, with its formulation of implied powers and its willingness to take an open approach to uses of express treaty-​making power, was instrumental in shaping the treaty-​making capacity of the EC, and although the EU is now the relevant international actor, we still need to be aware of the evolution of the European Community’s external powers to understand how these are reflected in the existing EU Treaties. Indeed, a number of the provisions relating to competences in the current EU Treaties are in effect a codification of earlier CJEU case law. The original Treaty of Rome granted to the then European Economic Community (EEC) two express treaty-​making powers, one in the field of trade (the common commercial policy, now considerably amended as Article 207 TFEU), the other establishing the power to conclude association agreements with third States or groups of States (now Article 217 TFEU).15 Since then, the treaty-​making powers of first the EEC, then the European Community (EC), and now the European Union (EU) have expanded in three different ways. First, new express competences have been added, including development cooperation, environment, humanitarian aid, and the common foreign and security policy. Second, the scope of the original trade competence has expanded to include trade in services, commercial aspects of intellectual property, and foreign direct investment. And, third, through the CJEU’s willingness to imply an external treaty-​making power from the existence of internal powers, implied external competence has been recognized in fields as varied as transport and civil justice. In the 1964 Costa v ENEL judgment, the CJEU first recognized the Community’s international legal personality, explicitly linking its international legal capacity to the transfer of powers from the Member States to the Community.16 The autonomy of the Community legal order represented by this transfer of powers thus formed the legal basis for its effective international action. In its 1971 ERTA judgment, the Court built on the statement of legal personality in the then EEC Treaty to conclude that the Community’s external capacity extended over the ‘whole extent of the field of the objectives defined in Part I’ of the Treaty and—​crucially—​that its competence to enter into international 14 Art 5(1) TEU. Art 5(2) TEU specifies that under the principle of conferral ‘the Union shall act only within the limits of the competence conferred on it by the Member States in the Treaties to attain the objectives set out therein’. 15 Association agreements provide for ‘reciprocal rights and obligations, common action and special procedures’. Art 217 TFEU. They were initially concluded with the former colonies of Member States and with the EEC’s close neighbours, but developed into a political vehicle for establishing substantial long-​term ties with the EU, irrespective of geographic or historical linkages. 16 Case 6/​64 Costa v ENEL [1964] ECR 585, 593.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  121 agreements was not limited to those cases where there was express provision for external action.17 Since this seminal judgment, the existence of an implied external competence to conclude treaties has become well-​established in the CJEU’s case law,18 although its extent and the precise nature of the EU’s implied competences are still the subject of academic discussion, institutional debate, and new case law. In Opinion 1/​03,19 which confirmed the existence (and exclusivity) of Community competence to conclude the revised Lugano Convention, an agreement within a relatively new field of action for the Community (judicial cooperation in civil matters), the Court summarized its earlier case law on the existence of implied powers: The competence of the Community to conclude international agreements may arise not only from an express conferment by the Treaty but may equally flow implicitly from other provisions of the Treaty and from measures adopted, within the framework of those provisions, by the Community institutions (see ERTA, paragraph 16). The Court has also held that whenever Community law created for those institutions powers within its internal system for the purpose of attaining a specific objective, the Community had authority to undertake international commitments necessary for the attainment of that objective even in the absence of an express provision to that effect (Opinion 1/​76, paragraph 3, and Opinion 2/​91, paragraph 7). That competence of the Community may be exclusive or shared with the Member States.20

The Court here mentions the two traditional bases for implied powers: first, the existence of Community legislation, that is, ‘Community rules’ whether or not adopted within the framework of a common policy;21 and second, the existence of a Community objective for the attainment of which internal powers under the EC Treaty may be complemented by external treaty-​making powers. The first basis is founded on pre-​emption, the occupation of the field by existing Community law (hence the equation in the ERTA case between the existence of the competence and its exclusive nature22). The second basis derives from the principle of effet utile, the implication of powers necessary to achieve an expressly defined objective. It therefore requires attention to the nature and content of the EU’s internal rules, and in particular the EU Treaties, to identify the ‘specific objective’ for which internal powers have been granted and for which implied external powers may be necessary. In some cases where implied treaty-​making powers are still required (eg taxation or competition policy), a link to the completion or functioning of the internal market will be necessary. In other cases (eg capital movements), the EU Treaties themselves include external as well as internal objectives thereby clearly suggesting an implied treaty-​making power.23 Sometimes the link between pursuing an external policy and its impact on the 17 Case 22/​70 Commission v Council [1971] ECR 263 [14] (ERTA case). 18 Opinion 2/​91 [1993] ECR I-​1061; Opinion 1/​94 [1994] ECR I-​5267; Opinion 1/​03 [2006] ECR I-​1145; A Dashwood and J Heliskoski, ‘The Classic Authorities Revisited’ in A Dashwood and C Hillion (eds), The General Law of EC External Relations (Sweet and Maxwell, London 2000). 19 Opinion 1/​03 (n 18). 20 Ibid [114]–​[115]. 21 Case 22/​70 Commission v Council (n 17); Opinion 2/​91 (n 18). 22 Where it exists, EU competence can vary in its nature: exclusive, shared with the Member States, supporting or supplementary. Art 2 TFEU. 23 Opinion 2/​15 [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:376 [239]–​[240].

122  The Treaty-Makers internal Union regime is so close that it is difficult to disentangle the two (eg energy policy). These variations point to the need to examine the internal objectives and powers carefully when determining the potential scope of implied external powers. The emphasis on EU Treaty objectives is certainly a logical consequence of applying an effet utile principle. Opinion 1/​03 suggests that this principle does not play a central role where the basis for external competence is simply the existence of internal rules. These alternative bases for implied powers may thus attach very different significance to the objectives of the relevant EU Treaty provisions, something which is implicit in the case law and now reflected in Article 216 TFEU (discussed later), but not explicitly explained or justified. A justification may be found in the fact that where the external power is based on internal legislation, that legislation itself will reflect the objectives of its legal basis in the EU Treaties. The result, in either case, is that implied external powers are inherently (and properly) limited and cannot provide the basis for developing an external policy independent of the needs and functioning of the internal regime. For that, under the current Treaty system, explicit powers are needed (such as are granted in fields such as trade, development cooperation, environmental policy, and the common foreign and security policy). This is coherent in terms of the balance between the necessary flexibility of an implied powers doctrine and the need to ensure compliance with the principle of conferred powers. (ii) Extending the scope of EU powers The development of implied treaty-​making powers under EU law has been complemented by two other mechanisms that effectively extended the scope of the EU’s external action. First, there was the extensive interpretation of the scope of the two original express bases for international agreements. Association agreements may cover all fields of Community (and now Union) policy, even those where no common action has yet been adopted by the Union.24 The Court was also prepared to see the Union’s express trade powers used for purposes beyond traditional trade policy, including development,25 the protection of the environment,26 and the adoption of politically motivated economic sanctions against third countries.27 Second, Article 352 TFEU has been used for treaty-​making; it provides a legal basis for action by the Union (including external action) if such ‘should prove necessary, within the framework of the policies defined in the Treaties, to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties, and the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers’. This provision proved particularly useful in the early years of the European Community. It was used alongside trade powers to conclude international agreements that envisaged cooperation over a number of fields but which the Union did not wish to conclude as association agreements. However, the limits of Article 352 TFEU were illustrated in both Opinion 1/​94 and Opinion 2/​94.28 In the latter ruling in particular, the Court held that it should not be used in such

24 Case 12/​86 Demirel v Stadt Schwäbisch Gmünd [1987] ECR 3719. 25 Opinion 1/​78 [1979] ECR 2871; Case 45/​86 Commission v Council [1987] ECR 1493. 26 Case C-​281/​01 Commission v Council [2002] ECR I-​12049. 27 Case C-​124/​95 R v HM Treasury and Bank of England Ex p Centro-​Com [1997] ECR I-​81; Case C-​84/​95 Bosphorus Hava Yollari Turizm ve Ticaret AS v Ministry of Transport, Energy and Communications [1996] ECR I-​ 3953. Powers in each of these fields are now expressly granted to the EU. 28 Opinion 1/​94 (n 18); Opinion 2/​94 [1996] ECR I-​1759.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  123 a way as to undermine the principle of conferral. It held that Article 235 EC (now Article 352 TFEU): being an integral part of an institutional system based on the principle of conferred powers, cannot serve as a basis for widening the scope of Community powers beyond the general framework created by the provisions of the Treaty as a whole and, in particular, by those that define the tasks and the activities of the Community. On any view, Article 235 [now Article 352 TFEU] cannot be used as a basis for the adoption of provisions whose effect would, in substance, be to amend the Treaty without following the procedure which it provides for that purpose.29

Successive amendments, including most recently the Treaty of Lisbon, have indeed added new express legal bases to those in the original Treaty of Rome. To some extent this has lessened the need to use implied powers. Express external powers now include specific fields of external policy: common commercial policy (Article 207 TFEU); association agreements (Article 217 TFEU); development cooperation (Article 209(2) TFEU); economic, financial, and technical cooperation (Article 212(3) TFEU); humanitarian aid (Article 214(4) TFEU); neighbourhood agreements (Article 8 TEU); and the common foreign and security policy (Article 37 TEU). There are also express references to international agreements in policy provisions, such as environmental policy (Articles 191(4) and 192 TFEU), asylum (Article 78(2)(g) TFEU) and immigration (Article 79(3) TFEU on readmission agreements). However, it remains the case that important areas of policy, including transport policy, energy, and cooperation on serious transnational crime and terrorism, are still subject to implied powers as far as EU treaty-​making is concerned. The Treaty of Lisbon attempts to synthesize all the different possibilities for deriving EU treaty-​making powers in a single article: The Union may conclude an agreement with one or more third countries or international organisations where the Treaties so provide or where the conclusion of an agreement is necessary in order to achieve, within the framework of the Union’s policies, one of the objectives referred to in the Treaties, or is provided for in a legally binding Union act or is likely to affect common rules or alter their scope.30

The aim of this provision is to increase certainty in establishing clearly the basis of treaty-​ making powers in the Union legal order, and to achieve a clearer definition of EU competence. Difficulties emerge, however, in the article’s attempt to reflect the case law on this issue—​case law that is complex and sometimes obscure. After referring to express treaty-​making powers (‘where the Treaties so provide’), Article 216(1) TFEU provides three alternative conditions for implied EU treaty-​making power. According to the first of these, external powers exist ‘where the conclusion of an agreement is necessary in order to achieve, within the framework of the Union’s policies, one of the objectives referred to in the Treaties’. While broadly drafted, this provision does not grant



29 30

Opinion 2/​94 (n 28) [30]. See Declarations 41 and 42 annexed to the Treaty of Lisbon. Art 216(1) TFEU.

124  The Treaty-Makers external treaty-​making powers independently of the existence of an internal competence.31 Thus, in Opinion 2/​15, the CJEU based its finding that the EU possessed treaty-​making powers in relation to portfolio investment on the EU Treaty competence concerning capital movements, together with Article 216(1) TFEU.32 Turning to the second condition of competence, it clearly makes sense for the Article on treaty-​making powers to provide that ‘a legally binding Union act’ may provide for the conclusion of an international agreement, and the provision reflects CJEU case law.33 Although it does not give any guidance as to the limits of the powers potentially conferred by a legally binding act, this provision should not be seen as granting the legislature carte blanche to authorize external competence for EU treaty-​making. The principle of conferred powers would require the existence of a link between the legal basis for the competence-​conferring act of secondary EU law and the scope of the envisaged agreement.34 The existence of a valid internal act will thus ensure that the international agreement has an appropriate legal basis in the EU Treaties.35 The third possible basis for action specified in Article 216(1) TFEU is more difficult to apply. The EU, according to this provision, has the power to conclude an international agreement where its conclusion ‘is likely to affect common rules or alter their scope’. It is presumably intended to reflect CJEU case law which has based implied external competence on the existence of a body of (internal) Union legislation in the field, but without any reference to ‘effects’.36 In fact, this basis for competence to conclude an agreement is arguably unnecessary. It is difficult to conceive of a situation where an agreement should be concluded by the Union because it is ‘likely to affect common rules or alter their scope’, but which, on the other hand, does not fulfil the first possible condition for action (that it would be ‘necessary in order to achieve, within the framework of the Union’s policies, one of the objectives referred to in the Treaties’). In addition, in its similarity to Article 3(2) TFEU, the phrase introduces confusion between the existence of competence and its exclusivity, that is, between the capacity of the EU to conclude a treaty and the nature (exclusive or shared) of Union competence over its contents, although elsewhere in the EU Treaties this distinction is carefully drawn.37 31 As expressed by AG Kokott, ‘Article 216(1) TFEU must not be confused with a general conferral of powers on the Union institutions for external action. On the contrary, an external competence can only ever be inferred from that rule in conjunction with the provisions of the Treaties, objectives of the Union, legal acts and rules of Union law mentioned in it’. Case C-​81/​13 UK v Council, Opinion of AG Kokott [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2114 [102]. 32 Opinion 2/​15 (n 23) [239]–​[240]. 33 Opinion 1/​94 (n 18) [95]; see also Directive 2013/​36/​EU on access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms, OJ 2013 L 176/​338, Art 47(3); Regulation 2016/​794 EU on the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) OJ 2016 L 135/​53 Art 25(1)(b). 34 See eg Joined Cases C-​317/​04 and C-​318/​04 European Parliament v Council [2006] ECR I-​4721 [73] (‘PNR case’) (holding that the then data protection directive could not provide the basis for a treaty with the United States the purposes of which fell outside the scope of the directive). 35 And as a corollary that the annulment of the authorizing internal act would imply the illegality of the act concluding the agreement. 36 Exemplified by Opinion 1/​03 (n 18), which summarized earlier case law; note, however, that this particular Opinion of the Court was delivered after the drafting of the draft Constitutional Treaty, from which the wording of Art 216 TFEU is taken. 37 AG Sharpston takes the view that where external competence is based upon this ground it will always be exclusive, regarding the minor difference in wording between Arts 216(1) and 3(2) TFEU as immaterial: ‘Showing that the conclusion of an international agreement “may affect common rules or alter their scope” automatically satisfies the conditions of the fourth ground under Article 216(1) TFEU and the third ground under Article 3(2) TFEU; and the European Union will accordingly have exclusive external competence.’ Opinion 2/​15, opinion of AG Sharpston [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:992 [70].

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  125 (iii) The importance of legal basis To sum up, EU treaty-​making powers may be derived from express provisions in the EU Treaties, as well as implied from the large number of those Treaty provisions granting internal powers and establishing objectives that require external action. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the choice of legal basis may become an issue, whether for the adoption of internal measures or the conclusion of international agreements. The legal basis for Union acts and international agreements has been said by the Court to be a matter ‘of constitutional significance’.38 The choice of legal basis is relevant in determining the type of act that may be adopted and the procedures to be followed (eg the role of the European Parliament and voting procedure in the Council) as well as the relative scope of different policies and how they interrelate. To what extent, for example, may a trade measure pursue sustainable development or environmental objectives and when might an additional (or alternative) legal basis be needed? The choice of legal basis may also have implications for the relative powers of the Union and its Member States, with a few—​including trade—​carrying exclusive competence, and others being a matter of shared competence. The Court of Justice has consistently held that ‘the choice of the legal basis for a Community measure, including one adopted with a view to conclusion of an international agreement, must be based on objective factors which are amenable to judicial review and include in particular the aim and content of the measure’.39 Further, the Court has developed what has become known as the ‘predominant purpose’ or ‘centre of gravity’ test: if it appears that a measure ‘pursues a twofold purpose or that it has a twofold component and if one is identifiable as the main or predominant purpose or component, whereas the other is merely incidental, the measure must be founded on a single legal basis, namely that required by the main or predominant purpose or component’.40 A joint legal basis is only to be used where it is impossible to conclude that one or the other predominates in aim or content.41 The Court has been consistent in applying the same criteria for determining the legal basis of an international agreement as for an internal measure, based on its aim and content, the predominant purpose test, and with a bias against a dual legal basis.42 It is worth asking whether this approach needs adjustment in the context of international agreements. Is the bias against multiple legal bases appropriate given that the EU’s international agreements often contain a wide range of subject matters and the need to integrate different objectives? Cross-​sectoral agreements still regularly give rise to legal basis disputes, fuelled both by different decision-​making procedures and by differences in the nature of Union competence.43 In resolving these disputes, the Court’s application of the predominant purpose test has not enhanced predictability. 38 ‘The choice of the appropriate legal basis has constitutional significance. Since the Community has conferred powers only, it must tie the Protocol to a Treaty provision which empowers it to approve such a measure. To proceed on an incorrect legal basis is therefore liable to invalidate the act concluding the agreement and so vitiate the Community’s consent to be bound by the agreement it has signed’: Opinion 2/​00 [2001] ECR I-​9713 [5]‌. Note, however, that although the internal concluding act may be invalidated, this does not in itself vitiate the Union’s consent to be bound by the agreement as a matter of international law. Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission [1994] ECR I-​3641 [24]–​[25]. See also PNR case (n 34). 39 Case C-​94/​03 Commission v Council [2006] ECR I-​1 [34]. 40 Ibid [35]. 41 Case C-​411/​06 Commission v European Parliament and Council [2009] ECR I-​7585 [47]. 42 See eg Case C-​94/​03 Commission v Council (n 39) and Case C-​178/​03 Commission v European Parliament and Council [2006] ECR I-​107, where the Court used exactly the same approach in establishing the legal basis for the decision concluding the Rotterdam Convention and for the internal Regulation. 43 See eg Case C-​244/​17 Commission v Council [2018] ECLI: EU:C:2018:662.

126  The Treaty-Makers In practical terms, and from the perspective of third countries, these arguments may appear esoteric; the position is made easier for the Union’s negotiating partners by the practice of determining a negotiating mandate without prejudice to a final determination of legal basis (thus allowing negotiations to proceed while internal discussions continue over the proper legal basis). However, from time to time, a CJEU Opinion has been necessary to determine the proper legal basis before an agreement could be formally concluded, thus considerably delaying its conclusion.44 Where an agreement is concluded on a legal basis which the Court subsequently holds to be incorrect, the decision concluding the agreement must be re-​adopted on the correct legal basis; this does not, however, affect the binding nature of the agreement in international law as far as the Union is concerned, and to avoid legal uncertainty the Court may in such cases preserve the legal effects of the annulled decision until a new decision is adopted.45

2. Treaty-​making procedures Alongside the substantive power-​conferring provisions, Article 218 TFEU provides a set of procedural rules for the conclusion of treaties by the EU. Importantly, it applies to all EU international treaty-​making, including the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), albeit that its rules do differentiate between this and other policy fields.46 This means that where a treaty is concluded under implied powers, Article 218 TFEU procedures apply, not the internal decision-​making procedures established in the provision from which the power is implied. Thus, the Commission’s implementation powers in the field of competition policy do not entitle it to conclude on its own international agreements on competition; such agreements must be negotiated and concluded according to Article 218.47 The procedure begins with a recommendation from the European Commission to the Council of Ministers that negotiations should be opened. The Council then adopts a decision authorizing the negotiation. It will normally also adopt ‘negotiating directives’, outlining the envisaged agreement or the Union’s negotiating goals and in some cases establishing a consultative committee.48 The content of the negotiating mandate has, until recently, not been made public, however practice is changing especially in the field of trade agreements.49 Council decisions are also necessary to approve the agreement’s signature, its provisional application (if necessary), and conclusion. Such decisions are formal legal acts, requiring a Commission proposal and a specific legal basis, which will be stated in its 44 See eg Opinion 1/​94 (n 18); Opinion 2/​00 (n 38); Opinion 1/​08 [2009] ECR I-​11129. An Opinion from the Court will typically take around eighteen months and may take longer. 45 Art 264 TFEU; see eg Case C-​137/​12 Commission v Council [2013] ECLI:EU:C:2013:675 [78]–​[81]. 46 Art 219 TFEU establishes specific rules for agreements concerning monetary and foreign exchange regime matters. 47 Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission (n 38). 48 Art 218(4) TFEU. Where appointed, the committee is advisory and must not trespass on the negotiating function of the Commission by adopting detailed negotiating positions: Case C-​425/​13 Commission v Council [2015] ECLI:EU:C:2015:483 [85]–​[91]. As this case indicates, the decision authorizing the opening of negotiations has legal effects and may be subject to judicial review. 49 The Commission has said that it will generally request the publication of the negotiation directives for trade agreements, although it is ultimately for the Council, as author of the act, to decide to publish. European Commission, Trade for all—​Towards a more responsible trade and investment policy (14 October 2015)  18–​ 19 ; see also Council Directives for the negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the European Union and the United States of America, 17 June 2013, Council Doc 11103/​13, declassified 9 October 2014; Council Directives for the negotiation of a modernized association agreement with Chile, 8 November 2017, Council Doc 13553/​17 ADD 1 DCL 1, declassified 22 January 2018.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  127 Preamble. In general, the Council will act by qualified majority vote (a system of weighted voting), but will need to act unanimously (i)  where the agreement concerns a field for which unanimity is required (this is increasingly rare, but includes the CFSP and direct taxation), (ii) in the case of association agreements and certain agreements with candidate states, and (iii) in the special case of the agreement for the EU’s accession to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR).50 Under Article 218(9) TFEU, a Council decision is also required to suspend the application of an agreement.51 The European Parliament plays an increasing role in the adoption of the decision to approve an international agreement. Parliamentary consent is required in a number of cases, which were significantly increased by the Treaty of Lisbon: (i) association agreements based on Article 217 TFEU; (ii) Union accession to the ECHR, envisaged by Article 6 TEU; (iii) agreements ‘establishing a specific institutional framework by organizing cooperation procedures’; these might include neighbourhood agreements (Article 8 TEU), cooperation agreements (Article 212 TFEU), and development cooperation agreements (Article 209(2) TFEU). Agreements establishing institutions capable of taking binding decisions clearly fall under this head but ‘cooperation procedures’ has a potentially wider scope; (iv) agreements with important budgetary implications for the Union; what amounts to ‘important’ depends of course on the context in which the expenditure is assessed;52 (v) agreements covering fields to which either the ordinary legislative procedure applies or the special legislative procedure with consent of the European Parliament. Here, the Treaty of Lisbon has made a significant difference. Previously in cases where internal legislation was adopted by co-​decision of Council and Parliament only parliamentary consultation was required; now Parliament must consent. A number of significant sectors, including trade agreements, are governed by the ordinary legislative procedure and consequently, the number of international agreements requiring parliamentary consent has increased. Article 218 thus foresees Parliament’s involvement at the end of the process, prior to formal conclusion of the agreement. Article 218(10) also requires that the Parliament is to be kept ‘immediately and fully informed’ at all stages of the procedure, and—​at least in cases where the Parliament’s consent will ultimately be required—​this may entail substantial involvement and even observer status in the negotiations.53 In contrast to this increased role 50 A proposed agreement on accession to the ECHR was declared incompatible with the EU Treaties in Opinion 2/​13 [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2454. 51 See eg Council Decision 91/​586/​EC suspending the application of the Agreement between the European Community, its Member States and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [1991] OJ L315/​47; see further Case C-​162/​96 Racke GmbH & Co v Hauptzollamt Mainz [1998] ECR I-​3655. 52 See eg Case C-​189/​97 European Parliament v Council [1999] ECR I-​4741. 53 For example, see the Parliament’s detailed involvement through its International Trade (INTA) Committee with the agreement with South Korea negotiated in 2009–​10. Committee on International Trade, ‘Recommendation on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part’ (9 February 2011, PE441.233v02-​ 00/​A7-​0034/​2011). On the possibility of observer status in negotiations, see European Parliament, ‘Rules of Procedure’ (2010) Annex XIV [25].

128  The Treaty-Makers generally, Article 218 provides for no formal parliamentary involvement in the approval of international agreements relating exclusively to the CFSP.54 The requirement that the Parliament must be kept informed does however apply to these agreements,55 in addition to the general obligation on the part of the High Representative to consult the European Parliament on the ‘main aspects and basic choices’ of the CFSP.56 The EU Treaties do not make specific procedural provision for the negotiation or conclusion of mixed agreements; as far as the EU is concerned, they will be negotiated and concluded according to the procedures set out in Article 218 TFEU. As a matter of practice, a bilateral mixed agreement will not normally be formally concluded by the EU until it has been ratified by each Member State, a practice which may lead to considerable delay and even the risk of non-​ratification by one Member State.57 Pending formal conclusion, the Council may, when approving the signature of an agreement, decide on its provisional application, in full or in part.58 The signature of a mixed agreement, especially when accompanied by provisional application, may be coordinated by the EU and its Member States, with the latter adopting a collective decision as the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States. A practice that had grown up of adopting a combined or ‘hybrid’ decision of the Council (for the EU) and the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States—​in reality the same people carrying out different functions—​has been declared incompatible with the EU Treaties. The Court held that Member State participation in a Council decision altered the decision-​making procedures set out in Article 218 TFEU, including the voting rules. Although it was argued that a combined decision was an effective way to handle a mixed agreement, the Court held that the duty of cooperation ‘cannot justify the Council setting itself free from compliance with the procedural rules and voting arrangements laid down in Article 218 TFEU’.59

3. Judicial control of EU international agreements The EU’s international agreements may be subject to judicial control both ex ante and ex post. Ex ante control takes the form of an ‘opinion’ of the CJEU, requested under Article 218(11) TFEU ‘as to whether an agreement envisaged is compatible with the Treaties’. Although called an opinion, this is a binding ruling in the sense that, should the Court determine that there is an incompatibility between the agreement and the EU Treaties, ‘the agreement envisaged may not enter into force unless it is amended or the Treaties are revised’.60 The opinion may be requested by the Council, Commission, European Parliament, or a Member State (but not an individual). In Opinion 1/​75 (the first such opinion) the 54 This has been held to mean agreements which have the common foreign and security policy as a sole legal basis: C-​658/​11 European Parliament v Council [2014] ECLI EU:C:2014:2025. See also C-​244/​17 Commission v Council (n 43). 55 C-​658/​11 European Parliament v Council (n 54); C-​ 263/​ 14 European Parliament v Council [2016] ECLI:EU:C:2016:435. 56 Art 36 TEU. M Cremona, ‘The CFSP-​CSDP in the Constitutional Architecture of the EU’ in S Blockmans and P Koutrakos (eds), The EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy—​A Research Handbook (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2018). 57 See eg the difficulty with Dutch ratification of the EU–​Ukraine association agreement. G van der Loo and RA Wessel, ‘The Non-​Ratification of Mixed Agreements: Legal Consequences and Solutions’ (2017) 54 CML Rev 735. 58 Art 218(5) TFEU. 59 Case C-​28/​12 Commission v Council [2015] ECLI EU:C:2015:43 [55]. 60 Art 218(11) TFEU.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  129 Court explained the purpose of the procedure: it is designed to avoid the complications that would arise both within the Union system and in international law were the Court to find that an international agreement to which the Union has already consented is incompatible with the Treaty.61 The fact that an agreement has already been negotiated does not prevent it from being ‘envisaged’. However, once an agreement has been formally concluded it is no longer envisaged and this ex ante procedure can no longer be used.62 On the other hand, the fact that certain aspects of the agreement have not yet been definitely agreed does not prevent the Court from giving a ruling.63 It has even been possible to request an opinion on a prospective agreement where there is not yet a draft agreement and before negotiations have started, although in such a case, the Court may be limited to addressing issues of Union competence since questions of substantive compatibility may not be determinable in the absence of a text.64 Although the CJEU has found a substantive incompatibility in a proposed agreement in relatively few cases,65 the Court has interpreted the concept of compatibility widely, to cover the functions and powers of the EU institutions including the CJEU itself,66 the role and duties of the domestic courts of the Member States in interpreting Union law,67 legal basis,68 the existence of Union competence,69 and the division of competence between the Union and the Member States.70 As a consequence, although not numerous,71 the opinions handed down by the CJEU have been important for the development of EU external relations law. Where such issues are not resolved beforehand, there is the possibility of ex post control, through judicial review of the decision concluding the agreement. As recently explained by the CJEU, the provisions of international agreements concluded by the EU must be: entirely compatible with the Treaties and with the constitutional principles stemming therefrom. More specifically, first, the substantive content of such agreements must be compatible with the rules governing the powers of the EU institutions and with the relevant rules of substantive law. Second, the procedure adopted for their conclusion must comply with the formal and procedural rules applicable under EU law.72

61 Opinion 1/​75 [1975] ECR 1355. 62 Opinion 3/​94 [1995] ECR I-​4577. 63 Opinion 1/​78 (n 25). 64 Opinion 2/​94 (n 28) [1]‌–​[22] (on the possibility of EU accession to the ECHR). The Court’s conclusion was that ‘as Community law now stands, the Community has no competence to accede to the Convention’. Ibid [36]. The Treaty of Lisbon inserted an explicit competence for the Union to accede to the ECHR in Art 6(2) TEU, and a specific procedure in Art 218(8) TFEU; however, a subsequently negotiated accession agreement was found to be incompatible with the EU Treaties in Opinion 2/​13 (n 50). 65 Eg Opinion 1/​91 (n 3) on the European Economic Area agreement, and more recently Opinion 1/​15 on the draft agreement between Canada and the European Union on the Transfer of Passenger Name Record Data. [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:592. 66 Eg Opinion 1/​76 [1977] ECR 741; Opinion 1/​91 (n 3); Opinion 1/​92 [1992] ECR I-​2821; Opinion 1/​00 [2002] ECR I-​3493; Opinion 1/​09 [2011] ECLI:EU:C:2011:123. 67 Opinion 1/​09 (n 66). 68 Opinion 2/​00 (n 38); Opinion 1/​08 (n 44); Opinion 2/​15 (n 23). 69 Opinion 2/​94 (n 28). 70 Opinion 2/​91 (n 18); Opinion 1/​94 (n 18); Opinion 1/​03 (n 18); Opinion 1/​13 [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2303. 71 At the time of writing—​April 2019—​twenty-​two Opinions had been handed down. 72 Case C-​266/​16 The Queen, on the application of Western Sahara Campaign UK v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and others [2018] ECLI:EU:C:2018:118 [46] (references omitted).

130  The Treaty-Makers Issues raised may include questions of substantive compatibility,73 lack of competence,74 or (more commonly) a dispute as to the choice of the legal basis for the agreement.75 The relationship between the ex ante and ex post forms of control is worth a brief note. The opinion procedure can only be used before an agreement has been concluded, but the request for an opinion does not have a suspensive effect;76 there is thus nothing to prevent the Council from concluding the agreement before the CJEU has given its ruling. In such a case, Article 218(11) TFEU ceases to be applicable and the Member State or institution affected will have to bring an action ex post for the annulment of the Council’s concluding decision under Article 263 TFEU.77

B.  Exercising the EU’s treaty-​making powers Despite the Member States’ grant of treaty-​making powers to the EU, its ability to do so depends on the acceptance of that authority by its potential treaty partners. The treaty-​making authority of the EEC, as well as of its sister organizations the ECSC and Euratom were relatively quickly accepted by the international community, with the exception of members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA or Comecon).78 Once the European Union was granted treaty-​making powers by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, third countries started concluding treaties with the EU despite the absence of a clear attribution of legal personality.79 Following the Treaty of Lisbon, the international community has accepted the succession of the European Community by the European Union—​which now has an explicit legal personality—​without demur.80 However, there are still limitations; the UN and most of its agencies are open only to States and as a result the EU is not able to participate in international agreements negotiated within the framework of such bodies. The Food and Agriculture Organization changed its founding constitution to allow for EC (and now therefore EU) membership, as has the Hague Conference on Private International Law. But despite efforts to secure change, organizations including the International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Labor Organization (ILO), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are still closed to the EU. The same may apply to older multilateral conventions open only to State parties, such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).81 In such 73 Case C-​122/​95 Germany v Council [1998] ECR I-​973. 74 Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission (n 38); Joined Cases C-​317/​04 and C-​318/​04 European Parliament v Council (n 34). 75 Case C-​268/​94 Portugal v Council [1996] ECR I-​6177; Case 45/​86 Commission v Council (n 25); Case C-​281/​ 01 Commission v Council (n 26). 76 Opinion 3/​94 (n 62). 77 This happened in the so-​called ‘PNR case’ (n 34), concerning the conclusion of an agreement with the United States on the transfer by airline companies of passenger name records. The Court then held that the legal basis of the agreement was invalid, the Council decision approving it was annulled, the agreement having to be renegotiated and concluded under a different legal basis. 78 The CMEA officially ‘recognized’ the EEC in 1988; even before that date individual members of the CMEA had concluded treaties with the EEC. 79 See eg Council Decision (EU) 2006/​ 313 concerning the conclusion of the Agreement between the International Criminal Court and the European Union on cooperation and assistance [2006] OJ L115/​49. 80 In preparation for the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty the EU sent a Note Verbale to its treaty partners explaining the succession from EC to EU. See eg the Note Verbale from the Council and Commission to the World Trade Organization, WT/​L/​779, 30 November 2009. 81 The amendment (the Gabarone amendment) which would allow the accession of REIOs to the Convention was agreed in 1983 but has not yet entered into force.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  131 cases—​especially but not only where EU competence is exclusive—​Member States may participate in treaties on behalf of the EU. Thus (according to the CJEU) the Union is not prevented from exercising its competence, since it does so through the Member States acting jointly in the Union’s interest.82 Given acceptance of the EU as a treaty partner, how then is EU participation dealt with? In the case of bilateral treaties concluded by the EU alone, no special provision is normally made, although in a few cases it has been thought necessary to specify how an agreement with the EU affects the Member States.83 As will be discussed below, a treaty concluded by the EU alone will, as a matter of EU law, bind the Member States; however, they are not bound as a matter of international law. Third countries do not in general see this as a problem, although it has been suggested that it may account in part for the willingness of third countries to accept the phenomenon of mixed agreements, even when mixity may not be strictly necessary in terms of EU competence.84 In the case of bilateral mixed agreements,85 again special provision for EU participation is not normally made, but an indication may be given as to the different meanings attributed to the term ‘contracting party’.86 Where the EU is accepted as a party to a multilateral mixed agreement, this may be dealt with in a number of ways. In some cases, participation by the EU is expressly provided for in the treaty.87 In others, a more elaborate REIO clause is used, which apart from allowing for accession to the specific treaty, will sometimes require a declaration of competence, and will specify the voting arrangements so as to avoid concurrent voting by the EU and any of its Member States.88 While facilitating EU participation, these REIO clauses do not resolve all issues relating to the joint participation of the EU and its

82 Case C-​45/​07 Commission v Greece [2009] ECR I-​701 [31]; see also Opinion 2/​91 (n 18) [5]‌and Opinion 1/​13 (n 70) [43]–​[44]. 83 For example, the Agreement between the EU and the ICC (n 79), defines ‘EU’ so as to exclude ‘the Member States in their own right’ (Art 2(1)) and provides that requests for information originating from an individual Member State must be addressed directly to the relevant Member State (Art 3), thereby maintaining a clear separation between the EU and its Member States. 84 PJ Kuijper, ‘International Responsibility for EU Mixed Agreements’ in C Hillion and P Koutrakos (eds), Mixed Agreements Revisited—​The EU and its Member States in the World (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2010) 223–​4 (referring to the history of Art 36bis of the 1986 VCLT). 85 Where a mixed agreement is concluded by the EU and its Member States ‘of the one part’ and a third country or group of countries ‘of the other part’, it has an ‘essentially bilateral character’. Case C-​316/​91 European Parliament v Council [1994] ECR I-​625 [33]. 86 For example, the European Economic Area Agreement provides that ‘the term “Contracting Parties” means, concerning the Community and the EC Member States, the Community and the EC Member States, or the Community, or the EC Member States. The meaning to be attributed to this expression in each case is to be deduced from the relevant provisions of this Agreement and from the respective competences of the Community and the EC Member States as they follow from the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community and the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community’. [1994] OJ L1/​3, Art 2(c). 87 Eg Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 4, Art XI. 88 See eg Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (adopted 22 May 2001, entered into force 17 May 2004) 2256 UNTS 119, Art 2 (defining ‘Party’ to include a REIO and defining a REIO as ‘an organization constituted by sovereign States of a given region to which its member States have transferred competence in respect of matters governed by this Convention and which has been duly authorized, in accordance with its internal procedures, to sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to this Convention’); ibid Art 23(2) (dealing with the right to vote); ibid Art 25(2) (providing that a REIO that accedes without any of its Member States being a Party will be bound by all the obligations under the Convention. Where one or more of its Member States is a party, the REIO and its Member States ‘shall decide on their respective responsibilities for the performance of their obligations under the Convention’ and shall not be entitled to exercise their rights concurrently); ibid Art 25(3) (providing for a declaration of competence by the REIO at the time of ratification or accession).

132  The Treaty-Makers Member States, especially those concerning international responsibility for performance of the agreement. One further aspect of practice in EU treaty-​making deserves a brief mention here. Where the EU Member States, with or without the EU, enter into a multilateral treaty which overlaps to some extent with EU internal legislation, the parties may agree to include a so-​called ‘disconnection clause’. These clauses are designed to ensure that as between the EU and its Member States, it is EU law which is applied rather than the multilateral treaty. They thus emphasize that the EU and its Member States, if not one party, are at least in a special relationship to each other in their performance of the agreement. Disconnection clauses have been accepted in particular in Conventions concluded within the framework of the Council of Europe.89 They differ from other ‘without prejudice’ and ‘non-​affect’ clauses in that they operate automatically and are peremptory: they do not merely allow the Member States to apply EU law instead of the Convention’s rules, but require them to do so. They are thus less a conflict rule than a choice of law rule. From the EU point of view, the disconnection clause facilitates mixed agreements by stipulating, at the level of international law and in the agreement itself, the obligation to apply Union law which the doctrine of primacy of Union law imposes on the Member States. This increases transparency, but there is no doubt that the clause can be controversial, notwithstanding EU assurances that the rights of other parties are not affected, and it will not be appropriate in all cases.90

II.  The Legal Effects of EU Treaty-​Making A.  International agreements and the EU legal order 1. Enforcement and interpretation Once a treaty has been concluded by the EU it is, according to Article 216(2) TFEU, binding on the institutions of the Union and on the Member States. The agreement becomes, in the words of the Court of Justice, an integral part of the EU legal system,91 and has primacy over legal acts adopted by the EU institutions (EU secondary legislation).92 Consequently, such internal legal acts should be interpreted, so far as is possible, in a manner that is consistent with Union agreements.93 Where that is not possible there is at least the possibility

89 For an example of a standard disconnection clause see Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (adopted 16 May 2005, entered into force 1 May 2008) CETS No 198, Art 52(4) (‘Parties which are members of the European Union shall, in their mutual relations, apply Community and European Union rules in so far as there are Community or European Union rules governing the particular subject concerned and applicable to the specific case, without prejudice to the object and purpose of the present Convention and without prejudice to its full application with other Parties’). The clause is accompanied by a Declaration affirming that it does not affect the application of the Convention as between the EU and its Member States, on the one hand, and the other Parties to the Convention on the other. 90 For example, since the disconnection clause leads to differentiation between treaty parties, it may raise issues where the Convention’s aim is to establish a regime of common rules. M Cremona, ‘Disconnection Clauses in EU Law and Practice’ in Hillion and Koutrakos (n 84) 160. 91 Case 181/​73 Haegeman v Belgium [1974] ECR 449. 92 Case C-​61/​94 Commission v Germany [1996] ECR I-​3989 [52]; Case C-​308/​06 R v Secretary of State for Transport [2008] ECR I-​4057 [42]–​[45]; Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P Yassin Abdullah Kadi v Council [2008] ECR I-​06351 [307]. 93 Case C-​61/​94 Commission v Germany (n 92) [52].

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  133 (although it is unusual in practice) of challenging the legality of such acts on grounds of incompatibility with an international agreement concluded by the EU.94 Such an action requires not only that the agreement is binding on the EU, but also that ‘the nature and the broad logic of the [agreement] do not preclude this’.95 In addition, at least where the argument is raised before a national court and referred to the Court of Justice under Article 267 TFEU,96 it is necessary for the provisions of the agreement to ‘appear, as regards their content, to be unconditional and sufficiently precise’.97 The Court has consistently refused to accept that the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements satisfy these conditions,98 and has come to the same conclusion with respect to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,99 with the consequence that it will not impugn the legality of internal Union acts on grounds of incompatibility with these treaties. Although international agreements in principle take precedence over secondary legislation, they do not prevail over EU primary law, and this includes not only the EU Treaties but also the EU’s general principles of law, including fundamental human rights.100 This follows logically from Article 218(11) TFEU, to the effect that agreements deemed incompatible with the EU Treaties cannot enter into force unless either they or the Treaties are amended. According to Article 216(2) TFEU, treaties concluded by the EU are binding on the Member States as a matter of Union law. Thus, in the Kupferberg case, the Court was able to say: In ensuring respect for commitments arising from an agreement concluded by the Community institutions the Member States fulfil an obligation not only in relation to the non-​member country concerned but also and above all in relation to the Community which has assumed responsibility for the due performance of the Agreement.101

A corollary of this is that the Commission, in its role as ‘guardian of the Treaties’, may bring an enforcement action under Article 258 TFEU against a Member State on grounds of failure to comply with an international agreement concluded by the EU.102 Such an action may also be brought in relation to a mixed agreement where the provision breached is within the scope of Union law. Thus, in Commission v France (Étang de Berre), the Court held that it was enough that the field was ‘covered in large measure’ by Community legislation; in such a

94 Case C-​377/​98 Netherlands v Council [2001] ECR I-​7079. 95 Case C-​344/​04 R v Department for Transport [2006] ECR I-​403 [39]. 96 Such a question will be referred to the CJEU since national courts may not decide that EU secondary legislation is invalid: Case C-​314/​85 Foto-​Frost v Hauptzollamt Lübeck-​Ost [1987] ECR 4199 [12]–​[18]; Case C-​72/​15 PJSC Rosneft Oil Company v Her Majesty's Treasury and Others [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:236 [78]. 97 Case C-​308/​06 R v Secretary of State for Transport (n 92) [45]; compare Case C-​377/​98 Netherlands v Council (n 94) [54]. For a clear exposition of the current position, see AG Kokott’s opinion in Case C-​366/​10 Air Transport Association of America and Others [2011] ECLI:EU:C:2011:637. 98 Case C-​149/​96 Portugal v Council [1999] ECR I-​8395 [47]. Among the voluminous literature, see F Snyder, ‘The Gatekeepers: The European Courts and the WTO’ (2003) 40 CML Rev 313; PJ Kuijper and M Bronckers, ‘WTO Law in the European Court of Justice’ (2005) 42 CML Rev 1313. 99 Case C-​308/​06 R v Secretary of State for Transport (n 92) [53]–​[65]. See further M Mendez, ‘The Legal Effect of Community Agreements: Maximalist Treaty Enforcement and Judicial Avoidance Techniques’ (2010) 21 EJIL 83. 100 Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P Yassin Abdullah Kadi (n 92) [306]–​[309]. See text above at n 72. 101 Case 104/​81 Hauptzollampt Mainz v Kupferberg [1982] ECR 3641 [13]. 102 Case C-​61/​94 Commission v Germany (n 92).

134  The Treaty-Makers case ‘there is a Community interest in compliance by both the Community and its Member States with the commitments entered into under those instruments’.103 This ‘Union interest’ in compliance carries further implications for the Member States. Under Article 344 TFEU, the Member States are under an obligation ‘not to submit a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the Treaties to any method of settlement other than those provided for therein’. Applying the concept of the autonomy of the Union legal system, the Court has interpreted this to mean that it has exclusive jurisdiction to resolve disputes between Member States concerning a mixed agreement provision falling within the scope of EU law. It is thus a breach of Article 344 TFEU for a Member State to use the agreement’s dispute settlement procedure in a dispute with another EU Member State which raises issues of EU law.104 EU enforcement actions before the CJEU are not the only way to enforce international agreements against Member States. As an integral part of Union law, these treaties may be capable of creating individual rights enforceable directly in Member States’ national courts (‘direct effect’), subject to meeting a two-​fold test based on the nature of the agreement as a whole and the nature of the specific obligation to be enforced: A provision in an agreement concluded by the Community with non-​member countries must be regarded as being directly applicable when, regard being had to its wording and the purpose and nature of the agreement itself, the provision contains a clear and precise obligation which is not subject, in its implementation or effects, to the adoption of any subsequent measure.105

With the notable exception of the WTO, the Court has been relatively willing to grant direct effect to provisions of international agreements binding the EU, and this direct effect may extend to the binding decisions of institutions set up under those agreements, such as decisions of an Association Council.106 Four points should be noted in this regard. First, the Court is clear that the determination of whether or not an EU agreement creates directly effective rights enforceable in national courts is not a matter to be decided by those national courts, but only by the CJEU itself.107 The status granted to the treaty by EU law thus prevails over the determination of the status of international treaties in the Member States’ national constitutional law. Second, as regards individual rights, the Court will defer to the parties’ intentions as expressed in the agreement itself, or implied from its ‘nature and structure’;108 103 Case C-​239/​03 Commission v France [2004] ECR I-​9325 [29]; see also Case C-​13/​00 Commission v Ireland [2002] ECR I-​2943. 104 See Case C-​459/​03 Commission v Ireland [2006] ECR I-​4635 which concerned the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); the Court held that Ireland was in breach of its EU Treaty obligations for bringing dispute settlement proceedings against the United Kingdom before an Arbitral Tribunal established under Annex VII of the UNCLOS and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea with respect to an alleged breach of the UNCLOS that was within the scope of EU law. 105 Case 12/​86 Demirel (n 24) [14]. 106 See eg Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101); Case C-​192/​89 S Z Sevince v Staatssecretaris van Justitie [1990] ECR I-​3461; Case C-​18/​90 Office national de l’emploi v Kziber [1991] ECR I-​199; Case C-​257/​99 R v Secretary of State for the Home Dept, ex p Barkoci and Malik [2001] ECR I-​6557; Case C-​162/​00 Land Nordrhein-​Westfalen v Pokrzeptowicz-​Meyer [2002] ECR I-​1049; Case C-​213/​03 Syndicat professionnel coordination des pêcheurs de l’étang de Berre v Électricité de France [2004] ECR I-​07357; Case C-​265/​03 Simutenkov v Ministerio de Educación y Cultura [2005] ECR I-​2579; Case C-​228/​06 Soysal v Germany [2009] ECR I-​01031. 107 Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101) [14]. 108 Ibid [17].

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  135 it is this which has ultimately deterred the Court from granting direct effect to the WTO agreements. As a matter of practice, recent bilateral trade agreements concluded by the EU have explicitly precluded direct effect.109 Third, where there is no expressed intention in the agreement, the Court will not be deterred from interpreting an agreement as capable of direct effect simply because other parties to the agreement may not grant it such effect.110 Fourth, even where the provision of an EU agreement does not have direct effect, the courts of the Member States are required to interpret the relevant national law in such a way as, to the fullest extent possible, to give effect to the objectives of the agreement.111 As this might suggest, the CJEU has jurisdiction to interpret the provisions of EU agreements, including by way of preliminary reference from national courts under Article 267 TFEU. In doing so, it regularly makes reference to Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, to the effect that a treaty is to be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to its terms in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.112 Although it often makes the point that as a result, provisions of agreements binding the Union will not necessarily be interpreted in the same way as provisions of the EU Treaties which they closely resemble,113 in practice the Court will often refer to its case law on the EU Treaties to assist in interpreting a similar provision of a Union agreement.114 It will also endeavour to reach an interpretation consistent with the fundamental principles of EU law.115

2. Mixed agreements Some of the most difficult issues in relation to the enforcement and interpretation of EU agreements arise in the context of mixed agreements. To what extent is a Member State under a Union law obligation (as opposed to an international law obligation) to implement a mixed agreement? To what extent does the CJEU have jurisdiction to interpret a mixed agreement? What follows is a summary of the case law as it stands at present, but this is an area subject to continuing litigation and the approach of the Court has evolved over time.116 First, the CJEU has jurisdiction to interpret the agreement as a whole in order to determine the relative competence of the Union and the Member States and responsibility for

109 See eg Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Colombia and Peru, of the other part OJ 2012 L 354/​3 [336]; Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada, of the one part, and the European Union and its Member States, of the other part OJ 2017 L 11/​23 [30.6] (‘EU-​Canada CETA’). In the case of the EU-​Canada CETA, the absence of direct effect was linked by AG Bot to the provision in the agreement for a system of investor-​State dispute settlement independent of the parties’ domestic judicial systems: Opinion 1/​17, opinion of AG Bot, ECLI:EU:C:2019:72 [91]-​[94]. 110 Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101) [18]. Having said this, the CJEU does give the practice of other parties to the WTO some weight: Case C-​149/​96 Portugal v Council (n 98) [43]–​[45]. 111 Joined Cases C-​300/​98 and C-​392/​98 Parfums Christian Dior SA v TUK Consultancy BV [2000] ECR I-​11307 [47]; Case C-​240/​09 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK v Ministerstvo životného prostredia Slovenskej republiky [2011] ECLI:EU:C:2011:125 [50]–​[51]. 112 Case C-​416/​96 El-​Yassini v Secretary of State for Home Department [1999] ECR I-​1209 [47]; Case C-​268/​99 Jany v Staatssecretaris van Justitie [2001] ECR I-​8615 [35]; Case C-​386/​08 Brita Gmbh v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-​ Hafen [2010] OJ C100/​4 [42]–​[43]. 113 See eg Case 270/​80 Polydor Ltd v Harlequin Records Shops Ltd [1982] ECR 329; Opinion 1/​91 (n 3); Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101) [29]–​[31]. 114 See eg Case C-​438/​00 Deutscher Handballbund eV v Kolpak [2003] ECR I-​4135; Case C-​265/​03 Simutenkov (n 106). 115 Case C-​240/​09 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK (n 111) [49]; Opinion 1/​17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:341 [237]. 116 For a clear exposition of the current position, see AG Sharpston’s opinion in Case C-​240/​09 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK ECLI:EU:C:2010:436 [40]–​[62].

136  The Treaty-Makers performance of the agreement.117 Second, the provisions of a mixed agreement fall within the scope of Union law in so far as they relate to a field in which the EU has exercised its powers and adopted legislation. As such, the Member States are under an EU law obligation to implement those provisions and there is a Union interest to ensure compliance;118 the Court of Justice has jurisdiction to interpret those provisions and to determine their legal effects (whether they are capable of creating directly effective rights).119 Even where there is no EU legislation covering the specific issue, the above principle may apply where the field is ‘in large measure’ covered by EU law.120 It will not always be easy to determine in a specific case whether these conditions are satisfied (and it is for the CJEU itself to decide the question).121 Third, if a provision of a mixed agreement lies in a field in which the Union has not legislated, then it will be left to the national courts to determine the legal effect of that provision. However, even in such cases the CJEU may interpret the provision, if it may apply both to situations governed by EU law and to situations governed by national law, and there is an interest in ensuring a uniform interpretation.122 It will be seen from this, that just as the division of competences within a mixed agreement is subject to evolution, so too is the scope of jurisdiction of the Court to interpret such an agreement. Mixed agreements impose obligations of cooperation on both the Member States and the Union institutions.123 The duty includes the obligation to inform and consult, to contribute to the formation of a common Union position to be upheld in institutional structures established under a mixed agreement, as well as the duty not to pursue an autonomous position where a Union strategy exists.124 As parties to mixed agreements, the Member States are not only parties in their own right, they are parties as Member States of the EU and as such do not have complete autonomy of action.

B.  The impact of the EU on the Member States’ treaty-​making powers 1. Exclusive and shared competence Prior to the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU Treaties contained no general statement categorizing competences as exclusive or shared, and the characteristics of exclusive Community (now Union) competence were developed by the Court of Justice. Within the field of external relations, the conditions under which exclusive competence arises and the implications of exercising shared competence, are the subject of ongoing debate and continuing litigation. Recent case law has emphasized a rationale for exclusivity based on the need ‘to ensure a 117 Case C-​431/​05 Merck Genéricos-​Produtos Farmacêuticos Lda v Merck & Co Inc [2007] ECR I-​7001 [33]. See also Case C-​459/​03 Commission v Ireland (n 104). 118 Case C-​239/​03 Commission v France (n 103). 119 Case C-​431/​05 Merck Genéricos-​Produtos Farmacêuticos (n 117)  [35]; Case C-​240/​09 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK (n 111) [33]. 120 Case C-​239/​03 Commission v France (n 103) [29]–​[31]. 121 For an example, see Case C-​240/​09 Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK (n 111) in which AG Sharpston and the Court of Justice came to different conclusions. 122 Case C-​130/​95 Giloy v Hauptzollamt Frankfurt am Main-​Ost [1997] ECR I-​4291 [28]; Case C-​53/​96 Hermès International v FHT Marketing Choice BV [1998] ECR I-​3603 [32]. 123 C Hillion, ‘Mixity and Coherence in EU External Relations: the Significance of the Duty of Cooperation’ in Hillion and Koutrakos (n 84) 87. 124 Case C-​246/​07 Commission v Sweden [2010] ECR I-​3317.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  137 uniform and consistent application of the [Union] rules and the proper functioning of the system which they establish in order to preserve the full effectiveness of [Union] law’.125 This rationale, founded on the unity of the Union legal order and the uniform application of EU law, forms the basis of implied exclusive competence; it was also behind the Court-​ determined exclusivity of trade policy powers.126 In the context of implied powers the need for exclusivity is expressed in terms of the possibility that an external agreement, if concluded by the Member State(s), would ‘affect’ Union rules. An actual conflict between rules is not necessary for this to occur.127 Rather, it must be shown that the agreement covers a field which is within the scope of common Union rules, or within an area which is already largely covered by such rules. Its effect must then be judged by examining the nature and content of both the terms of the EU agreement and the Union measures.128 The Treaty of Lisbon attempted to codify these principles; it may be read as a restatement of what was perceived by the drafters to be the current state of the law. First, it establishes different categories of competence: exclusive, shared, and complementary or supporting.129 Certain competences are allocated to the exclusive and to the complementary categories and all others are declared to be shared. The list of complementary competences does not include any specifically external relations fields of activity, but, of course, the external dimensions of some of these areas (health, culture, tourism, and education) may well be important. Competences defined as exclusive a priori include the customs union and the common commercial (trade) policy as well as other fields which have an external dimension, such as conservation of marine biological resources and competition policy. This a priori or constitutional exclusivity—​where the Member States are as such precluded from acting—​is different from pre-​emption which applies in the case of shared competence where, as expressed in Article 2(2) TFEU, ‘Member States shall exercise their competence to the extent that the Union has not exercised its competence’. The distinction is a useful one: pre-​emption (unlike exclusivity) depends on Union action, and although the exercise of shared competence by the EU may pre-​empt Member States’ action, the right to exercise their competence may also be ‘returned’ to the Member States, at least in theory.130 However, in the field of external treaty-​making, the Lisbon Treaty unfortunately muddies this distinction, defining as exclusive competence categories which are close to pre-​ emption in nature. Article 3(2) TFEU provides: The Union shall also have exclusive competence for the conclusion of an international agreement when its conclusion is provided for in a legislative act of the Union or is necessary to enable the Union to exercise its internal competence, or insofar as its conclusion may affect common rules or alter their scope.

Despite the ambiguity in the relationship between them, it appears that in the context of external treaty-​making the CJEU will apply Article 3(2) rather than pre-​emption on the basis 125 Opinion 1/​03 (n 18) [128]. 126 Opinion 1/​75 (n 61). See M Cremona, ‘The External Dimension of the Single Market: Building (on) the Foundations’ in C Barnard and J Scott (eds), The Law of the Single European Market: Unpacking the Premises (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2002) 351. 127 Case C-​476/​98 Commission v Germany [2002] ECR I-​9855 [108]; Opinion 1/​03 (n 18) [129]. 128 Opinion 1/​13 (n 70). 129 Art 2 TFEU. 130 Art 2(2) TFEU and Declaration 18.

138  The Treaty-Makers of Article 2(2) TFEU,131 and in interpreting Article 3(2) the CJEU has been guided by its own previous case law on exclusive competence.132 Article 3(2) does not make any reference to Article 216(1) TFEU (discussed earlier) and yet they are clearly connected—​in fact the almost identical wording of the phrases in the two provisions might suggest that competences based upon Article 216(1) would inevitably be exclusive, as defined in Article 3(2). Although such a reading is hard to defend in terms of outcome, it is hard to avoid in the case of the third clause of Article 3(2), where the conclusion of the international agreement ‘may affect common rules or alter their scope’.133 In Opinion 2/​15, on the other hand, the CJEU differentiated between a provision in an agreement which is ‘necessary in order to achieve, within the framework of the Union’s policies, one of the objectives referred to in the Treaties’, as provided in Article 216(1) TFEU, and one which ‘is necessary to enable the Union to exercise its internal competence’, thereby falling within exclusive EU competence according to Article 3(2) TFEU. Given the Treaty objective of liberalizing capital movements between the EU and third countries, ‘the conclusion of international agreements which contribute to the establishment of such free movement on a reciprocal basis may be classified as necessary in order to achieve fully such free movement’.134 However, it could not be said that agreements with third countries are necessary for the Union to exercise its internal competence in relation to the movement of capital.135 In cases where the EU’s powers are exclusive, whether by virtue of Article 3(1) or 3(2) TFEU, the Member States may act—​as a matter of EU law—​only by way of authority from the EU. This authority may be granted, for example, where the EU is not itself able to conclude a particular agreement even though it possesses exclusive competence to do so; examples include agreements concluded within the framework of UN agencies such as the IMO or ILO and open only to State parties.136 However, the impact of EU law can also be felt even in those domains where competence is shared between the EU and the Member States, or which are still clearly within Member State competence, as a consequence of the principle of sincere cooperation, now found in Article 4(3) TEU. The operation of this principle in the case of mixed agreements has already been mentioned.137 Further, where Member States conclude an international agreement within their own sphere of competence, they must comply with their general Union law obligations. For example, Member State bilateral agreements with third countries on double taxation must observe the EU law principles of non-​discrimination and rights of establishment.138 In the Open Skies cases,139 although the bilateral Air Services Agreements 131 See eg Case C-​114/​12 Commission v Council [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2151 [73]. 132 See eg ibid, in particular [66]–​[67]; Opinion 1/​13 (n 70); Opinion 3/​15 [2017] ECLI:EU:C:2017:114. 133 See n 30. 134 Opinion 2/​15 (n 23) [239]–​[240]. 135 Ibid [237]. 136 See text at n 82. 137 See text at n 123ff. 138 Case C-​307/​97 Saint-​Gobain v Finanzamt Aachen-​Innenstadt [1999] ECR I-​6161. A Member State will need to justify differential treatment, even where it flows from the existence of a bilateral agreement; the agreement does not in itself remove the application of EU law rules: Case C-​55/​00 Gottardo v Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale [2002] ECR I-​413. 139 Case C-​466/​98 Commission v UK [2002] ECR I-​9427; Case C-​467/​98 Commission v Denmark [2002] ECR I-​9515; Case C-​468/​98 Commission v Sweden [2002] ECR I-​9575; Case C-​469/​98 Commission v Finland [2002] ECR I-​9627; Case C-​471/​98 Commission v Belgium [2002] ECR I-​9681; Case C-​472/​98 Commission v Luxembourg [2002] ECR I-​9741; Case C-​475/​98 Commission v Austria [2002] ECR I-​9797; Case C-​476/​98 Commission v Germany (n 127).

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  139 concluded by several Member States did not as a whole fall within exclusive EU competence, they were found by the Court to contain ownership and control clauses in contravention of Article 49 TFEU on rights of establishment, since, under the bilateral agreements, rights of access to the US market were restricted to companies under the ownership and control of nationals of the Member State party, excluding other EU companies established in that Member State.140 Thus, the bilateral agreement differentiated between EU companies established in the same Member State, and renegotiation of the agreements was required.141

2. Member State accession and withdrawal (i) Accession to the EU Accession to the EU will concern both the application to the acceding State of existing EU international agreements, and the position under EU law of the new Member’s existing treaty commitments. When a new Member State joins the European Union, the EU’s international agreements form part of the Union ‘acquis’ and will be binding on the acceding Member State under EU law by virtue of Article 216(2) TFEU.142 This is now normally spelled out in the relevant Act of Accession.143 The Act of Accession will also include an obligation on the part of the new Member State to accede to bilateral mixed agreements (agreements concluded jointly by the EU and its Member States). In the case of some mixed agreements, such as association agreements, a protocol of accession will be agreed, provision being made in the Act of Accession for the new Member State to apply the agreements from the date of accession to the EU, pending their conclusion.144 In a simplified procedure which is designed to avoid the need for ratification by each Member State, such protocols are normally concluded by the Council, acting unanimously on behalf of the Member States.145 Some EU mixed agreements include a specific provision on accession of new parties.146 Unusually, the trade agreement between the EU, its Member States, and Columbia and Peru, alongside a provision on the possibility of accession to the agreement of other members of the Andean Community,147 contains a detailed provision on the accession of new EU Member States.148 This requires the EU to notify the Andean Community parties of a request for EU

140 Case C-​476/​98 Commission v Germany (n 127) [153]–​[154]. 141 This was done both by renegotiating the Member States’ bilateral agreements, and by replacing them with EU agreements. See Regulation 847/​2004 on the negotiation and implementation of air service agreements between Member States and third countries [2004] OJ L157/​7. 142 See text at n 101. 143 The Act of Accession forms part of the Treaty of Accession to which all Member States and the acceding State are parties: Art 49 TEU. See eg Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Republic of Croatia and the adjustments to the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, OJ 2012 L 112/​21, Art 6(1) (‘Croatia Act of Accession’) (‘The agreements concluded or provisionally applied by the Union with one or more third countries, with an international organisation or with a national of a third country shall, under the conditions laid down in the original Treaties and in this Act, be binding on Croatia’). 144 Croatia Act of Accession (n 143) Art 6(3). 145 Ibid Art 6(2). See eg Council Decision 2018/​1041/​EU of 13 July 2018 on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union and its Member States, of a Protocol to the Framework Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, on the one part, and the Republic of Korea, on the other part, to take account of the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union OJ 2018 L 188/​1. 146 See eg European Economic Area Agreement OJ 1994 L 1/​3, Art 128. 147 Trade Agreement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one part, and Colombia and Peru, of the other part, OJ 2012 L 354/​3, Art 329. Ecuador acceded to the agreement in 2016. 148 Ibid Art 328.

140  The Treaty-Makers accession, as well as providing for exchange of information during the negotiations and ‘necessary adjustment or transition measures’. The EU Treaties themselves make special provision for international agreements concluded by Member States before their accession to the EU (or, for the original Members, before the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome). Under Article 351 TFEU the rights of third countries under such ‘prior agreements’ are protected from a Member State’s potentially conflicting EU Treaty obligations.149 However, this protection is limited. It does not apply to prior treaties between the Member States themselves.150 It is designed to protect the rights of third States and therefore allows Member States to fulfil their obligations under the agreement; it does not permit the Member States to exercise rights under the prior agreement if to do so would conflict with an EU Treaty obligation.151 Nor does it create any obligations of the Union towards the third State. Although it does extend to obligations of the Member States under EU primary law, it cannot absolve the Member States from complying with ‘the principles that form part of the very foundations of the [Union] legal order, one of which is the protection of fundamental rights’.152 In addition, the protection afforded by Article 351 is not intended to create a permanent derogation: the Member States are put under an obligation to eliminate any incompatibilities, by renegotiation and if necessary by denunciation of the prior agreement.153 The Act of Accession may also expressly provide for the new Member State to withdraw from existing trade agreements.154 (ii) Withdrawal from the EU The Treaty of Lisbon established, for the first time, a procedure for the withdrawal of a Member State from the EU. Under Article 50 TEU, an agreement between the Union and the withdrawing State will set out the arrangements for withdrawal ‘taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union.’155 As has become clear from the progress of the negotiations for the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (‘Brexit’), not only the withdrawal itself but also the nature of the ‘future relationship’ have implications for the withdrawing State’s relations (trade and other) with third countries. Whatever might be the final outcome of the Brexit process, the experience of the negotiation and the formulation of the EU’s positions has served to clarify some of these implications and the legal framework within which possible solutions may be developed. In the first place, the withdrawing State will lose an existing network of treaty relations derived from its EU membership. From the withdrawal date, ‘the [EU] Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question’ and, as a result, international agreements concluded by the EU will no longer be binding on the withdrawing State on the basis of Article 216(2) TFEU. 149 Case C-​124/​95 R v HM Treasury and Bank of England Ex p Centro-​Com (n 27); Case C-​62/​98 Commission v Portugal [2000] ECR I-​5171. 150 Case 10/​61 Commission v Italian Republic (1962) ECR (English special edition) 1. 151 Case 812/​79 Attorney General v Burgoa [1980] ECR 2787. 152 Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P Yassin Abdullah Kadi (n 92) [304]. 153 Art 351(2) TFEU. Cases C-​205/​06 Commission v Austria [2009] ECR I-​01301; C-​249/​06 Commission v Sweden [2009] ECR I-​01335; C-​118/​07 Commission v Finland [2009] ECR I-​10889. 154 See eg Croatia Act of Accession (n 143) Art 6(9). 155 The agreement is concluded by the Council acting by qualified majority and with the consent of the European Parliament: Art 50(2) TEU. Should no withdrawal agreement be agreed, withdrawal will take place automatically two years from the date on which the intention to withdraw was notified to the European Council: Art 50(3) TEU. As demonstrated by the UK withdrawal negotiations, the European Council can extend the two-​year period by unanimous consent.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  141 Since the withdrawing Member State is not a party to the agreement in international law there is no need for any formal withdrawal from such agreements. There may nonetheless need to be adjustments to the EU agreement as a result, either formal (if the agreement, for example, includes references to the withdrawing State’s institutions or agencies) or substantive, if the third country party is of the view that the material balance of benefits and obligations is substantially altered. In any event the third country will need to be informed that the EU agreement will no longer apply to the territory of the withdrawing State. The third country and the withdrawing State may also assess the need to replace the EU treaty with a new bilateral agreement. Mixed agreements are more complex, since the withdrawing Member State is a party in its own right. Discussions in the context of the UK withdrawal negotiations have distinguished between (i)  multilateral conventions, such as the WTO agreements, its linked plurilateral agreements such as the Government Procurement Agreement, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change on the one hand, and (ii) on the other hand, mixed agreements concluded by the EU and its Member States jointly. In the case of the former, the withdrawing State will simply regain competence over the whole convention and will no longer be subject to duties of cooperation towards the EU and other EU Member States in the management of its participation, including the obligation to abide by agreed EU common positions (eg in a Conference of the Parties). Depending on the nature of the convention, some adjustments of obligations may need to be made to separate those of the withdrawing State from those of the EU and its Member States (eg on dividing tariff rate quotas within the WTO156). Mixed agreements falling within the latter category have a bilateral character and will generally have been concluded by ‘the European Union and its Member States of the one part’. These include association agreements, partnership and cooperation agreements, and bilateral sectoral agreements such as those on air services. The Guidelines adopted by the European Council following the United Kingdom’s notification under Article 50 TEU treated these agreements in the same way as EU agreements: ‘the United Kingdom will no longer be covered by agreements concluded by the Union, or by Member States acting on its behalf or by the Union and its Member States acting jointly’.157 However, as the withdrawing State is a contracting party it would need to withdraw formally from (ie denounce) the agreement.158 In some cases, the wording of the agreement itself makes it clear that the withdrawing State cannot simply remain a party without negotiating an amendment of its terms. The European Economic Area Agreement (EEA), for example, defines ‘contracting parties’ in such a way that there is no place for a contracting party that is neither a European Free Trade Association (EFTA) State nor an EU Member State.159 Likewise, the territorial

156 In June 2018 the Council authorized the Commission to open negotiations with WTO partners on the adjustment of its existing quantitative commitments; General Affairs Council 26/​06/​2018, Council doc. 10519/​18. 157 European Council Guidelines following the United Kingdom’s notification under Article 50 TEU, EUCO XT 20004/​17, 29 April 2017 [13]. 158 G Van der Loo and S Blockmans, ‘The impact of Brexit on the EU’s international agreements’, CEPS Commentary (2016), available at ; R A Wessel, ‘Consequences of Brexit for International Agreements concluded by the EU and its Member States’ (2018) 55 CML Rev 101, 119ff. 159 Art 2(c) EEA (‘the term “Contracting Parties” means, concerning the Community and the EC Member States, the Community and the EC Member States, or the Community, or the EC Member States.’ The term EFTA State is defined in Art 2(b) EEA).

142  The Treaty-Makers application of the EEA is defined in terms of the territories to which the EU Treaties apply.160 Thus, if a withdrawing State were to wish to remain a party to the EEA in its own right after withdrawal from the EU, an amendment of the EEA would be necessary.161 In the period between notification under Article 50 TEU and the date of withdrawal, a withdrawing State continues to be subject to Union law, including the duty of sincere cooperation. In the context of UK withdrawal, the European Council declared that it expected the United Kingdom ‘to honour its share of international commitments contracted in the context of its EU membership’ and to engage in ‘constructive dialogue’ on a possible common approach towards third country partners and international organizations.162 Indeed, the initial approach to WTO members was made jointly by the EU and United Kingdom.163 The Withdrawal Agreement envisaged by Article 50 TEU also provides a framework which may be used to mitigate the effects of an abrupt change of status on the large number of treaties applicable to the withdrawing State as an EU Member State. Thus, the draft Withdrawal Agreement negotiated with the United Kingdom specified a transition period during which EU law will continue to apply to the United Kingdom, EU law being defined to include ‘international agreements to which the Union is party and the international agreements concluded by the Member States acting on behalf of the Union’.164 During the transition period, the United Kingdom would be bound by the obligations stemming from these international agreements, which include mixed agreements concluded by the Union and its Member States acting jointly, but is not to participate in institutional bodies set up by those agreements unless it participates in its own right.165 This is of course an obligation agreed between the United Kingdom and the EU and does not in itself require the third country partners to continue to treat the United Kingdom as an EU Member State.166 During the transition period, while continuing to benefit from EU trade agreements,167 the United Kingdom would be able to negotiate its own trade agreements with third countries and even to ratify them, ‘provided those agreements do not enter into force or apply during the transition period, unless so authorised by the Union’.168 However, in accordance with the principle of sincere cooperation, it is to ‘refrain, during the transition period, from any action or initiative which is likely to be prejudicial to the Union’s interests’.169 160 Art 126(1) EEA. The institutional arrangements of the EEA, including dispute settlement, are also predicated on a bilateral model (EFTA and EU parties). 161 C Hillion, ‘BREXIT Means BR(EEA)XIT: The UK Withdrawal from the EU and its Implications for the EEA’ (2018) 55 CML Rev 135. Art 127 EEA provides for withdrawal from the EEA and the procedure for necessary modifications to the agreement. 162 European Council Guidelines (n 157) [13]. 163 Joint letter from the EU and the UK Permanent Representatives to the WTO, 11 October 2017 . 164 Draft Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, Commission Doc TF50 (2018) 35, Art 2(a)(iv). On ‘international agreements concluded by the Member States acting on behalf of the Union’, see text above at n 82ff. Were the United Kingdom to leave the EU without concluding such a Withdrawal Agreement, of course these transitional arrangements would not take effect. 165 Withdrawal Agreement (n 164) Art 124(1) and (2). See also Supplementary directives for the negotiation of an agreement with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal from the European Union, Council Doc XT 21004/​18 ADD 1 REV 2, 29 January 2018 [15]. 166 A footnote to the Withdrawal Agreement (n 164) Art 124 specifies that ‘The Union will notify the other parties to these agreements that during the transition period, the United Kingdom is to be treated as a Member State for the purposes of these agreements’. 167 The EU has approximately forty preferential trade agreements, covering over seventy countries. 168 Withdrawal Agreement (n 164) Art 124(4); Supplementary directives (n 165) [16]. 169 Withdrawal Agreement (n 164) Art 124(3).

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  143 Transition arrangements such as these do not predetermine the longer-​term position. The experience of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal negotiations has demonstrated the interdependence between the withdrawing State’s post-​transition relationship with the EU and its future relations with other third countries, especially in the field of trade. If the relationship is based on a free trade agreement, the withdrawing State no longer participates in the EU’s trade policy towards third countries, and is no longer covered by EU trade agreements.170 However, if the withdrawing State remains within the EU customs union, an arrangement with the relevant third countries would be needed to extend to that State the functional application of EU trade agreements, and it is likely that this would require a more formal agreement than the simple notification envisaged in earlier drafts of the UK Withdrawal Agreement.

C.  International responsibility and EU treaty-​making The effects of a treaty concluded by the EU in EU law are of course complemented by its effects in international law. On a number of occasions, the Court of Justice has recognized that the EU is bound in international law by the agreements it has concluded.171 As such, the EU will be responsible for breach of its treaty obligations in the same way as other treaty parties. The European Commission has participated in the debate over the ILC’s Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO),172 and has continued in this context to defend an argument it has used with some success before WTO Panels, to the effect that the specific relationship between Member States and the EU, when the former implement EU law, renders it difficult to accommodate a standard approach to attribution.173 Three scenarios may be briefly considered here.174 First, where the EU alone is a party to the international agreement, it alone will be responsible under international law for the performance of the agreement. This does not necessarily mean that the Member States have no part to play in fulfilling the commitments made by the Union; who actually implements the agreement will depend on ‘the state of [Union] law for the time being in the areas affected by the provisions of the agreement’.175 It only means that the EU’s responsibility is not affected by the internal question of how the competence to implement the agreement is distributed. The EU may, in this way, take responsibility for measures taken, or omissions, by its Member States (including Member States acceding to the Union after the conclusion of the treaty).176 This scenario is by no means uncommon: EU agreements on subjects ranging from air services to visa facilitation and customs will in practice be implemented by

170 See eg ‘The United Kingdom’s exit from and new partnership with the European Union’, Cm 9417, 2 February 2017 [8.43]. 171 Eg Joined Cases C-​317/​04 and C-​318/​04 European Parliament v Council (n 34) [73]. 172 ILC, Report on the International Law Commission on the Work of its Sixty-​first Session (15 January 2010) UN Doc A/​64/​10. The DARIO were adopted by the ILC (UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.778 (3 June 2011)) and are annexed to UNGA Resolution 66/​100 on Responsibility of International Organizations (9 December 2011). 173 See eg E Paasivirta and PJ Kuijper, ‘Does One Size Fit All? The European Community and the Responsibility of International Organisations’ (2005) 36 Netherlands Ybk Int’l L 169. 174 See generally M Cremona, A Thies, and RA Wessel, The European Union and International Dispute Settlement (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2017). 175 Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101) [12]. 176 Ibid [13].

144  The Treaty-Makers Member State authorities.177 Nevertheless, there may be cases where the third State concerned in concluding a treaty with the EU alone feels the need for greater certainty that the Member States themselves are fully committed to the new treaty.178 Second, and conversely, the EU is not responsible in international law for a failure to perform a treaty to which it is not a party, despite the Member States being parties, merely because it would have had the competence to conclude the agreement and does have the competence to implement it. In situations where the EU is exclusively competent over (part of) the subject matter of an international treaty, but cannot conclude the treaty because it is open only to State parties, the Member States may be authorized by the EU to conclude the treaty on behalf of, and in the interests of, the Union.179 In such a case, the Member States, as parties, are responsible in international law for its performance, but in terms of EU law they may not have the competence to (for example) enact the necessary domestic legislation, relying on the Union institutions to do so. From the perspective of the EU, the position is also problematic, since it is expected by its Member States to implement the provisions of a treaty by which it is not legally bound and over the content of whose provisions it has no direct control.180 For third parties, the concern has been that the Member States may somehow seek to escape from their treaty obligations by way of their EU membership and—​in some instances—​their consequent inability to implement treaty obligations themselves.181 In these scenarios, the specificity of the EU’s position derives from the fact that the (external) capacity to conclude an international treaty does not necessarily coincide with the (internal) allocation of powers in its implementation. Nevertheless, in terms of international responsibility the position of the EU is clear in both cases. The third scenario, the case of the mixed agreement, is more complex. Here the international treaty is concluded by both the EU and its Member States, and this fact, combined with the complex division of competence and (internal) responsibility for implementation, has given rise to differences of opinion and largely ineffective attempts to provide some certainty over questions of international responsibility. Three points of view can be identified. First, there are those who seek to define the EU’s responsibility under a mixed agreement in terms of its exercise 177 Cf PJ Kuijper, ‘Introduction to the Symposium on Responsibility of International Organizations and of (Member) States: Attributed or Direct Responsibility or Both?’ (2010) 7 Intl Org L Rev 9, 14. 178 This is the case especially where there are existing bilateral agreements between the Member State and the third State on the matter. For example, the two agreements on mutual legal assistance and on extradition between the EU and the United States contain detailed references to existing bilateral US–​Member State agreements, and both required the Union to ‘ensure that each Member State acknowledges, in a written instrument’ between that Member State and the United States, the implications of the EU agreement for its bilateral treaty with the United States. Agreement on extradition between the European Union and the United States of America [2003] OJ L181/​ 27, Art 3(2); Agreement on mutual legal assistance between the European Union and the United States of America [2003] OJ L181/​34, Art 3(2). 179 Eg Council Decision (EC) 2008/​431 of 5 June 2008 authorising Member States to ratify or accede to the 1996 Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children and authorising certain Member States to make a declaration on the application of the relevant internal rules of Community law [2008] OJ L151/​36. 180 An example would be the international rules adopted within the IMO framework, such as the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL Convention). For this reason, where EU competence is exclusive it is important—​for EU law purposes—​that the Member States act only via commonly agreed positions: Case C-​45/​07 Commission v Greece (n 82); Case C-​399/​12 Germany v Council [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:2258. 181 E Paasivirta, ‘Responsibility of a Member State of an International Organization:  Where Will it End? Comments on Article 60 of the ILC Draft on the Responsibility of International Organizations’ (2010) 7 Intl Org L Rev 49.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  145 of competence, including those who hold that the Union is only engaged to the extent of its exclusive competence, everything else being reserved to the Member States on the grounds that their participation is an indication that the EU has chosen not to exercise its shared competence.182 A second approach holds that since the EU and its Member States have both concluded the treaty, both are contractually liable for its performance as a whole and may be jointly and severally responsible for its breach.183 On this view, the division of competence between the EU and its Member States is an internal matter.184 A third approach seeks to base responsibility not solely on the exercise of competence in concluding the treaty, nor simply on the consent to be bound expressed in the formal act of conclusion, but on the exercise of legislative or regulatory authority by the EU. A competence-​based approach to responsibility has been the basis of the practice in multilateral conventions since the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which required a declaration of competence as a condition for REIO participation.185 The EU is a party to approximately forty treaties which include a declaration of competence by the EU, all of them multilateral.186 The declarations vary. Some merely assert a general EU competence over the field of the treaty,187 some distinguish between exclusive and shared competence,188 some list relevant items of EU legislation (often out of date),189 and most recent ones include a statement to the effect that the scope of EU competence ‘is, by its nature, subject to continuous change’.190 UNCLOS Annex IX, which contains rules for the participation in the Convention of IOs, clearly links responsibility to the distribution of competence as evidenced by the declaration of competence; it also provides that an IO or its Member States may be asked by any other party to provide information as to who has responsibility in respect of any specific matter and that ‘failure to provide this information within a reasonable time or the provision of contradictory information shall result in joint and several liability’.191 Despite this practice, it is not possible to point to a single case in which the EU declaration of competence has been determinative in allocating responsibility in dispute settlement under an EU agreement.192 In contrast, practice under the WTO—​where there is no declaration of competence—​ appears to be based rather on the second approach: shared responsibility.193 The fact that 182 Eg J Heliskoski, Mixed Agreements as a Technique for Organizing the International Relations of the European Community and its Member States (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2001) 46–​7. 183 A Rosas, ‘The European Union and International Dispute Settlement’ in L Boisson de Chazournes, C Romano, and R Mackenzie (eds), International Organisations and International Dispute Settlement: Trends and Prospects (Transnational Publishers, Ardsley 2002). 184 Case C-​53/​96 Hermès International (n 122) [14]. 185 UNCLOS (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Annex IX, Art 5(1). 186 See European Commission, ‘Treaties Office Database’ (n 2). 187 Eg Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (adopted 17 March 1992, entered into force 6 October 1996)  1936 UNTS 269, declaration by the Union pursuant to Art 25(4). 188 Eg International Tropical Timber Agreement (adopted 26 January 1994, entered into force 1 January 1997) 1163 UNTS 81, declaration by the Union pursuant to Art 36(3). 189 Eg Statute of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) (adopted 26 January 2009, entered into force 8 July 2010) [2010] OJ L178/​18. 190 Eg United Nations Convention against Corruption (adopted 31 October 2003, entered into force 14 December 2005) 2349 UNTS 145, declaration of competence by the Union pursuant to Art 67(3). 191 UNCLOS (n 185) Annex IX, Art 6. 192 A Delgado Casteleiro, The International Responsibility of the European Union: From Competence to Normative Control (CUP, Cambridge 2016). 193 See generally Kuijper (n 177).

146  The Treaty-Makers the EU operates under a system of executive federalism means that even in areas of exclusive Union competence, EU law will be applied and administered by Member State authorities. WTO panels have accepted that the EU should be held responsible in such cases.194 In other cases, complaints have been brought against the EU and several Member States together,195 or against the EU alone in respect of measures taken by Member States.196 This pragmatic approach perhaps works best in the context of a highly institutionalized dispute settlement process, and where the Union and its Member States closely cooperate in management of the treaty regime.197 It is not easy to find, in the case law of the Court of Justice, a clear preference for one of these approaches to responsibility for mixed agreements. In the Mox Plant case,198 elements of all three approaches were evident. First, the Court stressed that UNCLOS as a whole had been concluded by the Community and its provisions therefore ‘now form an integral part of the Community legal order’.199 It then referred to the assumption of responsibility by the Union for the due performance of UNCLOS as a whole.200 Despite this starting point—​ which seems to coincide with the second approach—​the Court still examined to what extent the Union had chosen to exercise its (shared) competence in concluding UNCLOS—​an enquiry which, especially in referencing the declaration of competence, reflects the first, competence-​based approach. However, the parties to the case drew very different conclusions from the declaration of competence as to the extent to which the EU had in fact exercised its shared competence in concluding the Convention. The Court’s conclusion was that it had done so over all parts of the Convention where Union rules (internal Union legislation) existed; for those parts of the Convention in which there are no Union rules, ‘competence rests with the Member States’.201 This final result is most consistent with the third approach identified above. Of course, the Mox Plant case was not directly concerned with Union or Member State responsibility to third countries: it concerned a dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom which, in the CJEU’s view, should have been dealt with via EU and not UNCLOS enforcement mechanisms. Therefore, the Court was concerned essentially with defining the scope of Union law. But to the extent that the EU regards compliance with a mixed agreement by a Member State party as a matter of EU law to be enforced internally, then it should assume international responsibility for its performance vis-​à-​vis third parties.202 194 WTO, European Communities:  Customs Classification of Certain Computer Equipment—​Report of the Appellate Body (the LAN case) (15 June 1998) WT/​DS62/​AB/​R, WT/​DS67/​AB/​R, and WT/​DS68/​AB/​R; WTO, European Community:  Protection of Trademarks and Geographical Indications for Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs—​Complaint by the United States—​Report of the Panel (15 March 2005) WT/​DS174/​R. 195 Eg WTO, European Communities and Certain Member States:  Measures Affecting Trade in Large Civil Aircraft—​Report of the Appellate Body (18 May 2011) WT/​DS316/​AB/​R. 196 Eg WTO, European Communities: Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos-​Containing Products—​Report of the Appellate Body (12 March 2001)  WT/​DS135/​AB/​R; WTO, European Communities: Measures Affecting the Approval and Marketing of Biotech Products—​Reports of the Panel (26 September 2006) WT/​DS291/​R, WT/​ DS292/​R, and WT/​DS293/​R. 197 See further, G Marín Durán, ‘The EU and its Member States in WTO Dispute Settlement: A “Competence Model” or a Case Apart for Managing International Responsibility?’ in M Cremona and others (n 174) 237. 198 Case C-​459/​03 Commission v Ireland (n 104) (Mox Plant case). 199 Ibid [82]. 200 Ibid [85]; cf Case 104/​81 Kupferberg (n 101) [13]; see also Case C-​316/​91 European Parliament v Council (n 85) [33]. 201 Case C-​459/​03 Commission v Ireland (n 104) [107]–​[08]. 202 See also Case C-​239/​03 Commission v France (n 103) [25]–​[30], in which the Court uses the potential international responsibility of the Union as a basis for its argument that France’s breach of the treaty was also a failure to fulfil an internal EU law obligation.

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  147 While there is no special provision for the EU in the DARIO, the provision in the articles for a lex specialis recognizing the ‘rules of the organization’ should make it possible in principle to take the EU’s specificity, and its own approach, into account.203 From this perspective it would no doubt be helpful were the EU itself to establish a set of guiding principles to apply to responsibility for mixed agreements.204 As things stand, the model of Article 6 of Annex IX to UNCLOS, which puts the onus on the EU to inform its treaty partners on request whether responsibility for a specific matter lies with the EU or its Member States, offers a procedural and perhaps sufficiently secure solution to third countries.205

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted the distinctive features of the EU as an international, treaty-​ making actor. Structurally, the Treaty of Lisbon has simplified the position by merging the EU and EC together into a single organization with a single, explicit, legal personality. It also sought to codify (with mixed success) the case law developed by the CJEU on the EU’s treaty-​making powers. The Court of Justice’s early espousal of a doctrine of implied powers enabled the EU from the beginning to use international agreements—​as well as internal legislation—​to achieve its objectives. Since then amendments of the EU Treaties have steadily added to its external and internal competence. The distinctiveness of EU treaty-​making is in the volume and extent of its activity, its use of both bilateral and multilateral treaties as a key instrument of its foreign policy, and its complex institutional and constitutional structure. The latter, in particular, entails a rich system of rules encompassing the EU and its Member States, their respective powers and responsibilities, and the legal effects of international agreements in the EU legal order. When considering the EU as a treaty-​maker, therefore, both the EU’s own internal structures and rules and international practice must be considered. The CJEU has almost never denied the EU external competence,206 and it is very rare for the Court to question substantive foreign policy choices made by the EU institutions.207 But nor has it denied its own jurisdiction over international agreements concluded by the EU. As a constitutional court, it has been

203 DARIO (n 172) Art 64 (‘(“lex specialis”): These draft articles do not apply where and to the extent that the conditions for the existence of an internationally wrongful act or the content or implementation of the international responsibility of an international organization, or of a State in connection with the conduct of an international organization, are governed by special rules of international law. Such special rules of international law may be contained in the rules of the organization applicable to the relations between an international organization and its members’); C Ahlborn, ‘The Rules of International Organizations and the Law of International Responsibility’ (Amsterdam Centre for International Law Research Paper 2011–​03, 2011)  2. 204 Kuijper (n 177) 225–​7. Kuijper suggests adding a clause to the Council’s approval decision for mixed agreements which would either clearly allocate responsibility or establish a rule of allocation. 205 The EU-​Canada CETA, as an example of current practice in investor-​State dispute settlement, provides in Art 8.21 that a Canadian investor intending to submit a claim must request from the EU a ‘determination of the respondent’, and the EU is then required to inform the claimant whether the EU or a Member State is to be the respondent. This practice also avoids the risk that an external dispute settlement body may determine the allocation of competence between the EU and its Member States: Opinion 1/​17 (n 115) [132]. 206 The two existing examples are accession to the ECHR, Opinion 2/​94 (n 28), now provided for explicitly in the EU Treaties, and the Passenger Name Records Agreement with the United States, which having been wrongly concluded under EC powers was then renegotiated and approved under EU powers (n 34). 207 Cf Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P Yassin Abdullah Kadi (n 92), in which the Court draws a distinction (albeit not convincing to all) between the internal constitutional issues it was addressing and their external policy implications.

148  The Treaty-Makers able to define the internal allocation of competence within the Union and in so doing to establish the constitutional framework for international action. Although EU external competence may exclude that of the Member States, in very many cases, especially complex modern multilateral treaties, the EU and its Member States will participate together. It is these agreements that pose the most difficult challenges, both for EU law and for its treaty partners. Mechanisms such as the REIO clause and declarations of competence have been developed to enable the joint participation of the EU and its Member States, but questions still remain over the extent to which the interpretation and enforcement of these agreements are subject to CJEU jurisdiction and over the allocation of international responsibility. Efforts to resolve these debates take place in the context of internal constitutional (and power) struggles among EU institutions and between the EU and Member States. EU treaty-​making, and the conduct of policy within international treaty regimes, can be intensely political and within the EU’s institutional structures politics often transforms itself into legal disputes. The nature of the EU as a treaty-​making power—​and the distinctiveness and complexity with which third countries are faced—​is the result of this incremental and reiterative political and legal process. At the same time, in engaging with and posing these questions, the EU is making a contribution to the development of international law.

Recommended Reading E Cannizzaro (ed), The European Union as an Actor in International Relations (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2002) M Cremona, ‘External Relations and External Competence of the European Union: The Emergence of an Integrated Policy’ in P Craig and G de Búrca (eds), The Evolution of EU Law (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2011) M Cremona (ed), Structural Principles in EU External Relations Law (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2018) M Cremona and B de Witte (eds), EU Foreign Relations Law:  Constitutional Fundamentals (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2008) M Cremona, J Monar, and S Poli (eds), The External Dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (Peter Lang, Brussels 2011) M Cremona, A Thies, and RA Wessel (eds), The European Union and International Dispute Settlement (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2017) A Dashwood and C Hillion (eds), The General Law of EC External Relations (Sweet & Maxwell, London 2000) A Dashwood and M Maresceau (eds), Law and Practice of EU External Relations (CUP, Cambridge 2008) G De Baere, Constitutional Principles of EU External Relations (OUP, Oxford 2008) A Delgado Casteleiro, The International Responsibility of the European Union: From Competence to Normative Control (CUP, Cambridge 2016) P Eeckhout, External Relations of the European Union (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2011) J Heliskoski, Mixed Agreements as a Technique for Organizing the International Relations of the European Community and its Member States (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2001) C Hillion and P Koutrakos (eds), Mixed Agreements Revisited—​The EU and its Member States in the World (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2010) J Klabbers, Treaty Conflict and the European Union (CUP, Cambridge 2009) M Koskenniemi (ed), International Law Aspects of the European Union (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2000) P Koutrakos, EU International Relations Law (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2006)

Who Can Make Treaties? The EU  149 P Koutrakos (ed), European Foreign Policy:  Legal and Political Perspectives (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2011) V Kronenberger (ed), The EU and the International Legal Order: Discord or Harmony? (TMC Asser Press, The Hague 2001) M Maresceau, ‘Bilateral Agreements Concluded by the European Community’ (2006) 309 RcD 125 R Schütze, Foreign Affairs and the EU Constitution: Selected Essays (CUP, Cambridge 2014) D Thym, ‘Foreign Affairs’ in A von Bogdandy and J Bast (eds), Principles of European Constitutional Law (2nd edn Hart Publishing, Oxford 2011) G van der Loo and RA Wessel, ‘The Non-​Ratification of Mixed Agreements: Legal Consequences and Solutions’ (2017) 54 CML Rev 735. JHH Weiler, ‘The External Legal Relations of Non-​unitary Actors: Mixity and the Federal Principle’ in JHH Weiler (ed), The Constitution of Europe:  Do the New Clothes Have an Emperor? (CUP, Cambridge 1999) R A Wessel, ‘Lex Imperfecta: Law and Integration in European Foreign and Security Policy’ (2016) European Papers, No 2, 439.

7

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects of International Law Tom Grant

Introduction ‘[T]‌he right of entering international engagements is an attribute of State sovereignty.’1 That an entity has entered into a treaty, however, does not necessarily mean that it is a State. The International Law Commission (ILC), when considering the law of treaties, did not dispute that other subjects besides States and international organizations could conclude agreements whose ‘obligatory force is . . . derived from international law’.2 The decision of the ILC to limit the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) to treaties concluded between States3 implicitly acknowledged the broader principle: Article 3 VCLT excludes international agreements involving ‘other subjects of international law’, which is to say, though the Convention does not apply to such agreements, they certainly exist. Earlier chapters of the present volume examined the treaty-​making powers of international organizations and of the European Union. The present chapter concerns other non-​State actors. Though this would suggest a residual category, the other subjects considered here need not be defined by reference to what they are not. True, they are not international legal persons in the sense of actors holding ‘the totality of international rights and duties recognized by international law’4—​but nor are international organizations, the member States of which, while investing legal personality in them, limit their competences under each organization’s constitution.5 Some of these other subjects are entities like Kosovo before independence and Taiwan since 1949, which are called (perhaps in default of a better analytic category) sui generis6—​but the EU has been described that way as well.7 1 The Wimbledon (Great Britain, France, Italy & Japan v Germany; Poland intervening) (Judgment of 17 August 1923) PCIJ Rep Ser A No 1 25. 2 This was Brierly’s view as the ILC’s first Special Rapporteur. JL Brierly, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1950] YBILC, vol II, 222, 229 [34]. In 1962, the fourth Special Rapporteur, Sir Humphrey Waldock even proposed to define a ‘treaty’ to mean ‘any international agreement in any written form . . . which is intended to be governed by international law and is concluded between two or more states or other subjects of international law having capacity to enter into treaties’ [1962] YBILC, vol I, 51 [3]‌(emphasis added). 3 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 187 (comment (2) on Art 1). 4 Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174, 180. 5 Ibid; Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations (Article 4 of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1948] ICJ Rep 57, 64. 6 See eg Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo (Advisory Proceedings), Written Statement of the United Kingdom (17 April 2009) 9–​15 [0.17]–​[0.23] (‘Declaration of Independence Proceedings’); DB Hollis ‘Unpacking the Compact Clause’ (2010) 88 Texas L Rev 741, 753 n55; J Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (8th edn OUP, Oxford 2012) 124–​5. 7 As the Bundesverfassungsgericht called it in Internationale Handelgesellschaft mbH v Einfuhrund Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel (1974) 37 BverfGE 271, trans in [1974] 2 CML Rev 540, 549 [19].

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  151 Instead, it might be said that this category of ‘other subjects’ is comprised of entities over which a State holds authority—​or perhaps in the case of a territory administered under condominium, trusteeship, or analogous arrangement, where authority lies in a combination of States or in an international organization—​and which do not themselves normally hold international legal responsibility. Such subjects may engage in social, political, and economic transactions at the international level, but they are not presumed competent to negotiate or conclude treaties. This chapter examines exceptions to the usual practice. It concerns non-​State actors that have exercised the competence to assume obligations under formal agreements with others—​or, at least, to conclude such agreements, if not in their own name. These other subjects of international law may be divided into four categories. First, there are territories integral to a State—​especially the units which constitute a federal State. Second, there are external territories, the foreign relations of which normally are the responsibility of a State albeit under a variety of relationships. Third, insurgent groups—​ entities which seek to displace an existing State in all or part of its territory and themselves to assume the functions of the State—​have been said to enter into international agreements as well. Finally, as is now widely acknowledged, private actors—​including corporations, non-​governmental organizations, and individuals—​may be international law subjects for some purposes; the extent to which this is the case remains in flux. In at least one field—​ international investment protection—​engagements between States and private actors have become sufficiently routine and display such characteristics as to merit attention here.8 The present chapter considers treaty-​making under each of these four categories. It also takes up two more general topics:  first, the relationship of treaty-​making by such other subjects to the VCLT and to the general international law of treaties; and, second, international responsibility in connection with the obligations arising when such subjects make treaties.

I.  Treaty-​Making by ‘Other Subjects of International Law’ A.  Federal units and other integral territories 1. The assignment of treaty-​making competence Treaty-​making is one of the classic functions of the central government of the State.9 Although international law is agnostic generally as to the manner in which a State assigns its foreign policy functions, Article 7 VCLT lists who, in the absence of full powers, may represent the State in treaty-​making. Representatives of a federal territory are not among the officers ‘considered as representing their State’ unless they are granted full powers or happen to hold one of the State offices that are agreed to include treaty-​making powers.10

8 Other taxonomies might be employed. For example, in the Second Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements of the Inter-​American Juridical Committee, government agencies are addressed as possible treaty-​ making entities. DB Hollis, Second Report on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser. Q, CJI/​doc.553/​18 (6 February 2018) [8]‌(‘Hollis, Second Report’). 9 To the extent a federal State’s constitution limits its ability to legislate in respect of matters within the competence of its component territorial units, treaty practice has developed a number of accommodations, most notably, the ‘federal-​state clause’. For examples and a discussion of its various forms, see Chapter 13, 318–19 et seq. 10 See Chapter 9, 211 et seq for a detailed discussion of Art 7 VCLT.

152  The Treaty-Makers In any case, Article 7 only governs treaty-​making by the State; treaty-​making by the federal territorial unit presents a distinct situation. Here, the question arises whether the federal territorial unit has the capacity to enter into a treaty, not as agent of the State, but on its own account. General international law does not grant federal units this capacity, although it does not withhold it either.11 Rather, treaty-​making by federal territorial units is a function of two elements: on the one hand, the particular rules and practices of the State of which it is a constituent, and on the other, the willingness of another party to enter into international agreements with the unit. First, to enter into treaties, a federal territorial unit must have explicit treaty-​making authority from the State of which it is a component part. Agreement-​making by constituents of the federal State is typically constrained to narrow limits or not allowed at all. The restrictive position in Australia was summarized by Justice Murphy in Koowarta v Bjelke-​Petersen (1982): Any purported treaty or agreement between any or all the Australian states and a foreign country is a nullity. States have entered into arrangements with other countries either in the belief they could do so or because of the neglect of the Commonwealth to make arrangements which were thought to be practically necessary . . . All such arrangements are within the exclusive authority of the Commonwealth.12

To say that the resultant ‘arrangements’ are a ‘nullity’ is a legal judgment; it does not preclude political statements. Accordingly, territorial units of federal States may enter into arrangements with foreign States or sub-​national counterparts that appear to contain political, rather than, legal commitments. The intention is to avoid national constitutional objection; a further result is that questions of treaty law are also avoided,13 except, perhaps, if one takes the view that treaty law is needed to answer the threshold question of whether a given instrument is a treaty. Inversely, if a territorial unit purports to adopt a legal commitment but lacks authorization, a treaty law problem arises. As Hersch Lauterpacht noted while serving as ILC Special Rapporteur on the law of treaties: [I]‌n the absence of such authority conferred by federal law, member States of a Federation cannot be regarded as endowed with the power to conclude treaties. For according to international law it is the Federation which, in the absence of provisions of constitutional law to the contrary, is the subject of international law and international intercourse. It follows that a treaty concluded by a member state in disregard of the constitution of the Federation must also be considered as having been concluded in disregard of the limitations imposed by international law upon its treaty-​making power. As such it is not a treaty in the contemplation of international law. As a treaty, it is void.14 11 Cf [1965] YBILC, vol 1, 25 [39] (Tunkin). 12 High Court (Australia) Koowarta v Bjelke-​Peterson & Others; State of Queensland v Commonwealth of Australia (1982) 68 ILR 238. India has adopted a similar position although the State will conclude agreements on behalf of its sub-​national entities. See K Thakore, ‘India’ in DB Hollis and others (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) 369 (NTLP). 13 Hollis (n 6) 747–​8, 769. 14 H Lauterpacht, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 139 (‘Lauterpacht, First Report’). Waldock (and the ILC generally) originally favoured making the treaty-​making capacity of territorial units of federal States dependent on the municipal constitutional system. [1962] YBILC, vol I, 65 [7]‌–[​ 9] (Waldock, Special

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  153 In short, any treaty-​making capacity of constituent units of a federation depends on the particular arrangements under the relevant federal system.15

2. Federal rules on treaty-​making So, the presumption against treaty-​making by constituent units is subject to the willingness of particular States to make exceptions. Several federal systems allocate or reserve treaty-​making competence to their units. No one example is representative. As the ILC observed, ‘the practice differed too widely for the Commission to be able to lay down a general rule’.16 Nevertheless, at least four general types of treaty-​making authorization have been discerned: (i) authority to conclude treaties on matters falling within the powers possessed by sub-​federal units; (ii) authority to conclude treaties on matters that do not interfere with federal interests or supremacy; (iii) authority to conclude treaties on local matters; and (iv) ad hoc authorization. A few examples suggest the range of possibilities. The Constitution of the Swiss Confederation confers a (limited) treaty-​making power on constituent units. It does so by reference to the powers those units possess. Article 56 provides that a ‘Canton may conclude treaties with foreign states on matters that lie within the scope of its powers’ so long as those treaties do ‘not conflict with the law or the interests of the Confederation, or with the law of any other Cantons’.17 Article 56 requires the Canton to give the Confederation advance notice before concluding a treaty, in order to facilitate federal supervision, detailed in Article 172, which authorizes the Federal Assembly to ‘decide whether to approve intercantonal agreements and treaties between Cantons and foreign countries where the Federal Council or a Canton raises an objection to any such treaty’. The Cantons have concluded some 140 international agreements, which deal mostly with bilateral and administrative matters.18 Germany has adopted a similar approach for its territorial units. Article 32(3) of the Basic Law provides that ‘[i]‌nsofar as the Länder have power to legislate, they may conclude treaties with foreign states with the consent of the Federal Government’.19 Based on this authority, the Länder have concluded dozens of international agreements with neighbouring European regional and national governments.20 Belgium’s Constitution also

Rapporteur); ILC, ‘Report of the Commission, Law of Treaties’ [1962] YBILC, vol II, 164 (draft Art 3). Waldock later echoed Lauterpacht’s views, objecting to a draft text suggesting a presumption that federal territorial units had a treaty-​making capacity. [1965] YBILC, vol I, 250 [10]. There were additional concerns that a provision authorizing sub-​federal treaty-​making might give States room to plead constitutional limitations to avoid treaty obligations. Eg [1962] YBILC, vol I, 65 [13] (Jiménez de Aréchaga). Ultimately, the ILC did adopt a federal States provision, but it was rejected at the Vienna Conference. [1970] YBILC, vol II, 196 n108. 15 See eg [1962] YBILC, vol I, 61–​2 [58] (Ago). 16 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 29 [83] (Bartoš, as Chairman). At the time, there was also a division of opinion on whether the capacity of the constituent unit to make treaties flowed from the constitutional law of the federation or from international law. See eg ibid 251 [27]–​[30] (Yasseen); ibid [32] (Ago). For a recent review of inter-​American practice, see Hollis, Second Report (n 8). 17 Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation (18 April 1999) HeinOnline World Constitutions (unofficial trans). 18 L Wildhaber and others, ‘Switzerland’ in NTLP (n 12) 667. See also regarding cantonal competences generally B Ehrenzeller, R Portmann, and T Pfisterer, ‘Art 5’ in Die Schweizerische Bundesverfassung. St. Galler Kommentar (3rd edn Schulthess, Zurich 2014) 1115–​16; and for discussion, Kley and Portmann in ibid 1103–​4 [19]–​[24]. 19 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (23 May 1949) HeinOnline World Constitutions (unofficial trans). Austria amended its constitution in 1988 to allow its Länder to do the same. Austria Constitution, HeinOnline World Constitutions (unofficial trans), Art 16. 20 HD Treviranus and H Beemelmans, ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ in NTLP (n 12) 328–​9.

154  The Treaty-Makers grants Community and Regional Governments authority to conclude ‘treaties regarding matters that fall within the competence of their Parliament’, subject to that Parliament’s approval.21 Under this authority, Belgium’s three regional governments—​ Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels-​Capital—​entered into two multilateral agreements with France and the Netherlands, one for the protection of the River Scheldt and the other for that of the River Meuse.22 For Germany and Belgium, however, EU law exercises a limiting effect: the European Court of Justice (now the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)) denies the competence of sub-​national territorial units to appear before the Court, which thus restricts their ability to effectuate agreements they might make.23 In other national systems, the central government may authorize international agreements that do not interfere with federal interests. Under the US Constitution, US States are prohibited from entering into treaties.24 Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 also prohibits US States from entering ‘into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power’ without the consent of the US Congress.25 The Supreme Court understands the rationale behind the Compact Clause as it regards internal compacts—​that is, compacts between States of the United States—​also to involve considerations of US foreign policy: ‘So, for example, if a proposed interstate agreement might lead to friction with a foreign country . . . Congress may withhold its approval.’26 The ‘Agreement or Compact’ Clause does not distinguish clearly, however, between a treaty, which US States cannot make, and an agreement or compact, which they can make subject to Congress’ consent.27 The situation in the United States is complicated further by the introduction of a third category of commitments that US States can conclude without congressional involvement:  these are the agreements identified by the US Supreme Court as not ‘directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the states, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States’.28 It is an open question whether this last category is a matter of an ex ante affirmative grant or ex post review.29 In practice, US States evidently do not interpret federal powers as requiring express

21 Constitution of Belgium (17 February 1994 as amended), HeinOnline World Constitutions, Art 167(3). 22 Agreements on the Protection of the Rivers Meuse and Scheldt (Belgium (Brussels-​Capital, Flanders, Wallonia Regional Governments)-​France-​Netherlands) (26 April 1994) [1995] 34 ILM 851. 23 Case C-​180/​97 Regione Toscana v Commission [1997] ECR I-​5245 [6]‌; see also Case C-​95/​97 Région Wallonne v Commission [1997] ECR I-​1787 [6]. Outside Europe, Mexico’s Treaty Law authorizes sub-​federal entities to make ‘international agreements’, evidently to provide a legal foundation for an existing practice. L Diaz, ‘Mexico’ in NTLP (n 12) 450 (citing Ley de tratados (Mexico: SRE, 1992)). It has also been suggested that the Russian Constitution leaves room for constituent territories of the Federation to enter into international agreements, ‘at least for matters over which they have exclusive jurisdiction’. GM Danilenko, ‘The New Russian Constitution and International Law’ (1994) 88 AJIL 451, 453. Any such power, however, has been closely circumscribed by Russian federal law. See text (annotated) of Constitution of the Russian Federation at . 24 US Const, Art I §10 cl 1. 25 US Const, Art I §10 cl 3. Congressional consent, evidently, may be given for a category of agreements as well as for a particular agreement: see Detroit International Bridge Company v Government of Canada, 133 F.Supp.3d 70, 86–​87 (2015). 26 Texas v New Mexico, 138 S.Ct. 954, 958 (2018). 27 Hollis (n 6) 769–​83 (reviewing the Constitution’s drafting history and subsequent practice). 28 Virginia v Tennessee, 148 US 503, 519 (1893). Although this case involved an agreement between US States, its holding is widely assumed to apply to agreements between US States and foreign States. Hollis (n 6) 766–​9. 29 Whether US States can negotiate with a foreign State remains unresolved. Clark v Allen, 331 US 503, 517 (1947).

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  155 permission from Congress in advance of every State engagement with a foreign entity, and US States have concluded hundreds of them in recent years.30 The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina appears to permit agreements by its constituent ‘Entities’ so long as they are consistent with federal interests. Article III(2) grants Entities ‘the right to establish special parallel relationships with neighboring states consistent with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina’.31 In some States, sub-​federal treaty-​making is expressly limited to local matters. The Constitution of the United Arab Emirates allocates treaty-​making power to the constituent Emirates for ‘agreements of a local and administrative nature with the neighbouring states or regions’.32 The competence is constrained further by requirements (i) that such agreements not be ‘inconsistent with the interests of the Union or with Union laws’, and (ii) that ‘the Supreme Council of the Union is informed in advance’. The Supreme Council has the authority, on objection, to block conclusion and operation of such agreements.33 Finally, certain States authorize sub-​federal treaty-​making only on a case-​by-​case basis. In 1981, Canada concluded a social security agreement with the United States authorizing Quebec, in light of that province’s distinct pension system, to conclude its own agreement with the United States.34 The US–​Quebec agreement was concluded in 1983.35 States may differ as to the legal effect, if any, to accord provincial agreements made without consent. For example, while Canada denies the treaty character of some 230 ententes adopted by Quebec without consent, France views them as binding under international law.36 The importance of domestic legal authorization should not obscure the important second point, already noted earlier (and considered further later): it takes more than one party to make a treaty.37 In practice, many States will accept a treaty with a sub-​federal territorial unit only if they can confirm that the unit has domestic legal authority to engage in the particular treaty envisioned.38 The situation could also arise in which municipal law says that a territorial unit may act as treaty-​maker at the international level, but no potential partner accepts the proposition. As a result, there would be no international agreement.39 30 M Schaefer, ‘Constraints on State Level Foreign Policy:  (Re)Justifying, Refining and Distinguishing the Dormant Foreign Affairs Doctrine’ (2011) 41 Seton Hall L Rev 201; Hollis (n 6) 750 (noting US States have concluded at least 340 international agreements and political commitments with foreign powers); see also DB Hollis, ‘The Elusive Foreign Compact’ (2008) 73 Missouri L Rev 1071. 31 Constitution of Bosnia in General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (14 December 1995) Annex 4, Art III(2)(a), reprinted in [1996] 35 ILM 75, 120. 32 Constitution of the United Arab Emirates (2 December 1971) HeinOnline World Constitutions (unofficial trans), Art 123. 33 Ibid. 34 Agreement With Respect to Social Security (US–​Canada) (11 March 1981) 35 UST 3403, 3417, Art XX. 35 Understanding and Administrative Arrangement with the Government of Quebec (US–​Quebec) (30 March 1983) TIAS No 10,863. 36 DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters:  Non-​State Actors, Treaties and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl L 137, 151; B Nikravesh, ‘Quebec and Tatarstan in International Law’ (1999) 23 Fletcher For Wld Aff 227, 239. 37 See Briggs’s observation at [1962] YBILC, vol I, 59 [20]. 38 Hollis (n 36) 152. 39 What of territorial units belonging to the same municipal system and electing, in proper exercise of their rights, to make international law the law of an agreement of their own? Are these treaties? Lauterpacht thought so. Lauterpacht, First Report (n 14) 95 (Art 1, comment (1)); see also Georgia v South Carolina, 497 US 376, 407 (1990). The ILC, while acknowledging the analogy, concluded that it was ‘impossible to regard the  . . .  agreements [between constituent territories within a federation] as examples of the exercise of international treaty-​ making capacity without risking confusion between the spheres of operation of international and domestic law’. H Waldock, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1962] YBILC, vol II, 37 (draft Art 3, comment (4)).

156  The Treaty-Makers

3. Special administrative regions In addition to sub-​federal treaty-​making, States from time to time have established special administrative regions (SARs). Some of these are separate treaty territories.40 The main modern examples are the SARs of China:  Hong Kong and Macau. Like federal States, a SAR’s treaty-​making capacity depends on both internal authorization and external acceptance of its competence. Both Hong Kong and Macau came under Chinese sovereignty by means of treaties in which China agreed that these regions would have a continuing capacity to make treaties in certain areas (eg investment, tourism, cultural matters).41 But China’s constitutional provisions do not permit a SAR treaty implying its independence.42 Other States have accepted the capacity of the SARs in designated fields.43 Article XII of the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO) authorizes any ‘customs territory possessing full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations and of the other matters provided for in this Agreement and the Multilateral Trade Agreements’ to accede on terms agreed to between it and the WTO.44 Hong Kong and Macau joined the WTO as original members as they had each acceded to the preceding 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade under a similar provision (Article XXXIII); they retained their individual membership after China joined the WTO in 2001. The question arises as to how Taiwan—​the other part of China—​is to be categorized. Its own government has not made any unequivocal declaration of independence from China; and for much of the time since the de facto truce in the civil war, Taiwanese authorities were clear that the effective control they exercised was over a province of China. However it is to be categorized, Taiwan is certainly a treaty-​making entity. Like Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan has joined the WTO in its own right. In addition, a number of bilateral investment treaties are in force between Taiwan and States still recognizing it as the ‘Republic of China’—​and also between Taiwan and States which have ceased to recognize it as such.45 The willingness of other parties to enter into treaties with Taiwan is nevertheless a limiting factor in respect of Taiwan’s treaty practice.46

40 Other special regions, such as duty-​free zones and the like, generally have no international treaty-​making capacity, but, again, this is subject, inter alia, to each State’s particular rules. By contrast, the interests of the inhabitants of such zones, under an international rule, may merit special consideration in the treaty practice of the responsible States. See Case of the Free Zones of Upper Savoy and the District of Gex (Switzerland v France) [1932] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 46 95, 169. 41 Eg Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong (China–​United Kingdom) (done 19 December 1984, entered into force 27 May 1985) 1399 UNTS 33, Annex I, §XI. 42 See J Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2006) 244–​52. 43 Hong Kong, between 2000 and 2005, concluded sixty-​three bilateral treaties on topics within its competence such as investment protection, mutual legal assistance, and air services, in addition to joining several multilateral treaty organizations. A Aust, Modern Treaty Law & Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 64–​7. 44 Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 3, 162, Art XII. 45 For a list of Taiwan’s BITs, see (‘Taiwan BITs’). For its part, the United States concludes agreements, which are legally binding under US law with Taiwan through two non-​profit corporations (the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office). See 22 USC §3301 et seq. 46 For example, Taiwan was not allowed to join the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean as a party, although negotiating States allowed it to make analogous commitments (as Chinese Taipei) through an accompanying Memorandum of Understanding. Aust (n 43) 61. See also Taiwan BITs (n 45), noting termination of their BITs with Taiwan by India and Nicaragua.

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  157

4. Indigenous peoples

Another category of integral territory presenting special considerations is territory inhabited by an indigenous people.47 Colonizing powers entered into agreements with these peoples especially in Africa, Australasia, and the Americas. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi is perhaps the best-​known treaty between a colonizing power and an indigenous people.48 Eventually, many if not most treaties with indigenous peoples were largely submerged in national constitutional systems—​a process which has been called (critically) ‘domestication’.49 The process was seldom straightforward; national courts struggled to explain the fate of such agreements.50 The result, however, was typically the dismantling (judicially and by legislation) of the capacity of the indigenous entity to make treaties. The United States, for example, concluded some 367 treaties with Native American tribes prior to 1868.51 The federal government at first accepted these as equivalent to treaties with foreign powers, subject to special interpretative accommodations to avoid prejudice to the Native American parties.52 By act of Congress in 1871, the treaty-​making of these ‘domestic dependent sovereigns’ was ended.53 Elsewhere, other processes led to similar results. Judge Dillard famously said that it ‘is for the people to determine the destiny of the territory and not the territory the destiny of the people’.54 The Western Sahara question concerned the people of a Non-​Self-​Governing Territory and therefore presented special considerations not relevant to an indigenous people. Nevertheless, it is striking that State parties to treaties with indigenous peoples very largely took the reverse approach. More often than not, they sought to secure control of territory, under legal title, regardless of the interests of the prior inhabitants. Modern constitutional measures, including agreements with indigenous groups, have a flavour, though not the legal form, of reparation for this past practice. In the Constitution Act, 1982, for example, Canada ‘recognized and affirmed’ the treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.55 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that it ‘shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal treaty’.56 47 On treaties with indigenous peoples, see G Alfredsson, ‘Indigenous Peoples, Treaties with’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2007). 48 Treaty of Cession between Great Britain and New Zealand, Waitangi (5/​6 February 1840) 89 CTS 473. See I Brownlie, Treaties and Indigenous Peoples: The Robb Lectures 1990 (FM Brookfield (ed), Clarendon Press, Oxford 1992) 8. 49 UNCHR (Sub-​ Commission), ‘Third progress report submitted by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur, Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Populations’ (15 August 1996) UN Doc E/​CN.4/​Sub.2/​1996/​23, 3–​4 [8]‌(‘Martínez Third Report’); and more extensively UNCHR (Sub-​Commission), ‘Final report submitted by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur, Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Populations’ (22 June 1999) UN Doc E/​CN.4/​Sub.2/​1999/​20, 26–​38 [168]–​[244]. 50 See eg Worcester v Georgia, 31 US 515, 575–​7 (1832). 51 FP Prucha, American Indian Treaties (University of California Press, Berkeley 1995) 1. 52 Worcester (n 50) 575–​7. 53 Act of 3 March 1871, 16 Stat 566; P Thornberry, Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights (MUP, Manchester 2002) 80–​1 and n117 (citing cases). Cf KA Carpenter and AR Riley, ‘Indigenous Peoples and the Jurisgenerative Moment in Human Rights’ (2014) 102 Cal L Rev 173, 182–​4; C Boronow, ‘Closing the Accountability Gap for Indian Tribes: Balancing the Right to Self-​Determination with the Right to a Remedy’ (2012) 98 Va L Rev 1373, 1386–​7. 54 Western Sahara (Advisory Opinion) [1975] ICJ Rep 12, 122 (Separate Opinion, Judge Dillard). 55 Constitution Act, 1982, Part II §35(1) (‘Rights of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada’). 56 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms §25.

158  The Treaty-Makers Canadian Courts have since recognized the government’s obligation to implement these earlier treaties.57 There have also been attempts at international legislation. In the 1990s, the UN Commission on Human Rights undertook a number of studies concerning indigenous treaty rights and treaty-​making in particular.58 In 2007, on the recommendation of the new Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly adopted a UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.59 Two operative provisions of the Declaration concern the treaty-​making of indigenous peoples—​one potentially looking backward, the other forward. Article 37 provides that ‘[i]‌ndigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements’.60 Article 36(1) is in a prospective vein, providing that: 1. Indigenous peoples, in particular those divided by international borders, have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation, including activities for spiritual, cultural, political, economic and social purposes, with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.61

Article 36(1) does not contemplate a general treaty-​making power for indigenous groups. The UN Declaration was adopted 143 votes to 4, with 11 abstentions.62 The negative votes and abstentions, however, comprised the principal States containing indigenous groups.63 The four objecting States—​Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States—​all drew attention to their domestic processes for dealing with indigenous rights and agreements; Canada and Australia specifically rejected that the 2007 Declaration either reflected customary international law or provided a new basis of indigenous rights.64 As reflected in statements such as the 2007 Declaration, some support exists for recognizing a greater international competence in indigenous groups, but given the significant objections to date this has hardly crystallized into a new rule. Like territorial units of federal States, newly formed indigenous territorial entities within a State may be accorded certain competences at the international level, including treaty-​making. The scope and content of any such competence will depend in the first instance on each particular national law arrangement. 57 Haida Nation v British Columbia (Minister of Forests) [2004] 3 SCR 511, 2004 SCC 73 [17], [25]. In Australia, the Mabo case rejected the ‘enlarged notion of terra nullius’ that had allowed Australia’s government to deny indigenous peoples’ legal capacity. Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23, (1992) 175 CLR 1 (High Court of Australia) [36]–​[39], [63]. See generally AJ Hall and G Albers, ‘Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada’ The Canadian Encyclopedia (2017). 58 Eg Martínez Third Report (n 49); Martínez Final Report (n 49). 59 UNGA Res 61/​295 (13 September 2007) Annex. 60 Ibid Art 35(1). 61 Ibid Art 36. 62 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (12 September 2007) UN Doc A/​61/​L.67. 63 UN GAOR, 61st Sess, 107th Plenary Meeting, UN Doc A/​61/​PV.107 19. The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand voted against the draft. Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Samoa, and Ukraine abstained. 64 Ibid 12 (Australia); ibid 12–​13 (Canada); ibid 13–​14 (New Zealand); ibid 15 (the United States). For a review of the Declaration, see S Allen and A Xanthaki (eds), Reflections on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2011); and further toward the reception of the Declaration in those four States, K Gover, ‘Settler-​State Political Theory, “CANZUS” and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ (2015) 26 EJIL 345–​73.

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  159

B.  Treaty-​making and external territories 1. The range of juridical relations External territories differ from integral territory in that international law appears to grant them a distinct international status. Based on the Charter’s provisions, the United Nations found that overseas colonies constitute external territories for which administering powers bore special obligations.65 With decolonization, this category may seem on the verge of disappearing. But seventeen Non-​Self-​Governing Territories remain,66 and since the late 1990s, international administration of territory has presented new situations where questions of treaty-​making may arise. There are also the Associated States, such as the Cook Islands and Niue, which may become treaty parties, for example under Article 305(1)(c) and (d) of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).67 These would appear to be a special type of State, not another non-​State actor, but lingering questions reflect the lack of a clear dividing line between issues of status and the capacity to make treaties.68 The Faroe Islands is another territory that has statal competences while retaining connections with a State. Denmark describes the Faroe Islands as a ‘self-​governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark’.69 It is covered by Denmark’s WTO membership, but it is not a member of the EU (though Denmark is), an idiosyncratic set of relations which allowed Denmark, acting ‘in respect of the Faroe Islands’ against the EU in the Atlanto-​Scandian Herring dispute, to invoke the dispute settlement provisions of UNCLOS Part XV.70 It is said that international legal personality is the prerequisite for an entity to enter into a treaty; Ago, for example, said that ‘all subjects of international law had, as a rule, the capacity to become parties to a treaty’.71 If one determines that an entity is a State—​or, for that matter according to Ago some other ‘subject of international law’—​then treaty-​making capacity follows. However, it has also been said that the practice of treaty-​making indicates international status—​that is, that status is ‘not a precondition for holding international obligations or authorizations, but is the consequence of possessing them’.72 This is consistent with Kelsen’s view.73 The matter tends to become more complicated as the jural relations between a State and the external territories for which it is responsible vary from territory to territory and, for a given relation, vary over time as well.74 If there is a single concept of legal personality, then it would appear to have a considerable range of manifestations. 65 UNGA Res 1542 (XV) (15 December 1960). 66 Crawford (n 42) 634, Table 5 (‘Remaining non-​self-​governing territories’). 67 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 396, 517 (UNCLOS). 68 New Zealand deals with them on the international plane, for example in the regulation of mutual tax matters. See Cook Islands-​New Zealand Agreement on the Exchange of Information with respect to taxes (13 December 2011) (2012) 10 New Zealand Ybk Int’l L 268. 69 Request for Consultations, EU-​Measures on Atlanto-​Scandian Herring, Communication of Kingdom of Denmark in respect of the Faroe Islands, 7 November 2013, WT/​DS469/​1, G/​L/​1058. See also EU Implementing Regulation, EUOJ, L223, 21 August 2013, 1, identifying the Faroe Islands as ‘a country allowing non-​sustainable fishing’. 70 Kingdom of Denmark in respect of the Faroe Islands v European Union, Termination Order (23 September 2014) PCA Case No. 2013-​30 (under UNCLOS Annex VII; Mensah, Presiding; Hafner, Orrego Vicuña, Pinto, and Wolfrum, arbitrators). 71 [1962] YBILC, vol I, 61 [57] (Ago). 72 R Portmann, Legal Personality in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2010) 174. 73 H Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1945) 96. 74 For a discussion of the complications external territories pose to the territorial application of treaties, see Chapter 13.

160  The Treaty-Makers To what extent then can external territories make treaties in their own right? The answer varies, because as with federal States, States generally differ in how they characterize the territories for which they are responsible. Indeed, what might be an external territory to one State, another might characterize as integral. And like federal States, where a treaty-​making capacity is contemplated, its scope will depend on the authorization of the responsible State and acceptance of that competence by potential treaty-​partners. With respect to external territories, there may also be a third criterion—​the responsible States’ international commitments to third States vis-​à-​vis its external territories.

2. Non-​Self-​Governing Territories Non-​Self-​Governing Territories today are the principal remaining form of dependent overseas territory. Subject to the special rules relating to decolonization as specified in Chapter XI of the UN Charter and subsequently developed through the practice of the General Assembly, seventeen of them remain. They ‘enjoy a separate legal status, and with it a measure of legal personality’.75 They do not, however, have all the attributes of States and are to be distinguished even from the old protectorates, which, in salient instances, like French Morocco,76 had treaties of their own. In most instances, Non-​Self-​Governing Territories do not make their own treaties; the responsible State will instead conclude treaties in the form of an agreement by the administering power acting on behalf of the dependencies. For a Non-​Self-​Governing Territory to make a treaty, it will usually require some authorization from the State responsible for its international relations. Although the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey are not Chapter XI territories—​that is, Non-​Self-​Governing Territories—​the United Kingdom has addressed their treaty-​making competences in roughly analogous ways.77 The United Kingdom uses an ‘Instrument of Entrustment’ to authorize such overseas territories to enter into specific treaties in their own name. In 2002, for example, the United Kingdom entrusted the Authorities of Guernsey, Jersey, and the Government of the Isle of Man to negotiate and conclude Tax Information Exchange Agreements with the United States on the understanding that the United Kingdom remained responsible for the international relations of these territories.78 In some cases, the responsible State may combine different approaches. For example, the parties to the 1960 Agreement establishing the Caribbean Organization were France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.79 The accompanying Statute of the Caribbean Organization was open to dependent territories specifically named, including the Netherlands Antilles, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico. France, however, did not agree to give its dependencies of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique this right, French constitutional law considering them integral territories. Instead, France joined the Organization on their behalf and exercised their voting rights.80 Both agreements contained 75 Crawford (n 42) 618. 76 Rights of United States Nationals in Morocco [1952] ICJ Rep 176, 185, 188. 77 As to entrustment and UK overseas territories generally, see I Hendry and S Dickson, British Overseas Territories Law (Hart, Oxford 2011) 386–​91. 78 US Treasury Dept, Press Release, ‘United States and Jersey Sign Agreement to Exchange Tax Information’ (4 November 2002)  . See also Preclearance Agreement (US–​Bermuda) (15 January 1974) 928 UNTS 95. 79 Agreement for the Establishment of the Caribbean Organization and Annexed Statute of the Caribbean Organization (21 June 1960, entered into force 29 December 1961) 418 UNTS 110. 80 Ibid 124–​6 (Statute Art III).

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  161 a savings clause, denying that either agreement should be interpreted to affect the present or future constitutional status of the dependencies involved.81 In contrast, after a 1999 constitutional amendment afforded New Caledonia a separate treaty-​making capacity, France sought agreement that it and New Caledonia could each join the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Central and Western Pacific Ocean.82 Other States objected to separate French and New Caledonian membership where the Convention contemplated decision-​making by a supermajority vote, and the final treaty text was not open to direct participation by external territories.83 Indeed, although external territories were original members of international organizations like the Universal Postal Union, it is relatively rare for a multilateral treaty to allow their participation; most current practice involves bilateral agreements, though the special treatment which Article 305 UNCLOS accords to Associated States applies as well to at least some Non-​Self-​Governing Territories.84 The New Caledonia example also illustrates how potential treaty partners have a significant say in treaty-​making by external territories. States typically exercise caution before concluding such treaties. Israel, for example, has a practice of consulting with the responsible State to confirm that the territory is authorized to conclude the treaty; if it is not, then Israel will redraft the instrument in the form of a political commitment.85 When the United Kingdom informed the United States that the Cayman Islands lacked the necessary entrustment to sign a Tax Information Exchange Agreement in its own name, the United States concluded the agreement with the United Kingdom, which acted on behalf of the Cayman Islands.86 So, parallels exist between integral constituent units and external territories. The agreement-​making of both will depend on the readiness of other parties to enter into agreements; and on the extent to which the responsible State permits such agreements. A salient difference is that the administering State in respect of its external territory may have additional international obligations. A mandate, trusteeship agreement, or the UN Charter (especially Chapter XI) may govern the relationship between the external territory and its responsible State. Depending on the content of those commitments, they may affect the treaty-​making capacities of the external territory.

3. Territories under international administration The establishment of international administrations in East Timor and in Kosovo in the late 1990s led to renewed interest in such arrangements, including in their provisions for treaty-​ making.87 In Petition for Transfer of Luan Goci and Bashkim Berisha, the authority of the UN 81 Ibid 112 (Agreement Art II); ibid 136. 82 Law No 99–​209 (19 March 1999) JO 21 March 1999 4197-​99, Arts 21, 22 (giving New Caledonia authority to conclude international conventions in respect, inter alia, of exploration, exploitation, and conservation of marine resources in the Exclusive Economic Zone). 83 Though they did not object to the membership of Niue and the Cook Islands as Associated States. See Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention, ‘Preparatory Conference’ . 84 Cf UNCLOS (n 67) Art 305(1)(e). 85 R Lapidoth, ‘Israel’ in NTLP (n 12) 400. 86 Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Taxes, for the Cayman Islands (US–​UK) (signed 27 November 2001, entered into force 10 March 2006) TIAS 13175. 87 See generally C Stahn, The Law and Practice of International Territorial Administration. Versailles to Iraq and Beyond (CUP, Cambridge 2008) 570–​5.

162  The Treaty-Makers Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) to enter into agreements on criminal matters with the United Kingdom and Switzerland was challenged; the Supreme Court of Kosovo determined that the transactions did not constitute international agreements for purposes of Kosovan criminal procedure.88 On the other hand, UNMIK adopted treaties on certain functional matters in respect of Kosovo, and these evidently have not been invalidated.89 Concern that an agreement might prejudice the final status of the territory seems to have restricted the subject matters on which the administering institutions believed they held treaty-​making competence prior to the declaration of independence.90 Kosovo and Serbia, in January and February 2020, entered into agreements to restore air and rail traffic between them, a noteworthy development in view of the latter party’s earlier refusals to engage in such transactions with the former. The Kosovo government observed in the advisory proceedings on the Declaration of Independence that its Constitution provides that ‘the Republic concludes international agreements’.91 Kosovo further observed that it had begun to exercise that treaty-​making by (i) ‘establishing with its treaty partners the status of treaties to which Kosovo was bound as a former constituent part of the SFRY’;92 and (ii) entering into new bilateral treaties.93 Examples of the latter are an Agreement on the Mutual Abolition of Visas between Kosovo and Turkey94 and several bilateral investment treaties (BITs).95

4. Pre-​independence agreements and the competence of pre-​independence governments A separate issue for certain external territories is presented when, prior to independence, they enter into agreements with the administering power. To the extent a Non-​Self-​ Governing Territory holds international legal personality distinct from the administering power, it may also hold a treaty-​making competence. The main question will be to what extent it holds that competence. If it is competent to enter into agreements with other States, it stands to reason that it is competent to enter into agreements with the administering power. But there is a question—​if a dependent territory purports to bind the future State by agreeing with the administering power to fundamental changes in its territorial constitution, will it in truth have acted freely? The question arises especially where negotiations are underway over the territory’s final exercise of self-​determination at the time of the agreement. The United Kingdom, shortly before Mauritius and the Seychelles became independent, enacted a municipal law separating certain territory from each to create a new territory—​ which it titled the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The transaction was made 88 Decision on Petition for Transfer of Luan Goci and Bashkim Berisha, Pn-​ Kr 333/​ 005 (30 January 2006) (Supreme Court of Kosovo), about which see Stahn (n 87) 574–​5. 89 For examples see Stahn (n 87) 573 nn187–​188. 90 Ibid  573–​4. 91 ‘Written Contribution of the Republic of Kosovo’ in Declaration of Independence Proceedings (n 6) (17 April 2009) 22 [2.36]. 92 Ibid 23 [2.39]. 93 Ibid 23 [2.40]. 94 Adopted 13 January 2009 and discussed in ‘Written Contribution of the Republic of Kosovo’ (n 91) 23 [2.40]. 95 Eg Switzerland-​Kosovo (entered into force 13 June 2012) ; Belgium-​Luxembourg-​Kosovo (signed 9 March 2010); Austria-​Kosovo (signed 22 January 2010). Also, BITs of the former Yugoslavia have been treated, at least in some instances, as continuing in force in respect of Kosovo. See eg ACP Axos Capital GmbH v Republic of Kosovo, Award (3 May 2018) ICSID Case No ARB/​15/​22 (Pinsolle, President; Feit and Thomas, members).

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  163 with the consent of the (pre-​independence) governments of both territories.96 Under the UN Charter, the United Kingdom had an obligation for both territories ‘to develop self-​ government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist . . . in the progressive development of their free political institutions’.97 They both were also territories the ‘partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity’ of which had been declared ‘incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter’.98 Despite the local governments’ agreement, there were doubts as to whether they (particularly the Mauritius government) adequately represented the interests of the inhabitants of the territories.99 Mauritius later contested the validity of BIOT’s creation on grounds that it violated the United Kingdom’s UN Charter obligations.100 An UNCLOS Annex VII tribunal in 2015 reasoned that the United Kingdom and the local Mauritius authorities had been ‘legally disabled from expressing their commitment as a matter of international law for such time as Mauritius remained a colony’ but that the ‘independence of Mauritius in 1968 . . . had the effect of elevating the package deal. . . to the international plane and of transforming the commitments made in 1965 into an international agreement’.101 The Annex VII tribunal then had no particular difficulty applying the agreement in respect of the maritime area around the archipelago. Owing to the jurisdictional limitations of UNCLOS Part XV, as interpreted, the tribunal did not decide Mauritius’s claim that the detachment of the Chagos territory was unlawful.102 The ICJ, by contrast, several years later addressed the territorial claim head on. In so doing, the Court considered the Lancaster House agreement, the pre-​independence agreement on which the present-​day territorial situation is based. In its Advisory Opinion, Legal consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago, the Court explained: [I]‌t is not possible to talk of an international agreement, when one of the parties to it, Mauritius, which is said to have ceded the territory to the United Kingdom, was under the authority of the latter . . . [H]eightened scrutiny should be given to the issue of consent in a situation where a part of a non-​self-​governing territory is separated to create a new colony. Having reviewed the circumstances in which the Council of Ministers of the colony of 96 Working Paper prepared by the Secretariat, ‘Report of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’ (16 March 1972) UN Doc A/​8723/​Rev.1 Supp No 23, vol IV. 97 Art 73(b) UN Charter. 98 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UNGA Res 1514 (XV) (14 December 1960) [6]‌. 99 UNGA, ‘Report of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 31 December 1964–​12 January 1965’ UN Doc A/​5800/​Rev.1 and A/​6000/​Rev.1, Conclusions [154], endorsed in UNGA Res 2066 (XX) (16 December 1965) [1]‌. 100 UNHCR, ‘Comments by the Government of Mauritius to the concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Overseas Territories: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (28 May 2002) CCPR/​CO/​73/​UK-​CCPR/​CO/​73/​UKOT/​Add.1, 1 [4]‌. 101 Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration (Republic of Mauritius v United Kingdom) (18 March 2015) (under UNCLOS Annex VII; Shearer, President; Greenwood, Hoffmann, Kateka, and Wolfrum, Arbitrators) 167 [425] (Judges Kateka and Wolfrum, dissenting) (‘Chagos UNCLOS case’). 102 The United Kingdom however later took note of the view that the tribunal implicitly had accepted its legality: Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, ICJ, Oral Statement of the United Kingdom (Sir Michael Wood), CR 2018/​21 55 n167 (citing TD Grant, ‘The Once and Future King: Sovereignty Over Territory and the Annex VII Tribunal’s Award in Mauritius v United Kingdom’ in S Allen and C Monaghan (eds), Fifty Years of the British Indian Ocean Territory: Legal Perspectives (Springer, Berlin 2018) 215–​30).

164  The Treaty-Makers Mauritius agreed in principle to the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago on the basis of the Lancaster House agreement, the Court considers that this detachment was not based on the free and genuine expression of the will of the people concerned.103

The Court indicated that no conflict with the UNCLOS Annex VII award arose, reasoning that the advisory proceedings addressed different questions and were instigated at the General Assembly’s request, not by states as a contentious proceeding.104 Yet, neither the 2015 award nor the 2019 Advisory Opinion is easy to disentangle from the question of the validity of the pre-​independence agreement with a non-​State actor; and the two arrive at very different conclusions in regard to that agreement. Another example of an agreed separation involving undertakings between an administering State and dependent communities is that by which the Strategic Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands eventually emerged as three Associated States105 and one territory in political union with the United States.106 There, any question of validity has long since subsided. It is true that before the territories attained final status, there were objections that the separation was a breach of the territorial integrity of the Trust Territory.107 But the UN Trusteeship Council, ‘[h]‌aving heard the statements of the elected representatives of the Trust Territory Governments requesting early termination of the Trusteeship Agreement, and believing this to reflect the freely expressed wishes of the people of the Trust Territory’, considered that the United States had ‘satisfactorily discharged its obligations under the terms of the Trusteeship Agreement’.108 Unlike the BIOT, moreover, no serious subsequent objection was made. The Marshall Islands (one of the States to emerge from the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement) supported Mauritius’s position in the 2018 advisory proceedings, arguing that the agreement purporting to separate the BIOT was not valid under international law, on grounds, inter alia, that consent had been obtained ‘in the context of a decolonization process in which the administering authority acted for its own self-​benefit’ and the dependent community had been ‘under duress’.109 The Marshall Islands was careful to reaffirm that its own separation (ie from the Trust Territory) had taken place ‘on the basis of a plebiscite organized during the eventual process of UN Trusteeship termination’ and also that on-​going security arrangements between the Marshall Islands and the United States were agreed in a lawful manner.110 A central problem in these situations has been whether to accept as valid an agreement described (at least by one of its parties) as an international law instrument. A  situation 103 Legal consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 (Advisory Opinion) [2019] ICJ Rep 1, 41 [172] (‘Chagos ICJ case’). 104 Ibid 21 [79]–​[82]. 105 Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. See People of Bikini, ex rel Kili/​Bikini/​Ejit Local Gov Council v United States, 77 Fed Cl 744, 749, 755–​60 (US Ct of Fed Claims, 2007). 106 The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. See Covenant to Form a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America (10 March 1975) T/​1759; 121 Cong Rec No 43 4083–​91; see also Temengil & Others v Trust Territory of the Pacific Island & Others, 881 F2d 647 (9th Cir 1989) (Beezer and Kozinski concurring). 107 Eg Letter dated 12 November 1986 from the Permanent Representative of the USSR to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-​General, UN Doc A/​41/​822, S/​18455. 108 TC Res 2183 (LIII) (28 May 1986) preambular [7]‌and operative [3]. Eventually Russia accepted the outcome as satisfactory. See Mr Sidorov (Russian Federation), Trusteeship Council, 1703rd mtg (18 January 1994) UN Doc T/​PV.1703,  12. 109 Written Statement of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (1 March 2018) Chagos ICJ case (n 103) 7 [30]. 110 Written comments of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (11 May 2018) Chagos ICJ case (n 103) 4 [24].

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  165 involving separation of territory in a domestic setting, perhaps, removes international law validity from the equation. The International Court of Justice in its Kosovo Advisory Opinion found no general international law rule to restrict political acts within a State having the intention of separating one part of the State territory.111 Analogizing from that situation, one might posit that a pre-​independence agreement between a Non-​Self-​ Governing Territory and its administering power belongs to one national legal order and thus has no special significance under international law. The Annex VII tribunal in Chagos Marine Protected Area indeed pointed to the status of the Lancaster House agreement under British constitutional law. The agreement, taken in that light, would be a municipal constitutional settlement, not a treaty. But whether the territory is subject exclusively to one national legal order is the central question in contention. Charter Articles 73 and 74, as developed by UN General Assembly resolutions, subject Non-​Self-​Governing Territories as a category to international rules. The interpretation of these rules, as they applied to Mauritius at the time of its decolonization, was a central part of the Court’s reasoning in the Chagos Advisory Opinion.112 Finding the rules to place constraints on the dealings between an administering power and its colony, the Court may be seen to have treated the law of decolonization as something like the constitutional rules of a federal state that restrict the capacity of one of its units to enter into international agreements. Thus, in that view, even where both the unit and a foreign State seem to have expressed consent to an agreement, that will not necessarily be the sole factor in determining its validity.

C. Insurgent groups The UN Secretary-​General made clear in 2001 that armed groups party to a conflict are subject to international humanitarian law rules found in multilateral treaties.113 The correlation between the capacity of an actor to be subject to rights and obligations under an international instrument and the capacity to conclude such an instrument is imprecise. How a national liberation movement is treated for purposes of humanitarian law does not necessarily determine how it is treated as treaty-​maker.114 Nevertheless, the modern development of international law suggests that the two bear some relation. As non-​State actors, insurgent groups are not parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Some unilaterally have asserted the applicability of the Conventions but have been rebuffed.115 However, Common Article 3, in addition to its stipulation of de minimis rules for parties engaged in a non-​international armed conflict, provides that: ‘The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all

111 Declaration of Independence Opinion (n 6) [79]–​[84]. 112 See Chagos ICJ case (n 103) 35–​9 [144]–​[161]. 113 UNSC, ‘Report of the Secretary-​General’ (30 March 2001) UN Doc S/​2001/​331 [48] (finding prohibition on targeting civilians in Common Art 3 to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II on non-​international armed conflicts ‘enshrined in customary international law’ and applicable to armed groups). For discussion, see C Schaller, ‘Guerrilla Forces’ in R Wolfrum and others (eds), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009) [3]‌–​[6]. 114 See generally A Cassesse, International Law (2nd edn OUP, New York 2005) 140–​2. 115 For examples, see L Zegveld, Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2002) 14 n18.

166  The Treaty-Makers or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.’116 This evidently invites the State party (or parties) and the insurgent group(s) to enter into ‘special agreements’ for the purpose of further regulating the conflict. One such agreement was that adopted by the Government of El Salvador and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación (FMLN).117 The text’s preambular and substantive provisions are unclear on whether it constitutes a treaty. The preamble refers to ‘obligations of this nature under the many international conventions to which [El Salvador] is a party’ but refers, rather elliptically, to the FMLN’s ‘capacity and . . . will . . . to respect the inherent attributes of the human person’.118 Human rights are defined in terms of UN and Organization of American States (OAS) declarations and principles as well as those ‘rights recognized by the Salvadorian legal system, including treaties to which El Salvador is a party’. Based on these provisions, it might be said that the agreement is governed by national, rather than international, law. But the Agreement conferred a mandate on the UN Human Rights Verification Mission to observe its implementation,119 and the report of the Inter-​American Commission on Human Rights later suggested that the Agreement established international obligations on both parties.120 An international character was also suggested by the Verification Mission in its reports on the situation.121 Writers take the view, generally, that such agreements establish international law obligations binding on the insurgent group.122

D. Private actors Corporations created under national law and individuals generally do not possess international legal personality. Nevertheless, States at times have empowered such private actors with personality, including (infrequently) the capacity to make treaties.123 For example, at the end of the First World War, Article 304 of the Treaty of Trianon provided that ‘the administrative and technical reorganization of [certain railway concessions in the former Austro-​Hungarian empire]  . . .  shall be regulated in each instance by an agreement between the owning company and the States territorially concerned’, subject to arbitration at the election of the States, the Board of Management of the Company operating the line (the Südbahn Company), or a Committee representing the bondholders who financed it.124 116 See eg Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 30, Art 3. 117 Zegveld (n 115) 16–​17, 25–​6, 49–​51, 186–​7, 212. 118 Agreement on Human Rights, San Jose (26 July 1990) UN Doc A/​44/​971, S/​21541, Annex 2 (2nd and 3rd preambular paragraphs). 119 Inter-​American Commission on Human Rights, ‘Report on the Situation of Human Rights in El Salvador’ (11 February 1994) OEA/​Ser.L/​V/​II.85 Doc 28 rev 2.1.b, 2.4. 120 Ibid 7. 121 UNGA, ‘First Report of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador’ (16 September 1991) UN Doc A/​45/​1055, S/​23037 12–​13 [17]–​[25], esp [19] (indicating that the ‘normative framework’ of the Mission is contained in international law instruments). 122 See eg P Kooijmans, ‘The Security Council and Non-​State Entities as Parties to Conflicts’ in K Wellens (ed), International Law: Theory and Practice. Essays in Honour of Eric Suy (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1998) 333, 338. Also relevant in this connection are agreements concluded between governments and insurgent groups at the conclusion of internal armed conflicts: see eg the Colombia-​FARC agreement of 24 August 2016 and revised agreement of 24 November 2016, as noted by Mr González (Colombia), UN Doc S/​PV.8264 (22 May 2018) 36. 123 Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987) Pt II, ‘Persons in International Law’, Introductory Note. 124 Award of the Arbitrators Appointed by Resolution of the Council of the League of Nations of January 17, 1934 (1935) 29 AJIL 523, 524–​5 (‘1934 Arbitration’). And see identical language in Treaty of Peace between Allied and

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  167 The Yugoslav State, Hungary, Italy, and the Südbahn Company concluded a further Agreement at Rome on 29 March 1923, with a view to implementing Article 304.125 There is little question that the Rome Agreement constituted a treaty granting private rights directly in lieu of the more traditional method of diplomatic protection.126 This, thus, was an early example of how States may use a treaty to authorize private parties to participate in the formation and application of a separate international agreement. It is also an early reflection of how the willingness of other parties to conclude an international agreement is at least as consequential as general rules announcing who can (or cannot) do so. Under modern BITs too, private parties may participate in the creation of international agreements—​namely, agreements to arbitrate. As the English Court of Appeal indicated in Ecuador v Occidental Petroleum, investors obtain rights under international law through BITs directly, rather than derivatively.127 The arbitration clause of the BIT was once typically described as consent by a State to arbitration. In more recent years, however, it has come to be accepted that the arbitration clause, instead, is an offer by the host State to arbitrate, with the investor’s acceptance constituting a necessary step to completing an agreement to arbitrate.128 Modern International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) tribunals in recent years have understood that their jurisdiction is created in this way.129 Once the investor has accepted the offer—​whether the offer is contained in a BIT, multilateral treaty, a statute, or a contract—​what is contemplated is an agreement to arbitrate, adopted by a State and an investor and—​at least potentially—​governed by international law. The travaux préparatoires to the ICSID Convention suggest that the drafters saw no particular problem in describing a host State’s consent to arbitrate as an international agreement between State and investor to which the law of treaties (eg pacta sunt servanda) would

Associated Powers and Austria (Treaty of St Germain-​en-​Laye) (10 September 1919) in FL Israel (ed), Major Peace Treaties of Modern History (Chelsea House Publishers, New York 1967) Art 320. 125 Agreement with a View to the Administrative and Technical Re-​organization of the Southern Railway Company’s System (Austria-​Hungary-​Italy-​Serbs, Croats and Slovenes-​Southern Railway Company (Südbhan)) (29 March 1923) 23 LNTS 336 (title indicates that agreement was ‘drawn up with the concurrence of the holders of bonds issued by the above Company’) (‘Rome Agreement’). Disputes over Yugoslavia’s performance led to an arbitration at the election of the Committee representing the bondholders, which had also apparently signed the Rome Agreement. See 1934 Arbitration (n 124) 527–​8. Although the Committee was mentioned in the title as having concurred in the Agreement and listed as having signed it, questions later arose as to whether the Committee that invoked arbitration was the same as the one mentioned in Art 304 of the Treaty of Trianon. Cf Rome Agreement 368. 126 A French court concluded as such with respect to the Committee representing the bondholders. Vigoureux v Comité des Obligataires Danube-​Save-​Adriatique (Tribunal Civil de la Seine) (12 December 1951) 18 ILR 1, 2. On diplomatic protection see V Lowe, ‘Injuries to Corporations’ in J Crawford and others (eds), Law of International Responsibility (OUP, Oxford 2010) 1005, 1006–​7 (‘Law of International Responsibility’). 127 Republic of Ecuador v Occidental Petroleum & Production Co [2005] EWHC Comm 774 [61]; Republic of Ecuador v Occidental Petroleum & Production Co [2006] EWHC Comm 345 [8]‌. See also C Tomuschat, ‘Individuals’ in Law of International Responsibility (n 126) 985, 990. 128 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Report of the Executive Directors on the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (18 March 1965)’ reprinted in History of the ICSID Convention: Documents Concerning the Origin and the Formulation of the Convention (ICSID, Washington 1968) vol II(2), 1077 [24] (‘ICSID History’); ibid, vol II(1), 275 (Consultative Meeting of Legal Experts, Summary Record of Proceedings (30 April 1964) Fifth Sess, 18 December 1963). 129 Tradex Hellas SA v Republic of Albania ICSID Case No ARB/​94/​2 (24 December 1996) 5 ICSID Rep 43, 63; Zhinvali v Georgia ICSID Case No ARB/​00/​1 (24 January 2003) 10 ICSID Rep 3, 81 [342]; CH Schreuer and others, The ICSID Convention. A Commentary (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2009) 202–​5 [416]–​[426], 211–​14 [447]–​[455].

168  The Treaty-Makers apply.130 Indeed, it would appear that one of the rationales behind the ICSID Convention was to make this point clear.131 Thus, private party capacity to make an agreement binding under international law is found at the heart of modern investment arbitration. This remains a limited capacity; it only applies to one potential agreement—​an agreement to arbitrate. For private parties to make other international agreements would require additional authorization by States or other subjects of international law, whether in advance or contemporaneously with the agreement’s creation. A contract between a State and a private party is still not normally an international instrument.132

II.  Other Subjects of International Law and the Law of Treaties Thus, various actors—​federal territorial units, external territories, insurgent groups, and even private actors—​can make treaties. The VCLT does not, however, apply to such other subjects of international law.133 The question then may arise what are the relevant rules for the agreements they make? The VCLT itself recognizes that a general law of treaties subsists outside its text. As noted, Article 3 VCLT accepts the possibility that instruments concluded by ‘other subjects of international law’ may be binding under international law.134 Article 3, moreover, distinguishes between ‘the rules set forth in the . . . Convention’ and those to which other actors ‘would be subject under international law independently of the Convention’. Accordingly, to the extent that the VCLT codifies general international law rules, its provisions may apply independently to other subjects of international law. It remains open, moreover, for other subjects of international law to stipulate that the VCLT rules apply in their entirety when they enter into an international agreement. At least in respect of the VCLT’s central propositions—​for example, pacta sunt servanda, and, probably, the general rule of interpretation (Article 31)—​the applicability of treaty law to other subjects of international law can be seen. For example, in a dispute involving the Hamburg customs authorities, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) considered the EC–​ PLO and EC–​Israel Association Agreements.135 The Court referred to Article 3(b) VCLT 130 Memorandum of the meeting of the Committee of the Whole, 27 December 1962, SID/​62-​2 (7 January 1963) ICSID History (n 128) vol II(1), 68 [48]; paper prepared by the General Counsel and transmitted to the members of the Committee of the Whole, SID/​63-​3 (18 February 1963) ICSID History (n 128) vol II(1), 74 [8]‌, 79–​80  [18]. 131 Consultative Meeting of Legal Experts, Santiago, Chile, 3–​7 February 1964, Summary Record of Proceedings, 12 June 1964, First Sess (3 February 1964) ICSID History (n 128) vol II(1), 303. 132 See eg SGS Société Générale de Surveillance SA v Republic of the Philippines ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​6 (29 January 2004)  8 ICSID Rep 515, 553 [126]–​[128] (citing SGS v Pakistan (5 May 2004)  8 ICSID Rep 451, 456 [172], for the principle that a BIT’s umbrella clause—​by which the State agrees to observe other obligations (eg contracts) which the State has assumed in respect of an investor—​does not convert those obligations into treaty commitments). 133 The VCLT may, however, apply to treaties they enter to the extent two or more States are also parties. Art 3(c) VCLT extends the Convention rules to States inter se even when the treaty involves other subjects of international law. 134 See Brierly (n 2)  229 (‘it is not implied that agreements to which such entities, in addition to States or international organizations, are parties, lack binding force, or that their obligatory force is not derived from international law’). 135 Council Decision (2 June 1997)  [1997] OJ L187, 3; Decision of the Council and Commission (19 April 2000) [2000] OJ L147, 3.

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  169 and applied certain substantive rules of the VCLT; their status as general international law apparently was self-​evident.136 No general rule limits the subject matter that non-​State actors may regulate through international agreement. There likewise is no general requirement of form. Nevertheless, agreements of other subjects of international law are less likely to be effective if the party seeking to assert them can argue their existence and content only by inference. The Regione Siciliana, for example, sought to establish, by referring to practice but not to text, that the European Commission had acquired a legal obligation to consult on and continue to finance an infrastructure project.137 The Court did not accept that a legal commitment had arisen from practice.138 Article 102 UN Charter and Article 80 VCLT oblige States to register their treaties which thus assures publication (or at least assures acknowledgment of the existence of the instrument, if not publication of its full text). The obligation does not extend however to the international instruments of other non-​State actors.139 This may present a problem of evidence, though probably not of opposability.140 Practice on the point remains sparse.

III.  Responsibility for Breach of the Non-​State Treaty As Lord Atkin wrote: ‘[It is] essential to keep in mind the distinction between (1) the formation, and (2) the performance, of the obligations constituted by a treaty.’141 This chapter has been concerned chiefly with the powers of non-​State actors to enter into international agreements—​that is, the formation of treaties by a category of actors that ordinarily have no treaty practice of their own. Once it is seen that such actors have entered into treaties in their own names, rather than as mere agents of a State or other entity superior to them in a legal hierarchy, the question follows what the consequences are to be in the event a failure occurs in the performance of the resultant obligations.142 136 Case C-​386/​08 Brita GmbH v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-​Hafen [2010] ECR I-​10289 [40]–​[42]. The ECJ did not, however, refer to Art 3(b) VCLT when it reached a similar result in Case C-​268/​99 Jany & Others [2001] ECR I-​8615  [35]. 137 Opinion of Advocate General Ruiz-​Jarabo Colomer, Case C-​417/​04P Regione Siciliana v Commission of the European Communities [2006] ECR I-​03881 [12]–​[15]. 138 Case C-​417/​04P Regione Siciliana v Commission of the European Communities (Judgment of 2 May 2006 (Grand Chamber)) [30]; see also Colomer (n 137) [98]. 139 Cf Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, Art 81. 140 Art 102(2) UN Charter provides that ‘[n]‌o party to any such treaty or international agreement which has not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United Nations’. This, however, would seem to apply only to treaties of States; and failure to register ‘does not have any consequence for the actual validity of the agreement, which remains no less binding upon the parties’. Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v Bahrain) (Judgment, Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, 122 [129]. See also the Court de cassation (France) case of 28 February 2017 regarding the Treaty of Turin of 24 March 1860, the lack of registration of which the Court judged not relevant to the effectiveness of the territorial settlement in respect of Savoy: reported at (2017) 63 AFDI 781. 141 Attorney-​General for Canada v Attorney-​General for Ontario and Others [1937] AC 326, 347 (Labour Conventions Case). The second category raises issues of international responsibility for breaches by such units, including breaches of obligations under a treaty, which the ILC addressed in its 2001 Draft Articles. See Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with Commentaries [2001] YBILC, vol II(2), Art 4(1) and comments (8), (9), and (10) (UN Doc A/​56/​10, as corrected) (ASR). 142 The matter was addressed by a number of American States in their responses to the Inter-​American Juridical Committee survey on binding and non-​binding agreements: Hollis, Second Report (n 8) [34]–​[45].

170  The Treaty-Makers It is axiomatic that, where a State has committed an internationally wrongful act, the international responsibility of the State is entailed.143 For the act to be a wrongful act of the State, it must (a) be attributable to the State under international law; and (b) constitute a breach of an international obligation of the State.144 It is the State in the usual situation that is treated as the party to an international agreement. After a federal or other constituent unit has entered into an international agreement, for example, a breach will usually entail the responsibility of the State.145 In Germany, though the Länder may enter into international agreements on certain subjects, a breach, it has been said, ‘clearly involved’ the responsibility of the State.146 Exceptions might be possible, but experts at the ILC and elsewhere have doubted whether exceptions in truth exist, let alone whether they would be desirable.147 Fitzmaurice, for example, thought that there was no possibility for separate responsibility.148 Yet the view has not been unanimous that only the State may hold responsibility. Lauterpacht accepted that, under certain circumstances, the constituent unit could act separately and thus it would be to that unit, not the State, that responsibility would attach.149 Elias and Yasseen both thought it possible that federated States could bear responsibility for international agreements concluded within their areas of competence.150 The ILC, in its 1974 Report, thought situations exist where ‘conduct is to be attributed to the component state and not to the federal State’.151 The commentaries on State responsibility, as adopted, acknowledge the possibility that, by express agreement, a treaty party might limit itself to recourse against the constituent unit.152 Some national legislation also seems to envisage that result.153 Ago, as Special Rapporteur, shifted from a sceptical view to entertaining the possibility of responsibility resting with the constituent unit rather than the State.154 Some of the States replying to an Inter-​American Juridical Committee questionnaire in the 2010s (eg Mexico and, perhaps, Uruguay) indicated the possibility that legal responsibility would attach to a constituent entity.155 The focus here has been largely on component units of a federal State.156 But as this chapter has shown, those are not the only ‘other subjects of international law’ capable of treaty-​making. Insurgent groups, for example, raise issues too. Assuming that an insurgent group entered into an international agreement, the question may arise whether the 143 ASR (n 141) Art 1. 144 Ibid Art 2. 145 See R Ago, ‘Third Report on State Responsibility’ [1971] YBILC, vol II(1), 259 [179] (‘Ago, Third Report’). 146 [1998] YBILC, vol I, 240 [59] (Simma). 147 Eg [1973] YBILC, vol I, 30 [45] (Sette Câmara); ibid 29 [31] (Ago); [1965] YBILC, vol I, 249 [7]‌(Verdross); [1998] YBILC, vol I, 240 [178] (Simma). 148 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1956] YBILC, vol II, 118 [11]. 149 Lauterpacht, First Report (n 14) (comments to Arts 1 and 10). 150 [1973] YBILC, vol I, 30 [53] (Elias); [1973] YBILC, vol I, 11 [23] (Yasseen). 151 ILC, ‘Report of the Commission’ [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 280 (draft Art 7, comment (10)). 152 See ASR (n 141) Art 4, comment (10). 153 Eg Diaz (n 23)  450 (re Mexico’s law authorizing inter-​institutional agreements ‘governed by public international law’). 154 Compare Ago, Third Report (n 145) 259 [179] with R Ago, ‘Eighth Report on State Responsibility’ [1979] YBILC, vol II, 5 n7 [3]‌. 155 Hollis, Second Report (n 8) [38], [40]. 156 The focus here is on responsibility for agreements entered into by such units. A related, but distinct, series of debates has arisen in regard to the conduct of units that might constitute breach of an international obligation entered into by the federation. See eg Restatement (Fourth) on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018) § 305, reporters’ note 5(A) (on ‘federal clauses’); AJ Bellia and BR Clark, The Law of Nations and the United States Constitution (OUP, Oxford 2017) 14–​15, 48–​72 (re jurisdiction over claims alleging delinquence by US States).

Who Can Make Treaties? Other Subjects  171 agreement continues in force as part of the international obligations of the State in the event that the group becomes the government of the State. Insurgent group agreements like the El Salvador example already noted tend to be limited to matters concerning the internal armed conflict. It is unclear whether there is much point in talking about the primary obligation—​that is, the obligation created under the treaty—​continuing in effect for the State if the insurgent group party to the agreement overthrows the government. The agreement was particular to an internal armed conflict which, by definition, no longer exists at the time one side has prevailed.157 Moreover, where there had been two parties, now there is only one. Nevertheless, the Articles on State Responsibility are clear that ‘the conduct of an insurrectional movement which becomes the new Government of a State shall be considered an act of that State under international law’.158 There is also the prior case: responsibility for a breach before the end of hostilities of an obligation created under an agreement. Presumably, the group bears that responsibility when the breach is by its own act. If that were not the case, then it would make little sense to refer to the agreement as an agreement of the insurgent group. It is important in any case to distinguish attribution for purposes of international legal responsibility of ‘other subjects of international law’ from attribution for purposes of the law of treaties.159 The ILC cautioned that attribution of State responsibility is not the same as the ‘international law processes by which particular organs are authorized to enter into commitments on behalf of the State’.160 Whether or not a convention is in force depends on the law of treaties, not the law of responsibility.161 The law of State responsibility does not say what the primary obligations of States or other subjects of international law are; nor does it say how exactly States or other subjects might assume obligations.162 Their treaty-​ making to this extent is a distinct domain.163

Conclusion The treaty-​making practice of other subjects of international law is modest in comparison to that of States, but it is by no means negligible. Under some federal systems (eg the United States and Canada), sub-​federal units have entered into many hundreds of international agreements. When considering such agreements, certain issues can arise. It may be asked whether they are legally binding commitments or, instead, political undertakings. Relevant here will be the scope of authorization, if any, which the central government has granted. With 157 See generally P Dumberry, ‘New State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts by an Insurrectional Movement’ (2006) 17 EJIL 605. 158 ASR (n 141) Art 10(1). 159 J Crawford, ‘First Report on State Responsibility’ [1998] YBILC, vol II(1), 33 [147]. 160 ASR (n 141) Ch II (‘Attribution of Conduct to a State’), comment (5). 161 Gabčíkovo-​Nagymoros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (Judgment) [1997] ICJ Rep 7, 38 [47]. And see J Verhoeven, ‘The Law of Responsibility and the Law of Treaties’ in Law of International Responsibility (n 126) 105–​13. 162 ASR (n 141) Art 12. 163 But see Judge Simma’s Separate Opinion in Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia v Greece) (Judgment of 5 December 2011) [2011] ICJ Rep 644, 695 [29], which seems to suggest that Art 60 VCLT occupies the field entirely in respect of the consequences of breach, a position not easily reconcilable with the distinction between primary and secondary obligations.

172  The Treaty-Makers respect to external territories, it may further be asked whether some multilateral or general legal requirement restricts the permissible scope of agreements entered into by a pre-​ independence entity and the modality of their conclusion. If the ICJ’s Chagos Advisory Opinion were taken as legally binding (which it is not), then the answer would be ‘yes’, at least where the territories concerned are subject to the Chapter XI system. Moreover, as it is not the sub-​State unit that presumptively concludes treaties (either on its own behalf or on that of the State to which it belongs), any other party that contemplates a treaty relationship with such a unit cannot be sure of the legal effects of the intended transaction if it does not consider with care the constitutional or other special arrangements between the unit and its central government. At least the basic rules of the law of treaties would seem to apply to these agreements. As suggested in Section III above, however, treaty-​making and international responsibility operate on different terms: that an entity may conclude a treaty is not in itself an answer to the questions which may arise as to attribution of responsibility in the event of a failure to satisfy the primary obligations that result. Nor does a given instance of treaty-​making support omnibus conclusions as to the legal capacity of the treaty-​maker. The international legal system, like other legal systems, accommodates a variety of different types of legal persons, meaning that the capacities of the persons subject to the system are not all the same. Other subjects of international law, today as much as in the past, exercise treaty-​making capacity to the extent that States and their organs permit them.

Recommended Readings G Alfredsson, ‘Indigenous Peoples, Treaties with’ in R Wolfrum and others (eds), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2007) online at A Aust, Modern Treaty Law & Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) C Bradley, International Law in the US Legal System (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) GM Danilenko, ‘The New Russian Constitution and International Law’ (1994) 88 AJIL 451 P Dumberry, ‘New State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts by an Insurrectional Movement’ (2006) 17 EJIL 605 DB Hollis, ‘The Elusive Foreign Compact’ (2008) 73 Missouri L Rev 1071 DB Hollis, ‘An Intersubjective Treaty Power’ (2014–​2015) 90 Notre Dame LR 1415 DB Hollis, ‘Unpacking the Compact Clause’ (2010) 88 Texas L Rev 741 DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters: Non-​State Actors, Treaties and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl L 137 DB Hollis and others (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) (multiple chapters) P Kooijmans, ‘The Security Council and Non-​State Entities as Parties to Conflicts’ in K Wellens (ed), International Law: Theory and Practice. Essays in Honour of Eric Suy (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1998) 333 OJ Lissitzyn, ‘Territorial Entities in the Law of Treaties’ (1968/​III) 125 RcD 64 B Nikravesh, ‘Quebec and Tatarstan in International Law’ (1999) 23 Fletcher Forum World Affairs 227 M Schaefer, ‘Constraints on State Level Foreign Policy: (Re)Justifying, Refining and Distinguishing the Dormant Foreign Affairs Doctrine’ (2011) 41 Seton Hall L Rev 201 L Zegveld, Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2002)

8

NGOs in International Treaty-​Making Kal Raustiala1

Introduction Many contemporary treaty negotiations feature a wide array of non-​governmental organizations (NGOs). Consider the effort to negotiate the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.2 Over 1,000 NGOs participated in Paris, comprising some 6,000 individuals.3 This level of participation was not new; meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 to hammer out a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol were many State delegations, but also nearly 1,000 private organizations and over 20,000 individuals seeking to influence the terms of agreement and shape broader public opinion about climate change.4 This phenomenon is not unique to environmental treaty-​making. In a wide range of contemporary contexts, NGOs are active participants in treaty-​making. That is to say, they often address negotiators formally, lobby them informally, put forward proposals and procedures, and generally act as cheerleaders and roadblocks on the way to the treaty’s conclusion or its failure. Later on, NGOs may monitor implementation, chastise the non-​compliant, and encourage reform and renegotiation. This was not always the case. Indeed, treaty negotiations were long marked—​as they sometimes still are—​by substantial secrecy. They took place, if not secretly, at least behind several sets of closed doors. The relevant actors were few, both because fewer earlier treaties were multilateral and because the number of States recognized as capable of entering into treaties was much more limited. Even as famous and significant a negotiation as the Paris peace talks of 1919 vividly illustrates the differences between the traditional approach of treaty-​making and the contemporary one. Woodrow Wilson famously campaigned against secret agreements and sought to ensure that after the Great War covenants would be openly arrived at; indeed, he made this Point 1 of his Fourteen Points.5 Yet, there was much secrecy in Paris, and while newspapers covered the event avidly, and several NGOs of the time sent delegations, their level of participation was minimal and all working sessions were closed 1 I  thank Andrew Guzman, Duncan Hollis, Peter Spiro, and Lara Stemple for helpful comments on earlier drafts, Gabriele Goettsche-​Wanli, former Chief of the Treaty Section at the UN Office of Legal Affairs, for her insights, and Phil Rucker, Nell Moley, and David Silverlid of UCLA for research assistance. 2 R McSweeney, ‘Analysis: which countries have sent the most delegates to COP21?’ CarbonBrief (8 December 2015) (‘More than 38,000 delegates are currently in Paris for the COP21 climate talks. These participants are here to represent countries, but also UN agencies, charities, campaign groups, universities, companies and media organisations’). 3 ‘List of Participants’, Conference of the Parties, 21st session, Paris, 30 November to 11 December 2015, UN Doc FCCC/​CP/​2015/​INF.3 (Part 3)  2. 4 P Wilson, ‘Security Moving in for the Cull—​Copenhagen Summit’ The Australian (17 December 2009) Local 2. 5 For the full list, see ‘President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points’ (8 January 1918) .

174  The Treaty-Makers to the public.6 Still, the Paris peace talks were a high point compared to the practices of the past, and in their own way they augured a new form of global governance in which NGOs and governments would work together far more closely. As this suggests, NGOs were hardly unknown in 1919. The nineteenth century saw the formation of many NGOs, some of which—​such as the British and Foreign Anti-​Slavery Society, formed in 1839—​focused expressly on reforming or influencing international law. As early as 1911, Elihu Root, the former United States Secretary of State (and Zelig of progressive-​era American foreign policy and international law)7 noted that such ‘international societies’ were growing in number and often actively propelling forward the negotiation of new treaties.8 But in the early-​twentieth century, NGOs remained quite limited in number and in scope. There were few established norms or practices about how they ought to participate in treaty processes. That changed with the creation of the United Nations, which increasingly became an important, if not central, forum for treaty-​making and, in roughly the same period, began accrediting large numbers of NGOs for participation in UN activities. This process has accelerated in the decades since. While not all contemporary treaty negotiations resemble the complex (one might say chaotic) mix of actors present in Paris in 2015, the climate negotiations there were not unusual. For many treaties today, in particular major multilateral treaties, NGOs play a very visible role in both negotiation and implementation. This chapter surveys the role of NGOs9 in treaty-​making. It focuses primarily on multilateral treaty-​making, where NGOs are most prominent and active. Bilateral treaties tend to be negotiated in processes that do not lend themselves as readily to NGO participation. Some of the key areas of bilateral treaty-​making, such as arms control, investment, and trade, are often guided by rules of confidentiality that limit NGO access.10 And bilateral treaty negotiations are less likely to take place under the aegis of international organizations (IOs), which tend—​especially, as I will describe, in the case of the UN—​to have entrenched norms of openness that facilitate NGO participation. The result is that NGOs are far more active in major multilateral agreements. Consequently, the line between NGO participation in treaty-​making and participation in the general work of an international organization is often blurry, since treaties are often updated and extended via decisions taken within the framework of an IO. It is also important to note the rise of multistakeholder international institutions, such as ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)

6 S Charnovitz, ‘The Emergence of Democratic Participation in Global Governance (Paris, 1919)’ (2003) 10 Ind J Global L Stud 45, 62. Nonetheless, the Treaty of Versailles created the International Labour Organization discussed at n 36 and accompanying text. 7 J Zasloff, ‘Law and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy: From the Gilded Age to the New Era’ (2003) 78 NYU L Rev 239. 8 S Charnovitz, ‘Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law’ (2006) 100 AJIL 348, 349. 9 For the purposes of this chapter I define NGOs broadly as non-​State organizations that seek to influence international law and politics. This definition includes firms and also their associations, the latter of which are generally non-​profit but lobby on behalf of profit-​making enterprises (eg the International Chamber of Commerce). In this sense, NGOs are a species of non-​State actor, but that latter category includes, inter alia, international organizations (IOs) such as the UN itself. Unlike IOs, NGOs are generally constituted under the domestic law of some State, which may or may not be where they do most of their work or have the largest number of members. For more on the definition of NGOs see eg S Ripinsky and P van den Bossche, NGO Involvement in International Organizations (British Inst Intl Comp Law, London 2007) Ch 1. 10 Why this is true is less clear, but perhaps it is that bilateral negotiations are more nearly zero-​sum in nature, and therefore each side has an incentive to resist the participation of NGOs the other side wants to involve. I thank Andrew Guzman for this idea.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  175 and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In these bodies, NGOs and other non-​State actors participate in governance in a more direct way—​sometimes with power equal to that of States. But because these multistakeholder organizations are rarely created by treaty, I do not address them here.11 Nonetheless, they represent an important frontier in global governance. This chapter asks four key questions about the relationship between NGOs and treaty-​ making. First, what roles do NGOs play today in treaty processes, and how have these roles changed? Second, what explains the increased prominence of NGOs? Third, are NGOs a salutary addition to treaty-​making or illegitimate special interests? And finally, fourth, what is the broader significance of NGO activity for international law and international order? NGOs are clearly important players in treaty-​making today. But their roles remain, to a large degree, circumscribed and controlled by States. Indeed, NGO participation is frequently useful to governments, and the rules and practices regulating their participation in treaties reflect this often symbiotic relationship. At the most fundamental level, the presence of NGOs in contemporary treaty-​making and implementation—​which for brevity I will refer to as treaty processes—​is a sign of the expansion of the domain of treaty-​making. As international law has increasingly expanded its substantive ambit, it has come to govern more and more of what has traditionally been thought to fall within the sphere of national law.12 In turn, the process of international lawmaking has come to resemble the process of national lawmaking. Like lobbyists in national capitals, NGOs tell us where governing power is; increasingly, that power rests at the international level.

I.  NGOs and International Treaty-​Making: An Overview The oldest NGO active in international law is probably the Catholic Church,13 but for most purposes, NGOs, as we conventionally understand them today, first became prominent in the nineteenth century. The aforementioned anti-​slavery societies, the Red Cross/​ Red Crescent movement, the International Peace Union, and many others first became operational in this period. By the early-​twentieth century NGOs expressly focused on the then-​nascent global governance movement began to emerge, such as the International Federation of the League of Nations Societies.14 (Today, the analogous World Federation of United Nations Associations operates out of offices in New York and Geneva).

11 Treaties have been eschewed in the creation of these bodies for various reasons, but one germane to this chapter is that since non-​State actors cannot sign and ratify treaties under the VCLT, a treaty-​based body would, it has been argued, privilege the State participants over the non-​State ones. See eg GA Newton, ‘The Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria: An Innovation in the Form of International Organization’ IRPA Global Administrative Law Working Paper 3/​2012, 11, at . 12 The expansion of international law’s ambit over the last several decades is undeniable. Yet we may have reached an apogee, or possibly even a period of retrenchment, under resurgent populism in many States. This populism often takes the form of resistance to global or regional cooperation (eg Brexit) and to the underlying treaties that enable that cooperation. 13 The Catholic Church is of course a complicated actor in international law, one that has an arguably unique status as a sovereign in certain contexts. See J Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law (2nd edn Clarendon Press, Oxford 2006) 221–​33. 14 B Seary, ‘The Early History: From the Congress of Vienna to the San Francisco Conference’ in P Willetts (ed), The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-​Governmental Organizations in the UN System (Hurst, London 1996) 17.

176  The Treaty-Makers International legal scholars of the time noted this growing phenomenon and its significance for international lawmaking. Writing in the inaugural 1907 issue of the American Journal of International Law, Simeon Baldwin argued that ‘it has often been found that the public congress of moment to the world has been the immediate consequence of a private congress’.15 Nonetheless, NGOs were hardly welcomed into the international negotiations of the time. The 1899 Hague Peace Conference, for instance, kept interested NGOs away from the proceedings. The desire for confidentiality was widespread, and NGOs were seen as interlopers in a fundamentally State-​driven process. Still, NGOs increasingly sought greater roles in the treaty-​making process. It was largely after the Second World War that NGOs grew more prominent in world politics, aided by at least five broad but important changes. At a very basic level, technological change made travel and communication ever easier and cheaper; the introduction of phones and faxes (and now internet connections) made it feasible for even a small NGO to lobby governments for a new international agreement or provision. Jet travel had a similar—​and maybe even more profound—​effect, enabling frequent and large multilateral negotiations that in turn opened up the door to greater NGO participation. In short, technology enhanced access. Today, NGOs active in international lawmaking crisscross the globe en route to whatever negotiation is pressing. A second, perhaps less obvious factor, was the move to codification in international law. The League of Nations adopted a project on codification in 1924; the result was the Conference for the Codification of International Law in 1930. Fifteen years later, the UN Charter imposed on the General Assembly the duty to ‘initiate studies and make recommendations . . . encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification’.16 The resulting International Law Commission spurred the creation of many new treaties in the postwar era. These treaty-​making efforts often blended codification and progressive development, but the key here is that NGOs now had many more opportunities to weigh in on issues, like the law of the sea, that had previously only been governed by customary law. Closely related to the codification movement was the creation of the United Nations itself, which provided a focal point and a formalized means of access—​accreditation—​that spurred significant NGO involvement in UN-​related negotiations. (I say more on this factor later). The UN is of course only the most important of a myriad of contemporary IOs. In a broad sense, the twentieth-​century move to international organizations was NGO-​friendly. As Jose Alvarez writes: Matters of interstate diplomacy were, at least in the 19th century, regarded as confidential interstate matters. Modern treaty-​making under IO auspices, by contrast, is characterized by a much greater openness to the accumulated wisdom, shared experiences, and institutional biases and blind spots, of a variety of actors beyond the government representatives set to negotiate . . . Certain structural aspects of IOs, including provision for access to documents and for ‘observer’ or other forms of non-​voting status, have provided entry points

15 SE Baldwin, ‘The International Congresses and Conferences of the Last Century as Forces Working Toward the Solidarity of the World’ (1907) 1 AJIL 565, 576. 16 Art 13 UN Charter.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  177 for NGOs’ growing participation in various forms of inter-​state diplomacy, including treaty-​making.17

A fourth factor promoting NGO participation was the postwar growth in democratic States, which, thanks to their more vibrant and open domestic civil societies, often birth NGOs that in turn may address or expressly focus on international issues.18 These States also unsurprisingly tend to be more comfortable with the active involvement of NGOs at international negotiations than are more autocratic regimes. The current slowing of democratization and rise of autocratic-​leaning regimes in a number of previously democratic States, suggests that we may in turn witness retrenchment in the power and presence of NGOs at the multilateral level. A fifth factor was the increasing propensity for treaties in areas that were traditionally the province of domestic law. Many issues, such as tobacco regulation, banking, and transboundary air pollution, were long thought of as subjects for national law, not international law. Over time, however, international law embraced a much wider concept of regulation and blurred the lines between intrinsically ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ topics.19 Consequently, many domestic NGOs have embraced international law, as international law itself has expanded its ambit. The US-​based National Rifle Association, for example, is increasingly involved in global gun regulation, and successfully sought accreditation at the UN in 1997. Many multinational firms and trade associations that traditionally lobby parliaments and executives are also now more active in trade, labour, and environmental treaty negotiations, which often result in multilateral agreements that shape or determine national regulatory policies. One result, among others, is more extensive NGO demands for inclusion in international institutions and processes, and arguably a change in the style of treaty negotiations, as these organizations bring expectations and lobbying approaches forged in national capitals into the diplomatic arena. The result of all these factors, and others, was a very large increase in the postwar era in the number of NGOs interested in treaty matters. This has been particularly true since the 1990s wave of treaty-​making and UN conferencing; as one observer has noted, in this period NGOs ‘enjoyed a phenomenally rapid rise on the world scene’.20 Today, many large NGOs have a global presence befitting their global interests. For example, Greenpeace International is legally incorporated in the Netherlands, but has dozens of affiliate offices around the world. These are independent actors in many respects, though in others (such 17 JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-​Makers (OUP, New York 2005) 277, 284. This may be because NGOs help provide an alternative power and legitimacy base to IOs. On this point see K Anderson, ‘What NGO Accountability Means—​And Does Not Mean’ (2009) 103 AJIL 170 (reviewing L Jordan and P van Tuijl (eds), NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles & Innovations (Earthscan, London 2006)). 18 This growth is of course uneven. See LJ Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy:  The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, New  York 2008); see also HK Jacobson and E Brown Weiss, ‘Assessing the Record and Designing Strategies to Engage Countries’ in HK Jacobson and E Brown Weiss (eds), Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords (MIT Press, Cambridge 1998)  533–​4 19 A Chayes and AH Chayes, The New Sovereignty:  Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1995). 20 P Spiro, ‘Accounting for NGOs’ (2002) 3 Chi J Intl L 161; see also M Edwards, NGO Rights and Responsibilities:  A New Deal for Global Governance (Foreign Policy Centre, London 2000) 9 (‘the 176  “international” NGOs of 1909 . . . blossomed into 28,900 by 1993, and over 20,000 transnational NGO networks are already active on the world stage, 90 per cent of which were formed during the last thirty years’); J Tallberg and others, The Opening Up of International Organizations (CUP, Cambridge 2013).

178  The Treaty-Makers as the use of the Greenpeace trademark) control is kept in Amsterdam. The rise to prominence of large and well-​financed groups with international reach, like Greenpeace, is particularly noteworthy from the 1970s onwards. Several prominent transnational NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Greenpeace itself, were established in the 1970s. At the same time, more active multinational firms and higher levels of foreign direct investment and world trade led many firms to be more interested in international rules.21 This newly expanded and active cohort of NGOs sought to influence a wide range of treaties negotiated over the last several decades, and continues to do so today even as the pace of formal, multilateral treaty-​making may be slowing. NGOs are likewise active in negotiations over instruments other than treaties—​such as non-​binding declarations and conference action plans. To be sure, much NGO influence is exercised at the domestic level, by shaping the demands and negotiating positions of governments as they hammer out treaty provisions. How effective particular NGOs are at this is a function of both skill and knowledge and the domestic politics and institutions of their home nation. But a meaningful look at how NGOs shape domestic positions vis-​à-​vis treaties is not possible in a brief survey such as this. However, it is possible to discuss in general terms the participation of NGOs in international negotiations, and the broad variations that exist across different areas of international law. It is to that inquiry that I now turn.

II.  NGO Participation: Provisions and Practice A.  IO provisions for NGO participation Much of contemporary treaty-​making flows through the UN system, and thus UN rules and practices play an outsize role in shaping what NGOs can do. Indeed, legal rules governing NGO participation are almost always the product of IOs; the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, though central to many treaty issues, is silent on NGOs. Although the initial proposals for a UN that emerged in Dumbarton Oaks during the Second World War made no mention of NGOs, the United States pushed for their express recognition in the emerging UN Charter. (And about 1,200 NGOs attended the San Francisco conference in June of 1945 establishing the UN).22 Ultimately, Article 71 of the Charter formalized the role of NGOs within the organization. It states that the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), may make suitable arrangements for consultation with NGOs which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation with the Member of the United Nations concerned.23

21 This increased attention to NGO activity is dramatically reflected in a Google Ngram search on ‘NGO’ or ‘nongovernmental organization’, both of which (but in particular ‘NGO’) exhibit an extremely sharp leap in usage after 1980. Google Ngram allows searches of particular words or phrases in books catalogued in Google Books. A search in French of ‘ONG’ yields a very similar pattern, though at lower levels of usage. According to Steve Charnovitz, the term NGO (in English) was first used in 1919. Charnovitz (n 8) 351. 22 P Willetts, ‘Pressure Groups as Transnational Actors’ in Willetts (n 14) 1, 11. 23 Art 71 UN Charter.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  179 Forty-​one NGOs were granted consultative status with ECOSOC in 1946. By 1992, the dawn of the age of UN mega-​conferences, some 700 NGOs held that status. As of 31 October 2018, there are 5,161 NGOs listed with ECOSOC.24 Out of these, 4,052 are in special consultative status, 138 in general consultative status, and 971 are on the Roster.25 Many more have been granted access to specific treaty negotiations and meetings.26 Any contemporary UN-​sponsored treaty negotiation or conference routinely includes a sizeable—​sometimes enormous—​NGO component. Indeed, the NGO side of a major UN negotiating process is often far larger, and certainly more colourful, than the actual State-​based negotiation. ECOSOC rules lay out several requirements for accreditation.27 Among the most important are that the NGO must be concerned ‘with matters falling within the competence of the Economic and Social Council and its subsidiary bodies’, and that the ‘aims and purposes of the organization’ must conform with the ‘spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations’. In addition, the NGO ‘shall be of recognized standing within the particular field of its competence or of a representative character’, and must have an established headquarters, a democratically adopted constitution (a copy of which shall be deposited with the UN), and the authority to speak for its members through its authorized representatives. Finally, ‘organizations established by governments or intergovernmental agreements are not considered NGOs’.28 ECOSOC accreditation remains an important filter for NGOs, and one that States control carefully. If NGOs are perceived to threaten the interests of important States, they can be denied accreditation, as was the case in 2016, when ECOSOC’s Committee on NGOs—​which holds the mandate to consider applications from NGOs for consultative status—​voted to close the application of the Khmers Kampuchea-​Krom Federation, a US-​based NGO representing the indigenous Khmer-​Krom peoples in Vietnam.29 There is also a practice of deferring applications in the NGO Committee when a member state expresses concerns. For example, the International Dalit Solidarity Network—​which seeks to challenge caste-​based discrimination in South Asia—​has had its application deferred for ten years. India has directed more than eighty questions to the NGO, deferring its application over and over with 24 UN Secretary General, ‘List of non-​governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council as of 1 September 2018*’ (31 October 2018) UN Doc E/​2018/​INF/​5, 1. As ECOSOC’s website explains: General consultative status is reserved for large international NGOs whose area of work covers most of the issues on the agenda of ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies. These tend to be fairly large, established international NGOs with a broad geographical reach. Special consultative status is granted to NGOs which have a special competence in, and are concerned specifically with, only a few of the ECOSOC fields of activity. These NGOs tend to be smaller and more recently established. Organizations that apply for consultative status but do not fit in any of the other categories are usually included in the Roster. These NGOs tend to have a rather narrow and/​or technical focus. NGOs that have formal status with other UN bodies or specialized agencies (FAO, ILO, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, WHO, and others) can be included on the ECOSOC Roster. The roster lists NGOs that ECOSOC or the UN Secretary-​General considers can make ‘occasional and useful contributions to the work of the Council or its subsidiary bodies’. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ‘Introduction to ECOSOC Consultative Status’ . 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 See ECOSOC Res 1996/​31 (25 July 1996)  . 28 Ibid. There are today many government-​organized or government-​friendly NGOs, typically from autocratic societies that are derisively referred to as ‘GONGOs’, or government-​sponsored NGOs. This phenomenon speaks to the power of NGOs and their relatively secure place in treaty processes; governments that rarely tolerate opposition from private associations at home seek to tap into the influence of NGOs by creating or tolerating NGOs that largely hew to their preferred line. See M Naim, ‘What is a GONGO?’ (18 April 2007) Foreign Policy 96. 29 International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), ‘UN Committee on NGOs: Don’t deny NGO the right speak’ (29 January 2016) .

180  The Treaty-Makers each question asked.30 The Committee to Protect Journalists had its application deferred for years until a direct intervention in 2016 by then-​US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power.31 Similar State control is exercised for conferences and other UN meetings—​twenty-​ two LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) and other NGOs were excluded from participating in the UN General Assembly High-​Level Meeting on Ending AIDS in 2016, following an objection made by Egypt on behalf of fifty-​one members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.32 NGOs are also being granted access within the many departments and affiliated bodies of the UN. As a 1998 report by then-​Secretary-​General Kofi Annan noted: the United Nations Secretariat’s relationship with NGOs is manifold . . . the majority of funds, agencies, and programmes of the United Nations system have also received a clear mandate from their governing bodies to work with NGOs, and have developed a wide range of mechanisms to do so.33

For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) accredits NGOs (what it terms ‘official relations with WHO’) who may participate, though not vote, in WHO meetings, conferences, and treaty negotiations. A  similar approach is taken by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO is empowered by its constitutive convention to consult and cooperate with NGOs. NGOs can be granted observer status, and today over 200 NGOs are permanent observers at WIPO.34 Observer status permits these NGOs to participate in all WIPO assemblies, diplomatic conferences, standing and other committees, and working groups. Moreover, NGO observers can participate in WIPO debates when allowed by the session chairman.35 These NGO arrangements and practices are fairly typical within the UN family. Somewhat less typical, though noteworthy as a result, is the approach of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO was founded in 1919 and thus preceded the UN model. The ILO has a highly unusual structure in which labour unions and businesses are formal participants in the ILO’s work and deliberative processes—​what the ILO calls ‘tripartism’. Moreover, the ILO Governing Body consists of twenty-​eight government members and twenty-​eight non-​government members, divided equally among employers and workers. In addition, the ILO Constitution states that the ILO may ‘make suitable arrangements for such consultation as it may think desirable with recognized [NGOs], including international organizations of employers, workers, agriculturalists and co-​operators’.36 The 30 ISHR, ‘The Backlash Against Civil Society Access and Participation at the UN’, 4, at . ISHR notes that only 7 per cent of deferred applications from human rights organizations were recommended for accreditation during the January 2018 session of the NGO Committee, compared to 23 per cent of development NGOs. See ISHR, ‘NGO Committee: Politics front and centre as human rights NGOs get deferred again’ (24 February 2018) at . 31 M Kent, ‘Politicized UN Committee Using “Repeated and Arbitrary Deferrals to Block NGOs” Critics Say’ CBC News (21 January 2018) at . 32 ISHR, ‘The Backlash Against Civil Society’ (n 30) 6. 33 Report of the Secretary-​General, ‘Arrangements and Practices for the Interactions of Non-​Governmental Organizations in All Aspects of the United Nations System’ (1998) UN Doc A/​53/​170 [11], [15]. 34 WIPO, ‘NGO Participation’ . 35 WIPO, ‘WIPO General Rules of Procedure’ (4th edn, 2 October 1979)  . 36 ILO Constitution (established 9 October 1919) 15 UNTS 40, Art 12(3).

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  181 ILO has its own multifaceted accreditation process for these NGOs, which includes NGOs that fall outside these enumerated (and now somewhat dated categories), such as those concerned with human rights or child labour issues.

B.  NGO participation in treaty formation and implementation NGOs have also been active in treaty processes that occur outside a pre-​existing international organization such as the UN or the ILO. A well-​known example is the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty,37 which was spearheaded by a group of NGOs operated under the banner of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). In the 1970s, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) convened a conference on indiscriminate weapons that ultimately influenced Protocol II of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Amid continuing concern over the horrific and indiscriminate effects of landmines, the ICBL formed in the early 1990s and convened an NGO Conference on Landmines. By the 1995 Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, more than seventy NGOs were participating. The ICRC was invited by the UN Secretariat to attend as an expert observer, and was allowed to speak and submit proposals, as well as asked to prepare two working papers for the delegates. Members of other NGOs served on the delegations of certain key States, including Canada and Australia.38 When no ban on mines emerged from the review conference, the ICBL grew in scope and scale; by May of 1996 it comprised some 600 NGOs in forty States.39 After a coordinated and sophisticated media campaign, and substantial lobbying by NGOs in many national capitals, the Mine Ban Treaty was signed in 1997. That same year the ICBL and its leader, Jody Williams, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in propelling the treaty process forward. Highlighting the importance of NGOs to the treaty’s promulgation, then-​Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada, Lloyd Axworthy, declared that [n]‌o other issue in recent times has mobilized such a broad and diverse coalition of countries, governments, and nongovernmental organizations. Much of this momentum has been the result of the tremendous efforts made by NGOs to advance the cause to ban mines.40

A similar, if less dramatic, example of NGO involvement in a treaty negotiation was the WHO’s 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The WHO generally tracks the UN in terms of NGO access. Early on in the negotiating process, WHO held public hearings; 144 health-​related NGOs provided testimony during the hearings, with a total of 500 written submissions received. As in the landmines case, many NGOs banded together (here, 37 Formally, The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​ Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 2056 UNTS 241. For an account focused on NGOs’ roles see K Anderson, ‘The Ottawa Convention Banning Landmines, the Role of International Non-​Governmental Organizations and the Idea of International Civil Society’ (2000) 11 EJIL 91. 38 R Price, ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’ (1998) 52 IO 613, 620–​1. 39 Ibid  620–​1. 40 K Rutherford, ‘Implications of the Role of NGOs in Banning Antipersonnel Landmines’ (2000) 53 Wld Pol 74, 74.

182  The Treaty-Makers into the ‘Framework Convention Alliance’) to maximize their impact on the treaty process. The Framework Convention Alliance was an important lobbying force in producing the tobacco treaty, but—​as I will discuss further below—​the Alliance NGOs’ access was greater in the early stages of the negotiation than in the later stages. Similar was the NGO involvement in the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty.41 The treaty seeks to increase availability of published works in accessible formats for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled.42 The process was initiated in 2008 when the World Blind Union and Knowledge Ecology International presented a draft treaty on the subject, which later formed the basis of a treaty proposal introduced in WIPO’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.43 Many NGOs thereafter worked in support of the treaty,44 and NGOs were invited as observers during the final diplomatic conference in 2013 to attend the formal meetings, make oral statements, and submit written statements.45 NGOs have also influenced the development of a host of major human rights treaties, as well as the landmark (though formally nonbinding) Universal Declaration on Human Rights.46 Their participation has been expanding in recent years. For example, in 2001 the UN General Assembly established an Ad Hoc Committee to negotiate a new convention on disability rights, which ultimately resulted in the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Delegates to the Ad Hoc Committee ‘represented NGOs, governments, national human rights institutes, and international organizations’.47 Indeed, the Ad Hoc Committee went beyond standard contemporary practice and invited NGOs ‘to participate in all public (and later also all informal and closed) meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, with extensive formal representation in the Working Group, permitting them to make substantive statements on the UN floor following discussion of each draft article’.48 Moreover, this access extends to post-​negotiation issues: the Convention dictates that ‘civil society, in particular persons with disabilities and their representative organizations, shall be involved and participate fully in the [treaty] monitoring process’.49 As this last point indicates, NGOs have been active not only in negotiating human rights treaties but also in their implementation. Many human rights NGOs, for example, produce ‘shadow reports’ on the implementation of important treaties, which ‘shadow’ the official 41 Formally, The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled (adopted 27 June 2013, entered into force 30 September 2016) WIPO Doc VIP/​DC/​8. It currently has fifty States parties after the United States ratified the treaty on 8 February 2019. 42 The WHO estimates that over 253 million people are living with visual impairments around the world. For more on the treaty, see eg D Harris, ‘The Power of Ideas: The Declaration of Patent Protection and New Approaches to International Intellectual Property Lawmaking’ (2016) 6 UC Irvine L Rev 343. 43 For a detailed background of the treaty process until 2011, see Knowledge Ecology International, ‘April 2011 report on negotiations for a WIPO copyright treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities’ (7 April 2011) at . 44 Ibid. 45 Pursuant to the rules of procedure of the diplomatic conference. See ‘Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities, Marrakech, June 17 to 28, 2013’ (18 June 2013) WIPO Doc VIP/​DC/​2. 46 A Cassese, Human Rights in a Changing World (Polity, Cambridge 1990) 173; W Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Palgrave MacMillan, New York 2001). The UDHR is legally non-​binding but widely seen as highly influential and perhaps now reflective or constitutive of customary international law. 47 United Nations Enable (Frequently Asked Questions) . 48 G de Burca, ‘The EU in the Negotiation of the UN Disability Convention’ (2010) 35 EL Rev 174. 49 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, opened for signature 30 March 2007) UN Doc A/​AC.265/​2006/​L.6, Art 33.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  183 reports produced by States parties and are intended to critique and influence treaty implementation in various States parties. These reports are distributed among the parties, the media, and other interested actors. This is not new. In 1993, in advance of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the International Women’s Rights Action Watch even created a guide to producing shadow reports on the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women so as to aid other women’s rights groups around the world interested in weighing in on matters of implementation. Some regional human rights treaties go further; the European and Inter-​American human rights systems both permit NGOs to bring forward claims about abuses, and some others, such as the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, have regularly considered communications filed by NGOs.50 NGOs have been similarly active in the related and rapidly growing field of international criminal law. For example, the creation of the International Criminal Court in the 1990s was due in part to an active and highly organized NGO effort. The Coalition for an International Criminal Court, a group encompassing over a thousand NGO members, was a key player in the often-​contentious negotiation of the Rome Statute. As one observer notes, NGOs lobbied intensively. Their influence was felt on a variety of issues, particularly the protection of children, sexual violence, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and an independent role for the prosecutor. Throughout [the negotiations] they provided briefings and legal memoranda for sympathetic delegations . . . and even assigned legal interns to small delegations.51

Then-​UN Secretary-​General Kofi Annan, who generally supported much wider NGO access and engagement with UN activities, later stated that the NGO presence at the Rome Conference represented ‘an unprecedented level of participation by civil society in a law-​ making conference’.52 There are many similar examples of NGOs’ participation in treaty-​making; NGOs are an important and even central component of most treaty processes today. In broad terms, the trend over the last century has been toward markedly greater access and participation for NGOs in these processes. The history of environmental treaties illustrates this pattern of steadily increasing NGO incorporation. Early environmental treaties, such as the 1933 Convention Relative to the Preservation of Flora and Fauna in their Natural State, typically said nothing about NGOs. The 1946 Whaling Convention was similarly silent, though from 1977 onwards NGOs were permitted to participate as observers at whaling negotiations, and in the years since have become so active that they have arguably transformed the regime’s purpose entirely—​from one of conservation of whales to one of their preservation. The first major multilateral environmental treaty to include explicit language on the role of NGOs was the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which stated that the treaty secretariat may seek assistance from ‘suitable . . . non-​governmental international or national agencies and bodies technically qualified in protection, conservation, and management of wild fauna and flora’, unless one-​third of the parties object.53 50 RG Steinhardt and others, International Human Rights Lawyering (West, New York 2009) 855. 51 MH Arsanjani, ‘The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’ (1999) 93 AJIL 22, 23. 52 K Annan, ‘Preface’ to C Bassiouni, The Statute of the International Criminal Court: A Documentary History (Transnational, Ardsley 1999) ix. 53 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (concluded 3 March 1973, entered into force 1 July 1975) 27 UST 1087, Art 12.

184  The Treaty-Makers Nearly identical language appears in subsequent treaties, such as the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depletion.54 The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change likewise declares that [a]‌ny body or agency, whether national or international, governmental or nongovernmental, which is qualified in matters covered by the Convention, and which has informed the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a session of the Conference of the Parties as an observer, may be so admitted unless at least one third of the Parties present object.55

Moreover, the Conference of the Parties must ‘[s]‌eek and utilize, where appropriate, the services and cooperation of, and information provided by, competent international organizations and intergovernmental and non-​governmental bodies’.56 Actual practice generally reflects these formal changes in NGO participation, and at times even outpaces it. NGOs are quite active attending meetings, contributing materials, speaking to plenary negotiating sessions, working the corridors, and generally aiming to influence the details of treaty terms and principles. In some environmental treaty regimes, NGOs have even greater formal powers, such as in the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, where, in a process analogous to that in some human rights regimes, NGOs can directly bring complaints alleging that governments have failed to adequately enforce their own domestic environmental laws.57 In short, contemporary environmental treaty-​making is unimaginable today without NGOs, even if they are simply outside the negotiating room shaping the terms of debate and channelling political pressure (or creating media circuses, depending on one’s view). NGOs play a less noticeable role in some areas of treaty-​making, however. While NGOs were instrumental in shaping the progress and content of the landmines convention, as described earlier, they generally have played a minor role in most of the major arms control convention processes. Major arms treaties in recent decades have been typically bilateral and, in many cases, negotiated in significant secrecy. In some cases, such as the 1972 Anti-​ Ballistic Missile Treaty, the negotiating records of the agreements themselves were classified.58 While today an active arms control NGO community exists, it tends to focus more on broad policy matters and proliferation concerns and works primarily to seek change via informal lobbying and public opinion formation rather than direct participation in treaty negotiations. Still, this role should not be underestimated; in the late 2010 debate over the US-​Russian New START treaty in the US Senate, for instance, arms control NGOs played important roles in shaping media coverage and persuading various senators of the merits and demerits of the accord. 54 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (with annex) (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3, Art 11(5). 55 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (concluded 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 1771 UNTS 107, Art 7 (UNFCC). 56 Ibid. 57 K Raustiala, ‘Citizen Submissions and Treaty Review in the NAAEC’ in J Knox and D Markell (eds), The North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation: An Evaluation (Stanford University Press, Stanford 2003) 256. 58 See ‘Statement by State Department Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer’ in JL Dunoff, SR Ratner, and D Wippman, International Law (3rd edn Aspen Publishers, New York 2010) 291.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  185 Likewise, the multilateral Arms Trade Treaty adopted in 2013 was the result of a campaign led by the Control Arms Coalition, an international alliance of NGOs. After years of raising public awareness on the issue and lobbying governments and the UN to support an arms trade treaty, a resolution entitled ‘Towards an Arms Trade Treaty’ was tabled and approved at the UN First Committee in 2007. The campaign remained actively involved in the diplomatic process that followed through lobbying and media efforts, advocacy within the UN process, dialogue with government representatives, and by producing policy and research publications that often influenced official discussions among governments.59 The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons followed a decade-​long advocacy campaign spearheaded by a coalition of NGOs known as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.60 In 2017, the UN convened a diplomatic conference to negotiate the treaty, and participation in the public meetings of the conference was open to ECOSOC-​accredited NGOs, as well as non-​accredited NGOs unless objected to by a participating State.61 A total of sixty-​six NGOs participated in the conference,62 and they could make statements and submit working papers.63 However, they were not permitted to attend the private meetings of the conference. The general principle was that plenary meetings and committees were public, but the body concerned had the discretion to decide otherwise.64 Subcommittees and working groups could also be established,65 and these were not presumed to be public pursuant to the rules of procedure.66 Thus, although NGOs were invited to participate in the conference, the participating States nonetheless retained the discretion of closing the door on them. Trade agreements tend to feature a comparatively low level of NGO activity, even in multilateral treaty contexts. The 1994 Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization states that the WTO General Council ‘may make appropriate arrangements for consultations and cooperation with [NGOs] concerned with matters related to those of the WTO’.67 This marked a change from the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) years, when there were no formal provisions governing NGO participation. NGOs at that time were also not permitted to participate directly in meetings and conferences.

59 D Mack and B Wood, ‘Civil Society and the Drive Towards an Arms Trade Treaty’ (2010) at . 60 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (adopted 7 July 2017, not yet entered into force) UN Doc A/​ CONF.229/​2017/​8. For an overview of the campaign, see ICAN, ‘Campaign Overview’ at . ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work. 61 ‘Participation of non-​governmental organizations in the conference’ (22 February 2017)  UN Doc A/​ CONF.229/​2017/​4; ‘Provisional rules of procedure of the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination’ (7 March 2017)  UN Doc A/​ CONF.229/​2017/​L.1, Rule 61 (‘March 2017 Provisional Rules’); ‘Rules of procedure of the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination*’ (13 June 2017) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​5, Rule 60. 62 ‘List of non-​governmental organizations’ (24 March 2017) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​INF/​3. 63 ‘Information for civil society representatives—​Note by the Secretariat’ (22 February 2017)  UN Doc A/​ CONF.229/​2017/​INF/​2, [6]‌; ‘Information for civil society representatives—​Note by the Secretariat’ (18 May 2017) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​INF/​2/​Add.1, [6]. For a list of the working papers, see ‘Report of the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination’ (24 July 2017) UN Doc A/​72/​206. 64 March 2017 Provisional Rules (n 61) Rule 55. 65 Ibid Rules 46, 47. 66 Compare ibid Rule 55. 67 Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 154, Art 5.

186  The Treaty-Makers Even at the Marrakesh Conference, where the WTO Agreement was signed, there were no accredited NGOs; those NGOs present were registered as members of the press.68 In 1996, the WTO General Council promulgated guidelines on NGO participation. These took a decidedly cautious approach compared to those of other IOs. As the guidelines note: [t]‌here is currently a broadly held view that it would not be possible for NGOs to be directly involved in the work of the WTO or its meetings. Closer consultation and cooperation with NGOs can also be met constructively through appropriate processes at the national level where lies primary responsibility for taking into account the different elements of public interest which are brought to bear on trade policy-​making.69

In 2003, however, the WTO created an ‘Informal NGO Advisory Body’ (and a parallel body for businesses) as a way to reach out to non-​State actors in a manner consistent with the limitations present in the 1996 guidelines. NGOs also now attend the WTO Ministerial Conferences, held every two years, and the number of NGOs accredited to these has grown dramatically: from 159 in 1996 to over a thousand in 2005. In the context of global trade cooperation these changes are marked, but NGOs still remain outside the room in many negotiating sessions and meetings. Likewise, NGO participation in the WTO dispute settlement process was highly controversial, with most member States opposed to even amicus briefs submitted by interested NGOs.70 (Though now many such briefs have been filed).71 While NGOs (in particular, firms and their trade associations) may greatly influence the decision to bring a case before the dispute settlement body, ‘once the proceeding is initiated, direct participation by business and NGOs in the WTO’s judicial process is much more limited’.72 Similar trends of low levels of NGO activity in trade agreements are found outside the context of the WTO. Major free trade agreements that have been negotiated in recent years, such as the Trans-​Pacific Partnership, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the EU-​Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, have largely remained closed processes.73 Nonetheless, NGOs have managed to influence the negotiation processes through domestic action, particularly by rallying public opinion against the investment chapters in the respective agreements.74

68 Ripinsky and van den Bossche (n 9) 190. 69 Ibid. 70 For the official description of the issue, see WTO at . On opposition see, for example, CL Lim, ‘The Amicus Brief Issue at the WTO’ (2005) 4 Chinese JIL 1. 71 T Squatrito, ‘Amicus Curiae Briefs in the WTO DSM: Good or Bad News for Non-​State Actor Involvement’ (2018) 17 World Trade Rev 65. 72 J Barton and others, The Evolution of the Trade Regime: Politics, Law, and Economics of the GATT and the WTO (Princeton University Press, Princeton 2006) 199. 73 See eg M Marceddu, ‘Implementing Transparency and Public Participation in FTA Negotiations: Are the Times a-​Changin’?’ (2018) 21 J Int’l Economic Law 681; G Tung, ‘International Trade Law and Information Policy: A Recent History’ (2014) 42 Int’l J Legal Info 241; FG Nicola, ‘New Approaches to International Regulatory Cooperation: The Politicization of Legal Expertise in the TTIP Negotiation’ (2015) 78 Law & Contemp Prob 175. 74 See eg C Brower and S Blanchard, ‘What’s in a Meme? The Truth about Investor-​State Arbitration: Why it Need Not, and Must Not, be Repossessed by States’ (2014) 52 Colum J Transnat’l L 689; M Marshall, ‘Investor-​State Dispute Settlement Reconceptionalized: Regulation of Disputes, Standards and Mediation’ (2017) 17 Pepp Disp Resol L J 233.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  187 This brief survey illustrates a fundamental point. Over the last few decades, NGOs have become a regular part of the treaty process in a wide range of issue-​areas in international law—​including, on occasion, treaty exit.75 NGOs are active at many treaty negotiations, where they receive negotiating documents, informally present proposals, and are consulted by—​and lobby—​State delegations. NGOs participate actively as well in the corridor diplomacy and media outreach that is so central to many complex multilateral negotiations. States nonetheless maintain meaningful control over NGO access through various accreditation processes. But once accredited, NGOs tend to stay accredited and involved—​though here too States remain the gatekeepers of these processes and can, whenever they desire, convene in private and informal sessions apart from NGOs. (And outside of unusual structures such as that of the ILO, only governments may vote). Still, the wide array of NGO activities described above are either relatively new or much more pervasive than in the past, and have, in many important ways, transformed the process of treaty-​making. The picture of what NGOs do varies somewhat from issue to issue, but the major themes are reasonably clear. Less clear is the significance of this activity for international cooperation.

III.  States and NGOs in Treaty-​Making Why have NGOs become such a common feature of treaty-​making, and what does it signify? Some observers in the past have suggested that the active and participatory role of NGOs may be just ‘window-​dressing’, intended to satisfy vocal NGOs and public opinion but of no real or lasting importance.76 But most observers perceive more significance to the move to incorporate a wide range of NGOs into treaty processes. For some, NGOs are important guardians of the public interest, who protect values that States will not guard reliably.77 In this view, NGO participation will shift the terms of debate on many issues and result in better international lawmaking. Indeed, one observer of NGOs suggests that ‘had NGOs never existed, international law would have a less vital role in human progress’.78 In other words, it is widely believed that NGOs have an effect on treaties that goes well beyond window-​dressing. Indeed, to other observers—​including one previously in a very high position in the US White House—​NGOs may even increasingly be a driving force behind much global lawmaking, usurping some of the power of sovereign States.79 Anyone who has participated in or closely observed a major multilateral negotiation, in particular a UN-​sponsored one, will concede that NGOs can and sometimes do effectively shape debate. But this must be put into perspective. Indeed, one of the core propositions 75 A prominent example is Brexit and the role of organizations such as Get Britain Out. . 76 B Hagerhall, ‘The Evolving Role of NGOs’ in G Sjostedt (ed), International Environmental Negotiation (Sage Publications, Newbury Park 1993) 75. For an extensive discussion of NGOs and their impact see B Arts, M Noortmann, and B Reinalda (eds), Non-​State Actors in International Relations (Ashgate, Aldershot 2000). 77 PK Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics (State University of New York Press, Albany 1996); PJ Sands, ‘Environment, Community and International Law’ (1989) 30 Harv Intl L J 393, 394. See also M Keck and K Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998). 78 Charnovitz (n 8) 348. 79 JR Bolton, ‘Should We Take Global Governance Seriously?’ (2000) 1 Chi J Intl L 205, 215–​17; DB Hollis, ‘Private Actors in Public International Law: Amicus Curiae and the Case for the Retention of State Sovereignty’ (2002) 25 BC Intl & Comp L Rev 235.

188  The Treaty-Makers of this chapter is that the access to, and participation in, treaty processes that NGOs now enjoy is not a hijacking of the lawmaking process. Rather, NGO participation is shaped by governments and is often beneficial to governments. That NGOs often serve the interests of governments is one reason—​and I would argue the most important one—​that NGOs have become so pervasive in contemporary treaty processes.80 The NGO-​State relationship is in many respects symbiotic. The sovereign State remains the leading actor in the international system, and NGOs need the coercive power of States to realize the social and legal changes they seek. But conversely, the political incentives modern governments face frequently compel them to work with NGOs, especially those organizations that possess specialized and useful resources and political power. Nonetheless, States still largely control the terms of the relationship, because international law is built and predicated on a system of sovereign States. Why then do States permit NGOs to participate so closely and vigorously in treaty-​ making? There are several distinct benefits for States in doing so. Although not all States enjoy or value these benefits (and some oppose NGO participation in particular cases or even more widely), in the aggregate States benefit often enough that broad, general rules and practices permitting NGO participation make sense. The structure of NGO participation in most treaty processes supports this argument. Perhaps the central benefit for States of NGO inclusion is the provision of information. NGOs can provide important information about policy options, especially in issue-​areas with high levels of uncertainty and technical or scientific complexity. Consider climate change, the issue that opened this chapter. There are many large, expertly staffed NGOs that devote considerable resources to policy research and development—​research that can help the negotiating parties develop and evaluate often-​complex policy options. NGOs commonly provide such information to government policymakers freely, and indeed compete to do so. Many such groups exist, and the plurality of sources provides a check on exaggeration, obfuscation, and poor logic and data. The result is that governments can gain useful and creative policy advice from many independent sources—​and typically at no cost. To be sure, much of the world’s policy expertise on climate change rests within governments or is directly accessible by them. States have also created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a way to gather and channel the best scientific advice. But NGO policy research provides perspectives and ideas that might not have emerged from a bureaucratic review process, whether within a given State or the IPCC. Moreover, many State delegates, especially from smaller States, are generalists and unlikely to be expert in the particular area under negotiation. This is particularly so in highly technical areas like climate change. Like lobbyists in a domestic setting, NGOs act as conduits for ideas and political pressures to these negotiators. The formal record from many treaty negotiations reveals a very active information-​ providing role for NGOs. Consider a report, chosen at random, of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents from the third Session in September 1999. The various government delegations debated the then-​draft Patent Law Treaty, which was adopted the following year. Yet at WIPO, NGOs such as the American Bar Association, Federation of 80 For earlier elaborations of this argument see K Raustiala, ‘States, NGOs, and International Environmental Institutions’ (1997) 41 Intl Stud Q 719; K Raustiala, ‘The Participatory Revolution in International Environmental Law’ (1997) 21 Harv Envtl L Rev 537.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  189 German Industry, the Korean Patent Attorneys Association, and the World Association for Small and Medium Enterprises were also introducing proposals and raising objections to the draft Patent Treaty text.81 These groups contained much expertise on patent law and conveyed that expertise (and opinion) to the assembled negotiators. It is not always necessary to admit NGOs into negotiating sessions to convey this kind of information. But in practice that is a helpful way to do it, since expertise transcends official position papers, and NGO members can and do speak informally with many delegates at negotiations to flesh out details and provide commentary on other ideas. All of this activity can greatly improve the suite of options negotiators can draw upon in drafting and revising treaty texts. NGOs also may provide useful information on treaty implementation. Groups like Human Rights Watch have a global reach, and they expend significant resources documenting problems around the world. Much of this effort uses a legal frame and often identifies specific treaty commitments that are being violated or improperly implemented. These shadow reports, described earlier, can be influential and may garner significant media attention. (And given that many treaties lack meaningful review of implementation or rely merely on self-​reporting by parties about their implementation of treaty commitments, NGO monitoring can be an important addition to what little occurs via more official channels). The role of NGOs in monitoring is clearly contentious, and States differ on how much NGOs should participate. But it also reflects some political realities that make it attractive to many governments. Principles of sovereignty and general political disinterest in monitoring in some States make it relatively costly to create direct, formal evaluation of treaty compliance by other States parties or IOs. Due to their informal, decentralized nature, NGO efforts are less readily blocked; NGOs would have to be kept out of negotiations altogether, for even formal bans on compliance discussions or papers can be circumvented ‘in the corridors’. In short, in many instances NGOs ‘supply the personnel and resources for managing compliance that States have been increasingly reluctant to provide’.82 Again, not all States welcome this role, but others do. And once NGOs are present within treaty frameworks, even if they are welcomed for other reasons, such as technical expertise, they may gravitate toward monitoring and enforcement efforts.83 NGOs may also provide another important form of information:  information about the actions of State delegations to treaty negotiations. Governments—​ in particular, legislatures—​want to control the decisions of their national delegations. Treaty negotiations often create tensions between branches of government, especially in presidential systems, where important aspects of foreign affairs may not be directly controlled or overseen by legislatures. But the desire to control negotiators is not limited to legislators, since other executive branch officials may also fear that treaty negotiators will exceed their mandates or create political headaches through their positions. NGO participation in treaty negotiations is one means by which legislatures, as well as executive branch officials, can enable outside parties to alert them to undesired delegation actions. In other words, NGOs can 81 WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents, ‘Third Session—​Report Adopted by the Standing Committee’ (6–​14 September 1999) . 82 Chayes and Chayes (n 19) 250–​1. 83 NGOs remain imperfect monitoring agents, however. NGO monitoring is often less concerned with compliance in the narrow sense—​adherence to the letter of an agreement—​than it is with NGO approval or disapproval of particular actions, even if those actions are not violations of the relevant accord. A classic case is whaling; NGOs have criticized and monitored nations engaged in scientific research whaling or that took reservations to the Whaling Convention, despite the legality of their actions under that treaty.

190  The Treaty-Makers help minimize an important principal-​agent problem. As interested parties, NGOs have an incentive to both monitor delegates’ actions and inform governmental principals of their findings. Because NGOs of many persuasions exist, movement in many directions can be covered. This decentralized process is both effective and low-​cost. Delegates that move too far away from the preferences of their principals are thus more likely to be identified and checked.84 Yet another way NGOs provide practical information to governments is via reporting on treaty negotiations themselves. This may seem trivial, but in practice it is often very useful. During the course of large-​scale multilateral talks there is often a numbing array of detail to be followed. Delegates cannot keep track of everything that is going on, particularly if the negotiations occur through multiple working groups. In several arenas, NGOs have alleviated this problem of information overload by supplying regular bulletins. The International Institute for Sustainable Development runs a widely read reporting service called Linkages that covers a wide array of treaty processes, including water, oceans, and wetlands; chemicals management; trade and investment; and sustainable development.85 Similarly, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development long provided a daily information service during ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization.86 The Coalition for the International Criminal Court supplies daily summaries of proceedings at the annual Assemblies of States Parties to the Rome Statute.87 During both of the UN-​led negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty in 2012 and 2013, the NGO Reaching Critical Will produced the Arms Trade Treaty Monitor.88 Likewise, it operated the Nuclear Ban Daily during the 2017 negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which provided news and analysis from the UN-​led conference.89 ‘Ongoing negotiations reporting’ is something governments and even IOs cannot do easily—​or effectively—​on their own. If any one government were to attempt to provide such reporting, the reports would likely be derided as biased and unrepresentative. If the UN itself or a formal secretariat published daily reports, they would have the status of official documents, and member governments would find it difficult or impossible to agree on content, style, tone, and so forth. Bringing NGOs into the treaty-​making process also has political benefits for many States. NGOs allowed to participate in State-​to-​State deliberations get a closer look at the positions of relevant parties. Specific areas of controversy are more apparent, as are the areas where compromise is possible. Negotiating positions have sometimes been described by scholars in spatial terms, with various positions corresponding to points in a multidimensional 84 Unless the NGOs present agree more with the delegates than their principals. But from the principal’s point of view, creating a fire alarm of this kind that is only occasionally pulled in the presence of a fire is still superior to having no alarm at all. On this analogy see Raustiala (n 57). 85 International Institute for Sustainable Development—​Reporting Services Division, ‘Linkages’ . 86 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, ‘Latest News’ . 87 Coalition for the International Criminal Court . 88 Reaching Critical Will, ‘ATT Monitor—​Negotiating Conference’ (2–​27 July 2012) at ; Reaching Critical Will, ‘ATT Monitor—​Negotiating Conference II” (18–​28 March 2013) at . 89 Reaching Critical Will, ‘Nuclear Ban Daily’ at .

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  191 ‘policy space’. The set of points acceptable to all parties is the bargaining zone. By taking part as observers and as participants, NGOs become more aware of the shape and location of the bargaining zone. Revealing the structure of the international bargaining process in this way may help to diffuse NGO criticism and placate at least some unsatisfied interests, as NGOs become more knowledgeable about obstacles—​and perhaps more invested in the negotiating process. It may also lead to new ideas about how to reach that bargaining space, since NGOs have many incentives to provide practical proposals that overcome apparent deadlocks in negotiations. Relatedly, NGO participation in treaty processes may facilitate the approval of treaties at the domestic level. While States vary the processes by which they approve treaties, many have some legally mandated process of domestic review and consent that is required prior to ratification.90 In broadly democratic States this nearly always involves the legislature. Legislatures (and other domestic actors) may well reject a treaty that has been painstakingly negotiated—​think of the famous rejection by the US Senate of the Treaty of Versailles settlement in 1919, or the more recent rejection by French voters of the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. One way to reduce the odds of such an event is to bring some of the important domestic players directly to the international table, thereby ‘bridging’ the two levels of the negotiating game, in political scientist Robert Putnam’s famous terms.91 Problems with accords can be rectified early, during the negotiation process, rather than late, when renegotiation may be extremely difficult. As I noted earlier, NGOs are not only active at the international level; they are powerful domestic actors in many States. Treaty regimes must have domestic support to succeed, and NGOs, as interest groups, can provide this support or withhold it. Bridging thus is an attractive strategy for minimizing ratification risk. By bringing these important societal actors into the negotiations process directly, information flow is enhanced, and more important, potential opponents may be turned into supporters or at least abstainers. If NGO skills, resources, and political power are useful to States, demand for these resources should increase when the scope, complexity, and obligations of a treaty regime grow. And indeed, the major treaties of the last few decades—​such as climate change, chemical weapons control, tobacco use, disability rights—​are generally more complex and more demanding than earlier treaties. And, as described above, the rules and practices governing NGO participation in treaty-​making have generally become more inclusive and given NGOs greater access and participation over time. Moreover, the ways in which NGOs are included in treaty processes are broadly consistent with a mutually beneficial understanding of NGO-​State relations in treaty-​making. NGOs possess many resources, but those resources and skills are not uniformly useful over time. Policy expertise is most useful at the early stages of negotiations, monitoring most useful in the implementation phase. When governments desire secrecy to air possible compromises, or are at the stage of logrolling once positions have solidified, they may find NGO participation undesirable or not useful. Hence States face incentives to keep NGOs out at some times and bring them in at others. By this logic, they ought to attempt to meter or calibrate NGO participation. In practice, States have achieved this calibration through the proliferation of working groups and informal meetings in treaty negotiations. Consider the pattern in the 1992 UN

90 91

See Chapter 15 (Domestic Application of Treaties). RD Putnam, ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-​Level Games’ (1988) 42 IO 427.

192  The Treaty-Makers Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The early preparatory meetings (‘prep-​coms’) preceding UNCED, where basic positions were hashed out and the scope and shape of the negotiating space determined, were most open to NGO participation. However: by the penultimate meeting, as the bargaining became heated . . . all governments agreed to close the doors, and the NGOs frequently suffered the humiliation of being turned out . . . the governments introduced a new type of forum: ‘informal informals’—​too informal for NGOs to participate, but indeed where the decisions were made.92

The same pattern can be observed in the negotiations of the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. There, the Framework Convention Alliance, as one observer notes, encompassed more than 180 NGOs from over 70 countries and had established itself as an important lobbying alliance. Its impact in the final negotiations was, however, hampered by the imposition of restrictions on NGO access to the negotiating sessions. Most sessions of the final INB [the negotiating body] were designated as informal, thus providing a pretext for the exclusion of NGO participants.93

As at UNCED, the overall pattern in the Tobacco Convention negotiation was one of greater NGO access and participation early on—​as the basic structure of the negotiation is being defined and policy prescriptions debated—​and less NGO access later, when the details of essentially fixed positions were being hammered out. This pattern is what we would expect to observe if NGOs are admitted to treaty processes not as an act of grace, or under pressure, but instead mainly for the ideas and resources they bring to the table. Thus, when looked at in light of the many informational and political benefits to States of NGO participation, the generally high level of NGO participation in most treaty processes is not surprising. NGOs are often—​though not always—​helpful to governments, even when they appear opposed to a particular policy or provision. And this symbiosis is not limited to governments; as noted above, IOs, in particular the UN, have been major sites and proponents of NGO inclusion. Officials at these organizations may embrace NGOs ‘as a source of legitimacy through “representativeness” that bypasse[s]‌the increasingly problematic legitimacy of international organizations through nation-​States’.94

IV.  The Legitimacy of NGO Participation Whatever the putative benefits of NGO participation to governments, the increase over the last several decades has not been without critics. While many observers (and participants) approve of NGOs’ newfound prominence, and see NGOs as an essential part of a global ‘civil society’,95 others see NGOs as vectors for unattractive ideas and policies. Indeed, there is a 92 E Enge and R Malkenes, ‘Non-​Governmental Organizations at UNCED:  Another Successful Failure?’ in HO Bergesen and G Parmann (eds), Green Glove Yearbook of International Co-​operation on Environment and Development (OUP, Oxford 1993) 25, 27. 93 J Collin, ‘Tobacco Politics’ (2004) 47 Dev 91, 93. 94 Anderson (n 17) 174. 95 J Keane, Global Civil Society? (CUP, New York 2003) 2.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  193 growing chorus of complaint that sees NGOs as unrepresentative, unaccountable, and often plain uninformed—​distorting the democratic process, eroding the authority of elected officials, and excluding the voices of those directly affected by global change in favor of an urban, middle-​class minority of armchair radicals, based largely in the industrial world.96

As this suggests, this debate often takes on a North-​South dimension, with NGOs characterized as fellow travellers of Northern, or Western, governments. In trade, for example, ‘developing country negotiators have . . . tended to argue against more direct NGO participation in part because their countries lack active, indigenous NGOs and in part because they perceive active NGOs as representing interests rooted in Western, advanced, industrialized countries’.97 To be sure, NGOs do not always line up neatly with the views of their ‘home’ States; indeed, they sometimes oppose them straightforwardly. But they may share some world views and general principles, and this can make those NGOs seem like stalking horses for government interests. (Some NGOs, moreover, are nearly arms of the government, organized by them for the purpose of providing other modes of support to government positions).98 NGOs also need resources to survive, and many are funded by wealthy, often Western, donors, in whole or in part. This too is a source of unease over NGO participation in treaty-​making. In short, opposition to NGOs is sometimes driven by straightforward differences over interests, and the belief that increased NGO participation will tend to favour the interests of some parties over those of others. As this suggests, the phenomenon of NGO incorporation raises a host of positive and normative questions. Are NGOs warping the essentially State-​to-​State nature of international law? Do they reinforce the power of the most powerful States in the system? Can NGOs capture a treaty process?99 Is their presence in treaty processes fundamentally undemocratic? And is it appropriate that NGOs can—​and often do—​attempt to influence the negotiating positions domestically, but then go on to do the same at the international level, giving them ‘two bites at the apple’? These questions are not amenable to easy answers. Whether international law is inherently a State-​to-​State endeavour that NGOs should remain distant from is a large question that transcends the treaty context. In the ICJ’s 1996 Nuclear Weapons decision, for instance, some judges expressed concern about the role of NGOs in pushing the General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ.100 As Judge Oda wrote: The idea behind the resolution whereby the General Assembly . . . requested advisory opinions, had previously been advanced by a handful of [NGOs] which initiated a campaign for the total prohibition of nuclear weapons but failed to persuade the States’ delegations in the forum of the General Assembly . . . Some NGOs seem to have tried to compensate for the vainness of their efforts by attempting to get the principal judicial organ of the United Nations to determine the absolute illegality of nuclear weapons . . . 101

96 Edwards (n 20) 2. 97 Barton and others (n 72) 201–​2. 98 See n 28 (discussing these GONGOs). 99 A Berman, ‘Industry, Regulatory Capture, and Transnational Standard-​Setting’ (2017) 111 AJIL Unbound. 100 Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion [1996] ICJ Rep 287, 300 (Separate Opinion of Judge Guillaume and Dissenting Opinion of Judge Oda). 101 Ibid 330, 335 [8]‌(emphasis in original).

194  The Treaty-Makers Judge Oda’s tenor suggests that this effort was inappropriate, and that NGOs’ catalyzing role casts doubt on the legitimacy of the whole advisory exercise. While these particular concerns addressed the process of a General Assembly resolution, and not a treaty, they starkly reflect a more general view, which is that NGOs increasingly are intruding in matters beyond their competence or appropriate role. Proponents of active NGO involvement, by contrast, see NGOs as representative of important public interests that need to be heard. Many NGOs ‘present themselves as custodians of the observance of elementary principles of international law, such as human rights’.102 NGOs are representative in a different—​but, proponents believe, equally if not more significant—​way than are governments, especially undemocratic governments. If true representativeness requires that society and not just the State have a place at the table, then organized groups of individuals have a reasonable claim to that place.103 And it is undeniable that NGOs often bring views to the negotiating table that simply would not be heard otherwise. They can be creative in ways that States simply cannot—​and can provide a voice to those who are otherwise voiceless. Still, NGO participation can be and often is criticized on the grounds that NGOs are just lobbyists with a particular interest to push. Moreover, NGOs not only favour particular interests; they may favour particularistic interests—​their special interests—​at the expense of larger balances that often must be struck in policymaking. Governments must make tradeoffs and accommodate differing views; NGOs do not have that burden and they can, and do, lobby hard for their view to triumph. As a result, their more prominent role in treaty-​making may undermine the often essential process of accommodation, unless there are enough varied NGOs involved to represent a truly wide array of interests. What then gives NGOs, few of which formulate their positions via elections of their membership, any greater claim to representativeness than autocratic governments or monarchs? The answer is not clear. As two writers bluntly put it, ‘NGOs claim to represent global civil society. But nobody elects them’.104 Many, perhaps most, NGOs are not even internally democratic. Yet they do in a sense represent their supporters, who ‘vote’ with their dollars and support. As one NGO leader argued, ‘we have a certain democratic legitimacy [ . . . ] by having millions of supporters. And while they do not give us a specific mandate, they decide by the membership fee whether they agree with us or not’.105 Comparing NGOs to governments is a category mistake; they have a different role. Perhaps, as another close observer of NGO politics put it, they are ‘the conscience of the world’.106 102 A Vedder, ‘Questioning the Legitimacy of Non-​Governmental Organizations’ in A Vedder (ed), NGO Involvement in International Governance and Policy: Sources of Legitimacy (Martinus Nijhoff, Boston 2007) 11. 103 For example, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye argue that NGO participation in institutions of global governance can improve legitimacy and arrest democratic deficits. R Keohane and J Nye, ‘The Club Model of Multilateral Cooperation and Problems of Democratic Legitimacy’ in R Porter and others (eds), Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy:  The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium (Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC 2001). 104 J Micklethwait and A Wooldridge, ‘The Globalization Backlash’ (Sept/​Oct 2001) Foreign Pol 16, 24. See also D Rieff, ‘The False Dawn of Civil Society’ (22 February 1999) The Nation 11. 105 Anonymous representative of an NGO, quoted in V Collingwood and L Logister, ‘Perceptions of the Legitimacy of international NGOs’ in A Vedder (n 102) 21, 35. 106 Willetts (n 14). Some defenders of NGOs also note that since many domestic governments in the world are non-​democratic, NGOs are not necessarily any less democratic than States. See eg P Wapner, ‘Defending Accountability in NGOs’ (2002) 3 Chi J Intl L 197, 198 (‘States and NGOs possess various mechanisms of accountability, each of which works imperfectly. When compared to each other, it is not the case that states come out shining while NGOs are tarnished . . . the argument is that NGOs are not more accountable than states but differently accountable’).

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  195 Of course, conscience is in the eye of the beholder. Much of the supportive commentary on NGOs reflects or assumes a largely Western, liberal orientation on the part of most NGOs. Even within the West, however, there are sizeable political differences among NGOs, and the NGO community active on treaty matters increasingly evidences that diversity, from gun rights advocates to anti-​abortion activists. None of this vitiates the idea that NGOs wield moral—​not legal—​authority, but it does underscore how context-​and viewpoint-​specific that authority may be. Whether NGOs (mis)use the treaty-​making process as a way to influence domestic law or policy—​which is one aspect of the ‘two bites at the apple’ concern—​is really a concern about the integrity or fairness of domestic lawmaking, not of international lawmaking. But since so many areas of law that were traditionally seen as domestic are now the purview of international law, this issue is bound to arise. In many ways this parallels Judge Oda’s concern in Nuclear Weapons—​that there is something untoward about NGOs using international processes to achieve ends that could be achieved politically and domestically.107 Another aspect of the two-​bites critique is that lobbying at the domestic level is simply different from lobbying at the international level, and the latter is much more troublesome. NGO lobbying at the domestic level, at least within democratic States, ‘must contend with an electorate, a ballot box, and the checks upon the legitimacy claims of the NGO’ that a well-​functioning democratic system provides.108 At the international level, these checks, or countervailing pressures, are thought to be less present and effective—​perhaps giving NGOs excessive power. These concerns and critiques may often be overblown, but they have some merit. As a practical matter, however, the international community has largely—​at least in multilateral settings, and certainly in UN-​led settings—​ceded significant roles to NGOs in treatymaking. Whatever concerns may exist about legitimacy have not stopped the steady accretion of greater power and participation on the part of NGOs over the last 100 years.109

Conclusion NGOs are ubiquitous in treaty processes today. While they have been active in one form or another in international lawmaking for well over a century, the quantity and quality of participation today is unprecedented. International law ‘has been forever changed by the empowerment of NGOs’.110 In this chapter I have sketched how NGO participation in treaty processes has developed and how it is structured. While there is no uniform pattern, in a wide array of issue-​areas—​from global health to environment to labour—​NGOs have become important and even central players. They actively participate in the negotiation of new treaties and the implementation and adjustment of existing ones.

107 See also Bolton (n 79) 215–​21. Bolton (later) was US Ambassador to the UN under President (GW) Bush and National Security Advisor to President Trump. 108 Anderson (n 17) 177. 109 As noted earlier, recent political developments suggest this process may be slowing or even stopping. But the longer-​term trend, over the last several decades, is undeniable. 110 Alvarez (n 17) 611.

196  The Treaty-Makers The move to a greater participatory role for NGOs has many causes. But it should not be viewed as necessarily antagonistic to State interests. Nor does it undermine the centrality of States in international lawmaking. The roles played by NGOs remain formally, and, often practically, subject to State control. This control ranges from the accreditation process, which keeps out the overly radical or insufficiently organized (or just deeply disliked), to the use of informal negotiating venues and forums, which keeps out everyone. Yet this control is used sparingly and, I have argued, often strategically. In the aggregate, States have benefited from the newfound prominence of NGOs in treaty-​making in many ways. This complementarity broadly tracks the relationship between national governments and domestic interest groups in many democracies. In the United States, for instance, the rise of the modern regulatory State in the twentieth century led to and benefited from a wide array of interest groups. The vastly increased scope of governmental regulation in the post-​New Deal era encouraged US courts—​and Congress—​to facilitate and guarantee the participation of many stakeholders and interested parties in the regulatory process.111 Citizen groups, firms, and associations became fixtures in regulatory governance, wielding seemingly great power. Yet one could hardly argue that the federal government in the United States began to wither away as a result. The power of the central government to regulate was never stronger; the very presence and participation of these groups indicated just where the power lay. In a similar fashion, the participation of NGOs in treaty processes demonstrates not the weakness of States, but the importance of international law. Of course, none of this means that all NGOs are necessarily legitimate actors that should be welcomed without qualification onto the global stage. Many governments and observers continue to oppose greater participation by NGOs in treaty processes because they believe many (or all) NGOs are simply special interests who will warp the process of treaty-​making. This view is more persuasive in the abstract than in practice, however. In a world of well-​functioning governments that are responsive and open to varied interests, a prominent role for NGOs at the international level might well be unnecessary. But in the real world, where many important views and perspectives are often left out of State-​to-​State processes, NGOs fill an important void in treaty-​making. For this reason, they will, for the foreseeable future, continue to be a significant presence in many treaty processes.

Recommended Reading K Anderson, ‘What NGO Accountability Means—​And Does Not Mean’ (2009) 103 AJIL 170 (reviewing L Jordan and P van Tuijl (eds), NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles & Innovations (Earthscan, London 2006)) S Charnovitz, ‘Nongovernmental Organizations and International Law’ (2006) 100 AJIL 348 PM Dupuy and L Vierucci (eds), NGOs in International Law (Edward Elgar, Northampton MA 2008) M Keck and K Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1998) 111 M Shapiro, Who Guards the Guardians?: Judicial Control of Administration (University of Georgia Press, Athens 1988); RB Stewart, ‘The Reformation of American Administrative Law’ (1975) 88 Harv L Rev 1669; RB Stewart and CR Sunstein, ‘Public Programs and Private Rights’ (1982) 95 Harv L Rev 1193; R Glicksman and CH Schroeder, ‘EPA and the Courts: 20 Years of Law and Politics’ (1991) 54 LCP 249.

NGOs in International Treaty-Making  197 R Price, ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’ (1998) 52 IO 613 S Ripinsky and P van den Bossche, NGO Involvement in International Organizations (BIICL, London 2007) A Vedder (ed), NGO Involvement in International Governance and Policy:  Sources of Legitimacy (Martinus Nijhoff, Boston 2007) P Willetts (ed), The Conscience of the World: The Influence of Non-​Governmental Organizations in the UN System (Hurst, London 1996)

PART III

T R E AT Y F ORM AT ION

9

Making the Treaty Carlos Iván Fuentes and Santiago Villalpando*

Introduction While treaties are generally recognized as one of the central sources of international law, the process by which treaties are made is little known to the general public, and even to many specialists in the discipline. To a certain degree, this is due to the fact that a significant part of the treaty-​making process takes place behind closed doors. Bilateral treaty-​making often happens discretely, with the involvement of a limited number of government representatives meeting in restricted diplomatic circles, and the central part of the negotiation is usually conducted privately. This is not the case for most multilateral treaty-​making processes, which are—​to the contrary—​widely publicized and sometimes closely followed not only by specialists in the field but also the media and civil society. Here, the challenge is a different one. Multilateral treaty-​making processes may share certain basic elements, but they are also incredibly diversified. No two processes are precisely the same and each forum conducts its business in its own particular way, adapting to the needs of its specialized community or to the topic that is the subject of negotiations. A person profoundly familiar with treaty-​making processes in one area (eg climate change) may recognize many procedural rules and working methods followed in other fora (eg human rights or disarmament), but could be greatly surprised by other practices. What is more, treaty-​making is an area of international relations that has significantly evolved over time. Certain basic features of multilateral negotiations are stable and easily identifiable, but the minutiae of negotiating techniques and available negotiating environments have changed enormously. The fact is that treaty-​making is the part of the law of treaties where flexibility is the most needed. Order in the conduct of proceedings is certainly valued, but the need for negotiators to remain ‘masters of their own procedure’ is indispensable to allow them to find a suitable compromise. This is the main reason why the drafters of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) gave up on trying to codify the rules that govern the negotiation of treaties. Quite paradoxically, the VCLT starts its regulation at the stage of the ‘conclusion’ of the treaty, giving the impression that it almost came too late to the scene. And even those codified rules on adoption and authentication of the text, means to express consent to be bound by the treaty, and entry into force are characterized—​maybe more than any other part of the VCLT—​by their flexibility and residual character, leaving negotiators with a considerable margin to manoeuvre. * The authors are responsible for the choice and presentation of the facts contained in this contribution and for the opinions expressed therein, which are not necessarily those of the United Nations or UNESCO and do not commit these organizations.

202  Treaty Formation As rightly pointed out by the author of this chapter in the first edition of this Guide,1 the treaty-​making process may be divided into four phases: (i) the drawing up and negotiation of the treaty; (ii) the adoption and authentication of the text; (iii) the expression of consent to be bound by the treaty; and (iv) the entry into force of the treaty. This chapter follows the same course in unpacking the law and practice of contemporary treaty-​making.

I.  Drawing up the Treaty Part of the difficulty that arises with this topic is that there is no codification of the rules that govern treaty negotiations. Moreover, just as the arrival of international organizations (IOs) has changed much of international law generally, the use of permanent fora has influenced the ways in which treaties are concluded specifically. In the preparatory works of the codification of the law of treaties, the International Law Commission (ILC) had considered the possibility of including some minimal rules to assist States in navigating the negotiation process. Two ILC Special Rapporteurs on the topic—​ Gerald Fitzmaurice and Humphrey Waldock—​had envisaged the inclusion of a provision, entitled ‘Negotiation and drawing up of the treaty’, which, in its latest iteration, read as follows: The negotiation and drawing up of a treaty take place: (a) through the diplomatic or other agreed channel, at meetings of representatives or at an international conference; (b) in the case of a treaty concluded under the auspices of an international organization, at an international conference convened either by the organization or by the States concerned, or in an organ of the organization in question.2

Certain States and ILC members doubted the usefulness of this proposal, which they considered to be ‘technical’, ‘purely procedural’, ‘descriptive’, or ‘redundant’.3 One ILC member argued that the treaty-​making process ‘was so varied and complex that it could hardly be put into a rule’.4 The provision was abandoned in the latest version of the draft articles, as submitted by the ILC to the UN General Assembly. Another attempt at putting some order in the treaty negotiation phase was the General Assembly’s consideration of the item ‘Review of the multilateral treaty-​making process’ in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This review was prompted by an intervention made by the Australian representative at the Sixth Committee who, noting that ‘[t]‌he ways in which we approach multilateral treaty-​making are varied, frequently experimental and often inefficient’, had made a call for finding ‘more economical and efficient methods of drafting conventions’.5 This resulted in a lengthy endeavour, involving not just the Sixth Committee, but also the Secretariat, the ILC, and the specialized agencies, that produced a comprehensive

1 See G Korontzis, ‘Making the Treaty’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) 177–​208. 2 H Waldock, ‘Fourth Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1965] YBILC, vol II, 23. 3 ILC, ‘Summary record of the 781st meeting’, UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.781, [1965] YBILC, vol I, 40 et seq. 4 Ibid 41 (comments of Manfred Lachs). 5 Review of the Multilateral Treaty-​Making Process, United Nations Legislative Series 1985, UN Doc ST/​LEG/​ SER.B/​21,  7.

Making the Treaty  203 study on the multilateral treaty-​making process, eventually published as a volume of the United Nations Legislative Series.6 An analytical review of the process conducted in this framework confirmed the striking number and variety of multilateral treaty-​making fora, techniques, and procedural rules, but also identified certain shared features. A Final Document was produced by a Working Group of the Sixth Committee, which contained recommendations regarding the phases of the multilateral treaty-​making process, that is, its initiation, the preparation and formulation of a draft treaty, the conclusion of the formulation process, and the adoption of the treaty. The Document also contained suggestions on how to facilitate the process, enhance training and technical assistance, prepare and publish records of negotiations, coordinate treaty-​making activities, and discharge the relevant registration and depositary functions.7 In general terms, it is indeed possible to identify different phases in the process of negotiation of any treaty. While these are, strictly speaking, common to both bilateral and multilateral treaty-​making processes, they are more clearly delineated in the multilateral framework, as bilateral treaty-​making tends to be more flexible and informal. Thus, this chapter focuses on treaty negotiation in the multilateral context.

A. The initiative The original idea of a new treaty may come from different sources: one or more governments, an intergovernmental organ, expert body or secretariat within an IO, or even outside sources (groups of experts, NGOs, etc). A treaty initiative involves three different issues: (i) the decision as to whether to conclude a treaty; (ii) the decision on the forum of negotiations; and (iii) the preparation of the initial draft.

1. The decision as to whether to conclude a treaty It would seem logical that the crucial decision to aim for the adoption of a binding agreement under international law, rather than other kinds of instruments, would be the first step in any negotiating process. The fact is, however, that this decision may sometimes be made at a later stage. In multilateral settings, an explicit decision would sooner or later be needed, but it is interesting to note that in the bilateral context the ambiguity on the nature of the instrument may persist throughout the negotiating process, and even remain once the instrument is adopted.8 A good illustration of the complexity of this existential decision is provided by the codification process at the United Nations. The ILC Statute calls for the Commission to make a recommendation to the General Assembly on the nature of the codification instrument 6 Ibid. 7 See UNGA Sixth Committee (39th Session), ‘Report of the Working Group on the Review of the Multilateral Treaty-​Making Process’ (27 November 1984) UN Doc A/​C.6/​39/​L.12. 8 For instance, in the case concerning the Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain the parties to the dispute had dramatically opposing views on the nature of the instrument upon which the jurisdiction of the ICJ was eventually established. See Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions (Qatar v Bahrain) (Memorial of the Government of the State of Qatar) 10 February 1992, 57, available at ; ibid (Counter-​Memorial of the Government of the State of Bahrain) 11 June 1992, available at ; Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, [25].

204  Treaty Formation by the time it submits its final draft.9 In its earlier practice, the ILC would usually make such a determination quite early in the process: it was often clear from the start whether the outcome of its codification work would be a non-​binding instrument or a draft convention. On some occasions, this issue would be subject to debate and the Commission could change course during its work. For example, in the codification of the law of treaties, the Commission started with the assumption that it would adopt a mere code with declaratory and explanatory material,10 and then radically changed gears towards a convention at a later stage, following an animated discussion.11 Eventually, the Commission submitted a set of draft articles to the General Assembly,12 which convened the diplomatic conference that adopted the Vienna Convention.13 In recent decades, the question whether codification should be embodied in a convention is often left to the end of the work of the Commission, and the debate on the matter may even be perpetuated—​sometimes for several years—​at the General Assembly. This was the case for the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, which the ILC submitted to the Assembly in 2001,14 with an open recommendation on the possible outcome, and for which the decision as to whether to adopt a convention remains unsettled. In its latest round of debates on the matter, in 2019, the Assembly decided to postpone its decision yet again, until its 77th session, in 2022.15 In any event, it is often the case that substantive discussions start on a topic before all involved parties have agreed that drafting a treaty is the most appropriate way forward. For example, in 2011, the decision that launched the process which would eventually lead to the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change described the desired objective as the development of ‘a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention’,16 options which remained open until late in the process. Similarly, the negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction started, in 2006, in the framework of an Ad Hoc Open-​ended Informal Working Group, which was initially mandated, inter alia, to ‘indicate, where appropriate, possible options and approaches to promote international cooperation and coordination for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction’.17 It was in the course of those negotiations that many delegations called for the elaboration of a comprehensive legal regime, through an implementing agreement to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.18 9 UNGA Res 174 (II) (21 November 1947) UN Doc A/​RES/​174 (II), as amended by UNGA Res 485 (V) (12 December 1950)  UN Doc A/​RES/​486 (V); UNGA Res 984 (X)  (3 December 1955)  UN Doc A/​RES/​984 (X); UNGA Res 985 (X) (3 December 1955) UN Doc A/​RES/​984 (X); and UNGA Res 36/​39 (18 November 1981) UN Doc A/​RES/​36/​39 (the reference is to the Statute of the International Law Commission, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, specifically to Arts 16(f) and 23). 10 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘First Report on the law of treaties’ [1956] YBILC, vol II, 106–​7. 11 ILC, ‘Report of the ILC on the work of its thirteenth session’ (1 May–​July 1961) UN Doc A/​4843, [1961] YBILC, vol II, 128 [39]. 12 ILC, ‘Report of the ILC on the second part of its seventeenth session and on its eighteenth session’ (3–​28 January 1966) and (4 May–​19 July 1966) UN Doc A/​6309/​Rev.1 (A/​21/​9), [1966] YBILC, vol II, pt II [36]–​[38]. 13 UNGA Res 2166 (XXI) (5 December 1966) UN Doc A/​RES/​2166 (XXI). 14 ILC ‘Report on the work of the fifty-​third session’ (23 April–​1 June 2001) and (2 July–​10 August 2001) UN Doc A/​56/​10, 2001, [2001] YBILC, vol II, pt II [30]–​[77]. 15 UNGA Res 74/​180 (18 December 2019) UN Doc A/​RES/​74/​180. 16 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Conference of the Parties, Decision 1/​CP.17 (11 December 2011). 17 UNGA Res 59/​24 (17 November 2004) UN Doc A/​RES/​59/​24, [73]. 18 UNGA, ‘Letter dated 30 June 2011 from the Co-​Chairs of the Ad Hoc Open-​ended Informal Working Group to the President of the General Assembly’ (30 June 2011) UN Doc A/​66/​119.

Making the Treaty  205 Eventually, the General Assembly agreed to the preparation of an international legally binding instrument under the Convention,19 establishing first a Preparatory Committee and then an Intergovernmental Conference for the development of such an instrument, which is known as the ‘IGC-​BBNJ’ (Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction).

2. The decision on the forum in which negotiations are going to be conducted In some cases, the choice of the forum for negotiations is the natural consequence of the source from which the initiative comes. For example, the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which arose as part of the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), were both started and entirely conducted in the framework of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention and its subsidiary bodies. In other cases, the idea of adopting a treaty may be formulated outside a defined institutional framework and thus require a further decision on where to conduct the negotiations. Such a decision not only involves the general identification of which body will discuss the text—​a commission of the General Assembly, a working group under an existing intergovernmental body, an intergovernmental conference convened for that specific purpose, etc—​but also the resolution of practical issues, such as the location where meetings will take place and the entity that will provide conference and substantive support to the process. The choice of the forum may sometimes raise complex legal issues as to which body has the mandate required to negotiate and adopt the treaty concerned. For example, if one intends to conclude a treaty of universal scope in the area of maritime law, it may seem natural to host the negotiations in the framework of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). However, in some cases, the specific topic of a treaty in maritime law may overlap with the mandate of another organization. Such was the case of the International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages,20 which was considered by an Intergovernmental Group of Experts established by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the IMO, and eventually adopted by a United Nations/​IMO Conference of Plenipotentiaries. In certain cases, pragmatic considerations may also come into play, such as the expertise of the participants or the probabilities of success of the initiative if it were to be pursued in one forum rather than another. Thus, for example, it may come as a surprise that the instrument aiming at phasing out the production and usage of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) was negotiated at the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, since HFCs are not substances that deplete the ozone layer and rather greenhouse gases normally falling under the purview of the UNFCCC. The fact is that HFCs had been increasingly used as a refrigerant alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) after the latter (which do deplete the ozone layer) had been banned by the Montreal Protocol. In other words, the Montreal Protocol regime had contributed to the worsening of a problem which exceeded the scope of the protection of the ozone layer. However, it was also the Montreal Protocol regime, rather than the more complex UNFCCC negotiations, that seemed to offer the most effective and direct mechanism to address this new 19 UNGA Res 69/​292 (19 June 2015) UN Doc A/​RES/​69/​292. 20 International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages, 1993 (adopted 6 May 1993, entered into force 5 September 2004) 2276 UNTS 39.

206  Treaty Formation phenomenon. The phasing out of HFCs was therefore eventually embodied in an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, adopted in Kigali on 15 October 2016.21 Prosaic factors may also be taken into account in choosing the most appropriate negotiating forum, such as the location of those negotiators who are most specialized in the field and of the substantive secretariat that will service the meetings, as well as the crucial issue of the funding of meetings. In the context of the United Nations, the substantive support and servicing to a particular body and its subsidiaries depends on the mandates delegated by the Secretary-​General to specific offices and of any request made by an organ of the General Assembly. For example, United Nations treaties relating to custom matters, road traffic, and transport by rail tend to be negotiated in Geneva, because of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which has specialized in those areas and provides secretariat support to meetings. It may be the case that the Secretariat’s expertise on a particular topic is either found at a different duty station than that where negotiations will actually take place, or that the expertise is distributed across different offices of the Secretariat or even different agencies. Holding meetings away from the venues with conference support will surely entail additional costs, which will grow significantly if the staff providing conference and/​or substantive support also has to travel to the location. An illustration of just how intricate the issue of the forum may become is provided by the negotiation of a legally binding agreement on forests in Europe. The process was launched in 2011 by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (also known as Forest Europe),22 which initially established an intergovernmental negotiating committee leaving open ‘the possibility of the agreement being brought under the United Nations umbrella’.23 The negotiating committee was jointly serviced by a liaison unit of Forest Europe, UNECE, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the European Forest Institute, each with a specifically assigned set of functions. To this day, the question as to the forum where the agreement will be concluded (whether at the UN, in one of its specialized agencies, or at Forest Europe, but with UN servicing)24 remains pending. The intended geographical scope of the treaty is also to be considered. In some cases, the treaty is only intended to address an issue at the regional level. Thus, the Council of Europe, the Organization of American States, and the African Union have been found to be the most appropriate fora to negotiate regional treaties relating to the protection of human rights, respectively in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. In some other cases, the issue may not concern a specific region, but still involves a limited number of States sharing a common problem. For example, the Multilateral Agreement for the Establishment of an

21 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (adopted 15 October 2016, entered into force (in part) 1 January 2019) available at . 22 Oslo Ministerial Mandate for Negotiating a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe (14–​16 June 2011), available at . 23 Ibid Art 24g. 24 Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe, ‘Information note on consideration of article 24g of the Oslo Mandate, “the possibility of the agreement being brought under the United Nations umbrella” ’ (2012) Doc 4/​INC2, available at .

Making the Treaty  207 International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries25 was negotiated at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, but in the framework of an Annual Ministerial Meeting of Landlocked Developing Countries. Having said this, it does sometimes happen that a treaty that was initially negotiated within a specific region or by a limited number of States is later extended to other participants: negotiators may always decide to invite other States or entities into their negotiations, or to include treaty provisions allowing for broader participation, either from its inception or in a later amendment. The forum for negotiations may also change in the course of the negotiation process, most often in order to find the most suitable grounds for an effective compromise. A telling example is the Arms Trade Treaty, which was initially negotiated by an inter-​governmental conference convened by the UN General Assembly.26 This conference met for four weeks in 2012, but was unable to adopt the treaty on its last day, due to the fact that the Assembly resolution establishing the process had decided that it could only do so by consensus.27 The Assembly therefore convened a different conference, the ‘Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty’, which met for a week in 2013, worked on the basis of the text that had failed at the previous Conference,28 but also failed to adopt the treaty.29 Finally, the General Assembly, taking advantage of the fact that it had remained seized of the matter during its sixty-​seventh session and had called upon the President to report on the outcome of the Conference,30 decided to adopt the text of the treaty itself31 as contained in the Report of the President.32

3. The actual preparation of the initial draft The drafting of the initial text for negotiations may either come from a governmental or other source, be entrusted to the work of a preparatory committee or an expert body, or be the direct product of intergovernmental negotiations.33 The best-​known example of drafting by an expert body is the codification of international law at the United Nations. The Charter entrusts the mandate of codification and progressive development to the General Assembly,34 but the latter established a body of independent experts to assist it in this endeavour—​the ILC. The normal process is therefore for a set of draft articles on a topic found ‘ripe’ for codification to be prepared by the ILC at the ‘expert level’, while the final negotiation and adoption of the treaty is reserved to the political intergovernmental organ. However, even this remains without prejudice of the existence of other 25 Multilateral Agreement for the Establishment of an International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries (adopted 24 September 2010, entered into force 6 October 2017), at < https://​treaties.un.org/​doc/​ Treaties/​2010/​10/​20101001%2002-​46%20PM/​X-​19.pdf>. 26 UNGA Res 64/​48 (2 December 2009) UN Doc A/​RES/​64/​48. 27 Ibid [5]‌. United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, ‘Provisional rules of procedure of the Conference’ (7 March 2012) UN Doc A/​CONF.217/​L.1, Rule 33. 28 UNGA Res 67/​234 A (24 December 2012) UN Doc A/​RES/​67/​234. 29 Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, ‘Report of the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty’ (2 April 2012) UN Doc A/​CONF.217/​2013/​2, [15]. 30 UNGA Res 67/​234 A (n 28) [7]‌. 31 Ibid  [1]‌. 32 Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, ‘Draft decision: Submitted by the President of the Final Conference’ (27 March 2013) UN Doc A/​CONF.217/​2013/​L.3. 33 In bilateral treaty-​making, States usually produce the initial draft themselves, but they may also rely on model treaties prepared by international bodies. A widely used model is the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development’s Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital, . 34 Art 13(1)(a) UN Charter.

208  Treaty Formation means of codification. Thus, in the field of progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade, the Assembly is assisted by a body composed of Member States (albeit often represented by specialists in the field)—​the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).35 It is not uncommon for modern multilateral treaty-​making processes to entrust the preparation of the text to Working Groups and Preparatory Committees, which are also intergovernmental in nature. To gather the needed expertise for the drafting process, these bodies sometimes seek inputs from negotiating entities as to the possible content of the instrument to be negotiated, in either the form of treaty text or of general ideas. These contributions, which often are also made public via compilations by the Secretariat, form the basis of a text prepared under the responsibility of the presiding officer of the Group, Committee, or Conference, which—​in current parlance—​is usually designated as a ‘zero draft’.

B.  Participation and rules of procedure Two other essential questions arise as soon as the negotiation process is initiated, namely: (i) who is entitled to participate in the process; and (ii) what are the rules that are applicable to the process. These two questions may find a straightforward solution in those cases in which the negotiation is conducted in the framework of an organ of an IO. In these cases, the rules that apply to the treaty-​making process will be the same rules of procedure of the organ concerned, which will normally settle the matter of participation. The only issues that may arise are the interpretation or application of those rules (eg to determine under what conditions entities are entitled to participate in the negotiations). When the negotiation is conducted in a separate forum, such as a diplomatic conference, the matter of participation and rules of procedure may engender difficult discussions. Common procedural issues that require resolution involve, for instance, voting majorities and consensus applicable to decision-​making and the conditions of participation of regional economic integration organizations. Debates of this kind took place, for example, at the start of the work of the conference that negotiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Originally convened by the General Assembly ‘under the rules of procedure of the General Assembly unless otherwise agreed by the conference’,36 the Conference eventually decided to adopt its own rules of procedure,37 which, inter alia, allowed it to accomplish most of its work by consensus. The IGC-​BBNJ, which was convened under a similar mandate in terms of rules of procedure, instead decided to apply, mutatis mutandis, the rules of procedure and the established practice of the General Assembly,38 with specific modifications in terms of decision-​making, most notably on consensus.39 35 UNGA Res 2205 (XXI) (17 December 1966) UN Doc A/​RES/​2205 (XXI). 36 UNGA Res 71/​258 (23 December 19162016) UN Doc A/​RES/​71/​258. 37 United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, ‘Rules of procedure of the United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination’ (13 June 2017) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​5. 38 Intergovernmental Conference on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, ‘Statement by the President of the Conference at the closing of the organizational meeting’ (19 April 2018) UN Doc A/​CONF.232/​2018/​2. 39 UNGA Res 72/​249 (24 December 2017) UN Doc A/​RES/​72/​249.

Making the Treaty  209 There are even cases in which negotiations are conducted on the basis of a provisional set of rules of procedure because negotiators are unable to agree on the matter. For example, at the first session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, the Parties could not adopt the proposed Draft Rules of Procedure as foreseen,40 since they did not agree on a specific draft rule (Rule 42) concerning voting. As a consequence, the Conference and all its subsidiary bodies apply the Draft Rules of Procedure provisionally, with the exception of draft rule 42.41 While this precludes any voting in meetings, it has not impeded the continuation of negotiations in these fora, which has eventually led to the adoption (by consensus) of important multilateral instruments, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The recurrent issue of participation may haunt the negotiation of a multilateral treaty throughout the process, from its convening to the adoption of the text. A classic illustration is provided by the preparatory works of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. In convening the Vienna Conference, the General Assembly had extended an invitation to ‘States Members of the United Nations, States members of the specialized agencies, States Parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice and States that the General Assembly decides specially to invite’.42 The use of this formula (generally known as the ‘Vienna formula’) was standard practice at the time, since it provided an objective criterion to determine those States that were entitled to participate in diplomatic conferences, despite the tense political issues surrounding the recognition of States and their admission to the United Nations. Nonetheless, even this broad and apparently neutral formulation caused a hostile debate at the start of the Vienna Conference. Some participants voiced ‘a categorical protest’, given that the formula had had the effect of excluding some States from participating, which was seen as a ‘discrimination . . . in the organization of the Conference’.43 Eventually, these same discussions re-​emerged during the negotiation on the clause identifying the States that would be entitled to be parties to the Convention, which was only solved—​as part of the final package deal—​with the adoption of a provision which again used the Vienna formula, but was supplemented by a declaration in the Final Act of the Conference inviting the General Assembly to issue invitations in order to ensure the widest possible participation in the Convention.44 With the increased role of intergovernmental organizations in the international scene, their participation in treaty-​making conferences has become a central, though complex and sometimes controversial, issue. In recent decades, many multilateral negotiations in certain areas of international relations (such as trade or environmental matters) are open to participation by ‘regional economic integration organizations’, an expression that is intended to cover in particular the European Union. Direct participation of such organizations in the negotiations is justified by the fact that their member States have transferred to them competencies to pursue certain common purposes and policies: it follows that decisions on the subject matter of discussions require the involvement of the organization, in addition 40 UNFCCC, Conference of the Parties, ‘Organizational Matters: Adoption of the Rules of Procedure. Note by the Secretariat’ (24 May 1996) UNFCCC Doc UNFCCC/​CP/​1996/​2. 41 UNFCCC (adopted 9 May 1992, entered into force 21 March 1994) 1771 UNTS 107, Art 7.3. 42 UNGA Res 2166 (XXI) (5 December 1966) UN Doc A/​RES/​2166 (XXI). 43 See United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties, ‘First Session, Vienna, 26 March–​24 May 1968, Official Records: Summary records of the first plenary meeting’ (26 March 1968) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​SR.1, [15]–​[49]. 44 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (adopted 22 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331, Art 81 and Final Act (VCLT).

210  Treaty Formation to individual member States. Thus, for example, the European Union, being a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and its Implementation Agreements, was allowed by the General Assembly to participate in the IGC-​BBNJ negotiating process, albeit with the caveat that such a provision ‘shall constitute no precedent for all meetings to which General Assembly resolution 65/​276 of 3 May 2011 [on the participation of the European Union in the work of the General Assembly] is applicable’.45 Other international organizations may also participate in negotiations, although this is often only as observers. The IGC-​BBNJ process, for example, allows for participation—​as observers—​of other interested international bodies that were invited to participate in relevant conferences and summits, such as recent summits on sustainable development and small island developing States,46 the United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, and the Review Conference on the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks.47 There is also an increasing trend in modern multilateral treaty-​making processes to allow for some kind of active participation by the organized civil society. The conditions of such participation change dramatically from one forum to the other, often influenced by the historic role played by non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) in each topic of negotiation. Thus, for example, recent disarmament negotiations have been open to participation by non-​governmental organizations whose work is relevant to the scope and the purpose of the Conference, provided that requests to do so are submitted to the Chair of the Preparatory Committee and are accompanied by information on the organization’s purpose, programmes and activities in areas relevant to the scope of the Conference; the Chair of the Committee will subsequently provide the Committee with a list of those non-​ governmental organizations for consideration on a no-​objection basis.48

Similarly, the resolution establishing the IGC-​BBNJ process provides for the participation as observers of NGOs that were accredited to recent summits on sustainable development and small island developing States.49 Generally speaking, NGOs often participate in treaty-​making processes as observers. This entails the right to make statements in each agenda item during the formal meetings of

45 UNGA Res 65/​276 (3 May 2011) UN Doc A/​RES/​65/​276. 46 These include, for example, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and the previous United Nations conferences on sustainable development of small island developing States, held in Barbados, Mauritius, and Samoa, as well as the United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. 47 UNGA Res 72/​249 (n 39). 48 Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, ‘Draft decision on the modalities of attendance of non-​governmental organizations at the sessions of the Preparatory Committee’ (9 July 2010) UN Doc A/​CONF.217/​PC/​L.2. A similar formulation was used for the Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. See United Nations conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, ‘Participation of non-​governmental organizations in the conference’ (22 February 2017) UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​4. 49 UNGA Res 72/​249 (n 39) [13].

Making the Treaty  211 the conference or body, after States and intergovernmental organizations have intervened. Observers also have access to non-​restricted official documents of the Conference or body. In some processes, the organized civil society has been allowed to take a more active role. For example, while the resolution that established the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons had simply allowed for the ‘participation and contribution of international organizations and civil society representatives’,50 the Conference decided that these organizations could participate in the work of the conference including by submitting material in writing for circulation, but without the right to vote.51 An even more patent example was the negotiation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (also known as the Escazú Agreement), where the organized civil society was not only allowed to take the floor during the debates, but also to participate in the bureau of the negotiating committee.52 NGOs could even make proposals with regard to the text of the treaty, which would be taken up by the negotiating committee if supported by one of the negotiating States.53

C.  Credentials and full powers The determination of which entities can participate in treaty negotiations necessarily also entails identifying the individuals who can represent those entities for purposes of making the treaty. In what is probably one of the most important elements of the law of treaties’ codification, Article 7 VCLT identifies the conditions under which a person may represent the State in treaty-​making. The general rule is that a person is considered as representing the State for the purpose of adopting or authenticating the text of a treaty—​or expressing the consent of the State to be bound by the treaty—​if he or she produces ‘appropriate full powers’. Full powers are to be distinguished from ‘credentials’, which is the instrument by which a person is authorized either to represent the State in its relations with another State or an IO, or to attend a conference or a meeting of a body such as the General Assembly. Given that the VCLT abstains from codifying the negotiation phase, it does not define credentials nor distinguish them from full powers. However, it is clear that an official who has duly presented a letter of credentials and has participated in the negotiation of the text may not necessarily have, absent appropriate full powers, the authority to sign the treaty or consent to be bound by it. When the treaty is negotiated in an intergovernmental conference, appropriate credentials are essential to ensure full participation throughout the negotiations. Article 7(2)(c) VCLT indicates that representatives accredited to an international conference, an IO, or one of an IO’s organs may, without having to produce full powers, represent the State for the purposes of adopting the text of the treaty in that conference, organization, or organ. 50 UNGA Res 71/​258 (n 36). 51 Arms Trade Treaty, ‘Participation of non-​governmental organizations in the conference’ (n 48). 52 Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC), ‘Decisión de Santiago’ (10 November 2014), available at . 53 ECLAC, ‘Acuerdos’ (8 April 2016), available at . For more on the role of NGOs in treaty-​making, see Chapter 8.

212  Treaty Formation However, procedural decisions that determine the fate of the negotiations (eg the procedural decision whether to allow observers in the negotiation or on the modalities of discussions) may be taken from very early in the proceedings. Only accredited delegations are allowed to vote for such decisions. In formal terms, credentials and full powers change from country to country, but should contain at least three basic elements: (a) the identity of the persons that are authorized to perform the relevant acts; (b) the authorizing authority; and (c) in as much detail as possible, the scope of the authorization provided. The authority providing the authorization is normally the Head of State, the Head of Government, or the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the concerned State, although there are instances in which these authorities delegate the task of giving full powers or credentials to other officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in such cases, the credentials or full powers need to be accompanied by the instrument by which such delegation was given, which itself must be signed by at least one of the three authorities listed above). As regards the scope of authorization, full powers are usually given for signature of one specific treaty, but, on rare occasions, some countries submit to the United Nations, for example, so-​called ‘general full powers’ which authorize a specific representative to sign all treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General. In practice, the originals of credentials—​or full powers—​may not reach the place of negotiation or signature by the time they are needed (as a matter of fact, original credentials for all participants in a given conference are hardly ever received). For this reason, a practice has evolved in the United Nations allowing for persons to represent their States in negotiations (or even sign a multilateral treaty) on the basis of paper or digital copies of the original instrument, on the understanding that such original shall be communicated to the secretariat of the conference or the depositary as soon as possible. Having said this, full powers are not always needed. Four exceptions are worth noting. First of all, Article 7(1)(b) VCLT includes a cryptic provision that indicates that a person may also be considered as representing the State for the legal acts relating to treaty-​ making—​adoption and authentication of the text and expression of consent to be bound—​ if ‘it appears from the practice of the States concerned or from other circumstances that their intention was to consider that person as representing the State for such purposes and to dispense with full powers’. While this may be relevant in certain bilateral settings, formal instruments of full powers are routinely required in the multilateral context. Second, and more importantly, Article 7(2)(a) VCLT also stipulates that the Head of State, the Head of Government, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs are considered as representing their State for the purpose of performing all acts relating to the conclusion of a treaty in virtue of their functions and without having to produce full powers. This rule is firmly established in both bilateral and multilateral treaty-​making, and its customary character has been confirmed by, among others, the International Court of Justice.54 In practice, it remains unusual for these three authorities to be directly involved in negotiating a treaty, but they do sign the original of certain treaties, particularly on the occasion of high-​level ceremonies. Thus, for example, several Ministers for Foreign Affairs participated in the negotiations at the 21st UNFCCC Conference of the Parties, which resulted in the adoption of the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, a total of thirty-​one Heads of State, twenty-​four Heads 54 Arrest Warrant of 11 April 2000 (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Belgium) (Judgment) [2002] ICJ Rep 3, 22–​23  [53].

Making the Treaty  213 of Government, and twenty-​nine Ministers for Foreign Affairs took part in the 22 April 2016 high-​level ceremony for the opening for signature of the Paris Agreement (with a total of 175 signatures, this was the largest ceremony of its kind in the history of international law).55 In addition, instruments of consent to be bound by a treaty—​ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession—​are normally signed by one or more of the three authorities listed in Article 7(2)(a) VCLT. Third, Article 7(2)(b) VCLT specifies that heads of diplomatic missions may represent the State without having to produce full powers, but only with respect to the adoption of the treaty text and only for treaties with the State to which they are accredited. Finally, as mentioned above and as provided in Article 7(2)(c) VCLT, representatives accredited by States to an international conference or to an IO or one of its organs may represent the State without having to produce full powers for purposes of adopting the treaty text in that conference, organization, or organ (but not, for example, to sign the original treaty text on behalf of the State). Thus, for example, representatives of UN Member States—​without further accreditation—​participated in the negotiation and adoption of the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their property at the General Assembly, the Sixth Committee, and the Ad Hoc Committee established for this purpose.56 It may be much more challenging to determine who represents an IO for the purposes of treaty-​making. The 1986 VCLT reiterates the requirement of appropriate full powers, but also opens the possibility for a person to be considered as representing an IO if ‘it appears from the circumstances that it was the intention of the States and international organizations concerned to consider that person as representing the organization for such purposes, in accordance with the rules of the organization, without having to produce full powers’.57 The 1986 VCLT does not, however, identify any specific officials who, in virtue of their functions, would be entitled to represent an IO without having to produce full powers. The fact is that, contrary to national laws, the rules of IOs are often silent on this matter and the treaty-​making practice of IOs varies widely. Usually, the chief administrative officer and certain high officials do represent the organization and sign treaties on its behalf without producing full powers, but there are other officials of lower grade who may also do so, including at a local level.58

D.  Organization of work The structure of treaty negotiations usually mirrors the complexity of the topic being negotiated. In order to tackle the minutiae of a given topic, negotiators play with different degrees of formality, composition, and specialization in discussions. 55 UNFCCC announcement (22 April 2016) . 56 Of particular note is the fact that the issue of credentials was not brought up at any of the meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, despite the fact that the General Assembly resolution establishing it provided that it was open to all Member States of the United Nations and to States members of the specialized agencies. See UNGA Res 55/​150 (12 December 2000) A/​RES/​55/​150. 57 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, Art 7(3)(b) (1986 VCLT). 58 For more on IO treaty-​making, see Chapter 5; EU treaty-​making is also discussed in Chapter 6.

214  Treaty Formation Certain bodies are essential to any negotiation and are usually found in all types of treaty-​ making settings, such as: (i) a presidency; (ii) a bureau; (iii) a credentials committee; and (iv) a secretariat. More specific features will depend on the negotiations. The president (or chairperson) is the officer in charge of ensuring that the conference conducts its business in an orderly manner. The president’s specific powers are laid down in the conference’s rules of procedure. These include opening, suspending, resuming, and adjourning the meetings, managing the list of speakers and giving the right to speak or right of reply, putting proposals and procedural motions to a vote, and making certain procedural rulings.59 The president is usually a government official of one of the negotiating States. However, the nature of the office requires neutrality and the position is held in a personal capacity. Thus, the president ceases to represent her or his State when acting as such. It is expected that the president of the conference should have a rank in her or his own government commensurate with that of the heads of delegation of the other negotiating States. The president thus usually holds at least the level of ambassador and it is not rare (eg at the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties) for him or her to be of a ministerial or vice-​ministerial  level. The bureau of the conference assists the president in making certain decisions concerning organizational matters. Its members are elected from among the members of the negotiating States, and they may serve on the bureau in representation of their State or in their personal capacity. In the latter case, the permanent absence of an individual who is a member of the bureau would entail the need to conduct new elections, while in the former the replacement would be designated by the relevant State. While the composition of the bureau changes from forum to forum, the general idea is that it should allow for equitable regional or subregional representation, as well as equitable representation of developed and developing States. In the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the bureau will often have a set number of members for each of the regional groups.60 In recent years, there has also been an increasing concern to ensure that the configuration of the bureau have equal gender representation. The credentials committee, composed of a limited number of State representatives, is entrusted with the review and approval of credentials of all participating States. In practice, credentials are submitted to the secretariat, which makes a preliminary review and submits a memorandum with its findings to the committee. At the meeting(s) of the credentials committee, together with the memorandum, all credentials are made available in the room. Often, the committee simply adopts a resolution accepting the formal credentials submitted, without further review. In the same resolution, it sometimes also accepts information provided by governments on the composition of their delegations, even if they have not sent formal credentials (eg by note verbale), on the understanding that these will be submitted as soon as possible. Eventually, the Committee reports to the plenary of the conference and submits a draft resolution for the Conference to approve its report. The secretariat provides support to the proceedings and assistance to the president in the discharge of his or her duties. Its functions include:  receiving, translating, and

59 W Lang, ‘Multilateral Negotiations: The Role of the Presiding Officers’ in F Mautner-​Markhof (ed), Processes of International Negotiations (Westview Press, Boulder 1989) 35–​6. 60 UN Regional Groups of Member States, .

Making the Treaty  215 distributing documentation; preparing, publishing, and circulating records of public meetings; and providing interpretation of speeches in the proceedings. The secretariat also performs all other work required by the conference or its president. Other tasks may include assisting the president and the chairs of subsidiary bodies in the preparation of reports and other formal or informal documents, as well as keeping records of provisionally agreed language. Last but not least, the secretariat usually comprises legal officers, who provide legal advice on the interpretation and application of the rules of procedure, and other legal issues which may arise in the proceedings. The size and composition of the secretariat varies from conference to conference, but there is always an identifiable official responsible (the secretary of the conference or body). When proceedings are conducted in the framework of an IO, it is the secretariat of the IO that serves as secretariat for the treaty-​making proceedings, with the important benefit of having at its disposal all the means of the organization. A multilateral treaty will never be negotiated fully in solemn plenary sessions. Once participants have made statements identifying their position in a general debate, discussions will usually be entrusted to settings that are less formal, have more restricted participation, and/​or are more specialized. An international conference will often establish committees of different kinds to negotiate the contents of the agreement. Thus, for example, for the preparation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties convened informal consultations by means of a single open-​ended group (poetically referred to as ‘le Comité de Paris’), which itself entrusted the negotiation of specific aspects of the agreement, divided by key cross-​cutting issues, to more specialized settings under the responsibility of facilitators.61 Similarly, in the IGC-​BBNJ, negotiations are conducted in informal working groups to tackle different parts of the package.62 A major challenge for any negotiation is in the actual drafting of what will become a legally binding instrument. Annex I of the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly recognizes this, where it ‘strongly recommends that small drafting committees should be resorted to whenever possible’ for the drafting of legal texts.63 Diplomatic conferences also resort to drafting committees, as well as formal committees or informal working groups for legal and linguistic review, which are mandated to consolidate the text of the various adopted proposals, review language to ensure legal accuracy and consistency (the so-​ called ‘legal scrub’), and even compare the coherence of linguistic versions. The work of such committees is crucial to ensure that the final text of the treaty corresponds to agreed compromises. Unfortunately, this feature is often the first victim in politically charged negotiations:  participants may be diffident that a group of restricted composition change, under the guise of a technical review, hard-​fought compromises, and in any event modern conferences often prolong their substantive negotiations until the very last minutes (and 61 UNFCCC, Conference of the Parties, ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties on its twenty-​first session, held in Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015’ (29 January 2016) UNFCCC Doc FCCC/​CP/​2015/​10, [54] and [57]. 62 UNGA Res 72/​249 (n 39) [1]‌. 63 Annex I to the Rules of Procedure of the General Assembly contain various recommendations and suggestions of the Special Committee on Methods and Procedures of the General Assembly established under UNGA Res 271 (III) (29 April 1949) UN Doc A/​RES/​271 (III). The Assembly considered these recommendations and suggestions ‘worthy of consideration by the General Assembly and its committees’ and approved them in UNGA Res 362 (IV) (22 October 1949) UN Doc A/​RES/​362 (IV).

216  Treaty Formation sometimes even beyond), thus leaving little time for legal and linguistic scrutiny of texts. Still, there are examples of such a practice; for example, in the works of the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, where one such committee was mandated with a technical review of the President’s final draft text.64 In any event, all agreed texts will eventually return to the conference plenary, which is the sole forum where final decisions can be made and where negotiations may be considered as definitively concluded. Treaty negotiations conducted in the framework of IOs may simplify these matters, since the organization of work is predetermined by the structure and procedures of the organs concerned. Thus, for example, at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), rules of procedure have been adopted by the General Conference which determine, step by step, the process that needs to be followed for the adoption of a convention (or a recommendation), from the first proposal to the final decision, including specific rules on how drafts are to be prepared and which organs shall review them prior to their submission to the General Conference.65 Such mechanisms are not infrequent in specialized agencies (the ILO being of course the pioneer in this area). Certain other IOs (such as the Council of Europe) are the closest thing in international law to legislative law-​making, with predetermined and streamlined rules of procedure.

E. Negotiating techniques Negotiating techniques are the most interesting—​but lesser known—​aspect of treaty-​ making. They have evolved over time, and continue to change to meet the different needs of negotiations. A significant standard-​setting landmark in this area remains the decade-​long Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, which was a laboratory of experimentation of certain techniques that have become essential in modern treaty-​making, such as the adoption of texts by consensus66 and the negotiation by package deal.67 Current negotiations under the IGC-​BBNJ, among others, show how such methods have evolved, for example with the introduction of full elements of the package before negotiations even start, or by a rule where decisions on substantive matters can be made by voting if every effort to reach consensus has been exhausted. Each negotiation develops its own particular features. In the General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies, for example, informal consultations are often supplemented by meetings 64 ‘Report of the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty’ (n 29) [14]. 65 See UNESCO, Rules of Procedure concerning recommendations to Member States and international conventions covered by the terms of Article IV[4]‌of the Constitution (5 C/​Resolutions, 133–​4, 137–​9; 7 C/​Resolutions 109; 17 C/​Resolutions 114; 25 C/​Resolutions 194; 32 C/​Resolutions 117–​118; 35 C/​Resolutions 95), available at . 66 A declaration was appended to the rules of procedure providing that ‘[t]‌he Conference should make every effort to reach agreement on substantive matters by way of consensus and there should be no voting on such matters until all efforts at consensus have been exhausted’. See Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, ‘167th Plenary Meeting’ (7 April 1982) UN Doc A/​CONF.62/​SR.167, [2]. 67 According to this approach ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’. See RY Jennings, ‘Law Making and the Package Deal’ in Mélanges Offerts à Paul Reuter (Pedone, Paris 1981) 347–​55; G de Lothaire, ‘Aspects juridiques de la négociation sur un Package deal à la Conférence des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer’ in Essays in Honor of Erik Castren (Finnish Branch of the International Law Association, Helsinki 1979) 30–​45.

Making the Treaty  217 called ‘informal informals’, which provide an even higher degree of flexibility and allow Member States to negotiate behind closed doors. In UNFCCC conferences, a special negotiating technique has been used since the 17th session in Durban, in 2011, named ‘Indaba’ (from the Zulu and Xhosa people), a meeting in which high-​level negotiators (usually the heads of delegation) are given the opportunity to express their views informally and personally, identifying their ‘red lines’ in the negotiation. As mentioned earlier, decision-​making rules—​those rules that determine whether unanimity, consensus, or simple or qualified majorities are needed to reach a decision on procedural or substantive matters—​are a key element in negotiations. Current practice is to seek the widest possible agreement at every step of the treaty-​making process and on any draft provision of the treaty under negotiation. However, as also noted above, recent intergovernmental conferences provide for alternative arrangements in case consensus cannot be reached. In negotiations, participants understandably focus their efforts on the substantive provisions of the treaty, rather than procedural treaty matters. Final clauses (on participation, entry into force, dispute settlement, amendments, etc) are sometimes the victims of this logic. Perceived as merely technical, the initial proposed text of these clauses is often copy-​pasted from prior treaties in the same area (following the idea that discussions should preferably rely on ‘agreed language’) and its consideration will tend to be relegated to the end of negotiations and given little attention. This may be a serious mistake. Like the engine of a car, final clauses are the central element that ensures the treaty functions as a legal instrument. Thus, it is important to reconsider their content in order to ensure that they respond to the expectations of delegations on how the treaty will enter into force and be implemented. Sometimes imprecise, or even defective, final clauses (such as clauses subject to disputed interpretations or those establishing outdated mechanisms) are perpetuated from one treaty to another without appropriate examination. A typical illustration are clauses on amendments, which have tremendously evolved in recent decades. At the time of negotiation, the idea that the treaty will be amended is a remote (maybe even unwelcome) thought and the possible issues arising in the application of such clauses are often not considered in detail; this may cause serious controversies at a later stage, as was the case for the entry into force and implementation of the Kampala amendments on the crime of aggression to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.68

II.  Adopting and Authenticating the Treaty Once negotiations are concluded and the text of the treaty has been agreed upon, the process of making a treaty may rely on much more detailed regulation in the VCLT, which provides crucial guidance on the next steps of the process, while maintaining the necessary flexibility for negotiators. The next sections will consider the rules codified in the VCLT, in light of State practice, on the formalization of the agreed text, consent to be bound, and the treaty’s entry into force.



68

For more on treaty amendments, see Chapter 14.

218  Treaty Formation

A.  Adoption of the text of the treaty The adoption of the text is the formal act by which the negotiators reach an agreement on the text of the treaty and whereby ‘the form and content of the proposed treaty are settled’.69 The VCLT enshrines the rule that the consent of all the States participating in the negotiation is needed for the adoption of the treaty text.70 This rule finds, of course, no exception in bilateral settings, the consent of both parties being a necessary precondition to the existence of such agreements. It was also the rule followed in multilateral settings well into the twentieth century: diplomatic conferences and even IO organs would rely on the adoption of the text of the agreement by unanimity. The VCLT does, however, acknowledge the evolution of multilateral treaty-​making practice, providing that the adoption of the text of a treaty at an international conference takes place by the vote of two-​thirds of the States present and voting, unless the same majority decides to apply a different rule.71 This departure from the unanimity principle was well-​ established at the time of the VCLT’s codification in the 1960s, but it has been partially surpassed by later practice. As described earlier, contemporary international conferences heavily rely on consensus and the adoption of the text of a treaty often takes place without a vote. Having said that, consensus may not be fully relied upon, since there may be circumstances in which a vote will be needed. The rules of procedure of the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, for example, directed that the Conference ‘shall take its decisions and consider the text of the Treaty by consensus’.72 This was the root cause of the Conference’s failure to adopt the text of a treaty, thus requiring its later adoption by the UN General Assembly (the rules of procedure of which allowed adoption by a two-​ thirds majority). Most rules of procedure—​for example, those of the IGC-​BBNJ—​thus provide for a mechanism to break the impasse, foreseeing that substantive decisions may be taken by a qualified majority (generally, as provided for in the VCLT, a two-​thirds majority) when the presiding officer has made the determination that every effort to reach agreement by consensus has been exhausted.73 A case in point is the 1998 Rome Conference, which adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by a majority vote of 120 votes to seven, with twenty-​one abstentions, after consensus was broken by one delegation, requesting a vote.74 In recent UN practice, which is often codified in the rules of procedure of contemporary diplomatic conferences,75 the final text of the treaty to be adopted needs to be circulated in all its authentic linguistic versions at least twenty-​four hours in advance of the meeting 69 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 194 (commentary to draft Art 8 of the draft articles on the law of treaties). 70 Art 9(1) VCLT. 71 Art 9(2) VCLT. 72 ‘Provisional rules of procedure of the Conference’ (n 27) Rule 33. 73 UNGA Res 72/​249 (n 39) [17] and [19]. 74 United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, ‘9th Plenary Meeting’ (17 July 1998) UN Doc A/​CONF.183/​SR.9. 75 Referring to the provision that bars consideration of substantive proposals unless copies have been circulated in all languages of the Conference to all delegations at least twenty-​four hours before the meeting, unless the Conference decides otherwise. The rules of procedure of the UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons added an additional difficulty to by-​pass the rule by providing that suspension of any rules in the rules of procedure was itself subject to a twenty-​four hours’ notice and subject to the condition that no representative would object. See UN Doc A/​CONF.229/​2017/​5 (n 37) (Rules 29 and 63).

Making the Treaty  219 where the presiding officer is intending to put forward the motion to adopt.76 The purpose of such a rule is to allow delegations to consult their respective capitals and receive instructions as to their position with regard to the final text of the treaty. In practice, this time is also used by delegations and the secretariat to conduct a technical review of the text and make last minute corrections of typographical mistakes and language discordances.

B.  Authentication of the treaty As noted by the International Law Commission, there must be a point when States agree that the treaty-​making process has concluded and no further alteration is required. Therefore, ‘[a]‌uthentication is the process by which this definitive text is established, and it consists in some act or procedure which certifies the text as the correct and authentic text’.77 The VCLT provides that the text of a treaty is established as authentic and definitive either by such procedure agreed upon by the States and IOs participating in the drawing up of the treaty, or by the signature or initialling of the text of the treaty.78 In so doing, the VCLT places an importance on authentication, which neither the legal literature nor practice had previously recognized.79 There is an undoubted value-​added in clarifying how the text of a treaty is established as authentic and definitive. However, the distinction between the adoption of the text and its authentication may be difficult to make in practice. In bilateral agreements, for example, signature not only establishes the text of the treaty as authentic and definitive, but also (and most importantly) formalizes the consent of the participant to such text.80 With respect to multilateral treaties, the VCLT only foresees one default means of authentication, namely the signature and initialling of the Final Act of the diplomatic conference incorporating the text. This does not, however, reflect the diversity of contemporary practice. In some conferences, the Final Act does not necessarily reproduce the full text of the adopted treaty (which may result from a different document of the conference) or it may not be signed by all participants (it may, for example, be signed only by the president). Furthermore, for multilateral treaties adopted by an organ of an IO, the adopted text is embodied in a resolution of the organ. And while some organizations do foresee a special procedure of authentication (eg the ILO and UNESCO provide that any convention adopted by their respective General Conferences shall be authenticated by the signatures of the President of the General Conference and of the Director-​General), others do not contemplate any such procedure. At the United Nations, the texts of multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-​ General shall, following their formal adoption, be submitted to the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs (which discharges the Secretary-​General’s depositary functions) ‘for purposes of preparing the originals’, with a period of four weeks being normally allowed 76 A slightly different provision is found in the Rules of the General Assembly (which therefore applies to those diplomatic conferences that use such Rules), which only provide for circulation ‘no later than the day preceding the meeting’, understood as meaning at any time during that day. 77 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 195 (commentary to draft Art 9 of the draft articles on the law of treaties). 78 Art 10 VCLT. 79 JM Thouvenin, ‘Article 10—​Authentication of the Text’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A Commentary Volume I (OUP, Oxford 2011) 181–​2. 80 As described later, in some cases, signature may also express the consent to be bound by the treaty.

220  Treaty Formation before the opening for signature of the treaty to enable the preparation of such originals and the distribution of certified true copies.81 It is the originals thus prepared that will be signed by representatives, be kept in deposit by the Secretary-​General, and be the basis for the certified true copies circulated to States. As clarified by the Summary of the Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties, these originals are prepared ‘on the basis of the text as authenticated by the Final Act of the Conference or the resolution of the General Assembly or of the Economic and Social Council to which it is usually annexed, or by similar means’.82 In most cases, the text of these originals will be identical to that of the adopted text (with limited formatting). However, given the rush with which some modern multilateral treaties are adopted, there is sometimes not enough time to proceed to a thorough editorial review at the conference. Thus, in some instances, the pragmatic decision was made to allow for editorial changes after adoption, outside a formal correction procedure. For example, after the end of the Conference of the Parties that adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change, the secretariat launched a consultation process for editorial changes to be made to the different linguistic versions of the agreement, which were then reflected in an addendum to the report of the Conference and the original treaty prepared by the Secretary-​General.83 Even with all these safeguards, it is unavoidable that some mistakes slip into the authentic text of the treaty. Acknowledging this challenge, the VCLT codifies a rule regarding the correction of errors after authentication. According to Article 79 VCLT, an error in the text of a treaty may be corrected either by initialling the correction in the original, by executing a separate instrument setting out the correction, or by executing a corrected text of the whole treaty by the same procedure as in the case of the original text. A special procedure applies in the case of treaties for which there is a depositary, whereby the depositary notifies the error, setting a time limit (which, in the practice of the UN Secretary-​General as depositary, is set at ninety days) within which objections to the proposed correction may be raised. It is only when no objection is raised that the depositary shall make and initial the correction and shall execute a procès-​verbal of rectification, which is circulated to the States concerned.84 The text is then understood to be corrected ab initio, which means that the error is considered as not having existed and having no legal consequence. Correcting the authentic text of a treaty is a perilous affair. First of all, the procedure described above for treaties with depositaries has a major flaw, in that an objection to a proposed correction not only blocks the rectification of the text, but also casts some doubt as to the text of the treaty (the VCLT simply provides that the depositary shall communicate any objection to the other States concerned). Furthermore, the VCLT does not contain any definition of what an ‘error’ is to which a correction procedure would apply. This is all the 81 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Bulletin on Procedures to be followed by the departments, offices and regional commissions of the United Nations with regard to treaties and international agreements’, UN Doc ST/​SGB/​2001/​7 (28 August 2001) Sec 5. 82 Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties, prepared by the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs (1999) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev.1, 11 (‘Summary of Practice’). 83 See UNFCCC, ‘Editorial corrections to the text of the Paris Agreement in all six languages’, at , and FCCC/​CP/​2015/​10/​Add.1,  Annex. 84 As a matter of fact, in the current practice of the Secretary-​General as depositary, a procès-​verbal of rectification is indeed issued and circulated, but neither the original volume of the treaty nor the certified true copies are corrected accordingly. It follows that a certified true copy of the treaty shall always be read in conjunction with any depositary notification informing of the correction of the text.

Making the Treaty  221 more sensitive where the correction of an error might cause a change in the meaning of the text and therefore constitute an amendment to the treaty in disguise. In this regard, the Summary of Practice helpfully explains that, in the practice of the UN Secretary-​General as depositary ‘corrections to the original text of a treaty may become necessary because of: (a) a physical error in typing or printing, spelling, punctuation, numbering, etc.; (b) a lack of conformity of the original of the treaty with the official records of the diplomatic conference which adopted the treaty; and/​or (c) a lack of concordance between the different authentic texts constituting the original of the treaty’.85 Lastly, there are no time constraints for the correction of an error, and sometimes decades may pass before an error is found and corrected. It is interesting to note, for instance, that certain errors in the English text of Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 194986 were corrected as late as on 26 May 2004,87 almost thirty years after their adoption.

III.  Consenting to be Bound by the Treaty Once they have concluded the negotiations, adopted the text and authenticated it, the negotiating parties still need to express their consent to be bound by the treaty, that is, accomplish the formal act by which they make the commitment to perform and carry out the stipulations contained therein. The rules on how States and IOs express their consent to be bound by the treaty are codified in VCLT and 1986 VCLT Articles 11 to 17.88 According to these provisions, consent may be expressed in different ways, which the VCLT does not exhaustively describe—​Article 11 ends by acknowledging the possibility of consent by ‘any other means if so agreed’.89 In other words, on this point, the VCLT once again privileges flexibility. At the same time, however, it takes stock of, and codifies, the most traditional methods of expressing consent to be bound by a treaty (most notably, signature followed by ratification of a single text), while also acknowledging more flexible methods (such as definitive signature or exchange of instruments). Thus, the VCLT attempts to bridge the gap between the past and the future. And indeed, this is a part of the VCLT’s codification of the law of treaties that continues to serve as a faithful reference for assessing current practice. For starters, the VCLT provides that a State may express its consent to be bound by the signature of its representative—​what is known as a ‘definitive signature’ (to distinguish it from the ‘simple signature’, which is made subject to a later expression of consent to be bound through ratification, acceptance, or approval, as described hereinafter). As acknowledged 85 Summary of Practice (n 82) 13–​14. 86 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I) (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 3; Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and relating to the protection of victims of non-​international armed conflicts (Protocol II) (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 609. 87 Procès-​verbal of rectification of the English text of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I) (adopted 26 May 2004) 2265 UNTS 269; Procès-​verbal of rectification of the English text of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and relating to the protection of victims of non-​international armed conflicts (Protocol II) (adopted 26 May 2004) 2265 UNTS 274. 88 See Chapter 5 of this volume and Chapter 11, 265, and Part VII, 658 et seq and 669 et seq.on IOs consenting to be bound. 89 Some examples of these alternative means are discussed in A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 104.

222  Treaty Formation by the VCLT, this expression of consent to be bound was dictated by the expansion of intercourse among States, especially in economic and technical fields.90 Definitive signature is today mostly found in bilateral settings, while it is rarer for multilateral treaties to allow for this method. Article 12 VCLT indicates that a signature is to be considered as expressing consent to be bound when (i) the treaty provides that signature shall have that effect, (ii) when it is otherwise established that the negotiating States were agreed that signature should have that effect, or (iii) when the intention of the State to give that effect to the signature appears from the full powers of its representative or was expressed during the negotiation.91 In other words, the VCLT is clear that consent to be bound by definitive signature is not to be presumed; it is ultimately subject to evidence of the common will of the negotiators or the individual will of a signing State.92 Pursuant to Article 13 VCLT, consent to be bound may alternatively be expressed by the exchange of the instruments constituting the treaty. Once again, this is fruit of the evolution in treaty-​making over the course of the twentieth century. Today, consent by an exchange of instruments is frequent in bilateral relations, where treaties are sometimes established by an exchange of letters or diplomatic notes providing for the obligations being agreed.93 Of course, for the consent to be bound to be established, it is crucial that the description of the obligations be identical in the notes or letters of both parties. They must also both contain an unequivocal statement expressing the will to conclude an agreement by exchange of the correspondence.94 In practice, however, it sometimes happens that a formal proposal for a treaty contained in the letter or note sent by one side is met with an unclear statement from the other (eg the responding State may simply indicate that such and such arrangements are to be done, without acknowledging any formal legal commitment to do so, let alone the existence of an agreement). In such cases, no treaty may actually have been concluded. Beyond definitive signature and exchange of instruments, the VCLT also recognizes expressions of consent to be bound through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession. Although it may appear as common sense, it is hardly ever noted in international law textbooks that the concept of ratification presupposes that something needs to be ratified. As explained by the ILC in its commentary to the draft articles on the law of treaties, ratification was, in earlier times, merely a formal confirmation by the sovereign, once the treaty had been drawn up, that his or her representative had been invested with the authority to negotiate the treaty that resulted. In contrast, the modern institution of ratification—​developed in the course of the nineteenth century—​evolved into a process to submit the treaty-​making power of the executive to parliamentary control, thereby mutating ratification into a condition for the treaty to become binding on the State.95 Article 14 VCLT provides that the consent of the State to be bound by a treaty is expressed by ratification when the treaty so provides or it is otherwise established that this was 90 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 197 (commentary to draft Art 11 of the draft articles on the law of treaties). 91 Art 12 VCLT. Art 12 VCLT also provides that the simple initialling of the text may suffice, if it is established that the negotiating States so agreed, and that the signature ad referendum (ie made under the condition that the signature be later confirmed by the State) constitutes a full signature if confirmed by the State. 92 See C Van Assche, ‘Article 12 Convention of 1969’ in Corten and Klein (n 79) 218; see also GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Do Treaties Need Ratification?’ (1934) 15 BYBIL 113; H Blix, ‘The Requirement of Ratification’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 352. 93 Art 13 VCLT. 94 No 6 of Part VII of this Handbook (670–72 et seq) contains a set of sample clauses illustrating the precise form and terminology used. 95 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 197 (commentary to draft Art 11 of the draft articles on the law of treaties).

Making the Treaty  223 the intention of the negotiators. This may also be the case when the representative signed the treaty ‘subject to ratification’ or the intention of the State for signature to be subject to ratification appears from the instrument of full powers or was otherwise expressed during the negotiation.96 As noted, more flexible means of expression of consent to be bound have emerged in bilateral treaty-​making. The more traditional two-​step means is still used quite frequently, however, particularly outside technical fields and cases where some national legislations contain specific rules on exceptions to ratification. For multilateral treaties, the requirement of ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession remains preponderant, although there are some treaties that leave the option open for a definitive signature. From an international law point of view, ratification, acceptance, and approval are practically identical, all involving an international commitment to undertake the obligations of the treaty that follows the consenting State’s signature, an act that is dubbed ‘simple signature’.97 As was noted in the first edition of this Guide, the difference is one of internal political context rather than of substance in international law.98 Ratification usually requires the intervention, at the national level, of the legislative power (either one or both chambers of parliament, depending on the State), while acceptance and approval are issued by the executive power.99 Accession—​which the VCLT covers in a different provision (Article 15)—​is clearly different from ratification, acceptance, and approval. It is a one step-​process, where a State joins a treaty that it has not signed. Today, accession is a feature proper to open multilateral treaties. Historically, however, accession was an expression of consent to be bound by a State that did not participate in the making of the treaty at all (in early twentieth-​century conferences, only direct participation in the negotiating process allowed a State to be a signatory and non-​signature by a negotiating State was a sign of rejection of the outcome). In modern international law, accession is still reserved to those States that have not signed the treaty, but the reasons not to sign a treaty are far less dramatic. For example, a State may have participated in the negotiations, but simply did not manage to sign within the time frame during which the treaty was open for signature.100 Furthermore, with the growth in the membership of the international community after decolonization, many States simply did not exist at the time a given treaty was concluded. A provision on accession allows these States to become parties to a treaty even if they did not have the opportunity to sign it.101 Usually, an open multilateral treaty that is subject to ratification, acceptance, or approval would also allow for accession, without any further requirements. It follows that States that ratify, accept, or approve a treaty after their signature and those that accede to it may join that treaty under the same conditions. In other contexts, however, accession may be subject to specific conditions. For example, some multilateral treaties—​such as those on 96 Art 14(1) VCLT. 97 Art 14(2) VCLT. 98 Korontzis (n 1) 199–​200. 99 See Chapter 5 of this volume and Chapter 11, 265, and Part VII, 658 et seq and 669 et seq.for more on the procedures applicable to IOs. 100 While, in contemporary practice, treaties generally remain open for signature for a limited time (usually, one or two years), it does happen, particularly in certain areas (such as human rights and some disarmament treaties, such as the recent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons), that multilateral treaties remain open for signature indefinitely. 101 The Conventions concluded under the auspices of the ILO are a rare exception where only ratification is allowed, irrespective of whether a given State was a member of the Organization or not at the time its General Conference adopted a given text.

224  Treaty Formation commodities like coffee, cocoa, timber, or olive oil—​require a prior decision of the treaty’s governing body, establishing certain conditions for accession. In any event, a ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession may only produce effects once it is made known to the consenting State’s counterparts through a formal instrument signed by the appropriate authorities. For this reason, the VCLT specifies that the consent to be bound by a treaty is only established when such instruments have been exchanged with, or notified to, the other contracting States (for bilateral treaties and, albeit rarely in contemporary practice, in certain closed multilateral treaties without a depositary) or when they have been deposited with, or notified to, the depositary (for multilateral treaties with a depositary, which is the most usual contemporary multilateral practice).102 For those treaties where an expression of consent to be bound occurs via ratification, approval, or accession, one may wonder what is the legal effect of the earlier, ‘simple’ signature. We have already seen that signature in such cases takes no part in the adoption of the text of a multilateral treaty and that it has lost its authentication role in many multilateral settings (one can hardly consider, for example, that the signature by a State of the original of a multilateral treaty, which may take place sometimes years after its conclusion, is an act of adoption or authentication of the text). In multilateral settings, signature is therefore, most of all, the expression of a political commitment, rather than a legal one, namely for the State to launch its domestic processes that will lead to its consent to be bound by the treaty. Article 18 VCLT nevertheless underlines one legal effect of simple signature—​the obligation of the State not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty.103 The precise scope of this obligation may be ambiguous (as ambiguous as the concept of ‘object and purpose’ of the treaty). It is clear that the rule does not bind a State to the treaty’s provisions, but it may well still impose an obligation to take certain measures or abstain from certain conduct. For example, a State that has signed but not yet ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, might not yet have specific duties to maintain safeguards or provide victim assistance, but it would be in breach of the rule codified in Article 18 if it took actions that would affect an essential element of the treaty that is necessary to its general tenor and would impair the raison d’être of the Treaty104—​most notably using nuclear weapons. Such an obligation remains, the Vienna Convention indicates, ‘until [the State] shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty’. It is in the light of this condition (rather than in terms of ‘withdrawal’ of signature or what some colloquially call ‘unsigning’) that one shall assess the decision taken by a number of States—​the United States, Israel, the Sudan, and the Russian Federation—​to inform the Secretary-​General, as depositary, that they did not intend to become parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and did not have legal obligations arising from their prior signature. Finally, it is worth making mention of the growing role that NGO coalitions have assumed in encouraging States to consent to be bound. While diplomacy has never been totally divorced from public opinion and national politics, civil society has increasingly been organizing grass-​roots movements and international campaigns aiming at obtaining the 102 See Art 16 VCLT. 103 Art 18 VCLT. The same obligation exists for the State when it has expressed its consent to be bound by the treaty, pending entry into force, provided that such entry into force is not unduly delayed. 104 Consider, for example, the terminology used by the International Law Commission to describe a reservation incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty. ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(2), Guideline 3.1.5.

Making the Treaty  225 prompt adherence of States to certain multilateral treaties of major significance, which has been instrumental to the prompt entry into force of such treaties. Examples abound including the Arms Trade Treaty, the Paris Agreement on climate change and—​although the campaign is still ongoing at the time of writing—​the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

IV.  Entry into Force of the Treaty Entry into force refers to the moment the treaty acquires force of law on the international plane for all of the States or entities that have expressed their consent to be bound by its provisions. The VCLT’s single provision on entry into force—​Article 24—​reaffirms the freedom of negotiating States to determine the way in which the treaty enters into force. Its second paragraph provides a residual rule indicating that a treaty enters into force when the consent to be bound has been established for all negotiating States.105 Another noteworthy rule is contained in Article 24(4), which establishes that certain final provisions of a treaty are applied from the time of the adoption of the text:106 at least for those provisions, therefore, the moment of the adoption constitutes consent to be bound by the negotiating States. This rule is actually a necessity for the treaty to work as a legal document, and it would apply to provisions such as those that govern the means of authentication of the text, the establishment of the consent to be bound by the treaty, the mode of entry into force, reservations (particularly the prohibition thereof), the depositary functions; in other words, all those provisions that need to be applied from the time of adoption for the treaty to eventually enter into force. For bilateral treaties, entry into force is usually quite straightforward and indeed follows the VCLT’s residual rule. The consent to be bound of the negotiating States being established, entry into force takes place once both sides notify each other that they have completed the required internal processes: in other words, the treaty will enter into force when the latest such notification is received. In some cases, more complex mechanisms are provided. Thus, for example, the 2008 Special Agreement between Belize and Guatemala to submit Guatemala’s Territorial, Insular and Maritime Claim to the International Court of Justice, while providing that it would enter into force upon the exchange of instruments of ratification, also contained the commitment of the Parties to undertake the procedures set forth in their respective national systems to submit to referenda the decision to bring the dispute to the Court, which thus became a precondition for entry into force embodied in the treaty.107 The 2018 Prespa Agreement provided for certain specific steps to be taken by each of the parties, including constitutional amendments and referendum, prior to the ratification of the Agreement for its entry into force.108 105 Art 24 VCLT. 106 Secondary rules on the validity of the treaty must have immediate effect, as otherwise there will be no legal possibility for the treaty to become binding. 107 Special Agreement between Guatemala and Belize to submit Guatemala’s territorial, insular and maritime claim to the International Court of Justice (adopted 8 December 2008, entered into force 30 July 2018), available at . 108 Final Agreement for the Settlement of the Differences as Described in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 817 (1993) and 845 (1993), the Termination of the Interim Accord of 1995 and the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the Parties (Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (now

226  Treaty Formation With regard to multilateral treaties, modern practice widely diverges from the VCLT’s residual rule (requiring all negotiating States’ consent to be bound). To be sure, the residual rule may still operate in certain closed multilateral treaties of limited scope or treaties, such as peace treaties, which rely on intuitu personae obligations. Multilateral treaties open to wider participation, however, usually require that the treaty be ratified, accepted, approved, or acceded to by a minimum number to form a critical mass of States that apply the treaty. There is no definitive rule to determine such a number: some treaties only require two ratifications (such as the four Geneva Conventions on international humanitarian law109); others three (such as the United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-​based Investor-​State Arbitration, also known as the Mauritius Convention on Transparency110); others up to thirty, fifty, or more (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, for example, required sixty111). Some treaties combine this requirement with other thresholds: commodities agreements require participation by States representing a certain part of the market concerned;112 environmental treaties require participation by a number of States representing a significant part of the problem addressed (greenhouse gas emissions;113 ozone-​depleting substances emissions114); conventions concluded under the auspices of the IMO require participation by States representing a percentage of the world fleet by gross tonnage of vessels.115 Ultimately, the decision on what is required for the treaty to enter into force is to be made on a case-​by-​case basis, trying to find a balance between achieving a prompt entry into force of the treaty and having a sufficient number of States that would allow for the objectives of the treaty to be achieved. In some cases, different parts of the treaty enter into force at different times and with different requirements. For example, the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer116 entered into force on 1 January 2019 following the deposit of more than twenty instruments of consent to be bound, with the exception of one provision that will enter into force on 1 January 2033, provided at least seventy the Republic of North Macedonia)), 17 June 2018, available at . 109 Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armed forces in the field (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1960) 970 UNTS 31; Geneva Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of the armed forces at sea (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1960) 971 UNTS 85; Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1960) 970 UNTS 135; Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1960) 970 UNTS 287. 110 United Nations Convention on Transparency in Treaty-​based Investor-​State Arbitration (adopted 10 December 2014, entered into force 18 October 2017)  available at . 111 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3. 112 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives, 2015 (adopted 9 October 2015, entered into force provisionally 1 January 2017)  . 113 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 11 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) 2303 UNTS 162. 114 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3. 115 International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments (adopted 13 February 2004, entered into force 8 September 2017) available at . 116 Kigali Amendment (n 21), Art IV(1)–​(2).

Making the Treaty  227 instruments of consent to be bound are deposited by that date. Once again, practice reveals the great liberty enjoyed by the negotiating States in this regard for setting the terms for entry into force. Whatever the threshold required, most treaties provide that their entry into force will take place at the expiry of a certain time period from the date on which the conditions for entry into force have been attained. In certain treaties, this is usually counted in days—​eg ‘on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession’, in Article 31(1) of the Minamata Convention on Mercury—​or in months—​for example, ‘three months after the date on which five States have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession’, in Article 17(1) of the International Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Controls of Goods. This may require unexpected arithmetical skills and knowledge of calendars. As explained in the Summary of Practice, taking into account that the time always runs from the day following the deposit, in the former case above the date of entry into force will be determined by counting ninety days and in the former finding the same day, but three months later, with the consequence that the dates diverge.117 Finally, multilateral treaties also explicitly determine the date of entry into force of the treaty for those States which express their consent to be bound after the entry into force of the treaty, which takes place in almost all cases at the expiry of a time period similar to the one originally provided for the entry into force of the treaty.

Conclusion A universal quality of treaty-​making is the absolute freedom of the negotiators, who remain masters of their own procedure. Negotiators have wide discretion in deciding the process to be followed for their discussions, the form of the final agreement, the means of consenting to be bound, and the ways in which the treaty enters into force. This explains why the VCLT’s codification renounced governing the negotiation phase and, for the subsequent steps in treaty-​making until its entry into force, restricted itself to reaffirming the discretion of negotiators, while establishing a limited number of residual rules that will assist when specific issues remain undecided. This flexibility explains the enormous diversity in the modes of treaty negotiation, making it very difficult to provide a comprehensive and analytical description of how a treaty is born (it may also explain why, beyond studies of specific treaty-​making processes, this topic remains underexplored in the legal literature). The processes of bilateral and multilateral treaty-​making are so heterogeneous as to constitute almost two different worlds. But even within the world of multilateral treaty-​making there is a wide diversity. Multilateral treaty-​ making is heavily conditioned by circumstantial realities (geopolitical considerations; pressure from public opinion; budgetary constraints) and adapts itself to the specific needs of each area of global governance. Thus, human rights and disarmament treaty-​making processes usually benefit from large public participation; environmental treaties often require dedicated settings to consider scientific or economic aspects of the negotiation; treaties in



117

Summary of Practice (1999) (n 82) 70.

228  Treaty Formation specialized topics such as labour or intellectual property benefit from coordination among each other and therefore a pre-​established setting of negotiations that may ensure coherence in treaty regulation, etc. This leads to a specialization of treaty-​making depending on the subject matter covered, with an impression that the negotiation of treaties almost happens in independent silos, with little interaction. In fact, this diversity is one of the strengths of treaties as a law-​making tool. It is a main factor in explaining their enduring relevance in international relations despite the rise of other less formal means of regulation.118 The ability to adapt procedure to the law-​making needs of States is a factor that is conducive to finding compromises and agreements, and ultimately for States to agree to be bound by obligations in the formation of which they were able to effectively participate, having their own say. At the same time, there are certain centripetal forces that maintain the coherence of treaty-​making at the international level. Despite their limited scope and residual nature, the VCLT rules are one of these factors: the identification of those authorities that may represent the State in treaty-​making without having to produce full powers, for example, is a major contribution of the Convention that continues to bring coherence and security to treaty-​making processes. International organizations like the UN, while not curtailing the ultimate power of negotiators as masters of their own procedure, play a crucial role by providing trustworthy tools and processes to ensure efficient treaty-​making, including: institutional fora to engage in negotiations; logistical amenities (conference rooms, technological equipment); conference support (documentation, translations, interpretation); secretariat services; established rules of procedure (on participation, credentials, voting majorities); well-​tested working methods (working groups, informal consultations, etc); and, last but not least, legal offices that provide legal advice throughout the negotiation for the interpretation and application of rules of procedure and later discharge depositary functions for the treaty. In sum, the making of a treaty is a widely diverse, yet ultimately coherent, part of the law of treaties. And one that still deserves wider attention.

Recommended Reading A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) S Chesterman, D M Malone, and S Villalpando (eds), The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2019) O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A Commentary Volume I (OUP, Oxford 2011) F Mautner-​Markhof (ed), Processes of International Negotiations (Westview Press, Boulder 1989) Review of the Multilateral Treaty-​Making Process, United Nations Legislative Series 1985, UN Doc ST/​ LEG/​SER.B/​21 Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties, prepared by the Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs (1999) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev.1 ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009)

118 For more on the relative strengths and weaknesses of treaty-​making in comparison to its alternatives, see Chapter 3.

10

Provisional Application of Treaties Danae Azaria

Introduction Today, States often choose ratification, approval, or acceptance as a means of expressing consent to be bound because it allows them to bring the treaty before parliament, obtain its consent, and make the necessary changes in domestic legislation prior to committing the State to the treaty under international law. As a separate matter, treaties may require that a particular number of States express their consent to be bound in order for the treaty to enter into force. For these reasons, a certain amount of time may often pass between, on the one hand, the adoption and authentication of the treaty text, and on the other hand, the treaty’s entry into force. On some occasions, however, States may be eager to expedite the application of the treaty’s provisions; they may do so via provisional application. There are numerous reasons why States may choose to apply a treaty provisionally, such as: (a) urgency (eg peace treaties which terminate hostilities); (b) certainty of ratification, which may encourage them to propose provisional application; (c) the need to ensure legal continuity between an earlier and a later treaty on the same subject matter; (d) legal consistency so amendments can be applied as early as possible among parties able to provisionally apply them; and (e) circumvention of obstacles to express consent to be bound and entry into force.1 Provisional application disentangles the treaty’s application from its entry into force.2 Entry into force is concerned with when the treaty becomes operative.3 The treaty becomes binding on an international subject once the latter has consented to be bound by the treaty, and the treaty has become operative.4 But, provisional application enables States to apply a treaty temporarily prior to its entry in force. Under the current state of international law, however, recourse to provisional application is not compulsory. States may, if they choose so, agree to apply a treaty provisionally. Such agreement may either require States (and/​or international organizations (IOs)) to apply the treaty provisionally or it may give States (and/​or IOs) the option to 1 A Michie, ‘The Provisional Application of Treaties in South African Law and Practice’ (2005) 30 S Africa Ybk Intl L 1–​32; A Quast Mertsch, Provisionally Applied Treaties: Their Binding Force and Legal Nature (Martius Nijhoff, Leiden 2012) 9–​11; H Kriege, ‘Article 25: Provisional Application’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd ed Springer, Berlin 2018) 441, 442–​6 [4]‌–​[10]; International Law Commission (ILC), ‘Provisional summary record of the 3270th Meeting’ (15 July 2015) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.3270, 7 (Murase). 2 Although the treaty’s application and the treaty’s entry into force may coincide, they may also occur separately. AD McNair, Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961, reprinted 2013) 193–​4. 3 GE Do Nascimento e Silva, ‘Le Facteur Temps Et Les Traités’ (1977) 154 RcD 221, 226. 4 See eg Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (opened for signature 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331, Art 84(1) (introduces a passage of thirty days for entry into force from the date of deposit of thirty-​fifth instrument of consent to be bound: ‘The present Convention shall enter into force on the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the thirty-​fifth instrument of ratification or accession’ (emphasis added)).

230  Treaty Formation activate the obligation to apply the treaty provisionally. Once such an agreement between negotiating States (and/​or IOs) is effectuated, it establishes an obligation on those that have consented to it to apply a treaty provisionally. The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) as well as the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations and between International Organizations (1986 VCLT)5 each include a provision on the provisional application of treaties: Article 25. Article 25 VCLT has been recognized as setting forth a rule of customary international law (CIL).6 It has been suggested that it is not beyond doubt that Article 25 1986 VCLT does so, since there is not as much practice in relation to provisional application of treaties between States and IOs or between IOs.7 However, it is difficult to sustain an argument that in the current state of international law treaties between States and IOs or between IOs cannot be subject to provisional application, given the contractual freedom of subjects of international law. Even though Article 25 VCLT and 1986 VCLT set out the basic parameters for generating and terminating provisional application, these provisions leave open a number of key questions. At the same time, there is growing practice in the field. In recent years, disputes concerning the effects of provisional application and its relationship with domestic law have arisen. This increasing attention on the legal complexities of provisional application in international and domestic jurisprudence—​and in the practice of States—​encouraged the International Law Commission (ILC) to include the topic in its programme of work in 2012.8 In 2018, the ILC adopted on first reading Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application of Treaties.9 However, the Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application are not yet adopted on second and final reading at the time of this edition’s publication. Thus, readers should consider and consult the final (second) reading of these Guidelines for the purpose of understanding the ILC’s position on this topic.10 The ILC Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application partly involve the interpretation of Article 25 VCLT on provisional application.11 They are intended to provide ‘clarity to States when . . . implementing provisional application clauses’,12 ‘guidance regarding the law and practice on [provisional application], on the basis of [Article 25 VCLT] and other [CIL] rules of international law’,13 and to ‘try to clarify and explain’ mainly Article 25 VCLT.14 Owing to these objectives, the ILC does not intend to propose to States the conclusion of

5 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543. 6 D Mathy, ‘Article 25’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2011) 639, 641; Kriege (n 1) [3]‌. 7 3270th ILC meeting (n 1) 11 (Park); ibid 19 (McRae). 8 ILC, ‘Report on the work of its Sixty-​Fourth Session’ (2012) UN Doc A/​67/​10, [267]. 9 ILC, ‘Text of the draft guidelines on provisional application of treaties with commentaries thereto adopted by the Commission on first reading’ (2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10, 245-​270, at (‘Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application’). 10 The deadline for governments to submit written comments to the UN Secretary-​General is 15 December 2019, but no written comments were available on first reading as of 30 December 2018. ILC, ‘Report on its work in its seventieth session’ (2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10, 203 [88]. 11 For the legal effects of the ILC’s interpretative activity, see D Azaria, ‘ “Codification by Interpretation”: The International Law Commission as an Interpreter of International Law’ (EJIL, forthcoming 2020). 12 Concluding Remarks of Special Rapporteur in Plenary, ILC, ‘Report on the work of its Sixty-​Fifth Session’ (2013) UN Doc A/​68/​10, 104 [126]. 13 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) 246 (Guideline 2). 14 Ibid 250 [4]‌.

Provisional Application of Treaties  231 a treaty on this subject: the Draft Guidelines are intended to remain a non-​binding instrument, influencing the future development of the law by soliciting future State practice. This chapter begins in Section I with an examination of the shift in terminology from ‘provisional entry into force’ to ‘provisional application’. Section II explores the formal source of the binding effect of provisional application and the forms it can take. Section III takes up the legal effects of provisional application. Section IV deals with the relationship between provisional application and domestic law, and Section V with the termination of provisional application. The chapter finishes with some conclusions on provisional application and the future developments in this area.

I.  A Shift in Terminology The term ‘provisional application’ was not widely used prior to the VCLT’s adoption. Yet, the practice of States had regularly involved the provisional application of treaties—​ within the meaning of the term under Article 25 VCLT and 1986 VCLT—​dating back to the two treaties comprising the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that brought an end to the Thirty Years’ War. Dalton, writing in the first edition of this volume, provides an excellent and concise summary of State practice from the seventeenth century to the early twentieth century in this respect.15 In 1965, the ILC’s fourth Special Rapporteur on the Law of Treaties, Humphrey Waldock, commented that Draft Article 22 (which formed the basis for the negotiations for what became Article 25 VCLT) was ‘introduced in order to cover a fairly common contemporary State practice’.16 Draft Article 22 of the ILC’s 1966 Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties was entitled ‘Entry into force provisionally’ and provided: 1. A treaty may enter into force provisionally if: (a) The treaty itself prescribes that it shall enter into force provisionally pending ratification, acceptance, approval or accession by the contracting States; or (b) The negotiating States have in some other manner so agreed. 2. The same rule applies to the entry into force provisionally of part of a treaty.

During the preparation of the Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties, there was some discussion in the ILC about whether the term ‘provisional entry into force’ was appropriate.17 Reuter (with whom Verdross,18 de Luna,19 and Lachs20 agreed) pointed out that The expression ‘provisional entry into force’ no doubt corresponded to practice, but it was quite incorrect, for entry into force was something entirely different from the

15 RE Dalton, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) 220, 222–​6. 16 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 106 [72]. 17 For the preparation of Art 25 VCLT by the ILC and the Vienna Conference, see also Memorandum by the Secretariat, ‘Provisional application of treaties’ (1 March 2013) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​658. For the negotiating history of Article 25 of the 1986 VCLT, see also Memorandum by the Secretariat, ‘Provisional application of treaties’ (25 November 2014) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​676. 18 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 106 [81]. 19 Ibid 107 [91]. 20 Ibid 108 [100].

232  Treaty Formation application of the rules of a treaty. Entry into force might depend on certain conditions, a specified term or procedure, which dissociated it from the application of the rules of the treaty. The practice to which the article referred was not to bring the whole treaty into force with its conventional machinery, including, in particular, the final clauses, but to make arrangements for the immediate application of the substantive rules contained in the treaty.21

In the Vienna Conference, the United States, after proposing the article’s deletion, stated that if it were retained, the expression ‘entry into force provisionally’ should be replaced by ‘provisional application’.22 Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia made a written proposal for amending the provision to the same effect. The proposal was approved without a vote of the Committee of the Whole, and by the Conference itself the following year.23 Italy also urged that ‘confusion should be avoided between mere application, which was a question of practice, and entry into force, which was a formal legal notion. Mere . . . application did not involve entry into force’.24 In light of these proposals and discussions, the term ‘provisional entry into force’ was changed to ‘provisional application’. Today, Article 25 VCLT reads as follows: 1. A treaty or a part of a treaty is applied provisionally pending its entry into force if: (a) the treaty itself so provides; or (b) the negotiating States have in some other manner so agreed. 2. Unless the treaty otherwise provides or the negotiating States have otherwise agreed, the provisional application of a treaty or a part of a treaty with respect to a State shall be terminated if that State notifies the other States between which the treaty is being applied provisionally of its intention not to become a party to the treaty.

In order to dispel any uncertainty that this terminological change might have on whether provisional application would be governed by the principle of pacta sunt servanda, the terms ‘a treaty is applied provisionally’ were used in Article 25 VCLT.25

II.  The Formal Source of the Binding Effect of Provisional Application and Its Form Provisional application is based on an agreement to apply the treaty provisionally (Section II.A), which can take various forms (Section II.B). This section also addresses the question about whose agreement is required in order for a treaty to apply provisionally (Section II.C).

21 Ibid 106 [75]. 22 UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of First Session (1968) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11, 140 [23]–​[24] (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’). 23 UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of Second Session (1969) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11/​ Add.1, 43 [101] (‘Vienna Conference, Second Session’). 24 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 142 [43]. 25 See Section III.A.1 at 238–41 et seq.

Provisional Application of Treaties  233

A.  An agreement to apply a treaty provisionally Provisional application is based on a (secondary) international agreement (i) to apply the treaty provisionally, or (ii) to provide for the possibility of provisional application that can take effect for each State or IO, if and when some further conditions are met, including, for instance, expressing consent by notification or declaration.26 The existence of such an international agreement to apply the main treaty provisionally cannot simply be presumed. To determine whether there is an international agreement (pursuant to which the treaty provisions shall apply provisionally), rules of agreement-​ascertainment have to be employed.27 In relation to tacit agreements, the rules on acquiescence will apply, pursuant to which circumstances exist that call for some reaction; and the ‘silent’ State is in a position to react within sufficient time.28 An agreement to apply a treaty provisionally may enter into force on signature or by other means so agreed by the parties to that agreement, including orally. It requires the provisional application of the ‘main treaty’ thus bringing about the application of the provisions of the main treaty earlier in time.29 Alternatively, the provisional application agreement may incorporate specific treaty provisions that are subject to provisional application.30

B.  The form of an agreement to apply the treaty provisionally An international agreement to apply a treaty provisionally may take a number of different forms. Article 25(1) expressly leaves it to the negotiating States (and IOs) to decide the form that the agreement may take. According to Article 25(1)(a), the treaty itself may so provide. Examples of a provisional application agreement within the treaty to be applied provisionally include: Article 45 of the Energy Charter Treaty;31 Article 54 of the International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives;32 and Article 7 of the Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.33 Article 25(1)(b) also provides for the possibility that ‘the negotiating States have in some other manner so agreed’. Waldock had envisaged that provisional application could be

26 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 108 [7]‌(Ago) (‘certain of the treaty's clauses were applied provisionally by virtue of a secondary agreement between the parties, and it was only that agreement which entered into force’). 27 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v Turkey) [1978] ICJ Rep 3, 39, [96]; Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain, Jurisdiction and Admissibility (Judgment) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, 120–​1 [23] (‘Qatar v Bahrain, Jurisdiction’). See also Chapter 1, 25 et seq in this volume. 28 IC McGibbon, ‘Some Observations on the Part of Protest in International Law’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 293; J Barale, ‘L’Acquiscement dans la Jurisprudence Internationale’ (1965) 11 Annuaire Français de Droit International 389, 405. 29 ILC, ‘Provisional summary record of the 3232nd meeting’ (30 July 2014)  UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.3232, 13 (Wood) (‘provisional application was always application of the treaty as such, and thus the rights and obligations under provisional application would always derive from the treaty itself ’). 30 D Vignes, ‘Une notion ambiguë: la mise en application provisoire des traités’ (1972) 43 Annuaire Français de Droit International 181, 192. 31 Energy Charter Treaty (opened for signature 17 December 1994, entered into force 16 April 1998) [1995] 34 ILM 360, Art 45 (ECT). 32 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives (concluded 1 July 1986, entered in force 1 January 1987) 1445 UNTS 13, 35. 33 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (adopted 28 July 1994, entered into force provisionally 16 November 1994 and definitively 28 July 1996) 1836 UNTS 31, 41.

234  Treaty Formation agreed in a separate agreement, which ‘would itself constitute a treaty, but would not be the treaty whose provisional entry into force was in question’.34 Such a separate agreement can take any form—​written, oral, or tacit35—​and denomination: exchange of notes or letters,36 agreement,37 protocol,38 joint communiqué, press release, memorandum of understanding. Since the treaty awaits its entry into force, it cannot and does not bring about its own provisional application. One way of explaining how a provisional application clause within the main treaty may produce binding legal effect is the rule set forth in Article 24(4) VCLT. According to this rule, ‘[t]‌he provisions of a treaty regulating the authentication of its text, the establishment of the consent of States to be bound by the treaty, the manner or date of its entry into force, reservations, the functions of the depositary and other matters arising necessarily before the entry into force of the treaty apply from the time of the adoption of its text’.39 Alternatively, the provisional application clause can be seen as being based on a tacit agreement separate from the main treaty, as is the case when there is a separate written (or oral) agreement.

C.  Agreement between whom? Article 25(1)(b) VCLT and 1986 VCLT refer to ‘negotiating States’ and ‘negotiating States and negotiating organizations’ respectively. This wording indicates that the negotiating States or IOs can agree on whether the treaty shall be provisionally applied. At the Vienna Conference, the United Kingdom stated its understanding that [t]‌here were instances in international practice where the text of a general multilateral convention had been adopted but where the necessary number of ratifications required for entry into force had not subsequently been forthcoming. If that situation occurred, certain of the negotiating States, but not necessarily all of them, might come together and agree that the treaty or part of the treaty should be applied provisionally between them. Accordingly, it was his understanding that paragraph l(b) of article 22 [which later became Article 25] would apply equally to the situation where certain of the negotiating States had agreed to apply the treaty or part of the treaty provisionally pending its entry into force.40

India expressly agreed with both these understandings of the United Kingdom,41 and Greece agreed with the United Kingdom’s second understanding.42 No State objected to this 34 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 107 [90]. 35 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 110 [17] (Ago); ibid 110 [27] (Tsuruoka); ibid 110 [28] (Tounkine). 36 1982 Interim Agreement Relating to the Civil Air Transport Agreement of August 11, 1952, as amended, with Record of Consultations, Memorandum of Understanding and Exchange of Letters (concluded 7 September 1952, entered into force 7 September 1952) 1736 UNTS 284; Exchange of letters constituting an agreement between the United Nations and Spain regarding the hosting of the Expert Group Meeting entitled ‘Making it work—​Civil society participation in the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ (concluded 15 November 2007, entered into force provisionally 23 November 2007) 2486 UNTS 5. 37 Agreement on the provisional application of certain provisions of Protocol No 14 pending its entry into force (concluded 12 May 2009) CETS No 194. 38 Protocol on the Provisional Application of Certain Provisions of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (concluded 19 November 1990) [1991] 30 ILM 52; Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (concluded 5 July 2001) 2259 UNTS 440. 39 Art 24(4) VCLT (emphasis added). 40 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 40 [57] (emphasis added). 41 Ibid 41 [68]. 42 Ibid 41 [74].

Provisional Application of Treaties  235 understanding. There is, moreover, nothing problematic in this scenario because the inter se agreement only binds the parties to it in the relationship between themselves. As a separate matter, although all negotiating States (and IOs) may agree to apply the treaty provisionally, it is equally possible that all negotiating States (and IOs) may agree on a provisional application mechanism that allows for some (but not necessarily all) negotiating States (and IOs) to be required to apply the treaty provisionally. There are at least two techniques that fit in this scenario: (i) a limitation clause is included in the provisional application agreement thus introducing an opt-​out system (some negotiating States or IOs may, in accordance with a ‘Limitation Clause’, not provisionally apply a treaty or some provisions); or (ii) the provisional application agreement may introduce an opt-​in system, requiring a negotiating State or IO to make a future notification (and thus actively accept) to apply the treaty provisionally. In both cases, all negotiating States and/​or IOs have agreed on the mechanics of provisional application, but they have not all consented to be bound by provisional application. Draft Guideline 3 of the ILC Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application explicitly avoids the use of the term ‘negotiating States (and IOs)’. Instead, it reads: ‘[a]‌treaty or a part of a treaty may be provisionally applied, pending its entry into force between the States or international organizations concerned, if the treaty itself so provides, or if in some other manner it has been so agreed’.43 Unlike Article 25 VCLT (and 1986 VCLT), Draft Guideline 3 does not require that as a minimum (all or some) negotiating States (and/​or IOs) have agreed in some way on provisional application.44 It becomes apparent in the commentary to Draft Guideline 3 that what is envisaged is that non-​negotiating States may be bound by provisional application. The commentary states: ‘relevant practice was identified . . . as applying to States that had acceded to the commodity agreement [which never entered in force], thus demonstrating the belief that those States had also been provisionally applying the agreement’.45 However, this example may better be explained as an instance where (all or some) negotiating States agreed that non-​negotiating States may accede to the provisional application agreement. Otherwise there would be a general presumption that non-​negotiating States and IOs are generally permitted to become parties to a (provisional application) agreement. Such a presumption would deviate from the general rule on consent to be bound by accession, which requires either the consent of the negotiating States or subsequently the consent of all parties to the treaty.46 Additionally, some treaties are negotiated by a limited number of States and are intended to have a limited number of parties: such as the founding treaties of the European Union. Given that such treaties have limited accession terms, it cannot be presumed that any non-​negotiating State may become party to an agreement to provisionally apply them.47 43 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) Guideline 3 (emphasis added). 44 Art 25(1)(b) VCLT and 1986 VCLT (‘the negotiating States [and IOs] have in some other manner so agreed’); see Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) 208 [3]‌(commentary on Guideline 3). 45 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) 209 [3]‌(emphasis added). 46 Art 15 VCLT reads: consent of a State to be bound by a treaty is expressed by accession when: (a) the treaty provides that such consent may be expressed by that State by means of accession; (b) it is otherwise established that the negotiating States were agreed that such consent may be expressed by that State by means of accession; or (c) all the parties have subsequently agreed that such consent may be expressed by that State by means of accession). See also J Combacau, Le droit des traités (PUF, Paris 1991) 44–​5. 47 A non-​negotiating State (or IO) may unilaterally undertake obligations for itself, as reflected in the treaty provisionally applied. But such unilateral undertaking differs from the provisional application of a treaty. The latter entails both rights and obligations for those States (and IOs) bound by it. For more, see the analysis in Section II.D below.

236  Treaty Formation The agreement of negotiating States and IOs is constitutive of the provisional application agreement. While all or some negotiating States and IOs may agree on the provisional application of the treaty between themselves, they may also agree that States and IOs that were not involved in the negotiations may by accession consent to be bound by the provisional application agreement.

D.  Unilateral declarations are not per se a formal source of provisional application A unilateral declaration alone cannot be the source of provisional application.48 A unilateral declaration, as a unilateral act, may under certain conditions entail obligations for the State (or IO) making such declaration or act. In contrast, provisional application establishes a compound of obligations and rights for States (or IOs) bound by it.49 Moreover, unilateral undertakings are not based on acceptance by others; they fail to reflect the common intention to agree on the provisional application of the treaty.50 That said, provisional application may be brought about by unilateral declaration/​notification,51 when the unilateral declaration/​notification gives effect to an underlying earlier agreement envisaging the possibility of provisional application that can be triggered by subsequent unilateral notification or declaration. The notification/​declaration may serve as evidence of a pre-​existing agreement (tacit or otherwise) if the terms of the declaration and the circumstances in which it was made indicate that the declaration/​notification intends to give effect to an existing agreement. Draft Guideline 4 of the ILC Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application adopted on first reading envisages a completely different and plausible scenario: the establishment of an international agreement based on the declaration of a State or an IO, which operates as an offer, and the acceptance by the other States or IOs concerned.52 However, the analysis and examples provided in footnote 1021 of the commentary to Draft Guideline 4 concern a different situation to the one actually envisaged in Draft Guideline 4 and the text of the

48 Special Rapporteur Gómez-​Robledo had argued that unilateral declarations can be the source for the provisional application of a treaty:  Special Rapporteur Juan Manuel Gómez-​Robledo, ‘Second Report to the ILC’ (9 June 2014) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​675, [36] (‘in short, the source of obligations incurred as a result of provisional application may take the form of one or more unilateral declarations . . .’). Others disagreed. See eg ILC, ‘Provisional summary record of the 3232nd meeting’ (30 July 2014) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.3232, 12-​13 (Wood) (‘a unilateral declaration was merely a response to a standing offer contained in the treaty to conclude an agreement to provisionally apply the treaty’); ibid at 3 (Forteau) (‘article 25 of the Vienna Convention did not allow for a treaty to be applied provisionally on the basis of a unilateral declaration by a State. The State . . . could be bound as a matter of international law, but such a unilateral commitment did not fall within the provisional application of treaties’); ibid at 6 (Park) (‘The obligations arising from provisional application were thus derived, not from the unilateral declaration itself but from the agreement between the States concerned’). 49 Nuclear Tests (Australia v France; New Zealand v France) (Judgments) [1974] ICJ Rep 253, 267–​8 [43], [46] and 457, 472–​3 [46], [49]; ILC, ‘Guiding Principles applicable to unilateral declarations of States capable of creating legal obligations with commentaries thereto’ [2006] YBILC 160–​6 (Guideline 1). 50 3232nd ILC meeting (n 48) 5 (Escobar-​Hernandez). 51 [1965] YBILC, vol I, 111 [37] (Reuter); Mathy (n 6) 651. 52 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) Guideline 4 (‘In addition to the case where the treaty so provides, the provisional application of a treaty or a part of a treaty may be agreed through: . . . (b) any other means or arrangements, including . . . a declaration by a State or an international organization that is accepted by the other States or international organizations concerned’ (emphasis added)).

Provisional Application of Treaties  237 commentary: the existence of a pre-​existing agreement on provisional application that allows provisional application to be triggered and take effect for each State only upon that State’s declaration.53 In support, footnote 1021 cites the Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application,54 which is beyond the scope of Draft Guideline 4. Another example invoked in footnote 1021 of the commentary to Draft Guideline 4 is Syria’s unilateral declaration to provisionally apply the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. The analysis in footnote 1021 of the commentary states that ‘[a]‌lthough the Convention does not provide for [its provisional application] and such possibility was not discussed during its negotiation, neither the States parties nor OPCW objected to the provisional application by the Syrian Arab Republic of the Convention, as expressed in its unilateral declaration’.55 This example does not meet (at least by virtue of the information provided in the commentary) the requirement in the commentary that ‘the declaration must be verifiably accepted by the other States or [IOs] concerned, as opposed to mere non-​objection’.56 The silence of other States in that scenario (as described in the footnote) cannot be presumed to constitute acceptance,57 because there is no circumstance that calls for the reaction of other negotiating States or IOs (all the more so other non-​negotiating States or IOs). The declaring State may instead be unilaterally undertaking obligations (set forth in the treaty). For this reason, it may better be classified as a unilateral undertaking of obligations (set forth in the treaty). Further, in relation to multilateral treaties, it cannot be presumed that an agreement of provisional application established in the form of a unilateral declaration accepted by other States concerned, as envisaged in Draft Guideline 4, is an agreement that establishes an obligation for all negotiating States to apply the treaty provisionally: it may be that a group of negotiating States agrees (by acceptance of the unilateral declaration of a non-​negotiating State) to apply the treaty provisionally. This is because a group of negotiating States may agree among themselves to apply the treaty provisionally.58 Additionally, depending on the wording of each declaration and evidence of acceptance, what may be agreed instead is a matrix of separate agreements on provisional application between the declaring State and each accepting State. Evidence of the intention to establish an agreement on the treaty’s provisional application among all (or a group of) negotiating States has to be furnished.

53 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) 212–​13 n1021 (Commentary to Guideline 4: ‘[t]‌here are cases in which the treaty does not require the negotiating or signatory States to apply it provisionally, but leaves open the possibility for each State to decide whether or not it wishes to apply the treaty or a part of the treaty . . . In these circumstances, the expression of intention that creates the obligation arising from provisional application may take the form of a unilateral declaration by the State’. (emphasis added)). 54 Ibid; see also Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application (concluded 1 October 2015)  available at (Arts 1, 3 provide a paradigmatic example of the situation where States agree to an ‘opt-​in system’ of provisional application). 55 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) 212–​13 n1021 (Commentary to Guideline 4). 56 Ibid 212–​13  [5]‌. 57 Ibid. 58 See analysis in Section II.C above.

238  Treaty Formation

III.  The Legal Effects of Provisional Application The rule of pacta sunt servanda reflected in Article 26 VCLT stipulates that ‘every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’. It follows that the treaty is binding upon those States that have expressed consent to be bound and the treaty has entered into force for these States. The question thus arises whether a provisionally applied treaty can produce such effects that are reserved to entry into force or is rather of an aspirational nature. Section III.A assesses the legal effect of provisional application by examining the preparation of Article 25 VCLT (Section III.A.1), international jurisprudence and State practice within the context of judicial proceedings subsequent to the conclusion of the VCLT (Section III.A.2), as well as in the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly (GA) (Section III.A.3). It then discusses the law applicable in the relationship between States (and IOs) that provisionally apply the treaty and those for which the treaty has entered into force (Section III.A.4). Section III.B distinguishes provisional application from other mechanisms that relate to conduct prior to the treaty’s entry into force, namely the obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty (reflected in Article 18 VCLT) and the retroactive application of a treaty.

A.  Provisional application establishes an obligation to apply the treaty provisionally 1. Article 25 VCLT and its preparatory works As adopted by the ILC in 1966, Draft Article 22 provided that ‘a treaty may . . . be applied provisionally if . . .’. Despite the verb ‘may’, the ILC did not intend to suggest that provisional application was aspirational. Read in its immediate context, including sub-​paragraph (a)—​ ‘[t]‌he treaty itself prescribes that it shall’—​the term ‘may’ in the chapeau of Draft Article 22 was not intended to suggest that when provisional application has been agreed it does not establish an obligation to apply the treaty. The term simply indicated that provisional application rests on the discretionary agreement of States; States always being free not to agree to provisional application. The ILC commentary accompanying Draft Article 22 confirmed this reading, indicating that ‘[w]hether in these cases the treaty is to be considered as entering into force in virtue of the treaty or of a subsidiary agreement concluded between the States concerned in adopting the text may be a question. But there can be no doubt that such clauses have legal effect and bring the treaty into force on a provisional basis’.59 The commentary to Draft Article 23 on ‘pacta sunt servanda’ (now, Article 26 VCLT) further indicated that ‘[t]he words “in force” of course cover treaties in force provisionally under article 22 as well as treaties which enter into force definitively under article 21’.60 In the First Session of the Vienna Conference (1968), the Drafting Committee replaced the language ‘a treaty may . . . be applied provisionally’ with ‘a treaty . . . is applied provisionally’ to avoid the interpretation that the parties were free not to apply a treaty provisionally, 59 ILC, ‘Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties with commentaries’ (1966) UN Doc A/​6309/​Rev.l, 210 [1]‌(emphasis added) (‘ILC Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties’). 60 Ibid 211 [3]‌(emphasis added).

Provisional Application of Treaties  239 even when such application was prescribed by the treaty.61 Additionally, in the Committee of the Whole, two delegations suggested that pacta sunt servanda applied to an agreement to apply the treaty provisionally.62 In the Second Session of the conference (1969), delegates and officers of the conference made comments in the course of five meetings on the then Article 22 (on provisional application) and on the then Article 23 (on pacta sunt servanda) supporting that pacta sunt servanda applies to provisional application. In the 11th Plenary meeting, the UK delegation pointed out its understanding that the pacta sunt servanda rule applied to the provisional application of treaties.63 India was the only delegation that stated that the principle only governed treaties in force.64 Instead nine other States stated that pacta sunt servanda applied to provisional application.65 Among them, Yugoslavia made a written proposal for a new article that would read ‘Every treaty applied provisionally in whole or in part is binding on the contracting States and must be performed in good faith’.66 Israel ‘doubted the usefulness of the Yugoslav amendment . . . It would be remembered that the text of article 22 had been changed at the first session so as to show clearly that the provisional application of a treaty was in every case the result of agreement between the parties. It would not therefore be wise to adopt a provision which might throw doubt on the validity and applicability of such an agreement’.67 On the basis of these statements, the President of the Plenary Meeting, Roberto Ago, stated: [N]‌o one doubted the soundness of the Yugoslav and Colombian amendments. In the light of the interpretative statements just made, it was obvious that the expression ‘treaty in force’ also covered treaties applied provisionally and that the same was true of the expression ‘in good faith’.68

The Drafting Committee rejected the Yugoslav proposal, but not because it considered that pacta sunt servanda did not apply to provisional application. The Chairman of the Drafting Committee, Mustafa Yasseen, stated that: The Drafting Committee considered that . . . provisional application also fell within the scope of article 23 on the pacta sunt servanda rule. [T]‌he Drafting Committee considered that it would be better not to state such an obvious fact. The principle of pacta sunt servanda was a general rule, and it could only weaken it to emphasize that it applied to a particular case.69

2. Judicial decisions and State practice within judicial proceedings In recent years, the binding effect of provisional application has been contested. In Ioannis Kardassopoulos v Georgia (‘Kardassopoulos v Georgia’), a Greek investor claimed that 61 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 426–​7 [24]–​[27]. The Committee of the Whole approved this change without discussion. Ibid [28]. 62 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 150 [50] (Ecuador); ibid 157 [59] (Indonesia). 63 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 40 [58] (the United Kingdom). 64 Ibid 41 [70] (India). 65 Ibid 39 [53] (Guatemala); ibid 40 [62] (Iran); ibid 41 [73] (Greece); ibid 47 [33] (Norway); ibid 47 [44] (Colombia); ibid 48 [50]–​[51] (Yugoslavia); ibid 48–​9 [58] (Romania); ibid 49 [61] (Ukraine); ibid 158 [2]‌–[​ 3] (Poland). 66 Ibid 48 [50]–​[51] (Yugoslavia). Colombia also made an oral amendment proposal. Ibid 47–​8 [45]. 67 Ibid 49 [62]. 68 Ibid 49 [63]. 69 Ibid 157 [47] (emphasis added).

240  Treaty Formation Georgia had expropriated a pipeline construction concession and failed to reimburse him for the loss of his investment. Both Greece and Georgia signed the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) on 17 December 1994. The measures complained of took place between 1995 and 1997, when both Greece and Georgia provisionally applied the ECT. Kardassopoulos argued that under Article 45(1) ECT Georgia was bound by the Treaty’s obligations between the date of its signature and the entry into force of the ECT. On the other hand, Georgia argued that provisional application was ‘only aspirational’ and thus it had no legal obligation to refrain from expropriation during the ECT’s provisional application.70 In 2007, contrary to Georgia’s argument, the Tribunal reasoned that ‘properly interpreted’ Article 45(1) ECT obliged both States to apply the whole Treaty as if it had entered into force on 17 December 1994, the date on which they both had signed it. More specifically, it pronounced: 209. Applying the ECT provisionally is used in contradistinction to its entry into force:  ‘. . .  agrees to apply this Treaty provisionally pending its entry into force  . . .’. Provisional application is therefore not the same as entry into force. But the ECT’s provisional application is a course to which each signatory ‘agrees’ in Article 45(1): it is (subject to other provisions of the paragraph) thus a matter of legal obligation. The Tribunal cannot therefore accept Respondent’s argument that provisional application is only aspirational in character . . . 211. It follows that the language used in Article 45(1) is to be interpreted as meaning that each signatory State is obliged, even before the ECT has formally entered into force, to apply the whole ECT as if it had already done so.71

In 2009, in Yukos Universal Ltd (UK–​Isle of Man) v The Russian Federation (‘Yukos v Russia’), Hulley Enterprises Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation (‘Hulley v Russia’), and Veteran Petroleum Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation (‘Veteran Petroleum v Russia’) the Tribunal was concerned with the complaints of Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum respectively that Russia had expropriated their investment contrary to the ECT, at a time when the ECT was provisionally applicable for Russia.72 The case revolved around the interpretation of Article 45 ECT. Russia did not contest that pacta sunt servanda applies to provisional application,73 and the Tribunal was not directly concerned with this question. In 2016, The Hague District Court reversed all three cases—​Yukos v Russia, Hulley v Russia, and Veteran Petroleum v Russia.74 Here too, however, the court did not contest that under international law provisional application of treaties is binding. Nor had Russia contested before the Court that provisional application produced binding legal effects.

70 Ioannis Kardassopoulos v Georgia (Decision on Jurisdiction) (6 July 2007) ISCID Case No ARB/​05/​18, [84]. 71 Ibid [209], [211]. 72 Hulley Enterprises Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation, PCA Case No AA 226; Yukos Universal Ltd. (UK–​Isle of Man) v Russian Federation, PCA Case No AA 227; Veteran Petroleum Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation, PCA Case No AA 228, UNCITRAL (Energy Charter Treaty), Interim Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility, 30 November 2009. 73 Yukos v Russia (n 72) [71]. 74 The Russian Federation v Veteran Petroleum Limited (C/​09/​477160 /​HA ZA 15-​1), The Russian Federation v Yukos Universal Limited (C/​09/​477162/​HA ZA 15-​2), The Russian Federation v Hulley Enterprises Limited (C/​09/​ 481619/​HA ZA 15-​112), Hague District Court, Judgment, 20 April 2016, available at:  (‘Hague Yukos/​Hulley/​Veteran Petroleum Judgment’).

Provisional Application of Treaties  241

3. Responses of governments in the Sixth Committee to the ILC’s Work on Provisional Application of Treaties (2016–​18) The statements of governments (and IOs) to the ILC’s work on the topic of Provisional Application in the UNGA Sixth Committee indicate that States consider that provisional application is governed by pacta sunt servanda in the sense that (once it takes effect) it establishes an obligation on States (and IOs) to apply the treaty provisionally. From 2012, when the Commission decided to include the topic in its programme of work, to 2018, once the topic was adopted on first reading,75 numerous States made statements accepting that provisional application establishes an obligation on States (and IOs) to apply the treaty provisionally.76 4. Legal effects in the relationship between parties and those provisionally applying the treaty Article 25 VCLT (and 1986 VCLT) is not express about which law governs the relationship between States (and/​or IOs) that provisionally apply the treaty (or treaty provisions) and States (and/​or IOs) that have become parties to the main treaty that is being provisionally applied. As explained in Part V below, for those States (and IOs) for which the treaty has entered into force, the provisional application has been terminated, as indicated in Article 25(1). Neither the ILC’s work on the law of treaties before the conclusion of the VCLT nor the Vienna Conference negotiations shed light on the law applicable to the relationship between these groups of States (and/​or IOs). However, logically, provisional application (of the treaty or treaty provisions) governs that relationship: the provisional application agreement continues to apply. The VCLT does not exclude this proposition, and international jurisprudence may implicitly support it. For instance, Hulley v Russia and Veteran Petroleum v Russia involved a Cypriot investor and Yukos v Russia involved a UK–​Isle of Man investor. Cyprus and the United Kingdom were ECT parties when the facts complained about occurred and when the arbitration claim was brought by the claimants against Russia, which (the Tribunal found) applied the treaty provisionally.77 The ILC Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application adopted on first reading do not address this issue. It may be useful for States (and IOs) if the ILC addresses and thus clarifies this question during its consideration of this topic on second reading.

75 Governments have until 15 December 2019 to submit written comments to the UN Secretary-​General. At the time of this volume’s publication, there were no written comments available on the first reading of the Draft Articles on Provisional Application. See ILC, ‘Report on its work in its seventieth session’ (n 10) 203 [88]. 76 UNGA Sixth Committee, 73rd session, Agenda Item 82, Cluster II, Ch VII (October 2018): 4 (Statement of China); 4 (Statement of Czech Republic); [3]‌(Statement of Ireland); 3 (Statement of Romania). Available at . 77 In the context of investor-​State arbitrations, this issue may come up concerning whether the claimants were ‘investors’ within the meaning of Art 1(7)(a)(ii) ECT, pursuant to which ‘a company or other organization organized in accordance with the law applicable in that Contracting Party’. In Hulley v Russia and in Veteran Petroleum v Russia, the Tribunals noted that the claimants were incorporated in Cyprus and that the ECT had entered into force for Cyprus in order to conclude that the claimants were investors within the meaning of Art 1(7) ECT. Hulley v Russia (n 72) [405], [411]–​[417]; Veteran Petroleum v Russia (n 72) [405], [411]–​[417]. Similarly, in Yukos v Russia, the Tribunal noted that the United Kingdom had expressed consent to be bound (implicitly acknowledging that the ECT had entered into force for it), before concluding that the claimant was an investor under Art 1(7). Yukos v Russia (n 72) [404], [411]–​[417]. Their reasoning may suggest implicitly that the ECT applied provisionally in the relationship between the provisionally applying State and the parties (albeit a case by a claimant of a provisional applying State against a party might have illustrated more vividly such reasoning).

242  Treaty Formation

B.  Distinguishing provisional application from other ‘institutions’ 1. Provisional application and the obligation not to defeat the treaty’s object and purpose Provisional application resembles the obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty, set forth in Article 18 VCLT. Both require States to take conduct prior to a treaty’s entry into force. However, the obligation set forth in Article 18 VCLT is a default (and customary)78 obligation. It exists irrespective of whether States agree to such an obligation vis-​ à-​vis a treaty. Moreover, its effects are limited to prohibiting conduct that would defeat the treaty’s object and purpose. In contrast, provisional application depends on the agreement of States (and/​or IOs) and establishes an obligation to apply the treaty provisionally to facts prior to the treaty’s entry into force. 2. Provisional application and retroactive application Provisional application also differs from the retroactive application of a treaty. The treaty’s retroactive application means that the treaty applies to facts that occurred prior to the application of the treaty. In contrast, provisional application entails that the treaty applies (prior to entry into force, but) to present and future facts (not to past facts).79

IV.  The Relationship between Provisional Application and Domestic Law Provisional application involves an invitation to dispense with the normal domestic treaty-​ making procedures. However, how provisional application is accommodated by each State depends on its domestic (constitutional) law. States whose domestic law permits provisional application without prior completion of the normal treaty-​making procedures may use all the advantages of provisional application. Other States have domestic laws that either do not recognize—​or actually prohibit—​provisional application. In such cases, treaties subject to provisional application must follow exactly the same domestic law process as required for ratification.80 The advantage of provisional application for such States may be that provisional application can still begin for them once their internal processes have been completed and consent to be bound has been given, in lieu of waiting for entry into force in those cases where a particular number of States must consent to be bound in order for the treaty to enter into force. However, in relation to this second group of States, delegates in the Vienna Conference recognized that provisional application ‘[is] an awkward [question], because it cut[s]‌across 78 See J Charme, ‘The Interim Obligation of Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: Making Sense of the Enigma’ (1991–​1992) 25 GW J Int’l L & Econ 71–​92. 79 D Bindschedler-​Robert, ‘De la retroactivité en droit international public’ in Recueil d’Etudes de Droit International en Hommage à Paul Guggenheim (Faculté de droit de l'Université de Genève, Genève 1968) 178; Quast Mertsch (n 1) 21. 80 For instance, see Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 39 [53] (Guatemala); ibid 41 [77] (Uruguay); UNGA Sixth Committee, 72nd session, Agenda Item 81, Cluster I, Ch V (October 2017): [9]‌(Statement of Peru), available at:  ; ibid 6 (Statement of Turkey). UNGA Sixth Committee, 73rd session, Agenda Item 82, Cluster II, Ch VII (October 2018): 1 (Statement of Portugal), available at: .

Provisional Application of Treaties  243 the dividing line between international law and internal law’.81 In a country where the constitution precludes the creation of treaty obligations unless such treaties have first been approved by the legislature, the obligations created during the provisional application period may give rise to legal relations of questionable validity and unconstitutional character.82 This may explain why numerous States whose constitution requires parliamentary approval for all international agreements (and thus do not foresee provisional application without such internal approval), have made reservations to Article 25 VCLT.83 This section examines three issues on the relationship between provisional application and internal law. Section IV.A discusses the rule that internal law cannot justify non-​ performance of a provisional application agreement. Section IV.B examines the particular issue of provisional application clauses subjecting provisional application to internal law, elaborating on the Yukos arbitration and the reversal decision in a domestic Dutch court. Section IV.C then explores whether the fact that consent to be bound by provisional application has been given in violation of an internal law can be invoked as a ground for invaliding consent to be bound by the provisional application agreement.

A.  Internal law cannot justify non-​performance of provisional application It follows from Article 27 VCLT that a State that has agreed to apply a treaty provisionally cannot invoke its domestic law in order to justify non-​performance of the provisionally applied treaty. This is the logical corollary of the fact that pacta sunt servanda applies to provisional application (as shown in Section III.A above).84 However, this rule does not apply to clauses within the provisional application agreement which subject provisional application to consistency with internal law.

B.  Subjecting provisional application to consistency with internal law Some provisional application agreements include clauses that expressly subject provisional application to consistency with internal law of a State. Examples include Article 45(1) ECT, which provides that: ‘[e]‌ach signatory agrees to apply this Treaty provisionally pending its entry into force for such signatory in accordance with article 44, to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its constitution, laws or regulations’.85 There are also examples of bilateral treaties that include such clauses (with variations).86 81 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) [46] (Switzerland). 82 Ibid 39 (Guatemala). 83 See reservations made by Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Peru, at MTDSG Reference XXIII-​ 1  . 84 See also Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) Draft Guideline 10. 85 Art 45(1) ECT. 86 See eg Agreement between Spain and El Salvador on air transport (10 March 1997) 2023 UNTS 341, Art XXIV(1) (‘The Contracting Parties shall provisionally apply the provisions of this Agreement from the time of its signature to the extent that they do not conflict with the law of either of the Contracting Parties’); Agreement between Germany and Serbia and Montenegro regarding Technical Cooperation (13 October 2004) 2424 UNTS 167, 190 (Art 7(3): provisional application shall be ‘in accordance with appropriate domestic law’).

244  Treaty Formation In these cases, the precise relationship of provisional application with the internal law is a matter of treaty interpretation. Such issues of treaty interpretation have arisen in recent years in the context of investment arbitrations under the ECT, most notably in the Tribunal’s reasoning in Yukos v Russia and the Dutch court decision that overturned it. Although the matter remains in litigation, it is possible to draw some interim conclusions from the ‘Yukos saga’ to date.

1. Yukos v Russia, Hulley v Russia, and Veteran Petroleum v Russia (2009) In Yukos v Russia, Hulley v Russia, and Veteran Petroleum v Russia (only Yukos v Russia is cited here) the Tribunal’s jurisdiction revolved around Article 45(1) ECT, which provides that: ‘Each signatory agrees to apply this Treaty provisionally pending its entry into force for such signatory in accordance with article 44, to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its constitution, laws or regulations.’ Russia signed the ECT on 17 December 1994 without making any declaration. The ECT was submitted to the State Duma for ratification on 26 August 1996, but since then, no formal decision has been adopted. On 20 August 2009, pursuant to Article 45(3)(a) ECT, Russia notified its intention not to become party to the ECT. Russia never claimed that Article 45 ECT was not binding on it because the provision was contrary to its internal law. Rather it claimed that provisional application under Article 45(1) did not apply to Russia because the conditions for the provision’s application had not been satisfied. More specifically, Russia argued that the wording ‘to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its constitution, laws, or regulations’ (the ‘Limitation Clause’) requires that each provision of the ECT (as provisionally applied) be consistent with its constitution, laws, or regulations. The Tribunal rejected Russia’s interpretation. It pronounced that the correct interpretation of the ECT is that the Limitation Clause requires that the ‘principle of provisional application’ is consistent with the domestic constitution, law, or regulations of the signatory.87 It introduced an ‘all-​or-​nothing’ standard: either the entire Treaty is applied provisionally, or it is not applied provisionally at all.88 For the Tribunal, Russia’s interpretation that Article 45(1) allowed signatories to ‘pick and choose’ was not in harmony with the ‘grain of international law’.89 It continued: Under the pacta sunt servanda rule and Article 27 of the VCLT, a State is prohibited from invoking its internal legislation as a justification for failure to perform a treaty. [T]‌his cardinal principle of international law strongly militates against an interpretation of Article 45(1) that would open the door to a signatory, whose domestic regime recognizes the concept of provisional application, to avoid the provisional application of a treaty (to which it has agreed) on the basis that one or more provisions of the treaty is contrary to its internal law. Such an interpretation would undermine the fundamental reason why States agree to apply a treaty provisionally. They do so in order to assume obligations immediately



87

Yukos v Russia (n 72) [394]. Ibid [311]. 89 Ibid [312]. 88

Provisional Application of Treaties  245 pending the completion of various internal procedures necessary to have the treaty enter into force.90

The Tribunal then pronounced that [I]‌nternational law and domestic law should not be allowed to combine . . . to form a hybrid in which the content of domestic law directly controls the content of an international legal obligation. This would create unacceptable uncertainty in international affairs. Specifically, it would allow a State to make fluctuating, uncertain and un-​notified assertions about the content of its domestic law, after a dispute has already arisen. [ . . . ] A treaty should not be interpreted so as to allow such a situation unless the language of the treaty is clear and admits no other interpretation.91

As a result, the Tribunal further found that by virtue of Article 45(3) ECT, the obligations under paragraph (1) to apply parts of the treaty on investment protection and dispute settlement to investments made in its territory by covered investors during the provisional application period remain in effect with respect to such investments for twenty years following the effective date of termination—​that is, until 19 October 2029. The Tribunal’s reasoning has been criticized in literature.92 It has also been reversed by a domestic court.

2. Russia v Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum (2012) In Russia v Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum, Russia requested the reversal of the Arbitral Tribunal’s decision to entertain jurisdiction in Yukos v Russia, Hulley v Russia, and Veteran Petroleum v Russia.93 It contested the Tribunal’s interpretation of Article 45(1) ECT. The question revolved around whether or not the Limitation Clause should be interpreted in such a way that this clause relates to the pacta sunt servanda principle—​in which case the possibility of applying the ECT (as a whole) provisionally depends on whether national law provides for this principle—​or that the provisional application of the ECT is limited to the treaty provisions that are not contrary to national law. The Hague District Court relied on the customary rules on treaty interpretation set forth in Articles 31 and 32 VCLT. It disagreed with the Tribunal’s analysis concerning the ordinary meaning of terms94 and the object and purpose of the ECT.95 Contrary to the Arbitral Tribunal, it did not resort to preparatory works since it considered that the interpretation reached by use of the rule set forth in Article 31 VCLT was not ambiguous.96 In relation to the ECT’s object and purpose, more specifically, the Court disagreed with the Tribunal ‘that the interpretation of the Limitation Clause [that the Tribunal] had rejected supposedly conflicted with the object and purpose of the ECT and the nature of international law [on the ground of] the pacta sunt servanda principle of Article 26 VCLT and the associated principle, laid down in Article 27 VCLT’.97 For the Court, the rules set forth in Articles 26

90

Ibid [313] (emphasis added). Ibid [315] (emphasis added); see also ibid [320] (same reasoning repeated). 92 See eg T Gazzini, ‘Provisional Application of the ECT in the Yukos Case’ (2015) 30 ICSID Rev 293–​302. 93 Hague Russia v Yukos/​Hulley/​Veteran Petroleum Judgment (n 74). 94 See eg ibid [5.13]. 95 Ibid [5.19]. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 91

246  Treaty Formation and 27 VCLT ‘do not automatically lead to the interpretation of Article 45 as applied by the Tribunal’.98 It continued: Signatories to a treaty can explicitly limit the provisional application of treaty provisions, as becomes apparent from Article 25 VCLT which reads as follows, in so far as is relevant: ‘A treaty or a part of a treaty is applied provisionally pending its entry into force if (a) the treaty itself so provides’ . . . In this case, the Signatories to the ECT have explicitly laid down in the Limitation Clause in Article 45 paragraph 1 ECT . . . that the scope of the provisional application is limited to treaty provisions that are not contrary to national law. Even while it is possible that provisions of national law can stand in the way of the performance of one or more provisions of the ECT, the basis for doing so is encased in the ECT itself—​i.e., at treaty level. [A]‌state that relies on a conflict between a treaty provision and national law, on sound grounds and referencing the Limitation Clause, does not act contrary to the pacta sunt servanda principle, nor to the principle of Article 27 VCLT. [T]he fact that the invocation of a provision of national law can lead to a discussion about the meaning of the contents of [the] said provision and thus result in uncertainty in international matters, does not affect this. After all, that is inherent in the Limitation Clause contained in the ECT.99

Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum appealed the District Court’s Judgment. The Hague Court of Appeal did not deal with and thus did not reverse the reasoning of the District Court analysed above.100

3. Interim conclusions regarding the ‘Yukos saga’ This chapter is not intended to analyse exhaustively Article 45 ECT or to serve as a commentary on the Yukos cases. Rather it discusses these cases to demonstrate some common issues likely to arise from similar Limitation Clauses in other provisional application agreements. Some authors have supported the reasoning of the Tribunal in Yukos v Russia by suggesting that ‘Article 45(1) [ECT] seems to set [the principle embodied in Article 27 VCLT—​ namely that a state may not invoke its internal law to escape pacta sunt servanda—​] aside’.101 This proposition is misplaced. A ‘Limitation Clause’ is designed precisely to avoid a conflict between the provisional application agreement (international law) and domestic law.102 Nonetheless, the rules set forth in Articles 26 and 27 VCLT may—​pursuant to Article 31(3)(c) VCLT—​ be understood as ‘relevant [customary] rules of international law 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid (emphasis added). 100 Veteran Petroleum Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation (C/​09/​477160/​HA ZA 15-​1), Yukos Universal Ltd. (UK–​Isle of Man) v Russian Federation (C/​09/​477160/​HA ZA 15-​2), Hulley Enterprises Limited (Cyprus) v The Russian Federation (C/​09/​477160/​HA ZA 15-​3), Hague Court of Appeal, Judgment, 25 September 2018 at . 101 Y Banifatemi, ‘Provisional Application of the Energy Charter Treaty:  the Negotiating History of Article 45’ in G Coop (ed), Energy Dispute Resolution:  Investment Protection, Transit and the Energy Charter Treaty (Juris Publishing, New  York 2011) 219; see also M Belz, ‘Provisional Application of the Energy Charter Treaty: Kardassopoulos v Georgia and Improving Provisional Application in Multilateral Treaties’ (2008) 22 Emory Int’l L Rev 727, 731–​2 (criticizing the Tribunal’s reasoning in Kardassopoulos v Georgia as violating customary international law since ‘Article 27 VCLT prohibits states from invoking their internal laws as justification for their failure to perform a treaty’). 102 U Klaus, ‘The Gate to Arbitration: The Yukos Case and the Provisional Application of the Energy Charter Treaty in the Russian Federation’ (2005) 2 Trannat’l Disp Mgmt 8; T Ishikawa, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties at the Crossroads between International and Domestic Law’ (2016) 31 ICSID Rev 270, 281.

Provisional Application of Treaties  247 applicable in the relations between the parties’. As such, interpreters are obliged to take them into account together with the context in interpreting the ‘Limitation Clause’. And although the Tribunal did not expressly suggest this, its reasoning may be understood as having taken into account the rules set forth in Articles 26 and 27 VCLT alongside an emphasis on the need for the treaty’s effective interpretation.103 The Dutch District Court (correctly, as far as the current author is concerned) found that the rule set forth in Article 27 VCLT does not apply directly to the situation of a Limitation Clause. Yet, the court stopped there—​it did not take into account the rules set forth in Articles 26 and 27 VCLT in then interpreting that Limitation clause. It is also unclear whether it stopped there, because it considered these rules irrelevant or not applicable in the relationship between the parties and thus beyond the scope of the rule in Article 31(3)(c) VCLT. Further, as noted by the Arbitral Tribunal, if the wording of the ECT ‘Limitation Clause’ is interpreted, as the Dutch court did, to carve out from the scope of provisional application particular domestic laws that are inconsistent with the obligations under the ECT as provisionally applied, a problem of uncertainty arises because the ‘Limitation Clause’ does not specify (nor does it require signatories to specify) the domestic laws in issue. Because of the vagueness of the language ‘constitution, laws or regulations’ in the Limitation Clause, no other ECT Contracting Party (or individuals) may determine with certainty which ECT obligations are provisionally applicable for each Signatory.104 This is the case in relation to ECT provisions that protect investors but also those dealing strictly with inter-​ECT Contracting Parties relationships, such as trade and transit. Such uncertainty may also be incompatible with the object and purpose of a treaty intended to create stability and certainty (including the ECT whose purpose set out in Article 2 is to promote long-​term cooperation). If, instead of including such a Limitation Clause, a State decided to place a reservation to the provisional application agreement excluding the legal effect of certain ECT provisions in their (provisional) application to that State ‘to the extent that such provisional application [is] inconsistent with its [domestic laws]’, such a reservation could, according to the ILC, be invalid. This would not be ‘because it aims to preserve the integrity of specific rules of internal law’,105 but because it would be vague (it would not be clear which domestic rules are not inconsistent with provisional application),106 making it incompatible with the treaty’s

103 Qatar v Bahrain, Jurisdiction (n 27) 19 [35]; Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russia) (Provisional Measures, 15 October 2008) [2008] ICJ Rep 353, [134]. 104 M Arsanjani and M Reisman, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties in International Law: The Energy Charter Treaty Awards’, in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 86, 101. 105 ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(2), 383 [7]‌(‘Guide to Reservations Practice’). Guideline 3.1.5.5 on reservations relating to internal law provides that ‘[a] reservation by which a State . . . purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of a treaty or of the treaty as a whole in order to preserve the integrity of specific rules of the internal law of that State . . . in force at the time of the formulation of the reservation may be formulated only insofar as it does not affect an essential element of the treaty nor its general tenour.’ Ibid. For a consideration of the ILC Guide to Reservations Practice, see E Swaine in Chapter 12 of this volume. 106 Guide to Reservations Practice (n 105) Guideline 3.1.5.2 (‘A reservation shall be worded in such a way as to allow its meaning to be understood, in order to assess in particular its compatibility with the object and purpose of the treaty’). The ILC commentary accompanying the Guide to Reservations Practice explains that ‘[in cases where] a reservation [that] invokes the internal law of the State that has formulated it without identifying the provisions in question’ as ‘the vagueness and generality of the reservations referring to domestic law [makes] it impossible for the other States parties to take a position on them’. Ibid 364–​5 [4]‌. For this reason, such a reservation is incompatible with the treaty’s object and purpose. See ibid 367 [8].

248  Treaty Formation object and purpose, and thereby running afoul of Article 19(c) VCLT.107 If such clauses allow the effect that the Dutch Court interpreted Article 45(1) ECT to have (to introduce such an uncertain ‘piecemeal effect’), such clauses may be used as a technique for avoiding what might have otherwise constituted an invalid reservation.

C.  Invalidation of consent to be bound by the provisional application agreement For States whose constitution prohibits provisional application of treaties without the involvement of the legislature (or for States whose constitution permits provisional application of only some treaties or only under some conditions that relate to domestic procedures), the question arises whether the rule set forth in Article 46 VCLT applies to the agreement to apply the treaty provisionally.108 Constitutional rules that limit the capacity of a State to provisionally apply a treaty or restrict the capacity of the executive to consent to be bound by an agreement to provisionally apply a treaty could fall within the meaning of ‘domestic rules of fundamental importance’, which determine the scope of the customary rule set forth in Article 46 VCLT. That rule permits invalidation of the consent to be bound only if the consent involved a manifest breach of a domestic law rule of fundamental importance regarding the competence to conclude treaties. Such a domestic law rule may be a constitutional requirement that subjects consent to be bound by any agreement—​including an agreement to apply a treaty provisionally—​to a parliamentary decision. As discussed in Chapter 23, the threshold for invalidating consent under Article 46 is quite high: it requires a manifest violation of such internal law for invalidation; a non-​manifest violation does not entail such an effect. According to Article 46(2) VCLT, ‘[a]‌violation is manifest if it would be objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith’. In Cameroon v Nigeria (2002), the ICJ pronounced that while domestic rules concerning the authority to sign treaties for a State are rules of fundamental importance, the limitation on a head of State’s capacity (and by implication the capacity of the head of government and the minister of foreign affairs) to perform this function was not manifest unless properly publicized given these officials’ authority for the purpose of performing all acts relating to a treaty under the VCLT and customary international law.109 The application of the rule set forth in Article 46 VCLT may flow logically, since provisional application is based on an international agreement. The ILC Draft Guide to Provisional Application supports the proposition that Article 46 VCLT or a rule mutatis mutandis applies to agreements on provisional application.110 However, it is not beyond doubt that this rule applies to provisional application agreements. For instance, in Yukos

107 According to the ILC, an impermissible reservation is invalid (null and void). Ibid (Guideline 4.5.1). For more on the admissibility of reservations and the consequences of an invalid reservation, see Chapter 12. 108 3270th ILC Meeting (n 1) 16 (Šturma). 109 Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea intervening) (Judgment) [2002] ICJ Rep 303, [265], [266], The Court also found that States are not under a general legal obligation to keep themselves informed of legislative and constitutional developments in other States. Ibid [266]. As such, the fact that the constitutional requirement was public under Nigeria’s domestic law did not mean that its breach was manifest under Art 46(2) VCLT. 110 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (n 9) Draft Guideline 11.

Provisional Application of Treaties  249 v Russia, James Crawford, in his expert opinion, stated that the scope of Article 46 VCLT ‘does not cover provisional application, but only definitive acceptance’.111 Under the law of treaties, termination and invalidity are different legal concepts with different legal consequences. Termination and withdrawal operate ex nunc, while invalidity of the treaty and of one’s consent to be bound operates ex tunc.112 If the rule set forth in Article 25(2) on termination of provisional application was intended to be exclusive of grounds of invalidity, some evidence is required that those grounds had been considered and a choice was made to displace them. If there is no evidence to the contrary, the lex specialis argument can be made only in relation to other grounds of termination. Despite the fact that numerous States whose constitutions do not permit provisional application raised their concerns about what became Article 25, this issue was not specifically discussed in the Vienna Conference. Italy asked whether in provisional application under paragraph 2 ‘termination [would] take effect ex tunc or ex nunc’?113 Uganda stated that the ‘termination [of provisional application] [meant] that the State . . . was later able to withdraw from the obligation’.114 Uganda’s delegate proposed the following amendment to paragraph 2 of the provision: [T]‌he provisional application of a treaty or a part of a treaty with respect to a State shall not take place or shall be terminated if that State notifies the other States between which the treaty is being applied provisionally of its intention not to become a party to the treaty.115

Uganda’s proposal entailed that, by notification, the signatory would choose either to withdraw from provisional application or invalidate its consent to be bound by the provisional application agreement. There was no proposal to introduce a separate invalidation procedure. However, paragraph 2 remained unchanged, even though the Drafting Committee was requested to consider Uganda’s proposal.116 It is not clear what was the reasoning behind not introducing grounds of invalidation for a provisional application agreement. It is true that other Vienna Conference delegates and officers never argued that the rule of invalidation of consent to be bound set forth in Article 46 VCLT applied and thus there was no need for such an insertion in Article 25(2) VCLT. This is despite the fact that Humphrey Waldock, who served as an Expert Consultant to the negotiations, indicated that ‘article 22 did not seem to involve any real risks to States which might have very strict constitutional requirements because . . . there was no need for the State concerned to resort to the procedure of provisional application at all’.117 Waldock thus seemed unconvinced about the value of addressing invalidation of provisional application.118 Such limited consideration of this issue in the negotiations indicates that there was no concrete understanding that the grounds of invalidation set forth in Article VCLT 46 would be available to—​or excluded from—​provisional application. However, even the attempt

111

Yukos v Russia (n 72) [220]. F Capotorti, ‘L’Extinction et la Suspension des Traités’ (1971) 134 RcD 417, 457. 113 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 42 [84]. 114 Ibid 43 [93]. 115 Ibid (emphasis added). 116 Ibid [97]. 117 Ibid [90]. 118 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) [94]. 112

250  Treaty Formation to introduce a ground for the invalidation of provisional application was proposed within what became Article 25(2) VCLT. This may suggest that the drafters perceived provisional application as a special regime within the law of treaties, and may support the argument that the grounds of termination envisaged in the rule set forth in Article 25 exclude the general grounds of invalidation of treaties from the scope of provisional application. The analysis of practice in the Vienna Conference discussed in Section V.D below may also support this interpretation. At the time of this edition’s publication, there is no evidence of State (or IO) practice that the rule set forth in Article 46 VCLT (and Article 46 of the 1986 VCLT) applies to provisional application agreements. The written observations of governments to the first reading of the Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application may clarify this issue in the future.

V.  Termination of Provisional Application Article 25 envisages three ways in which provisional application can be terminated. First, Article 25(1) VCLT stipulates that the treaty ‘is applied provisionally pending its entry into force’. The provisional application of a treaty (or part of it) terminates upon the treaty’s entry into force.119 This is confirmed by the VCLT’s preparatory works discussed in Section V.A below. Second, Article 25(2) VCLT, by deferring to situations where ‘the negotiating States have otherwise agreed’, envisages that provisional application may be terminated by agreement. This may be part of the main treaty (that is being provisionally applied) or it may be a separate agreement made by all States who agreed on the provisional application.120 Although the wording ‘[u]‌nless the treaty otherwise provides or the negotiating States have otherwise agreed’ gives the impression that the agreement establishing the entitlement to withdraw from provisional application has to pre-​exist, it is possible that such an agreement may be established subsequently. This is also confirmed by the preparatory works.121 Third, a treaty’s provisional application can be terminated unilaterally for a State ‘if that State notifies the other States between which the treaty is being applied provisionally of its intention not to become a party to the treaty’. Section V.A discusses the preparatory works for Article 25(2) VCLT. Section V.B analyses the consequences of terminating provisional application followed by Section V.C’s examination of whether other unilateral grounds of termination may apply to a provisional application agreement.

119 Mathy (n 6) 652–​3 [28]; IM Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 46 (implicitly). 120 See eg Arrangement on Provisional Application of the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (16 December 2006) OJ L0081, 358, Arts 4–​5 (providing for withdrawal from provisional application on 120 days written notice). 121 As Expert Consultant, Waldock, explained ‘[t]‌he International Law Commission had discussed [the question of termination of provisional application] and in its earlier drafts had actually made provision for termination. [I]t had arrived at the conclusion that the contents of any provision on the subject of termination would either go without saying, or would be covered by article 51 on the termination of treaties by agreement’. Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 145 [20].

Provisional Application of Treaties  251

A.  The preparatory works of Article 25(2) VCLT The ILC had included in the first reading of the Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties (1962) that provisional entry in force continued ‘until either the treaty [had] entered into force definitively or the States concerned [had] agreed to terminate the provisional application of the treaty’ (Draft Article 24).122 On the basis of a comment by Sweden,123 Waldock, as Special Rapporteur, made a new proposal in 1965: the treaty would continue to be in force provisionally until either its definitive entry into force or until ‘it [would] have become clear that one of the parties [would] not ratify or, as the case may be, approve it’.124 The relevant sentence was eventually deleted from Draft Article 22 on the second reading. The accompanying commentary explained that ‘the Commission decided to dispense with the provision and to leave the point to be determined by the agreement of the parties and the operation of the rules regarding termination of treaties’.125 The Vienna Conference included the termination provision (paragraph 2). This change eased concerns that provisional application might thwart compliance with a State’s constitutional law since the executive could terminate a treaty’s provisional application should a parliamentary body indicate that it would not consent to the treaty or to its provisional application. At the first session of the Vienna Conference (1968), the US delegate proposed the insertion of the following paragraph: ‘Provisional application of a treaty or part of a treaty may terminate as agreed by the States concerned or upon notification by one of those States to the other State or States that it does not intend to become definitively bound by the treaty’.126 Belgium proposed an amendment to the US proposal noting ‘[t]‌here was no question in that case of applying the provisions of article 53 of the draft relating to denunciation of treaties . . . It should therefore suffice to terminate provisional application if the State concerned manifested its wish not to become a party to the treaty’.127 Hungary and Poland proposed the insertion of a requirement to give notice of termination of a provisional application.128 These amendments were referred to the Drafting Committee,129 which introduced text that took into account the various proposals. The Committee of the Whole then adopted without a vote the text (Article 22(2)), which reads as the current text of Article 25(2) VCLT.130 As a separate matter, the second session of the Vienna Conference (1969), numerous States made statements relating to termination of provisional application. The United Kingdom stated its understanding ‘that the inclusion of the phrase “pending its entry into force” . . . did not preclude the provisional application of a treaty by one or more States after the treaty had entered into force definitively between other States. A regime where a treaty had entered into force definitively between certain States, but was nonetheless being applied provisionally by other States, was not unknown in international practice’.131 India expressly 122 [1962] YBILC, vol I, 259 [37] (emphasis added) (Article 21); [1962] YBILC, vol II, 182. 123 H Waldock, ‘Fourth Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1965] YBILC, vol II, 58 (Sweden). 124 Ibid 58 [3]‌. 125 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 210 [4]‌(emphasis added). 126 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 140 [24] (oral proposal). 127 Ibid 142 [42] (Belgium); see also ibid 142 [45] (France). 128 Ibid 144 [6]‌(Belgium: UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​C.1/​L.194; and Hungary and Poland: UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​C.1/​ L.198). 129 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 146 [28]–​[29]. 130 Ibid 426–​7 [24]–​[28]. 131 Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 40 [56].

252  Treaty Formation agreed with this understanding.132 No State objected. However, it was not clarified which would be the applicable law in the relationship between those that were parties to the treaty and those that were applying the treaty provisionally. However, as explained in Section III.A.4 above, logically, the provisional application agreement applies to that relationship.

B.  The consequences of termination of provisional application and ‘sunset clauses’ 1. Consequences of termination of provisional application The termination of provisional application produces a similar effect as that of terminating any treaty.133 The termination of the provisional application agreement releases the parties to the provisional application agreement from any obligation further to perform (provisionally) the ‘main treaty or parts of the treaty that was provisionally applied’ from the date that termination takes effect. In case of unilateral withdrawal (or unilateral termination under Article 25(2)) from the provisional application agreement, this rule applies in the relations between that State and each of the other parties to the provisional application agreement (and logically any treaty party in the relationship with the State terminating for itself the provisional application agreement) from the date when such denunciation or withdrawal takes effect. In case of termination of provisional application by virtue of the treaty’s entry into force for some States (or IOs), as argued in Section III.A.4 above, the provisional application agreement continues to apply in the relationship between the State (or IO) that has become party (and thus for which provisional termination has terminated) and States (or IOs) applying the treaty provisionally. 2. ‘Sunset clauses’ Some provisional application agreements include a ‘sunset clause’—​a clause that purports to continue the operation of provisional application after the termination or after the withdrawal from the provisional application agreement. An example of such a clause is Article 45(3)(b) ECT: In the event that a signatory terminates provisional application under subparagraph (a), the obligation of the signatory under paragraph (1)  to apply Parts III [Investment Promotion and Protection] and V [Dispute Settlement] with respect to any Investments made in its Area during such provisional application by Investors of other signatories shall nevertheless remain in effect with respect to those Investments for twenty years following the effective date of termination.134

The VCLT and the 1986 VCLT do not deal with the specific issue of ‘sunset clauses’. However, it is reasonable to argue that ‘sunset clauses’ attached to a provisional application agreement cannot be affected by the notification of the intention not to become party to the treaty. The whole purpose of the ‘sunset clause’ is to survive the termination of provisional application.

132

Ibid 41 [68]. See Art 70 VCLT. Chapter 26 discusses treaty termination extensively. 134 Art 45(3)(b) ECT. 133

Provisional Application of Treaties  253 If the notification for terminating the provisional application terminated the ‘sunset clause’, the ‘sunset clause’ would be rendered meaningless. The better view is that the option of terminating provisional application by notification cannot (and does not) affect the ‘sunset clause’ because the latter is necessarily beyond the scope of the entitlement to terminate by notification (unless there is unequivocal evidence to the contrary in the provisional application agreement). Alternatively, it may be argued that ‘sunset clauses’ are based on a separate agreement to the provisional application agreement. As such, they are governed by pacta sunt servanda.135

C.  Notification of one’s intention not to become party to the treaty Article 25(2) provides that the State that provisionally applies a treaty or part of it, may terminate provisional application for itself by unilaterally notifying ‘the other States between which the treaty is being applied provisionally’ of its ‘intention not to become a party to the treaty’. In instances where there are States that apply the treaty provisionally and States for which the treaty has entered in force (and there is no agreement to apply the treaty provisionally between a group of States excluding others for which the treaty enters in force), the question arises about to whom the notification has to be made: only to those that provisionally apply the treaty or also those for which the treaty has entered into force? As explained in Section III.A.4 above, the VCLT does not address (and thus does not exclude) the possibility of continuing provisional application (as the minimum common denominator) in the relationship between treaty parties and States (and IOs) that apply the treaty provisionally. Following this reasoning, the notification has to be made not only to those States that only apply the treaty provisionally but also to those that have become parties. As a separate matter, Article 18(a) VCLT provides that a State that has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance, or approval is obliged to refrain from acts that would defeat the treaty’s object and purpose, until ‘it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty’. Given that ‘the intention not to become party to the treaty’ can terminate (by virtue of notification) provisional application and the duty under Article 18, the question arises whether the State that notifies its intention not to become party to the treaty terminates provisional application for itself and by virtue of the same notification it also terminates its obligation not to defeat the treaty’s object and purpose (under Article 18 VCLT). If the State making such notification clarifies that it does or does not release itself also from Article 18, that express choice shall apply.136 But, in most cases States will not necessarily be express. In such cases, 135 Whether—​in either of these two different classifications of sunset clauses—​unilateral grounds of withdrawal from the sunset clause are available is beyond the scope of this chapter. 136 If one instead considers that provisional application does not continue to govern the relationship between parties and States provisionally applying the treaty, a notification concerning the termination of provisional application would have to be addressed only to the States provisionally applying the treaty and not also to treaty parties. Since Article 18 does not limit the group of States to which the relevant intention has to be made clear (including by notification, which is the relevant case here), it would have to be made to all negotiating States, treaty parties, and those provisionally applying the treaty. The argument could then be made that a notification made to all negotiating States, parties, and States applying the treaty provisionally may indicate solely one’s intention to terminate the duty under Article 18, and not to terminate provisional application. However, it is unlikely that a State would seek to release itself of a lesser obligation under Article 18 while remaining bound by the obligation to perform the provisional application agreement.

254  Treaty Formation it is reasonable to argue that by virtue of one act the notifying State releases itself from the lesser obligation to perform the provisional application agreement and from the obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of the treaty (unless it clarifies in the notification or by any other manner that it does not release itself from the duty under Article 18).

D.  Other grounds of termination and suspension of the operation of the provisional application agreement Article 25 VCLT and 1986 VCLT do not expressly indicate whether the other grounds for the invalidation, termination, withdrawal, and suspension of a treaty provided in Part V, Section 3 VCLT respectively apply to a provisional application agreement (or the treaty as provisionally applied). It may be argued that the rules on provisional application are lex specialis and exclude all grounds of unilateral entitlement to terminate, invalidate, or suspend the operation of the provisional application agreement. In order for Article 25(2) to displace such general grounds, it has to overlap in terms of subject matter with each general ground and it has to reflect an intention to deviate from these general rules. The ILC had decided to leave termination to be determined by the agreement of the parties and the operation of the rules regarding termination of treaties,137 thus implicitly recognizing that general rules on termination (at least) would be available. States in the Vienna Conference, however, considered that unilateral withdrawal from provisional application was exceptional;138 that ‘[the provisional application article] established a special regime [which] was a similar situation to that which arose in private law in connexion with so-​called pre-​contractual instruments where a kind of specific relationship was established between a contract and the instruments preceding it’;139 and that ‘[t]‌here was no question in that case of applying the provisions of article 53 of the draft relating to denunciation of treaties . . . It should therefore suffice to terminate provisional application if the State concerned manifested its wish not to become a party to the treaty’.140 This supports the argument that Article 25(2) was seen as an exclusive ground for termination. The ILC Draft Guide to Provisional Application contains a ‘non-​prejudice clause’—​Draft Guideline 9(3)—​in relation to all other grounds of termination and suspension set forth in Part V VCLT. In so doing, the ILC has left open the possibility that the grounds for termination (and possibly suspension of the treaty’s operation, and invalidation) apply to the provisional application agreement. Some governments (and IOs) in their oral statements in the Sixth Committee (2017–​18) have supported the general proposition that some general termination or suspension grounds (especially those concerning responses to material breach) may apply to provisional application agreements by analogy.141 Others have shown

137 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 210 [4]‌. 138 Iran was reluctant about the fact that the opportunity was given to a signatory to withdraw unilaterally from provisional application. Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 23) 40 [62] and 41 [71]. 139 Ibid 42 [82] (emphasis added) (Costa Rica). 140 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 22) 142 [42] (Belgium); see also ibid 142 [45] (France). 141 UNGA Sixth Committee, 72nd session, Agenda Item 81, Cluster I, Ch V (October 2017)  4 (Statement of Austria); ibid [9]‌–​[10] (Statement of the European Union); ibid 4 (Statement of the Czech Republic); ibid 6 (Statement of Spain); ibid 1 (Statement of Thailand). Available at .

Provisional Application of Treaties  255 reluctance in this respect.142 Further clarifications may be expected by the ILC and the responses of governments in the coming years.

Conclusions Provisional application is a useful technique in the treaty-​making practice of States (and IOs), which recognizes and addresses the practical realities of modern treaty-​making and the (increasing) parliamentary involvement in international affairs. Provisional application is based on an international agreement and cannot be based solely on a unilateral undertaking. This agreement may take various forms—​written, oral, or tacit—​and has to be made among negotiating States. It brings about the treaty’s application (or some of its provisions) prior to the treaty’s entry into force, and once triggered it establishes an obligation on the State that is provisionally applying the treaty to perform it (or part of it), pending its entry into force. It thus differs from the default obligation set forth in Article 18 VCLT not to defeat the treaty’s object and purpose and from the retroactive application of a treaty. Provisional application may be terminated: on the date of entry into force of the treaty for each State; by agreement of all negotiating States (or IOs) of the provisional application agreement; or unilaterally for the State (or IO) making a notification that the notifying State (or IO) does not intend to become party to the main treaty. Such notification, however, does not entail the termination of any ‘sunset clause’ attached to a provisional application agreement and the State remains obliged to perform the treaty or some of its provisions after the termination of the provisional application, pursuant to the terms of the ‘sunset clause’. Further, the preparatory works of the VCLT suggest reluctance of State delegates to accept that the grounds of invalidation, termination, and suspension apply to the provisional application agreement, and imply that the grounds for termination in Article 25 were exclusive. However, in the future, State practice may take place supporting or rejecting whether the ground of termination set forth in Article 25(2) VCLT is exclusive of any other ground of invalidation, termination, or suspension set forth in Part V VCLT, because the ILC has recently left open this issue in its Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application (on first reading). A major controversy surrounding provisional application, even at the Vienna Conference, has been the relationship between the obligation to provisionally apply a treaty (under international law) and domestic law. As discussed in this chapter, this relationship takes primarily three forms. First, the general obligation not to justify non-​performance of a provisionally applied treaty on the basis of one’s domestic law (Section IV.A). Second, the case where the provisional application agreement itself expressly subjects provisional application to consistency with domestic law (Section IV.B). In this case, the rule that a State cannot invoke its domestic law in order to justify non-​performance with a provisional application agreement does not apply. The precise relationship between domestic law and provisional application in the case of a clause delineating the scope of provisional application is a matter of treaty interpretation of each clause separately. However, States 142 Urging for caution in this respect see UNGA Sixth Committee, 73rd session, Agenda Item 82, Cluster II, Ch VII (October 2018): 3 (Statement of The Netherlands); 3 (State of Russian Federation). Available at .

256  Treaty Formation should be encouraged, when drafting Limitation clauses that refer to domestic law, to be clear concerning whether the clause restricts the availability of provisional application (as a principle/​institution) or the scope of obligations in the main treaty that are to be applied provisionally. Otherwise such clauses introduce considerable uncertainty for other States that apply the treaty provisionally (and for individuals, such as investors, to the extent that they derive benefits or rights from the provisional application). As the ‘Yukos saga’ demonstrates, this may lead to protracted disputes and international judicial settlement; indeed, that saga has been further extended with confidential arbitral proceedings in Yukos Capital v Russia,143 and domestic annulment procedures that were brought in Switzerland.144 Third, the question whether a State may invalidate its consent to be bound by a provisional application agreement by virtue of the fact that its constitutional law prohibits provisional application or subjects it to certain requirements may be the next frontier in the field of provisional application and its relationship with domestic law (Section IV.B). In principle, the possibility is based on logic. However, the preparatory works indicate that—​ despite the fact that there was some concern about the need to invalidate consent to be bound rather than to withdraw from provisional application—​there was resistance to accepting such a separate consequence, and resistance to accepting unilateral invalidation by relying on grounds or procedures other than the one provided for termination in what became Article 25(2) VCLT. Since the ILC is currently considering this possibility, future responses of governments are likely to shed light on State practice and pinion juris, and may confirm that the rule set forth in Article 25 does not permit grounds for invalidation or they may further develop the law in this respect. Overall, provisional application enables States (and Ios) to establish treaty relations, rights, and obligations, while dispensing with the formalities of effectuating the whole treaty machinery, which may enter into force at a later time (or never). At the same time, under the VCLT (and 1986 VCLT) provisional application can be terminated on the basis of a lower threshold than the stringent requirements provided pursuant to the grounds under Part V VCLT (and 1986 VCLT). On the one hand, the termination provision operates as a ‘safety net’ (albeit not complete, since its effects are ex nunc) against the violation of internal constitutional law requirements: it allows States (and Ios) to terminate provisional application for that State (or IO) thus enabling them to return to compliance with internal law, if their internal law prohibits (specifically or by implication) provisional application. On the other hand, it also entails a lesser level of stability and security of relations: States (or Ios) that apply the treaty provisionally may terminate provisional application simply by notifying their intention not to become treaty parties (and irrespective of whether the reason for termination relates to constitutional law). Despite its risks, provisional application is a useful option available to States (and Ios) on the basis of their contractual freedom, and offers considerable advantages, as discussed in 143 Yukos Capital SARL v Russian Federation, UNCITRAL (Geneva Tribunal), Interim Award on Jurisdiction, 18 January 2017. 144 Fédération de Russie c Yukos Capital Sarl, Arrêt du 20 Juillet 2017, Cour de droit civil, available at . The Federal Swiss Court rejected the request to annul the Arbitral Tribunal’s Interim Award on Jurisdiction because the Tribunal had discarded in a definite manner only three out of five preliminary objections concerning its jurisdiction. Given that the Tribunal had not pronounced on the other two objections (it had decided to deal with them in the merits), the Tribunal had not as yet pronounced that it was competent or not, and thus the Federal Court was unable to deal with the request. Ibid  10–​11.

Provisional Application of Treaties  257 this chapter. This is reflected in the number of provisional application agreements to date. It can be expected that States (and Ios) will continue to use provisional application as an important medium in the field of international lawmaking.

Recommended Reading M Arsanjani and M Reisman, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties in International Law: The Energy Charter Treaty Awards’, in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 86 RE Dalton, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) 220 T Gazzini, ‘Provisional Application of the ECT in the Yukos Case’ (2015) 30 ICSID Rev 293 ILC, ‘Text of the draft guidelines on provisional application of treaties with commentaries thereto adopted by the Commission on first reading’ (2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10, 245–​270 T Ishikawa, ‘Provisional Application of Treaties at the Crossroads between International and Domestic Law’ (2016) 31 ICSID Rev 270 H Kriege, ‘Article 25:  Provisional Application’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd ed Springer, Berlin 2018) 441 R Lefeber, ‘The Provisional Application of Treaties’ in J Klabbers and R Lefeber (eds), Essays on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague/​Boston 1998) 81 R Lefeber, ‘Treaties, Provisional Application’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2011) D Mathy, ‘Article 25’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2011) 639 F Montag, Völkerrechtliche Verträge mit vorläufigen Wirkungen (Humboldt, Berlin 1986) A Quast Mertsch, Provisionally Applied Treaties:  Their Binding Force and Legal Nature (Martius Nijhoff, Leiden 2012) D Vignes, ‘Une notion ambiguë: la mise en application provisoire des traités’ (1972) 43 Annuaire Français de Droit International 181

11

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation Depositaries and Registration Arancha Hinojal-​Oyarbide

Introduction A treaty’s formation will often involve actors and acts beyond the parties and their communications inter se. This chapter analyses two of the most prominent examples of this phenomenon: (i) the role of the depositary of a multilateral treaty; and (ii) the obligation to register with the UN Secretariat bilateral and multilateral treaties and treaty formalities.1 The depositary of a treaty is the custodian of both its original text and the formal instruments by which States establish their participation in that treaty.2 The depositary usually prepares the only original of the treaty to which States will affix their signatures as well as the certified copies of the treaty utilized by States to complete their internal ratification procedures. The depositary verifies the acceptability of full powers to sign and instruments of consent to be bound (such as ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession), as well as related reservations, declarations, objections, etc. The depositary informs all States concerned of such treaty formalities, the entry into force of the treaty, and any subsequent amendments and withdrawals. Depositaries usually exists only in the multilateral context; by its nature, a bilateral treaty does not need a depositary. In the bilateral context, each party normally prepares and takes custody of one original text, and the signatories and parties inform each other of all relevant legal formalities performed under that treaty. Only very rarely will a bilateral treaty designate a depositary.3 Sometimes, bilateral treaties are said to be deposited with an international organization (IO), but in reality, they are subject to registration or safekeeping with an IO rather than technically being deposited with it.4 In contrast, the increasing number of parties to multilateral treaties, their growing number and complexity, as well as their procedural issues have transformed the depositary into an indispensable actor in the multilateral treaty framework. Thus, most multilateral treaties today expressly designate a depositary. The depositary is generally a State or an IO. 1 This chapter builds on and updates the first edition chapter, which the current co-​author wrote with Annebeth Rosenboom. See A Rosenboom and A Hinojal-​Oyarbide, ‘Managing the Process of Treaty Formation’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) ch 10. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. 2 In this chapter, the term ‘treaty’ means any international agreement concluded between subjects of international law with treaty-​making capacity and binding under international law. Unless otherwise noted, the term ‘State’ may also mean an international organization entitled to negotiate and become party to a treaty. 3 See eg Agreement between the State of Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany (10 September 1952) 162 UNTS 205, Art 17 (assigning to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations certain depositary functions). 4 For example, the Organization of American States website suggests that it acts as depositary for certain bilateral treaties. But, in fact, these bilateral treaties are registered—​rather than deposited—​with this Organization.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  259 The United Nations, through its Secretary-​General, serves as a depository for around 600 multilateral treaties—​the world’s largest collection of treaties of universal scope. Other States and IOs perform important depositary functions as well. The United States, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are among the biggest State depositaries.5 For example, the United States is depositary for the UN Charter, the Netherlands for the Hague Conventions on private international law, and Switzerland for the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005. IOs such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the Council of Europe (COE) are likewise depositaries of other major multilateral treaties.6 Apart from depositary practice, Article 102 of the UN Charter requires UN Member States to register their treaties with the UN Secretariat. Registration is accomplished by the registering party’s submission of certified copies of the treaty and certified relevant information relating to that treaty for its inclusion in a public register. The UN Charter obligation to register has its origins in Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which aimed to prevent the secret diplomacy and secret treaties that world leaders believed was one of the First World War’s main causes.7 Today, registration with—​and subsequent publication by—​the UN Secretariat is of critical importance for States, IOs, law practitioners, and scholars. The recording and dissemination of treaties keeps States and other stakeholders abreast of developments in substantive international law and procedural treaty matters, which contributes, in turn, to the development of legal principles. Treaty registration is also of critical importance both for NGOs, given their increasing involvement in treaty-​making and implementation, and, more importantly, for the general public as the ultimate subjects of treaty rights and obligations. Today, over 72,000 treaties and 127,000 treaty actions are registered or filed and recorded with the UN. Despite the Article 102 obligation, however, not all UN members register and those that do, do not register all their treaties. The reasons for non-​registration vary, including a lack of resources, unawareness of the obligation, or reliance upon other parties to complete a registration. The Treaty Section of the Office of Legal Affairs of the UN Secretariat in New York (Treaty Section) discharges the functions of the UN Secretary-​General as depositary of multilateral treaties and performs the registration functions of the UN Secretariat in relation to treaties submitted by UN Member States in the fulfilment of their Article 102 obligation. The first part of this chapter elaborates on the role of the depositary, focusing particularly on 5 See eg US Department of State, ‘Depositary Information’ at (listing multilateral treaties deposited with the United States); Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Depositary Duties of the Kingdom of the Netherlands’ ; Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Switzerland as Depositary State of the Geneva Conventions’ . 6 For example, the Director-​General of ILO is the depositary for 189 conventions and six protocols dealing with fundamental labour principles and rights, and technical labour matters. The Director-​General of UNESCO is the depositary of thirty conventions, including several on the protection of cultural heritage, and the recognition of studies, diplomas, and degrees in the regions of the world. The Director-​General of IAEA is the depositary of eighteen conventions and protocols concluded under IAEA auspices relating to matters such as nuclear safety, nuclear security, safeguards and nuclear non-​proliferation, and civil liability for nuclear damage. 7 RB Lillich, ‘The Obligation to Register Treaties and International Agreements with the United Nations’ (1971) 65 AJIL 771.

260  Treaty Formation the UN Secretary-​General (the Secretary-​General) as a depositary since its practice often guides other depositaries. The publication Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties (Summary of Practice),8 prepared by the Treaty Section, describes the main features of this practice through 1994 when the Summary of Practice was last published. New developments in the role and practice of the Secretary-​General since that time will be highlighted in this chapter as well. The chapter’s second part will turn to the obligation of UN members to register both bilateral and multilateral treaties, the registration by non-​UN members and depositaries, and the UN Secretariat’s obligation to publish treaties registered with it.

I.  The Role of the Depositary The role of the depositary traditionally commences with the adoption of the treaty text that designates it as such. At that moment, the provisions regulating the legal procedures for the treaty to come into existence—​the so-​called ‘final clauses’ or ‘final provisions’—​ become effective.9 However, a depositary’s role may commence prior to the adoption of the treaty; the Secretary-​General, for example, regularly provides legal advice on the final clauses during the treaty negotiation phase. Most multilateral treaties today expressly designate a State or an IO (normally its chief administrative officer) to act as depositary in a separate provision. The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) dedicates Articles 76 and 77 to the depositary. The international and impartial nature of the depositary functions is enshrined in Article 76: 1. The designation of the depositary of a treaty may be made by the negotiating States, either in the treaty itself or in some other manner. The depositary may be one or more States, an international organization or the chief administrative officer of the organization. 2. The functions of the depositary of a treaty are international in character and the depositary is under an obligation to act impartially in their performance. In particular, the fact that a treaty has not entered into force between certain of the parties or that a difference has appeared between a State and a depositary with regard to the performance of the latter’s functions shall not affect that obligation.

Article 77 enumerates the most common functions of a depositary as follows: 1. The functions of a depositary, unless otherwise provided in the treaty or agreed by the contracting States, comprise in particular: (a) keeping custody of the original text of the treaty and of any full powers delivered to the depositary; (b) preparing certified copies of the original text and preparing any further text of the treaty in such additional languages as may be required by the treaty and transmitting them to the parties and to the States entitled to become parties to the treaty; 8 Treaty Section, Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties (UN, New York 1994) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev 1 (‘Summary of Practice’). 9 Art 24 VCLT provides that final clauses—​such as the designation of the depositary, consent to be bound, or entry into force—​have a binding effect even before the treaty’s entry into force; these provisions apply from the time of the text’s adoption.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  261





(c) receiving any signatures to the treaty and receiving and keeping custody of any instruments, notifications and communications relating to it; (d) examining whether the signature or any instrument, notification or communication relating to the treaty is in due and proper form and, if need be, bringing the matter to the attention of the State in question; (e) informing the parties and the States entitled to become parties to the treaty of acts, notifications and communications relating to the treaty; (f) informing the States entitled to become parties to the treaty when the number of signatures or of instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession required for the entry into force of the treaty has been received or deposited; (g) registering the treaty with the Secretariat of the United Nations; (h) performing the functions specified in other provisions of the present Convention. 2. In the event of any difference appearing between a State and the depositary as to the performance of the latter’s functions, the depositary shall bring the question to the attention of the signatory States and the contracting States or, where appropriate, of the competent organ of the international organization concerned.10

The depositary’s functions, as set out in the VCLT, are today well-​established and, therefore, there is no need for negotiating States to enumerate them in the treaty. Unless a new function is to be set up, simply designating a depositary is sufficient. The depositary is primarily guided by the treaty’s procedural provisions, normally contained in its final clauses, in carrying out its functions. Such clauses need to be clearly drafted so that States and the depositary do not face difficulties in their interpretation and application. The depositary does not, however, get involved with the application of any treaty provisions unrelated to its functions as depositary. Thus, it definitively does not get involved in interpreting or applying any substantive treaty provisions. When such issues arise, the depositary advises States that it does not deal with them, although it circulates communications relating to the implementation of a treaty when so required under that treaty. When an IO is assigned depositary functions, its chief administrative officer may also be requested to carry out administrative functions in relation to the treaty, such as issuing invitations to conferences of States parties or maintaining technical registers. These administrative functions are not considered by the Secretary-​General as depositary functions and are, accordingly, normally carried out by one of the substantive offices of the IO or by the secretariat set out in the treaty. The Secretary-​General consistently advises negotiating States that they must clearly distinguish between these two depositary and administrative functions and reflect it in the draft. Thus, for example, the Paris Agreement, which is deposited with the Secretary-​General, provides that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat—​and not the Secretary-​General—​will record and maintain in a public register ‘nationally determined contributions’ communicated by the Parties.11 Nevertheless, where an adopted treaty assigns the ‘Secretary-​General of the United Nations’

10 For the negotiating history of Arts 76 and 77 VCLT, see ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 921–​46; L Calfisch, ‘Art 76’ and ‘Art 77’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, 1702–​15; H Tichy and P Bittner, ‘Art 76’ and ‘Art 77’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 1401–​30. 11 Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016)  (I-​54113) Art 4(12).

262  Treaty Formation the performance of administrative functions, the depositary will advise that such functions should be performed by the substantive secretariat. In carrying out the depositary functions, the Secretary-​General is guided not only by the provisions found in the treaty, but also public international law, and in particular the law of treaties, including customary international law as codified in the VCLT. The Secretary-​ General also follows his depositary practice, the main features of which are described in the Summary of Practice.12 In some cases, the Secretary-​General is further guided by relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and other UN organs. The acceptance of depositary functions by the Secretary-​General is not automatic. It is the Secretary-​General’s practice to restrict the assumption of depositary functions to treaties of global scope, usually those adopted by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) or concluded by plenipotentiary conferences convened by UN organs. The Secretary-​General also accepts a depositary role for regional treaties drawn-​up within the framework of the UN regional commissions and open to participation by their entire membership. However, it remains within the Secretary-​General’s discretion to make exceptions to this policy and to accept the depositary role for any multilateral treaty deemed appropriate. Where a treaty is adopted within the UN framework, the depositary has to be consulted in advance, particularly so that it may comment on the final clauses. In 2001, the sheer volume of treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General (and some difficulties regarding the interpretation and application of final clauses) led the Secretary-​General to issue a bulletin establishing procedures to be followed by UN departments, offices, and officials with regard to treaties concluded by or under UN auspices.13 The bulletin describes, inter alia, the procedure to be followed when a multilateral treaty is intended to be deposited with the Secretary-​General, including a requirement that draft final clauses must be submitted by the relevant department, office, or regional commission to the Treaty Section for review and comment prior to finalization. Even though this bulletin is addressed to the departments, offices, and other entities of the UN, the same procedures apply to treaties drawn up outside the UN framework where it is intended that the Secretary-​General be the depositary. In these cases, the Secretary-​ General must also receive—​and accept—​a request to perform depositary functions. For example, requests for the Secretary-​General to act as the depositary were made in the case of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​ Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (Anti-​Personnel Landmines Convention)14 and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.15 Both conventions were negotiated at diplomatic conferences outside of the UN framework. The Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, their Ammunition and all Parts and Components that can be used for their Manufacture, Repair and Assembly is a regional treaty which was negotiated outside the framework of the UN regional commission for Africa and restricts participation to members of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and 12 Summary of Practice (n 8). 13 See UN Secretariat, ‘Procedures to be followed by the departments, offices and regional commissions of the United Nations with regard to treaties and international agreements’ (28 August 2001) UN Doc ST/​SGB/​2001/​7 (‘UNSG Depositary Procedures’). 14 Anti-​Personnel Landmines Convention (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 2056 UNTS 211, Art 21. 15 Convention on Cluster Munitions (adopted 30 May 2008, entered into force 1 August 2010) 2688 UNTS 39, Art 22.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  263 Rwanda. However, the Secretary-​General accepted to be its depositary based on (i) the role that the UN Secretariat (Office for Disarmament Affairs) had played in its negotiation and adoption, (ii) the active involvement of other UN entities, and (iii) the encouragement for participation in the Convention contained in a UNGA Resolution adopted during its 65th session.16 Treaties that are intended to be deposited with the Secretary-​General must confer the depositary functions on the Secretary-​General and not on any other official. The Secretary-​ General does not accept the role of co-​depositary.17

A.  The original treaty and the certified true copies Following adoption of a treaty’s text, the depositary normally prepares the original treaty. As the original must include all authentic languages, the text in all authentic languages must be submitted to the depositary. When the adopted text of a treaty deposited with the Secretary-​General is submitted to the Treaty Section—​which today is done only by electronic means—​it is carefully reviewed to ensure completeness before formatting the original treaty. The original contains a page with the title in all authentic languages followed by the text in all authentic languages, organized in English alphabetical order. Following the text is a signature page for each State that may sign the treaty where the State’s name in all authentic languages appears.18 The original treaty is bound as a loose-​leaf until its closing for signature so that the names of potential new signatories or changes in States’ name can be inserted.19 Treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General are, in most cases, authentic in the six official languages of the UN: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. Although in the past the Secretary-​General has accepted in deposit treaties concluded in authentic languages other than the six UN official languages, currently, the Secretary-​General only accepts treaties authentic in all or some of the six UN official languages. Certified true copies based on the original treaty that contain the title page and text in all authentic languages in the sequence described above are then printed. The Under-​ Secretary-​General for Legal Affairs and UN Legal Counsel, or her or his representative, certifies that the text is a true copy of the treaty and this certification is included as the last page of the certified true copy. The depositary then communicates to all States the issuance of the certified true copies and sends one paper copy to those that can participate in the treaty.20 All communications from the depositary to States are sent through Circular Notifications (CNs). CNs are always issued in English and French. Since 1 April 2010, CNs are only issued electronically and are sent to subscribers by email. They are also posted on the website of the 16 See UNGA Res 65/​50 (8 December 2010) UN Doc A/​RES/​65/​50 (13 January 2011). 17 UNSG Depositary Procedures (n 13) [15]–​[19]. 18 Titles and authentic texts are listed in English alphabetical order, except Arabic, which appears at the end to respect the reading from right to left. Signature pages listing the names of the States that may sign in all the authentic languages of the treaty are in English alphabetical order. 19 For example, signature pages had to be updated to reflect new names in the cases of North Macedonia (until 11 February 2019, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), and Serbia (formerly Serbia and Montenegro and prior to that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) while new signature pages were required to add Timor-​Leste, South Sudan, and the State of Palestine. 20 See eg UN Secretary-​ General, ‘United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation: Issuance of Certified True Copies’ (8 May 2019) C.N.154.2019.

264  Treaty Formation Treaty Section, the United Nations Treaty Collection (UNTC).21 Anyone can subscribe to an automatic service provided by the Treaty Section to receive these CNs.22 As soon as the certified true copies are issued and circulated, the depositary announces through a CN the opening for signature of the treaty.23 The Secretary-​General adds the new treaty to the publication Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-​General (MTDSG).24 The MTDSG contains the status list of each treaty deposited with the Secretary-​General, including subsequent protocols, amendments, etc. Since 2010, the MTDSG is updated daily on the UNTC, which also contains the text of all reservations, declarations, objections, etc, made by States in relation to treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General. The MTDSG is an invaluable publication maintained and published in English and French.

B.  Signature A treaty opens for signature at a stipulated date or as soon as the original treaty is prepared, and the certified true copies are circulated. Some treaties open for signature in solemn and formal ceremonies officiated by a representative of the Secretary-​General, which may attract a high number of signatories.25 The officiating representative, acting as depositary, both declares the treaty open and receives the signatures at the signing ceremony. Some treaties remain open for signature indefinitely; others remain open until the date of entry into force. Many remain open for signature for only a specific period of time. Article 18 VCLT stipulates that a State that has signed a treaty is obliged to refrain from acts that would defeat the treaty’s object and purpose, until that State shall make its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty.26 While the physical action of unsigning a treaty cannot occur, a few States have communicated to the Secretary-​General that they did not intend to become a party to a treaty they had previously signed and that, accordingly, they had from that moment no legal obligations arising from their signature. In practice, the signature remained where it was put on the paper. Nor was the fact of signature removed from the MTDSG, although a footnote containing the text of the communication regarding the State’s intention not to ratify the treaty was added. The Treaty Section then reproduced the communication in a CN.27 Only Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers of Foreign Affairs (or a person acting on behalf of one of these authorities ad interim) may sign a treaty without full powers. For all other representatives, full powers must be issued before that person may

21 See UN Secretary-​General, ‘Depositary Notifications (CNs) by the Secretary General’ (Database) . 22 See ‘Automated Subscription Services’ (Database) . 23 See eg UN Secretary-​ General, ‘United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation: Opening for Signature’ (8 May 2019) C.N.155.2019. 24 UN Secretary-​ General, ‘MTDSG’ (Database) . 25 For example, the ceremony for the opening for signature of the Paris Agreement (n 11) attracted 175 signatures and fifteen ratifications. 26 For more discussion of treaty signature, see Chapter 9, 224. 27 See eg UN Secretary-​ General ‘Rome Statute of the international Criminal Court:  United States Communication’ (6 May 2002) C.N.434.2002; ibid, ‘Israel Communication’ (28 August 2002) C.N.894.2002.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  265 sign a particular treaty on behalf of his or her government.28 If full powers are needed, they should be delivered to the depositary prior to the treaty signing.29 A fax of the signed full powers or a scanned, emailed copy is, in accordance with more recent practice, considered sufficient, provided that the original full powers are received as soon as possible following treaty signature. Some States have recently raised the issue of whether an original instrument of consent to be bound bearing an electronic signature could be accepted as the original instrument. For the moment—​and until comprehensive discussions on the matter are undertaken with States—​the Secretary-​General does not accept for deposit original instruments to which electronic signatures are stamped. Once a treaty is signed, the depositary updates the status list (published in the MTDSG) for that treaty to include the new signatory. The date published in the status list is the date that the representative of the State affixed their signature to the treaty. Unless the State has signed the treaty definitively, it will need to express its consent to be bound by depositing an instrument of ratification, acceptance, or approval of the treaty. The Secretary-​General occasionally receives for deposit national decrees signed by the Heads of State and/​or Government, and Ministers of Foreign Affairs. These decrees are not accepted in deposit as they are internal formalities to reconfirm the parliamentarian ratification of the treaty and do not constitute the instrument of ratification that binds the State on the international plane. There is no time limit to deposit instruments of consent to be bound. States may become a party to a treaty many years after they have signed it or may never become a party to it.30

C.  Consent to be bound and entry into force The provisions of the treaty itself set up the modalities by which a State may become a party to it. These provisions can be found in the final clauses and can be in the form of ratification, approval, or acceptance31 following (simple) signature; accession; or definitive signature.32 Formal confirmation is equivalent to ratification and is normally provided for in case the treaty is open to IO participation. The depositary follows the final clauses of the treaty in assessing the appropriate mechanisms for expressing consent to be bound. For example, if the treaty indicates the possibility of approval, then the instrument of approval deposited by the State will be accepted as such. If an instrument of approval is received and the treaty only provides for ratification or accession as modalities of expression of the consent to be bound, depending on whether that State has signed the treaty or not, the depositary will indicate in the CN that an instrument of either ratification or accession has been deposited and the State concerned will be informed accordingly. 28 Exceptionally, some States such as the United Kingdom issue general full powers for the Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. For more on full powers, see Section I.D below. 29 See Treaty Section, Treaty Handbook (UN, New York 2006) at . 30 For more discussion of full powers and methods of consent to be bound, see Chapter 9, 212 et seq and 221 et seq. 31 For ease of discussion, ‘ratification’ as used herein refers also to acceptance and approval in addition to ratification. 32 Succession is another way that a State may express its consent to be bound by multilateral treaties and, unlike the other methods for consent, it is not regulated by the treaties’ final clauses. For more on succession, see Chapter 16.

266  Treaty Formation Before a treaty enters into force, the ratifications are disseminated in CNs including the effective date of deposit.33 This is the date of receipt of the instrument by the Secretary-​ General at the UN Headquarters in New York. It can be the date of receipt of a faxed or emailed copy of the instrument, or the date of receipt of the actual instrument. A State faxing or emailing a copy of the instrument wishing to effect the deposit as soon as possible must communicate to the Treaty Section its desire to have the instrument deposited on the basis of the copy. In such cases, the date of deposit will be the date the fax or email is received. In either case, only after the depositary resolves that the original instrument or its copy is in proper and due form will the instrument be received for deposit. The State can choose to make an appointment for a ceremony in which the instrument is handed over to the officiating representative, acting as depositary (a photographic opportunity). If the treaty requires a mandatory declaration to effectuate consent to be bound, then the instrument cannot be deposited until receipt of such declaration. All actions (ratifications, accessions, etc) are communicated through CNs and immediately published in the MTDSG on the UNTC website. A treaty enters into force in accordance with its terms. Normally, this occurs sometime after a certain number of ratifications have been deposited. Once these required conditions have been met, the treaty will enter into force and the depositary will issue a CN specifying the date of entry into force. This CN will also cite the treaty’s relevant provisions regarding entry into force. For example, the CN announcing the Paris Agreement’s entry into force reads: The Secretary-​General of the United Nations, acting in his capacity as depositary, communicates the following: On 5 October 2016, the conditions for the entry into force of the above-​mentioned Agreement were met. Accordingly, the Agreement shall enter into force on 4 November 2016, in accordance with its article 21, paragraph 1, which reads as follows: This Agreement shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 per cent of the total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.34

Once the treaty has entered into force, a CN will also be issued for each individual State that ratifies the treaty after its entry into force. The CN will precisely indicate on which date the treaty shall enter into force for that State, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the treaty. The status list of the treaty in the MTDSG indicates the date of entry into force of the treaty and the date of deposit of the instruments of ratification, accession, etc. It does

33 See eg UN Secretary-​General, ‘Paraguay:  Ratification’ (4 August 2010)  C.N.485.2010 (relating to the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance (adopted 20 December 2006, entered into force 23 December 2010)  2716 UNTS 3.  Note that instruments of withdrawal or denunciation, if permitted, will also be distributed in a CN. See eg UN Secretary-​General, ‘Bhutan:  Withdrawal’ (9 May 2019)  C.N.157.2019 (relating to the Statutes of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (adopted 13 September 1983, entered into force 3 February 1994) 1763 UNTS 91). 34 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Paris Agreement: Entry Into Force’ (5 October 2016) C.N.735.2016 (relating to the Paris Agreement (n 11)).

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  267 not indicate the date of the entry into force of the treaty for each individual State. As described above, this date can be found in the corresponding CNs. Recently, the depositary had to handle some novel situations involving States’ attempts to withdraw (or rescind or revoke) the deposit of their instruments of withdrawal or of consent to be bound. In both types of situations, the withdrawal or revocation occurred following the depositary’s announcement of the instruments’ effective deposit and entry into force, and when the States withdrawing were still parties or the States revoking their consent to be bound had not yet become parties to the treaties concerned. Thus, in 2016, South Africa and Gambia submitted for deposit their instruments of withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute)35 in accordance with its Article 127. South Africa and Gambia had been parties to the Rome Statute since its entry into force on 1 July 2002. Both withdrawals were announced by the depositary effective as of 19 October and 10 November 2017, respectively.36 However, on 10 February 2017, Gambia notified the depositary of its decision to rescind its notification of withdrawal from the Rome Statute deposited with the Secretary-​General on 10 November 2016. Similarly, on 7 March 2017, South Africa notified the depositary of the revocation of its notification of withdrawal from the Rome Statute deposited with the Secretary-​General on 19 October 2016. The Secretary-​General accepted in deposit the withdrawals of the instruments of withdrawal submitted by South Africa and Gambia and announced them by depositary notification.37 The withdrawal of the deposit of instruments already accepted in deposit had been extremely rare. They had related to instruments of consent to be bound and been allowed in exceptional circumstances. Although the withdrawal of an instrument of withdrawal had not been raised prior to the cases of Gambia and South Africa, their acceptance by the depositary did not appear problematic. International law, including the VCLT and jurisprudence, treats withdrawal from a treaty as an exceptional act depriving States of an accrued right and, therefore, its revocation would entail the re-​establishment of a consensual bound. Following that principle, the VCLT expressly permits the revocation of an instrument of withdrawal at any time before it takes effect (Article 68). The revocation of an instrument of consent to be bound raises more complex legal issues and is not contemplated in the VCLT. The practice of the Secretary-​General had been to allow the withdrawal of an instrument of consent to be bound if the treaty itself had not entered into force, on the understanding that, until that time no State was yet bound by the treaty. The Summary of Practice describes only two cases in the 1950s in which an instrument of acceptance and an instrument of accession were permitted to be withdrawn. In both cases, the treaty in question had not yet entered into force.38 Two further cases occurred in 1999 and 2000, involving Italy and Luxembourg, respectively, which withdrew their ratification instruments of the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to

35 Rome Statue (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 3. 36 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: South Africa Withdrawal’ (25 October 2016) C.N.786.2016; ibid ‘Gambia Withdrawal’ (11 November 2016) C.N.862.2016. 37 UN Secretary-​ General, ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court:  Gambia Withdrawal of Notification of Withdrawal’ (16 February 2017) C.N.62.2017; ibid ‘South Africa Withdrawal of Notification of Withdrawal’ (7 March 2017) C.N.121.2017. 38 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [157]

268  Treaty Formation the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. In these two cases the Agreement also had not yet entered into force for any State. In 2018, the State of Palestine withdrew its instrument of accession to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC) six days following its deposit.39 The State of Palestine was the first case involving the withdrawal of an instrument of consent to be bound from a treaty that was already in force. Following the announcement by the depositary of the State of Palestine’s withdrawal of its instrument, no State objected or raised any concern. The State of Palestine submitted again, on 17 May 2018, its instrument of accession to the CWC.40 On 29 April 2019, Malaysia notified the Secretary-​General of the withdrawal of its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute, which had been deposited with the Secretary-​General on 4 March 2019 and would have entered into force for Malaysia on 1 June 2019. The depositary followed the course of action undertaken in the case of the State of Palestine and circulated Malaysia’s withdrawal of its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute.41

D.  Authorities competent to issue full powers and instruments of consent to be bound Before a State representative affixes his or her signature to a multilateral treaty, the depositary has to ascertain whether that representative is competent to do so, that is, whether he or she is duly authorized by his or her government. In accordance with customary international law,42 only certain qualified authorities, that is, Heads of State, Heads of Government, and Ministers for Foreign Affairs may represent their State for the purpose of signing a treaty without producing full powers. Otherwise, a government must authorize its representative by issuing specific full powers to sign a particular treaty or treaties. Some States issue general full powers for a representative to sign (and make certain notifications) for all treaties deposited with a particular depositary.43 The depositary must then determine whether the full powers are issued by the proper authority, as full powers can only be produced by one of the three qualified authorities. It is important to distinguish full powers from credentials to represent a State in conferences convened for the purpose of drafting and adopting treaties. Such credentials are not sufficient for treaty-​signing purposes. Instruments expressing consent to be bound must also be issued by one of the three qualified authorities. Who, among these authorities, must sign the instrument will depend on the internal laws of each State. Occasionally, the depositary receives full powers or instruments issued by an acting Head of State, Head of Government, or Minister for Foreign 39 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction: State of Palestine Accession’ (2 January 2018) C.N.809.2017; ibid ‘State of Palestine Withdrawal of the Instrument of Accession’ (11 January 2018) C.N.5.2018. 40 Ibid ‘State of Palestine Accession’ (18 May 2018) C.N.250.2018. 41 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Malaysia Accession (4 March 2019) C.N.69.2019; ibid ‘Malaysia Withdrawal of the Instrument of Accession’ (15 May 2019) C.N.185.2019. 42 This customary international law is widely recognized to be codified in Art 7(2)(a) VCLT. 43 This is the practice of eg the United Kingdom, China, and Germany with respect to multilateral treaties deposited with the UN Secretary-​General.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  269 Affairs. These instruments are also accepted for deposit if the instrument states that the issuing authority is signing in such capacity.44

E.  Entities that may become parties Multilateral treaties specify which States or IOs may become parties thereto. The depositary must ensure that only those entities to which the treaty is open sign or express their consent to be bound. Final provisions on participation vary, but today multilateral treaties of universal scope are generally open to all States. They may also be open to some or all IOs depending on the substance of the treaty and the competences of organizations in that particular field. Multilateral treaties are rarely open to other entities.45 In the past, the Secretary-​General, as depositary, encountered problems concerning the possible participation in treaties open to all States of entities that appeared to be States but could not be admitted to the United Nations due to the veto of a permanent member of the Security Council. Since the veto did not affect membership procedures for the UN’s specialized agencies, a number of those States joined these organizations and thus gained recognition in the international community. For this reason, multilateral treaties often contained a clause specifying that they were open for participation by Members States of the UN, any of its specialized agencies, or the IAEA. Parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and States invited by the General Assembly were also permitted to participate. This clause was known as the ‘Vienna formula’. Treaties open to all States have also given rise to the question of whether certain entities, whose status as sovereign States is unclear, could be permitted to participate in a treaty under the ‘any State’ or ‘all States’ formula. The Secretary-​General, as depositary, has always been of the view that determining whether those entities fall within this formula is beyond his competence and he has sought directives from the General Assembly and other UN organs in this respect. On 14 December 1973, the General Assembly issued an understanding, in which it stated that: The Secretary-​General, in discharging his functions as a depositary of a treaty with an ‘all States’ clause, will follow the practice of the Assembly in implementing such a clause and, whenever advisable, will request the opinion of the Assembly before receiving a signature or an instrument of ratification or accession.46

The practice of the General Assembly this understanding refers to is primarily found in unequivocal indications from the Assembly that it considers a particular entity to be a 44 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [104]–​[138]; Treaty Handbook (n 29) 6–​11. 45 One example of this is in Art 305 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which sets out a detailed list of entities that can participate in the Convention. UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3 (UNCLOS). In a UN treaty first, Art 42 of the Convention on Disabilities provides for the participation of ‘regional integration organizations’ without using the term ‘economic’; this reflects the evolution of the EU’s competences in social and other non-​economic matters. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 May 2008) 2515 UNTS 3, Art 42. 46 See World Health Organization (WHO), ‘Resolution of the Twenty-​Sixth World Health Assembly Amending the Constitution of the WHO’ (1973) UNJY 79 n 9.

270  Treaty Formation State. In the past, the Secretary-​General implemented this practice in cases such as Guinea-​ Bissau and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,47 which the General Assembly had designated as States. The Secretary-​General also considered decisions of the General Assembly taken during deliberations on the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples48 as allowing the inclusion of newly independent countries in the ‘all States’ formula. The Secretary-​General furthermore followed the indications of the General Assembly and other UN organs in the case of the Cook Islands, Niue, and the Marshall Islands.49 In 1992, the General Assembly adopted a resolution, upon the recommendation of the UN Security Council, that held that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia could not, as it had claimed, automatically continue the former Yugoslavia’s UN membership; rather the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would be required to apply for membership. The UN Legal Counsel took the view, however, that this resolution neither changed the UN membership of the former Yugoslavia nor addressed the status of either the former Yugoslavia or of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with regard to multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General. The Legal Counsel decided that the Secretary-​General, as depositary, could not either reject or disregard the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s claim that it continued the legal personality of the former Yugoslavia. Rather, a contrary decision from a relevant body would be required. Such a decision could come from: a competent organ of the UN directing the Secretary-​General in the exercise of his depositary functions, a competent treaty organ, the contracting States to a treaty, or a competent organ representing the whole international community of States on the general issue of continuity and discontinuity of statehood. Thus, consistent with the claim of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Secretary-​General did not differentiate between treaty actions performed by the former Yugoslavia and those performed by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Treaty actions of either were listed under the short name ‘Yugoslavia’.50 The General Assembly admitted the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to membership on 1 November 2000, after the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia renounced its claim to continue the legal personality of the former Yugoslavia. Then, the Secretary-​General undertook a review of the multilateral treaties deposited with him in relation to many of which the former Yugoslavia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had undertaken a range of treaty actions.51 Some treaties are open not only to States, but also to certain territories, for instance, separate customs territories possessing autonomy of their external commercial relations.52 To avoid problems, their eligibility may be subject to the approval by the States parties to the treaty in question. 47 UNGA Res 3061 (XXVIII) (2 November 1973); UNGA Res 3067 (XXVIII) (16 November 1973). 48 UNGA Res 1514 (XV) (14 December 1960). 49 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [82]–​[87]. 50 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Status of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia After General Assembly Resolution 47/​ 1, Especially with Regard to the Publication “Multilateral Treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General” ’ (1994) UNJY 460. 51 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [89]; UN Office of Legal Affairs, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook (UN, New York 2003) 17–​20 (‘Final Clauses Handbook’); see also MC Wood, ‘Participation of Former Yugoslav States in the United Nations and in Multilateral Treaties’ (1997) 1 Max Planck Ybk UN L 231. 52 For example, the Food Assistance Convention provides in its Art 13 that it is open to participation by separate customs territories possessing full autonomy in the conduct of their external commercial relations that are deemed eligible by a decision of the Food Assistance Committee consisting of all the Parties to the Convention. Food Assistance Convention (adopted 25 April 2012, entered into force 1 January 2013) 2884 UNTS 3, Art 13.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  271 On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 67/​19 by which it decided to accord to Palestine (currently, State of Palestine) non-​member observer State status in the UN. Prior to this resolution’s adoption, Palestine was treated as an entity for UN purposes. Following the said resolution, Palestine’s status vis-​à-​vis its participation in multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General changed. In accordance with the Secretary-​General’s practice as depositary—​as reflected in the Summary of Practice53—​‘the Secretary-​General, in discharging his functions as depositary of a convention with an “all States” clause, will follow the practice of the Assembly in implementing such a clause and, whenever advisable, will request the opinion of the Assembly before receiving a signature or an instrument of ratification or accession’. As such, following the UNGA’s unequivocal indication that it considered Palestine a State when it accepted it as a non-​member observer State, Palestine was able to become party to any treaty open to ‘any State’ or ‘all States’ deposited with the Secretary-​General. As the State of Palestine is a member State of UNESCO, the Secretary-​General, as depositary, also accepts the participation of Palestine in treaties that use the ‘Vienna clause’.54 The Secretary-​General received the first instruments of accession by Palestine on 2 April 2014 and as of June 2019 it has joined seventy-​seven treaties for which the UN Secretary-​General serves as depositary. The Secretary-​General has faced other difficulties with respect to IO participation in treaties open to IOs.55 In 2006, a tribunal submitted for deposit an instrument of accession to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (1986 VCLT).56 The Secretary-​ General sought clarification of this tribunal’s treaty-​making capacity and following various exchanges informed the tribunal that he accepted on face value and good faith its argument that it met the criteria of implicit conferral of treaty-​making capacity despite the fact that its constituent instrument, a bilateral agreement, did not explicitly provide for this. However, he reminded the tribunal that the 1986 VCLT explicitly conditioned participation on submission of a declaration of the organization’s treaty-​making capacity and that, in cases where that capacity was not explicit in the constituent instrument, the depositary’s practice had been to request that such a declaration be adopted by the highest decision-​making body of the organization in question. The tribunal confirmed that its highest decision-​making body, the members of the tribunal, had issued the required declaration, which was submitted for deposit. Not being able to verify these assertions, the depositary informed the parties to the bilateral agreement of his exchanges with the tribunal and suggested that he would accept the instrument of accession for deposit if neither government objected. While one of the parties supported the accession, the other rejected it on the grounds that there was no evidence of intent to grant the tribunal treaty-​making capacity and that the tribunal was not competent to decide on the matter. Accordingly, the depositary did not accept the instrument for deposit. The depositary has also faced difficulties when the European Union (EU)—​as a regional integration organization with exclusive competence in the substantive matters covered 53 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [81]–​[82]. 54 As noted earlier, the ‘Vienna formula’ opens participation in a treaty to UN Member States, parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and States members of specialized agencies or, in certain cases, by any other State invited by the UNGA to become a party. 55 See Summary of Practice (n 8) [98]–​[99]. 56 1986 VCLT (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543.

272  Treaty Formation by some treaties—​has sought to ratify that treaty on behalf of all its Member States. The Secretary-​General has consistently advised that, unless proper full powers from each Member State were conferred to the EU to express consent to be bound on their behalf in a formal instrument submitted to the depositary, the ratification on behalf of Member States could not be accepted.

F.  Amendments to treaties As with the text of adopted treaties, the circulation of the text of adopted amendments is a depositary function. This function is often indicated in the final clauses regulating amendment procedures. As with the text of treaties, the text of amendments to treaties deposited with the Secretary-​General must be submitted to the Treaty Section for review prior to adoption. Once adopted, the amendment must be sent to the depositary as soon as possible for circulation. The text is then entered in the MTDSG and a CN is sent out.57 The circulation of proposed amendments (like the convening of conferences of States parties or the maintenance of registers of designated authorities or languages) is, on the contrary, not a depositary function. While current practice is that the Secretary-​General, as depositary, does not perform administrative functions, some older treaties delegated this duty to him. The Secretary-​General also—​and exceptionally—​circulates proposed amendments to some transportation-​related treaties concluded under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). These so-​called ‘proposals’ are usually in fact adopted amendments (proposed by a UNECE technical body but subsequently adopted by the parties prior to circulation by the depositary).58 In other cases, they are mere proposals for which no adoption procedure is set up and which are directly circulated for acceptance or rejection through a simplified non-​objection procedure.59 The Secretary-​ General has also exceptionally circulated proposals of amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute)60 and the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol of 25 March 1972 (Amended Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs).61 Instruments of expression of consent to be bound by the adopted amendments must also be issued by one of the three qualified authorities, deposited, and are reflected in the MTDSG under the amendment itself. Once the amendment enters into force, this information will 57 See eg UN Secretary-​General, ‘Adoption of Amendment’ (27 September 2005) C.N.992.2005 (announcing adoption of the Amendment to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-​ Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (adopted 27 May 2005, not yet in force)). 58 Eg UN Secretary-​General, ‘Proposal of Amendments to Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the AGTC Agreement’ (3 September 2008) C.N.623.2008 (relating to the European Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (AGTC) (adopted 1 February 1991, entered into force 20 October 1993) 1746 UNTS 3). 59 Eg UN Secretary-​General, ‘Proposal of amendment by the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Agreement’ (4 October 2006)  C.N.806.2006 (relating to the Agreement concerning the Adoption of Uniform Conditions for Periodical Technical Inspections of Wheeled Vehicles and the Reciprocal Recognition of such Inspections (adopted 13 November 1997, entered into force 27 January 2001) 2133 UNTS 117). 60 UN Secretary-​General, ‘South Africa: Proposal of Amendment’ (30 November 2009) C.N.851.2009 (relating to the Rome Statue (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 3). 61 UN Secretary-​General, ‘Bolivia: Proposal of Amendments by Bolivia to Article 49, Paragraphs 1(c) and 2(e)’ (6 April 2009) C.N.194.2009 (relating to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended (entered into force 8 August 1975) 976 UNTS 105).

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  273 also be displayed in the status list of the amendment and a CN will be sent out to all States. Where amendments are subject to a simplified procedure for entry into force, such as a non-​objection procedure, and enter into force on the same date for all parties (and thereafter for new parties which become bound by the treaty as amended) the information is also circulated by CN but listed in the MTDSG at the beginning of the status list for the amended treaty under the heading ‘text’.

G.  Correction of errors A recurrent problem in treaty-​making is that most treaties are not negotiated in all their authentic languages despite the equal legal value of all authentic texts. Too often, authentic texts other than the text in which language the treaty is negotiated lack the time and dedication all authentic texts require. This creates problems with texts containing typographical errors and other mistakes. All typos and mistakes not affecting the meaning or the substance of the treaty provisions must then be subject to a formal and cumbersome procedure of correction. For this reason, when providing legal advice on final clauses, the Secretary-​ General reiterates the importance for the negotiating States to pay due attention to all authentic texts before the treaty is adopted. Corrections to the text of a treaty may be needed because of: (i) an error in typing or printing, spelling, numbering, etc; (ii) discrepancies with respect to the official records of the adopting diplomatic conference; or (iii) incongruence between the different authentic languages of the treaty.62 The depositary, as custodian of the original treaty, initiates the correction procedure proprio motu or at the request of one or more of the States that participated in the treaty’s elaboration and adoption. The Secretary-​General, acting as depositary, examines each apparent error, determines whether it falls into one of those categories, and ensures that a correction will not modify the meaning or substance of the treaty’s text. If the corrections are justified, the Secretary-​General circulates the proposed corrections and specifies a limited period in which parties may object (usually ninety days). When the depositary is not convinced that the correction is justified, the Secretary-​General consults with the State that proposed the correction and tries to persuade it to withdraw its proposal (a practice at which the Secretary-​General has always, in practice, been successful). As a last resort, the Secretary-​General would refer the matter to all States that may participate in the treaty.63 If no objections are voiced within the stated period, the corrections are deemed adopted. The corrections are included in a procès verbal of rectification, which indicates that the depositary has taken into account the errors in the original of the treaty, has duly circulated the text of the proposed corrections, and that he has caused the said corrections to be effected ab initio in the original. These corrections also apply to certified copies, if already circulated.

62 The Rome Statute is an example where extensive errors of all three types occurred. See eg UN Secretary-​ General, ‘Rectification of the Statute and Transmission of the Relevant Procès-​ Verbal’ (30 November 1999) C.N.1075.1999. 63 The practice of the Secretary-​General regarding which States were to be informed of the proposed corrections was apparently not entirely consistent in the past. See Summary of Practice (n 8) [50]–​[52]. Today, the practice of the depositary is to inform all States which can participate in the treaty.

274  Treaty Formation An example of this practice of consultation can be seen when, in 2013, extensive corrections were drawn to the depositary’s attention in relation to the Arms Trade Treaty, and which affected all the authentic languages of the treaty except English.64 The depositary exhaustively analysed the proposed corrections and, after lengthy and complex consultations with those involved, drew up a definitive list of acceptable proposals. The depositary circulated these proposals and did not receive, within the objection period, any objection and the proposals circulated were deemed accepted. The Secretary-​General does not physically incorporate the corrections into the original treaty, which remains intact and must be read together with the procès verbal of rectification. Very exceptionally, the Secretary-​General has incorporated the corrections into the certified true copy of a treaty. That was partially done in the case of the Rome Statute as the corrections were so voluminous that it became difficult to properly read the text with the numerous separate corrections.65

H.  Reservations, declarations, objections, and communications The Secretary-​General’s depositary practice with respect to reservations is notable for its significant evolution.66 He has developed his own practice with respect to the deposit of and objections to late reservations. This practice deviates from Article 19 VCLT, which stipulates that reservations must be made at the time of signature (in which case they must be confirmed upon expressing consent to be bound) or when depositing an instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession. Despite this, since the 1970s, the Secretary-​ General accepts for deposit late reservations by a State that are made after that State becomes a party to the particular treaty, provided that certain requirements are satisfied. First, the late reservations are ‘lodged’67 rather than deposited. The text is circulated and contracting States have a period of twelve months from the date of the notification of the ‘lodged’ reservation in which they can object to the deposit of the reservation and/​or the procedure established for accepting the late reservation.68 The language in a typical CN announcing a late reservation reads: In keeping with the depositary practice followed in similar cases, the Secretary-​General proposes to receive the reservation in question for deposit in the absence of any objection on the part of one of the Contracting States, either to the deposit itself or to the procedure

64 Arms Trade Treaty (adopted 2 April 2013, entered into force 24 December 2014) (I-​52373) . 65 An edited, certified copy of the Rome Statute was published in August 2000, incorporating the corrections circulated up to 8 May 2000. Further corrections have been effected but are not incorporated in a new edited version. See Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, MTDSG, ch XVIII, at . 66 Summary of Practice (n 8) [161]–​[203]. 67 UN Secretary-​ General, ‘Bahrain:  Reservation’ (28 December 2006)  C.N.1140.2006 (relating to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171). 68 Prior to 4 April 2000, the objection period was limited to ninety days. It was felt, however, that a ninety-​day period was too short in cases of a complex political nature or when a group of States sought to raise a common objection. See ‘Statement by Legal Counsel of the UN’ (Notes verbales 4 April 2000) UN Doc LA 41 TR/​221 (23–​1) .

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  275 envisaged, within a period of one year from the date of the present notification. In the absence of any such objection, the said reservation will be accepted for deposit upon the expiration of the above-​stipulated period that is on 23 July 2009.69

If no objection is received within twelve months, the reservation will be deemed accepted for deposit. If an objection is received within the time limit, the depositary will not accept the reservation for deposit. If an objection is received by the depositary after the period of twelve months, it will be sent around as a ‘communication’ rather than as an objection to the already deposited reservation. The same practice applies to communications from States that seek to modify their existing reservations, unless the modification submitted amounted to a partial withdrawal, in which case, if in due form, it will be accepted for deposit upon receipt. In 2011, the ILC adopted the Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties (Guide to Practice)70 with accompanying commentaries.71 Over time, the ILC came to align its views with the practice of the Secretary-​General, particularly on the practice relating to late reservations and the treatment of territorial exclusions.72 Thus, the Guide to Practice endorses the practice of the Secretary-​General in relation to the treatment of territorial exclusions and late reservations.73 The Guide to Practice considers that a declaration by which a State purports to exclude the application of a treaty as a whole to part of its territory is not necessarily a reservation but rather an expression of a ‘different intention’ in the sense of Article 29 VCLT.74 The Guide to Practice also recognizes the Secretary-​General’s long-​standing practice relating to late reservations and modification of reservations.75

I.  Conclusions on the depositary role The Secretary-​General, as the depositary, has to operate in a large and complex environment and needs to adapt to new situations. In its daily work, the Secretary-​General follows the final clauses of the relevant treaty and prior practice. When new issues arise, the depositary seeks guidance from principles and rules of international law, and, if required, the views of States and appropriate UN organs.

69 UN Secretary-​ General, ‘Kazakhstan:  Communication’ (23 July 2008)  C.N.526.2008 (relating to the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (adopted 9 December 1999, entered into force 10 March 2002) 2178 UNTS 197). The reservation cited here was raised belatedly but accepted in deposit a year after the date of notification. No objections to the reservation or to the procedure envisaged were received. See also PTB Kohona, ‘Some Notable Developments in the Practice of the UN Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties: Reservations and Declarations’ (2005) 99 AJIL 433–​50. 70 ILC, Guide to Practice [2011] YBILC, vol II(2), 26 et seq (‘Guide to Practice’). For a more detailed discussion of the ILC’s Guide to Practice, see Chapter 12. In UNGA Resolution 68/​111 (16 December 2013), the General Assembly took note of the Guide to Practice, the text of which was annexed to the resolution, and encouraged its widest possible dissemination. 71 ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of its 63rd Session’ (26 April–​3 June and 4 July–​12 August 2011) UN Doc A/​66/​10 and Add.1 (‘ILC Commentaries on Guide to Practice’). 72 See ibid 173–​85. 73 See Final Clauses Handbook (n 51) 81–​3; Summary of Practice (n 8) 80–​5; Kohona (n 69); Guide to Practice (n 70); ILC Commentaries on Guide to Practice (n 71). 74 ILC Commentaries on Guide to Practice (n 71) 48–​51. 75 ILC, ‘Reservations to Treaties: Comments and observations received from Governments: Addendum’ (2011) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​639/​Add.1.

276  Treaty Formation The Secretary-​General’s practice also serves as an example for other depositaries, which often seek his guidance. For example, in 2014, the State of Palestine, which in its capacity as a full member of UNESCO, had already been accepted to participate in certain multilateral treaties deposited with the UNESCO Director-​General, deposited several instruments of accession to multilateral treaties open to ‘all States’ or containing the ‘Vienna formula’ deposited with the Secretary-​General. Simultaneously, Palestine submitted for deposit instruments of accession with Switzerland and the Netherlands to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, respectively. Both depositaries consulted the Secretary-​ General and followed the Secretary-​General’s practice in this respect. This is, moreover, not a static field. With the increasing participation of States and prominent IOs in the multilateral treaty framework, the questions the depositary faces as regards the law and practice of treaties are likely to repeat and expand to new problems and issues.

II.  The Registration of Treaties in Accordance with Article 102 of the UN Charter: Scope and Consequences A.  Introduction Article 102 UN Charter imposes on Member States the obligation to register all treaties that they enter into after the date of entry into force of the Charter.76 Article 102 reads: 1. Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations after the present Charter comes into force shall as soon as possible be registered with the Secretariat and published by it. 2. No party to any such treaty or international agreement which has not been registered in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article may invoke that treaty or agreement before any organ of the United Nations.

Obligatory registration and publication of treaties was first incorporated in Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations (Covenant).77 The obligation rests on the principle that publicity of treaties would promote public control, awaken public interest, and remove causes for distrust and conflict between States.78 The Covenant, and later, the UN Charter, sought to ensure publicity by creating a register maintained by their secretariats that would collect and publish the texts of treaties transmitted for registration and relevant information about them.

76 The UN Charter was adopted 26 June 1945 and entered into force 24 October 1945. 77 The Covenant of the League of Nations was incorporated as Part I of the Treaty of Peace Between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany (adopted 28 June 1919, entered into force 10 January 1920) UKTS 1919 4 (Treaty of Versailles). Art 18 of the Covenant reads: ‘Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered.’ In a memorandum approved by its Council on 19 May 1920, the League of Nations Secretariat developed rules for the application of Art 18. LON Secretariat, ‘The Registration and Publication of Treaties as Prescribed Under Article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations’ (1920) 1 LNTS 9 (‘1920 LON Memo’). 78 1920 LON Memo (n 77).

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  277 The VCLT expanded the registration obligation and built on further developments in registration rules and practice. Article 77(1)(g) lists the registration of treaties as a depositary function. Article 80, ‘Registration and publication of treaties’, reads: 1. Treaties shall, after their entry into force, be transmitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations for registration or filing and recording, as the case may be, and for publication. 2. The designation of a depositary shall constitute authorization for it to perform the acts specified in the preceding paragraph.

Articles 78(1)(g) and 81 of the 1986 VCLT are similarly drafted.79 The 1986 VCLT’s provisions impose a general obligation of registration on States and international organizations, incorporate the ‘filing and recording’ obligation, and make registration a depositary function generally applicable. They omit, however, the sanction for non-​registration. While the customary nature of these provisions was debated in the past,80 today, there is a general acceptance of the UN registration system by Member States, non-​Member States, and IOs.

B.  Scope of registration and registration practice 1. Obligation to register Under the UN Charter regime, UN Member States must act to register treaties with the Secretariat. The Secretariat is then obliged to publish all registered treaties. The legal obligation to register is thus born by Member States, not the Secretariat. The Secretariat publishes registered treaties81 in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), which is one of only two publications mandated by the Charter itself.82 The Treaty Section is the unit of the Secretariat charged with responsibility for receiving, recording, and publishing treaties. Only treaties concluded by Member States after the Charter’s entry into force are to be registered in accordance with the Charter. A treaty concluded after the entry into force of the Charter that amends a treaty concluded before the entry into force of the Charter is also subject to registration.83 Even though the Charter’s obligation to register can only be imposed 79 1986 VCLT (n 56). 80 Villiger (n 10) 972–​6. 81 An exception exists for treaties submitted to limited publication. By UNGA Res 33/​141 (19 December 1978), the General Assembly gave the Secretariat the option not to publish in extenso certain categories of bilateral treaties: (i) assistance and cooperation treaties of limited scope concerning financial, commercial, administrative, or technical matters; (ii) treaties relating to the organization of conferences, seminars, or meetings; and (iii) treaties that are to be published elsewhere by the UN Secretariat or by a specialized or related agency. By UNGA Res 52/​153 (15 December 1997) UN Doc A/​RES/​52/​153, the General Assembly further extended the opt-​out from in extenso publication to include multilateral treaties falling within the same categories. Treaties that were not to be published in extenso were identified by an asterisk in a monthly publication: Treaty Section, Statement of Treaties and International Agreements: registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat (UN, New York) (Monthly Statement), which can be retrieved from the ‘Monthly Statements Database’ . As of 1 February 2019 this publication has been discontinued. Information about treaties registered but not published in extenso can be retrieved from the ‘United Nations Treaty Series Online’ . A decision not to publish in extenso may be reversed at any time. 82 The other being the annual report of the Secretary-​General to the General Assembly on the work of the Organization as mandated in Art 98 of the Charter. 83 Eg International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, as modified by the Final Articles Revision Convention, 1946, which were registered on 15 September 1949, under registration numbers 584–​640. The Final Articles Revision Convention itself, entitled ‘Convention (No. 80) for the partial revision of the conventions adopted by the General Conference of the International Labour Organization at its first twenty-​eight sessions for the purpose of making provision for the future discharge of certain chancery functions entrusted by the said conventions to the Secretary-​General of the League of Nations and introducing therein certain further

278  Treaty Formation on Member States, treaties between Member States and a non-​Member State transmitted to the Secretariat by a non-​Member State are also registered.84 The provisions of Article 102 were further interpreted and developed by the General Assembly, which established detailed procedural requirements included in the Regulations to give effect to Article 102.85 These Regulations spell out in Article 1 the requirement that the treaty be in force before registration can be effected.86 Thus, for a Member State’s treaty to be registered it must have been concluded after the Charter entered into force and be in force. Hence, a treaty in force concluded prior to the Charter’s entry into force is not subject to registration in accordance with Article 102. If such a treaty is voluntarily submitted by a UN Member State, the Secretariat shall, in accordance with Article 10(b) of the Regulations, ‘file and record’ it, provided that it was not included in the League of Nations treaty series. Filing and recording is thus an alternative procedure to registration that may be applied to those treaties not subject to registration. While registration and filing and recording are essentially similar procedures, they are kept in separate, parallel registers to reflect their diverse legal character. Member States may submit treaties for filing and recording under Article 10(b) of the Regulations. Treaties between IOs and those submitted by non-​Member States87 with other non-​Member States or IOs, on the other hand, are submitted for filing and recording under Article 10(a) and (c) of the Regulations.88 The Regulations also lay down the rules for ex officio treaty registration. Article 4 of the Regulations specifies that ex officio registration must be undertaken by the UN itself where it is a party to the treaty, is the depositary, or is specifically authorized by the treaty to effect its registration. Registration by the UN exonerates Member States from their obligation to amendments consequential upon the dissolution of the League of Nations and the amendment of the Constitution of the International Labour Organization’ (agreed 9 October 1946, entered into force 28 May 1947) 38 UNTS 3 was registered on 15 September 1949 under registration number 583; see also Amendments to Arts 23, 27, and 61 of the Charter of the United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in resolutions 1991 A and B (XVIII) of 17 December 1963 (adopted 17 December 1963, entered into force 31 August 1965) 557 UNTS 143, which were registered on 1 March 1966 under registration number 8132. 84 Eg Agreement on the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (Switzerland–​ Uruguay) (adopted 7 October 1988, entered into force 22 April 1991) 1976 UNTS 389, which was registered by Switzerland on 13 May 1997 under Registration number I-​33771. Switzerland did not become a UN Member State until 2002. 85 UNGA Res 97(I) (14 December 1946), as amended by UNGA Res 364B (IV) (1 December 1949); UNGA Res 482(V) (12 December 1950); UNGA Res 33/​141(19 December 1978) and UNGA Res 210 (73) (20 December 2018) (collectively, the Regulations). See Secretariat, ‘Note by the Secretariat’ (1973) 859 UNTS VIII. See also UNGA Res 52/​153 (15 December 1997) UN Doc A/​RES/​52/​153; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs (Repertory) (UN, New York 1955) vol V; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New York 1958) supp 1, vol 2; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New  York 1964)  supp 2, vol 3; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New York 1972) supp 3, vol 4; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New York 1982) supp 4, vol 2; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New York 1986) supp 5, vol 5; UN, ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (UN, New York 2001) supp 6, vol 6. 86 The term ‘entry into force’ has been broadly interpreted to include treaties provisionally applied by two or more parties. For more on provisional application, see Chapter 10. 87 See UNGA Res 23(I) (10 February 1946). 88 Art 10(a) of the Regulations provides for the Secretariat to file and record the following categories of treaties where they are not subject to registration under Art 102: (a) Treaties entered into by the UN or by one or more of the specialized agencies. This covers treaties between: (i) The UN and non-​member States; (ii) The UN and specialized agencies or international organizations; (iii) Specialized agencies and non-​member States; (iv) Two or more specialized agencies; and (v) Specialized agencies and international organizations.

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  279 register. The Regulations further provide for the registration of subsequent actions (ratifications, accessions, withdrawals, terminations, etc) taken with regard to treaties registered with the Secretariat. The UN General Assembly adopted amended Regulations for registration on 20 December 2018, effective as of 1 February 2019.89 The scope of these amendments is detailed in a note verbal dated 15 February 2019 from the UN Legal Counsel addressed to the permanent representatives of UN Member States and to the heads of IOs. The amendments adapt the Regulations to developments during the past four decades in the registration and publication practice as well as in the use of information technology, and ensures consistency with States’ treaty practice.90 Prior to 1 February 2019, all treaties and treaty actions registered or filed and recorded in a month were reflected in the monthly publication Statement of Treaties and International Agreements registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat (Monthly Statement).91 Following the latest amendment of the Regulations, this publication has been discontinued since all information and documentation regarding treaties registered or filed and recorded since 1946 are kept in a complex and comprehensive online electronic database that is accessible free of charge to all. This database is not only an information management system, but also a publication tool. Through this tool, treaties registered (or filed and recorded) are desktop-​published in the UNTS in their original language or languages and in English and French translations where applicable. In adopting the 2018 amendments of the Regulations, the General Assembly did not complete its review of all the issues involved in treaty registration. It therefore decided to discuss outstanding issues during its 75th session in 2020. It has requested the UN Secretariat to prepare a report, following broad consultations with UN Member States, incorporating proposals for further possible revisions of the Regulations in 2020.92

2. The term ‘treaty and international agreement’ Article 102 of the UN Charter does not define the term ‘treaty and international agreement’. Article 1 of the Regulations only adds to this term: ‘whatever its form and descriptive name’. These terms have not, however, been defined further and are generally understood in their broadest sense, with questions of their scope left to develop through practice. Hence each UNTS volume starts with a ‘Note by the Secretariat’, which states: The terms ‘treaty’ and ‘international agreement’ have not been defined either in the Charter or in the regulations, and the Secretariat follows the principle that it acts in accordance

89 UNGA Res 73/​210 (20 December 2018) UN Doc A/​RES/​73/​210. Before the 2018 amendment, the Regulations were amended three other times by UNGA Res 364 B (IV) (1 December 1949), UNGA Res 482 (V) (12 December 1950) and UNGA Res 33/​141 A (19 December 1978). UNGA Resolution 52/​153 (15 December 1997) also, de facto, modified the Regulations by giving the Secretariat further discretion in deciding categories of registered treaties that may not be published. The 1947 amendment expanded the registration ex officio (by the UN) in cases where the Secretary-​General is the depositary. The 1950 amendment restricted the languages of the register from the original (then five) UN official languages to English and French and the recipients of certificates of registration to only the registering parties. UNGA Res 482 (V) invited registering parties to provide translations of treaties, where feasible, in English or French or both. The 1971 amendment restricted the publication in extenso to certain categories of treaties. 90 This note verbal can be accessed at . 91 See Monthly Statement (n 81). 92 See UNGA Res 73/​210 (n 89)

280  Treaty Formation with the position of the Member State submitting an instrument for registration that so far as that party is concerned the instrument is a treaty or an international agreement within the meaning of Article 102. Registration of an instrument submitted by a Member State, therefore, does not imply a judgment by the Secretariat on the nature of the instrument, the status of a party or any similar question. It is the understanding of the Secretariat that its action does not confer on the instrument the status of a treaty or an international agreement if it does not already have that status and does not confer on a party a status which it would not otherwise have.93

This principle should, however, be understood in the context in which it was originally made in the mid-​1950s when the Secretariat had to reaffirm its neutrality in cases of registering certain treaties to which certain States not universally recognized were parties.94 It should not be interpreted as contradictory with the general duty of the Secretariat to determine, when receiving an instrument for registration—​or for ‘filing and recording’—​ whether such an instrument falls within the category of treaties requiring registration or filing and recording. To that end, each Monthly Statement also started with a ‘Note by the Secretariat’ that adds: when treaties and international agreements are submitted by a party for the purpose of registration or filing and recording, they are first examined by the Secretariat in order to ascertain (i)  whether they fall within the category of agreements requiring registration or are subject to filing and recording, and (ii) whether the technical requirements of the Regulations are met. It is noted that an authoritative body of practice relating to registration has been developed in the League of Nations and the United Nations. In some cases, the Secretariat may find it necessary to consult with the registering party concerning the question of registrability.95

Where there are no reasons, from a legal point of view, to exclude the possibility that the instrument submitted may be considered a treaty, the Secretariat accepts the position of the registering party. Where doubts exist as to the nature of an instrument transmitted for registration (or filing and recording), a practice developed by which the Secretariat ascertains—​in accordance with international law, relevant UN organs decisions and previous registration practice—​whether the instrument constitutes a treaty governed by international law. If necessary, the Secretariat may also consult with the registering party.96 States have also raised similar questions when it is unclear whether a particular instrument is subject to registration. The main issues that arise are whether the parties are subjects of international law with treaty-​making capacity and whether the parties intended to conclude a treaty binding under international law. From the very beginning, the Secretariat took a position in relation to the registration of unilateral declarations. It considered declarations pursuant to Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute recognizing the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction to be international agreements and registered them ex officio.97 In fact, the first three 93 Secretary-​General, ‘Note by the Secretariat’ 2486 UNTS XXXV. 94 These included, for example, the German Democratic Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and the Nationalist Government of China in Taipei. 95 Monthly Statement (n 81) (June 2011) 5. 96 ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (1955) vol V (n 85) [29]–​[31]. 97 Ibid [47].

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  281 registrations were such declarations.98 The Secretariat has subsequently considered the question of whether certain other instruments received could be registered.99 Thus, questions have commonly arisen regarding: (a) agreements between States and certain organizations, which are not considered to be treaties within the meaning of Article 102 because the organizations concerned are either not intergovernmental or, having been created by intergovernmental agreements, do not appear to have a treaty-​making capacity; (b) agreements between States and certain governmental or semi-​governmental agencies that, after consultation with the governments concerned, are considered not subject to registration; (c) agreements between States (or IOs) and governments of dependent territories, which are considered treaties for Article 102 purposes only if the agreement formally binds the State responsible for the conduct of the foreign relations of the dependent territory and the State, and not the dependent territory, is a party to the treaty; and (d) agreements on the establishment of diplomatic relations, such as joint communiqués, which are normally only political declarations and are transmitted for informational purposes (and hence will be circulated as a General Assembly document). In these cases, registrability does not depend on the instrument’s particular designation (eg memorandum of understanding, exchange of notes or letters, joint communiqué, decision, minutes, or arrangement). Rather the Secretariat looks to the form, context, and terminology of the instrument and, more importantly, whether the parties regard the instrument as a treaty binding under international law. For example, the UN usually concludes memoranda of understanding with Member States for its peacekeeping operations and criminal tribunals or to arrange UN conferences. The UN considers such memoranda of understanding to be binding and registers or files and records them when it is a party to them. At the same time, the Secretariat refuses registration of instruments that are under their own terms governed by the national laws of one of the parties. It is also very cautious when it receives instruments for registration from certain self-​called IOs of uncertain nature. The Secretariat has also dealt with issues relating to the succession to bilateral treaties. For instance, a successor State submitted for registration a treaty concluded on its behalf by its predecessor State without showing the consent of the other party to continue to be bound by that treaty. The Secretariat postponed its registration until the registering State would provide confirmation from the other party or certified that the other party had consented to be bound by that treaty in relation to the successor State. Once a treaty is registered, the submitting party receives a certificate of registration and these certificates are made public on the Treaty Section’s website.100 Each certificate bears the stamp of the United Nations and the signature of the UN Legal Counsel. The act of 98 The first was:  Declaration recognizing as compulsory the jurisdiction of the Court, in conformity with Article 36, paragraph 2, of the Statute of the International Court of Justice in all legal disputes concerning the interpretation, application or validity of any treaty relating to the boundaries of British Honduras (adopted and entered into force 13 February 1946) 1 UNTS 3. On the legal nature of these declarations, see S Alexandrov, Reservations in Unilateral Declarations Accepting the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1995) 9. 99 ‘Article 102’ in Repertory (1955) vol V (n 85) 293, 295–​6. 100 See eg the certificate of registration for the Agreement on the Mutual Abolition of Visas on Diplomatic, Consular, Official and Special or Equivalent Passports between the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil and the Government of the Republic of Panama (adopted 10 April 2000, entered into force 10 May 2000) 2116 UNTS 3, which is found at .

282  Treaty Formation registration does not change the status or condition of a treaty and in that sense the parties can expect no additional benefits from registration.

C.  Objection to registration Once a treaty is registered, the Treaty Section’s website immediately reflects this.101 States have the opportunity to see in the website whether a particular treaty which they have concluded and which has entered into force has indeed been registered, if they were not the submitter. This also gives States an opportunity to object to treaties that have been registered. One reason an objection might be raised is that the other party did not consider the instrument to be governed by international law. This is sometimes the case with memoranda of understanding or other so-​called political commitments.102 This circumstance, however, can be avoided by stipulating in the instrument itself that it is not subject to registration. The Secretariat has no formal way to respond to objections to registration. Once the instrument has been registered, the Secretariat registers the objection. Unless the other party carefully checks which treaties are registered to see if it is a party to any one of them, it may not realize that a treaty is registered until the treaty itself is the subject of discussion. In several cases, such treaties have not become the subject of discussion until a dispute was submitted to mediation or the ICJ for settlement. For instance, this happened in the case of the ‘Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters’ between Iraq and Kuwait,103 which was the basis for Security Council resolution 687 of 3 April 1991,104 and the so-​called ‘Minutes of 25 December 1990’,105 which was the basis for the ICJ judgment of 1 July 1994 concerning the jurisdiction and admissibility of a case between Qatar and Bahrain.106 In response to the objection to the (late) registration of the ‘Minutes of 25 December 1990’ and its treaty status by Bahrain, the Court observed: that an international agreement or treaty that has not been registered with the Secretariat of the United Nations may not, according to the provisions of Article 102 of the Charter, be invoked by the parties before any organ of the United Nations. Non-​registration or late registration, on the other hand, does not have any consequence for the actual validity of the agreement, which remains no less binding upon the parties. The Court therefore cannot infer from the fact that Qatar did not apply for registration of the 1990 Minutes until six months after they were signed that Qatar considered, in December 1990, that those Minutes did not constitute an international agreement . . . Accordingly Bahrain’s argument on these points also cannot be accepted.107 101 UNTC, at . 102 See Chapter 3 for a discussion of ‘informal’ international agreements that do not qualify as treaties. 103 (Adopted 4 October 1963) 485 UNTS 321. 104 UN Doc S/​RES/​687. 105 Minutes on Settlement of Disputes Regarding Joint Boundaries (Qatar-​Bahrain-​Saudi Arabia) (adopted 25 December 1990) 1641 UNTS 239. 106 Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain, Jurisdiction and Admissibility (Qatar v Bahrain) (Judgment) [1994] ICJ Rep 112. 107 Ibid 122 [28].

Managing the Process of Treaty Formation  283

D.  Reliance on non-​registered treaties Despite the sanction in Article 102(2) that no party to a non-​registered treaty may invoke it before any UN organ, in practice parties have invoked non-​registered instruments and UN organs have considered them without delving into the issue of whether or not they were registered.108 Although the Court in Qatar v Bahrain made a reference to Article 102 UN Charter, it took the Exchange of Letters of 1987109 into account in its judgment even though that agreement was not registered. It did so as it considered the Exchange of Letters among the ‘treaties and conventions in force’ between the parties.110 Thus, the ICJ will look to a treaty, whether registered or not, if it is in force and invoked before the Court. In the case before the ICJ concerning a territorial and maritime dispute between Nicaragua and Honduras, a regional free-​trade treaty that was never registered with the Secretariat and contained a contentious Annex was mentioned in the pleadings by one of the parties.111 In its judgment of 8 October 2007, the Court observed: The Court has obtained the text of the above-​mentioned Annex. It observes that the four islands in dispute are not mentioned by name in the Annex. Moreover, the Court notes that it has not been presented with any convincing evidence that the term ‘Media Luna’ has the meaning advanced by Honduras. In these circumstances the Court finds that it need not further examine arguments relating to this Treaty nor its status for the purposes of these proceedings.112

While Article 102 stipulates that no treaty may be invoked before an organ of the UN (most commonly the ICJ) without its prior registration, in this case an unregistered treaty was invoked and obtained by the Court. After examining the disputed treaty, however, the Court found it not dispositive of the case before it and hence it did not need to determine its status. Would the Court have further considered this treaty for the purposes of these proceedings if the territory in dispute were mentioned by name in the Annex or if convincing evidence was presented to the Court that the territory in dispute was referred to in the treaty, even though the treaty was not registered with the Secretariat? It probably would have, since it had done so in the past. In this particular case, the Court did not look into the status of the treaty because it found no relevant information in the Annex. But the Court did not immediately reject consideration of the treaty on account of its lack of registration. In 2017, in the Jadhav case between India and Pakistan concerning Pakistan’s failure to allow for consular access to an Indian national detained on charges of serious crimes,113 Pakistan indicated during its oral submissions that the bilateral Agreement on Consular Access of 21 May 2008 between India and Pakistan would form a large part of the case on 108 See Anthony Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 301–​3. 109 Qatar v Bahrain (n 106) 116–​17 [17]. 110 In this regard, see also ibid 133 (Dissenting opinion of Judge Oda). 111 Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v Honduras) (Oral Proceedings of 13 March 2007)  [60]. For more on this case see Rosenboom and Hinojal Oyarbide (n 1) 273–​4. 112 Case Concerning Maritime Delimitation between Nicaragua and Honduras in the Caribbean Sea (Nicaragua v Honduras) (Judgment) [2007] ICJ Rep 659, [226]. 113 Jadhav Case (India v Pakistan) (Oral Proceedings of 15 May 2017) .

284  Treaty Formation merits. During its oral submissions, India argued that, the said Agreement not having been registered, it could not be invoked before the ICJ. However, the Court in its order of 18 May 2017 on provisional measures referred to the 2008 Agreement without mentioning the issue of its non-​registration, further confirming that the (non)registration of agreements appears to have little bearing on the outcome of ICJ litigation.

E.  Conclusions on treaty registration Registration and publication of the registered treaties facilitates clarity and transparency of the international legal order for all actors involved. In addition, the registration and publication of treaties offer an excellent source of examples upon which States may draw in drafting similar agreements. The website of the Treaty Section, in particular its UNTS database offers authentic texts and translations into English and French where needed, for the largest collection of treaties, subsequent treaties, and treaty actions in the world.

Recommended Reading A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) Chapters 18–​19 R Caddell, ‘Depositary’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) online edition at R Caddell, ‘Treaties, Registration and Publication’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) online edition at L Calfisch, ‘Art 76’ and ‘Art 77’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary, Vol II (OUP, Oxford 2011) 1702–​15 DN Hutchinson, ‘The Significance of the Registration or Non-​Registration of an International Agreement in Determining Whether or Not it is a Treaty’ (1993) 46 Current Legal Problems 257 Bruno Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2002) H Tichy and P Bittner, ‘Art 76’ and ‘Art 77’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 1401–​30 Treaty Section, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties: Handbook (UN, New York 2003) online edition at Treaty Section, Treaty Handbook (UN, New York 2006) online edition at UN, Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs (UN, New York 1955) online edition at UN, United Nations Juridical Yearbook (UN, New York 1962) online edition at ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009)

12

Treaty Reservations Edward T Swaine

Introduction Reflecting the common wisdom that the subject of treaty reservations is among the most complicated in treaty law,1 the relevant law defies easy summary; a chapter-​length treatment can only discuss the most prominent issues and note those of a more incidental character. Still, it is easy enough to provide an orientation in the basic rules of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). While reservations, by definition, seek unilaterally to compromise a State’s treaty obligations,2 States are nonetheless presumptively free to propose them. Generally, they do so to adapt the treaty to domestic legal and political circumstances in matters that are of keen local (and less international) interest. The VCLT rules also make clear, however, that the right to make reservations is not unfettered. States are not supposed to propose reservations when doing so is proscribed by a treaty, either by virtue of what the treaty says about reservations or because the reservation is incompatible with the treaty’s ‘object and purpose’. Other States may also object to a proposed reservation. A State that does object may do so on any basis, and if it wishes, may specify that the treaty will not enter into force as between it and the reserving State. Barring such a specification, however, a State’s objection establishes relations on the basis of the entire treaty minus the reserved-​to provision(s). If a State proposes a reservation, and another State does not object within twelve months, that silence is treated as acceptance and the reservation will then modify the treaty as between them. These basic principles complicate and diversify treaty relations, but not hopelessly. Once a State has proposed a reservation to a treaty, three forms of future relations are possible: (i) no relations under that treaty at all, with respect to any State that has objected and made clear that it wishes to deny treaty relations; (ii) treaty relations but for the reserved-​to provision(s), with respect to any State that has objected but not taken the affirmative step of declining treaty relations; and (iii) treaty relations as amended by the reservation, with respect to any State that has explicitly or tacitly accepted the reservation. Only a fourth type of treaty relationship—​application of the entire, original treaty—​appears to be squarely foreclosed by a reservation.

1 See eg H Lauterpacht, ‘Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 124 (describing reservations as being ‘of unusual—​in fact baffling—​complexity’); DP O’Connell, International Law (2nd edn Stevens & Sons, London 1970) 230 (describing reservations as ‘a matter of considerable obscurity in the realm of juristic speculation’); accord A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 114 (quoting Lauterpacht and O’Connell and indicating such views ‘are even truer today’). 2 Art 1(d) VCLT defines a reservation as ‘a unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State, when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State’.

286  Treaty Formation Unfortunately, things are less straightforward than this suggests. Derived in large part from principles developed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the human rights context, the VCLT set out default rules governing reservations for all types of treaties. But these rules are only one part of the modern landscape, and they may be increasingly epiphenomenal. The VCLT’s vagueness on some fundamental issues (eg the initial standing of reservations, the effect of objections, and virtually everything having to do with a treaty’s ‘object and purpose’) contributed to its original appeal. Reservations can be initially appraised—​and subsequently practised—​by States operating on very different premises. However, because these rules are defeasible and invite States to adopt stricter provisions, a number of important multilateral conventions have established different principles. Equally interesting, States parties to treaties that nominally incorporate the VCLT default rules have developed practices that seem to diverge from it. The result may prove to be a marginalization of the VCLT regime, including in the human rights context in which its principles were forged. Developments have generated a sustained effort to re-​evaluate the VCLT rules—​ most prominently, by the International Law Commission (ILC), but also by an increasingly diverse set of other stakeholders. This chapter examines current treaty law and practice relating to reservations. It does so in five sections. Section I examines how reservations are made and distinguishes them from other unilateral acts. Section II examines the historical development of the legal rules surrounding reservations. Section III turns to the issues surrounding the initial legal status of reservations, including the continuing tension over whether all reservations must pass an initial threshold of permissibility to trigger the objection system envisaged by the VCLT. Section IV examines that objection system, while Section V examines questions of authority, examining which actors have (or claim) authority to evaluate reservations.

I.  Proposing Reservations (and Other Unilateral Statements) When a State wishes to make a reservation to a multilateral treaty,3 it can do so fairly simply; the relevant procedures require attention to detail but are not challenging to master.4 According to Article 19 VCLT, a ‘State may, when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty, formulate a reservation’.5 Thus, neither informal statements nor formal statements made by a State prior to adopting the treaty constitute reservations. States may submit reservations when signing, even if the treaty contemplates ratification, but must confirm those reservations when expressing their consent to be bound by the treaty.6 Most 3 Attempts to make ‘reservations’ to bilateral treaties are presumptively not reservations but requests for renegotiation, requiring the other party’s acceptance before having any legal effect. However, at least one State—​the United States—​has a lengthy history of labelling such requests ‘reservations’ given its legislature’s role in authorizing bilateral treaty-​making and conditioning its consent in doing so. See R Dalton, ‘United States’ in D Hollis and others (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) 765, 775. For similar reasons, the United States repeatedly issues interpretative declarations for bilateral treaty provisions. Aust (n 1) 119–​20. 4 See Arts 19, 23 VCLT; Aust (n 1) 137–​9, 142. Significant attention is devoted to these and other procedural rules in the ILC’s Guide to Practice, which should reduce further the possible scope for misunderstanding. ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 23 et seq (‘Guide to Practice’). 5 The rule for treaties involving international organizations is similar with the additional category of allowing reservations when ‘formally confirming’ a treaty. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, Art 19 (1986 VCLT). For more on the 1986 VCLT, see Chapter 5. 6 Art 23(2) VCLT.

Treaty Reservations  287 multilateral treaties that address reservations, however, anticipate they will be made initially at the time of ratification and State practice (with some exceptions noted below) largely conforms to that understanding.7 Reservations must be made in writing and communicated to treaty parties as well as other States (or international organizations) entitled to become parties.8 They do not, however, need to be labelled as such. Reservations are classified by their attempted effect rather than their billing; in the words of the VCLT, a reservation ‘purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State’.9 Reservations are thus distinguishable from other unilateral statements that States frequently employ in consenting to treaties, such as interpretative declarations (or ‘understandings’). According to the ILC, an interpretative declaration is ‘a unilateral statement, however phrased or named, made by a State or an international organization . . . purport[ing] to specify or clarify the meaning or scope of a treaty or of certain of its provisions’.10 In other words, interpretative declarations do not seek to change or modify a State’s treaty obligations, but rather explain to other parties what the State understands its obligations to be. Interpretative declarations are not regulated by the VCLT, although they may play a role in treaty interpretation.11 States may also make other unilateral statements in consenting to a treaty that are neither reservations nor interpretative declarations. These unilateral statements are most often declarations of political positions or intention on matters relating to the treaty but not to its specific provisions.12 As with interpretative declarations, the VCLT says nothing about such unilateral statements. And although depositaries like the UN Secretary-​General discourage them, they are usually circulated to parties and potential parties along with any reservations or interpretative declarations.13 Careful attention must be paid to differentiating among these devices. The applicability of the VCLT rules and the actual treaty relationships a State assumes can turn on whether a statement is a proposed reservation, an interpretative declaration, or some other form of unilateral statement. And to capitalize on that distinction, States have been known to propose changes to their obligations under the guise of making a ‘declaration’ or issuing an ‘understanding’. States may do this because: (a) the treaty prohibits or restricts reservations; (b) they wish to avoid suggesting to other States the capacity to object; (c) they wish

7 Aust (n 1)  137–​8. In contrast, unless the treaty otherwise provides, withdrawal of reservations may occur at any time, provided it is in writing. Withdrawal is operative on notice; the consent of States that accepted the reservation is unnecessary. Art 22(1), (3)  VCLT. As an example, on 24 September 2009, Spain informed the UN Secretary-​General of the withdrawal of its reservation to the Genocide Convention’s Art IX. See ‘End note’, Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General , Ch IV.1 n29 (MTDSG). See also Case Concerning Obligation to Negotiate Access to the Pacific Ocean (Preliminary Objection) (Bolivia v. Chile) (Judgment of 24 September 2015) [2015] ICJ Rep 593, 601 [21] (noting Bolivia’s withdrawal of its reservation to the Pact of Bogotá, following Chile’s objection). 8 Art 23(1) VCLT; Art 23(1) of the 1986 VCLT. 9 Art 2(1)(d) VCLT. 10 Guide to Practice (n 4) 1.2. 11 Aust (n 1)  115. On the (limited) effects of interpretative declarations in the interpretative process, see R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) 105–​12; see also DM McRae, ‘The Legal Effect of Interpretative Declarations’ (1978) 49 BYBIL 156. 12 Two of the most common unilateral declarations are what the ILC describes as statements of non-​recognition (where a State indicates its consent to a treaty should not be read as recognition of another State party) and declarations on the modalities by which a State intends to implement the treaty domestically. See Guide to Practice (n 4) 1.5.1–​1.5.2. 13 P Kohona, ‘Some Notable Developments in the Practice of the UN Secretary General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties: Reservations and Declarations’ (2005) 99 AJIL 443, 447–​8.

288  Treaty Formation to avoid other negative consequences (such as reputational effects, or inspiring other States to propose reservations); or (d) they genuinely regard their position as within the compass of the treaty’s provisions. At bottom, though, they want to limit the treaty’s potential effects. Although in theory such statements may not be relied upon by the proposing States to alter any determinate obligations, States sometimes object to these attempts as reservations-​in-​ fact when they are discovered14 (since reservations are determined by their legal effect, in principal they charge other States with the obligation of objecting or at risk of being deemed to have accepted them, irrespective of how they are billed). Such devices are difficult to formally exclude, and experience suggests that they may undermine any attempt to limit reservations, so long as the enforcement of restrictions is left to States in their individual capacities.15

II.  Background on the Law of Reservations The modern law of reservations—​if not rival kinds of unilateral statements—​is highly conventional. It consists of the VCLT rules, as clarified or modified by treaty practice, with a residual role for customary international law principles governing States that are not constrained by the VCLT. Even in its residual role, customary international law is relevant only to the extent that particular treaties have not themselves restated the VCLT’s rules or set out their own distinct principles. Nonetheless, important features of the VCLT regime are best understood as products of the evolving customary law of reservations.16 In its first phase, the law reflected propositions that were thought inherent in the very nature of a treaty. The presumption was that when a putative State party to a multilateral convention proposed conditions to its assent,

14 In 2003, the United States objected to a Pakistani declaration in acceding to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, insisting that it was actually a reservation, and, moreover, one contrary to the Convention’s object and purpose. The United States indicated, however, that its objection should not preclude its treaty relations with Pakistan. ‘Declaration as reservation contrary to object and purpose’ [2003] Digest of United States Practice in International Law 244–​5; Aust (n 1) 117–​18 (addressing ‘disguised reservations’, and citing examples of purported interpretations and declarations drawing objection). The ILC’s Guide to Practice also labels as a reservation something it calls a ‘conditional interpretative declaration’, the effect of which is to condition a State’s consent to be bound to that State’s assertion of a particular interpretation of a treaty or its provisions. Guide to Practice (n 4) 1.4. 15 The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, for example, bars parties from making reservations but permits declarations and comparable statements ‘with a view, inter alia, to the harmonization of its laws and regulations with the provisions of this Convention, provided that such declarations or statements do not purport to exclude or to modify the legal effect of the provisions of this Convention in their application to that State’. UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Art 310 (UNCLOS). In other instances, reservation-​like declarations are tolerated, at least in the short term. For example, Denmark initially ratified the Rome Statute while attaching a territorial declaration excluding its application to the Faroe Islands and Greenland, later withdrawing that declaration following adoption of the necessary domestic decrees. See ‘End Note’ in MTDSG (n 7) Ch XVIII.10, n2. It is difficult to distinguish between such a declaration and a reservation. A declaration of comparable territorial exclusions relating to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights was deemed incompatible with the European Convention. See Loizidou v Turkey (Preliminary Objections) (1995) 20 EHRR 99 [65]–​[89]. 16 This section draws on the description in ET Swaine, ‘Reserving’ (2006) 31 YJIL 307, 312–​13. For other comprehensive accounts, see WW Bishop, ‘Reservations to Treaties’ (1961-​II) 103 RcD 245; I Detter, Essays on the Law of Treaties (Sweet and Maxwell, London 1967); I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) Ch 3; F Horn, Reservations and Interpretative Declarations to Multilateral Treaties (TMC Asser Institute, The Hague 1988); S Rosenne, Developments in the Law of Treaties 1945–​1986 (CUP, Cambridge 1989) 356–​7, 424–​6; RL Bindschedler, ‘Treaties, Reservations’ (1984) in (2000) 4 EPIL 965.

Treaty Reservations  289 all the other parties would have to agree to them. Such unanimity followed directly from the consensual nature of treaty-​making. This same consensualism, however, meant that particular treaties could specify alternative formula for dealing with such proposals, whether authorizing approval by some qualified majority of States or removing the issue from subsequent deliberation by banning reservations outright. The predicate, in all events, was that States made collective decisions on any State’s proposed reservation with the same effect for all non-​reserving States. As a result, the possible effects of a proposed reservation on a State’s obligations were reasonably apparent from the outset. The Pan American system was one important exception to the collective approach.17 It was also consensual in nature: States needed to accept a reservation for it to be effective against them, and if they objected, no relations under that treaty would be established between the reserving and the objecting State. Distinctively, though, diverse bilateral relations could be forged under the same treaty: one between all non-​reserving States (the treaty’s original terms), one between a reserving State and any States accepting the reservation (the treaty’s original terms, as altered by the reservation), and a third kind between a reserving State and any States not accepting the reservation (no treaty relations at all).18 This necessarily made things more complicated, but kept reservations in the hands of non-​reserving States, and established a clear rule—​the reservation’s ineffectiveness—​if those States did nothing. In a second phase, the law of treaty reservations was conceived of as a treaty-​specific phenomenon that depended on the nature of the problem at hand. This approach derived from the Reservations case.19 The Court started with the principle that ‘in its treaty relations a State cannot be bound without its consent, and that consequently no reservation can be effective against any State without its agreement thereto’, but said that this principle required ‘a more flexible application’ in the Genocide Convention context.20 It observed, among other things, that in conventions aspiring to a universal character the practice evidenced greater tolerance for tacit acceptance (and for treating reserving States as States parties for all States accepting the reservation), while noting the ‘great number of reservations which have been made of recent years to multilateral conventions’ (seemingly, not just for conventions of a universal character).21 The Court rejected the affiliated notion that the ‘absolute integrity of the Convention as adopted’ invariably required that all States parties consent to a reservation, citing again the tolerance of tacit assent, the seeming lack of objections to reservations, and the Pan American practice.22 Having dispensed with these absolutes, the Court concluded that States had latitude to forge different reservations rules. This left the issue of the intended rule for the Genocide Convention. The Court drew on the Convention’s drafting history to conclude that reservations of some kind and under some conditions were anticipated.23 For the most part, 17 For a description, see MM Whiteman (ed), Digest of International Law (US Govt Printing Office, Washington 1970) vol 14, 141–​4; ‘Report approved by the Council of the Panamerican Union of 4 May 1932’, reproduced in [1965] YBILC, vol II, 79. 18 A Pellet, ‘Article 19 of the Convention of 1969’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, 410–​11. 19 Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Advisory Opinion) [1951] ICJ Rep 15 (‘Reservations case’). 20 Ibid 21. 21 Ibid  21–​2. 22 Ibid  24–​6. 23 It speculated that perhaps the text failed to address reservations in order to avoid encouraging them unduly. Ibid  22–​3.

290  Treaty Formation though, the ICJ emphasized characteristics common to fundamental human rights conventions like the Convention. The Court reasoned that human rights treaties: (i) were back-​ stopped by binding customary international law obligations (suggesting that reserving States could secure only limited latitude); (ii) tried to attain universality (warranting compromise in order to achieve broader participation); and (iii) put the consensual interests of States confronting reservations at no particular risk (because their true interest was in promoting the Convention’s purposes, rather than defending sovereign interests particular to themselves).24 These same circumstances, the Court inferred, established a principle that ‘limit[ed] both the freedom of making reservations and that of objecting to them’:25 namely, whether a proposed reservation was consistent with the treaty’s object and purpose.26 The Court recognized that States would have varied opinions about the application of this object-​and-​ purpose test, with a resulting prospect for some confusion. (The dissenters were even more concerned, arguing that confusion could be avoided only by a default rule of unanimous consent to reservations, a rule they also felt was required by customary international law.27) The Court did not directly confront the question of whether an object-​and-​purpose test was hardwired in all treaties (or, at least, in those that permitted reservations with less than unanimous consent). The ICJ clearly found it difficult to imagine otherwise, suggesting that principles of treaty integrity might require it, but it also deferred to the powers of States parties to derogate.28 Ultimately, the Court’s analysis was sufficiently context-​sensitive to resist easy generalization, and it felt little cause to clarify anything beyond the result for the Genocide Convention itself—​or, perhaps, for the greater class of human rights conventions to which it belonged. The third phase in the development of the law of reservations came with the advent of the VCLT, the rules of which are discussed in the ensuing sections.29 Although these rules owe a debt to the Reservations case and developments under other treaty schemes, the default regime it establishes was plainly constructed: that is, it could not in any sense be characterized as inherent in the nature of treaties generally. Nor, for that matter, can the VCLT’s rules be attributed to something imminent in the nature of universal human rights treaties, despite its resemblance to the Reservations case approach—​not least, because the VCLT establishes a default approach for all treaties. That global approach necessarily enhanced the possibility of complaints about the regime’s fit. A fourth phase of the law’s development, still underway, has involved reconsideration of the VCLT regime by several different constituencies. The most obvious and most inchoate reaction has come from States, which have established practices both in negotiating treaties with reservations provisions and in formulating reservations and objections under the VCLT regime. Treaty bodies, particularly in the human rights context, have formed a second constituency, proposing and attempting to effectuate fundamental changes to the rules operating in those quarters. 24 Ibid  23–​4. 25 Ibid 24. 26 Ibid  26–​7. 27 Ibid 31–​9 (dissenting opinion of Judges Guerrero, McNair, Read, and Hsu Mo). 28 Ibid 24. 29 For more on the ILC and VCLT drafting history, see O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, Part II, Section 2 (Reservations); M Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 257–​335.

Treaty Reservations  291 States and treaty bodies were, to varying degrees, anticipated participants in the treaty reservation regime (and their respective roles are discussed later in this chapter). But two other participants also deserve note. The first is the ICJ, the body responsible for the pioneering Reservations opinion, which has participated in reservations questions surprisingly infrequently. Its most extensive discussion in recent opinions, however, took pains to limit the Reservations case to its original context, suggesting (diplomatically) that the Court had severely underestimated the practical difficulties of relying on States to resist other States’ reservations.30 The ILC has also returned to the fray. In 1993, the Commission decided to re-​examine the VCLT reservations regime it had forged, and embarked on a course of study that took close to twenty years. The objective was ostensibly to clarify, as opposed to revise, the rules on reservations.31 But the scale and complexity of the project—​including seventeen principal reports from the Special Rapporteur, Alain Pellet—​meant that it was more than merely purely descriptive.32 In 2011, the ILC adopted a Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties and commended it to the General Assembly’s attention,33 along with a recommendation on mechanisms of assistance in relation to reservations.34 Less than a decade later, how much the Guide actually influences other relevant actors remains uncertain, but it undoubtedly serves as a starting point for further re-​examination of the present regime.35

III.  The Initial Status of Reservations The foundational decision made in formulating the VCLT’s reservations regime—​and certainly the most significant provision relating to the initial status of reservations—​was the acceptance in Article 19 of a presumptive capacity for States to forge reservations.36 This generalized a practice the ICJ developed in the Genocide Convention context and explained in terms consistent with other human rights treaties. The ILC and the States ratifying the VCLT apparently regarded it as more universal in nature—​subject, significantly, to a contrary collective decision by States forging a treaty. In consequence, the VCLT generally indulges the making of reservations unless the treaty expressly prohibits reservations or accepts only specific (other) ones.37 Simultaneously, 30 See Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application:  2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Judgment of 3 February 2006) [2006] ICJ Rep 31, 65–​71 [4]‌–​[10] (joint separate opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, Eleraby, Owada, and Simma) (‘Congo Judgment’). 31 [1995] YBILC, vol II(2), 108 [487] (reporting a ‘consensus in the Commission that there should be no change in the relevant provisions of the 1969, 1978, and 1986 Vienna Conventions’ regarding reservations). 32 An extremely succinct timeline may be found in ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its sixty-​third session’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(2), [51]–​[55] (‘ILC sixty-​third session’). See also A Pellet, ‘The ILC Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties: A General Presentation by the Special Rapporteur’ (2013) 24 EJIL 1061. 33 See ILC sixty-​third session (n 32) [72]; Guide to Practice (n 4). The ILC has also adopted accompanying commentaries; these draw in part on more extensive reports prepared by the special rapporteur. ILC, ‘Text of the Guide to Practice, comprising an introduction, the guidelines and commentaries thereto, an annex on the reservations dialogue and a bibliography’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 35 et seq (‘Guide to Practice Commentaries’). 34 ILC sixty-​third session (n 32) [73]. 35 An excellent symposium on the Guide was published in (2013) 24 EJIL 1055. 36 See n 4 and accompanying text (detailing how a State ‘may . . . formulate a reservation’). 37 Art 19(a)–​(b) VCLT (States ‘may . . . formulate a reservation unless . . . (a) the reservation is prohibited by the treaty; (b) the treaty provides that only specified reservations, which do not include the reservation in question, may be made’). For further discussion of these relatively straightforward provisions, see Aust (n 1) 121–​5.

292  Treaty Formation however, the VCLT also generalized the ICJ’s substantive limitation on a reservation’s content. According to Article 19(c), States are not supposed to propose reservations that are incompatible with a treaty’s object and purpose.38 This test makes abundant sense as an exhortation. States should, it seems, consider whether a reservation they are considering would, even if accepted by other States, degrade the treaty’s essence, and (as discussed later) other States should certainly be vigilant for such reservations when considering whether and when to object. But assuming, for the moment, that self-​restraint and the possibility of objection are insufficient deterrents, the question is whether an object-​and-​purpose inquiry has independent force in determining a reservation’s initial status. This has evolved over time into a debate between the ‘permissibility’ school (according to which impermissible reservations, usually equated to those violating a treaty’s object and purpose, are void ab initio) and the ‘opposability’ school (according to which such reservations are merely opposable by other States through the vehicle of objections).39 For permissibility advocates, a reservation’s status involves a two-​stage inquiry:  first, whether the reservation is ‘permissible’ (or ‘admissible’) under a treaty and its object and purpose; and second, assuming it is, whether it is ‘acceptable’ to at least one other State.40 Under the permissibility approach, the object-​and-​purpose inquiry must have legal significance independent of a State’s objection. To a degree, this argument is motivated by a conviction that objections are insufficient to ensure the integrity of multilateral conventions. A more formal argument is that the VCLT’s nature requires an objective, threshold inquiry. Article 19(c) says flatly that States may not (even) formulate a reservation if it is incompatible with a treaty’s object and purpose—​rather than providing, for example, that such reservations are prone to objection. Opposability would, notwithstanding this injunction, put the claim that a reservation is fundamentally treaty-​incompatible on the same footing as any other ground for objection (or even no ground at all, since States need no basis whatsoever for an objection under the VCLT).41 Opposability also seems to wrench the object-​and-​purpose test out of context: Article 19’s other operative parts—​on reservations prohibited by a treaty or omitted from the roster of permitted reservations—​are enforceable without any State intercession.42 The argument for the opposability approach, however, can also draw some support from the VCLT regime. The provisions governing objections do not suggest that they are confined to objections of a less fundamental kind, or that objections relating to a treaty’s object and purpose are essentially optional. Rather, the provisions governing acceptance indicate 38 Art 19(c) VCLT (States ‘may . . . formulate a reservation unless . . . the reservation is incompatible with a treaty’s object and purpose’). 39 See eg DW Bowett, ‘Reservations to Non-​Restricted Multilateral Treaties’ (1976–​77) 48 BYBIL 67; JM Ruda, ‘Reservations to Treaties’ (1975-​III) 146 RcD 97, 101. 40 See M Villiger, Customary International Law and Treaties (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1997) 254–​63. 41 The ILC was initially inclined to follow the ICJ’s Reservations case in limiting objections to the ground of incompatibility, but removed that limitation in response to the criticism that States might also object on other grounds. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 279, 287, 346 (comments by Australia, Denmark, and the United States). Accordingly, it is generally accepted that objections to reservations may be made on any ground, and that the effect of an objection is the same regardless of the stated ground. 42 See eg Treaty Section of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties (UN, New York 1994) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev 1 [164], [189]–​[193] (noting UN depositary practice to reject proposed reservations that do not conform to treaty provisions on reservations) (‘Summary of Depositary Practice’).

Treaty Reservations  293 that a reservation is considered to be accepted by a State ‘if it shall have raised no objection to the reservation’ during a twelve-​month period following notice of the reservation or its own consent.43 For opposability proponents, the more fundamental problem with permissibility is practical in character. Because the ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty is not self-​evident, a permissibility approach will not be self-​enforcing.44 Judicial attempts to provide theoretical clarity have made little headway.45 States are free to indicate more clearly when drafting a treaty where its object and purpose(s) lies, but negotiating that kind of point raises an additional obstacle to consensus, not least because it risks marginalizing other provisions not so designated.46 Entrusting such inquiries, and their policing, to a treaty-​monitoring body is another potential tack, but there have been few attempts.47 These limitations mean that, in practice, the permissibility approach requires each reserving State to intuit for itself whether a reservation violates a treaty’s object and purpose, potentially at pain of surrendering that reservation if it is wrong.48 Even States that imitate another State’s arguably impermissible reservation may learn little from that State’s experience if States failed to object, objected without making clear that they were doing so on object-​and-​purpose grounds, or conveyed different impressions through their varied action or inaction. Barring something exceptional (eg a reservation that would enable violation of a jus cogens norm), it may be difficult for any State, whether reserving or objecting, to confidently assume common ground as to what violates a treaty’s object and purpose. Notwithstanding these practical concerns, the bulk of academic commentary sides with the permissibility approach, and the ILC’s Guide to Practice does as well—​the guidelines squarely depict reservations that are contrary to object and purpose, among others, as ‘null and void, and therefore devoid of any legal effect’.49 Furthermore, the Guide rejects the 43 See Art 20(5) VCLT. To be sure, the quoted provision is explicitly ‘[f]‌or the purposes of ’ Art 20(2)–​(4), which relate to other aspects of acceptance and objection that apply ‘unless the treaty otherwise provides’. So, it may be argued that Art 20(5) does not apply at all to reservations not properly formulated, for which the treaty (implicitly) otherwise provides. 44 The inscrutability of the object-​and-​purpose test is widely acknowledged. See eg I Buffard and K Zemanek, ‘The “Object and Purpose” of a Treaty: An Enigma?’ (1998) 3 ARIEL L 311; J Klabbers, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Object and Purpose of Treaties’ (1997) 8 Finnish Ybk Intl L 138. William Schabas has noted that, in light of the VCLT’s approach to treaty interpretation, the object and purpose of a treaty should be determined in light of its object and purpose. WA Schabas, ‘Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: Time for Innovation and Reform’ (1994) 18 Canadian Ybk Intl L 39, 48. These difficulties were forecast by the dissenters in the Reservations case. See Reservations case (n 19) 44 (dissenting opinion of Judges Guerrero, McNair, Read, and Hsu Mo) (‘What is the “object and purpose” of the Genocide Convention? To repress genocide? Of course; but is it more than that? Does it comprise any or all of the enforcement articles of the Convention? That is the heart of the matter’). 45 A Pellet, ‘10th Report on Reservations to Treaties, First Addendum’ (2005) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​558/​Add.1, [81] (describing ICJ case law). 46 An alternative that avoids this problem may be found in the Racial Discrimination Convention, which precludes reservations that would be incompatible with the Convention’s object and purpose or inhibit its treaty body’s functions, and provides that ‘[a]‌reservation shall be considered incompatible or inhibitive if at least two-​ thirds of the States Parties to the Convention object to it’. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (opened for signature 7 March 1966, entered into force 4 January 1969) 660 UNTS 195, Art 20(2). As Anthony Aust observed, it is unclear if this provision is supposed to supplement or supplant the VCLT rules; he also notes that the two-​thirds threshold has never been met. Aust (n 1) 135–​6; see also ibid 136 (noting other treaties, not framed in object-​and-​purpose terms, that rely on varying degrees of non-​opposition to reservations). 47 See Section V below, 303–05 et seq. 48 The precise consequences of being wrong—​making an impermissible reservation—​are discussed later, but one view, often advanced as a corollary of impermissibility, denies a reservation that violates a treaty’s object and purpose the same relatively favourable treatment as other reservations, and would simply disregard it, holding the reserving State bound to the treaty as if it had never proposed the reservation. 49 Guide to Practice (n 4) 4.5.1.

294  Treaty Formation possibility that such a reservation’s permissibility or legal effect may be influenced by State acceptances or objections.50 Nonetheless, it contemplates that ‘a State or an international organization which considers that a reservation is invalid should formulate a reasoned objection as soon as possible’.51 Such objections, though seemingly without legal effect, may be edifying for the reserving States, other contracting States or organizations, and any treaty bodies or other authorities.52 Moreover, even if an objection is formally unnecessary, the only basis for reckoning treaty relations in most instances is, in point of fact, the reactions by States to each other. Practice may be less decisive than the Guide suggests. Several States have indeed articulated the view that reservations that violate a treaty’s object and purpose are without any legal effect, and either expressed or implied that objections on that score are not indispensable. At the same time, States do object to reservations on object-​and-​purpose grounds, and their usual attention in doing so to the legal niceties attending objection, like the twelve-​ month deadline, suggests that they regard their objections as more than mere points of information.53 Judicial bodies seem sometimes to attribute legal significance to objections in describing the validity of reservations,54 but at the same time may note the object-​and-​ purpose standard as though it describes an additional, independent hurdle.55 The effect of the prevailing uncertainty is to encourage States to seek legal advantage through the filing of objections, including those claiming a violation of the object-​and-​purpose test, while at the same time denying to States proposing questionable reservations any confidence in those reservations even after the time for lodging objections has passed.56 50 Ibid 3.3.3 (‘Acceptance of an impermissible reservation by a contracting State or by a contracting organization shall not affect the impermissibility of the reservation’); ibid 4.5.2(1) (‘The nullity of an invalid reservation does not depend on the objection or the acceptance by a contracting State or a contracting organization’). 51 Ibid 4.5.2(2). 52 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 304–​6. 53 See Art 20(5) VCLT. For example, when the United States became party to Protocol III to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (adopted 10 October 1980, entered into force 2 December 1983) 1342 UNTS 171, it reserved the right to use incendiary weapons against certain military objectives located in concentrations of civilians (Art 2(2)–​(3) of Protocol III). See ‘Declarations and Reservations’ in MTDSG (n 7) Ch XXVI.2. In the final five days before the close of the twelve-​month period following the US deposit of its consent to be bound, seventeen States objected to the US reservation, nearly all specifically claiming that it violated the Protocol’s object and purpose. See J Abramson, ‘US Incendiary-​Weapons Policy Rebuffed’ (April 2010) Arms Control Today 39. Of course, it is difficult to discern if additional States, convinced that they need not object, refrained from doing so. 54 See eg Case Concerning Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v United States of America) (Provisional Measures) [1999] ICJ Rep 761, 772 [32] (‘[w]‌hereas the Genocide Convention does not prohibit reservations; whereas Yugoslavia did not object to Spain’s reservation to article IX; and whereas the said reservation had the effect of excluding that article from the provisions of the Convention in force between the Parties’). In that instance, however, Yugoslavia does not seem to have put any object-​and-​purpose issue before the ICJ. 55 Congo Judgment (n 30)  65–​71 [15]–​[23] (joint separate opinion of Judges Higgins, Kooijmans, Eleraby, Owada, and Simma) (describing practice of judicial and other bodies following Reservations case). ICJ discussions of the incompatibility issue tend to be relatively glancing, and in most instances involve a belt-​and-​suspenders approach to crediting the force of reservations. See eg Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Order of 10 July 2002) [2002] ICJ Rep 219, 245–​6 [72] (‘[w]‌hereas the Genocide Convention does not prohibit reservations; whereas the Congo did not object to Rwanda’s reservation when it was made; whereas that reservation does not bear on the substance of the law, but only on the Court’s jurisdiction; whereas it therefore does not appear contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention’); Congo Judgment (n 30) 32 [67] (reservation to dispute settlement provision cannot be regarded as incompatible with the treaty’s object and purpose); ibid 33 [68] (‘The Court further notes that, as a matter of the law of treaties, when Rwanda acceded to the Genocide Convention and made the reservation in question, the DRC made no objection to it’). For the position of treaty-​monitoring bodies on this question see infra nn 93–​6 and accompanying text. 56 Two related features of practice—​the character and effect of the objections made, and the intervention of new participants in the evaluation of reservations—​are examined in Sections IV and V, 297–303 et seq.

Treaty Reservations  295 Apart from object-​and-​purpose difficulties, another area of potential controversy involves late reservations. The VCLT does not expressly address whether reservations can be made after a State has expressed its consent to be bound by a treaty. However, its definition of ‘reservation’ strongly suggests that any statement made by a State after it has expressed its consent to be bound is not a reservation at all—​or, put somewhat less categorically, that reservations made at another, later time are impermissible.57 Permitting late reservations to be proposed according to the VCLT scheme would seem to run afoul of the consensual nature of treaty-​making by virtually allowing States to unilaterally alter their obligations at will, at least as against non-​objecting States. In practice, late reservations have been allowed, but only when unanimously accepted (expressly or tacitly) by other States parties. As treaty depositary for many (if not most) major multilateral treaties, the UN Secretary-​ General circulates late reservations, provided the treaty text does not prohibit them generally or specifically. It then assumes the reservation to be accepted if no objection is received within twelve months.58 That appears to have been the case in most or even all instances, perhaps because late reservations have often concerned minor matters and those inadvertently omitted from earlier submissions.59 In light of these and other uncertainties,60 it bears emphasis that States may regulate the initial status of reservations more overtly. The VCLT provides that the normal means of determining the status of reservations may be pretermitted if the treaty precludes a given kind of reservation, or omits it from a list of permissible reservations, and a number of treaties have been drawn in that fashion.61 The conventional view is that such provisions are exceptional, and that too few treaties address the subject of reservations.62 However, one recent review of a large sample of multilateral conventions deposited with the UN Secretary-​ General suggests that fully 40 per cent of them contained a clause restricting reservations.63 Some of the most important multilateral conventions in contemporary discourse—​the 57 Art 2(1)(d) VCLT. 58 UN Office of Legal Affairs, Treaty Handbook (Sales No. E.12.V.1 2012)  3.5.3 and Annex 2 (prior to 2000 UN practice was to only allow ninety days for such objections). Objections received outside the twelve-​month period are treated as communications. The UN uses the same twelve-​month time frame for objections to a reserving State withdrawing an earlier reservation and substituting it with a new or modified reservation. Ibid Annex 2. 59 ILC, ‘Fifth report on reservations to treaties, by Mr. Alain Pellet’ [2000] YBILC, vol II(1), [302]. For comprehensive discussions of late reservations, see ibid at [279]–​[332]; D Müller, ‘Reservations and Time: Is There Only One Right Moment to Formulate and to React to Reservations?’ (2013) 24 EJIL 1113. 60 One other important question is whether a State may withdraw from a treaty to which it had no reservations and rejoin with a reservation. Trinidad and Tobago tried this with respect to the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171. Other States objected to this approach, and Trinidad and Tobago ended up withdrawing from the Optional Protocol entirely, suggesting the practice is disfavoured. In 1999, however, Guyana replicated it with more success, and is still a party to the Optional Protocol. Aust (n 1) 142. 61 See eg International Convention on Arrest of Ships (adopted 12 March 1999, entered into force 14 September 2011)  UN Doc A/​Conf.188/​6, Art 10 (identifying provisions as to which reservations are permitted); Patent Cooperation Treaty (adopted 19 June 1970, entered into force 24 January 1978) 1160 UNTS 231, Art 64 (identifying provisions as to which reservations are permitted, but barring other reservations). 62 See eg Aust (n 1)  135 (‘Unfortunately, all too many treaties are simply silent on the matter [of reservations]:  sometimes because no agreement could be reached; sometimes because it was not seen as important enough, the matter being dealt with anyway by the VCLT; and sometimes because the problem was just not considered’). What it means to say that the number of treaties addressing reservations is insufficient, however, is unclear—​and important. For example, it may rest on a normative preference for fewer reservations or for more focused consideration by States; on the other hand, it may simply test the hypothesis that States are dissatisfied with the way the default rules protect negotiated treaty terms. See eg Swaine (n 16) 325. 63 See J Galbraith, ‘Treaty Options: Towards a Behavioral Understanding of Treaty Design’ (2012–​2013) 53 VJIL 309, 326.

296  Treaty Formation 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),64 the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court,65 as well as the Kyoto Protocol66 and Paris Agreement67—​ preclude reservations altogether. Clauses prohibiting reservations have been explained as a critical safeguard for package deals, because they prevent a State from clawing back by reservation a concession it made at the bargaining table—​even as it would retain the benefits of concessions made by other States.68 (Objections might theoretically be an adequate safeguard, but for reasons explored below, the limited advantages afforded by objecting, and the infrequency of objections—​ perhaps due to that limited upside—​suggests the need for more dramatic solutions.) Such clauses may also resolve the practical challenges of administering the permissibility approach, or otherwise validate the VCLT’s concern with protecting a treaty’s object and purpose. If States cannot agree in advance on the object and purpose,69 they may be disposed to preclude all reservations rather than precluding only the most fundamental ones. It is difficult, however, to maintain any firm bar on reservations and their proxies. A number of treaties prohibit all reservations in the first instance, but allow reservations to affiliated agreements or to technical and dynamic content—​which is where the action for agreements on trade, environmental, and arms control matters ultimately may lie.70 In other instances, States are permitted to tailor their obligations more indirectly, but in ways that are difficult to distinguish from the effect of a well-​tailored reservation. For example, UNCLOS managed to achieve consensus in part by permitting States to opt out of certain dispute settlement provisions.71 Similarly, States parties to the Rome Statute deferred 64 UNCLOS permits reservations where ‘expressly permitted by other articles’, but none of its principal clauses permit them. UNCLOS (n 15) Art 309. 65 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90, Art 120. 66 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 10 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) [1998] 37 ILM 32, Art 26. 67 Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740, Art 27. These are typical of multilateral environmental treaties. UN Office of Legal Affairs, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook (UN Sales No E04V3 2003)  47 n51 (citing examples) (‘Final Clauses Handbook’); CL Carr and GL Scott, ‘Multilateral Treaties and the Environment: A Case Study in the Formation of Customary International Law’ (1999) 27 Denver J Intl L and Poly 313, 322 n29 (indicating ten of forty-​one global environmental treaties surveyed contained ‘no reservations’ provisions), 68 UNCLOS is the most obvious example. See eg M Nordquist and C Park (eds), Reports of the United States Delegation to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Law of the Sea Institute, Honolulu 1993) 83 (‘Since the Convention is an overall “package deal” reflecting different priorities of different States, to permit reservations would inevitably permit one State to eliminate the “quid” of another State’s “quo.” Thus, there was general agreement in the Conference that in principle reservations could not be permitted’). 69 B Oxman, ‘The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea: The Eighth Session (1979)’ (1980) 74 AJIL 1, 35 (speculating that ‘it is likely that any attempt to achieve a consensus at the conference on the object and purpose of the [Law of the Sea] convention would end, after a long period of time, with the verbatim repetition of almost every provision’). 70 See eg Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (opened for signature 13 January 1993, entered into force 29 April 1997) 1974 UNTS 317, Art XXII (barring reservations to the Convention’s articles, but permitting reservations to its annexes not incompatible with its object and purpose); Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (opened for signature 3 March 1973, entered into force 1 July 1975) 993 UNTS 243, Art XXIII (prohibiting ‘general reservations’ but permitting reservations to specific articles and appendices); see also Marrakesh Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 154, Art XVI(5) (‘No reservations may be made in respect of any provision of this Agreement. Reservations in respect of any of the provisions of the Multilateral Trade Agreements may only be made to the extent provided for in those Agreements. Reservations in respect of a provision of a Plurilateral Trade Agreement shall be governed by the provisions of that Agreement’). 71 UNCLOS (n 15) Art 298. More broadly, provisions permitting amendment and denunciation relieved concerns that States might have about the need to use reservations to secure protection against future changes in

Treaty Reservations  297 decisions about the crime of aggression and the elements of crimes, while permitting individual States to defer implementation of war crimes provisions for up to seven years.72 In addition, as noted, States may try to disguise their reservations through other unilateral forms such as interpretative declarations or unilateral statements.73 The most persistent challenge for attempts to limit reservations is simply the problem originally confronted by the Reservations case: if reservations to negotiated agreements are not allowed, States may decline to consent at all. Alternatively, if a sufficient number of negotiating States are aware that they will be unable to propose reservations—​the number need not be substantial if the text requires consensus for its adoption—​they may dilute the original obligations, or negotiate other release mechanisms to similar effect. The unattractiveness of these options may explain the continued tolerance of reservations, notwithstanding ambiguity around the rules for determining even their initial standing.

IV.  Objections to Reservations—​and Their Effects The relevance of the object-​and-​purpose inquiry is not exhausted in determining a reservation’s initial status. One of the most vexing reservations questions concerns the remedy for objecting States—​or, to the extent it differs, the remedy for reservations determined to be incompatible with the treaty. The VCLT rules appear fairly straightforward at first. Under Articles 20 and 21, if one State has proposed a reservation, each other State may accept the reservation or object to it—​and if an objection is not made within twelve months, the State is deemed to have accepted it.74 If one State accepts another State’s reservation, it modifies the relevant treaty provisions for each in relation to one another.75 Objections may have one of two effects. If an objecting State so indicates, the objection can preclude the treaty’s entry into force as between the two parties. Absent such an indication, objecting means that ‘the provisions to which the reservation relates do not apply as between the two States to the extent of the reservation’.76 As with reservations, some potentially significant but still secondary procedural questions have arisen relating to objections: for example, tardy objections are sometimes lodged,

circumstances. Ibid Arts 312–​14, 317; see TL McDorman, ‘Reservations and the Law of the Sea Treaty’ (1982) 13 J Maritime L and Comm 481, 496. 72 See Rome Statute (n 65) Arts 5 (provision relating to crime of aggression), 9 (elements of crimes), 124 (deferral of war crimes provisions). 73 See nn 10–​15 and accompanying text. 74 The twelve-​month period runs from when the non-​reserving State is notified of the reservation. Art 20(5) VCLT. By operation of Art 23(2) VCLT, a reservation is considered as having been made when it is formally confirmed by the reserving State in expressing its consent to be bound, so notice and the twelve-​month period do not run from any earlier formulation of the reservation (eg from when the reserving State was signing a treaty subject to ratification, acceptance, or approval). The deadline for the non-​reserving State is postponed, however, if it expresses its own consent to be bound after the end of the twelve-​month period, with the date of its consent marking the last opportunity for it to object—​again, at peril of tacit acceptance. Art 20(5) VCLT (tacit acceptance commences from the ‘end of a period of twelve months after [the non-​reserving State] was notified of the reservation or by the date on which it expressed its consent to be bound by the treaty, whichever is later’). 75 Arts 20(4)(a), 21(1)(a) VCLT. 76 Arts 20(4)(b), 21(3) VCLT.

298  Treaty Formation when on the face of the VCLT these are without legal effect.77 But a more fundamental issue has to do with the consequences of objections—​more particularly, the fact that, at least when an objecting State does not seek to prevent the treaty from entering into force, it may see little difference between objecting and staying silent. The distinction between the VCLT’s pronouncements that ‘to the extent of the reservation’ treaty provisions are ‘modifie[d]‌’ (in the case of tacit or express acceptance) or, alternatively, ‘do not apply . . . to the extent of the reservation’ (in the case of objection),78 may be fine. An objection seems to have the greatest relative significance when a reservation proposes that a provision be modified (typically, narrowed) in some way; while accepting simply acquiesces in the modification, objecting disapplies to some different extent any application of the provision as between the objecting and reserving States (which a would-​be objecting State may or may not actually prefer to acquiescing in the modification). However, when a reservation instead proposes that some provisions not be applied at all, objecting with the result that the provisions ‘do not apply’ appears to have the same effect on treaty relations as would acceptance.79 This means that non-​reserving States may see little upside to objecting, or may even be deterred from doing so if it results in disapplying more of the treaty; that means, in turn, that other States have less reason to refrain from proposing reservations in the first place. One might rationalize this as unsettling the expectations of reserving States, or encouraging other States to object to establishing any treaty relations at all with the reserving State, but the simple truth seems to be that the VCLT’s text was an imperfect attempt to ensure that objections negate somehow the intended effect of a proposed reservation.80 In keeping with this intuition, the ILC’s Guide to Practice stresses that an objection in all events ‘precludes the reservation from having its intended effects’ as against the objecting State.81 What precisely this means is more difficult to discern. The Guide goes on to differentiate between the consequences of: (i) an objection to an otherwise valid reservation when that reservation tries to exclude outright the legal effect of one or more treaty provisions (with the result being that neither relevant State is bound by such provisions) and (ii) an objection to a reservation that tries instead to modify the provisions’ legal effect (with the result being that neither relevant State is bound ‘by the provisions . . . as intended to be modified by the reservation’).82 Putting aside any potential difficulties between ‘excluding reservations’ and 77 For discussions of the problem of tardy objections, see eg Horn (n 16) 205–​9. The Guide to Practice does not directly deny them any legal effect, but says their legal effect is not entirely the same as for timely objections. Guide to Practice (n 4) 2.6.13. The UN Secretary-​General, acting as a depositary, circulates late objections to parties as ‘communications’. Treaty Handbook (n 58) 3.5.6. Questions concerning timing are intimately related to the permissibility theory, since concerns with timing diminish if a reservation was never proper. Swaine (n 16) 317–​19. 78 Cf Art 21(1)(a) and (3) VCLT. 79 Thus, for example, if a treaty provision required the submission to the ICJ of disputes between States parties, and a State were to propose a reservation that excluded security-​related matters, express or tacit acceptance would modify the provision as between the parties in just those terms—​while objecting (without denying treaty relations altogether) would likely have the effect of striking the provision, and the submission of any disputes, in its entirety, so long as that was reckoned to be ‘to the extent of the reservation’ per Art 21(3). If, on the other hand, a State were to propose a reservation that excluded the submission of any disputes, either acceptance or objection would appear to produce the same result: excluding the submission of any disputes. This distinction, and related issues, are carefully explored in A Pellet and D Müller, ‘Reservations to Treaties: An Objection to a Reservation is Definitely not an Acceptance’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 37, 46–​54. As the authors stress, acceptance and objection have more clearly distinct roles as they relate to the entry into force of a treaty, either bilaterally or between the reserving State and all other parties. Ibid at 38–​46. 80 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 283–​5 (discussing drafting history); A Pellet and D Müller (n 79), at 49–​51 (same). 81 Guide to Practice (n 4) 4.3. 82 Ibid 4.3.6(2), 4.3.6(3).

Treaty Reservations  299 ‘modifying reservations’,83 it is not wholly clear what the proposed consequences of objections against the latter mean in practical terms, or how they differ from the consequences of objections to the former.84 These remedies for non-​reserving States seem particularly lacklustre for objections claiming that a reservation violates a treaty’s object and purpose (or, in the words of the permissibility approach, where a reservation is impermissible regardless of whether any objection is made). Denying a reservation legal effect does not, unfortunately, determine the residual treaty relations between the reserving State and the (other) States parties. As one author summarized, one might imagine three results: Option 1: The [reserving] state remains bound to the treaty except for the provision(s) to which the reservation related. Option 2: The invalidity of a reservation nullifies the instrument of ratification as a whole and thus the state is no longer a party to the agreement. Option 3: An invalid reservation can be severed from the instrument of ratification such that the state remains bound to the treaty including the provision(s) to which the reservation related.85 None of these options is free from difficulty. The first, while consistent with the outcome described for objections under Article 21(3), is in obvious tension with the permissibility approach. Article 21 literally applies only to ‘[a]‌reservation established with regard to another party in accordance with articles 19, 20 and 23’; arguably a reservation that cannot properly be ‘formulate[d]’ under Article 19(c) because of an object-​and-​purpose violation is also not properly ‘established’ with respect to another party. In practical terms, the first option permits a reserving State to unilaterally alter its treaty obligations, notwithstanding that it seeks to disapply something essential to the negotiated text, since any objection produces essentially the same result as if there were no objection or no incompatibility discerned.86 The second option, on the other hand, would essentially assert on behalf of non-​ reserving States a draconian solution—​the preclusion of treaty relations—​that they rarely elect for themselves. The third solution would invert consent-​based concerns. Rather than 83 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 288–​9 (discussing, but partly assuming, a distinction). 84 It is relatively clear, as the commentary explains, that when a State objects to a ‘modifying reservation’, ‘[n]‌either the initial obligation, nor the modified obligation proposed by the reservation, applies’. Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 289. It is also clear under Art 21(3) VCLT that the scope of this disapplication applies only ‘to the provisions to which the reservation relates’, and only ‘to the extent of the reservation’, and that this prevents an objection from triggering effects beyond the scope of the original reservation. For example, France formulated reservations to Art 6 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf that sought to prevent the application of the equidistance principle under certain circumstances. The United Kingdom objected, and argued to the Court of Arbitration that this meant Art 6 applied without any modification; France argued instead that the result of the UK objection was that Art 6 as a whole was inapplicable. The Court disagreed with both, invoking Art 21(3) VCLT in concluding that Art 6 was ‘inapplicable as between the two countries to the extent, but only to the extent, of the reservations’. Delimitation of the Continental Shelf between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the French Republic (Decision of 30 June 1977) UNRIAA, vol XVIII, 3, [61]; see Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 286–​7. The import seems to be that an objection should not, as an upper bound, be deemed to negate more of the provision or provisions than the reservation touched—​but neither the ILC nor the Court of Arbitration provided clear instruction how that was to be reckoned, nor how any such reckoning of the reservation’s extent would result in a treaty obligation that was materially different than any resulting from an objected-​to ‘excluding reservation’. 85 R Goodman, ‘Human Rights Treaties, Invalid Reservations, and State Consent’ (2002) 96 AJIL 531, 531. 86 This is a slight exaggeration, since other States remain free in theory to object to any treaty relations with an overreaching State.

300  Treaty Formation compromising the consent-​based interests of non-​reserving States like the first two options, severing the reservation and creating a binding treaty obligation simply ignores what might have been an indispensable part of the reserving State’s expression of its consent to be bound. Which option is the most consistent with current law? Practice provides no authoritative answer at present. States have sometimes advocated for the first approach, negating the reserved-​to provision along with the reservation.87 The second option, where the reserving State falls out of treaty relations, has been occasionally suggested by States,88 and arguably draws some support from the Secretary-​General’s practice as depositary of multilateral treaties.89 As to the third, ‘severance’ option, some States (especially Nordic ones) have indeed asserted a right to objections with ‘super-​maximum’ effect—​effectively severing the reservation and asserting a binding relationship between the States under the entire treaty, including any provisions to which the reservations pertain.90 Such objections have been justified on familiar permissibility grounds, including the claim that ‘ordinary’ objections and those based on object-​and-​purpose grounds should not have identical effects.91 In other cases, States have asserted still different options, claiming a different set of legal effects to object-​and-​purpose objections that lie between disapplying the reserved-​to provision and disapplying the reservation itself. Such objections may, for example, assert the right 87 See ‘Observations by the United States on General Comment 24’ (28 March 1995) CCPR A/​50/​40/​Annex VI 126–​29, reprinted in (1996) 3 IHRR 265, 269 (taking the view that only this option, and preventing the treaty from coming into force at all between the States, were open to an objecting State) (‘US Observations’). 88 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 309–​11. For example, Burundi’s reservation to the 1973 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons, including Diplomatic Agents, drew object-​and-​purpose objections from Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and those States also objected to considering Burundi a party to the treaty until the reservation was withdrawn; the Federal Republic of Germany and France also objected but did not assert that the treaty was not in force. Both results, however, are fully explicable as options available to objecting States under the VCLT regime. Ibid 310. 89 Ibid 309 (citing Summary of Depositary Practice (n 42) [191]–​[193]). In fact, the Summary of Practice suggests only that the UN Secretary-​General will refuse to accept the deposit of instruments with reservations that are prohibited, explicitly or by omission, a test that is much easier to administer than an inquiry into object and purpose. Indeed, the Summary indicates that refusal is warranted only if there is no doubt of an unauthorized reservation, which seems to reinforce the distinction between the two operations. Ibid [193]. 90 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 307–​9; A Pellet, ‘Ninth Report on Reservations to Treaties’ (24 June 2004) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​544, [8]‌(‘Pellet, Ninth Report’); A Pellet, ‘Eighth Report on Reservations to Treaties, First Addendum’ (10 July 2003) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​535/​Add.1, [96] (citing examples). For example, Sweden’s objection to Qatar’s reservation to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography stated that ‘[t]he Convention enters into force in its entirety between the two States, without Qatar benefiting from its reservation’. MTDSG Status as of 1 April 2009 (2009) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​SER.E/​26  448; see also ibid 309, 312–​15, 331–​5 (similar objections and communications by Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Great Britain to reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women); ibid 219–​20, 229 (similar objections by Denmark, Finland, and Sweden to reservations to the ICCPR). This type of objection is not entirely limited to human rights treaties. See eg ibid 131 (objection by Finland to reservations to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations); ibid 592 (objection by Finland to reservations to the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances); see also P Kaukoranta, ‘Elements of Nordic Practice 1997: Finland’ (1998) 67 Nordic J Intl L 321, 327–​8; KL McCall-​Smith, ‘Severing Reservations’ (2014) 63 ICLQ 599. 91 The Netherlands once reasoned that the authority to object to treaty relations with the reserving State connoted the right to exclude only part of a treaty, providing the provisions were severable. RCR Siekmann, ‘Netherlands State Practice for the Parliamentary Year 1982–​1983’ (1984) 15 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 267, 345–​6 (quoting explanatory memorandum from the Dutch government on VCLT ratification). Subsequent defences have sounded in permissibility terms. See eg L Magnuson, ‘Elements of Nordic Practice 1997: The Nordic Countries in Coordination’ (1998) 67 Nordic J Intl L 345, 350 (quoting statement by Swedish representative to the UNGA’s Sixth Committee); L Mikaelsen, ‘Elements of Nordic and International Practice in the Year of 1996 (Denmark)’ (1997) 66 Nordic J Intl L 319, 323. States defending innovative objections have, in any event, confined their use to reservations claimed to be inadmissible.

Treaty Reservations  301 to disapply not only the reserved-​to provisions but also other provisions identified by the objecting State.92 The severance approach has been reinforced by the reactions of treaty-​monitoring bodies, principally in the human rights context. Most notably, in General Comment 24, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) took the position that ‘generally’ incompatible reservations may be severed, so that the treaty binds the reserving party in its entirety.93 The HRC comment followed an earlier European Court of Human Rights decision that invalidated reservations and held the reserving State bound to the entire European Convention on Human Rights, albeit in a regional context and without reference to the VCLT.94 The HRC did not specify conditions under which severability would be eschewed. Unfortunately, too, the linchpin to its approach—​the ability to determine a treaty’s object and purpose—​ remained problematic, even in the context of its particular treaty (the ICCPR). The HRC gave examples of provisions to which reservations could not be made, but did not provide much by way of a rationale;95 as partial guidance, it suggested that reservations contrary to peremptory norms or customary international law were necessarily incompatible with the ICCPR’s object and purpose, but its explanation for this principle was unsatisfying.96 The ILC’s Guide to Practice, drafted in full view of General Comment 24, would make object-​and-​purpose determinations somewhat more predictable. Its attempt to articulate a general test to determine the object and purpose of a treaty was no great improvement.97 Nevertheless, the Guide indicates that a reservation is not impermissible solely because it relates to a treaty provision reflecting customary international law,98 follows General 92 See J Klabbers, ‘Accepting the Unacceptable? A  New Nordic Approach to Reservations to Multilateral Treaties’ (2000) 69 Nordic J Intl L 179. See also F Hampson, ‘Final Working Paper on Reservations to Human Rights Treaties’ (19 July 2004) UN Doc E/​CN.4/​Sub.2/​2004/​43, [16]–​[17] (citing other, non-​Nordic examples); Pellet, Ninth Report (n 90) [19] (same). 93 HRC, ‘General Comment No 24: General comment on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the Covenant’ (4 November 1994) CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.6, [18] (‘General Comment 24’); ibid (stating that ‘[t]‌he normal consequence of an unacceptable reservation is not that the Covenant will not be in effect at all for a reserving party’ (emphasis added)). Other treaty-​monitoring bodies have assented in the severability approach. UNGA, ‘Report of the Ninth Meeting of Persons Chairing the Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ (14 May 1998) UN Doc A/​53/​125, [18] (reporting chairpersons’ ‘firm support for the approach reflected in General Comment No. 24’). The authority of such a body to execute this approach—​its jurisdiction, as opposed to the merits of such a position—​is addressed later. 94 Belilos v Switzerland (App no 10328/​83) ECHR 29 April 1988, reprinted in (1998) 10 EHRR 466; see also Loizidou (n 15). 95 General Comment 24 (n 93) [7]‌(explaining that ‘[i]n an instrument which articulates very many civil and political rights, each of the many articles, and indeed their interplay, secures the objectives of the Covenant’, such that ‘[t]he object and purpose of the Covenant is to create legally binding standards for human rights by defining certain civil and political rights and placing them in a framework of obligations which are legally binding for those States which ratify; and to provide an efficacious supervisory machinery for the obligations undertaken’). Apparently as illustrations of this principle, the HRC cited examples of impermissible reservations: a ‘reservation to article 1 denying peoples the right to determine their own political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development’; a ‘reservation to the obligation to respect and ensure the rights, and to do so on a non-​ discriminatory basis’; and a reservation of ‘an entitlement not to take the necessary steps at the domestic level to give effect to the rights of the Covenant’. Ibid [9]. 96 Ibid [8]‌(providing examples of reservations perceived to be inadmissible as contrary to jus cogens or customary international law). Granting that norms that are established by customary international law (and certainly those that are peremptory in character) are different in kind, proposing a reservation to the treaty-​based means of enforcing a norm is not the same as seeking the right to violate the norm itself. See US Observations (n 87) 267. Nor is it necessarily obvious whether a given norm is one established by customary international law. 97 See Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.1.5 (‘A reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty if it affects an essential element of the treaty that is necessary to its general tenor, in such a way that the reservation impairs the raison d’être of the treaty’). 98 Ibid 3.1.5.3.

302  Treaty Formation Comment 24 in drawing no invariable conclusion from the fact that a treaty provision is non-​derogable,99 and takes a slightly more nuanced view of the relationship between reservations and peremptory norms.100 What may be more significant, however, is the Guide’s endorsement of a fourth approach to meting out the effects of impermissible objections. The Guide suggests severability is a function of the reserving State’s intent—​specifically, ‘whether it intends to be bound by the treaty without the benefit of the reservation or whether it considers that it is not bound by the treaty’—​and adopts the presumption that, unless a State has expressed or can otherwise evidence a contrary intent, it is to be considered a full-​fledged party to the treaty without the reservation’s benefit.101 A presumption of severability is certainly more moderate than an absolute severability rule or a rule that absolutely precluded party status, and it is an approach that human rights bodies appear to have endorsed.102 Nonetheless, though the Guide’s approach is sensitive in application to the intent of particular States, it is not itself consensualist—​being based neither in the VCLT nor in pre-​existing State practice—​and the inquiry into the contingent intentions of a reserving State, in the event its reservations were frustrated, may be as vexed as that into object and purpose.103 The Guide to Practice’s approach suggests a persistent tendency in the VCLT regime. As initially noted, the rules’ origins in the human rights context evolved into the VCLT’s default approach for all treaties. Somewhat ironically, the inadequacy of the VCLT regime has been felt most keenly in its original context. Critics of human rights treaty reservations have contended, with some force, that while the availability of reservations may have increased the number of treaty adherents, the safeguard of objections has proven completely inadequate. The interest and attention of non-​reserving States was no match for the interest of reserving States in securing additional latitude, and neither seemed focused on protecting the true subjects of human rights treaties: individuals.104 In light of these factors, the HRC, among others, felt that severability—​which avoided any immediate diminution in the number of adherents to human rights treaties, since it did not entail annulling ratifications—​was the

99 Ibid 3.1.5.4; see also General Comment 24 (n 93) [10]. 100 Whereas General Comment 24 took the view that ‘provisions in the Covenant that . . . have the character of peremptory norms . . .may not be the subject of reservations’, the Guide to Practice stated that ‘[a]‌reservation cannot exclude or modify the legal effect of a treaty in a manner contrary to a peremptory norm of general international law’; it classified that principle among those regulating the effect of reservations on non-​treaty rights, seemingly to establish the narrower principle that the treaty could not be modified so as to violate peremptory norms. Guide to Practice (n 4) 4.4.3(2). The same approach is being echoed in the ILC’s project on peremptory norms. ILC, Statement of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, Mr Charles Chernor Jalloh, ‘Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens)’ (July 26, 2018) 15 (draft conclusion 13), at . Other Guide provisions addressed the permissibility of reservations concerning internal law, interdependent rights and obligations, and dispute settlement or treaty monitoring provisions. Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.1.5.5–​3.1.5.7. 101 Guide to Practice (n 4) 4.5.3(2). 102 Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 313–​16; see UNGA, ‘Report of the Sixth Inter-​Committee Meeting of Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ (2007) UN Doc A/​62/​224, Annex [48(v)] (endorsing conclusion of a working group). 103 The Guide to Practice also embraces the possibility of a form of ‘intermediate’ objection in which an objecting State seeks to disapply a provision other than the one to which the reservation relates, so long as there is some link to provisions to which the reservation relates and the objection does not itself defeat the treaty’s object and purpose in its bilateral application. Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.4.2. It is unclear how this approach relates to the presumption of severability—​whether, that is, the objecting State’s intention to achieve a result other than severance should matter. 104 See eg L Lijnzaad, Reservations to UN Human Rights Treaties (TMC Asser Institute, Dordrecht 1994); I Ziemele (ed), Reservations to Human Rights Treaties and the Vienna Convention Regime (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2004); R Higgins, ‘The United Nations: Still a Force for Peace’ (1989) 52 MLR 1, 11–​12.

Treaty Reservations  303 only way to preserve treaty integrity and advance the entire object and purpose of these treaties.105 The ILC has reacted to this critique in two ways. On the one hand, it rejected the proposal that it differentiate between the reservations scheme for human rights matters and for other treaties. That is consistent with, and arguably necessitated by, the breadth of the VCLT itself.106 On the other hand, as part of that undifferentiated approach, the ILC has again generalized from the remedy urged for the particular circumstances of human rights treaties to an approach applicable to all treaties.107 Leading advocates of severability, not limited to the HRC, frequently emphasize the peculiar strength of the warrant for severability in the human rights context.108 The Guide’s decision to accept a warrant arising from the human rights context, and to extrapolate it to the world of treaties as a whole, may well influence the practice of States. If it does, however, it is also plausible that States operating outside the human rights context may react by negotiating treaty-​specific reservations clauses that purposefully deviate from this practice, even as to the remedy for impermissible reservations. Presumably, they would do so both to account for interests outside the human rights realm and to better inform the State intent that is at the core of the Guide’s inquiry.

V.  Participants in Evaluating Reservations By and large, the system laid out in the VCLT reservations regime is limited to States in their individual capacities:  individual States propose reservations, individual States accept or object to reservations, and individual States determine what results from these exchanges, subject to the rules they may have agreed to in a particular treaty.109 The notable exception was a default obligation that proposed reservations to constituent treaties of international organizations (IOs) would require those organizations’ approval.110 Ultimately, treaties 105 See General Comment 24 (n 93) [17] (differentiating human rights treaties for purposes of reservations on the ground, inter alia, that they ‘concern the endowment of individuals with rights’, such that ‘[t]‌he principle of inter-​State reciprocity [ordinarily] has no place’; ‘because the operation of the classic rules on reservations is so inadequate for the Covenant, States have often not seen any legal interest in or need to object to reservations’, which means that the absence of protest does not inform the question of whether the object and purpose has been affronted); ibid [18] (extending analysis to severability). 106 See also Aust (n 1) 134 (rejecting appeals to ‘see human rights treaties as a special case’). 107 Interestingly, the Guide to Practice transformed one guideline, originally depicted as concerning ‘general human rights treaties’, into one relating to ‘treaties containing numerous interdependent rights and obligations’. While the guideline’s substance also changed somewhat, it remains readily applicable to human rights treaties—​ but is not designed to be dispositive. Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.1.5.6 (‘To assess the compatibility of a reservation with the object and purpose of a treaty containing numerous interdependent rights and obligations, account shall be taken of that interdependence as well as the importance that the provision to which the reservation relates has within the general tenour of the treaty, and the extent of the impact that the reservation has on the treaty’). 108 See eg Goodman (n 85)  531 n8 (arguing that severance should be the presumed remedy effectuated by third-​party institutions, so long as it is not shown to be an essential condition of ratification, and that this is consistent with the consensual interests of States that wish to be bound by their commitments—​but limiting this thesis to human rights treaties); B Simma and GI Hernandez, ‘Legal Consequences of an Impermissible Reservation to a Human Rights Treaty: Where Do We Stand?’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 60 (supporting severability, but confining argument to multilateral human rights treaties). 109 Although not addressed in this chapter, States also play a role in evaluating the impact of State succession on treaty reservations. See Chapter 16, Section III, 411; Guide to Practice (n 4) Part 5. 110 Art 20(3) VCLT. Examples of IOs exercising such authority are harder to discern and it is not clear whether the practice tracks the VCLT. The most prominent example involved a pre-​VCLT treaty, when Iceland proposed in 2001 to rejoin the International Whaling Convention (adopted 2 December 1946, entered into force 10 November 1948)  1953 UNTS 74, with a reservation to the Convention Schedule’s commercial whaling moratorium. The

304  Treaty Formation involving IOs as parties became the subject of a different convention, which addressed reservations in parallel terms.111 Unsurprisingly, given long-​evident trends in international law and international relations, individual States are no longer the only relevant actors. The fact that States often act collectively in proposing and, still more commonly, in evaluating reservations is perhaps the least surprising tendency. Somewhat less predictable, perhaps, has been the tendency of States to develop distinctive approaches to the rules governing reservations, as evident for example in the so-​called ‘Nordic approach’.112 The more dramatic change has been the increased involvement of non-​State actors. The most obvious of these are IOs such as the UN, acting as depositaries, who receive reservations that they must occasionally evaluate, particularly where the treaty text addresses reservations explicitly.113 That international courts and tribunals might also play a role was almost inevitable, at least once the objective character of an object-​and-​purpose inquiry is granted. The participation by treaty-​monitoring bodies, however, has been more controversial. When the HRC asserted its own capacity to evaluate whether reservations to the ICCPR violated that treaty’s object and purpose, several prominent States protested. To a degree, those protests hinged on a disputed understanding that the HRC was asserting or seeking definitive or binding authority to sever reservations.114 As matters have developed, the HRC has been cautious in asserting such authority, and more often engages in attempts to persuade States to consider withdrawing arguably objectionable reservations—​a form of interaction very similar to that of other treaty-​monitoring bodies that have more conclusively renounced binding authority for themselves.115 The ILC’s Guide to Practice aims at establishing, somewhat abstractly, the capacity of treaty-​monitoring bodies (within their treaty-​established competences) to assess the permissibility of reservations, just as that capacity exists for States parties and dispute settlement bodies.116 The proposal seems unobjectionable on its face, given the stated deference to the particulars of any particular treaty. But there are potentially serious drawbacks to

Convention’s plenary body, the International Whaling Commission, voted twice in 2001 and 2002 to refuse the reservation (and Iceland’s status as a party) before voting 19–​18 to accept Iceland and its reservation in October 2002. For its part, the United States treated the issue as one governed by the Convention and subsequent practice rather than any general rule of treaty law. See ‘Reservation Practice: Iceland Whaling’ [2002] Digest of United States Practice in International Law 206–​12. Following the Commission’s approval, fifteen States filed objections to Iceland’s reservation, three of which claimed to deny treaty relations with Iceland. ‘Objection to Reservation’ [2003] Digest of United States Practice in International Law 243–​4. 111 Arts 19–​23 of the et seq. It is not clear, however, whether IOs other than the EU have any sustained practice of proposing treaty reservations. 112 See nn 90–​1 and accompanying text. 113 On the role of depositaries in this respect see Chapter 11, Section I.H, 274 et seq. 114 See General Comment 24 (n 93) [11] (asserting non-​contravenable ‘competence to interpret the requirements of any provisions of the Covenant’); ibid [18] (‘It necessarily falls to the Committee to determine whether a specific reservation is compatible with the object and purpose of the Covenant’). Cf US Observations (n 87) 266 (rejecting the Committee’s power to issue ‘definitive or binding interpretations of the Covenant’); ‘Observations by the United Kingdom on GC No 24’ (21 July 1995) CCPR A/​50/​40/​Annex VI, 130–​34, reprinted in (1996) 3 IHRR 261, 263–​4 [9]‌–​[12] (similar criticism); ‘Observation by France on GC No 24 on Reservations to the ICCPR’ (8 September 1995) CCPR A/​51/​40/​Annex VI, 104–​6 (same); Aust (n 1) 134–​5, with PR Ghandhi, The Human Rights Committee and the Right of Individual Communication (Ashgate, Dartmouth 1998) 371. 115 Swaine (n 16) 322 n93 (noting Committee’s subsequent caution); ibid 321 n87 (noting positions of other treaty-​monitoring bodies gainsaying binding authority); see also UNGA, ‘Report on Reservations by the Twenty-​ First Meeting of Chairpersons of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies’ (17 June 2008) UN Doc HRI/​MC/​2009/​5. 116 Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.2–​3.2.5.

Treaty Reservations  305 promoting this kind of authority. Multiplying the number of parties assessing objections increases the likelihood that potentially problematic objections will be caught, but also increases the likelihood of conflicting pronouncements. Treaty-​monitoring bodies also accentuate the risks inherent in the permissibility approach. If reservations are not merely opposable by States—​a right exhausted within twelve months—​there is potentially no real limits on the opportunity to disallow reservations. A treaty-​monitoring body has neither the same incentive nor the capacity unilaterally to control the occasions for its pronouncements. It is unclear, moreover, whether the contribution of treaty-​monitoring bodies is so distinctive that it must be added to the entities engaged in reviewing the permissibility of reservations.117 Ultimately, the participation by treaty-​monitoring bodies must be resolved by the governing treaties, to which the VCLT and the Guide to Practice both defer. The ILC’s non-​ binding encouragement of their role—​not only in assessing permissibility in their own right, but also to having their views considered by States parties118—​curiously reinserts the Commission itself as another contributor to the reservations dialogue.

Conclusion The law of reservations has evolved considerably since the Genocide Convention controversy. While the VCLT rules are quite similar to those indicated by the ICJ—​and the reliance on objections and the focus on a treaty’s object and purpose continues to bedevil practice—​the contemporary landscape provides States with many more options. The assistance of depositaries and treaty-​monitoring bodies, the proliferation of model clauses that deviate from the VCLT, and now the ILC’s elaborate Guide to Practice all stand ready to help parties avoid any perceived pitfalls in the law of reservations. As practice matures still further, understanding the consequences of any proposed reservation will likely borrow increasingly from other principles of international law. For example, understanding proposed reservations and the reactions thereto, particularly in the context of a diverse array of final clauses governing reservations, will likely depend more and more on questions of treaty interpretation and the customary international law of unilateral acts. It seems unlikely, however, that these developments will ever obviate a default law of reservations or resolve all its puzzles.

Recommended Reading A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) Chapter 8 RL Bindschedler, ‘Treaties, Reservations’ (1984), reprinted in (2000) 4 EPIL 965 WW Bishop Jr, ‘Reservations to Treaties’ (1961-​II) 103 RcD 245 DW Bowett, ‘Reservations to Non-​Restricted Multilateral Treaties’ (1976–​77) 48 BYBIL 67

117 In terms of other participants, the commentaries cite the potential for contributions from domestic courts. See Guide to Practice Commentaries (n 33) 235. The possibility that they might independently weigh in on the permissibility of reservations, without heed to the position established by States, remains troublesome. 118 Guide to Practice (n 4) 3.2.3.

306  Treaty Formation O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) (particularly the multiple contributions of A Pellet, D Muller, and W Schabas in Section 2) O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) (particularly the multiple contributions of C Walter in Section 2) RW Edwards Jr, ‘Reservations to Treaties’ (1989) 10 Mich J Int’l L 363 R Goodman, ‘Human Rights Treaties, Invalid Reservations, and State Consent’ (2002) 96 AJIL 531 DW Greig, ‘Reservations: Equity as a Balancing Factor?’ (1995) 16 Australian Ybk Intl L 21 F Horn, Reservations and Interpretative Declarations to Multilateral Treaties (TMC Asser Institute, The Hague 1988) ILC, ‘Text of the Guide to Practice, comprising an introduction, the guidelines and commentaries thereto, an annex on the reservations dialogue and a bibliography’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 35 et seq L Lijnzaad, Reservations to UN Human Rights Treaties (TMC Asser Institute, Dordrecht 1994) DM McRae, ‘The Legal Effect of Interpretative Declarations’ (1978) 49 BYBIL 156 D Müller, ‘Reservations and Time: Is There Only One Right Moment to Formulate and to React to Reservations?’ (2013) 24 EJIL 1113 A Pellet, ‘The ILC Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties: A General Presentation by the Special Rapporteur’ (2013) 24 EJIL 1061. A Pellet and D Müller, ‘Reservations to Treaties: An Objection to a Reservation is Definitely not an Acceptance’, in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 37 JM Ruda, ‘Reservations to Treaties’ (1975-​III) 146 RcD 97 ET Swaine, ‘Reserving’ (2006) 31 YJIL 307 I Ziemele (ed), Reservations to Human Rights Treaties and the Vienna Convention Regime (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2004)

PART IV

T R E AT Y A PPLICAT ION

13

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory Syméon Karagiannis

Introduction Traditionally, legal texts are applied with the aid of some good old Latin expressions: ratione personae (personal application), ratione materiae (material application), ratione temporis (temporal application), and ratione loci (spatial application).1 Although treaties may raise all four issues, the law of treaties does not address them equally. Neither the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) nor its 1986 companion take an express position on the ratione materiae or the ratione personae issues. What subjects a treaty covers becomes a matter of treaty interpretation under the VCLT rules. The ratione personae issue is seemingly more ambiguous. Asking which persons or entities within a State party a treaty binds raises difficult questions about how municipal law incorporates treaties. The Vienna Conventions cautiously avoid dictating answers in light of different approaches taken by national legal systems. In contrast, the VCLTs contain a large number of articles on a treaty’s ratione temporis application (entry into force, non-​retroactivity, termination, suspension, and so forth). But for the ratione loci application of treaties, there is but one article. Article 29 VCLT (‘Territorial scope of treaties’) provides that ‘unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, a treaty is binding upon each party in respect of its entire territory’.2 At first sight, this approach seems perfectly coherent. Yet, the provision quickly begs a question: are States bound to apply all of their treaties’ provisions only on their national territory (or selected parts of it)? Contemporary case law—​especially in the human rights field—​insists that national boundaries cannot limit a State’s application of its treaties, even as such ‘extraterritorial application’ remains controversial among States. The VCLT does not, however, resolve this controversy. On closer analysis, it operates only to delineate whether a treaty applies to all of a State’s ‘territory’ or, exceptionally, less than that; it simply does not speak to more than that. As such, it is incongruent to view Article 29 VCLT as restricting the extraterritorial application of treaties as some authors do.3 Thus, this chapter offers a broad view of the relationship between treaties and territory. It begins by examining the ambit of Article 29, including the question of what comprises

1 Ratione personae asks to whom the legal text applies; ratione materiae asks to what subject matter it applies; ratione temporis asks when it applies, and ratione loci asks where it applies. 2 See also Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, Art 29 (1986 VCLT). 3 The present author admits engaging in precisely this sort of analysis in the first edition of this volume and his Commentary on Art 29 in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, 731–​58.

310  Treaty Application a State’s ‘territory’ and how its treaties may operate therein. Next, the chapter contrasts the traditional territorial application of treaties with treaties that may be labelled as ‘non-​ territorial’ whether because of the treaty’s objects or parties.4 Finally, the chapter closes with the more controversial topic of extraterritorial applications of treaties, examining whether and how States might be held to their treaty obligations in activities that they control outside their territory.

I.  Treaties in Their Relation to States’ Territories—​Territorial Application of Treaties Proper Article 29 may not be the VCLT’s shortest provision, but it is close. The principle enunciated in this provision—​‘a treaty is binding upon each party in respect of its entire territory’—​ consists of only thirteen words. These words are, moreover, rarely encountered in specific treaty texts, because States that refuse—​without a valid reason—​to apply a treaty to the whole of their territory are most likely not acting in ‘good faith’. The logic of Article 29 thus parallels Article 31’s treaty interpretation rule and its emphasis on ‘good faith’ and ‘ordinary meaning’ principles.5 What then saves Article 29 from banality is its pairing of the main principle (favouring integral territorial application) with the possibility to derogate from it (‘unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established’). Doing so transforms the interpretation of a self-​evident provision into a more thrilling exploration.

A.  Article 29 VCLT: a brief analysis of a predictable principle The relationship of a legal principle to its exceptions is generally easy to establish; the principle constitutes the default rule and exceptions and derogations are interpreted strictly. The relationship in Article 29 is, however, more complicated in two respects. First, the content of the main principle is often uncertain as the concept of ‘territory’ on which it rests has become multifaceted. Second, State practice has not always by default tracked the main principle, but often instead has acquiesced to exceptional behaviour.

1. Meaning of ‘territory’ under Article 29 VCLT There is no particular reason to forge a new definition of ‘territory’ under Article 29. A treaty may, of course, provide for one in conformity with Article 31(4) VCLT (‘A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended’). Otherwise, the ‘ordinary meaning’ of the word ‘territory’ holds. This is especially true given the lack of discussion dedicated to the term by the ILC or in the Vienna Conference travaux. The evolution of the international law of the sea does, however, complicate the territory concept at the margins. Today, some maritime zones submitted to the coastal State’s sovereignty clearly form part of its territory. In 1966, the ILC noted in its commentary to what 4 See M Milanović, ‘The Spatial Dimension:  Treaties and Territory,’ in C Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014) 186–​221, [192]. 5 [1977] YBILC, vol I, 117 [24] (Paul Reuter, Special Rapporteur for the ILC drafts of what became the 1986 VCLT, observing that ‘the authors of [Art 29 of the 1969 VCLT] had simply wanted to enunciate a rule for the interpretation of treaties’).

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  311 became Article 29 VCLT the expression ‘entire territory of each party’ includes ‘all the land and appurtenant territorial waters and air space which constitute the territory of the State’.6 Unfortunately, both ‘territorial waters’ and ‘appurtenant’ are vague and inaccurate terms, neither being used in prior or successive law of the sea treaties. Nonetheless, looking to the contemporary law of the sea, the ‘appurtenant’ idea equates to waters coming under a State’s sovereignty, namely internal waters and territorial seas (including, nowadays, archipelagic waters of archipelagic States as well). At the same time, maritime sovereignty is subject to restrictions (eg the right of innocent passage7) that may complicate Article 29’s operation. For example, what if a treaty obligates a State to prosecute a crime in its territory, but that crime occurs on board a ship passing through its territorial sea given that Article 27(1) UNCLOS suggests ‘the criminal jurisdiction of the coastal State should not be exercised on board a foreign ship passing through the territorial sea’?8 The answer may best be found in the realm of treaty conflicts, although that is another area where the VCLT’s responses may be inadequate.9 Territorial questions also loom over those maritime zones beyond the territorial sea—​ the contiguous zone and the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the second of which post-​ dated the VCLT. Article 59 UNCLOS suggests that competence conflicts over the EEZ not specifically regulated by the Convention ‘should be resolved on the basis of equity and in the light of all the relevant circumstances, taking into account the respective importance of the interests involved to the parties as well as to the international community as a whole’.10 Given its nature, any ‘territoriality’ of the EEZ could only function vis-​à-​vis the economic rights of the coastal State. As such, the most that one can say at present is that—​depending on the circumstances—​the EEZ may or may not be ‘territory’ under Article 29 VCLT. With respect to the continental shelf, the Netherlands proposed in 1966 that the ILC revise the territorial application provision of its draft to include ‘the entire territory of each party, and beyond it as far as the jurisdiction of the State extends under international law, unless the contrary appears from the treaty’.11 Despite Special Rapporteur Waldock’s support, the proposal failed to gain traction, suggesting that a State’s territory will not include its continental shelf.12

6 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 213 [3]‌. 7 See UN Law of the Sea Convention (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Art 8(1) (UNCLOS). 8 Art 27 UNCLOS does recognize some—​limited—​exceptions, including where ‘the consequences of the crime extend to the coastal State’ or ‘the crime is of a kind to disturb the peace of the country or the good order of the territorial sea’. Ibid. More acute difficulties emerge when one considers transit or archipelagic passage since both of them confer to ships even more rights than the simple territorial sea innocent passage. 9 The problem is particularly acute where two treaties claim priority. Cf UNCLOS (n 7) (Art 311(3)) with European Convention on Human Rights (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) ETS 5, Art 53 (ECHR). 10 See UNCLOS (n 7) Art 59; S Karagiannis, ‘L’article 59 de la Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer (ou les mystères de la nature juridique de la zone économique exclusive)’ (2004) 37 RBDI 325–​418. 11 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 66 [4]‌. 12 Further complications arise with respect to more novel territorial units, such as territories under joint sovereignty (condominia). For example, an island in the Bidasoa River is jointly managed by France and Spain under the 1901 Bayonne Convention, with police competence (viz jurisdiction) exercised by each State over its citizens and third parties regulated in accordance with the island’s governing structure, which grants regulatory control to Spain for one half a year and France the other. See Journal officiel de la République française of 6 September 1902 (French text); Spanish text in Gaceta de Madrid of 17 October 1902; J Sermet, ‘Ile des Faisans, Ile de la Conférence’ (75) 1961 Annales du Midi 325–​45; J Capdevila Subirana, La delimitació de la frontera hispanofrancesa (1659-​ 1868) (Universitat de Barcelona, Doctoral thesis 2011) 153 et seq.

312  Treaty Application

2. A somewhat curious relationship between principle and derogation The text of what became Article 29—​with its combination of a principle and room for derogation—​had a long and complicated history, undoubtedly due to the political context of decolonization. An early version appeared in Fitzmaurice’s draft for the ILC: ‘Unless a treaty otherwise provides, it applies automatically to the whole of the metropolitan territory (or to all territories forming part of the metropolitan territory) of each contracting party.’13 This provision came with four articles on the matter, a complicated regime that the next reporter, Waldock, sought to simplify considerably.14 This set the table for the ILC’s 1964 draft article: ‘the scope of application of a treaty extends to the entire territory of each party, unless the contrary appears from the treaty’.15 The final draft the ILC sent to the UN General Assembly reversed the order of the derogation and presumption: ‘Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, the application of a treaty extends to the entire territory of each party.’16 All of these versions, however, perpetuated Fitzmaurice’s basic idea that the territorial application of a treaty should consist of both a principle and an exception. Speaking positively, a provision that permits—​almost—​everything cannot but attain a high degree of State consensus. Article 29 thus reflects customary law as far as customary law favours consensualism and flexibility. At the same time, the combination of a legal principle with its exact opposite may understandably generate confusion. It is possible that the Greek delegation to the ILC envisioned such difficulties. After calling the draft’s approach ‘a refutable legal presumption’, it queried ‘whether the inclusion of such a provision is useful in a formal text’.17 Responding to the Hellenic fears, the ILC took the position that ‘a State’s territory plays such an essential role in the scope of the application of treaties that it is desirable to formulate a general rule on the matter’.18 Article 29’s duality assured the provision a general assent among States and its (mostly) easy adoption at the Vienna Conference.19 Nonetheless, Article 29’s duality has left its operation ambiguous in terms of the priority to accord the principle (applying the treaty to the State’s whole territory) and the exception (a partial application of the treaty on the territory). Normally, exceptions are interpreted stricto sensu, suggesting that the principle of integral application should not be easily defeated. Yet, Article 29’s drafting history reveals a continual retreat from that very principle. As noted, Fitzmaurice’s draft had required a treaty to itself express the exception. Waldock’s draft extended exceptions to the more vague formula triggered by the expression of a ‘contrary intention’ (i) in the treaty, (ii) ‘from the circumstances of its conclusion or the statements of the parties’, or (iii) in a reservation.20 With more sources for an exception, an

13 [1959] YBILC, vol II, 48. 14 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 12 et seq. 15 Ibid 179. 16 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 12. 17 Ibid 65. Perhaps the US government was not far from reflecting similar apprehensions when judging ‘the definition of the scope of application of a treaty in the present article [nowadays Art 29 VCLT] to be self-​evident’. Ibid 65. 18 Ibid  65–​6. 19 UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of First Session [1968] UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11, 162. Ukraine did propose an amendment—​which was not adopted—​because it viewed the ILC’s draft showed insufficient respect for dualist legal systems. See K von der Decken, ‘Article 29’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 521–​37, [528] (discussing differences between ‘applied’ and ‘binding’). 20 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 12.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  313 exception becomes easier to invoke. The ILC’s own 1964 draft was even more general—​‘unless the contrary appears from the treaty’.21 The final 1966 ILC draft, as well as the 1969 text, went even further.22 They doubled the material sources for an exception (whether derived from the treaty or ‘otherwise established’) and placed (symbolically?) the exception at the head of the sentence.23 How then do Article 29’s exceptions to integral territorial application apply today? The first source (‘appears from the treaty’) simply requires reference to the usual methods of treaty interpretation detailed in Articles 31–​32 VCLT. The alternative source (‘otherwise established’) poses more difficulties. The term ‘otherwise’24 appears to permit methods for establishing a ‘different intention’ quite different from those envisaged in Articles 31–​32. But it is by no means clear what these alternative methods are especially where the possibilities for identifying a ‘different intention’ are so numerous. Yet, we should not minimize the importance of the verb ‘establish’.25 Albeit ‘otherwise’, the ‘different intention’ still has to be ‘established’—​that is to be clearly shown.26 Indeed, if this were not the case, the distinction between the principle and its exception might be thoroughly erased, which hardly seems a correct interpretation of Article 29’s phrasing. Both sources of the exception require establishing a ‘different intention’ from the default rule. Thus, as Waldock recognized in his 1964 commentary, ‘the territorial application of a treaty is essentially a question of the intention of the parties’.27 This opens up the question of whose intention matters; should the ‘intention’ of the State party to the territory where the treaty would apply prevail over the ‘intention’ of other States parties to the same treaty?28 Unfortunately, the relevant case law and diplomatic practice are not just poor; they are incoherent. The United Kingdom has a practice of declaring in writing to the depositary to which, if any, of its overseas territories a treaty applies, regarding this unilateral statement as settling any territorial application questions.29 In Application no 8873/​80 (X v UK), moreover, the former European Commission of Human Rights accepted the mere UK ‘intention’ not to consider the island of Guernsey as part of UK territory vis-​à-​vis some electoral rights.30 In Wiggins v UK, however, the same Commission had previously found no ‘significant social or cultural differences between Guernsey and the United Kingdom’ to

21 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 179. 22 The 1964 ‘contrary intention’ basis for the exception was replaced by ‘different intention’. Since ‘different’ is weaker than ‘contrary’, a merely different—​but not drastically contrary—​intention could set aside the main principle favouring integral territorial application. 23 International law formulae are rarely innocent. Still, not all official versions of Art 29 VCLT place the exception before the principle. The Chinese, English, French, and Russian versions do so, but the Spanish one continues to give the principle grammatical privilege (‘Un tratado será obligatorio para cada una de las partes por lo que respecta a la totalidad de su territorio, salvo que una intención diferente se desprenda de él o conste de otro modo’). 24 The corresponding expression in the Spanish version is quite eloquent (‘de otro modo’). The same can be said of the Russian (‘иным образом’) and the Chinese (‘另’) [‘lìng’] ones, whereas the French one is rather vague (‘par ailleurs’). 25 Or, ‘établir’, ‘constar’, ‘устанавливать’, ‘确定’ [‘què dìng’] in the other versions. 26 Or, ‘put beyond doubt’ according to standard English language dictionaries such as Merriam Webster. See . 27 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 12. 28 It will be observed that the nature of a treaty as multilateral or bilateral may matter in some cases. 29 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 183 et seq. 30 (1982) 28 DR 99 (ECLI:CE:ECHR:1982:0513DEC000887380). Elsewhere, the Strasbourg Court’s reasoning is more precise and formal. A non-​extension of the application of the ECHR or its Protocols to an overseas territory is sufficient ground for rejecting the admissibility of an application. See Quark Fishing Ltd v UK (App No 15305/​06) ECtHR 2006 ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:0919DEC001530506 (re South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands).

314  Treaty Application differentiate it from the ‘metropolis’ as far as housing regulations were concerned,31 suggesting the mere ‘intention’ of the UK government did not prevail on this point. In French case law, the commissaire du gouvernement of the Conseil d’État stated, with respect to applying a French-​Australian extradition treaty to New Caledonia, that—​given the text’s silence—​Australia had the right to think that the Convention applied to all the territory of an indivisible Republic such as France.32 On the other hand, according to the UN Secretary-​General, acting as a depositary, unilateral declarations on exclusions of territorial application is not a practice ‘inconsistent’ with Article 29 VCLT ‘since it may be considered that the constant practice of certain States (which still comprise “non-​metropolitan” territories) in respect of territorial application and the general absence of objections to such practices have “established a different intention” within the meaning of article 29’.33 This is a ‘diplomatic’ attempt to reconcile the two options on this point (intention of the State primarily concerned and intention of the other contracting parties). References to ‘constant practice’ or ‘general absence of objections’, moreover, are likely to carry their own batch of interpretative difficulties.

B.  ‘Institutionalized’ derogations under Article 29 VCLT How States organize their governments with respect to territory under their control may vary widely. Two practices in particular, however, have had lasting impacts on ratione loci issues—​(i) the presence of a colonial territory distinct from the metropolitan territory; and (ii) the establishment of federal systems of government, which sometimes place constitutional constraints on the federal government’s ability to make and apply treaties on matters within the competence of one or more sub-​federal territorial governments. In both contexts, States have devised particular treaty clauses to delineate whether and how a treaty applies.

1. Colonial and quasi-​colonial clauses States endowed with colonies (alternatively referred to as ‘overseas territories’) have not adopted a uniform internal attitude on whether to apply treaties to such territories. One can generally speak of a British34 (and similar Dutch and sometimes Danish) system and a distinct French one.35 The first model clearly distinguishes between the metropolis and colony with connotations that are both negative (the colony may not benefit from an advantageous treaty) and positive (the colony preserves autonomy vis-​à-​vis its metropolis). The French model, with some exceptions,36 favours a creeping assimilation between metropolis and colony, the constitutional principle of égalité pushing quite naturally to such a solution. 31 (App No 7456/​76) (1978) 13 DR 40 [5]‌; ECLI:CE:ECHR:1978:0208DEC000745676; see also n 44 and accompanying text (re Tyrer). 32 Mme Smets, 14 May 1993 (1993) Rev gén de dr int pub 1056. As discussed later, France is not as ‘indivisible’ as the commissaire du gouvernement pretends it is. 33 Treaty Section of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties (United Nations, New York 1999) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev 1, [284]–​[285]. 34 JES Fawcett, ‘Treaty Relations of British Overseas Territories’ (1949) 26 BYBIL 86–​107. 35 P Lampué, ‘L’application des traités dans les territoires et départements d’outre-​mer’ (1960) 6 AFDI 907–​24. 36 See eg Law No 99-​209 of 19 March 1999, Arts 21, 22, JO, 21 March 1999, 4197, 4198–​9 (giving New Caledonia treaty-​making authority in specific areas). Other French collectivités d’outre-​mer such as French Polynesia have less autonomy as far as the application of French treaties on their respective territories is concerned.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  315 Prior to decolonization, States regularly dealt with colonial territorial application issues. Occasionally, they expressly endorsed the general principle of integral territorial application to all territories for which a State was ‘internationally responsible’.37 Exceptions were allowed via various forms of what has come to be known as the ‘colonial clause’. Some treaties afforded a State with colonial territory the option to extend the treaty to those territories by notification at the time it signed or consented to be bound.38 In others, the treaty provided the colonial State the option to exclude colonial territories by similar notification.39 In a few instances, a treaty would specify by name covered (or excluded) territories.40 With decolonization and the diplomatic and military fighting that accompanied it, controversy enveloped the idea of allowing colonial powers discretion to dictate whether international treaties applied to one or more of their colonies. For its part, the ILC preferred to avoid expressions such as ‘territories for which the parties are internationally responsible’ (previously found in the Fitzmaurice and Waldock drafts) to which treaties could be extended.41 Although not necessarily warranted, the prevailing sentiment viewed colonial clauses as an endorsement of the colonial system itself.42 Of course, just because the VCLT did not address colonial clauses does not mean they were absent from international treaty-​making. Many existing treaties (particularly regional European treaties) still contain colonial clauses. Thus, most—​if not all—​Council of Europe (COE) treaties do so. Article 56(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a paradigmatic example, providing that ‘any State may at the time of its ratification or at any time thereafter declare by notification addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe that the present Convention shall . . . extend to all or any of the territories for whose international relations it is responsible’.43 In Tyrer v UK, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) analysed the application of the ECHR to the Isle of Man, a UK territory. It emphasized that Article 56 ‘was primarily designed to meet the fact that, when the Convention was drafted, there were still certain colonial territories whose state of civilization did not, it was thought, permit the full application of the Convention’.44 The ECtHR acknowledged how—​in the post-​colonial era—​those territories for which a State party is still responsible are more likely to have close historical, geographic, and cultural ties to the State. Nevertheless, efforts to delete Article 56 have met strong resistance from some European States. Today, the ‘colonial clause’ (however designated) remains controversial. For some, it marks an unfortunate mechanism for precluding the universal application of treaty rights 37 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (adopted 21 March 1950, entered into force 25 July 1951) 96 UNTS 271, Art 23. 38 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted 9 December 1948, entered into force 12 January 1951) 78 UNTS 277, Art XII. 39 International Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (adopted 18 March 1965, entered into force 14 October 1966) 575 UNTS 159, Art 70. 40 Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (adopted 25 March 1957, entered into force 1 January 1958) 294 UNTS 17, Art 227. 41 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 213. 42 See [1964] YBILC, vol I, 49 [35] (Tunkin). Yet others viewed the colonial clause as a potential vehicle for aiding colonial territories moving to independence. The post-​colonial Algerian government thus argued the law of treaties should limit applying a treaty to the parties’ metropolitan territory unless the still subject peoples validly expressed an opinion to accept the treaty. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 65. 43 ECHR (n 9). For criticism of this provision, see L Moor and AB Simpson, ‘Ghosts of Colonialism in the European Convention on Human Rights’ (2006) 76 BYBIL 121–​94. 44 (App No 5856/​72) (1978) ECtHR Series A No 26, §38; ECLI:CE:ECHR:1978:0425JUD000585672.

316  Treaty Application (especially human rights). Thus, modern UN human rights treaties do not contain a colonial clause or allow the protection of fundamental rights to differ depending on the individual’s place of residence (whether a metropolis or overseas territory). On the other hand, some colonial clauses facilitate respect for regional and local differentiation. For example, where a State extends the ECHR to an overseas territory, Article 56.3 provides that ‘the provisions of this Convention shall be applied in such territories with due regard . . . to local requirements’. This ‘local requirements’ clause allows further discrimination of the ECHR’s application overseas, provided they are evidenced beyond doubt.45 That has proven neither an easy nor a frequent occurrence; the Tyrer case, for example, declined to find this clause applicable to the Isle of Man’s use of corporal punishment. In Py v France, the Court did make an adjustment to permit a New Caledonian restriction on French citizens who had not resided there for a sufficient time from voting in local elections, a restriction designed to redress strained relations between competing local political and ethnic groups.46 In this sense, ‘colonial clauses’ do not stand unavoidably against overseas inhabitants; they may be seen as vehicles for preserving local traditions and minority cultures for overseas societies, albeit perhaps at the expense of individual human rights.47 The sometimes heavy heritage of the colonial clause is also found in Article 355 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which divides territories placed under the sovereignty of the Union’s Member States into a surprisingly large number of categories. To most of the territories situated in Europe itself, the Treaty’s provisions apply completely. But there are others to which the Treaty has never applied (eg the Faeroe Islands under Danish sovereignty).48 For a large number of overseas territories—​globally called ‘overseas countries and territories’ and listed in Annex II—​a complex system of special arrangements applies, amounting to a kind of association of these territories to the Union.49 Article 198 details that the ‘association shall serve primarily to further the interests and prosperity of the inhabitants of these countries and territories in order to lead them to the economic, social and cultural development to which they aspire’.50 At least officially, this kind of ‘colonial clause’ does not aim at discriminating negatively against ‘overseas countries and territories’. On the contrary, this status differentiation—​for which unanimity in the Council of Ministers is mandatory—​could be seen as a kind of ‘affirmative action’. 45 Or, as another ECtHR judgment put it, ‘local requirements, if they refer to the specific legal status of a territory, must be of a compelling nature if they are to justify the application of Article 56 of the Convention’. Matthews v UK (App No 24833/​94) (1999) ECtHR 1999-​I [59]; ECLI:CE:ECHR:1999:0218JUD002483394); see also Piermont v France (App No 15773/​89) (1995) ECtHR Series A  No 314 [59]; ECLI:CE:ECHR:1995:0427JUD001577389 (under Art 56, ‘circumstances and conditions’ prevailing locally do not amount to ‘requirements’). 46 (App No 66289/​01) ECHR 2005-​I; ECLI:CE:ECHR:2005:0111JUD006628901. 47 See S Karagiannis, ‘L’aménagement des droits de l’homme outre-​mer: la clause des “nécessités locales” de la Convention européenne’ (1995) 28 RBDI 224–​305. States may also seek to accommodate overseas inhabitants via reservations. France’s practice has, in fact, done this while also invoking Art 56 ECHR, raising the question of which of these two concurring mechanisms—​the one on reservations or the one on territorial scope—​applies first. For more on reservations, see Chapter 12. 48 Other territories excluded from complete application of EU treaties emerged from accession agreements, and included prior to Brexit the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, British Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus, as well as the Finnish Åland Islands. Some other territories are not addressed by Art 355, but only by specific provisions of accession agreements or unilateral declarations, creating doubts as to the applicable legal regime (eg areas traditionally inhabited by the Sami people in Finland and Sweden or Mount Athos in Greece). 49 Said territories have special relations with four Member States, namely Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and, prior to Brexit, the United Kingdom. Amusingly, French Southern and Antarctic Territories and British Antarctic Territory are listed in Annex II as ‘overseas countries and territories’, although all the other Member States reject any possibility of territorial claims to the frozen continent. 50 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [2010] OJ C83/​47, Art 198.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  317 A similar approach is taken with respect to French overseas departments in the Caribbean region as well as to the Islands of the Réunion and Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Originally, the treaties establishing the European Communities were supposed to apply to these departments. On this basis, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that France did not comply with its Community obligations because of, inter alia, the non-​abolition of some local taxes on imported goods not originating from these departments.51 Eventually, however, rather than implementing EU law, local resistance in the French overseas departments brought about a substantial modification of how primary and secondary EU law applies to these departments. Article 349 TFEU—​to which Article 355 refers—​enables the Council of Ministers to adopt specific measures and conditions for the application of EU Treaties to overseas departments, in areas including customs, fishery, and agricultural policy. In doing so, the Council must take into account the overseas departments’ ‘structural social and economic situation . . . which is compounded by their remoteness, insularity, small size, difficult topography and climate, economic dependence on a few products, the permanence and combination of which severely restrain their development’. At the same time, this adaptation to local situations ought not to ‘undermin[e]‌the integrity and the coherence of the Union legal order, including the internal market and common policies’.52 Today, the five French overseas departments (Réunion, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Guiana) have been joined in Article 349 by additional territories.53 Thus, in these more recent clauses, what one could still call a ‘colonial clause’ has become a vehicle for adjusting treaties’ application to peoples and territories concerned. Although integral territorial application remains the default rule, treaties may still authorize a State to extend or exclude—​completely or in part—​a treaty’s application to its overseas territories. Today, however, such an extension (or exclusion) is more often done with the involvement of the peoples concerned.54 As such, the clause’s inclusion is less controversial even as tensions remain with treaties that purport to declare universal rights or responsibilities.

2. Federal and quasi-​federal clauses Besides States endowed with overseas territories, federal States also present difficulties with regard to the territorial application of treaties. The crux of the problem is that international law (with some exceptions discussed in Chapter  7) enables only federal States to enter into international treaties. But many federal States’ constitutions entitle their sub-​federal

51 The Court considered these taxes (‘octroi de mer’) as ‘a charge having an effect equivalent to a customs duty on imports, notwithstanding the fact that the charge is also imposed on goods entering that region from another part of the same State’. Léopold Legros Case No C-​163/​90 [1992] ECR I-​04625 [18]; ECLI:EU:C:1992:326. 52 TFEU (n 50) Art 349(3). 53 These are Saint-​Martin Island in the Caribbean (only the French part of it, the Dutch one being one of the ‘overseas countries and territories’ listed in Annex II), the Portuguese Azores and Madeira Islands, and the Spanish Canary Islands. Thus, there is no general legal rule about adding an overseas territory to the Art 349 list or to the Annex II list. These decisions are political with local governing bodies playing an increasing role in delineating the application of EU law to said territories. Territories may, moreover, shift from one list to the other, following an act adopted by the European Council unanimously on the initiative of the Member State concerned. See TFEU (n 50) Art 355(6) (implying a territory may see its national constitutional status modified without any modification at the EU level if unanimity within the European Council cannot be reached); J Ziller, ‘The European Union and the Territorial Scope of European Territories’ (2007) 38 Victoria University of Wellington L Rev 51–​63; D Kochenov, ‘The Application of EU Law in the EU’s Overseas Regions, Countries, and Territories after the Entry into Force of the Treaty of Lisbon’ (2012) 20 Mich State Int’l L Rev 669–​743. 54 Aust (n 29) 184 (describing UK practice of consultation with its dependencies and other overseas territories on the extension of treaties).

318  Treaty Application units (States, Länder, regions, provinces, or cantons) to implement—​either exclusively or concurrently—​the measures necessary for the federal State to comply with a treaty.55 Thus, in critical areas—​such as criminal law, human rights law, environmental law, taxation and business law, or civil law—​the federal State may simply lack domestic legal authority to apply treaty provisions in the absence of implementation by the sub-​federal units that the federal State may have no authority to require.56 Federal States thus face difficult choices in deciding whether to consent to treaties in these areas. One alternative is for the federal State to abstain from entering into treaties that raise federalism issues. Such a ‘solution’ is, however, impractical where some of the most important States have a federal form of government, while others increasingly favour it nowadays to end internal strife.57 A second alternative is for the federal State and its sub-​ federal units to resolve the situation internally through agreed procedures, the most notable example of which is undoubtedly the 1957 Lindau Agreement (Lindauer Abkommen) concluded by the Länder and the German Federal Government, providing that, in the case of treaties affecting the exclusive competences of the Länder, the latter must give their consent (and not merely their opinion) before the Federation can validly enter into such a treaty.58 In other cases, the internal resolution grants supremacy to treaties, overriding otherwise applicable authorities accorded sub-​federal units.59 A third option lies in adjusting the treaty obligations for federal States.60 Expressing a non-​federal or even an anti-​federal view, Fitzmaurice’s 1959 report on treaties suggested that ‘the constituent states, provinces or parts of a federal union or federation, notwithstanding such local autonomy as they may possess under the constitution of the union or federation, are considered to be part of its metropolitan territory for treaty and other international purposes’.61 At the same time, he anticipated that States might agree to include a 55 Federal States vary in how they assign regulatory responsibility to the same issue. Criminal law, for example, is purely federal in States like Canada and Switzerland, whereas the United States divides criminal law matters among federal and State authorities. 56 Determining which areas are outside a federal government’s purview can be difficult, particularly where federal governments have joined treaties on matters that might otherwise seem constitutionally delegated to the sub-​ federal level. See DB Hollis, ‘Executive Federalism: Forging New Federalism Constraints on the Treaty Power’ (2006) 79 S Cal L Rev 1327–​95, 1371–​2. 57 Nonetheless, there are several cases where a federal State has declined to join a treaty on federalism grounds, among the most prominent being the US decision not to seek ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 November 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3 (ICESCR), or the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3 (‘ROC Convention’). See also Hollis (n 56) 1372–​3. 58 For other mechanisms of a similar nature in the European context, see T Kovziridze, Hierarchy and Interdependence in Multi-​level Structures:  Foreign and European Relations of Belgian, German and Austrian Federated Entities (Brussels University Press, Brussels 2008). 59 For instance, in Brazil, Art 1 of the 1988 federal Constitution is interpreted to exclude any possibility for federal clauses in treaties. See R Caparroz, Direito Internacional Público (Saraiva, São Paulo 2012) 33. After the Tasmanian Dam decision, Australia adopted a similar posture. See AC Byrnes, ‘The Implementation of Treaties in Australia after the Tasmanian Dams Case’ (1985) 8 BC Int’l & Comp L Rev 275–​339; BR Opeskin and DR Rothwell, ‘The Impact of Treaties on Australian Federalism’ (1995) 27 Case W Res J Int’l L 1–​59. 60 These are not, of course, the only available options. A federal State may also seek to issue reservations or understandings on ratification that address obligations that might otherwise be inconsistent with the State’s federal system. The United States has used both approaches, issuing a federalism reservation for its obligations under the UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention (adopted 15 November 2000, entered into force 29 September 2003) 2225 UNTS 209, and an understanding for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171. See also Hollis (n 56) 1361–​3, 1379. Alternatively, federal States may seek to adjust the treaty obligations themselves to avoid federalism issues, for example, by limiting implementation requirements to the ‘national level’. Ibid 1377. 61 [1959] YBILC, vol II, 47.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  319 ‘federal clause’ adjusting the obligations of federal States.62 Neither the ILC nor the VCLT endorsed any specific provisions relating to federal States. In practice, however, treaty-​ makers have adopted various versions of a ‘federal clause’ that address the application (often in terms of exclusion) of a treaty to sub-​federal entities.63 The principal example of a ‘federal clause’ is in Article 19(7)(b) of the Constitution of the International Labour Organization. It provides that federal States’ obligations shall be the same as those of non-​federal States for matters appropriate for federal action under the federal State’s Constitution. For matters ‘appropriate under its constitutional system, in whole or in part, for action by the constituent’ units of the federal State, the latter’s obligations are limited to referring them to the appropriate sub-​federal units ‘for the enactment of legislation or other action’.64 Similar clauses appear in other major multilateral agreements, including the New York Convention on Arbitration65 and the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.66 A more recent example is in the European Convention on Cybercrime, authorizing a federal State to avoid the treaty’s criminalization obligations not ‘consistent with its fundamental principles governing the relationship between its central government and constituent States or other similar territorial entities’ provided it does not ‘exclude or substantially diminish’ those obligations.67 A variation of the federal clause—​known as a ‘territorial clause’—​appears in a variety of commercial and private international law treaties. It accommodates the increasingly tenuous separation of federal States from other States.68 An example is found in Article 93(1) of the 1980 UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG): if a Contracting State has two or more territorial units in which, according to its constitution, different systems of law are applicable in relation to matters dealt with in this Convention, it may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that this Convention is to extend to all its territorial units or only to one or more of them, and may amend its declaration by submitting another declaration at any time.69 62 Ibid 75 [130]. 63 See YL Liang, ‘Notes on Legal Questions Concerning the United Nations:  Colonial Clauses and Federal Clauses in U.N. Multilateral Instruments’ (1951) 45 AJIL 108–​28; RL Looper, ‘ “Federal State” Clauses in Multilateral Instruments’ (1955-​56) 32 BYBIL 162–​203. 64 Constitution of the International Labour Organisation (adopted 9 October 1946, entered into force 20 April 1948) 15 UNTS 35, Art 19(7)(b). In addition, a federal State is obligated to consult with its sub-​federal units on such matters with a view to promoting coordinated action and reporting back to the ILO on its activities and any implementation done at the sub-​federal level. Ibid Art 19(7)(b)(ii)–​(v). 65 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (adopted 10 June 1958, entered into force 7 June 1959) 330 UNTS 38, Art XI (New York Convention on Arbitration). 66 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 150, Art 51. Another typical example is Art 34 of the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (adopted 16 November 1972, entered into force 15 July 1975) 1037 UNTS 151, Art 34. It limits a federal State’s responsibility to provisions ‘the implementation of which comes under the legal jurisdiction of the federal or central legislative power’; for implementation coming under the component units’ jurisdiction (which have no obligation to legislate), the federal government’s only obligation is to inform these units of the provisions and recommend their adoption. 67 Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (adopted 23 November 2001, entered into force 1 July 2004) CETS No 185, Art 41. The federal government also assumes the obligation to ‘encourage’ sub-​national units ‘to take appropriate action to give [the Convention] effect’. Ibid Art 41. 68 The demarcation of federal States has become more fluid with asymmetric federations, States comprising associated States, devolutions and quasi-​federal States such as Spain, South Africa, and China. 69 CISG (adopted 11 April 1980, entered into force 1 January 1988)  1489 UNTS 3, Art 93(1); see also UN Convention on International Bills of Exchange and International Promissory Notes (adopted 9 December 1988, not yet in force) UN Doc A/​Res/​43/​165, Art 87.

320  Treaty Application As written, the clause could apply to political sub-​divisions of a metropolitan territory, although in practice it is most often invoked by federal States such as Canada.70 In recent years, there seems to be less enthusiasm for federal clauses, especially regarding treaties on human rights.71 The objections center on allowing federal States to assume different (and fewer) obligations than non-​federal States, especially where human rights treaties are designed to establish universal minimum standards.72 Some treaty texts now affirmatively oppose differential treatment for federal States. A  typical ‘anti-​federal clause’ is found in Article 50 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): ‘The provisions of the present Covenant shall extend to all parts of federal States without any limitations or exceptions.’73 In comparison with Article 50 ICCPR, Article 28(2) of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR) looks less brutal, but also more ambiguous: With respect to the provisions over whose subject matter the constituent units of the federal State have jurisdiction, the national government shall immediately take suitable measures, in accordance with its constitution and its laws, to the end that the competent authorities of the constituent units may adopt appropriate provisions for the fulfilment of this Convention.74

In one of the few judgments of the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) regarding this provision—​Garrido and Baigorria v Argentina—​the Court described it as a federal clause, before asserting that, as a matter of estoppel, Argentina had always behaved ‘as if the federal State had jurisdiction over human rights matters’ although the matter concerned exclusively the attitude of the local police in the Argentinian province of Mendoza.75 In Escher v Brazil, the IACtHR emphasized that ‘the legal system and practices of the entities that form a Federal State Party to the Convention must conform to the American Convention’.76 Yet, re-​appropriating Garrido, Escher found Brazil had

70 Canada, for example, on joining the CISG, declared that it would extend the treaty to nine of its provinces and territories. Secretary-​General, ‘Canada: Declaration in Accordance with Article 93’ (5 October 1998) C.N. 631.2003. Later, it extended the Convention to Yukon and two other provinces. 71 Thus, the ICESCR and the ECHR both lack provisions on federalism. See ICESCR (n 57) Art 1; ECHR (n 9); see also Assanidze v Georgia (App No 71503/​01) ECtHR 2004-​II 221, §141; ECLI:CE:ECHR:2004:0408 JUD007150301. 72 M Sørensen, ‘Federal States and the International Protection of Human Rights’ (1952) 46 AJIL 195–​218. 73 ICCPR (n 60)  Art 50. In response to this provision, the United States issued the following (controversial) understanding:  ‘the United States understands that this Covenant shall be implemented by the Federal Government to the extent that it exercises legislative and judicial jurisdiction over the matters covered therein, and otherwise by the state and local governments; to the extent that state and local governments exercise jurisdiction over such matters, the Federal Government shall take measures appropriate to the Federal system to the end that the competent authorities of the state or local governments may take appropriate measures for the fulfilment of the Covenant’. ICCPR, 19 December 1966, S Exec Doc E, 95–​2 (1978) xiv; S Kaye, ‘State Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (2013) 3 UC Irvine L Rev 95–​125. The ICCPR’s Human Rights Committee (HRC) has, moreover, taken the view that federal States may not avoid obligations by invoking their constitutional structure and, indeed, may require them to produce reports with specific information on how federated State law complies with ICCPR provisions. HRC, ‘General Comment No 31: Nature of the General Legal Obligations Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant’ (29 March 2004) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.13 (‘HRC General Comment 31’). 74 ACHR (Adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 June 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 28(2). 75 Garrido and Baigorria v Argentina (Reparations and Costs) (1998) 4 Inter-​American Ybk H Rts 3473 [46]. 76 Escher v Brazil (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs) (2009) 25 Inter-​American Ybk H Rts, vol II [219].

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  321 not failed to comply with Article 28 because it ‘had not invoked its federal structure to avoid complying with an international obligation’.77 The disparity between the Court’s rhetoric and its results may derive from the underlying ambiguity of the text itself; it indicates ‘constituent units may adopt’—​rather than ‘shall adopt’ or just ‘adopt’—​while cabining its directive to federal States to take ‘suitable’ and ‘immediate’ measures regarding constituent unit implementation to those ‘in accordance with its constitution and its laws’.78 Today, the extent and the real meaning of Article 28(2) ACHR continues to divide scholars with a clear majority claiming that under this provision no federal State is allowed to invoke its domestic constitution to limit the scope of its international responsibility.79 Finally, where the treaty allows it, a State may opt to employ a reservation to address federalism concerns. In so doing, however, the State may simply be trading off interpretative questions over territorial clauses for the (equally) murky rules on the admissibility and acceptability of reservations.80 For those interested in treaty integrity, moreover, this may not be an optimal outcome. A reservation will normally exclude the whole of the territory of the State from applying a given provision whereas a federal clause will probably include this provision for the majority of the constituent units and therefore for the biggest part of the national territory.

II.  Treaties and Their Non-​territorial Application Reading Article 29 VCLT, one might assume that all treaties have a territorial application. In reality, however, several treaties may—​in whole or in part—​be qualified as non-​territorial. This may be due either to the treaty’s material object or to the persons supposedly bound by it. In both instances, ratione materiae and ratione personae considerations prevail over ratione loci ones. The latter, even if they do not disappear completely, tend to be a little bit artificial.

77 Ibid [220]. 78 These ambiguities (which are more prominent in the English text than other official versions) may be traced back to the travaux and qualifications sought by the United States to permit its ratification—​a consent that was never forthcoming. See eg DT Fox, ‘Convention on Human Rights and Prospects for United States Ratification’ (1973) 3 Human Rights 243–​81; J Diab, ‘United States Ratification of the American Convention on Human Rights’ (1992) 22 Duke Journal of Int’l & Comp Law 323–​63; E Abi-​Mershed, ‘The United States and the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights’ in CPR Romano (ed), The Sword and the Scales: The United States and International Courts and Tribunals (CUP, Cambridge 2009) 185, 200 et seq. 79 For the majority view, see AM Hernández, ‘La cláusula federal del Pacto de San José de Costa Rica y nuestro orden constitucional’ in M Midón (ed), Derechos Humanos y control de convencionalidad (ConTexto, Resistencia Chaco, Argentina 2016) 327–​47. Some view Art 28 as imposing a ‘reinforced obligation’ on federal States. S García Ramírez, ‘The Inter-​American Court of Human Rights and the Death Penalty’ (2010) 3 Mexican L Rev 99–​127, [127]; L Hennebel and H Tigroudja, Traité de droit international des Droits de l’homme (Pedone, Paris 2016) 112–​13. For a more moderate position, see H Faúndez Ledesma, The Inter-​American System for the Protection of Human Rights:  Institutional and Procedural Aspects (3rd edn Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, San José 2008) 55 et seq; T Buergenthal, ‘The Inter-​American System for the Protection of Human Rights’ in T Meron (ed), Human Rights in International Law. Legal and Policy Issues (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1984) 438, 444, 447 (qualifying Art 28 as ‘an anachronism which harks back to the days of the League of Nations’). 80 It is possible, however, to have a combination of the two mechanisms. For example, the European Convention on Cybercrime (n 67) contains a provision on federal clauses (Art 41) but the latter can only be implemented by way of reservations following Art 42. For more on reservations see Chapter 12.

322  Treaty Application

A.  The fictitious character of territoriality for certain treaties Notwithstanding the generality the indefinite article ‘a’ implies in Article 29 VCLT—​‘a treaty is binding . . . in respect of [the] entire territory’—​the ILC seemed conscious in its final commentary to what became Article 29 that ‘certain types of treaties, by reason of their subject-​matter, are hardly susceptible of territorial application in the ordinary sense’.81 Within the ILC, Tunkin emphasized that ‘some treaties had no application to State territories at all’ citing examples focused on outer space and the high seas.82 Waldock did not find Tunkin’s examples appropriate even as he ‘thought it obvious that [Article 29 VCLT] could not apply to a treaty that had no territorial application’.83 Still, the examples given by Tunkin were not so untoward. Consider Article II of the Outer Space Treaty: ‘outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’.84 It is logically impossible for States parties to hold this view of outer space and simultaneously view Article 29 VCLT and its reference to ‘territory’ as relevant to States parties obligations in outer space. The 1958 Geneva High Seas Convention raises the same issue as does the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.85 How can States satisfy their treaty obligations in such non-​territorial spaces? The Antarctic Treaty suggests that the treaty itself may offer alternatives. Its Article VIII provides three categories of persons who ‘shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Contracting Party of which they are nationals in respect of all acts or omissions occurring while they are in Antarctica for the purpose of exercising their functions’.86 In lieu of territorial jurisdiction, therefore, the treaty proffers a functional and personal jurisdiction. Still, a non-​territorial treaty may not resolve all questions; the Antarctic Treaty does not provide direction for regulating individuals not listed in Article VIII (eg Stateless persons or tourists) or juridical persons (eg corporations that are increasingly active on the frozen continent). Further complicating matters is that, behind the Antarctic Treaty, various territorial claims remain, the existence of which are not supposed to be prejudiced by the Antarctic Treaty’s operation.87 81 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 213. In his fourth report on the law of treaties, Fitzmaurice affirmed that his provisions relating to treaties’ territorial application ‘ha[d]‌no relevance to the case of those classes of treaties or treaty clauses that do not normally involve any question of territorial application’. [1959] YBILC, vol II, 48. That said, it is important not to conflate the geographical situation of the treaty’s subject matter with the geographical reach of the binding force of the treaty. See von der Decken (n 19) 528. 82 [1964] YBILC, vol I, 168 [56]. 83 Ibid [58]. 84 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (adopted 27 January 1967, entered into force 10 October 1967) 610 UNTS 205, Art II; see also Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (adopted 5 December 1979, entered into force 11 July 1984) 1363 UNTS 3, Art 11(3). 85 Convention on the High Seas (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 30 September 1962) 450 UNTS 11, Art 2 (‘the high seas being open to all nations, no State may validly purport to subject any part of them to its sovereignty’); Antarctica Treaty (adopted 1 December 1959, entered into force 23 June 1961) 402 UNTS 71, Art IV (‘no acts or activities taking place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of sovereignty in Antarctica’); see also UNCLOS (n 7) Art 89. 86 Antarctica Treaty (n 85) Art VIII (delineating (i) observers, (ii) scientific personnel, and (iii) members of the staffs accompanying any such persons). 87 Officially, there are seven of them (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom). Upon acceding to the Antarctic Treaty in 1987, Ecuador reaffirmed its 1967 proclaimed sovereignty on a portion of Antarctica. See also Art 4 of its 2008 Constitution.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  323 Beyond treaties governing unclaimed, and non-​territorial, spaces, Fitzmaurice offered several additional categories of treaties ill-​suited for application to a State’s entire territory: ‘treaties of alliance, guarantee, collective self-​defense, peace and friendship, recognition, institution of diplomatic relations, etc’.88 Not all of these examples are striking, let alone correct. It may be that a friendship treaty comprises clauses operating with respect to only some constituent parts of a State. Quite often, alliance treaties define precisely which territories are covered by the treaty’s collective defence commitments.89 And peace treaties are often extremely territorial; these treaties almost always have to determine lost and gained territories (and disputes over territory may preclude any peace agreement).90 At the same time, Fitzmaurice’s list resonates in other respects such as treaties on recognition. Still, a recognition treaty may have territorial implications, particularly with respect to whether recognition by one State party includes the territorial claims made by another.91 The answer will depend on the circumstances and the travaux of such treaties. Similar issues may also rise in the case of some traditional friendship treaties between States. Finally, treaties dictating general and fundamental rules of behaviour in international relations provide the most eloquent examples of non-​territorial applications.92 Indeed, it is impossible to condition territorially a State’s obligation not to use armed force or to contribute to the development of human rights at the international level. Environmental protection treaty provisions may also escape the restraints of the territoriality concept or render absurd provisions such as those found in UNCLOS: ‘When a State becomes aware of cases in which the marine environment is in imminent danger of being damaged or has been damaged by pollution, it shall immediately notify other States it deems likely to be affected by such damage . . .’93

B.  Non-​territorial treaties binding non-​State actors Territory is one of the principal features of Statehood. Still, States are not the only subjects of the international legal order. Whatever discrepancies exist surrounding which entities constitute subjects of international law, there is little doubt that international organizations (IOs) and, more marginally, insurgents or national liberation movements (NLMs) do so. Moreover, to the extent they may engage in treaty-​making, we may ask whether and how one can submit such treaties to ratione loci analysis.

88 [1959] YBILC, vol II, 48. 89 See eg North Atlantic Treaty (adopted 4 April 1949, entered into force 24 August 1949) 34 UNTS 541, Art 6 (specifying that the collective self-​defence obligation of Art 5 is triggered by an attack ‘on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer’); see also Warsaw Pact (adopted 14 May 1955, entered into force 6 June 1955) 219 UNTS 3, Art 4 (conditioning collective self-​defence obligation on ‘the event of armed attack in Europe’ which excluded non-​European territories of the Soviet Union). 90 See, for example, Japan and Russia’s inability to conclude a peace treaty following the Second World War because of their continuing dispute over the Northern Territories (South Kuril Islands). 91 Consider, for example, treaties recognizing Israel; do they include recognition of Israeli claims to East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights? 92 Von der Decken cites the examples of arbitration treaties and treaties establishing a duty to pay compensation. Von der Decken (n 19) 526. 93 See UNCLOS (n 7) Art 198.

324  Treaty Application

1. Territorial scope of treaties between States and international organizations or between international organizations The treaty-​making power of IOs is beyond any possible doubt since—​at least—​the 1986 VCLT’s adoption.94 Although this Convention is not in force, its provisions (or, at least, the majority of them) are considered to correspond to customary international law.95 Article 29 of the 1986 VCLT is strikingly similar to Article 29 of the 1969 VCLT: ‘Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, a treaty between one or more States and one or more international organizations is binding upon each State party in respect of its entire territory.’96 Thus, it overtly reaffirms the main principle of integral territorial application for States as well as the bases for derogations. In doing so, Article 29 of the 1986 VCLT raises many—​if not all—​of the issues discussed above. One might ask, however, if this provision was necessary at all. The ILC had a strong preference not to introduce any substantial changes from the 1969 VCLT in drafting what became the 1986 VCLT. Initially, Special Rapporteur Paul Reuter reproduced the Article 29 1969 VCLT formula literally word by word leaving out any obvious connection to the conclusion of IO treaties since this formula did not refer to IOs at all!97 The ILC corrected this oddity when Ushakov proposed adding ‘between one or more States and one or more international organizations’ to the 1986 Vienna Convention draft text.98 This suggestion was easily accepted and the formula suffered no more changes. Despite its satisfactory adoption, Article 29 of the 1986 VCLT remains enigmatic due to two lacunae, corresponding to the two hypotheses on which the 1986 VLCT rests: (i) treaties being concluded by an IO with a State and (ii) treaties being concluded by an IO with another IO. In the first case, Article 29 allows for unequal treatment between the two contracting parties since the application ratione loci concerns only the State and says nothing to the IO. In the second case, there is no discrimination between parties, but under the text itself, the ratione loci issue is irrelevant. Among IOs, territorial scope appears to have nothing to do with their treaty commitments. A prima facie reaction might attribute the wording of Article 29 of the 1986 VCLT to a lack of adequate attention by its authors. Behind this ‘clumsiness’ explanation, however, lies a more nefarious possibility; Article 29 might suggest that what is actually important when an IO enters into a treaty is not the IO itself, but rather its Member States, to the whole of whose territory the treaty will—​normally—​apply. Following such a reading, IOs become thoroughly transparent, almost non-​existent; as far as the territorial application of their treaties, the only thing to behold is their member States’ territory. Ultimately, not only the wording (which could have probably been less awkward) but also the global philosophy of Article 29 of the 1986 VCLT may fuel arguments about the very legal existence of IOs. Assuming territorial application of treaties is an important matter, IOs seem to just be organs of coordination for the international efforts of their respective Member States. Thus, it may be asked why the ILC (and later on the 1986 Conference) took such a stance. Why confirm an IO treaty-​making capacity—​as Article



94

1986 VCLT (n 2).

95 See A Racke GmbH & Co v Hauptzollamt Mainz [1998] ECR 3655, 3700. ECLI:EU:C:1998:29. 96

1986 VCLT (n 2) Art 29. For more on the 1986 VCLT see Chapter 5. [1977] YBILC, vol I, 117. 98 Ibid 118 [26]. 97

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  325 6 of the 1986 VCLT does—​if only to show IOs are artificial legal constructions (as the Neapolitan school of law built around Rolando Quadri or the Soviet one built around Grigory Tunkin thought it at the time)?99 Behind this conceptual difficulty lie two additional questions: (1) May an IO ever claim to possess territory of its own? (2) In the negative, may territories of IO Member States taken together constitute the territory of the organization? The second question is easier to answer. Even IOs that boast significant legal powers and, in particular, a treaty-​making one, abstain from considering their Member States’ territory as their own. The EU provides a telling example.100 Article 52 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Article 355 TFEU only indicate the territories of the Union’s Member States to which those treaties apply (in whole or in part); they by no means qualify these territories as EU territory itself. Speaking of a Union territory (customs territory, for instance) as some scholars do is only a metaphorical extrapolation although the TFEU refers in its Article 153(2) to the ‘Union territory’.101 Yet, this only happens once in the treaties that found the EU legal order and, whereas several linguistic versions of the text maintain the same word to refer to the Union’s and to the Members States’ territories, other versions, terminologically more precise on this point, use different words. For instance, the German version uses the word ‘Gebiet’ to refer to the ‘Union’s territory’ but the word ‘Hoheitsgebiet’ to refer to a Member State’s territory. It follows that, for at least German jurists, the Union does not possess a ‘territory’ similar to the territory of its components. As regards the other question, international lawyers usually relate territory closely to the concept of Statehood (along with a population and political power). Just as an organization cannot possess a population of its own, in the same way it generally cannot possess a territory. Nevertheless, there are some marginal cases where an IO possesses territory, albeit temporarily and in rather a functional way. This applies where organizations—​most of the time the UN—​exercise de jure (or sometimes both de jure and de facto) sovereignty on a given territory. A good historical example was the Council of the United Nations for Namibia, created by General Assembly Resolution 2248 (XXII) of 19 May 1967, which represented (until Namibia’s independence) something between an IO (it was a subsidiary body of the UN) and a State. Some multilateral conventions dealt with the Council as if it were a State. One may also wonder if the UN or, more exactly, UN subsidiary organs responsible for State-​building in a given area (eg East Timor, Kosovo) have played a similar role and might therefore be considered as possessing a kind of territory during the transition period.102 Of course, the ephemeral aspect of State-​building operations has nothing to 99 1986 VCLT (n 2) Art 6 (‘The capacity of an international organization to conclude treaties is governed by the rules of that Organization’). 100 For a discussion of the EU’s status as an IO or some other kind of organization see S Karagiannis, ‘Participation et représentation de l’Union européenne dans certaines organisations internationales. Quelques aspects juridiques’ in E Mondielli and A-​S Gourdin (eds), Le droit des relations extérieures de l’Union européenne après le traité de Lisbonne (Bruylant, Brussels 2013) 109–​53. 101 The English version of Art 153(2) TFEU (n 50) references ‘Union territory’ with respect to ‘conditions of employment for third-​country nationals legally residing in Union territory’. 102 Legal writing on this point is extensive. See eg B Knoll, The Legal Status of Territories Subject to Administration by International Organisations (CUP, New York 2008); C Stahn, The Law and Practice of International Territorial Administration. Versailles to Iraq and Beyond (CUP, Cambridge 2008); R Wilde, International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away (OUP, Oxford 2008); HF Kiderlen, Von Triest nach Osttimor. Der völkerrechtliche Rahmen für die Verwaltung von Krisengebieten durch die Vereinten Nationen (Springer, Berlin-​Heidelberg 2008); I Prezas, L’administration de collectivités territoriales par les Nations Unies (LGDJ, Paris 2012).

326  Treaty Application do with the permanence of State sovereignty on State territory. We must not forget that IOs are definitely not States and the territory on which they sometimes exercise jurisdiction cannot generally be equated to a State’s territory.103

2. Territorial scope of treaties concluded by other international law subjects State practice shows that States (or even IOs) enter from time to time into treaty relations with entities other than States and IOs. In doing so, the question of the territorial scope of such treaties arises yet again.104 In some cases, insurgents (or a NLM) have already established their power and a kind of ‘government’ or at least administration on some part of a State’s territory. Article 1 of the Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions conditions its application on ‘dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups’ in conflict with a High Contracting Party’s armed forces exercising ‘such control over a part of [the national] territory as to enable them to carry out sustained and concerted military operations and to implement this Protocol’.105 In contrast, neither Additional Protocol I nor Common Article 3 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions have any territorial conditions for their application.106 Still, the absence of any territorial condition for the application of such rules does not dispense with the question of the territorial scope of treaties concluded by insurgents or NLMs with other entities. An easy answer might suggest application per analogiam to Article 29 VCLT but the obstacles are numerous. There may be uncertainty as to the scope of the territorial claims of insurgents. On the other hand, where insurgents clearly control some territory, there is a risk of unequal obligations (since a treaty will likely apply to the whole territory of the State concerned with respect to the government versus only a portion of the territory of the State in respect of the insurgents, namely, the portion of territory they either claim or effectively control). The prospect of such inequality may deter the State from concluding such treaties in the first place. Actual practice is mixed. The so-​called ‘1962 Evian Accords’ between the French government and the Algerian Front de libération nationale, has many provisions that mention the whole of the Algerian territory (‘l’ensemble du territoire algérien’) to which the Accords were to apply.107 However, several of the provisions of the so called Oslo I Accord of 13 September 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization 103 Another line of inquiry is whether UNCLOS’s International Sea-​Bed Authority is an IO exercising power analogous to ‘territory’ over the soil and sub-​soil of the high seas beyond national continental shelves. However, such an analogy seems difficult to sustain as the sea soil is at a depth of thousands of metres and the Sea-​Bed Authority’s power is primarily functional and subsequently quite limited. See UNCLOS (n 7) Arts 133, 149. And of course, nobody dares refer to the ‘area’ (to which the Authority’s regulations apply) as the ‘territory’ of this IO. A new and somewhat esoteric terminology had to be coined (‘Area’, ‘Zone’, ‘Zona’, ‘Район’, . . .). 104 For more on non-​State actor treaty-​making, see Chapter 7. These questions do not, in contrast, arise in agreements concluded between private individuals, either physical or legal persons, and States or IOs. Even assuming that an individual possesses a treaty-​making power—​an option, however, which is hard to maintain after Anglo-​ Iranian Oil Co case (Jurisdiction) [1952] ICJ Rep 93, [112]—​an individual cannot boast a territory. Concessionary areas and real estate do not amount to territory. 105 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-​International Armed Conflicts (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 609, Art 1. 106 See eg Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (adopted 8 June 1977, entered into force 7 December 1978) 1125 UNTS 3, Art 1(4). 107 See Le Monde (20 March 1962). Or ‘Gouvernement provisoire de la République algérienne’ if one refers to the Algerian version of the Accords, a ‘government’ absolutely not recognized at the time by the French government in Paris.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  327 (PLO) do not consider the whole of the 1967 Palestinian territories conquered by Israel but only the Jericho area and the Gaza Strip.108

III.  The Extraterritorial Application of Some Treaties The extraterritorial application of treaties has progressively transformed into one of the most exciting and yet cryptic questions in international law. This trend owes much—​some might say too much—​to human rights treaties; most current examples, especially in international case law, involve human rights. The issue requires further study as its legal foundations appear both puzzling and confusing.

A.  Jurisdiction versus territoriality? The VCLT does not take any particular stance on the extraterritoriality issue despite its occasional presence in the travaux. In 1966, Dutch and American proposals to the ILC advocated that ‘a treaty also applies beyond the territory of each party whenever such wider application is clearly intended’.109 For his part, Waldock agreed to add a second ‘extraterritorial’ paragraph to what later became Article 29, but the rest of the ILC opposed this extension.110 The debate came to an end with commissioner Senjin Tsuruoka suggesting that the clause ‘unless the contrary appears from the treaty’ contained in the ILC’s draft ‘should be interpreted fairly broadly, in the positive as well as the negative sense, so that it was understood that the treaty—​if its object so required or the intention was clear—​was applicable outside the territory of the parties’.111 The ILC discussion stemmed from questions about whether treaties normally cover the continental shelf so it is unclear whether its members or observing States had other things in mind as well. Tsuruoka’s observation despite its obscurity—​what is actually the ‘negative sense’ of the clause quoted?—​suggesting that some treaties might apply beyond their States parties’ territories was not confirmed in the ILC’s 1966 final commentary. Specifically, the commentary did not exclude applying a treaty in some extraterritorial way, but merely excluded Article 29 from governing such applications.112 As such, Article 29 abstains from addressing the question of extraterritorial application of treaties; it contemplates States applying a treaty to less than their territory, but not more. As a result, Article 29 neither supports—​nor undermines—​the extraterritorial application of treaties. For such applications to occur, they must rest on other legal foundations. The 108 [1993] 32 ILM 1525. 109 That was the wording of the US proposal. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 66 [4]‌; see also [1966] YBILC, vol II, 65 (Finnish observations). 110 Waldock’s paragraph read: ‘A treaty may apply also in areas outside the territories of any of the parties in relation to matters which are within their competence with respect to those areas if it appears from the treaty that such application is intended’ [1966] YBILC, vol II, 66 [5]‌. 111 [1966] YBILC, vol I (2), 49 [15]. 112 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 213–​14 [5]‌(‘[A]rticle [29] was intended by the Commission to deal only with the limited topic of the application of a treaty to the territory of the respective parties . . . In its view, the law regarding the extra-​territorial application of treaties could not be stated simply in terms of the intention of the parties or of a presumption as to their intention; and it considered that to attempt to deal with all the delicate problems of extra-​ territorial competence in the present article would be inappropriate and inadvisable’).

328  Treaty Application most popular candidate from both case law and academic writing is jurisdiction. The concept of jurisdiction is not an easy one to explain, although it generally may be associated with power.113 And several treaties use the word ‘jurisdiction’ without referring to ‘territory’. Thus, Article 1 ECHR provides: ‘The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I  of this Convention.’ This provision—​which contains the quintessence of the contracting States’ obligations under the ECHR—​confirms the centrality of jurisdiction to the States parties’ obligations and stands in the place of a territorial condition. It is a provision, moreover, replicated in other human rights treaties, including Article 1(1) ACHR,114 Article 1 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights,115 and Article 2(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.116 Other treaties however, make no reference to the concept of jurisdiction, suggesting that the ‘classical’ baseline of territorial application codified in Article 29 VCLT applies. In practice, advocates of territoriality and advocates of jurisdiction often clash over which approach to employ in a treaty text. The best-​known example is found in the ICCPR travaux. Delegations (mostly the US one) favoured defining the scope of a State’s obligations territorially while other delegations (mostly the French one) favoured a jurisdictional reach. The UN General Assembly could not achieve a single solution on this point and thus preferred keeping both options in their adopted text. Thus, the (controversial) Article 2(1) ICCPR reads: ‘Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant . . .’ Logically, this shaky ‘compromise’ solution should limit the obligations of a State party to those individuals found on its territory and at the same time also subject to its jurisdiction (although it will be difficult to discover cases where someone on the territory of a State escapes its jurisdiction completely).117 The grammar of Article 2(1) should exclude any extraterritorial application of the ICCPR. Yet, in its General Comment 31, the Human Rights Committee (HRC) interpreted the phrase ‘within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction’ (emphasis added) as containing a disjunction.118 Reading the text this way allows the ICCPR to bind a State party not just for acts within its territory but also in other areas subject to its jurisdiction, which the Committee defined to cover ‘anyone within the power or effective control of that State Party’.119 Some States, notably the United States and the 113 Cf M Milanović, Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2011) 21 et seq; A Nußberger, ‘The Concept of “Jurisdiction” in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’ (2012) 65 Current Legal Problems 241–​68; S Besson, ‘The Extraterritoriality of the European Convention on Human Rights: Why Human Rights Depend on Jurisdiction and What Jurisdiction Amounts to’ (2012) 25 LJIL 857–​84. 114 ACHR (n 74) Art 1(1) (‘The States Parties to this Convention undertake to respect the rights and freedoms recognized herein and to ensure to all persons subject to their jurisdiction the free and full exercise of those rights and freedoms . . .’). 115 Arab Charter on Human Rights (adopted 22 May 2004, entered into force 15 March 2008), English trans at (2005) 12 IHRR 893, Art 1 (‘Each State party to the present Charter undertakes to ensure to all individuals subject to its jurisdiction the right to enjoy the rights and freedoms set forth herein . . .’). 116 ROC Convention (n 57) Art 2(1) (‘States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction . . .’). 117 That could be, however, the case of people including the captain and the crew on board a ship sailing through the territorial sea of a foreign State so far as this State does not apply its criminal or civil jurisdiction. See nn 7–​9 and accompanying text. 118 This despite the fact that ‘and’ is not a disjunction but a conjunction. 119 HRC General Comment 31 (n 73). The ICJ endorsed this position in its Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences on the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory [2004] ICJ Rep 136, 179 [109] (‘The Court would observe that, while the jurisdiction of States is primarily territorial, it may sometimes be exercised outside the national territory. Considering the object and purpose of the International Covenant on Civil and

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  329 Netherlands, reject this reading, insisting that the text of Article 2 and the accompanying travaux préparatoires limit the ICCPR’s application to the territory of a State party.120 In the wake of this unhappy frontal collision between territoriality and jurisdiction, other treaties have endeavoured to find more elaborate compromise solutions. This is the case of an increasing number of COE conventions. For instance, the European Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism tries to reconcile the two concepts in its Article 14 although titled merely ‘Jurisdiction’. It provides that prosecuting measures have to be taken against persons committing offences of a terrorist nature: a. when the offence is committed in the territory of that Party; b. when the offence is committed on board a ship flying the flag of that Party, or on board an aircraft registered under the laws of that Party; c when the offence is committed by a national of that Party.121 Some other European conventions add to this list persons who have their ‘habitual residence’ in the territory of the State party.122 One could think that such conventions allow a kind of ‘genuine’ extraterritorial jurisdiction. On the other hand, by tracing the contours of the extraterritorial application of their substantial provisions, it appears they may be read as trying to limit the extension of extraterritoriality. The ‘genuine’ extraterritorial applications of treaties approach seems to occur only under the auspices of certain international tribunals, which, in their respective case law, rely heavily on the notion of jurisdiction. This is most likely to occur where ‘jurisdiction’ appears in the text of a treaty. But even if it is not (or if it is restrained by the territoriality concept as in the ICCPR) tribunals may still allow an extraterritorial application of at least some treaty provisions. This is what the HRC did long before its General Comment 31 in its ‘views’ in the 1981 cases Burgos v Uruguay and Casariego v Uruguay, concerning the unlawful arrest of political opponents by Uruguayan policemen in Brazilian and Argentinian territory.123

B.  The unsettled criteria of extraterritorial applications of treaties What, now, does it mean for a treaty to apply extraterritorially? For our purposes, the concept may actually mean either: (i) that a treaty applies to territory—​‘terrestrial’ or not—​lying outside the sovereignty of any State; or (ii) that it applies to territory lying under the sovereignty of another State. Political Rights, it would seem natural that, even when such is the case, States parties to the Covenant should be bound to comply with its provisions’). 120 See KJ Heller, ‘Does the ICCPR Apply Extraterritorially?’ [2006] Opinio Juris at (describing US objections to extraterritorial application); MJ Dennis, ‘Application of Human Rights Treaties Extraterritorially in Times of Armed Conflict and Military Occupation’ (2005) 99 AJIL 119, 125 (describing the Dutch position). For a complete review of international bodies’ and US practice, see SH Cleveland, ‘Embedded International Law and the Constitution Abroad’ (2010) 110 Columbia L Rev 225–​87. 121 Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (adopted 16 May 2005, entered into force 1 June 2007) CETS No 196, Art 14. 122 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (adopted 11 May 2011, entered into force 1 August 2014) CETS No 210, Art 44. 123 Burgos v Uruguay (1981) 1 Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee 88, 91 [12.1]–​[12.3]; Casariego v Uruguay (1981) 1 Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee 92, 94 [10.1]–​[10.3].

330  Treaty Application The first possibility involves applying treaties to maritime zones outside the limits of the territorial sea although we have already discussed the complicated issues of maritime zones in which a certain functional and limited competence of the coastal State exists.124 The big issue consists in applying treaties on the high seas. Here, customary international law (and not Article 29 VCLT) allows (and more and more often obliges) States to apply treaties on ships flying their flags.125 As a normative matter, this is an important way to ensure the ‘rule of law’ on the high seas. But as a descriptive matter, it is no longer acceptable to describe ships as ‘floating territory’. By applying treaty provisions to a ship on the high seas, the flag State applies them to its ship and not to the high seas themselves. That said, is it ever possible to forget that, in this case, the ship is really located on the high seas?126 In any case, we see that a treaty may geographically apply to an area even if the latter is not under the territorial sovereignty of the State party to it. Mutatis mutandis, similar issues arise (and similar conclusions should be drawn) with airplanes flying over the high seas. The second understanding of extraterritoriality raises undoubtedly more delicate issues. Applying a treaty to a portion—​or, worse, to the whole—​of another State’s territory runs counter to the fundamental principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.127 States are, moreover, rarely eager to accept (and even less so to claim openly) that a treaty binding on them applies on territory outside their own national territory. Ultimately, the issue may be one of treaty interpretation. In recent years, various interpretative disputes have arisen with respect to the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties.128 Resolving such disputes—​let alone the issues of State responsibility that they may generate—​is difficult absent the consent of the concerned State(s) to judicial review. Several human rights treaties, however, include such consent, which explains the predominance on this question of case law from tribunals specializing in the protection of human rights. The most abundant—​and sometimes spectacular—​extraterritorial application case law comes from the ECtHR. The Court (and before it the European Commission of Human Rights) have 124 See nn 7–​12 and accompanying text. 125 See eg European Convention on Violence against Women (n 122) Art 44; UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1645 UNTS 85, Art 5(1) (‘Torture Convention’). 126 The specificity of the high seas context will therefore direct some adaptations of the treaties concerned. See eg Medvedyev and Others v France (App No 3394/​03) ECtHR 29 March 2010, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2010:0329 JUD000339403; Hirsi Jamaa and Others v Italy (App No 27765/​09) ECtHR 23 February 2012, ECLI:CE:ECHR:201 2:0223JUD002776509. 127 It is possible, of course, for a State to enter into a treaty on behalf of itself and another State. If the latter agrees, there is no difficulty. Problems arise when no such agreement can be shown or when the consent given proves not to be thoroughly flawless. 128 The extraterritorial application of the ECHR has provoked much emotion in military and political circles as well as considerable academic debate. See eg F Coomans and M Kamminga (eds), Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (Intersentia, Antwerp-​Oxford 2004); S Karagiannis, ‘Le territoire d’application de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme. Vetera et nova’ (2005) 16 Rev trim des droits de l’homme 33–​120; M Gondek, ‘Extraterritorial Application of the European Convention on Human Rights: Territorial Focus in the Age of Globalization?’ (2005) 52 Netherlands Intl L Rev 349–​87; V Mantouvalou, ‘Extending Judicial Control in International Law: Human Rights Treaties and Extraterritoriality’ (2005) 9 Intl J Human Rts 147–​63; S Skogly, Beyond National Borders: States’ Human Rights Obligations in International Cooperation (Intersentia, Antwerp-​ Oxford 2006); E Lagrange, ‘L’application de la Convention de Rome à des actes accomplis par les États parties en dehors du territoire national’ (2008) 112 RGDIP 521–​65; M Milanović, ‘From Compromise to Principle: Clarifying the Concept of State Jurisdiction in Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 8 Hum Rts L Rev 411–​48; M Gibney and S Skogly (eds), Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2010); M Milanović, Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2011); R Wilde, ‘Human Rights Beyond Borders at the World Court: The Significance of the International Court of Justice’s Jurisprudence on the Extraterritorial Application of International Human Rights Law Treaties’ (2013) 12 Chinese JIL, 639–​77; V Tzevelekos, ‘Reconstructing the Effective Control Criterion in Extraterritorial Human Rights

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  331 repeatedly said that a State party to the ECHR is accountable for acts contrary to its conventional commitments even if materially these acts take place outside the territory of that State. The Court bases this interpretation on Article 1 ECHR (quoted earlier). Unlike the ICCPR, there is no territorial limitation in Article 1. This means that the ECHR might extend to acts committed outside the State’s territory although, quite logically, the Strasbourg Court has repeatedly observed that ‘a State’s jurisdictional competence under Article 1 is primarily territorial’ and that, ‘conversely, acts of the Contracting States performed, or producing effects, outside their territories can constitute an exercise of jurisdiction within the meaning of Article 1 only in exceptional cases’.129 On the other hand, acts committed inside a State’s territory might not trigger the State’s ECHR obligations if that State has no ‘jurisdiction’ in a given case. This prima facie aspect of the ‘jurisdiction’ theory is fully admissible in case, for instance, the State has no (more) authority on the territory in which the act contrary to the Convention takes place.130 This would apply most naturally to instances of military occupation. For example, during the allied occupation of Berlin, it was argued that West Germany was not responsible for what happened there.131 The ECtHR’s case law, however, has not fully endorsed this view. In Ilaşcu and Others v Moldova and Russia, the Court held Moldova accountable for acts in Transdniestria during a period in which its government did not control the secessionist territory (and which the Court found was ‘almost’ occupied by Russia).132 The Court acknowledged Moldova’s lack of de facto authority, but held that the jurisdictional requirement of Article 1 ECHR required it to ‘endeavour, with all the legal and diplomatic means available to it vis-​à-​vis foreign States and international organisations, to continue to guarantee the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention’.133 Breaches: Direct Attribution of Wrongfulness, Due Diligence, and Concurrent Responsibility’ (2013) 36 Mich J Int L 129–​78; N Bhuta (ed), The Frontiers of Human Rights: Extraterritoriality and its Challenges (OUP, Oxford 2016); J Falski, ‘Ekstraterytorialne stosowanie Konwencji o ochronie praw człowieka i podstawowych wolności’ (2018) 147 Przegląd Sejmowy 173–​91. 129 Hassan v United Kingdom (App No 29750/​09) ECtHR 16 September 2014, §131, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2014:0916 JUD002975009. 130 This is provided, of course, that no agent of the State is involved. 131 George Vearncombe and Others v UK and FRG (App No 12816/​87) (1989) 59 DR 186, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1989 :0118DEC001281687. This decision of the European Commission of Human Rights holds that ‘acts performed by organs of an occupying State (including members of its army) are generally attributable to this State and not to the occupied State’. It is probable the 1984 UN Convention on Torture obeys a similar logic: ‘Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.’ Torture Convention (n 125) Art 2(1) (emphasis added); see also UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (adopted 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January 1969) 660 UNTS 195, Art 3 (‘States Parties particularly condemn racial segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction’ (emphasis added)). 132 Ilaşcu and Others v Moldova and Russia (App No 48787/​99) ECtHR 2004-​VII, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2004:0708 JUD004878799. 133 Ibid 77 [33]. The same position is taken in Catan and others v Moldova and Russia (App No 43370/​04) ECtHR 19 October 2012, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2012:1019JUD004337004 [110] (‘although Moldova has no effective control over the acts of the [secessionist forces] in Transdniestria, the fact that the region is recognised under public international law as part of Moldova’s territory gives rise to an obligation, under Article 1 of the Convention, to use all legal and diplomatic means available to it to continue to guarantee the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention to those living there’. This approach tends to be too formalist (all the more so given that the Court recognizes no violation of the ECHR committed by Moldova). What may be reproached to such States is a kind of passive attitude taking, curiously, the negative form of not actively attempting to re-​establish control over the disputed territory. See Ivanţoc and Others v Moldova and Russia (App No 23687/​05) ECtHR 2011, ECLI:CE:EC HR:2011:1115JUD002368705 [109]. For more critical thoughts on this case law, see M Milanović and T Papić, ‘The Applicability of the ECHR in Contested Territories’ (2018) 67 ICLQ 779–​800.

332  Treaty Application That finding may explain why States subsequently sought to reserve to any ECHR obligations for territory under foreign occupation or controlled by secessionist forces. Thus, upon ratifying Additional Protocol No 7, Azerbaijan declared that ‘it is unable to guarantee the application of the provisions of the Protocol in the territories occupied by the Republic of Armenia until these territories are liberated from that occupation’.134 Statements like the one found in Issa—​‘[t]‌he words “within their jurisdiction” in Article 1 of the Convention must be understood to mean that a State’s jurisdictional competence is . . . presumed to be exercised normally throughout the State’s territory’—​and many other ECtHR decisions and judgments are not, however, made to calm down States.135 Rather, they obey a sound logic and care that no interruption of the ECHR’s protections ever occurs. Be that as it may, the genuine extraterritorial effect of the jurisdiction theory will arise vis-​à-​vis the occupying or controlling power.136 The classic statement is found in the ECtHR’s famous Loizidou v Turkey judgment (Preliminary Objections): ‘Although Article 1 sets limits on the reach of the Convention, the concept of “jurisdiction” under this provision is not restricted to the national territory of the High Contracting Parties.’137 The Court defined this jurisdiction in a way that ‘the responsibility of a Contracting Party may also arise when as a consequence of military action—​whether lawful or unlawful—​it exercises effective control of an area outside its national territory’.138 Yet, what has been celebrated (or criticized) as a bold extension of the ECHR’s scope created new problems. In the first place, the ‘effective control of an area’ test is not always easy to handle. Whereas, for example, some 35,000 Turkish soldiers may be deemed more than enough to secure effective control over Northern Cyprus (with a population of 150,000 to which must be added some 100,000 Turkish settlers at the time of Loizidou), it may be more difficult to ascertain the same as far as Transdniestria is concerned (with ‘only’ 1,500 Russian soldiers at the time of the Ilaşcu case). That said, a territory ‘just’ bombed by a State party’s warplanes is not, following the notorious Banković decision, a territory under the effective control of that State.139 The control of air space apparently does not amount to territorial control proper for purposes of establishing the State’s jurisdiction. Obviously (and perhaps due to the heavy political consequences?), Banković does not align with the 134 See ‘List of Declarations Made with Respect to Treaty 117’ in . Similarly, Georgia declared upon ratifying Protocol No 12 that it ‘declines its responsibility for the violations of the provisions of the Protocol on the territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region until the full jurisdiction of Georgia is restored over these territories’. See ‘List of Declarations Made with Respect to Treaty 177’ in . 135 Issa and Others v Turkey (App No 31821/​96) ECtHR 16 November 2004 [71], ECLI:CE:ECHR:2004:1116 JUD003182196. 136 This is especially true where a special legal relationship links the State to the territory over which it does not exercise sovereignty proper. Cf IACHR, ‘Decision of 12 March 2002 of the Inter-​American Commission on Human Rights in the case of Guantánamo detainees’ [2002] 41 ILM 532 (Commission considered that the detainees at Guantánamo ‘remain wholly within the authority and control of the United States government’ despite the fact that the military base at Guantánamo is not strictly speaking US territory but is the subject of a long-​term lease from Cuba); see also Wall Opinion (n 119) [109] (finding Israel breached its obligations under the ICCPR and the ICESC with respect to the occupied territories). 137 Loizidou v Turkey (App No 15318/​89) ECtHR 1995 Series A No 310, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1996:1218JUD001531889; see also Cyprus v Turkey (App No 25781/​94) ECtHR 2001-​IV, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2001:0510JUD002578194. 138 Loizidou (n 137) [62]. 139 Banković and Others v Belgium and Others (App No 52207/​99) ECtHR 2001-​XII [59], ECLI:CE:ECHR:200 1:1212DEC005220799. This said, an absence of jurisdictional link due to a lack of effective control of a territory might be compensated for by judicial actions brought before the tribunals of the respondent State. Cf Marković and Others v Italy (App No 1398/​03) ECtHR 2006-​XIV [55], ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:1214JUD000139803.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  333 Court’s Issa judgment, according to which ‘Article 1 of the Convention cannot be interpreted so as to allow a State party to perpetrate violations of the Convention on the territory of another State, which it could not perpetrate on its own territory’.140 More recently, in Al-​Skeini and Others v UK, the Court attempted to reconcile its earlier case law. There, the ECtHR interpreted Article 1 to apply to the killing of an Iraqi national in a British military prison in Iraq as well as the killing of five individuals by British troops in the streets of the UK-​occupied Basra since the ‘United Kingdom (together with the United States) assumed in Iraq the exercise of some of the public powers normally to be exercised by a sovereign government’.141 The Loizidou test and its progeny bear some similarity to the effective/​overall control test used to attribute responsibility to a foreign State for the acts of groups of individuals, a test that has proved controversial in cases ranging from the ICJ’s Nicaragua judgment142 to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia’s (ICTY) Tadić judgment.143 In Loizidou (as well as in Al-​Skeini), the discussion was not about control over a group whose acts might be attributed to a State, but about a foreign State’s control over territory. From this point of view, Loizidou proves quite restrictive in terms of ascribing jurisdiction to a State. The Court has emphasized, in any case, contracting States are only responsible for acts performed outside their territory or producing effects there ‘in exceptional circumstances’.144 More often, the ECtHR finds that—​even where a State’s acts have extraterritorial effects—​it has no competence to examine complaints under Article 1.  A  good example of this was the Ben El Mahi and Others v Denmark decision.145 There, the applicants were Moroccan residents and Moroccan associations operating in Morocco with no jurisdictional link whatsoever with Denmark. As a result, the Court found they could not validly challenge Denmark’s decision to allow publication in Denmark of cartoons on Prophet Muhammad. Yet, the control of territory test is not always of paramount importance to the Strasbourg Court’s definition of Article 1 jurisdiction. In addition to defining ‘jurisdiction’ on a territorial/​extraterritorial basis, the Court has in a separate line of cases envisioned such a control in more personal terms. As Issa puts it: [A]‌State may also be held accountable for violation of the Convention rights and freedoms of persons who are in the territory of another State but who are found to be under the former State’s authority and control through its agents operating—​whether lawfully or unlawfully—​in the latter State.146

140 Issa (n 135) [71]. 141 Al-​Skeini and Others v UK (App No 55721/​07) ECtHR 7 July 2011 [149], ECLI:CE:ECHR:2011:0707 JUD005572107 (emphasis added). 142 Case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, 65 [115]. 143 (Judgment) ICTY-​1994-​1 (15 July 1999) [120]. 144 Issa (n 135) [68]; accord Al-​Skeini (n 141) [149]. 145 Ben El Mahi and Others v Denmark (App No 5853/​06) ECtHR 2006-​XV, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:1211 DEC000585306. 146 Issa (n 135) [71]. The HRC approach is quite similar. See nn 73, 119 and accompanying text.

334  Treaty Application Policemen, diplomats147, secret agents, soldiers148 etc can then, acting abroad, fully engage a State’s commitments through either their acts or omissions transforming the extraterritorial application of treaties into a highly sensitive topic. Even Al-​Skeini did not ignore this kind of personal—​rather than territorial—​jurisdictional link so far as ‘jurisdiction [does not arise] solely from the control exercised by the Contracting State over the buildings, aircraft or ship in which the individuals were held’. Still, it added that ‘what is decisive in such cases is the exercise of physical power and control over the person in question’.149 That said, a modulation of the physical control test might be conceivable. We may be witnessing the normalization of modern drones programmed to kill dangerous individuals (‘targeted killings’) and manipulated with great precision (and much success) at thousands of kilometres from the place the event physically takes place. In such circumstances, is it necessary to have physical control over a person for Article 1 ECHR to apply? Sooner or later, international judges will have to (radically) clarify their ‘jurisdiction’ case law, whether to diminish requirements or expand them. In the first case, international tribunals could take some account of the military’s claims, and in so doing, render themselves more credible.150 Indeed, the States concerned have never accepted judgments such as Loizidou or Ilaşcu. A systematic non-​application of judgments will never increase the prestige of the tribunal that adopts them. But if the option favours an expansion of the Loizidou standards, modern methods of war-​ waging will have to be taken into account. A twenty-​first-​century international court cannot afford to behave as if warplanes,151 drones, intercontinental missiles, cyberwar technics, or fully autonomous weapons (‘killer robots’) were still to be invented. And to be used.

Conclusion All told, the territorial scope of treaties has been overlooked and over-​simplified. Sensitive issues such as the application of treaties to territories largely autonomous and lying most of the time overseas or the distribution of power (as far as the application of treaties is concerned) between federal States and sub-​federal entities have received insufficient attention in international law. Definitely, it is not easy to say whether Article 29 VCLT really 147 Thus, East German citizens seeking refuge in the Danish embassy in East Berlin yet delivered to the East German police fell within Danish ‘jurisdiction’ under Article 1 ECHR. M v Denmark (App No 17392/​90) ECtHR 14 October 1992, 73 DR 193, ECLI:CE:ECHR:1992:1014DEC001739290. 148 Still, it is possible that a treaty would not be violated if soldiers committing violations were placed at the disposal of another State under its ‘full military command’. In contrast, ‘simple’ ‘operational control of [an alien] commander’ would not divest the national State of the soldier of its ‘jurisdiction’. Jaloud v Netherlands (App No 47708/​ 08) ECtHR 20 November 2014 [143]. This may prove a risky judicial precedent if interpreted as pushing States parties to a particular human rights convention to place their military abroad under the command of an allied State not party to that treaty. 149 Al-​Skeini (n 141) [135]–​[136]. See also Medvedyev (n 126) [67] (‘France having exercised full and exclusive control over the [ship] Winner and its crew, at least de facto, from the time of its interception, in a continuous and uninterrupted manner until they were tried in France, the applicants [being thus] effectively within France’s jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention’). 150 And, incidentally, make military adventures abroad easier than ever. 151 See, however, Pad and others v Turkey in which the ECtHR finds that ‘it is not required to determine the exact location of the impugned events’, that is whether the killing of Iranian citizens by Turkish helicopters took place in Iranian or in Turkish territory. Mansur Pad and others v. Turkey (App No 60167/​00) ECtHR 28 June 2007 [54] ECLI:CE:ECHR:2007:0628DEC006016700). In a certain way, Pad reads like an anti-​Banković. Still, the Court adds that ‘the Government had already admitted that the fire discharged from the helicopters had caused the killing of the applicants’ relatives’ which enables the alleged events to come ‘within the jurisdiction of Turkey’. Ibid. Does that make the difference? This is doubtful because it is difficult to deny that NATO planes had bombed Belgrade causing the killing of the applicants’ relatives in the Banković case.

The Relationship(s) between Treaties and Territory  335 deals with them at all, while diplomatic practice and international and national case law are far from homogeneous. The mere definition of the components of the State territory to which treaties apply is likely to become of some inextricable complexity (especially at sea). A careful drafting of territorial clauses of treaties could be a kind of remedy. Still, the most sensitive matter concerns not so much the diminution of the State territory to which a treaty applies but the perspective of considerably enlarging the scope of treaties to what lies outside the national territory, that is, parts of our planet free of any State sovereignty or parts of territories of third States. In particular, in the field of modern human rights case law, the perspective of substituting the notion of ‘jurisdiction’ for one of territorial application leads unavoidably to the accountability of States for acts and omissions of their agents taking place outside their borders. We still cannot see where this rather strong extraterritoriality movement will lead. Despite some precautions (careful drafting of the treaty, appropriate reservations, declarations, and so on), States seem somewhat defenceless. It would be disastrous if they come to consider that the only solution is for them to be less and less committed.

Recommended Reading SH Cleveland, ‘Embedded International Law and the Constitution Abroad’ (2010) 110 Columbia L Rev 225 F Coomans and M Kamminga (eds), Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (Intersentia, Antwerp–​Oxford  2004) MJ Dennis, ‘Application of Human Rights Treaties Extraterritorially in Times of Armed Conflict and Military Occupation’ (2005) 99 AJIL 119 M Gibney and S Skogly (eds), Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2010) M Gondek, ‘Extraterritorial Application of the European Convention on Human Rights: Territorial Focus in the Age of Globalization?’ (2005) 52 Netherlands Intl L Rev 349 DB Hollis, ‘Executive Federalism; Forging New Federalism Constraints on the Treaty Power’ (2006) 79 S Cal L Rev 1327 S Karagiannis, ‘L’aménagement des droits de l’homme outre-​mer: la clause des “nécessités locales” de la Convention européenne’ (1995) 28 RBDI 224 S Karagiannis, ‘Le territoire d’application de la Convention européenne des droits de l’homme. Vetera et nova’ (2005) 16 Rev trim des droits de l’homme 33 B Knoll, The Legal Status of Territories Subject to Administration by International Organisations (CUP, New York 2008) E Lagrange, ‘L’application de la Convention de Rome à des actes accomplis par les Etats parties en dehors du territoire national’ (2008) 112 Rev gén de dr int public 521 J. Lobel, ‘Fundamental Norms, International Law, and the Extraterritorial Constitution’ (2011) 36 Yale JIL 207 RL Looper, ‘ “Federal State” Clauses in Multilateral Instruments’ (1955–​56) 32 BYBIL 162 M Milanovic, Extraterritorial Application of Human Rights Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2011) M Milanovic, ‘From Compromise to Principle: Clarifying the Concept of State Jurisdiction in Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 8 Hum Rts L Rev 411 L Moor and AB Simpson, ‘Ghosts of Colonialism in the European Convention on Human Rights’ (2006) 76 BYBIL 121 AL Parrish, ‘Rehabilitating Territoriality in Human Rights’ (2011) 32 Cardozo L Rev 1099 VP Tzevelekos, ‘Reconstructing the Effective Control Criterion in Extraterritorial Human Rights Breaches:  Direct Attribution of Wrongfulness, Due Diligence, and Concurrent Responsibility’ (2014) 36 Michigan JIL 129 R Wilde, ‘Human Rights beyond Borders at the World Court; The Significance of the International Court of Justice’s Jurisprudence on the Extraterritorial Application of International Human Rights Law Treaties’ (2013) 12 Chinese JIL 639

14

Treaty Amendments Jutta Brunnée

Introduction Modern treaties, in the majority of cases, are not one-​off transactions in which parties exchange commitments or advantages. In particular, multilateral treaties are typically designed to govern relations between States on a given issue for the longer term, often indefinitely. This open-​endedness is a feature not only of treaties that establish international institutions, but also those that establish regimes to govern a wide range of issues, such as human rights, international trade, arms control, maritime or air transport, and environmental protection. In all such long-​term arrangements, provision must be made for subsequent change. Some issues may have been too difficult to settle in the original negotiations and may become amenable to agreement only once parties have begun to interact under the treaty’s auspices. Other issues may be unforeseen by the original negotiators, or may arise due to changes in other areas of international law. In yet other circumstances, the underlying issue—​or the parties’ understanding of the issue (or of appropriate response actions)—​may change, sometimes rapidly so. The formal legal device for making changes to the text of a treaty, whether to its core provisions or to annexes or appendices, is an amendment. If the changes apply only among a subset of treaty parties, they are referred to as modifications. In older treaty practice, amendments were also distinguished from revisions, which involved a general review of the entire treaty rather than changes only to particular provisions.1 While some treaties provide for such a review process,2 the general view today is that, notwithstanding the terminological distinction, there is no legal difference between amendment and revision processes.3 Amendments must be distinguished from other methods for altering or augmenting treaty terms covered elsewhere in this volume. For example, unless specifically designed to effect an amendment,4 subsequent protocols supplement rather than alter the original treaty.5 1 ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 2009) 509–​10. 2 See eg Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90, Art 123 (‘Rome Statute’). On the 2010 Review Conference of the Rome Statute, see also nn 53–​61 and accompanying text. 3 See Rome Statute (n 2) Art 123 (providing that the Statute’s amendment provisions apply to any changes considered at a review conference). See also Villiger (n 1) 522. 4 Parties can, of course, choose to amend a treaty by means of an amending protocol. For example, in 1982, the parties to the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (opened for signature 2 February 1971, entered into force 21 December 1975) 996 UNTS 245, adopted a Protocol to Amend the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Paris Protocol) (opened for signature 3 December 1982, entered into force 1 October 1986) [1983] 22 ILM 698. 5 For example, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 2015 Paris Agreement, while drawing in some respects on the UNFCCC, are separate treaties that create rights and obligations only for those UNFCCC parties that ratify them. See UNFCCC (adopted 9 May 1992, entered into

Treaty Amendments  337 Decisions of a treaty’s plenary body, in turn, often produce technical, procedural, or even substantive standards applicable to all parties. But unless explicitly provided for in the treaty, such decisions do not constitute amendments and the resultant standards are not legally binding.6 Finally, substantive change can also be effected through treaty interpretation, notably through the parties’ subsequent agreement or practice.7 In the case of subsequent agreements, the line between interpretation and amendment can be difficult to draw.8 Still, at least notionally, there is a difference between an authoritative interpretation of treaty terms and changed or new terms. In earlier treaty-​making practice, unanimity tended to be required for amendments. The premium placed on treaty integrity, on the maxim of pacta sunt servanda, and on the protection of parties’ sovereignty helps explain this default rule, which prevailed through the first half of the twentieth century.9 Another important factor was the fact that many treaties were bilateral or, if multilateral, involved much smaller numbers of States than they tend to involve today. In the second half of the twentieth century, with the steady increase in the number of sovereign States and growing recourse to long-​term multilateral treaty-​making, the old customary rule became increasingly impractical and international practice shifted.10 The new default rule that emerged was that amendments bind only those treaty parties that consent to them. This rule is reflected in the provisions of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT).11 The Convention built on draft articles that the International Law Commission (ILC) submitted to the UN General Assembly in 1966, having begun its work on the topic in 1949, the year it was established.12 With some notable exceptions, the VCLT codified the existing customary international law on treaties.13 The topic of treaty amendment came to be included in the ILC’s draft articles only relatively late—​in 1964.14 Given the basic principle that a State’s rights under a treaty could not be modified without their consent, amendments were widely seen as raising political and diplomatic, rather than legal, issues.15 At the same time, the rise of international organizations and the proliferation of multilateral treaties increased States’ awareness of the need to make advance provision and to clarify the procedural requirements for subsequent amendment.16 Since the considerable diversity in amendment practice made it difficult to identify customary rules,17 the ILC eventually force 16 November 1994) 1771 UNTS 107; Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (adopted 10 December 1997, entered into force 16 February 2005) 2303 UNTS 162; Paris Agreement (adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740. See generally Chapter 17, 416 et seq. 6 See generally Chapter 17 (on treaty regimes and treaty bodies); R Churchill and G Ulfstein, ‘Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2000) 94 AJIL 623; J Brunnée, ‘COPing with Consent: Lawmaking under Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2002) 15 LIJIL 1. 7 See Chapters 19–​22 (on treaty interpretation). 8 See A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 212–​14. 9 E Hoyt, The Unanimity Rule in the Revision of Treaties: A Re-​Examination (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1959). 10 I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 106. 11 See Art 40(4) VCLT. 12 Villiger (n 1) 29, 34. 13 K Zemanek, ‘Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ (United Nations Audiovisual Library 2009) (referring to reservations, interpretation, and termination of treaties). 14 See Villiger (n 1) 510–​11. 15 See [1964] YBILC, vol II, 48. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid  49–​50.

338  Treaty Application opted for a broadly framed general principle, along with residual procedural rules intended to guide the amendment of multilateral treaties. In the deliberations leading to the VCLT’s adoption, the provisions relating to amendments did not raise much discussion.18 Articles 39–​41, which make up Part IV of the VCLT (Amendment and Modification of Treaties), read as follows: Article 39 General rule regarding the amendment of treaties A treaty may be amended by agreement between the parties. The rules laid down in Part II [on conclusion and entry into force of treaties] apply to such an agreement except insofar as the treaty may otherwise provide. Article 40 Amendment of multilateral treaties

1. Unless the treaty otherwise provides, the amendment of multilateral treaties shall be governed by the following paragraphs. 2. Any proposal to amend a multilateral treaty as between all the parties must be notified to all the contracting States, each one of which shall have the right to take part in: (a) the decision as to the action to be taken in regard to such proposal; (b) the negotiation and conclusion of any agreement for the amendment of the treaty. 3. Every State entitled to become a party to the treaty shall also be entitled to become a party to the treaty as amended. 4. The amending agreement does not bind any State already a party to the treaty which does not become a party to the amending agreement; article 30, paragraph 4(b), applies in relation to such State. 5. Any State which becomes a party to the treaty after the entry into force of the amending agreement shall, failing an expression of a different intention by that State: (a) be considered as a party to the treaty as amended; and (b) be considered as a party to the unamended treaty in relation to any party to the treaty not bound by the amending agreement.

Article 41 Agreements to modify multilateral treaties between certain of the parties only

1. Two or more of the parties to a multilateral treaty may conclude an agreement to modify the treaty as between themselves alone if: (a) the possibility of such a modification is provided for by the treaty; or (b) the modification in question is not prohibited by the treaty and: (i) does not affect the enjoyment by the other parties of their rights under the treaty or the performance of their obligations; (ii) does not relate to a provision, derogation from which is incompatible with the effective execution of the object and purpose of the treaty as a whole. 2. Unless in a case falling under paragraph 1 (a) the treaty otherwise provides, the parties in question shall notify the other parties of their intention to conclude the agreement and of the modification to the treaty for which it provides.

18

See Villiger (n 1) 510–​11.

Treaty Amendments  339 As these residual rules confirm, amendments require agreement between treaty parties, but not necessarily between all parties.19 For bilateral treaties, of course, the agreement of both parties is needed to effect any changes. The main question in that context concerns the form in which the parties’ agreement is to be expressed. Some bilateral treaties stipulate that written agreement, for example through an exchange of notes, is required.20 It is worth noting that for plurilateral treaties too the unanimity rule continues to hold sway.21 For example, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico, and the United States stipulated that the ‘Parties may agree on any modification of or addition to’ NAFTA.22 For multilateral treaties, the default rule is that amendments must be proposed and adopted, and that individual parties then decide whether or not they wish to become a party to the amendment.23 However, parties are free to reach informal agreements on the amendment, and to decide on the details of the amendment process.24 This open-​endedness of the residual rules reflects not only the aforementioned variations in State practice, but also the fact that international law does not contain an acte contraire principle.25 In other words, there is no general legal requirement that changes to a treaty be made through the same process or by an act of the same legal nature as the original instrument.26 When a party joins a treaty for which an amendment is already in force, it normally will be bound by the amendment unless it indicates otherwise.27 If two or more parties wish to change a treaty as between themselves—​as opposed to between all parties—​they can do so, subject to certain limitations, by way of a modification.28 A variety of potentially competing considerations must be balanced in devising an amendment process for a multilateral agreement. States’ desire to protect their sovereign interests and their attendant preference for formal consent must be balanced against the need for a dynamic, responsive treaty that can facilitate necessary change. Amendment procedures must also balance between the stability of a treaty and its dynamism and, hence, adaptability. In some contexts—​for example in the case of treaties that establish international organizations—​stability of the organization’s institutional and procedural structures will be one of the greatest strengths of the underlying treaty. Stability will also be paramount in some issue areas, such as human rights law.29 In other settings, for example in the environmental protection context, a treaty’s success will be dependent in 19 See Art 39 VCLT. 20 See Aust (n 8) 234–​5 (with examples). 21 The VCLT does not specifically address amendments of plurilateral treaties. However, the considerations accounting for the unanimity practice is reflected in the VCLT’s approach to reservations, according to which the ‘limited number of negotiating States’ may be a reason why reservations to a treaty requires ‘acceptance by all the parties’. See Art 20(2) VCLT. 22 North American Free Trade Agreement (signed 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) [1993] 32 ILM 289, Art 2202 (NAFTA). 23 Art 40 VCLT. 24 Arts 39, 40(1) VCLT. 25 Aust (n 8) 233. 26 Villiger (n 1) 513. 27 Art 40(5) VCLT. 28 Art 41 VCLT. 29 Indeed, human rights treaties adopted under UN auspices often require approval by the UN General Assembly, in addition to acceptance by a specified majority of parties, for amendments to enter into force. See n 47 and accompanying text.

340  Treaty Application part upon its dynamism—​its ability to adapt and respond to new or evolving challenges, knowledge, or political dynamics. The relative importance of stability and change may also differ depending on the type of provision involved. For example, provisions that are central to the integrity of a treaty, such as its main substantive provisions and procedural infrastructure, will be less amenable to change than technical or administrative standards. Finally, the integrity and stability of a treaty may suffer when some parties are bound by an amendment and others are not, or when, as a result of different amendments with different subsets of parties, a treaty ends up proceeding at different speeds. The 1929 Warsaw Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air provides an infamous example.30 It was amended and supplemented multiple times, progressively undercutting the Convention’s ‘unification’ goal because of the divergent memberships of the Convention and the various amendments.31 The 1999 Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air was intended to remedy the less than satisfactory situation,32 but so far not all parties to the Warsaw Convention have joined the Montreal Convention.33 As this chapter will illustrate, how the balance is struck between sovereignty protection, stability, and dynamism is often directly related to the overall effectiveness of the treaty. Hence, most treaties today contain detailed amendment provisions.34 Sometimes, however, parties are unable to resolve the underlying policy questions when they negotiate the treaty’s terms, leaving the VCLT rules to operate by default. For example, Article 26(1) of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) provides only that a request for the revision of the Convention may be made at any time by any party, ‘by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations’.35 This chapter will examine the different options for structuring amendment processes for multilateral treaties, leaving aside the relatively straightforward matter of amendments to bilateral and plurilateral treaties. The focus will be on formal treaty amendments and modifications to multilateral treaties. As the chapter will illustrate, many treaties contain amendment provisions that deviate from the default rules outlined in the VCLT, which require explicit consent for individual parties to be bound by amendments. In order to facilitate change, some treaties employ tacit consent or ‘opt-​out’ processes. In other treaties, amendments ratified by specified majorities will bind all parties, except for States whose party status ends due to non-​ratification of the amendment and, in a variation on this approach, for States that choose to withdraw from the treaty. Some treaties even allow for narrowly defined types of changes, the collapsing of the adoption and consent steps into a vote by the plenary body. Finally, as the following review will illustrate, it is not uncommon for treaties

30 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air (signed 12 October 1929, entered into force 13 February 1933) 137 LNTS 11 (‘Warsaw Convention’). 31 Aust (n 8) 232–​3. 32 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (done 28 May 1999, entered into force 4 November 2003) 2242 UNTS 309. 33 See EM Giemulla, ‘Traffic and Transport, International Regulation’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2013). 34 The Warsaw Convention (n 30) is an example of an older treaty that did not contain an amendment provision. 35 Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW).

Treaty Amendments  341 to provide multiple amendment procedures for different parts of the treaty, permitting the treaty to strike a more finely tuned balance between sovereignty protection, stability, and dynamism. The chapter will also briefly touch upon the question whether treaties can be amended prior to their entry into force.

I.  The Standard Amendment Process—​Explicit Consent The traditional process for altering existing text or adding new treaty terms is a formal treaty amendment as envisaged in Article 40 VCLT. In keeping with the formal model of strictly consent-​based treaty-​making, the amendment process requires explicit consent for an individual party to be bound by an amendment. Similar to the treaty-​making process itself, the amendment process normally proceeds in several steps. The first step is the proposal of an amendment, usually by one or more of the parties (sometimes by a treaty body), and the notification of that proposal to all other parties. If the parties decide to proceed with the amendment they enter into negotiations on the new terms. The amendment must then be adopted by the treaty parties. Once adopted, it enters into force only upon subsequent acceptance by a specified majority of parties, and only for those parties that have ratified it.36 The requirements for adoption provide a first opportunity to calibrate the amendment process so as to balance protections for State sovereignty, stability, and dynamism—​with potentially significant implications for the effectiveness of the treaty. For example, if a treaty requires consensus for an amendment to be adopted, individual parties are assured that no amendment can emerge that is unacceptable to them and that all amendments have broad support among parties. Such amendments, one might argue, are more likely to be viable. But the consensus rule can also stifle treaty development, precisely by enabling small numbers of parties or even individual parties to obstruct the adoption of an amendment. Hence, the consensus requirement can also undermine the effectiveness of a treaty by holding up necessary changes. As noted earlier, what the appropriate balance is between sovereignty, stability, and change will depend in part upon the subject matter of the treaty, and in part upon what type of provision is to be amended. The entry-​into-​force threshold presents a further juncture at which sovereignty protection, stability, and treaty development—​that is, effectiveness considerations—​can be factored into the design of the amendment process. If a large number of ratifications are required for entry into force, the amendment may never take effect. At the same time, some amendments will not achieve their intended purpose, or will not be acceptable to parties, unless they bind a significant segment of the treaty membership. For example, if the number of required ratifications for an amendment that is meant to expand the jurisdiction of an international court is too low, the court may not be able to operate effectively. An unduly low entry-​into-​force threshold may also deter individual parties from ratifying, for fear of being one of only a few States subject to the expanded jurisdiction. Similar considerations apply in a broad range of issue areas. Consider the example of a



36

On adoption, ratification, and entry into force of treaties see Chapter 9, 217 et seq.

342  Treaty Application global issue like climate change. An amendment to a global climate change treaty that contained new emission limits could not deliver meaningful global emission reductions if only a few States were bound by it, nor would individual States be likely to agree to take expensive reduction measures while others ‘free-​ride’. Thus, while the parties to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) did adopt the Doha Amendment in 2012,37 it is uncertain whether this amendment will attract the 144 acceptances needed to reach the entry-​into-​force threshold of three-​ quarters of the Protocol parties.38 Indeed, the negotiation of both this amendment and a new supplementary treaty with more stringent emission reduction commitments proved so difficult that the climate regime shifted to a ‘bottom-​up’ approach with the Paris Agreement, involving non-​binding, nationally determined commitments that parties can adjust unilaterally.39 It should be noted that, in setting an entry-​into-​force threshold for amendments, it may not be enough to specify a percentage of parties that must accept it. As experiences with a number of treaties have demonstrated, the question arises whether the required percentage refers to the number of parties at the time of the amendment’s adoption or the time of its entry into force. When an amendment takes a long time to enter into force, the number of treaty parties required may grow in the intervening time, making it increasingly difficult for the amendment to meet the threshold. For example, the 1960 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (the SOLAS Convention) and the 1971 Load Lines Convention were both amended multiple times but none of the amendments entered into force.40 Since State practice on the percentage question has tended to vary, some treaties do specify that the reference group is parties at the time of adoption of the amendment.41 Others, such as the 1974 successor to the SOLAS Convention,42 opt for simplified amendment processes to remedy the problem.43 In practice, most multilateral treaties permit adoption of amendments by a specified majority of parties, provide for relatively high entry-​into-​force thresholds, and stipulate individual party consent. For example, amendments to the UNFCCC are adopted by a meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP), normally by consensus but, as a last resort, by a three-​quarters majority of the parties present and voting.44 However, these amendments will not enter into force unless three-​quarters of the 194 parties to the Convention have accepted them.45 Only parties that accept the amendment are bound by it.46 Many other 37 UNFCCC (n 5); Kyoto Protocol (n 5); Decision 1/​CMP.8, ‘Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol pursuant to Article 3, paragraph 9 (the Doha Amendment)’ (adopted 8 December 2012), in ‘Report of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol on its eighth session, held in Doha from 26 November to 8 December 2012’, FCCC/​KP/​CMP/​2012/​13/​Add. 1, 2, Annex I: Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol (28 February 2013). 38 Kyoto Protocol (n 5) Arts 20, 21(7). As of 8 May 2019, 128 parties had accepted the Doha Amendment. See ‘The Doha Amendment’ . 39 Paris Agreement (n 5) Art 4(2), (3), (11). In combination, these provisions suggest that such adjustments ought to lead to more ambitious commitments, not ‘back-​sliding’. 40 See M Bowman, ‘The Multilateral Treaty Amendment Process—​A Case Study’ (1995) 44 ICLQ 540, 551 n57. 41 See eg Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (adopted 14 July 1967, entered into force 26 April 1970) 828 UNTS 3, Art 17(3). 42 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 (concluded 1 November 1974, entered into force 25 May 1980) 1184 UNTS 2 (‘SOLAS Convention’). 43 See nn 93–​5 and accompanying text. 44 UNFCCC (n 5) Art 15(3). 45 Ibid Art 15(4). 46 Ibid Art 15(4) and (5).

Treaty Amendments  343 multilateral agreements provide for direct recourse to majority voting on the adoption of amendments. For example, amendments to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) can be adopted by a majority of the parties present and voting. However, this relatively lower adoption threshold is counterbalanced by a relatively high bar for entry-​into-​force of the amendment: approval by the UN General Assembly and acceptance by two-​thirds of the ICCPR parties.47 Another majority-​based amendment process can be found in the Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO Constitution).48 Amendments that involve new obligations for States can be adopted by a two-​thirds majority of the votes cast, so long as this majority represents more than one-​ half of FAO members. Such amendments enter into force for accepting States once two-​ thirds of FAO members have accepted them.49 A variant of this approach is employed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).50 Amendments to its Constitution can be adopted by a two-​thirds majority.51 To enable speedy modification, the ITU Constitution dispenses with an entry-​into-​force threshold and stipulates that amendments will enter into force between ratifying parties.52 A similar approach is applied to certain amendments to the 1998 Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC).53 All amendments under the Statute are adopted by consensus, or if consensus cannot be reached, by a two-​thirds majority of the parties.54 But amendments to provisions that define the crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court enter into force only for those parties that accept them, one year after the deposit of their instruments of ratification or acceptance.55 During the 2010 Review Conference of the Rome Statute, parties used this process to adopt, by consensus, an amendment that added a variety of poisonous weapons as well as expanding or flattening bullets to the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes in non-​international armed conflicts.56 This amendment was relatively uncontroversial, since the Court already had jurisdiction over the relevant weapons in the context of international armed conflicts.57 Not surprisingly, the adoption of an amendment that defined the crime of aggression and activated the ICC’s jurisdiction over it proved rather more difficult.58 While the parties adopted this amendment too by consensus,59 the amendment introduced additional barriers to the exercise of jurisdiction by the Court, effectively 47 See International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 51 (ICCPR). Several other UN human rights treaties similarly require approval of amendments by the UN General Assembly. See eg International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 999 UNTS 3, Art 29; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3, Art 50. 48 Constitution of the Food and Agricultural Organization (with Annexes) (adopted 16 October 1945, entered into force 16 October 1945) 145 BSP 910 (‘FAO Constitution’). 49 Ibid Arts XX(1), (2). 50 Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (with Annexes and Optional Protocol) (concluded 22 December 1992, entered into force 1 July 1994) 1825 UNTS 143 (‘ITU Constitution’). 51 Ibid Art 55(4). 52 Ibid Art 55(6). 53 Rome Statute (n 2) Art 121(5). 54 Ibid Art 121(3). 55 Ibid Art 121(5). 56 See Review Conference of the Rome Statute, 31 May–​11 June 2010 (8 June 2010) ICC Doc RC/​11/​Res 5 (Amendments to Article 8 of the Rome Statute). 57 See Rome Statute (n 2) Art 8(2)(b)(xvii–​xix). 58 The Rome Statute had left the definition of this crime and the terms of the ICC’s jurisdiction over it to be determined by means of an amendment. See ibid Art 5(2). 59 See Review Conference of the Rome Statute, 31 May–​11 June 2010 (11 June 2010) ICC Doc RC/​11/​Res 6 (The crime of aggression).

344  Treaty Application revising the amendment process for the crime of aggression. In particular, it stipulated that the ICC can exercise jurisdiction only ‘with respect to crimes of aggression committed one year after the ratification or acceptance of the amendments by thirty States Parties’, and only after a further decision by the parties, ‘to be taken after 1 January 2017 by the same majority required for the adoption of an amendment to the Statute’.60 Except in the case of a Security Council referral of the matter to the ICC, the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression is furthermore excluded when a party has previously declared its non-​acceptance, or when committed by a national of a non-​party or on its territory.61 However, the Review Conference decision also introduced considerable ambiguity as to which States exactly will be bound by the aggression amendment. The decision adopting the amendment stipulated that it would enter into force pursuant to the rules governing amendments to the crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction.62 As noted above, under this process, only States that accept the relevant amendment will be bound by it.63 It is unclear, therefore, what the parties intended when they specified in the amendment that the Court cannot exercise jurisdiction with respect to a party that previously declared its non-​acceptance. Was the upshot that, after all, the Court would have jurisdiction over nationals of States parties that had not ratified the amendments, unless they opted out?64 Or was the opt-​out intended only for parties that do ratify the amendment, such that they could nonetheless bar the Court from exercising jurisdiction regarding aggression committed by their nationals or on their territories? The parties to the Rome Statute were deeply divided on this issue, with both positions being vigorously defended.65 In December 2017, one year after the thirtieth ratification of the aggression amendment, the parties did vote to activate the amendment as of 17 July 2018.66 The activation decision seems to resolve the issue in accordance with the second view sketched above, and in keeping with the formal amendment process model. It affirmed that, ‘in accordance with the Rome Statute’, and except in the event of a Security Council referral, the ICC ‘shall not exercise its jurisdiction regarding a crime of aggression when committed by a national or on the territory of a State Party that has not ratified or accepted these amendments’.67 Nonetheless, disagreements concerning the effect of the amendment appear to linger even after this decision.68 The examples of the amendments adopted at the Rome Statute Review Conference highlight in dramatic fashion the crucial importance that amendment procedures may assume, and the difficult political issues that they may raise. They also underscore the earlier observation that treaties frequently provide different amendment procedures for different parts of a treaty, depending on the nature of the provision to be amended and the political sensitivity of the underlying issue. Indeed, the Rome Statute itself provides for two other amendment procedures, one for amendments to provisions of an institutional 60 Ibid Annex I, Arts 15bis(2)–​(3), 15ter(2)–​(3). 61 Ibid Annex I, Arts 15bis(4)-​(5); Annex III(2). 62 Ibid para 1. 63 See n 55 and accompanying text. 64 On amendments with tacit consent or opt-​out see Section II, 345–49 et seq. 65 ICC Assembly of State Parties, 27 November 2017, ICC-​ASP/​16/​24 (Report on the facilitation on the activation of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over the crime of aggression) [19]–​[20]. 66 ICC Assembly of State Parties, 14 December 2017, ICC-​ASP/​16/​Res.5 (Activation of the Jurisdiction of the Court over the Crime of Aggression) [1]‌. 67 Ibid  [2]‌. 68 See D Akande and A Tzanakopoulos, ‘Treaty Law and ICC Jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression’ (2018) 29 EJIL 939.

Treaty Amendments  345 nature, and one for all other provisions except those outlining the crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction.69 Before turning to alternatives to the formal amendment process, it is important to note that States’ laws and practices with respect to the domestic approval and effects of amendments differ.70 In some States, the ratification of treaties and amendments to treaties is within the competence of the executive branch, although legislative implementation may be required for the treaty or amendment to have domestic effect. In other States, the approval of the legislature will be required before the executive can consent to a treaty or amendment. In turn, once ratified, the treaty or amendment may then be directly applicable in domestic law. The formal amendment process allows each State to follow its domestic approval process for each change to a treaty to which it is a party. Where treaties provide for simplified consent to amendments, or even dispense with individual party consent, a State’s domestic process may be effectively bypassed. Depending on the international amendment process, the vote of a government representative may suffice to bind an individual State. Of course, the State in question would have formally consented to this amendment process as it ratified the original treaty. Still, given the scope and significance of international standard-​setting through alternative amendment processes, the impact on domestic decision-​making has occasioned some concern. Such concern has been voiced notably in the United States, where Senate approval is generally required for both treaties and amendments.71

II.  Amendments with Tacit Consent or ‘Opt-​Out’ In this variant of an amendment process, the plenary body adopts an amendment, usually by majority decision. The amendment will bind all treaty parties, except those that declare in writing that they do not accept the amendment. Normally, this opt-​out must be notified within a specified period of time from the adoption of the amendment. As in the standard process, individual parties retain control over new treaty terms. But rather than requiring their explicit opt-​in, this variant presumes parties’ consent unless they explicitly opt out. In other words, the opt-​out model retains the individual consent requirement but replaces explicit consent with tacit consent. The first multilateral treaty to employ the opting out procedure was the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation (ICAO).72 The treaty’s plenary body, the ICAO Council, adopts standards on the safety, regularity, and efficiency of air navigation,73 designating them as annexes to the Convention.74 The Council adopts or amends these annexes by two-​thirds majority vote and they become effective within three months unless 69 See Rome Statute (n 2) Arts 122, 124(1)–​(4); see also nn 123–​24 and accompanying text. 70 See Aust (n 8) 162–​75 (providing an overview of major jurisdictions). 71 See eg RF Blomquist, ‘Ratification Resisted:  Understanding America’s Response to the Convention on Biological Diversity 1989–​2002’ (2002) 32 Golden Gate Univ L Rev 493, 545–​6; Natural Resources Defense Council v EPA, 464 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (concluding that, absent specific ratification or authorization by the US Congress, certain requirements validly agreed upon under the auspices of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer were not ‘law’ for the purposes of relevant US legislation). For a more detailed discussion of treaties and domestic law, see Chapter 15 (Domestic Application of Treaties). 72 Convention on International Civil Aviation (opened for signature 7 December 1944, entered into force 4 April 1947) 15 UNTS 295 (‘Chicago Convention’). 73 Ibid Art 37. 74 Ibid Art 54(l).

346  Treaty Application a majority of the parties register their disapproval with the Council.75 Individual Member States can reject some or all of the standards in the annexes or amendments.76 The opting-​out process has since come to be commonly employed by international organizations or multilateral agreements to facilitate the adoption or revision of technical standards. For example, world conferences under the auspices of the ITU can revise the international telecommunication regulations,77 which are binding on members.78 The revisions enter into force among the ratifying States.79 They are provisionally applied to Member States that have signed but not ratified them, except for States that opposed such provisional application upon signature. If a Member State has not communicated its consent (or declination) to be bound within thirty-​six months of its entry into force, it will be deemed to have consented to the revision.80 Under the Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Health Assembly can adopt regulations on public health matters by majority vote.81 These regulations become binding on all Member States, except those that reject them or formulate reservations to them.82 In 1951, to replace earlier sanitary conventions, the assembly adopted several international regulations, which in turn have been amended repeatedly to keep up with new health threats and other developments, most recently through International Health Regulations (IHR) adopted in 2005.83 These regulations introduced the requirement that, if one-​third of the WHO Member States object to a reservation and the reserving State does not withdraw it, the Assembly must confirm that the reservation is compatible with the IHR’s object and purpose.84 In this case, the relevant regulations will not enter into force for a party that maintains its reservation notwithstanding the Assembly’s objection.85 The 2005 IHR are in force for 194 States. Only two States, India and the United States, lodged reservations. Since there was only one objection, the IHR entered into force for the reserving States, subject to their reservations.86 Yet another version of the tacit consent process is used under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), respectively. The WMO’s plenary body, the Congress, is empowered to adopt, by two-​thirds majority vote, binding regulations on meteorological practices and procedures.87 However, parties are required only to ‘do their utmost to implement the decisions

75 Ibid Art 90(a). 76 Ibid Art 38. 77 ITU Constitution (n 50) Art 25(2). 78 Ibid Arts 4(3), 54(1). 79 Ibid Arts 54(2)bis, (3)bis. 80 Ibid Art 54(3)penter. 81 Constitution of the World Health Organization (opened for signature 22 July 1946, entered into force 22 July 1946) 14 UNTS 185, Art 21 (‘WHO Constitution’). 82 Ibid Art 22. 83 WHO, International Health Regulations, Resolution WHA 58/​3 (adopted 23 May 2005, entered into force 7 June 2007), in WHO, International Health Regulations (2nd edn 2008) 1 (IHR). 84 See ibid Arts 59, 61, 62. According to Art 62(9), the Assembly must object to the reservation by majority vote, on the ground that it is incompatible with the IHR’s object and purpose. 85 Ibid Art 62(9). 86 See WHO, ‘States Parties to the International Health Regulations (2005)’ . See also ibid Art 62(5). India’s reservation concerned responses to Yellow Fever. The US reservation concerned implementation of the IHR in accordance with the fundamental principles of US federalism. Iran objected to the latter reservation. 87 Convention of the World Meteorological Organization (done 11 October 1947, entered into force 23 March 1950) 77 UNTS 143, Arts 8(d), 11(b) (‘WMO Convention’).

Treaty Amendments  347 of the Congress’ and can advise the WMO that they find it ‘impracticable’, temporarily or permanently, to implement certain standards.88 In turn, while the IMO Convention itself does not provide for tacit consent to amendments,89 many of the conventions and protocols adopted under the IMO umbrella do. The simplified amendment process was introduced because the standard ratification requirement delayed, or even prevented the entry into force of, key amendments.90 For example, the 1960 SOLAS Convention required ratification by two-​thirds of the parties for entry into force of an amendment, with the result that several amendments never passed the bar. In response to this state of affairs, parties tasked a working group with an assessment of the tacit amendment procedures used by ICAO, ITU, WHO, and WMO.91 Since 1972, tacit consent procedures for amendments to technical standards have been incorporated into most IMO conventions.92 Under the 1974 SOLAS Convention, a tacit amendment process is available for changes to the technical chapters of the Annex to the Convention.93 Such amendments are deemed to have been accepted after a stipulated period of time.94 Unless a specified number of objections are received by a particular date, they enter into force for all parties except those that object.95 For example, under the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (the Maritime Traffic Convention), parties can indicate that they find it ‘impracticable to comply’ with given standards in the annex to the Convention.96 However, the plenary body can decide by two-​thirds majority that these standards are of such nature that a non-​accepting State ceases to be a party to the Convention. Revisions or amendments to the Convention itself enter into force for all parties, except those that previously declared that they do not accept the new terms.97 Although some concerns were initially expressed—​notably by developing countries—​about the tacit consent process,98 it has come to be firmly established in IMO practice and is generally seen as having been successful in facilitating the expeditious updating of safety and environmental standards.99 Some international fisheries commissions also use opt-​out procedures. Hence, the North-​ East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) can adopt ‘recommendations’ by majority vote.100 These recommendations will be binding on parties that do not object to them. If three or more parties object, none will be bound, except for individual parties that agree to be bound amongst themselves.101 An identical process is used by

88 Ibid Art 9. 89 Convention on the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (done 6 March 1948, entered into force 17 March 1958) 289 UNTS 3, Art 66 (‘IMO Convention’). 90 See n 40 and accompanying text. 91 D König, ‘Tacit Consent/​Opting Out Procedures’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2013). 92 Ibid. 93 SOLAS Convention (n 42) Art VIII. 94 Ibid Art VIII(xi)(2). 95 Ibid Art VIII(xi)(2) and (vii)(2). 96 Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (adopted 9 April 1965, entered into force 5 March 1967) 591 UNTS 265, Arts VI–​VIII. 97 Ibid Art IX. 98 AO Adede, ‘Amendment Procedures for Conventions with Technical Annexes:  The IMCO Experience’ (1976–​77) 17 VJIL 201, 206–​10 (pointing primarily to sovereignty concerns and capacity limitations). 99 König (n 91) [10]. 100 North-​East Atlantic Fisheries Convention (with Annex) (done 24 January 1959, entered into force 27 June 1963) 486 UNTS 157, Arts 5–​8. 101 Ibid Art 12.

348  Treaty Application the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) in respect of ‘proposals for joint action’.102 Finally, under many multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), the opting-​out process is employed in the initial adoption and subsequent amendment of technical or administrative annexes, such as lists of regulated substances or applicable procedures. Relevant examples can be found in the UNFCCC, its Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement,103 in the Convention on Biological Diversity,104 and in the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal.105 Under the 2013 Minamata Convention on Mercury, when the parties adopt additional annexes, these enter into force for all parties that do not notify their non-​acceptance within one year.106 As these various examples serve to illustrate, the opting-​out approach is typically used for technical, scientific, or administrative matters. Such matters are less likely to be politically charged than changes to obligations or other core terms of a treaty. At the same time, to ensure the effectiveness of an organization or treaty, it is particularly important that the relevant standards can be updated easily and in harmonized fashion. The tacit consent process creates a presumption for treaty development. Furthermore, because parties’ formal consent is not required, new or updated standards can bypass potentially time-​consuming domestic approval processes. The result is a speedier standard-​setting process, albeit at the expense of some of the safeguards that formal consent processes offer.107 As noted above, at least in domestic systems that require legislative approval of treaties, the opting-​out process can shift international standard-​setting to the executive. Given the largely technical nature of the relevant standards, this shift may be unproblematic. Still, some treaties permit parties, upon ratification of the treaty, to generally opt-​out of tacit amendments or, more specifically, to stipulate that such amendments enter into force for these parties only upon their explicit consent.108 For example, amendments to annexes to the Minamata Convention are subject to an opt-​out process, except that parties may declare upon joining the Convention that such amendments enter into force for them pursuant to the standard process, that is, only if they provide formal consent.109 In addition, it is important to note that the boundary between technical and substantive matters cannot always be sharply drawn. For example, when an operative provision in an environmental agreement refers to substances that are listed in an annex to the treaty, the annex directly affects the scope of the binding treaty commitment. For this reason, some environmental agreements use different amendment processes, depending on the annex in 102 Convention on Future Multilateral Co-​operation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (with Annexes) (done 24 October 1978, entered into force 1 January 1979) 1135 UNTS 369, Arts X–​XII. 103 UNFCCC (n 5) Art 16; Kyoto Protocol (n 5) Art 21; Paris Agreement (n 5) Art 23. 104 Convention on Biological Diversity (concluded 5 June 1992, entered into force 29 December 1993) 1760 UNTS 79, Art 30(2). 105 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (done 22 March 1989, entered into force 5 May 1992) 1673 UNTS 57, Art 18(2). 106 Minamata Convention on Mercury (done 10 October 2013, entered into force 16 August 2017) [2016] 55 ILM 582, Art 27(3). 107 See n 98 and accompanying text (on the concerns of developing countries in the context of IMO’s shift to the tacit consent process). 108 See eg Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/​or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (opened for signature 14 October 1994, entered into force 26 December 1996) 1954 UNTS 3, Arts 30, 31, 34(4); Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (done 22 May 2001, entered into force 17 May 2004) 2256 UNTS 119, Arts 20, 21, 25(4). 109 Minamata Convention (n 106), Art 30(5). On the standard amendment process, see Section I, 341–45 et seq.

Treaty Amendments  349 question. The Kyoto Protocol provides a good illustration. Its Annex A identifies the greenhouse gases to which the Protocol applies and its Annex B lists each party’s assigned amount of emissions, thereby specifying their individual emission reduction commitments. Hence, while the Protocol uses the opt-​out procedure for purely technical annexes, it requires the formal amendment process, including its high entry-​into-​force threshold, for changes to Annexes A and B.110 It is for this reason that the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol has yet to enter into force.111 This differentiated approach to amendments provides another illustration of the finely tuned efforts of many treaties to balance between sovereignty protection, stability, and dynamism.112

III.  Amendments with Majority Ratification As the example of the Warsaw Convention illustrates,113 the traditional amendment model can produce increasing differentiation of treaty commitments among parties. When it comes to the amendment of constituent treaties of international organizations or international tribunals, or of other large multilateral treaties, such divergences may be impractical or undesirable from a policy perspective. Some treaties, therefore, provide for amendment procedures that are designed to ensure uniformity of terms and commitments as between all parties. This uniformity is accomplished by a majority ratification requirement, combined with either (i) the stipulation that non-​ratifying States cease to be treaty parties or (ii) the stipulation that amendments ratified by a specified majority bind all treaty parties. An early example of the first approach can be found in a provision of the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty that dealt with amendments to the Covenant of the League of Nations.114 Such amendments required ratification by a specified majority of the members of the organization. No Member State could be bound without its consent, but non-​ratification of an amendment ended that State’s membership in the League. The Chicago Convention contains a similar provision with respect to amendments which the ICAO Assembly considers to be ‘of such a nature to justify such a course of action’.115 However, although not all Member States have ratified all amendments, none have been expelled.116 This practice led some commentators to suggest that the amendment in question would have to entail fundamental changes to the Convention to justify expulsion.117 A prominent example of the second approach can be found in the UN Charter. A Charter amendment must first be adopted by two-​thirds of the members of the UN General Assembly. It enters into force for all UN Member States upon ratification by two-​thirds of the membership, including all permanent members of the Security Council.118 Similar 110 Kyoto Protocol (n 5) Arts 20, 21(7). 111 See nn 37–​9 and accompanying text. 112 See also the Introduction to this chapter, and n 69 and accompanying text. 113 See nn 30–​3 and accompanying text. 114 Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany (Versailles Peace Treaty) (signed 28 June 1919, entered into force 10 January 1920) 225 CTS 188, Art 26. 115 Chicago Convention (n 72) Art 94(b). 116 See ICAO Council, ‘Review of International Governance (Chicago Convention)’, Working Paper, 188th Sess (22 June 2009) ICAO Doc C-​WP/​13416; E Osieke, ‘Sanctions in International Law: The Contributions of International Organizations’ (1984) 31 Netherlands Intl L Rev 183, 185. 117 Osieke (n 116) 186. 118 Arts 108, 109 UN Charter.

350  Treaty Application approaches are used for amendments to the constituent treaties of several other UN specialized agencies, including the WHO Constitution,119 the WMO Convention,120 and Article XIII(1) of the UNESCO Constitution, which concerns ‘fundamental alterations in the aims of the Organization or new obligations for the Member States’.121 The process can also be found in the Charter of the League of Arab States and in the Statute of the Council of Europe.122 In the second variant of the majority consent approach, individual States can find themselves bound by the amended treaty without their explicit consent. They can avoid the new terms only by withdrawing from the treaty or organization. In some treaties, this option is provided through, and under the conditions of, the treaty’s general withdrawal provisions. In other treaties, it is stipulated in the amendment provision itself. For example, under the Rome Statute of the ICC, amendments that pertain neither to the crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court nor to ‘exclusively institutional’ matters enter into force for all parties one year after ratification by seven-​eighths of them.123 The Rome Statute further provides that a party that does not accept the amendment may withdraw from the Statute with immediate effect.124 This variant resembles the opting-​out process in that the consent to the amendment of all parties that do not withdraw from the treaty is effectively presumed. However, the ‘opt-​out’ itself is significantly different, as the parties’ opt-​out concerns not merely the amendment but pertains to the treaty as a whole. Both variants, through the relatively extreme approach of either automatic exclusion or individual withdrawal, underscore the importance that parties attach to uniform application of the underlying treaty terms.

IV.  Amendment by Consensus or Majority Plenary Decision In the standard amendment process, the opting-​out process, and the majority ratification process, individual parties must consent to be bound by an amendment, either explicitly or tacitly. All of these approaches, therefore, require two steps: the adoption of an amendment and its entry into force, triggered by the consent of a specified number of parties. Some amendment processes go further, collapsing the adoption and consent steps into a vote by the treaty’s plenary body. The rationale for such a simplified process is not just that it expedites decision-​making. It also represents another method for ensuring uniformity of commitments among parties. However, amendments through simple decision-​making by treaty plenaries diverge quite significantly from the formal safeguards of treaty law. Like the opt-​out process, they also shift powers to executive decision-​making in domestic systems that require legislative approval for formal international commitments. For these reasons, this type of amendment process is rare and tends to be reserved for narrowly defined and relatively uncontroversial matters. Sometimes these changes are referred to as adjustments 119 WHO Constitution (n 81) Art 73. 120 WMO Convention (n 87) Art 28(c). 121 UNESCO Constitution (adopted 16 November 1945, entered into force 4 November 1946) 4 UNTS 275. 122 Pact of the League of Arab States (done 22 March 1945, entered into force 10 May 1945) 70 UNTS 237, Art 19; Statute of the Council of Europe (with Amendments) (opened for signature 5 May 1949, entered into force 3 August 1949) CETS No 1, Art 41. 123 Rome Statute (n 2) Arts 121(4)–​(5), 122. 124 Ibid Art 121(6).

Treaty Amendments  351 rather than amendments, to highlight the fact that they involve an updating of a previously agreed regulatory approach, rather than a major substantive change. Some constituent treaties of international organizations authorize amendments by simple decision of the plenary body. For example, under the FAO Constitution, binding amendments can be adopted by two-​thirds majority resolution of the plenary body, so long as they do not involve new obligations for members and associate members and the resolution itself does not require individual acceptances.125 If new obligations are involved, a formal amendment process is required.126 Similarly, amendments to the UNESCO Constitution that do not concern fundamental alterations in the aims of the organization or new obligations can be adopted by two-​thirds majority resolution of the plenary body with binding effect for all members.127 In turn, under the Rome Statute of the ICC, amendments that are of an ‘exclusively institutional nature’ are adopted by consensus or, if consensus cannot be reached, by a two-​thirds majority of the parties. Such amendments enter into force for all parties six months after their adoption.128 Some MEAs employ a binding majority decision process for a small category of matters. The most frequently cited example is the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.129 The Protocol contains a provision that allows for certain changes to the control measures for substances that are already regulated under the Protocol, accomplished through so-​called ‘adjustments’ to relevant annexes.130 To date, all such adjustments have been adopted by consensus. But if consensus cannot be achieved, the Protocol permits adoption by two-​thirds majority decision, including a majority of both industrialized and developing country parties present and voting.131 Such adjustments are binding upon all Protocol parties.132 Comparable procedures exist under other MEAs. For example, the Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-​Range Transboundary Air-​Pollution and Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions allows for adjustments to standards contained in an annex to the Protocol.133 Such adjustments must be adopted by consensus decision. While there are numerous other examples of this approach, suffice it here to point to the Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (the Rotterdam Convention), which provides that a consensus decision can amend, with binding effect for all parties, Annex III to the Convention, which lists the chemicals subject to the prior informed consent procedure.134 Like many other MEAs, the Rotterdam Convention takes a differentiated approach to amendments.135 Hence, in the 125 FAO Constitution (n 48) Art XX(2). 126 See n 49 and accompanying text. 127 UNESCO Constitution (n 121) Art XIII(1). 128 Rome Statute (n 2) Art 122. 129 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (with Annex) (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3. 130 Ibid Art 2(9). But compare Art 2(10), stipulating that the addition or removal of entirely new substances requires a formal amendment process, see also the differentiated amendment processes under the Kyoto Protocol at nn 110–​12 and accompanying text. 131 Montreal Protocol (n 129) Art 2(9)(c). 132 Ibid Art 2(9)(d). 133 Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-​Range Transboundary Air-​Pollution and Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions (concluded 14 June 1994, entered into force 5 August 1998) 2030 UNTS 122, Art 11(6). 134 Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (done 11 September 1998, entered into force 24 February 2004) 2244 UNTS 337, Art 22(5) (‘Rotterdam Convention’). 135 See also nn 110–​12 and accompanying text.

352  Treaty Application case of new annexes, or amendments to annexes other than Annex III, parties can opt out by means of notification.136 In turn, amendments to the Convention itself must be made through the standard process and require individual parties’ consent to bind them.137 An unusual variation on the adjustment process is envisaged in the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, which effectively reverses the role of the plenary vote. That is, individual parties can tighten their own commitments by proposing an adjustment to the emission reduction specified for them in Annex B to the Protocol.138 This adjustment is then ‘considered adopted’ by the parties ‘unless more than three-​fourths of the Parties present and voting object’, and becomes ‘binding upon Parties’ on 1 January of the following year.139

V.  Modifications between Certain Parties Only Whereas amendments are intended to alter treaty terms as between all the parties,140 two or more treaty parties can also agree to modify certain terms of the treaty ‘as between themselves alone’.141 However, given the general interest in the integrity of treaties and preference for harmonized treaty terms, the scope for such modifications is strictly limited. Modifications may be made when the treaty explicitly provides for them.142 Otherwise, they are possible only when they are not prohibited by the treaty, and when they neither affect other parties’ rights or obligations under the treaty nor purport to change a provision ‘derogation from which is incompatible with the effective execution of the object and purpose of the treaty as a whole’.143 In addition, unless modification is permitted by the treaty, the relevant parties must notify the other parties of their intent to conclude a modification agreement and of the modification that they envisage.144 In practice, States do not appear to avail themselves of this device very often.145

VI.  Amendment before Entry into Force Technically speaking, a treaty can only be amended once it is in force. However, on occasion, multilateral treaties require changes in order for them to enter into force in the first place.146 The most commonly cited example is that of the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.147 The provisions 136 Rotterdam Convention (n 134) Art 22(3)–​(4). 137 Ibid Art 21(4). 138 Doha Amendment (n 37) Art 1 D. 139 Ibid Art 1 E. However, given the uncertain fate of the Doha Amendment, this adjustment process may never come into play. See n 38 and accompanying text. 140 Art 40(2) VCLT. 141 Art 41(1) VCLT. 142 Art 41(1)(a) VCLT. 143 Art 41(1)(b) VCLT. 144 Art 41(2) VCLT. 145 See J Klabbers, ‘Treaties, Amendments, and Revision’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008). 146 See Aust (n 8) 243–​4 (noting that bilateral treaties are more commonly ‘amended’ before entry into force). 147 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3 (UNCLOS); Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (adopted 28 July 1994, entered into force provisionally 16 November 1994 and definitively 28 July 1996) 1836 UNTS 3 (‘Implementation Agreement’).

Treaty Amendments  353 in Part XI of the Law of the Sea Convention, pertaining to deep sea-​bed mining, were among the most controversial parts of the Convention.148 Specifically, leading industrialized countries indicated that, because of the cost-​sharing, decision-​making, profit-​sharing, and other provisions in Part XI, they would not ratify the Convention. As a result, many developing countries too were reluctant to ratify the Convention. Consultations led to the adoption of the Implementation Agreement, which contained agreed interpretations to several provisions of Part XI and several new terms concerning the International Seabed Authority. The Implementation Agreement stipulated that it and the Convention would ‘henceforth be interpreted and applied as a single instrument’.149 It also tied any future consent to the Convention to consent to the Agreement, and vice versa. For States already party to the Convention, a simplified process enabled consent to the Agreement without formal ratification.150 Since the parties to the Agreement consent to implementing Part XI in accordance with its terms, its effect is similar to that of an amendment. Parties did not avail themselves of the Law of the Sea Convention’s amendment provisions, in part because these provisions were available only after entry into force of the Convention and in part because they would not have facilitated the desired speedy alteration of Part XI. The impact of the Implementation Agreement is significant. Although amendments normally have legal effects for those States that accept them, convention parties that did not join the Agreement will find it increasingly difficult to maintain their original interpretation of Part XI.151

Conclusion At first glance, amendments would appear to be among the more straightforward treaty law topics. They do not raise major theoretical controversies and textbooks on international law tend to give them relatively brief treatment. Yet, especially in the context of large multilateral treaties, amendments often implicate delicate political issues and, as a result, can raise intricate design questions. A wide variety of approaches to treaty amendment have gained currency to balance considerations of sovereignty protection, stability, and change. Depending on the circumstances, adoption and entry-​into-​force thresholds can be higher or lower within the standard amendment process. Alternatively, amendment processes can alter the requirement of individual party consent (i) by relying upon tacit rather than explicit consent (opt-​out rather than opt-​in); (ii) by stipulating that majority ratification creates binding amendments for all parties except for those that, due to their non-​acceptance of the amendment, are automatically excluded from the treaty or choose to withdraw from it; or (iii) by dispensing altogether with the individual consent step and relying exclusively on the adoption of the amendment by the treaty plenary. As the almost infinite range of variations on the amendment process and the examples provided in this chapter illustrate, there is no one formula for an effective amendment process. The amendment process must be tailored to the treaty in question and the policy context in which the treaty operates. Hence, while amendments may not raise major conceptual issues, the configuration of the 148 For an overview, see C Kojima and VS Vereshchetin, ‘Implementation Agreements’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2010). 149 Implementation Agreement (n 147) Art 2(1). 150 Ibid Arts 4–​5. 151 Villiger (n 1) 524.

354  Treaty Application amendment process does raise important practical issues in the negotiation of a treaty. An appropriately calibrated amendment process is a crucial ingredient for a successful treaty.

Recommended Reading D Akande and A Tzanakopoulos, ‘Treaty Law and ICC Jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression’ (2018) 29 EJIL 939 D Anderson, ‘Further Efforts to Ensure Universal Participation in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea’ (1994) 43 ICLQ 886 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) M Bowman, ‘The Multilateral Treaty Amendment Process—​A Case Study’ (1995) 44 ICLQ 540 J Brunnée, ‘International Legislation’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) available online at J Charney, ‘Entry into Force of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea’ (1995) 35 VJIL 381 O Corten and P Klein (eds), Les Conventions de Vienne sur les droits des traités: Commentaire article par article (Bruylant, Brussels 2006) O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) D French and KN Scott, ‘International Environmental Law’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 677 R Gardiner, ‘Revising the Law of Carriage by Air: Mechanisms in Treaties and Contract’ (1998) 47 ICLQ 278 E Hoyt, The Unanimity Rule in the Revision of Treaties: A Re-​Examination (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1959) W Karl, B Mützelberg, and G Witschel, ‘Article 108’ in B Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2002) J Klabbers, ‘Treaties, Amendments, and Revision’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) available online at C Kojima and VS Vereshchetin, ‘Implementation Agreements’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2010) available online at D König, ‘Tacit Consent/​Opting Out Procedures’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) available online at G Scelle, Théorie juridique de la revision des traités (Librairie du Recueil Sirey, Paris 1936) ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 2009)

15

Domestic Application of Treaties David L Sloss

Introduction There has been dramatic growth in treaty-​making since the Second World War:  more than 50,000 treaties were registered with the United Nations between 1945 and 2013.1 Meanwhile, with the rise of globalization, the boundary separating domestic law from international law has become increasingly permeable. Consequently, over the past few decades, States have made greater use of treaties to regulate activity that was previously regulated exclusively by domestic law. For example, under the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption,2 ninety-​nine States have agreed to regulate child adoption on a transnational scale.3 Additionally, States have concluded numerous treaties that protect the rights of private parties, including, for example, treaties related to international human rights law,4 international humanitarian law,5 and international refugee law.6 As a consequence of these three trends—​growth in the number of treaties, increasing overlap between treaties and domestic law, and a growing emphasis on private rights—​domestic courts today play a prominent role in treaty application.7 Traditional scholarship on the domestic application of treaties has focused on the distinction between monist and dualist legal systems.8 Section I of this chapter explains that distinction: in brief, the monist-​dualist divide hinges on the role of the legislative branch in incorporating and implementing treaties domestically. Although the monist-​dualist

1 See United Nations Treaty Series Cumulative Index . In contrast, States concluded about 16,000 treaties during the nineteenth century. See JF Witt, ‘Internationalism and the Dilemmas of Strategic Patriotism’ (2006) 41 Tulsa L Rev 787, 791. 2 Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (adopted 29 May 1993, entered into force 1 May 1995) 1870 UNTS 167. 3 See Status Table, Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption . 4 See eg International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171 (ICCPR). 5 See eg Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (adopted 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1959) 75 UNTS 135. 6 See eg Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 31 January 1967, entered into force 4 October 1967) 606 UNTS 267. 7 The second edition of this chapter closely tracks the first edition, but takes advantage of new scholarship to provide coverage of additional countries. The earlier version focused primarily on twenty-​one countries. This version addresses the domestic application of treaties in twenty-​eight countries. The most important new book in the field is a book edited by Professors Nollkaemper, Shany, and Tzanakopoulos, which grew out of an International Law Association (ILA) study group on engagement of domestic courts with international law. See A Nollkaemper, Y Shany, and A Tzanakopoulos (eds), Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law (OUP, Oxford forthcoming 2020, manuscript on file) (‘Engagement’); A Tzanakopoulos, ILA Study Group Report, ‘Principles on Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law’ (2016) available at . 8 See nn 10–​23 and accompanying text.

356  Treaty Application framework helps illuminate important formal differences among States, Section I suggests that scholarly preoccupation with the formal distinction between monism and dualism tends to obscure key functional differences among States. Hence, the remainder of the chapter adopts a functional approach, focusing primarily on the role of domestic courts in promoting compliance with treaty obligations and protecting treaty-​based private rights. Section II explains the distinction between horizontal, vertical, and transnational treaty provisions. Section III addresses the functional distinction between nationalist and transnationalist approaches to judicial application of treaties.9 Section IV discusses the crucial role of domestic courts in promoting compliance with treaty obligations, especially transnational and vertical treaty obligations. The functional analysis in Sections II to IV shows that domestic courts play a key role in protecting private rights under transnational treaty provisions and promoting compliance with those provisions, but they play virtually no role in promoting compliance with horizontal treaty provisions. This is generally true for both monist and dualist States. The story with respect to vertical treaty provisions is more complicated. When domestic courts adopt a transnationalist approach, they play a key role in protecting private rights under vertical treaty provisions and promoting compliance with those provisions. When domestic courts adopt a nationalist approach, vertical treaty provisions may be under-​enforced. There does not appear to be any significant correlation between a State’s formal classification as monist or dualist and the tendency of domestic courts in that State to function in a nationalist or transnationalist mode.

I.  Monism and Dualism The terms ‘monism’ and ‘dualism’ generate considerable confusion because there is no single, agreed definition of the terms. Some scholars employ the terms to describe contrasting theoretical perspectives on the relationship between international and domestic law.10 Used in this sense, dualism ‘emphasizes the distinct and independent character of the international and national legal systems’.11 In contrast, monism ‘postulates that national and international law form one single legal order, or at least a number of interlocking orders which should be presumed to be coherent and consistent’.12 Some monist theorists assert the supremacy of international law over domestic law, but this is not an essential feature of monist theory. Other scholars employ the terms monism and dualism to describe different types of domestic legal systems.13 Used in this sense, dualist States are States in which ‘the constitution . . . accords no special status to treaties; the rights and obligations created by them have no effect in domestic law unless legislation is in force to give effect to them’.14 In contrast, 9 The ILA Study Group adopted the terminology of ‘avoidance’, ‘contestation’, and ‘alignment’ to describe different functional approaches to the engagement of domestic courts with international law. See ILA Study Group Report (n 7) 16 [37]. Broadly speaking, the transnationalist approach involves alignment of domestic law with international norms, whereas the nationalist approach involves avoidance or contestation. 10 See eg J Crawford (ed), Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (8th edn OUP, Oxford 2012) 48–​50. 11 Ibid 48. 12 Ibid 48. 13 See eg A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 159–​77. 14 Ibid 167 (emphasis in original).

Domestic Application of Treaties  357 ‘[t]‌he essence of the monist approach is that a treaty may, without legislation, become part of domestic law once it has been concluded in accordance with the constitution and has entered into force for the state’.15 As Professor Aust correctly noted, many national constitutions ‘contain both dualist and monist elements’.16 This chapter uses the terms monism and dualism in the second sense, to describe different types of domestic legal systems. Dualist States are States in which no treaties have the status of law in the domestic legal system; all treaties require implementing legislation to have domestic legal force.17 Monist States are States in which some treaties have the status of law in the domestic legal system, even in the absence of implementing legislation.18 In most monist States, there are some treaties that require implementing legislation and others that do not. There is substantial variation among monist States as to which treaties require implementing legislation. Moreover, monist States differ considerably in terms of the hierarchical rank of treaties within the domestic legal order. Despite these variations, all monist States have one common feature: at least some treaties have the status of law within the domestic legal order. The question whether a treaty requires legislative implementation after the treaty enters into force internationally must be distinguished from the question whether legislative approval is necessary prior to treaty ratification. In most dualist States, the executive has the constitutional authority to conclude treaties that bind the nation under international law without obtaining prior legislative approval.19 The executive’s power to conclude treaties without prior legislative approval helps explain why, in dualist States, implementing legislation is necessary to grant treaties domestic legal force. In most monist States, though, the constitution requires legislative approval for at least some treaties before the executive can make an internationally binding commitment on behalf of the nation.20 The fact that the legislature approves (some) treaties before they become binding on the nation helps explain why, in monist States, some treaties have the status of domestic law even in the absence of implementing legislation. In sum, in both monist and dualist States, it is rare for a treaty to have domestic legal force unless the legislature has acted either to approve the treaty before international entry into force, or to implement the treaty after international entry into force.21 The following sections summarize key features of monist and dualist systems. The analysis touches upon the domestic legal systems of twenty-​eight States, relying heavily on two previously published volumes that present a comparative analysis of national treaty law,22 and one forthcoming volume on domestic courts and international law.23 Those

15 Ibid 163. 16 Ibid 162. 17 In many dualist States, customary international law has domestic legal force, even in the absence of implementing legislation. See eg N Jayawickrama, ‘India’ in D Sloss (ed), The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: A Comparative Study (CUP, Cambridge 2009) 244–​5 (‘Sloss’). 18 These definitions constitute a slight departure from standard terminology. However, these definitions have the advantage of drawing a clear distinction between monism and dualism. Applying these definitions, almost all States can be neatly classified as either monist or dualist without significant overlap between the categories. 19 See nn 28–​9. 20 See n 80 and accompanying text. 21 See DB Hollis, ‘A Comparative Approach to Treaty Law and Practice’ in DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee, and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) 32–​45 (‘NTLP’). 22 See NTLP (n 21); Sloss (n 17). 23 See Engagement (n 7).

358  Treaty Application twenty-​eight States include seven dualist States: Australia, Canada, Ghana, India, Israel, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom. The other twenty-​one (monist) States are:  Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States.

A. Dualist States Almost all the British Commonwealth States follow the dualist approach for treaties.24 Apart from Commonwealth States, Israel, Denmark, and other Nordic States also follow a dualist approach.25 The key distinguishing feature of dualism is that no treaties have the formal status of law in the domestic legal system unless the legislature enacts a statute to incorporate the treaty into domestic law.26 Such statutes must be distinguished from legislative acts that authorize the executive to make a binding international commitment, which, as noted above, are unnecessary in these systems.27 In many dualist States the executive consults with the legislature before concluding ‘important’ treaties.28 (There is considerable variation among States concerning which treaties qualify as ‘important’.) Moreover, if legislation is needed to ensure that government officials have the requisite authority to implement a treaty, dualist States usually enact the necessary implementing legislation before the treaty enters into force internationally.29 For courts in dualist States, there is a crucial distinction between incorporated and unincorporated treaties. As a formal matter, courts in dualist States have no authority to apply treaties directly as law. If the legislature has enacted a statute to incorporate a particular treaty provision into national law, courts apply the statute as law;30 and they frequently consult the underlying treaty to help construe the meaning of the statute.31 Thus, in dualist States, courts apply treaties indirectly, not directly. However, one should not overstate the difference between direct and indirect application. Either way, judges who are receptive to the domestic judicial application of treaties can use their judicial power to protect the treaty-​ based rights of private parties and promote compliance with national treaty obligations.32 Dualist States employ a variety of methods for incorporating treaties into national law.33 In the United Kingdom, for example: the text of a treaty may be attached to a statute 24 See Aust (n 13) 194–​5. 25 See ibid. 26 See DR Rothwell, ‘Australia’ in Sloss (n 17) 128–​30; M Copithorne, ‘Canada’ in NTLP (n 21) 95–​101; CN Okeke, ‘The Use of International Law in the Domestic Courts of Ghana and Nigeria’ (2015) 32 Ariz J Int’l & Comp L 371, 395–​6 (Ghana); K Thakore, ‘India’ in NTLP (n 21) 351; R Lapidoth, ‘Israel’ in NTLP (n 21) 396; Okeke, ibid, at 405–​8 (Nigeria); and I Sinclair, SJ Dickson, and G Maciver, ‘United Kingdom’ in NTLP (n 21) 733. 27 See Copithorne (n 26) 91–​4 (Canada); Lapidoth (n 26) 385–​90 (Israel); Rothwell (n 26) 128–​30 (Australia); Sinclair and others (n 26) 727 (United Kingdom); and Thakore (n 26) 352–​5 (India). 28 See Copithorne (n 26) 96, 98 (Canada); Lapidoth (n 26) 388–​9, 393–​4 (Israel); Sinclair and others (n 26) 737–​ 9 (United Kingdom); and Thakore (n 26) 365–​6 (India). 29 See Copithorne (n 26) 96 (Canada); Lapidoth (n 26) 396–​8 (Israel); Sinclair and others (n 26) 742 (United Kingdom); and Thakore (n 26) 359–​60 (India). 30 See eg A Aust, ‘United Kingdom’ in Sloss (n 17) 486; Okeke (n 26) 396 (Ghana); ibid at 416–​22 (Nigeria); Rothwell (n 26) 138–​41 (Australia); G van Ert, ‘Canada’ in Sloss (n 17) 202–​4. 31 See eg Aust (n 30) 482–​3 (United Kingdom); Jayawickrama (n 17) 264–​6 (India); D Kretzmer, ‘Israel’ in Sloss (n 17) 290–​2 (Israel); Rothwell (n 26) 138–​41 (Australia); van Ert (n 30) 175–​82 (Canada). 32 See generally D Sloss, ‘Treaty Enforcement in Domestic Courts: A Comparative Analysis’ in Sloss (n 17) 8–​43 (analysing the practice of national courts in eleven States). 33 See eg Kretzmer (n 31) 283–​5 (Israel); Rothwell (n 26) 159–​60 (Australia); van Ert (n 30) 169–​71 (Canada).

Domestic Application of Treaties  359 stipulating that the attached treaty provisions ‘shall have the force of law in the United Kingdom’;34 Parliament may pass an Act granting government officials ‘all the powers necessary to carry out obligations under an existing or future treaties’;35 or Parliament may pass an Act authorizing the Crown to enact regulations to implement one or more treaties.36 Given the wide variety of techniques that dualist States utilize to incorporate treaties,37 the question whether a particular treaty provision has been incorporated is often ambiguous.38 The Australian High Court developed a creative approach to addressing this type of ambiguous situation, which commentators have dubbed ‘quasi-​ incorporation’.39 The term refers to situations where ‘government departments, and administrative decision makers are given [a statutory directive] to take into account the provisions of  . . .  international instruments to which Australia is a party’.40 For example, in the Project Blue Sky case,41 an Australian statute specifically directed the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) ‘to perform its functions in a manner consistent with “Australia’s obligations under any . . . agreement between Australia and a foreign country” ’.42 The petitioners argued that the ABA had violated the statute by enacting regulations inconsistent with a bilateral free-​ trade agreement between Australia and New Zealand.43 A three-​judge panel of the Federal Court held that ‘the ABA was not bound to take into account’ the free-​trade agreement because that agreement conflicted with a different statutory provision.44 The High Court reversed, holding ‘that the ABA was precluded from making a standard inconsistent with the’ free-​trade agreement, even though that agreement had not been directly incorporated into Australian domestic law.45 Courts in other dualist States have adopted a similar approach.46 In the United Kingdom, for example, petitioners in several cases have obtained judicial remedies by invoking statutes that required administrative decision-​makers to exercise their authority in conformity with treaty obligations that had not been directly incorporated into domestic law.47 More surprisingly, courts in dualist States have developed a variety of strategies for judicial application of unincorporated treaties—​even in the absence of any statutory directive for government officials to take account of treaty provisions.48 In Australia, for example, the 34 Aust (n 13) 169. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid 170. 37 See eg Aust (n 30) 479–​81 (United Kingdom) (discussing, among others, Cheng v Conn, Inspector of Taxes [1968] 1 All ER 779); Kretzmer (n 31) 283–​5 (Israel); Rothwell (n 26) 158–​60 (Australia) (discussing Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Auth (1998) 153 ALR 490); van Ert (n 30) 169–​71 (Canada) (discussing, among others, Pan American World Airways v The Queen [1981] 2 SCR 565; Schavernoch v Foreign Claims Commission [1982] 1 SCR 1092). 38 See eg van Ert (n 30) 171. 39 See Rothwell (n 26) 158–​64. 40 Ibid 159. 41 Project Blue Sky Inc v Australian Broadcasting Auth (1998) 153 ALR 490. 42 Rothwell (n 26) 141 (quoting Broadcasting Services Act 1992). 43 Ibid  141–​2. 44 Ibid 143. 45 Ibid  143–​5. 46 See eg Okeke (n 26) 416–​18 (discussing application of Warsaw Convention in Nigeria). 47 See Aust (n 30) 490–​1 (noting that ‘there have been numerous successful challenges by way of judicial review to [administrative] decisions on claims to refugee status’); ibid 491–​2 (discussing Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Quark Fishing Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1409; [2002] All ER (D) 450, holding that the Director of Fisheries of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ‘had not properly carried out his statutory powers’ because he failed to take account of relevant treaty provisions). 48 See MP Van Alstine, ‘The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: Summary and Conclusions’ in Sloss (n 17) 608–​12.

360  Treaty Application High Court held in Minister of State for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Teoh49 that administrative decision-​makers must exercise their statutory discretion in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an unincorporated treaty, because treaty ratification meant that individuals had a ‘legitimate expectation’ that government officials would act in accordance with the treaty.50 The Canadian Supreme Court has declined to follow the so-​called ‘legitimate expectations doctrine’.51 Even so, the Canadian Supreme Court has held that administrative decision-​makers in Canada, like their Australian counterparts, must exercise their statutory discretion in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, an unincorporated treaty.52 In Israel, ‘it has now become standard practice for the Supreme Court to’ apply Geneva Convention IV in cases involving the Occupied Territories, although the Convention has not been incorporated into domestic law.53 The Court justifies this approach by citing the government’s political commitment to ‘respect the humanitarian provisions of the Convention’.54 Similarly, the Indian Supreme Court routinely applies unincorporated treaties to support its interpretation of both statutory and constitutional provisions;55 the Court has also applied treaties to support its progressive development of common law principles.56 This increasing judicial reliance on unincorporated treaties by courts in dualist States blurs the traditional distinction between monist and dualist States.57 Nevertheless, judges in dualist States periodically invoke the dualist dogma that courts are powerless to apply treaties unless the legislature has expressly incorporated the treaty into domestic law.58 Hence, there remains an uneasy tension between the formalities of strict dualist doctrine and the practical reality that courts in dualist States have developed a variety of strategies to facilitate judicial application of unincorporated and partially incorporated treaties.

B. Monist States The key distinguishing feature of monist legal systems, as defined herein, is that at least some treaties are incorporated into the domestic legal order without the need for any legislative act, other than the act authorizing the executive to conclude the treaty. Under this definition,

49 (1995) 128 ALR 353. 50 Ibid; See also Rothwell (n 26) 146–​8; Okeke (n 26) 408 (discussing application of legitimate expectations doctrine by Nigerian Supreme Court). 51 See van Ert (n 30) 173 (discussing Baker v Canada [1999] 2 SCR 817). 52 See ibid 194–​7. 53 See Kretzmer (n 31) 305–​10 (discussing, among others, HCJ 3278/​02, Hamoked The Center for the Defense of the Individual v IDF Commander 57 P.D. (1) 385 (‘Hamoked’)). 54 Ibid 309–​10 (discussing Hamoked (n 53); HCJ 7862/​04, Abu Dahar v IDF Commander 59 P.D. (5) 368). 55 See Jayawickrama (n 17) 247–​64 (discussing, among others, Jolly George Verhese v Bank of Cochin [1980] 2 SCR 913; Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh v Ch Prabhakar Supreme Court of India, Civil Appeal 6131 of 2002, 26 May 2004); see also Okeke (n 26) 409–​13 (discussing a similar practice by the Supreme Court of Ghana). 56 See Jayawickrama (n 17) 255–​6 (discussing MV Elisabeth v Harwan Investment and Trading Pvt Ltd [1992] 1 SCR 1003). 57 See MA Waters, ‘Creeping Monism: The Judicial Trend Toward Interpretive Incorporation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2007) 107 Colum L Rev 628. 58 See eg B Saul, ‘The Kafka-​esque Case of Sheikh Mansour Leghaei: The Denial of the International Human Right to a Fair Hearing in National Security Assessments and Migration Proceedings in Australia’ (2010) 33 UNSW Law J 629.

Domestic Application of Treaties  361 Albania,59 Argentina,60 Austria,61 Belgium,62 Chile,63 China,64 Colombia,65 Egypt,66 France,67 Germany,68 Iran,69 Japan,70 Mexico,71 the Netherlands,72 Poland,73 Russia,74 South Africa,75 Spain,76 Switzerland,77 Thailand,78 and the United States79 all have monist legal systems. In all twenty-​one States, some form of legislative approval is required for at least some types of treaties before the executive is authorized to make a binding international commitment on behalf of the nation.80 Despite these similarities, there are substantial differences among these States concerning the application of treaties within their national legal systems. One significant area of variability concerns the types of treaties that require legislative approval before international entry into force of the treaty.81 In Mexico and Colombia, all treaties require prior legislative approval.82 Chile, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Switzerland establish a default rule that treaties ordinarily require legislative approval, but they recognize certain exceptions to that rule.83 In other States, legislative approval is required only for designated categories of treaties.84 Another significant area of variability relates to publication requirements. In Albania, Belgium, Chile, Egypt, France, Iran, Japan, and Russia, a treaty that has entered into force internationally lacks domestic legal force until the executive branch publishes or promulgates

59 See G Zyberi and S Sali, ‘The Engagement of Albanian Courts with International Law’ in Engagement (n 7). 60 See M Pinto and N Maisley, ‘From Affirmative Avoidance to Overriding Alignment: The Engagement of Argentina’s Supreme Court with International Law’ in Engagement (n 7). 61 See F Cede and G Hafner, ‘Republic of Austria’ in NTLP (n 21) 59–​60, 67–​8. 62 See F Dopagne, ‘Belgium’ in Engagement (n 7). 63 See F Orrego Vicuna and F Orrego Bauzá, ‘Chile’ in NTLP (n 21) 136–​8. 64 See X Hanqin, H Zhiqiang, and Fan Kun, ‘China’ in NTLP (n 21) 163–​4. 65 See G Cavelier, ‘Colombia’ in NTLP (n 21) 205. 66 See N Elaraby, M Gomaa, and L Mekhemar, ‘Egypt’ in NTLP (n 21) 238–​9. 67 See PM Eisemann and R Rivier, ‘France’ in NTLP (n 21) 265–​7. 68 See H Beemelmans and HD Treviranus, ‘Federal Republic of Germany’ in NTLP (n 21) 323–​6. 69 See FR Dizgovin, ‘Enforcement of International Treaties by Domestic Courts of Iran: New Developments’ (2018) 58 VJIL 227. 70 See T Kawakami, ‘Japan’ in NTLP (n 21) 424–​5. 71 See LM Díaz, ‘Mexico’ in NTLP (n 21) 451. 72 See JG Brouwer, ‘The Netherlands’ in NTLP (n 21) 497–​9. 73 See L Garlicki, M Masternak-​Kubiak, and K Wójtowicz, ‘Poland’ in Sloss (n 17) 378. 74 See WE Butler, ‘Russia’ in NTLP (n 21) 554–​6. 75 See NJ Botha, ‘South Africa’ in NTLP (n 21) 600–​2. 76 See C Esposito, ‘Spanish Foreign Relations Law and the Process for Making Treaties and Other International Agreements’ in C Bradley (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) 205–​20. 77 See L Wildhaber, A Scheidegger, and MD Schinzel, ‘Switzerland’ in NTLP (n 21) 658–​9; EM Belser and R Oleschak, ‘Engagement of Swiss Courts with International Law’ in Engagement (n 7). 78 See S Sucharitkul, ‘Thailand’ in NTLP (n 21) 706. 79 See RE Dalton, ‘United States’ in NTLP (n 21) 788–​90. 80 See Beemelmans and Treviranus (n 68) 323–​6 (Germany); Botha (n 75) 590–​2 (South Africa); Brouwer (n 72) 489–​91 (the Netherlands); Butler (n 74) 544–​7 (Russia); Cavelier (n 65) 199 (Colombia); Cede and Hafner (n 61) 64–​5 (Austria); Dalton (n 79) 770–​4 (United States); Díaz (n 71) 447–​8 (Mexico); Dizgovin (n 69) 234–​6 (Iran); Dopagne (n 62) TAN 1-​5 (Belgium); Eisemann and Rivier (n 67) 258–​60 (France); Elaraby and others (n 66) 231 (Egypt); Esposito (n 76) TAN 38 (Spain); Garlicki and others (n 73) 376–​7 (Poland); Hanqin and others (n 64) 161–​2 (China); Kawakami (n 70) 419–​20 (Japan); Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 18 (Argentina); Sucharitkul (n 78) 701–​3 (Thailand); Zyberi and Sali (n 59) TAN 6–​12 (Albania); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 127–​30 (Chile); and Wildhaber and others (n 77) 644–​8 (Switzerland). 81 For a tabular depiction of the variability in this area, see Hollis, ‘Comparative Approach’ (n 21) 33. 82 See Cavelier (n 65) 199 (Colombia); Díaz (n 71) 447–​8 (Mexico). 83 See Botha (n 75) 586–​92 (South Africa); Brouwer (n 72) 489–​91 (the Netherlands); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 123–​4 (Chile); and Wildhaber and others (n 77) 644–​51 (Switzerland). 84 See Hollis, ‘Comparative Approach’ (n 21) 32–​7; see also Dizgovin (n 69) 234–​5 (Iran); Esposito (n 76) TAN 38 (Spain); Zyberi and Sali (n 59) TAN 8–​10 (Albania).

362  Treaty Application the treaty domestically.85 In other monist States, though, (at least some) treaties enter into force domestically at the same time they enter into force internationally, without the need for any additional steps.86 There is also significant variation among monist States concerning the hierarchical rank of treaties within the domestic legal order. In Austria, Egypt, Germany, and the United States, treaties are equivalent to statutes; they rank lower than the Constitution.87 In South Africa, treaties rank lower than statutes.88 In Albania, Belgium, China, France, Japan, Mexico, Poland, and Spain, (at least some) treaties rank higher than statutes but lower than the Constitution.89 In Iran, treaties generally take precedence over statutes ‘unless a [particular] treaty has been ratified that establishes the superiority of domestic law over’ that treaty.90 In Argentina, treaties generally rank higher than statutes and lower than the Constitution, but some human rights treaties have constitutional rank.91 In the Netherlands, some treaties rank higher than the Constitution.92 In Chile, Russia, and Switzerland, the hierarchical rank of treaties is contested, but it is undisputed that at least some treaties rank higher than statutes,93 and there is some authority for the proposition that some treaties have constitutional rank.94 In many monist States, even if a treaty has the formal status of law in the absence of implementing legislation, the legislature sometimes enacts legislation to help ensure that courts and executive officers give practical effect to the treaty within the national legal system. Thus, for example, the United States enacted implementing legislation for the New York Convention,95 and South Africa enacted implementing legislation for the Warsaw

85 See Butler (n 74)  552–​4 (Russia); Dizgovin (n 69)  235–​6 (Iran); Dopagne (n 62)  TAN 2–​3 (Belgium); Eisemann and Rivier (n 67) 265–​7 (France); Elaraby and others (n 66) 238–​9 (Egypt); Kawakami (n 70) 424–​5 (Japan); Zyberi and Sali (n 59) TAN 11 (Albania); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 136–​8 (Chile). 86 See Hollis, ‘Comparative Approach’ (n 21) 41–​2. 87 See Cede and Hafner (n 61) 59–​60, 67–​8 (Austria); Dalton (n 79) 789–​90 (United States); Elaraby and others (n 66) 238–​9 (Egypt); A Paulus, ‘Germany’ in Sloss (n 17) 214–​18. In both Austria and Germany, treaties approved by the legislature have the rank of statutes, but treaties concluded without legislative approval have a lower rank. See Cede and Hafner (n 61) 67–​8; Paulus, ibid 214–​18. In the United States, though, there is at least some authority for the proposition that treaties concluded without legislative approval have the same rank as treaties approved by the legislature. See United States v Pink 315 US 203 (1942); United States v Belmont 301 US 324 (1937). 88 This follows directly from Art 231(4) of the South African Constitution, which states: ‘Any international agreement becomes law in the Republic when it is enacted into law by national legislation; but a self-​executing provision of an agreement that has been approved by Parliament is law in the Republic unless it is inconsistent with the Constitution or an Act of Parliament’. 89 See Díaz (n 71) 451–​4 (Mexico); Dopagne (n 62) TAN 5–​7 (Belgium); Eisemann and Rivier (n 67) 263–​7 (France); Esposito (n 76)  TAN 45 (Spain); Garlicki and others (n 73)  376–​9 (Poland); Hanqin and others (n 64) 163–​5 (China); Zyberi and Sali (n 59) TAN 5–​7 (Albania); T Webster, ‘International Human Rights Law in Japan: The View at Thirty’ (2010) 23 Colum J Asian L 241, 245. 90 See Dizgovin (n 69) 238–​9. 91 See Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 28–​9. 92 See Brouwer (n 72) 498–​9. 93 See Butler (n 74) 554–​6 (Russia); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 138–​9 (Chile); and Wildhaber and others (n 77) 658–​64 (Switzerland). 94 See Butler (n 74) 556 (contending that ‘[t]‌he primacy of international treaties of the Russian Federation extends to Federal laws, including constitutional laws’); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 139 (noting that, in one view, human rights treaties ‘now have in Chile a ranking above that of ordinary statutes and at least equal to the Constitution’); Wildhaber and others (n 77) 662 (Switzerland) (‘Treaties in conflict with federal constitutional law have to be applied irrespective of their unconstitutionality’). 95 See Federal Arbitration Act 1970 §§201–​8 (implementing the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (adopted 10 June 1958, entered into force 7 June 1959) 330 UNTS 38 (‘NY Convention’).

Domestic Application of Treaties  363 Convention.96 As Professor Nollkaemper observes:  ‘[E]‌ven if the provisions of a treaty could in principle be applied directly, the Netherlands usually chooses to convert them into national legislation to harmonize Dutch law with the requirements of international law’.97 All monist States recognize the possibility, at least theoretically,98 that domestic courts can apply (at least some) treaties directly as law.99 Indeed, this is one of the crucial differences between monist and dualist systems: dualist States permit only indirect judicial application of treaties, whereas monist States permit direct judicial application in some cases. Despite this formal distinction, however, there are several reasons why judicial practice exhibits many similarities between monist and dualist States. First, as noted above, courts in dualist States apply various strategies to facilitate judicial application of unincorporated and partially incorporated treaties.100 Second, courts in monist States often apply treaties indirectly as an aid to statutory or constitutional interpretation, rather than applying treaties directly as rules of decision to resolve disputed issues.101 It is difficult to measure the relative frequency of direct versus indirect application, but there is some evidence that courts even in monist States rely more heavily on indirect than direct application.102 Indeed, courts may prefer indirect application ‘in cases where the direct application of international law would conflict with national law’ because ‘[c]‌ourts usually prefer a conciliatory solution over the acknowledgment and resolution of a conflict of law’.103 Insofar as courts in monist States prefer indirect rather than direct application, this further erodes the practical significance of the distinction between monist and dualist States. Finally, in certain monist States, courts have articulated a distinction between ‘self-​ executing’ and ‘non-​self-​executing’ treaties.104 When domestic courts decide that a treaty is ‘non-​self-​executing’, they sometimes behave as if the treaty has not been incorporated into domestic law even though the treaty, as a formal matter, has the status of law within the domestic legal system.105 Thus, just as judicial practice in some dualist States blurs the monist-​dualist divide by applying unincorporated treaties as if they were incorporated,

96 See J Dugard, ‘South Africa’ in Sloss (n 17) 470; Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air (signed 12 October 1929, entered into force 13 February 1933) 137 LNTS 11 (‘Warsaw Convention’). 97 A Nollkaemper, ‘The Netherlands’ in Sloss (n 17) 335. 98 The South African Constitution expressly contemplates a category of self-​executing treaties, but South African courts have not yet held that any particular treaty is self-​executing. See Dugard (n 96) 453–​5. 99 See WE Butler, ‘Russia’ in Sloss (n 17) 410–​11; Cede and Hafner (n 61) 69 (Austria); Dalton (n 79) 788–​90 (United States); Díaz (n 71) 454 (Mexico); Dizgovin (n 69) 254–​8 (Iran); Dopagne (n 62) (Belgium); Eisemann and Rivier (n 67) 265–​70 (France); Elaraby and others (n 66) 238–​9 (Egypt); Esposito (n 76) TAN 45 (Spain); Garlicki and others (n 73) 400–​4 (Poland); Hanqin and others (n 64) 163–​5 (China); Nollkaemper (n 97) 341–​8 (the Netherlands); Paulus (n 87) 209–​12 (Germany); Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 18–​28 (Argentina); Zyberi and Sali (n 59) (Albania); Vicuna and Bauzá (n 63) 136–​9 (Chile); Webster (n 89) 244–​7 (Japan); Wildhaber and others (n 77) 644–​8 (Switzerland). 100 See nn 39–​56 and accompanying text. 101 See eg Dugard (n 96) 457–​63 (South Africa); Garlicki and others (n 73) 403–​4 (Poland); Nollkaemper (n 97) 348–​51 (the Netherlands); Paulus (n 87) 209–​10 (Germany); D Sloss, ‘United States’ in Sloss (n 17) 526–​7. 102 See eg Garlicki and others (n 73)  404 (stating that ‘the most typical technique [in Poland] is that of coapplication of an international norm and a domestic norm’). 103 Nollkaemper (n 97) 349. 104 See nn 191–​207 and accompanying text. 105 In the United States, for example, courts sometimes behave as if non-​self-​executing treaties are unincorporated, even though the Constitution states expressly that ‘all treaties’ are ‘the supreme Law of the Land’. See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 509–​14, 527–​9, 534–​9. See also ‘Selected Topics in Treaties, Jurisdiction, and Sovereign Immunity’ Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations (2018) §110.

364  Treaty Application judicial practice in some monist States blurs the monist-​dualist divide by handling formally incorporated treaties as if they were unincorporated.

II.  Horizontal, Transnational, and Vertical Treaty Provisions To appreciate the role of domestic courts in treaty application, it is important to understand the nature of modern treaties. There is a widespread misconception that treaties focus exclusively, or almost exclusively, on regulating horizontal relations among States. This was never really true,106 and it is certainly not true in the twenty-​first century. States conclude treaties to regulate three different types of relationships: horizontal relations between and among States, vertical relations between States and private actors (including natural persons and corporations), and transnational relations between private actors who interact across national boundaries.107 The role of domestic courts in applying treaties varies greatly depending on whether the treaty provision at issue is horizontal, vertical, or transnational.108 Domestic courts rarely apply treaties that regulate horizontal relationships among States. If one State believes that another State has violated a horizontal treaty obligation, the complainant might raise the issue in diplomatic negotiations, or perhaps file suit in an international tribunal, but it would be unusual for the complainant to file suit in a domestic court. Domestic courts typically dismiss cases in which private litigants file suit to resolve disputes that are properly characterized as horizontal disputes between States, because domestic courts generally lack the institutional competence to adjudicate such disputes. For example, a group of Serbian citizens sued the Dutch government in a domestic court in the Netherlands, alleging that the government violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter by supporting the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands held that plaintiffs were not entitled to invoke Article 2(4) in a Dutch court.109 Similarly, when a member of the Israeli Knesset filed a petition to challenge the legality of the government’s targeted killing policy, the Israeli Supreme Court declared that ‘the choice of means of warfare, which are used by the [State] in order to thwart murderous terrorist attacks, is not of the matters that this court would see fit to interfere with’.110 In contrast to horizontal treaties, domestic courts routinely apply transnational treaty provisions that regulate cross-​border relationships between private actors. Such treaties include, for example, the 1958 New  York Convention,111 the 1980 Convention

106 See eg D Sloss, ‘When Do Treaties Create Individually Enforceable Rights?’ (2006) 45 Colum J Trans’l L 20, 51–​91 (analysing the US Supreme Court’s application of vertical and transnational treaty provisions between 1789 and 1838). 107 A separate category of treaties involves agreements between States and international organizations. Such treaties involve horizontal provisions (such as a nation’s obligation to make financial contributions) and vertical provisions (such as immunities for employees of international organizations). Treaties between States and international organizations do not generally include transnational provisions. 108 See generally D Sloss and MP Van Alstine, ‘International Law in Domestic Courts’ in W Sandholtz and C Whytock (eds), Research Handbook on the Politics of International Law (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2017) 79–​115. 109 See Nollkaemper (n 97) 347. 110 OG Schwartz, ‘The Engagement of Israel’s Supreme Court with International Law’ in Engagement (n 7) (quoting HCJ 5872/​01 Knesset Member Muhammad Bara’ke v Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon 56 (3) PD 1 (2002)). 111 NY Convention (n 95).

Domestic Application of Treaties  365 on the International Sale of Goods (CISG),112 and the 1980 Hague Convention on Child Abduction.113 Although States negotiated and ratified these treaties, they are designed primarily to regulate cross-​border relationships among private actors, not horizontal relationships among States. The New York Convention provides rules for recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards arising from transnational commercial activities. The CISG provides rules for contracts involving transnational sale of goods. The Hague Convention applies to child custody disputes in which one parent transports a child across national boundaries. For these and other transnational treaties, domestic courts play a vital role in ensuring that private actors behave in accordance with internationally agreed rules regulating cross-​border activities. According to one source, such transnational treaties ‘have generated thousands of reported opinions’ from domestic courts, including more than 10,000 domestic judicial opinions applying the CISG, at least 1,750 applying the New York Convention, and almost 1,000 applying the Hague Convention.114 Domestic courts are arguably the primary enforcers of transnational treaty obligations because most international tribunals lack jurisdiction to adjudicate private disputes involving alleged infractions of transnational treaty provisions.115 Moreover, such disputes rarely have sufficient political salience to become the subject of interstate diplomacy. The preceding comments apply equally to monist and dualist States. Although there are significant formal distinctions between monist and dualist States (as discussed in Section I), there are few, if any, functional distinctions. In both monist and dualist States, domestic courts rarely apply horizontal treaty provisions, but they routinely apply transnational treaty provisions. The most significant differences among States relate to the judicial application of vertical treaty provisions—​provisions that regulate relations between States and private parties. Prominent examples of vertical treaty provisions include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which protects the civil and political rights of citizens in relation to their own governments)116 and the Refugee Protocol (which protects the rights of individuals who have fled persecution in their home countries to seek asylum in other countries).117 Domestic courts in both monist and dualist States apply vertical treaty provisions more frequently than they apply horizontal treaty provisions because, in most mature legal systems, domestic courts have an institutional responsibility to protect the rights of private parties, and vertical treaties (unlike horizontal treaties) sometimes create rights for private parties.

112 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (adopted 11 April 1980, entered into force 1 January 1988) 1489 UNTS 3. 113 Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (adopted 25 October 1980, entered into force 1 December 1983) 1343 UNTS 89. 114 Sloss and Van Alstine (n 108) 95. 115 Arbitral panels established pursuant to bilateral investment treaties frequently adjudicate disputes between States and private corporations but—​in contrast to international commercial arbitration—​investment treaty arbitration typically involves vertical treaty provisions, not transnational treaty provisions. The International Court of Justice occasionally adjudicates disputes that originated as transnational, commercial disputes between private parties. See eg Jurisdiction and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (Belgium v Switzerland) ICJ Press Release 2009/​36. However, these types of transnational, private disputes rarely give rise to ICJ jurisdiction. 116 ICCPR (n 4). 117 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (n 6).

366  Treaty Application Whereas both vertical and transnational treaty provisions implicate the rights of private parties—​and therefore invite judicial application of treaties—​vertical treaty provisions implicate the public functions of government in a way that is not true for transnational treaty provisions. For example, the Refugee Protocol regulates the public functions of government by creating legal (vertical) duties that the government owes to individuals who claim refugee status under the treaty. In contrast, the 1999 Montreal Convention118 regulates the cross-​border commercial activities of airlines, including State-​owned airlines, but it does not create significant new duties for governments in the exercise of traditional public functions. This distinction between vertical and transnational treaty provisions helps explain the distinction between nationalist and transnationalist approaches to the judicial application of treaties. ‘Transnationalist’ decisions manifest a belief that the judiciary has an independent responsibility to ensure that domestic government officials act in accordance with international treaty obligations. ‘Nationalist’ decisions manifest a belief that courts should not scrutinize too closely government conduct that is arguably inconsistent with international treaty obligations. In countries where courts adopt a more ‘transnationalist’ approach—​such as Albania,119 Argentina,120 the Netherlands,121 and South Africa122—​ domestic courts apply both vertical and transnational treaty provisions with equal vigour. However, in States where courts adopt a more ‘nationalist’ approach—​such as the United States123 and Israel124—​domestic courts are hesitant to apply vertical treaty provisions, even though they routinely apply transnational provisions.125 The contrast between nationalist and transnationalist approaches manifests different judicial attitudes about the relative weight assigned to two competing factors: the judicial responsibility to protect the rights of private parties and the judicial responsibility to refrain from interfering with public governmental functions.126 Transnationalist judges assign greater weight (implicitly, if not explicitly) to the judicial responsibility to protect the rights of private parties, including rights vis-​à-​vis government actors, protected by vertical treaty provisions. Nationalist judges assign greater weight (again implicitly, if not explicitly) to the judicial responsibility to defer to the political branches’ judgment about how best to interpret and apply vertical treaty provisions. It bears emphasis that the distinction between nationalist and transnationalist approaches is best conceptualized as a spectrum with multiple shades of grey, not a sharp line separating black and white. One might think that courts in monist States are more transnationalist and courts in dualist States are more nationalist. In fact, though, there is not any significant correlation 118 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (adopted 28 May 1999, entered into force 4 November 2003) 2242 UNTS 309. 119 See Zyberi and Sali (n 59) TAN 1 (stating that Albanian courts ‘follow a strategy of alignment and even hyper-​alignment’). 120 See Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 29–​30 (‘The constitutional reform of 1994 paved the way for the Court’s new era of “overriding alignment” with respect to international law’). 121 See Nollkaemper (n 97) 326–​69. 122 See Dugard (n 96) 448–​75; see also H Woolaver, ‘The Engagement with International Law by South African Domestic Courts’ in Engagement (n 7). 123 See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 504–​54. 124 See Kretzmer (n 31) 273–​325. 125 For more detailed analysis, see Sloss, ‘Treaty Enforcement’ (n 32) 1–​60; see also Van Alstine (n 48) 555–​613. 126 See PB Stephan, ‘Treaties in the Supreme Court, 1946–​2000’ in DL Sloss, MD Ramsey, and WS Dodge (eds), International Law in the US Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (CUP, Cambridge 2011) 338 (‘Intl Law in the US Supreme Court’).

Domestic Application of Treaties  367 along these lines. Courts in dualist States sometimes adopt a transnationalist approach and courts in monist States sometimes adopt a nationalist approach.127 Hence, the monist-​ dualist dichotomy cannot explain variations among States in judicial decision-​making in cases involving vertical treaty provisions. Rather, the extent to which domestic courts apply vertical treaty provisions is best explained by examining whether courts in a particular country are more inclined to adopt a nationalist or transnationalist approach.

III.  Nationalist and Transnationalist Approaches The contrast between nationalist and transnationalist techniques is most visible when litigants ask courts to apply vertical treaty provisions. The tension between nationalist and transnationalist approaches generally does not arise in cases involving horizontal treaty provisions because courts rarely apply horizontal treaty provisions. Similarly, the tension between nationalist and transnationalist approaches rarely arises in cases involving transnational treaty provisions: courts in both monist and dualist States routinely apply transnational treaty provisions without hesitation. The fact that the tension between nationalist and transnationalist approaches pertains primarily to vertical treaty provisions raises an additional point. Since vertical treaty provisions regulate relations between States and private parties, litigated cases typically pit a private party against a government actor. In some cases, the government invokes a vertical treaty provision to support the exercise of governmental power to regulate private conduct.128 More commonly, though, a private party invokes a vertical treaty provision as a constraint on government action.129 Despite the spread of democratization since the end of the Cold War, many States still lack a truly independent judiciary.130 In such States, transnationalism is not a viable option because judges lack the institutional authority to issue and enforce judgments constraining government conduct. In States that do have an independent judiciary, though, courts must still decide whether to apply treaties—​much as they would apply constitutional, statutory, or common law—​as a tool to constrain government action. Transnationalist judges apply treaties in precisely this way, whereas nationalist judges employ various avoidance and contestation techniques to refrain from applying treaties as a constraint on government action. This is the core feature of the distinction between nationalist and transnationalist approaches.

127 No State is purely nationalist and no State is purely transnationalist. However, courts in some States have more nationalist tendencies and courts in other States have more transnationalist tendencies. See Sloss, ‘Treaty Enforcement’ (n 32). 128 For example, when the Security Council approved the transfer of Charles Taylor to the Netherlands to stand trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the government of the Netherlands relied on the Security Council resolution, and therefore ultimately the UN Charter ‘to provide the proper legal basis in domestic law for the arrest and detention of Charles Taylor’. Nollkaemper (n 97) 329–​30. 129 See eg Paulus (n 87) 234–​5 (discussing decisions of German courts applying Art 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations). 130 The Varieties of Democracy (V-​DEM) database is the best source for estimating the number of countries with independent judiciaries. See V-​DEM Data Set, Version 8, available at https://​www.v-​dem.net/​en/​data/​data-​ version-​8/​. The variables v2juhcind-​ord and v2juncind-​ord, respectively, rank high courts and lower courts on judicial independence on a scale from 0 to 4. States with a ranking of 3 or 4 can be said to have independent judiciaries. In 2017, about 48% of States scored 3 or 4 for their highest courts and about 54% of States scored 3 or 4 for their lower courts. Thus, approximately half the States in the world have independent judiciaries.

368  Treaty Application The following analysis of nationalist and transnationalist techniques is divided into four sections: statutory interpretation; treaty interpretation; constitutional interpretation; and self-​execution. The first three sections address issues that are common to both monist and dualist States. The final section addresses issues that are unique to monist States.131

A. Statutory interpretation Courts in both monist and dualist States frequently apply an interpretive presumption that statutes should be construed in conformity with the nation’s international legal obligations, including obligations derived from both treaties and customary international law. This interpretive presumption is sometimes called a ‘presumption of conformity’ or a ‘presumption of compatibility’.132 In the United States, the presumption is referred to as the ‘Charming Betsy canon’.133 Labels aside, the presumption of conformity is probably the most widely used transnationalist tool. Courts in Australia,134 Belgium,135 Canada,136 Germany,137 India,138 Iran,139 Israel,140 the Netherlands,141 Poland,142 South Africa,143 Switzerland,144 the United Kingdom,145 and the United States,146 among other countries, have applied the presumption in cases involving vertical treaty provisions to help ensure that government conduct conforms to the nation’s international treaty obligations. One recurring issue concerns the threshold conditions necessary to trigger application of the presumption. There is broad agreement that courts may apply the presumption in cases where the statute is facially ambiguous. The South African Constitutional Court, unlike many other national courts, has taken the position that ‘no ambiguity in the legislative text is required in order for the obligation of consistent interpretation to be activated’.147 131 For a comparable analysis of issues unique to dualist States, see nn 39–​58 and accompanying text. 132 See eg van Ert (n 30) 188–​97 (discussing application of the presumption of conformity by Canadian courts in the context of, among others, R v Hape [2007] SCC 26); Kretzmer (n 31) 287–​92 (discussing application of the presumption of compatibility by Israeli courts in the context of, among others, Cr. A. 5/​51, Steinberg v Attorney General 5 P.D. 1061). 133 The canon takes its name from an 1804 decision by Chief Justice Marshall. See Murray v Schooner Charming Betsy 6 US (2 Cranch) 64, 118 (1804). 134 See Rothwell (n 26) 152–​6 (discussing, among others, Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1). 135 See Dopagne (n 62) TAN 9–​14 (discussing several cases from the Court of Cassation). 136 See van Ert (n 30) 188–​97 (discussing, among others, R v Hape [2007] SCC 26). 137 See Paulus (n 87) 209 (‘German courts are also bound to interpret domestic law, as far as possible, in a way that avoids the breach of international legal obligations’, citing BVerfGE 74, 358, 370). 138 See Jayawickrama (n 17) 247–​51 (discussing, among others, Jolly George Verghese [1980] 2 SCR 913). 139 See Dizgovin (n 69) 246 (Iranian courts ‘use human rights treaties . . . as interpretive guides alongside constitutional and statutory provisions, as well as Sharia law, to underscore or support a particular interpretation’). 140 See Kretzmer (n 31) 287–​92 (discussing, among others, HCJ 2599/​00, Yated—​Friendly Society of Downs Syndrome Children’s Parents v Ministry of Education 56 P.D. (5) 834). 141 See Nollkaemper (n 97) 348–​51 (discussing, among others, Supreme Court, 27 May 2005, LJN AS7054). 142 See Garlicki and others (n 73) 404 (noting that ‘coapplication of an international norm and a domestic norm’ is the most common technique for the judicial application of treaties in Poland). 143 See Dugard (n 96) 457 (noting that the South African Constitution requires courts, when interpreting legislation, to ‘prefer any reasonable interpretation of the legislation that is consistent with international law over any alternative interpretation that is inconsistent with international law’, citing S v Basson 2005 (1) SALR 171 (CC)). 144 See Belser and Oleschak (n 77) TAN 19–​21 (since at least 1968, the Federal Supreme Court’s ‘practice of consistent interpretation has . . . been confirmed on numerous occasions and allowed solving almost all issues of prima facie conflict between international and national norms’). 145 See Aust (n 30) 482–​3 (discussing, among others, Garland v British Rail Engineering [1983] 2 AC 751). 146 See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 526–​7 (discussing, among others, Murray (n 133)). 147 Woolaver (n 122) TAN 17 (discussing Glenister v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others, CCT 48/​10 [2011] [202]).

Domestic Application of Treaties  369 Similarly, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that ‘it is reasonable to make reference to an international agreement at the very outset of the inquiry to determine if there is any ambiguity, even latent, in the domestic legislation’.148 Justice Kirby advocated a similar approach in Australia, arguing that courts should refer to international treaties ‘not only when there exists statutory ambiguity, but also where the construction of a statute would result in an interpretation contrary to international human rights standards’.149 However, the majority of the Australian High Court has rejected this approach, refusing ‘to endorse a wider role for treaties in statutory interpretation other than where the legislature has clearly envisaged such a role or where there exists a clear ambiguity on the face of the statute’.150 Judicial application of the presumption is clearly transnationalist, especially in cases where the statute is not facially ambiguous. In contrast, judges with a more nationalist orientation sometimes avoid application of the presumption by declaring that a statute is unambiguous in cases where litigants argue that the statute could reasonably be interpreted in conformity with international treaty obligations.151 It is likely that courts throughout the world decide numerous statutory interpretation cases where the presumption is not applied, even though it is potentially applicable, because litigants fail to raise a possible treaty argument, or courts decline to address the argument explicitly.152 It is difficult to perform a systematic analysis of judicial application of the presumption even in a single country because it is hard to identify cases in which courts do not mention potentially applicable treaty arguments.

B. Treaty interpretation Domestic courts in both monist and dualist States are frequently asked to interpret treaties. In dualist States, this situation commonly arises when the legislature enacts a statute that is expressly intended to implement a treaty.153 In monist States, courts sometimes interpret treaties when a litigant asks the court to apply a treaty directly, and sometimes when the treaty is applied indirectly. Regardless of the context in which treaty interpretation issues arise, courts have a choice whether to adopt a nationalist or transnationalist approach to treaty interpretation. Courts applying a transnationalist approach interpret treaties in accordance with the shared understanding of the parties. In accordance with this approach, transnationalist judges cite the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties,154 decisions of foreign 148 National Corn Growers Association v Canada [1990] 2 SCR 1324, 1372–​3. 149 See Rothwell (n 26) 153–​4. 150 Ibid 156. 151 See eg Breard v Greene 523 US 371, 375–​6 (1998) (construing a federal statute to be inconsistent with US obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations). 152 See ILA Study Group Report (n 7) [40] (discussing ‘evasive avoidance’). 153 See eg Aust (n 30) 482–​3 (United Kingdom) (discussing, among others, Sidhu v British Airways [1997] 1 All ER 193); Jayawickrama (n 17) 264–​5 (India) (discussing Dadu alias Tulsidas v State of Maharashtra Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Criminal) 169 of 1999, 12 October 2000); van Ert (n 30) 177 (Canada) (discussing Pushpanathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [1998] 1 SCR 982). 154 See eg Aust (n 30) 483 (United Kingdom) (discussing, among others, R v Lambert Justices, ex p Yusufu [1985] Times Law Reports 114); Garlicki and others (n 73) 387–​9 (Poland) (discussing, among others, Decision of 9 March 2004, I CK 410/​03 (not published Lex 182080)); Nollkaemper (n 97) 360–​2 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, Supreme Court, State Secretary for Finance v X 21 February 2003, 36 NYIL 2005, 475); Rothwell (n 26) 151–​2 (Australia) (discussing, among others, Morrison v Peacock [2002] HCA 44); van Ert (n 30) 175–​82

370  Treaty Application courts155 and international tribunals,156 as well as views adopted by non-​judicial international bodies157 to support their interpretations of particular treaty provisions. For example, the Argentinian Supreme Court has said that judges represent ‘the national sovereignty, and thus, [are] bound to safeguard the good faith that should guide the conduct of the State in the international sphere, faithfully complying with the obligations emanated from treaties and other sources of international law’.158 Similarly, in a case involving interpretation of the New York Convention, an Iranian court said: ‘[R]‌egard is to be had to its international character and to the need to promote uniformity in its application and the observance of good faith in international trade.’159 In contrast, courts applying a nationalist approach emphasize that treaty interpretation is primarily an executive function, not a judicial function. Accordingly, courts applying a nationalist approach tend to defer to the executive branch on treaty interpretation issues.160 Deference to the executive branch often yields judicial opinions that give greater weight to unilateral national policy interests, and less weight to the shared, multilateral understanding that guides transnationalist interpretations. Available information, which is admittedly limited, indicates that the nationalist approach to treaty interpretation is a minority approach. The United States may be the only State where courts have adopted an explicit interpretive presumption favouring deference to the executive branch on treaty interpretation issues.161 In Israel, the Supreme Court has never adopted an express interpretive presumption of this type, but ‘in cases relating to the [Occupied Territories], for a long time, the Supreme Court in fact adopted the interpretation (Canada) (discussing, among others, Pushpanathan v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [1998] 1 SCR 982). 155 See eg Dugard (n 96)  470 (South Africa) (discussing, among others, Potgieter v British Airways 2005 (3) SALR 133 (C)); Kretzmer (n 31) 291–​2 (Israel) (discussing, among others, F.H. 36/​84, Teichner v Air France 41 P.D. (1) 589); Nollkaemper (n 97) 364–​5 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, Administrative Law Division of the Council of State, M.E.D. v State Secretary for Justice 6 November 1995, 28 NYIL 1997, 353); van Ert (n 30) 185–​6 (Canada) (discussing, among others, Connaught Laboratories Ltd v British Airways (2002) 61 OR (3d) 2004 (Ont. SCJ)). 156 See eg Dugard (n 96) 466–​70 (South Africa) (discussing, among others, Ferreria v Levin NO 1996 (1) SALR 984 (CC)); Garlicki and others (n 73) 389–​98 (Poland) (discussing, among others, Judgment of 29 January 2003, V.S.A. 1494/​02 (ONSA 2004 nr 2, item 57)); Nollkaemper (n 97) 363–​4 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, H v Public Prosecutor Court of Appeal of The Hague, ILDC 636 (NL 2007)); Paulus (n 87)  223–​35 (Germany) (discussing, among others, BVerfGE 111, 307 (2004)); van Ert (n 30) 183–​4 (Canada) (discussing, among others, Mugesera v Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [2005] 2 SCR 91). 157 See eg Dugard (n 96) 466–​70 (South Africa) (discussing, among others, Government of the Republic of South Africa v Grootboom 2001 (I) SALR 46 (CC); Minister of Health v Treatment Action Campaign (No 2) 2002 (5) SALR 721 (CC)); Jayawickrama (n 17) 257 (India) (discussing Visaka v State of Rajasthan [1997] 3 LRC 361); Kretzmer (n 31) 298–​301 (Israel) (discussing, among others, HCJ 7029/​95 New General Labor Federation v National Labor Court 51 P.D. (2) 63, 157); van Ert (n 30) 184–​5 (Canada) (discussing, among others, Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v Canada (Attorney General) [2004] 1 SCR 76). 158 Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 31–​2 (quoting Acosta, Claudia, 321: 3555 (1998) [15]). 159 Dizgovin (n 69) 252 (quoting Case No. 9409970227201292). 160 See eg Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 524–​5 (discussing, among others, El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd v Tsui Yuan Tseng 525 US 155, 168 (1999)); Kretzmer (n 31) 292–​5 (Israel) (discussing, among others, HCJ 785/​87, Afu v IDF Commander 42(2) P.D. 4 (English tr [1990] 29 ILM 139)). 161 See eg Medellin v Texas 552 US 491, 513 (2008) (‘It is, moreover, well settled that the United States’ interpretation of a treaty “is entitled to great weight” ’). In other States, courts give conclusive weight to executive views on specific treaty-​related issues that are constitutionally committed to executive decision-​making. See eg Aust (n 30) 484 (United Kingdom); Dugard (n 96) 471–​2 (South Africa); van Ert (n 30) 186–​8 (Canada). However, to the best of my knowledge, the United States is the only country where the nation’s highest court has expressly adopted an interpretive canon favouring deference to the executive branch across the full spectrum of treaty interpretation questions.

Domestic Application of Treaties  371 of [Geneva Convention IV] favored by the authorities’.162 In contrast, Polish commentators assert: ‘For a court to treat executive branch views [on treaty interpretation issues] as dispositive would be incompatible with the principle of independence of the judicial branch, as understood under the Polish Constitution.’163 The Polish view appears to be the dominant one. In most countries with independent judiciaries—​including both monist and dualist States—​domestic courts claim an independent responsibility to construe treaties in accordance with the shared expectations of the parties, without giving undue weight to the unilateral views of their own governments.164 A distinct interpretive issue concerns treaty-​based protection for the rights of private parties. Transnationalist judges recognize that many treaties are designed to protect the rights of private parties. Accordingly, they interpret treaties in a manner that accords significant protection to treaty-​based private rights.165 In contrast, nationalist judges sometimes apply a presumption that treaties ordinarily regulate horizontal relations between States, not vertical relations between States and private parties.166 Application of this presumption can lead nationalist courts to construe vertical treaty provisions as if they were horizontal provisions, thereby denying protection for treaty-​based private rights. This strategy provides nationalist judges a convenient rationale for declining to apply treaty-​based (vertical) constraints on governmental conduct.167 The United States is the only State whose courts have adopted an explicit interpretive presumption that treaties do not create rights for private parties.168 Courts in other States approach the matter as a straightforward interpretive question, without adopting a presumption for or against private rights.169 If the treaty text, on its face, indicates that the parties intended to confer rights on private parties, domestic courts will typically enforce 162 Kretzmer (n 31) 292 (discussing, among others, HCJ 785/​87 Afu v IDF Commander 42(2) P.D. 4). 163 Garlicki and others (n 73) 399 (discussing, among others, K Galstyan V. S.A. 726/​99). Unfortunately, judicial independence has recently come under attack in Poland. See J Strupczewski, ‘Top EU court voices doubts on Polish courts' independence’ Reuters (25 July 2018) at . Data from the V-​DEM database shows a decline in judicial independence in Poland between 2015 and 2017. See n 130. 164 See eg Aust (n 30) 482–​3 (United Kingdom); Dugard (n 96) 471–​2 (South Africa) (discussing, among others, Kolbarschenko v King NO 2001 (4) SALR 336 (C)); Jayawickrama (n 17) 267–​70 (India); Nollkaemper (n 97) 362–​3 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, Central Appeals Tribunal 21 July 2006, LJN No AY 5560); Paulus (n 87) 221–​3 (Germany) (discussing, among others, Görgülü BVerfGE 111, 307, Engl Tr BVerfG, 2 BvR 1481/​04 of 14 October 2004); van Ert (n 30) 186–​8 (Canada) (discussing Pushpanathan v Canada [1998] 1 SCR 982; Château-​ Gai Wines Ltd v Attorney General of Canada [1970] Ex CR 366). 165 See eg Aust (n 30) 484–​7 (United Kingdom); Dugard (n 96) 472–​4 (South Africa); Jayawickrama (n 17) 266–​ 72 (India) (discussing Basu v State of West Bengal [1997] 2 LRC 1; Visaka v State of Rajasthan [1997] 3 LRC 361); Nollkaemper (n 97)  345–​8 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, Central Appeals Court for the Public Service and for Social Security Matters X Y and Z v B. O.Z. Regional Compulsory Insurance Fund 29 May 1996, 30 NYIL 1998, 241); Paulus (n 87) 211 (Germany) (‘[W]‌hen individual citizens claimed rights against the state on the basis of international law, it was quite natural that the state that had given its word to other states could be regarded also bound toward its own citizens’); Rothwell (n 26) 136 (Australia) (‘[O]ne clear trend is that the courts have become more open to hearing matters based on the existence not only of a treaty right recognized under Australian law but also of a right that exists entirely under international law by way of a treaty to which Australia is a party’); van Ert (n 30) 202–​7 (Canada). 166 See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 525–​6 (discussing, among others, Gandara v Bennett 528 F.3d 823, 828 (11th Cir 2008)). 167 See ibid 539–​40. 168 See Restatement (Fourth) (n 105) § 111 cmt b & Reporters’ Note 1. 169 See eg Aust (n 30) at 484 (United Kingdom) (‘There is no presumption that a treaty does not create a right for a private party’); Dugard (n 96) 472 (South Africa) (stating that an incorporated treaty ‘creates rights and duties for the individual in the same way that an ordinary statute creates rights and duties’); Nollkaemper (n 97) 347 (the Netherlands) (‘Dutch law recognizes the fact that states may agree by treaty to grant certain rights to individuals, which they are then entitled to enforce before national courts’).

372  Treaty Application those rights, subject to constraints on judicial enforcement of unincorporated treaties in dualist States.170

C. Constitutional interpretation Courts in both monist and dualist States apply treaties to help elucidate the meaning of constitutional provisions. Argentina, South Africa, and India are leading examples of States where courts routinely invoke treaties and other provisions of international law in the context of constitutional interpretation.171 Argentina amended its constitution in 1994. The revised constitution grants constitutional rank to certain human rights treaties.172 Article 75 provides that treaties with constitutional rank ‘do not repeal any section of the First Part of the Constitution and are to be understood as completing the rights and guarantees recognized herein’.173 Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that it was bound to interpret other provisions of the Constitution in harmony with the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).174 The South African Constitution states explicitly: ‘When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court, tribunal or forum . . . must consider international law; and may consider foreign law.’175 In light of this constitutional mandate, the South African Constitutional Court has adopted the view ‘that the spirit, purport and objects of the bill of rights . . . are inextricably linked to international law and the values and approaches of the international community’.176 Similarly, the Indian Constitution stipulates: ‘The State shall endeavour to . . . foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another.’177 Accordingly, Indian jurisprudence reflects a view ‘that any international convention not inconsistent with the fundamental rights provisions in the Constitution and in harmony with its spirit must be read into those provisions to enlarge the meaning and content thereof ’.178 Courts in Belgium,179 Canada,180 Germany,181 Ghana,182 Israel,183 Nigeria,184 and Switzerland185 also apply treaties to help interpret domestic constitutional provisions, but 170 See nn 30–​2 and accompanying text. 171 See Jayawickrama (n 17)  245–​7, 266–​72 (India) (discussing, among others, Visaka v State of Rajasthan [1997] 3 LRC 361); Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 64–​83 (Argentina) (discussing, among others, Derecho, René, 334:1504 (2011)); Woolaver (n 122) TAN 24–​46 (South Africa) (discussing, among others, Glenister v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others (CCT 48/​10) [2011]). 172 Pinto and Maisley (n 60) TAN 28. 173 Ibid (quoting art 75). 174 Ibid. TAN 35 (discussing Monges, Analia, 319:3148 (1996)). 175 S Afr Const (n 88) s 39(1). 176 Dugard (n 96) 462 (quoting N Botha, ‘The Role of International Law in the Development of South African Common Law’ (2001) S Af Ybk Intl L 253, 259). 177 India Const s 51. 178 Jayawickrama (n 17) 246 (discussing, among others, Visaka v State of Rajasthan [1997] 3 LRC 361). 179 See Dopagne (n 62) TAN 15–​16 (discussing Constitutional Court, 15 September 2004, No. 147/​2004). 180 See van Ert (n 30) 197–​201 (discussing, among others, R v Hape [2007] SCC 26). 181 See Paulus (n 87) 230–​3 (discussing, among others, BVerfGE 111, 307 (2004)). 182 See Okeke (n 26) 409–​11 (discussing, among others, New Patriotic Party v Inspector General of Police (1993–​ 1994) 2 GLR 459). 183 See Kretzmer (n 31) 298–​301 (discussing, among others, HCJ 112/​77 Foguel v Broadcasting Authority 31 P.D. (3) 657). 184 See Okeke (n 26) 420–​2 (discussing, among others, Agbakoba v Dir of State Sec Serv [1994] 6 NWLR 475). 185 See Belser and Oleschak (n 77) TAN 30 (discussing BGE 125 II 417 (1991)).

Domestic Application of Treaties  373 they do so less regularly than the highest courts in Argentina, India, and South Africa. The judicial practice of using international law in constitutional interpretation has provoked sharp controversy in both Australia and the United States. In Australia, Justice Kirby was a strong advocate for judicial application of international law in constitutional interpretation, but he never persuaded a majority of the High Court to follow his recommended approach.186 The US Supreme Court occasionally cites treaties to support its interpretation of a contested constitutional provision; in many such cases the majority’s reliance on international law provoked a strong critical response from dissenting Justices.187 Although the US Supreme Court rarely cites human rights treaties in its constitutional decisions, there is evidence that international human rights norms exerted influence over the development of US constitutional law in the decades after the Second World War.188 Recent judicial practice in the United Kingdom merits separate discussion. Since Britain does not have a written, constitutional Bill of Rights, British courts rely on other sources of law to protect the fundamental rights that, in most other countries, are protected by a written Constitution. The Human Rights Act, enacted in 1998, ‘effectively incorporated the [European Convention on Human Rights] into English law’.189 Since passage of the Act, British courts routinely apply the European Convention to protect individual rights that, in many other countries, would be regarded as constitutional rights.190 As of this writing, it is unclear how Brexit may affect enforcement of treaty rights in British courts.

D.  Self-​execution in monist States Judicial doctrine in monist States distinguishes between treaties that are directly applicable as law and treaties that are not directly applicable. Many States use the terms ‘self-​executing’ and ‘non-​self-​executing’ to distinguish between these two classes of treaty provisions.191 When a court holds that a treaty is self-​executing, it typically acts in a transnationalist mode to facilitate the domestic application of treaty-​based international norms. When a court holds that a treaty is not self-​executing, it generally acts in a nationalist mode to shield the domestic legal system from the influence of treaty-​based legal norms.192 Judicial doctrine invariably grants judges some discretion to determine which treaties are self-​executing. Transnationalist judges exercise their discretion in a manner that pushes more treaties into the self-​executing category. Nationalist judges exercise their discretion in a manner that pushes more treaties into the non-​self-​executing category. South Africa’s Constitution includes an explicit textual distinction between self-​ executing and non-​self-​executing treaty provisions.193 Although the Constitution refers 186 See Rothwell (n 26) 156–​8 (discussing, among others, Al-​Kateb v Godwin [2004] HCA 37). 187 See eg Graham v Florida 130 S Ct 2011 (2010); Roper v Simmons 543 US 551 (2005); Lawrence v Texas 539 US 558 (2003). 188 See D Sloss and W Sandholtz, ‘Universal Human Rights and Constitutional Change’ (2019) 27 William & Mary B Rts J 1183. 189 Aust (n 30) 487. 190 See ibid 487–​91 (discussing, among others, A(FC) and others v Secretary of State [2004] UKHL 56). 191 See eg Dugard (n 96) 453–​5 (South Africa); Garlicki and others (n 73) 400–​3 (Poland); Wildhaber and others (n 77) 659 (Switzerland). 192 See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 527–​9 (discussing, among others, Intl Café SAL v Hard Rock Café Intl (USA), Inc 252 F.3d 1274 (11th Cir 2001)). 193 See S Afr Const (n 88), s 231(4).

374  Treaty Application explicitly to ‘self-​executing’ treaties, it does not define the term ‘self-​executing’, nor does it identify criteria for distinguishing between self-​executing and non-​self-​executing treaties. The South African courts have not yet issued a definitive ruling to clarify the meaning of the self-​execution clause in the South African Constitution.194 Ultimately, the resolution of that question may have little practical significance because the South African Constitutional Court is one of the most transnationalist courts in the world: it regularly applies treaties and customary international law to help construe both statutory and constitutional provisions.195 Domestic courts in Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands are also fairly transnationalist, insofar as they take a comparatively broad view of which treaties are self-​ executing. In all three countries, courts generally hold that treaty provisions designed to benefit private parties are invocable by private parties and directly applicable by the courts, subject to one caveat.196 To be directly applicable, ‘a treaty provision has to be sufficiently clear to function as “objective law” in the domestic legal order’.197 Courts in all three countries have stated or assumed that most substantive provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and other human rights treaties are self-​executing.198 However, the Federal Supreme Court in Switzerland has held that most provisions in the ICESCR are not self-​executing.199 The self-​execution jurisprudence in Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands is characteristic of most European Union countries because judicial decision-​making in those countries is heavily influenced by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), now known as the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Earlier ECJ case law ‘establishes that European law requires the direct effect of community law in the domestic legal order. Moreover, the ECJ demands supremacy of European over domestic law’.200 Thus, once a legal instrument ‘has been adopted by a competent EU body, it . . . becomes automatically incorporated into the system of law binding on the national level [in Poland] and must be enforced by all national authorities, in particular by the national courts’.201 For States who are members of the European Union, this is a ‘consequence of EU membership’, and Member States have ‘no alternative but to follow the established rules’.202 In contrast to European jurisprudence, self-​execution doctrine in the United States is analytically incoherent.203 Courts and commentators agree that non-​self-​executing treaties are not directly applicable by domestic courts, but they do not agree why this is so. Some

194 See Woolaver (n 122) pt III.C. 195 See ibid TAN 15–​46. 196 See Nollkaemper (n 97)  341–​8 (the Netherlands) (discussing, among others, Central Appeals Tribunal, Management Board of Employee Insurance Benefits Agency v X 14 March 2003, 36 NYIL 2006, 466); Paulus (n 87) 209–​12 (Germany); Belser and Oleschak (n 77) TAN 14–​18 (Switzerland). 197 Nollkaemper (n 97)  333 (the Netherlands). See also Belser and Oleschak (n 77)  Switzerland TAN 14 (‘International norms are only considered to be in the realm of courts when they are sufficiently precise to be applied by courts without further clarification by parliament or government’). 198 See Belser and Oleschak (n 77) TAN 30–​2 (Switzerland) (discussing BGE 125 II 417 (1991) and BGE 139 I 16 (2012)); Nollkaemper (n 97) 342 (the Netherlands); Paulus (n 87) 232 (Germany) (discussing BVerfGE 111, 307 (2004); English tr BVerfG, 2 BvR 1481/​04 of 14 October 2004). 199 See Belser and Oleschak (n 77) TAN 14–​18 (Switzerland) (discussing BGE 120 I a 1 c.5 (1994)). 200 Paulus (n 87) 210 (citing Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, Case 11/​70, [1970] ECR 1125). 201 Garlicki and others (n 73) 385. 202 Ibid. In light of the current threat to judicial independence in Poland, it remains to be seen whether Polish courts will continue to follow the established EU rules. See n 163. 203 See DL Sloss, ‘Taming Madison’s Monster: How to Fix Self-​Execution Doctrine’ (2015) BYU L Rev 1691.

Domestic Application of Treaties  375 sources suggest that non-​self-​executing treaties are not incorporated into domestic law. A distinct view holds that non-​self-​executing treaties are part of domestic law, but they are a special type of law that courts are precluded from applying directly.204 Under the latter approach, there is further disagreement as to why courts are precluded from applying non-​ self-​executing treaties.205 In practice, courts often hold that treaties are non-​self-​executing when an individual invokes a vertical treaty provision as a constraint on government action, but they almost never hold that transnational treaty provisions are non-​self-​executing.206 Thus, the net effect of judicial doctrine is that US courts tend to adopt a transnationalist approach in cases involving transnational treaty provisions, but they tend to adopt a nationalist approach in cases involving vertical treaty provisions.207 In contrast, courts in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and South Africa adopt a fairly consistent transnationalist approach for both vertical and transnational treaty provisions.

IV.  Domestic Courts and Treaty Compliance The final part of this chapter addresses the respective roles of the judicial, executive, and legislative branches in promoting compliance with treaty obligations.208 My central claim is that these roles vary greatly depending on whether the treaty provision at issue is horizontal, vertical, or transnational. In brief, executive officials have primary responsibility for ensuring compliance with horizontal treaty obligations; the judiciary’s role is marginal. With respect to transnational treaty provisions, though, the positions are reversed. The judiciary plays a central role in promoting compliance with transnational treaty provisions and the executive is marginalized. The picture for vertical treaty provisions is more complex.

A.  Horizontal treaty provisions As discussed earlier, domestic courts rarely apply horizontal treaty provisions.209 Consequently, domestic courts bear little responsibility for promoting compliance with horizontal treaty provisions. This proposition is generally true for both monist and dualist States, regardless of whether courts adopt a nationalist or transnationalist approach. With respect to horizontal treaties, the relationship between the legislative and executive branches depends on the specific treaty provision at issue and the constitutional structure 204 See ibid 1695–​702. 205 See ibid. In some cases, courts hold that a treaty provision is not self-​executing because it is too vague or ambiguous for judicial enforcement. See CM Vazquez, ‘The Four Doctrines of Self-​Executing Treaties’ (1995) 89 AJIL 695, 713–​15. This version of the doctrine is similar to the non-​self-​execution doctrine applied in many European countries. See nn 196–​9 and accompanying text. In other cases, courts hold that a treaty provision is not self-​executing—​even though it is sufficiently unambiguous to permit judicial enforcement—​because the political branches have manifested a desire to preclude or limit judicial enforcement. See Sloss (n 203) 1703–​14. This version of the doctrine has no apparent analogue in other countries. 206 See Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101) 534–​6. 207 See ibid 529–​39. 208 Given space constraints, the present analysis does not address the role of sub-​national governments. However, it is noteworthy that sub-​national governments in some States exert significant influence over matters related to treaty compliance. See eg Beemelmans and Treviranus (n 68) 328–​9 (Germany); Wildhaber and others (n 77) 635–​7 (Switzerland). 209 See nn 109–​10 and accompanying text.

376  Treaty Application of a given State. For example, the North Atlantic Treaty obligates parties to assist other Member States if there is ‘an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America’.210 The duty to provide mutual assistance in the event of an armed attack is a paradigmatic horizontal treaty obligation. If a NATO State was the target of an armed attack, the executive branches in other NATO States would have primary responsibility for providing assistance under the treaty. In some States, depending on constitutional separation of powers considerations, the executive might have to obtain legislative approval before committing troops and weapons to the defence of an ally. Regardless, there is no State in which the judiciary would be responsible for implementing the nation’s treaty obligation to help defend against an armed attack.

B.  Transnational treaty provisions Conventional wisdom holds that the executive branch has primary responsibility in most countries for implementing international treaty obligations. This is certainly not true for transnational treaty provisions. Consider, for example, the 1929 Warsaw Convention, which regulates international air carriage.211 In the United States, Congress never enacted legislation to implement the Convention, but courts routinely apply it as a self-​executing treaty.212 In many dualist States,213 and even in some monist States,214 the legislature has enacted legislation to promote effective implementation of the Convention. In all States—​whether the treaty is considered self-​executing or is implemented by legislation—​the judiciary bears primary responsibility for resolving disputes between private parties that are governed by the Convention.215 In the United States, the executive branch occasionally submits amicus briefs to present its views about the proper interpretation of contested treaty provisions, but that is the extent of executive branch participation in treaty implementation. Domestic courts play a crucial role in promoting compliance with transnational treaty provisions. A simple example helps illustrate this point. The New York Convention obligates States to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards.216 Assume that a French company and a Japanese company submit a commercial dispute to an arbitral panel in accordance with UNCITRAL arbitration rules.217 The panel orders the Japanese company to pay damages to the French company, but the Japanese company refuses to pay. That refusal, by itself, does not constitute a violation of Japanese treaty obligations because the company’s refusal to pay is not attributable to the Japanese government.218 Now assume that the French

210 North Atlantic Treaty (adopted 4 April 1949, entered into force 24 August 1949) 34 UNTS 243, Art 5. 211 Warsaw Convention (n 96). The Warsaw Convention is the predecessor of the 1999 Montreal Convention (n 118). 212 See eg Olympic Airways v Husain 540 US 644 (2004); El Al Airlines v Tsui Yuan Tseng 525 US 155 (1999). 213 See eg Kretzmer (n 31) 284 (Israel); Rothwell (n 26) 138 (Australia); van Ert (n 30) 186 (Canada). 214 See Dugard (n 96) 470 (South Africa); Nollkaemper (n 97) 355 (the Netherlands). 215 See eg Dugard (n 96)  470 (South Africa); Kretzmer (n 31)  290–​1 (Israel); Nollkaemper (n 97)  355 (the Netherlands); Rothwell (n 26) 138 (Australia); van Ert (n 30) 186 (Canada). 216 See NY Convention (n 95) Art III (‘Each Contracting State shall recognize arbitral awards as binding and enforce them . . . under the conditions laid down in the following articles’). 217 UNCITRAL is the UN Commission on International Trade Law. For information, see UNCITRAL . 218 See J Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (CUP, Cambridge 2002) 91–​3.

Domestic Application of Treaties  377 company files suit in a Japanese court to enforce the arbitral award. If the Japanese court rules against the French company, and that ruling cannot be justified under the New York Convention,219 the judicial decision would constitute a violation of Japanese treaty obligations because that judicial decision is attributable to the Japanese government under principles of State responsibility.220 Conversely, if the Japanese court orders the Japanese company to pay—​and especially if the court attaches company assets to secure payment—​ the court is effectively acting as an agent of the international legal system to ensure Japanese compliance with national treaty obligations. Either way, the domestic court is the primary decision-​maker whose decision determines whether the nation complies with its treaty obligations. This is characteristic of transnational treaty provisions: in most cases involving transnational provisions, domestic courts serve as the primary interface between the domestic and international legal systems, and their decisions effectively determine whether the nation complies with its treaty obligations. The preceding observations about domestic judicial application of transnational treaty provisions apply equally to both monist and dualist States, with one caveat. In dualist States, the legislature typically incorporates a treaty before courts will apply it to resolve private disputes. Once the treaty is incorporated, though, judicial application is quite similar in both monist and dualist States. Moreover, the distinction between nationalist and transnationalist approaches has scant effect on judicial application of transnational treaty provisions. The global record of compliance with transnational treaty provisions is quite good because national courts in most States apply transnational treaty provisions routinely—​either directly or indirectly—​to help resolve private disputes arising from cross-​border activities.

C.  Vertical treaty provisions The relationship among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in implementing vertical treaty provisions is a complex subject that defies simple generalizations. Patterns vary by nation and by individual treaty. States sometimes achieve compliance with vertical treaty obligations through a process of ‘silent incorporation’, even if no government official or agency makes a conscious decision to implement that obligation. For example, when the United States ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the executive branch assured the Senate that no implementing legislation was necessary because the United States could fulfil its treaty obligations by applying pre-​existing laws.221 Thus, when a court issues an injunction to enjoin enforcement of a State law that violates federal laws prohibiting race-​ based discrimination, one could say that the court is promoting compliance with US treaty

219 Art V of the New York Convention identifies several circumstances in which ‘[r]‌ecognition and enforcement of the [foreign arbitral] award may be refused’. See NY Convention (n 95) Art V. Under the treaty, States are obligated to enforce foreign arbitral awards unless there is a valid reason for non-​enforcement as specified in Art V. 220 See Crawford (n 218)  61 (reprinting Art 4 of the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts: ‘The conduct of any State organ shall be considered an act of that State under international law, whether the organ exercises legislative, executive, judicial or any other functions’). 221 See D Sloss, ‘The Domestication of International Human Rights:  Non-​Self-​Executing Declarations and Human Rights Treaties’ (1999) 24 YJIL 129, 183–​8.

378  Treaty Application obligations under Articles 2 and 26 of the ICCPR,222 even if the court never considers a treaty-​based argument. Similarly, commentators have noted that Canadian courts implement Canada’s obligations under the ICCPR, at least partially, by applying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other provisions of domestic law.223 Silent ‘incorporation of international law into domestic constitutional and statutory provisions is undoubtedly one of the more effective techniques for’ achieving compliance with vertical treaty provisions.224 Leaving aside cases where States achieve compliance almost unwittingly, we turn next to situations where some government actor makes a conscious decision to apply or interpret a particular treaty in a particular way. Here, it is helpful to discuss the 1951 Refugee Convention225 and the 1967 Refugee Protocol226 to illustrate the interplay among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the domestic application of vertical treaty provisions. In dualist States, the legislature must first decide whether to enact legislation to incorporate a treaty into domestic law. Professor Aust said: ‘It is invariable British practice never to ratify a treaty until any [necessary implementing] legislation has first been made.’227 Like Britain, other dualist States generally refrain from ratifying treaties with vertical obligations unless or until they have enacted the implementing legislation necessary to ensure compliance with those obligations.228 Accordingly, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have all adopted legislation to implement the Refugee Convention and Protocol.229 Even in monist States, legislatures often enact implementing legislation to promote effective domestic implementation of vertical treaty provisions. Although South Africa’s Constitution provides expressly for self-​executing treaties,230 the South African legislature enacted legislation in 1998 to implement the nation’s treaty obligations under the Refugee Convention and Protocol.231 Similarly, in the United States, even though the Constitution specifies that ratified treaties are the ‘supreme Law of the Land’,232 Congress enacted legislation in 1980 to implement US obligations under the Refugee Protocol.233 Thus, in both monist and dualist States, legislative decisions about whether and how to implement vertical treaty provisions can have a significant impact on the nation’s compliance with its treaty obligations. 222 See ICCPR (n 4) Art 2(1) (guaranteeing protection of rights ‘without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour . . . or other status’); ibid Art 26 (guaranteeing ‘all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour . . . or other status’). 223 See G van Ert, Using International Law in Canadian Courts (2nd edn Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2008) 332–​51. 224 Sloss and Van Alstine (n 108) 104–​5. 225 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137. 226 Refugee Protocol (n 6). 227 Aust (n 30) 486. 228 See eg Hollis, ‘Comparative Approach’ (n 21) 32–​4 (concluding that ‘the case studies presented support a practice by which States join treaties only after they have established the domestic legal means to comply with the treaty’s obligations’); van Ert (n 30) 204 (‘The usual Canadian practice is not to allow treaties requiring domestic implementation to enter into force for Canada until the federal government has ensured the treaty’s implementation’). 229 See Aust (n 30) 490–​1 (United Kingdom); Rothwell (n 26) 138–​40 (Australia); van Ert (n 30) 175 (Canada). 230 See S Afr Const (n 88) s 231(4). 231 See Dugard (n 96) 473–​4. 232 US Const Art VI cl 2. 233 The Refugee Act of 1980, PL No 96-​212, 94 Stat 102 (17 March 1980). The United States is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, but US ratification of the 1967 Protocol effectively means that the United States is bound by key provisions of that Convention.

Domestic Application of Treaties  379 Once a vertical treaty provision enters into force domestically, the executive branch assumes primary responsibility for treaty implementation. In most States, if an individual seeks admission to the country as a refugee, an executive officer will make the initial determination whether the individual qualifies for refugee status. That determination might promote or hinder treaty compliance, depending on three factors:  first, whether the treaty has been fully or partially incorporated into domestic law (either by legislation or self-​execution); second, insofar as the treaty is unincorporated or partially incorporated, whether the executive decision-​maker construes relevant domestic laws in conformity with the nation’s treaty obligations; and finally, insofar as the decision-​maker consults or applies the treaty, whether that decision-​maker interprets the treaty in accordance with internationally agreed principles of treaty interpretation. If a treaty has been fully incorporated into domestic law—​either by self-​execution or by legislative incorporation—​the decision-​maker will presumably apply the treaty as a rule of law to reach his/​her decision. In the Netherlands, for example, the 2000 Aliens Act authorizes executive officers to grant residence permits for ‘Convention refugees’, without defining the term. Hence, the statute effectively directs administrative (and judicial) decision-​makers to apply the treaty definition of refugees.234 The statute therefore promotes treaty compliance by directing decision-​makers to apply the treaty definition as a rule of domestic law. In contrast, when a treaty remains wholly or partially unincorporated, decision-​makers must apply domestic rules in place of—​or in tandem with—​ the international rule; this raises a greater risk of non-​compliance. In Australia, for example, the 1951 Convention has been only partially incorporated into domestic law.235 Consequently, Australian decision-​makers have been hesitant to rely too heavily on the Convention in construing domestic statutes,236 producing a less-​than-​perfect record of treaty compliance. If a vertical treaty provision remains wholly or partially unincorporated, executive decision-​makers might still construe relevant domestic statutes in harmony with the nation’s international treaty obligations. For example, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act directs executive officers to construe the Act ‘in a manner that . . . complies with international human rights instruments to which Canada is a signatory’.237 The statutory reference to ‘human rights instruments’ presumably includes the Refugee Convention and Protocol.238 Similarly, in other States, executive officers may have a constitutional or statutory duty to perform their governmental functions in a manner that is consistent with the nation’s treaty obligations—​including, perhaps, obligations contained in unincorporated or partially incorporated treaties.239 Alternatively, executive officials might simply decide as a policy matter to exercise their statutory responsibilities in a way that promotes compliance with treaty obligations. In any case, if executive officials have a conscious goal of 234 See Nollkaemper (n 97) 336–​7. 235 See Rothwell (n 26) 138–​40. 236 See ibid 153–​6. 237 van Ert (n 223) 155. 238 Canada is party to both the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Refugee Protocol. See United Nations Treaty Collection . 239 In the United States, the President and subordinate executive officers have a constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’. US Const Art II s 3. Most commentators agree that the Take Care Clause creates a legal duty for executive officers to implement treaties. See ET Swaine, ‘Taking Care of Treaties’ (2008) 108 Colum L Rev 331.

380  Treaty Application exercising their powers and duties consistently with international treaty obligations, treaty compliance is enhanced. Conversely, if executive officials are heedless of treaty obligations, their actions are less likely to promote treaty compliance. Executive officials are often required to interpret treaties. An official charged with deciding whether to grant an applicant refugee status would need to interpret the treaty if the treaty itself provides the governing rule of domestic law (via self-​execution or full incorporation), or if some law or policy directs the official to take account of the treaty when construing the relevant domestic statute. In construing the treaty, the official might be guided to some extent by unilateral national policy interests. However, he or she might also be guided by internationally agreed principles of treaty interpretation.240 If executive decision-​makers give great weight to internationally agreed principles, their decisions are more likely to promote treaty compliance. Conversely, if decision-​makers give more weight to unilateral policy interests, there is a greater risk that their decisions will obstruct treaty compliance. If the legislative and executive branches both viewed treaty compliance as a paramount objective, the courts would rarely be asked to decide cases involving alleged treaty violations. However, legislatures sometimes fail to implement treaties that require legislative implementation, and executive officers sometimes fail to honour such treaties. When that happens, courts may be asked to decide whether governmental conduct is consistent with the nation’s treaty obligations. Ultimately, the impact of judicial decision-​making depends heavily on whether domestic courts pursue a nationalist or transnationalist course. In States where courts tend to adopt a transnationalist approach, domestic courts can play a key role in promoting treaty compliance. India, the Netherlands, and South Africa are leading examples of States where domestic courts actively promote compliance with vertical treaty obligations.241 However, in States where courts tend to apply a nationalist approach, domestic courts effectively cede authority to the legislative and executive branches to make key decisions affecting compliance with vertical treaty provisions. Israel and the United States exemplify this nationalist approach, although judicial decision-​making in Israel is moving in a more transnationalist direction.242 Finally, it is important to note that legislative action or inaction can nudge courts in a more nationalist or transnationalist direction. In the United Kingdom, for example, Parliament’s decision to enact the Human Rights Act 1998 undoubtedly moved judicial decision-​making in British courts in a more transnationalist direction;243 in contrast, Brexit is likely to nudge courts in the opposite direction. In the United States, the Senate’s consistent practice of attaching non-​self-​executing declarations to human rights treaties has clearly pushed judicial decision-​making in a more nationalist direction.244 These examples illustrate the complexity of the relationship among legislative, executive, and judicial branches in shaping governmental decisions that affect compliance with vertical treaty obligations. 240 For more on the VCLT rules on treaty interpretation, see Chapter 19. 241 See Dugard (n 96) (South Africa); Jayawickrama (n 17) (India); Nollkaemper (n 97) (the Netherlands). 242 See Kretzmer (n 31) (Israel); Sloss, ‘United States’ (n 101). 243 See Aust (n 30) 483–​4, 487–​90. 244 See eg MS Flaherty, ‘Global Power in an Age of Rights: Historical Commentary, 1946–​2000’ in Intl Law in the US Supreme Court (n 126).

Domestic Application of Treaties  381

Conclusion International law and international relations scholars have written extensively about theories of national compliance with international legal obligations, including treaty obligations.245 However, only recently have scholars begun to appreciate the role of domestic courts as key institutional actors whose decisions can promote or impede treaty compliance.246 The preceding discussion suggests that more detailed study of domestic courts is warranted. Granted, domestic judicial decisions have little impact on national compliance with horizontal treaty obligations. However, domestic courts play a central role in ensuring compliance with transnational treaty obligations. Moreover, domestic courts have the potential to play a very significant role in promoting compliance with vertical treaty obligations. Whether that potential is realized depends, to a great extent, on whether domestic courts adopt a nationalist or transnationalist approach to the judicial application of vertical treaty provisions.

Recommended Reading American Law Institute, Restatement of the Law Fourth, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States (ALI, Philadelphia 2018) A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) HP Aust and G Nolte, The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts (OUP, Oxford 2016) CA Bradley (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019). X Hanqin and J Qian, ‘International Treaties in the Chinese Domestic Legal System’ (2009) 8 Chinese J Intl L 299 DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee, and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005) D Kretzmer, The Occupation of Justice: The Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories (SUNY Press, Albany 2002) A Nollkaemper, National Courts and the International Rule of Law (OUP, Oxford 2012) A Nollkaemper, Y Shany, and A Tzanakopoulos (eds.), Engagement of Domestic Courts with International Law (OUP, Oxford forthcoming 2020) A Reinisch (ed), Challenging Acts of International Organizations Before National Courts (OUP, Oxford 2010) A Reinisch, The Privileges and Immunities of International Organizations in Domestic Courts (OUP, Oxford 2013) A Roberts and others (eds), Comparative International Law (OUP, Oxford 2018) Y Shany, Regulating Jurisdictional Relations Between National and International Courts (OUP, Oxford 2007) D Sloss (ed), The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: A Comparative Study (CUP, New York 2009) DL Sloss, The Death of Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (OUP, Oxford 2016) DL Sloss, MD Ramsey, and WS Dodge (eds), International Law in the US Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (CUP, New York 2011) 245 See eg JL Goldsmith and EA Posner, The Limits of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2005); AT Guzmán, How International Law Works (OUP, Oxford 2008); R Goodman and D Jinks, Socializing States: Promoting Human Rights Through International Law (OUP, Oxford 2013). 246 See eg Engagement (n 7); Sloss (n 17); Bradley (n 76); HP Aust and G Nolte, The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts (OUP, Oxford 2016). A leading example of earlier work on the topic is HH Koh, ‘Why Do Nations Obey International Law?’ (1997) 106 Yale L J 2599.

382  Treaty Application G van Ert, Using International Law in Canadian Courts (2nd edn Irwin Law Inc, Toronto 2008) CM Vazquez, ‘Treaties as Law of the Land: The Supremacy Clause and the Judicial Enforcement of Treaties’ (2008) 122 Harv L Rev 599 S Weill, The Role of National Courts in Applying International Humanitarian Law (OUP, Oxford 2014) J Wouters, A Nollkaemper, and E de Wet, The Europeanization of International Law (TMC Asser Press, The Hague 2008)

16

State Succession in Respect of Treaty Relationships Gerhard Hafner and Gregor Novak

Introduction The 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties (VCSST)1 offers a generally accepted definition of State succession: the ‘replacement of one State by another in the responsibility for the international relations of territory’.2 The legal regime governing State succession is significant because no new State or territory can exist outside the legal order of the society of States. In order to avoid jeopardizing predictability and stability—​central objects of international law—​it is necessary to regulate the legal status and relations of new States as well as the legal consequences of territorial alterations within this society. Given the importance of treaty-​based international law, the regulation of treaty relations in cases of State succession (‘treaty succession’) is widely acknowledged to be a critical question for international relations and international law.3 However, the law and practice of treaty succession is highly contextual, with the outcome of each case strongly influenced by the relevant political situation. As a result, there is no single rule for all cases. Nonetheless, general rules or practices for certain categories of situations can be identified and may serve as a guide for future cases related to treaty succession,4 even if they may not prove truly determinative.

1 In some parts, this contribution draws on G Hafner and E Kornfeind, ‘The Recent Austrian Practice of State Succession: Does the Clean Slate Rule Still Exist?’ (1996) 1 Austrian Rev Int’l & Euro L 1–​49; see also G Hafner and I Buffard, ‘Les principales différences entre les propositions de la Commission du droit international et le résultat de la Conférence des Nations Unies à Vienne sur la succession d’États en matière de traités’ in A Hêche, G Distefano, and G Gaggioli (eds), La convention de Vienne de 1978 sur la succession d’États en matière de traités: Commentaire article par article et études thématiques (Bruylant, Paris 2016) 1485–​545. Gregor Novak’s contributions to this work focus on more recent practice. 2 VCSST (concluded 23 August 1978, entered into force 6 November 1996) 1946 UNTS 3, Art 2. This definition does not include cases involving a mere change of government, no matter how momentous (such as the change from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation), a constitutional change combined with a name change (such as the change from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR) to the Czechoslovak Federative Republic (CSFR)), or the mere change in a State’s designation (such as from Swaziland to Eswatini). A recent, comprehensive discussion of the VCSST appears in Hêche and others (n 1). 3 Its significance contrasts with scholars’ apparent difficulty accessing reliable information about States’ positions on treaty succession matters. See eg P Dumberry, A Guide to State Succession in International Investment Law (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2018) 44 (‘Dumberry 2018’) (pointing to ‘the basic problem of finding the relevant information’); A Jakubowski, State Succession in Cultural Property (OUP, Oxford 2015) 25 (in a related context, pointing to the ‘significant degree of secrecy surrounding the interstate practice’). 4 Zimmermann notes that regardless of whether the law of treaty succession was successfully codified, the VCSST’s existence makes it of great practical value, particularly for new States. See A  Zimmermann, ‘La Convention de Vienne sur la succession d’États en matière de traités: codification réussie ou échouée?’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1576 (‘Zimmermann 2016’). But see A Sarvarian, ‘Codifying the Law of State Succession: A Futile Endeavour?’ (2016) 27 EJIL 789–​812.

384  Treaty Application Scholars have traced legal problems associated with State succession to ancient times.5 In the modern era of sovereign States, early notable cases included the unifications of Germany6 and Italy,7 the transfers of Alsace and Lorraine,8 the emergence of the United States of America,9 and the independence of former colonies in Latin America.10 The First World War raised a new wave of related problems with the break-​up of the Austro-​ Hungarian Empire,11 the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire,12 and the emergence of new States on the territory of Tsarist Russia.13 An important source of the law and practice of State succession emerged from the period of European colonialism.14 The process of decolonization following the Second World War was particularly significant, both in quantitative terms and in terms of its impact on international relations.15 Decolonization also provided the political context within which the International Law Commission (ILC) formulated draft articles on State succession in respect of treaties, leading up to the VCSST in 1978.16 That convention, however, came relatively late in the decolonization process. The wave of newly emerging States receded soon after its adoption, and for a time, the question of State succession seemed to become less relevant for international relations and law.17 Prior to 1989, it was widely assumed that the existing system of States (particularly in Europe) was unlikely to change due to the then prevailing East-​West stalemate.18 The end of the Cold War and the breakdown of the communist bloc dramatically changed that situation in Europe and Central Asia. Germany incorporated the former German Democratic Republic (GDR),19 the Baltic States regained their independence,20 and other former Union Republics of the USSR followed. At about the same time, the Socialist Federal Republic of 5 See DP O’Connell, ‘State Succession in Relation to New States’ (1970-​II) 130 RdC 101–​2 (quoting Aristotle’s Politics). 6 A Zimmermann, Staatennachfolge in völkerrechtliche Verträge (Springer, Berlin 2000) 136 (‘Zimmermann 2000’). 7 DP O’Connell, The Law of State Succession (CUP, Cambridge 1956) 17–​8 (‘O’Connell 1956’). 8 DP O’Connell, ‘Reflections on the State Succession Convention’ (1979) 39 ZaÖRV 734–​5. 9 O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 34. 10 Cf these and further cases in M Huber, Die Staatensuccession: völkerrechtliche und staatsrechtliche Praxis im XIX. Jahrhundert (Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898); O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 16–​74. 11 O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 4, 35–​6; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 81–​2. 12 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 82. 13 XJ Eudin and HH Fisher, Soviet Russia and the West, 1920–​1927: A Documentary Survey (Stanford University Press, Stanford 1957) 6–​14. 14 On the current situation, see eg UNGA, ‘Report of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples for 2018’ (2018) UN Doc A/​73/​23 (‘2018 Committee of 24 Report’); see also R Aldrich and J Connell, The Last Colonies (CUP, Cambridge 1998). 15 On the relationship between the decolonization process and treaty succession before 1989, see M Craven, The Decolonization of International Law: State Succession and the Law of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2007); J D’Aspremont, ‘La décolonisation et le droit international de la succession’ in A Hêche and others (n 1) 1783–​804; K Zemanek, ‘State Succession after Decolonization’ (1965) 116 RdC 181–​300. 16 UN Conference on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, First Session, Vienna, 4 April–​6 May 1977, Official Records, vol I: Summary records of the plenary meetings and of the meetings of the Committee of the Whole, UN Doc A/​CONF.80/​16; UN Conference on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, Resumed Session, Vienna, 31 July–​23 August 1978, Official Records, vol II: Summary records of the plenary meetings and of the meetings of the Committee of the Whole, UN Doc A/​CONF.80/​16/​Add.1; UN Conference on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties, 1977 session and resumed session 1978, Vienna, 4 April–​6 May 1977 and 31 July–​23 August 1978, Official Records, vol III: Documents of the Conference, UN Doc A/​CONF.80/​16/​Add.2; EG Bello, ‘Reflections on Succession of States in the Light of the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties of 1978’ (1980) German Ybk Intl L 296 et seq (evaluating the VCSST’s driving forces). 17 DF Vagts, ‘State Succession: The Codifiers’ View’ (1993) 33 VJIL 275, 277–​80 (offering a historical overview of State succession). 18 Ibid  275–​6. 19 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 245–​82. 20 R Müllerson, ‘Law and Politics in Succession of States: International Law on Succession of States’ in B Stern (ed), Dissolution, Continuation, and Succession in Eastern Europe (Kluwer, The Hague 1998) 14–​18 (discussing the case of the Baltic States).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  385 Yugoslavia (SFRY) collapsed in the midst of war and made way for the creation of, so far, six or even seven new States.21 Furthermore, the Czechoslovak Federative Republic (CSFR) (formerly the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR)) peacefully dismembered into two new States: the Czech and the Slovak Republics. On the African continent, Eritrea gained independence in the early 1990s after a violent struggle with Ethiopia.22 In Southeast Asia, the new State of Timor-​Leste seceded from Indonesia in 2002 following several decades of occupation.23 The wave of newly emerging States that crested in the early 1990s imbued the problem of State succession with renewed relevance, especially given the legal challenges resulting from the density of pre-​existing relations among the affected States.24 Although the latest and seemingly last major wave of State succession seems to have receded, legal problems of treaty succession remain significant. Growing cross-​border activities of States and non-​State actors have created a need for greater stability and predictability. This had led to an ever-​greater density of treaty relations among States and a related growth in the importance of international organizations (IOs). Recently, developments such as the independence of South Sudan,25 Kosovo’s recent practice in the field of State succession,26 and a variety of cases brought under bilateral investment treaties (involving, in widely different contexts, territories like Macao and Crimea)27 have all put questions of treaty succession on the agenda of scholars, adjudicators, and policy-​makers. Future cases of State succession seem possible, if not likely.28 These cases will occur under varying circumstances and entail different legal problems and solutions. In the past, different theories of treaty succession, reaching from the continuity doctrine to the clean-​ slate rule, were developed in conformity with the prevailing political circumstances. Presently, the continuity doctrine prevails to a certain extent. Although a range of factors will play a role in each case, one can broadly expect treatment to depend on the type of State succession at issue, most importantly: cession, merger and incorporation, dissolution and separation (secession), as well as (the now largely historical) cases of newly independent States.29 Since State succession is not governed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT),30 and only a few States are bound by the VCSST,31 the relevant legal regulations must generally be found in customary international law. As Brigitte Stern has argued,32 most of the relevant customary international law could be understood as merely the ‘translation’ of certain general principles of international law into the State succession context, such 21 The relevant number depends on whether Kosovo is counted as a new State. 22 See R Goy, ‘L’Independence de l’Erythrée’ (1993) AFDI 337–​56. 23 Y Ronen, Transition from Illegal Regimes under International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2011) 60–​1. 24 MA Martins, ‘An Alternative Approach to the International Law of State Succession: Lex Naturae and the Dissolution of Yugoslavia’ (1993) 44 Syracuse L Rev 1019, 1020. 25 J Moussa, ‘L’indépendance du Soudan du Sud et la Convention de Vienne sur la succession d’États en matière de traités’ in A Hêche and others (n 1) 1891–​935; see also MS Helal, ‘Inheriting International Rivers: State Succession to Territorial Obligations, South Sudan, and the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement’ (2013) 27 Emory Int’l L Rev 907, 911. 26 I Panoussis, ‘La succession d’États aux traités à l’épreuve du cas kosovar’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1853–​89. 27 See, with further references, Dumberry 2018 (n 3). 28 G Distefano, G Gaggioli, and A Hêche, ‘Introduction’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 3–​4 (highlighting various territories and separatist movements that could raise State succession issues). 29 But see the discussion of legal regimes not affected by State succession in Section I.D. 30 Art 73 VCLT (providing that the VCLT shall not prejudge any question that may arise in regard to a treaty from a succession of States); see also M Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 895–​904; H Krieger, ‘Article 73’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 1331–​40. Similarly, questions of State succession are left out of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations of 1986 (not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543. 31 As of 2019, twenty-​two States are parties to the VCSST; fifteen others are signatories. The latest State to accede was the Republic of Moldova on 9 February 2009. 32 B Stern, ‘La Succession d’Etats’ (1996) 262 RdC 164–​70.

386  Treaty Application as the uti possidetis principle,33 the principle of effectiveness of territorial regimes,34 the fundamental principle of consent as expressed in various provisions of the VCLT,35 and the principle relating to a fundamental change of circumstances (Article 62 VCLT). As a result of the ILC’s codification efforts, some of this customary international law is mirrored in the VCSST. In contrast to the VCLT, however, the VCSST reflects the respective customary rules only to a limited extent. As a treaty, the VCSST has not received widespread adherence, although it entered into force due to the limited number of ratifications required.36 The present state of affairs relating to treaty succession suggests that only some of the VCSST’s provisions can serve as a reliable guide to the current State of customary international law (eg Article 11’s continuation of all boundary regimes, Article 15’s ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule). Others constitute progressive development of international law (eg Article 31 in cases of incorporation; Article 34 in cases of separation). In any case, modern treaty succession distinguishes not only among the different cases of State succession, such as merger or dismemberment, but also among specific categories of treaties that are subject to different rules or principles. It is therefore difficult to identify a generally applicable legal regime of treaty succession. Although certain trends exist, how treaty succession is managed in any particular case still strongly depends on the particular political and other contexts in which cases of State succession occur.

I.  General Framework: Definitions, Theories, Effects, and Taxonomy of Treaty Succession A.  Definitions The VCSST’s definition of a ‘succession of States’ as laid out earlier37 is widely accepted.38 Although it only refers to cases of internationally lawful State succession,39 most cases of 33 ST Bernárdez, ‘The “Uti Possidetis Juris Principle” in Historical Perspective’ in K Ginther and others (eds), Völkerrecht zwischen normativem Anspruch und politischer Realität: Festschrift für Karl Zemanek zum 65. Geburtstag (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994) 417–​37. The ICJ described the uti possidetis principle—​ie the principle of the intangibility of frontiers inherited from colonization—​as a ‘general principle, which is logically connected with the phenomenon of the obtaining of independence, wherever it occurs’. Case concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Republic of Mali) [1986] ICJ Rep 554, 565. 34 Stern (n 32) 167–​8. 35 On the modulation of the operation of the principle of consent in the treaty succession context, see M Craven, ‘Ends of Consent’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 125–​6. 36 According to Art 49(1) VCSST, the Convention entered into force on the thirtieth day following the date of deposit of the fifteenth instrument of ratification or accession. The current parties to the VCSST are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Liberia, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia, and Ukraine. 37 Cf n 2 and accompanying text; O Udokang, Succession of New States to International Treaties (Oceana, Dobbs Ferry 1972) 106–​21; Y Makonnen, International Law and the New States of Africa: A Study of the International Legal Problems of State Succession in the Newly Independent States of Eastern Africa (Ethiopian National Agency for UNESCO 1983) 121–​8 (‘Makonnen 1983’); Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 9–​16; Tai-​Heng Cheng, State Succession and Commercial Obligations (Transnational Publishers, Ardsley 2006) 37–​53 (proposing a broader definition of State succession, covering cases of regime change); L Gradoni, ‘Article 2: Expressions employees’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 100–​9 (tracing the origins of Art 2 VCSST). 38 Cf Opinion No 1 of the Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia (Badinter Commission) 29 November 1991 [1992] 31 ILM 1494–​7, 1(e); Award of the Arbitration Tribunal for the Determination of the Maritime Boundary between Guinea-​Bissau and Senegal, 31 July 1989 (1992) RGDIP 265, English translation at . 39 See on this question below at n 44 and accompanying text.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  387 interest in this general overview may be subsumed under this definition due to its otherwise broad scope.40 Similarly, the VCSST defines the ‘successor State’ as the State ‘which has replaced another State on the occurrence of a succession of States’.41 Accordingly, a successor State need not necessarily be a new State, but could comprise an old one acquiring new territory to which the regime of State succession applies.42 The law of treaty succession is also structured around a number of other concepts, including those of ‘treaty’ and ‘reservation’, which are defined in the VCSST in the same terms as in the VCLT.43 In contrast, a ‘newly independent state’ is defined in Article 2(1)(f) VCSST as a specific type of successor State, namely one ‘the territory of which immediately before the date of the succession of States was a dependent territory for the international relations of which the predecessor State was responsible’. This definition reflects the historical backdrop of decolonization under which the VCSST was elaborated. Article 6 VCSST clarifies that the law of treaty succession applies only to cases of lawful State succession.44 Annexation, which may be understood as the ‘forcible acquisition of territory’ by a State,45 is thus to be kept separate from situations to which the law of treaty succession applies, such as cession or incorporation. Annexation is presently deemed to contradict fundamental postulates of general international law, such as the principle of the non-​use of force.46 Under the law of State responsibility, every State is under an obligation not to recognize as lawful a situation created by a breach of an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of international law, such as the prohibition of aggression.47 Recently, the problem of the inapplicability of the law of State succession to various territories subject to annexation has become relevant in practice and debated among scholars.48

40 Thus, certain revolutionary governments were allowed not to respect entirely the obligations of their predecessors. Whether this was simply a consequence of negotiation or a case of succession is debatable. See P Dailler, M Forteau, and A Pellet, Droit International Public (8th edn LGDJ, Paris 2009) 601. 41 Art 2(1)(c) VCSST. 42 Cf Art 15 VCSST. 43 Cf Art 2(1) VCSST on the use of terms. 44 See G Gaggioli, ‘Article 6: Cas de succession d’Etats visés par la présente convention’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 181–​225 (discussing Art 6, emphasizing its role in upholding the ‘coherence’ of an international legal system requiring the non-​recognition of illegal territorial changes). 45 See R Hofmann, ‘Annexation’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2013) online edition at ,  [1]‌. 46 Ibid [5]‌; TD Grant, ‘Annexation of Crimea’ (2015) 109 AJIL 68–​95. 47 ILC, ‘Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with Commentaries’ (2001) GAOR 56th Session Supp 10, 112–​16; UNGA, ‘Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts’ (2001) UN Doc A/​RES/​56/​83, Annex. 48 Zimmermann concludes that, in cases of illegal transfers of territory, a modified version of the State succession rules may apply, but does not imply a recognition of the illegal annexation. Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 24–​36. Recent cases brought against Russia over its internationally unlawful annexation of Crimea have triggered this debate anew. See eg D Costelloe, ‘Treaty Succession in Annexed Territory’ (2016) 65 ICLQ 343–​78 (concluding that ‘in some cases there is scope to find that a treaty applies extraterritorially in annexed territory, notably as a result of its object and purpose or its provisions, there may also be room, subject to the provisions of the treaty, for a limited form of treaty succession in such territory’); R Happ and S Wuschka, ‘Horror Vacui: Or Why Investment Treaties Should Apply to Illegally Annexed Territories’ (2016) 33 J Int’l Arb 245–​68 (arguing that ‘an extension of a state’s investment treaties to annexed territories can well be founded in the law of treaties and is supported by custom and general principles’); see also CJ Tams, ‘State Succession to Investment Treaties: Mapping the Issues’ (2016) 31 ICSID Rev 314–​43; OG Repousis and J Fry, ‘Armed Conflict and State Succession in Investor-​State Arbitration’ (2016) 22 Columbia J Euro Law 421–​50; P Dumberry, ‘Requiem for Crimea: Why Tribunals Should Have Declined Jurisdiction over the Claims of Ukrainian Investors against Russian under the Ukraine–​Russia BIT’ (2018) 9 J Int’l Disp Settlement 506–​33.

388  Treaty Application

B.  The spectrum of opinions: from clean-​slate to universal succession Over the years, various scholars49 and expert bodies, such as the International Law Association (ILA),50 the ILC,51 and the Institute of International Law (IDI),52 have attempted to address the legal problems related to State succession. The applicable international law has a highly uncertain character, primarily because State practice itself has been—​and remains—​largely inconsistent.53 Different theories and approaches to treaty succession rose to prominence depending on the respective political context and States’ changing attitudes towards the integration of new States into existing international society. This has led to a permanent fluctuation between theories.54 Thus, Makonnen55 distinguished: (i) the theory of universal succession first put forward by Grotius and later adopted by a number of jurists; (ii) the popular continuity theory (a variation of the universal succession theory taking regard of obligations of a ‘political character’); (iii) the organic substitution theory of continuity (as first advanced by Huber and constituting an adaptation of the universal succession theory); (iv) the clean-​slate (or tabula rasa) theory with its socialist aberration (the latter also considering radical changes in government as cases of State succession); (v) a theory of continuity of rights and obligations by virtue of the general principles of law, attributed to O’Connell; and (vi) moderate theories of continuity, taking an intermediate stance between the clean-​slate and universal succession theories.56 It can safely be argued that each of these theories was developed subject to a particular political context and ideology. Changes in context and ideology frequently prompted changing theories. In general, the spectrum of approaches to treaty succession has ranged between two poles: the clean-​slate rule (tabula rasa doctrine or negative theory), on the one hand, and the theory of continuity, on the other. The clean-​slate rule holds that upon a change of sovereignty over territory the new sovereign is absolutely free of any obligations that bound its predecessor. This doctrine puts emphasis on the complete and automatic discontinuity of all rights and obligations upon State succession.57 Under the continuity theory, in contrast, all treaties existing at the date of succession continue to bind the successor State, which—​as Beato notes—​in some sense ‘inherits all pre-​separation treaties whether or not

49 Cf Hêche and others (n 1); Dumberry 2018 (n 3); A Zimmermann and JG Devaney, ‘Succession to treaties and the inherent limits of international law’ in C Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014) 505–​40; Craven (n 15) 29–​51. 50 ILA, The Effect of Independence on Treaties: A Handbook (Stevens & Sons, London 1965); ILA Committee on Aspects of the Law of State Succession, Draft Conference Report Rio de Janeiro Conference (2008) (‘ILA Draft Conference Report 2008’). 51 Cf n 16. 52 IDI, ‘State Succession in Matters of State Responsibility (Marcelo Kohen, Rapporteur)’ in Yearbook of the Institute of International Law, Vol 76 (Pedone, Paris 2016) (‘Kohen Report’). See also MG Kohen and P Dumberry, The Institute of International Law’s Resolution on State Succession and State Responsibility: Introduction, Text and Commentaries (CUP, Cambridge 2019). 53 Cf references at n 1 and 6. 54 This overview of theoretical approaches draws on Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 129–​44 and is based on Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 2. 55 This list is taken from Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 129–​44; cf also A Reinisch and G Hafner, Staatensukzession und Schuldenübernahme (Wien, Berlin 1995) 35. 56 Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 129–​44. 57 Ibid 132–​3 with reference to a slightly modified theory of Keith according to whom rights, but not obligations, would pass to the successor.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  389 the predecessor state continues to exist’.58 As discussed later, under customary international law and the VCSST, more sophisticated and more complex rules have developed than would follow from simply applying either the clean-​slate principle or the continuity theory’s rule of universal succession. Nevertheless, the dichotomy of universal succession and clean-​ slate sheds light on the varying concepts of international law underlying the respective approaches59 and serves to frame the variety of available solutions to the highly contextual legal problems raised by State succession.

C.  International and domestic legal effects of treaty succession The international legal effects of treaty succession may be understood as the establishment of new treaty relations different from those that existed between the other party and the predecessor State. These effects occur regardless of whether the predecessor State continues to exist or not. Although it may be disputed in some details—​in particular with regard to the existence of a norm of general international law and its precise content—​the view expressed by Kelsen thus still seems adequate: ‘[D]‌evolution of obligations and rights of one State on another does not imply identity of these obligations and rights; it means only that general international law imposes upon the successor State certain obligations and confers upon it certain rights which have the same content as certain obligations and rights of the predecessor.’60 In contrast to the attention devoted to the international legal effects of treaty succession, with the exception of O’Connell,61 doctrine has remained rather silent as to the legal effects of treaty succession in domestic law. That, however, neither reduces the issue’s complexity nor diminishes its importance. If treaty succession is understood as some sort of ‘novation’62—​creating new treaty relations—​the question remains how these new relations produce legal effects within the domestic legal order. This is important because domestic constitutional systems usually require that new treaties be approved by the legislature prior to their ratification, but do not require such approval in order to establish new treaty relations via treaty succession. This raises several interesting, but as yet, unresolved questions. For example, can a rule of general international law on treaty succession, if it exists, replace the procedure required by the relevant national constitution to make a treaty applicable within that domestic legal system?63 A further problem

58 AM Beato, ‘Newly Independent and Separating States’ Succession to Treaties: Considerations on the Hybrid Dependency of the Republics of the Former Soviet Union’ (1994) 9 Am U J Intl L & Pol’y 525, 537; Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 7. 59 In this context, Degan discerns, on the one hand, a collectivist (solidariste) and, on the other, a voluntarist conception of international law. Cf VD Degan, ‘Création et disparition de l’Etat’ (1999) 279 RdC 205. Cf Zimmermann and Devaney (n 49) 516–​18 (questioning the usefulness of this dichotomy). 60 H Kelsen, Principles of International Law (Rinehart and Company, New York 1952) 296. Seen as such, the creation of new treaty relations can also be compared to the institution of subrogation relevant, in particular, to the international legal regime of investment protection. Cf M Sornarajah, The International Law on Foreign Investment (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2010) 222; cf also Udokang (n 37) 456–​63. 61 DP O’Connell, State Succession in Municipal Law and International Law (CUP, Cambridge 1967) vol II, 335–​ 51 (‘O’Connell 1967’). 62 Ibid 349–​51 (also discussing the link between continued domestic application of a treaty upon State succession and the international law of State succession). 63 Thus, it can even be asked whether a treaty subject to implementing legislation because of its non-​self-​ executing nature remains applicable or requires new implementing legislation assuming the continuation of a treaty in relation to a new State. Cf ibid.

390  Treaty Application is created when the predecessor State only provisionally applies a treaty and the question arises whether and under what conditions the treaty becomes provisionally applicable on a successor State.64 To a large extent, the answers to these questions will depend on the particular constitutions of the respective successor States, and their relationship to international law.

D.  Taxonomy of State succession The ILC, associations of experts, and various scholars have developed—​or implicitly applied—​a range of typologies to differentiate various cases of State succession in light of their legal effects.65 Even if such typologies are largely heuristic devices, it is undeniable that particular types of treaty succession are distinguishable in law.66 For instance, practice indicates that it is important to distinguish cases of State separation where the predecessor continues to exist from those where it ceases to exist, as in cases of dismemberment. Important cases of State succession broadly include the cession of part of a State forming a new State (eg generally the cases of newly independent States) or becoming part of another already existing State (eg the cases of Hong Kong, Macao, and Walvis Bay), the separation of parts of territory from a continuator State (eg the case of the former USSR, or of South Sudan), the complete breaking up of a State into different new ones (eg the case of the former SFRY), the uniting of two or more States into a new one (eg the case of Yemen), or the mere disappearance of a State, the territory of which is incorporated into another State (particularly the case of the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)). Treaty succession tends to operate differently in each of these scenarios. The practice thus suggests the following taxonomy for devising an overview of the main customary rules or guiding principles: (1) newly independent States; (2) cession; (3) incorporation; (4) merger; (5) separation or secession; and (6) dissolution. At the same time, legal approaches to treaty succession correlate not only with particular categories of State succession; they can also turn on the type of treaty at issue. Particular treaty types—​such as those relating to boundaries or those whose continued application would be incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty concerned—​are governed by special rules or are not affected by the legal regime of State succession at all. As an aside, it should be noted that a roughly analogous typology is reflected in the practice of succession by IOs.67

64 ILC, ‘Fourth report on the provisional application of treaties, by Juan Manuel Gómez-​Robledo, Special Rapporteur’ (23 June 2016) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​699, 21 [101]. 65 See Stern (n 32) 111–​16 (proposing an influential taxonomy of State succession); A Watts, The International Law Commission, 1949–​1998 (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1999) vol II, 990 (noting that the ILC ‘prepared its draft Articles [in light of] the different circumstances in which a succession of States might occur’). 66 Cf the collection of practice in J Klabbers and others (eds), State Practice Regarding State Succession and Issues of Recognition: The Pilot Project of the Council of Europe (Kluwer, London 1999); Kohen Report (n 52) 520 (noting that ‘[t]‌he majority of the [Institute’s] members expressed the view that the categories employed by the 1978 and 1983 Vienna Conventions should be employed, at least as a starting point, without prejudice to their test against the facts and to their non-​exhaustive character’). 67 See K Schmalenbach, ‘International Organizations or Institutions, Succession’ in R Wolfrum (ed), The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2017) online edition at [4]–​[9] (distinguishing dissolution and replacement, ‘functional rationalization’, merger, integration, and separation).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  391

1. Newly independent States The VCSST singles out newly independent States for special treatment. Such States are defined as successor States ‘the territory of which immediately before the date of the succession of States was a dependent territory for the international relations of which the predecessor State was responsible’.68 This category was the result of the wave of new States emerging from decolonization,69 a process that pushed the issue of State succession itself onto the ILC’s codification agenda.70 Many newly independent developing States rejected the notion of a continuity of treaty relations.71 In their view, the continuity theory was based on the distinct economic circumstances and international relations of the industrialized countries and was at odds with the situation faced by newly independent developing ones.72 These new States therefore sought to free themselves of the treaties concluded by colonial powers.73 They invoked principles of State sovereignty, equality, self-​determination, and permanent sovereignty over natural wealth and resources to justify this position. In terms of treaty succession, they favoured an optional theory that would allow them to choose which treaties to continue. In light of these claims and their historical context, the ILC chose to develop a bifurcated codification of the law of treaty succession.74 One part of the treaty succession codification applied to ‘newly independent States’ and was based on the optional theory. The other part applied a modified continuity regime to all other cases of State succession. This distinction was then incorporated into the VCSST as well as the 1983 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of State Property, Archives, and Debts.75 But as the process of decolonization came largely to an end,76 the newly independent States classification lost much of its relevance. By 1999, when the ILC submitted to the UN General Assembly draft articles on nationality of natural persons in relation to the succession of States, the category was no longer employed.77 2. Cession of territory Cession of territory results from territorial changes not accompanied by a new State’s creation or the extinction of an old one. Cession was defined by Oppenheim as ‘the transfer 68 Art 2(1)(f) VCSST. 69 The ILC considered ‘newly independent states’ to include ‘any case of emergence to independence of any former dependent territories, whatever its particular type may be’, including ‘colonies, trusteeships, mandates, protectorates, etc’. Cf [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 176; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 225–​44. However, such States raise certain problems regarding the definition of their predecessor; so, for instance, the Vienna Conference on State Succession with Regard to Treaties adopted a resolution that denied South Africa the status as predecessor of Namibia. This resolution, nevertheless, did not decide which other State could qualify as such, whether it was Germany as the Namibia’s former colonial power (‘Deutsch Südwest Afrika’) or Great Britain whose dominion South Africa was at that time. See UN Doc A/​CONF.80/​32 (Annex). 70 At its first session in 1949, the ILC did not give priority to State succession. [1968] YBILC, vol II, 213 [29]. Prompted by UNGA Resolution 1686 (XVI) (18 December 1961), the ILC included succession on its priority list in 1962. See D’Aspremont (n 15) 1783–​804. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid; Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 201. 73 Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 201. 74 Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 3. 75 UN Doc A/​CONF.117/​14 (not yet in force). 76 This general trend has exceptions. Thus, Timor-​Leste’s independence is generally classified as a case of decolonization and ‘newly independent statehood’. See eg E Henry, ‘Article 16: Position à l’égard des traités’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 603. Moreover, a number of territories remain listed as non-​self-​governing territories by the UNGA’s ‘Committee of 24’. See 2018 Committee of 24 Report (n 14). 77 But see n 260 and accompanying text with respect to the ILC’s recent work on reservations.

392  Treaty Application of sovereignty over state territory by the owner-​state to another state’.78 Instances of cession were seen in the 1867 cession of Alaska,79 the 1871 cession of Alsace and Lorraine by France to the German Empire, provisions of the Treaties of Versailles, St Germain and Trianon following the First World War, the Treaties following the Second World War relating to Germany, Italy, Romania, and Hungary, the 1962 cession of West New Guinea to Indonesia,80 the 1994 transfer of Walvis Bay from South Africa to Namibia,81 as well as the retransfers of Hong Kong82 and Macao83 from the United Kingdom and Portugal to China in 1997 and 1999, respectively.

3. Incorporation The VCSST is silent on a situation of one or more States being incorporated into another and the incorporated State ceasing to exist. However, the incorporation of the GDR, which became part of the FRG in 1990,84 provides a recent and important example of this scenario. Historical cases of incorporation have been identified in cases such as the accession of Texas to the United States in 1845,85 Italian unification in 1860, the 1866 expansion of Prussia,86 the 1871 creation of the German Empire,87 Britain’s 1886 incorporation of Burma,88 France’s 1885/​96 incorporation of Madagascar,89 the United States’ 1898 incorporation of Hawaii,90 or the Kingdom of Yugoslavia’s incorporation of Montenegro.91 Newer cases include Malaysia’s 1963 incorporation of Singapore,92 and arguably, the unification of the two Vietnamese States in 1976.93 4. Merger Important cases of merger, where two or more States decide to form a new State, have been observed in the 1958 merger of Egypt and Syria to form the United Arab Republic (UAR),94 the 1964 merger of Tanganyika and Zanzibar to form Tanzania as well as the union, based on a 1990 merger, of the Yemen Arab Republic and the State of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.95

78 RY Jennings and AD Watts (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law Vol I (9th edn Longman, London 2008) 680. 79 O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 31–​2, 54–​5. 80 Ibid 31–​48; O’Connell 1967, vol II (n 61) 25–​112; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 176–​7. 81 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 447–​9. 82 R Mushkat, ‘Hong Kong and Succession of Treaties’ (1997) 46 ICLQ 181 et seq. 83 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 444–​6. 84 Ibid 245–​82. 85 Ibid  134–​5. 86 Ibid  135–​6. 87 Ibid 136. 88 Ibid 137. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid 137; O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 21–​2. 91 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 141–​2. 92 S Jayakumar, ‘Singapore and State Succession:  International Relations and Internal Law’ (1970) 19 ICLQ 398–​423. 93 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 123–​5. 94 E Cotran, ‘Some Legal Aspects of the Formation of the United Arab Republic and the United Arab States’ (1959) 8 ICLQ 346–​90. 95 C Dunbar, ‘The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics and Prospects’ (1992) Middle East J 456; R Goy, ‘La reunification du Yémen’ (1990) AFDI 249.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  393

5. Separation In cases of separation (sometimes called secession), one of the entities existing on the territory of the predecessor State separates and forms a new State. The remaining part is treated as formally identical to the predecessor State, albeit having a more limited geographical and demographic scope, and continues its legal personality. Recent examples of separation include Eritrea’s armed struggle to separate from Ethiopia, culminating in the 1993 independence referendum,96 the creation of new States on the territory of the former USSR, and South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Following the dismemberment of former Yugoslavia, Montenegro, and Kosovo (if it is recognized as a new State) separated from Serbia, which continued its legal personality.97 6. Dissolution Dissolution occurs when a part (or parts) of the territory of a State separate and form one or more new States with the predecessor State ceasing to exist. The most important recent cases of dissolution include the break-​up of the former Yugoslavia (SFRY) as well as the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia (CSFR). An earlier case of dissolution was the dismemberment of the Republic of Great Colombia into Ecuador, New Grenada, and Venezuela.98

II.  The Substance of the Law of Treaty Succession The clean-​slate rule and the continuity theory have framed the debate about the law of treaty succession, subject, however, to the ability of successor States and third States to agree on their treaty relations. Since at least the nineteenth century, the clean-​slate (tabula rasa) rule was favoured by some and considered complementary to the principle of self-​ determination.99 Formerly colonized countries in particular relied on this doctrine to resist treaties concluded by their former colonizers and in whose elaboration they were not involved. The ILC later accepted it for the category of ‘newly independent States’, even if the relevant practice before 1978 was not entirely conclusive. In contrast, the continuity theory is supported by an analogy from general customary international law, which binds new States, including newly independent States, despite their inability to participate in its formation. As a result, denying the continued application of at least certain general multilateral treaties is difficult to justify. Moreover, putting to one side the special case of newly independent States, other political considerations favour a general application of the clean-​slate doctrine and a presumption of treaty continuity. Modern States are embedded in an intensive set of commonly shared values and interests governing 96 Goy (n 22) 337–​56. 97 See also Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1). 98 E Williamson and J Osborne, ‘A U.S. Perspective on Treaty Succession and Related Issues in the Wake of the Breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia’ (1993) 33 VJIL 261 et seq (citing further examples). 99 See Y Makonnen, ‘State Succession in Africa: Selected Problems’ (1986-​V) RdC 107–​8 (noting that the ‘clean-​slate doctrine of State succession is a product of the nineteenth-​century theories of international law’) (‘Makonnen 1986’); Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 166 (noting that a survey of twentieth-​century scholars shows that ‘the opinions of jurists [were] almost unanimous in holding that the clean-​slate rule doctrine is most widely accepted and whatever contrary evidence is available in state practice [was] governed by treaties and by other political arrangements’).

394  Treaty Application the social life of their peoples, all of which are embodied in—​as well as the product of—​ dense treaty relations. The density of these treaty relations rules out any clear-​cut clean-​ slate concept. Social life, which is to a significant extent and increasingly also cross-​border, undoubtedly relies on continuity. A breakdown of relations underpinned by this web of treaty relations prompted by a case of State succession would severely damage the stability of international society. In addition, international society can no longer be—​if it ever could have been—​conceived as one merely of States, but also includes non-​governmental actors, in particular individuals. This context is visible in nearly all parts of the world, but especially pronounced in Europe, where transnational instead of intergovernmental transboundary cooperation is the rule.100 A termination of treaties carving the legal frame and foundation for those transnational contacts and cooperation would entail an end to such transnational policy. Only when the relevant social context radically changes due to a political transformation involving State succession could the termination of treaty relations appear appropriate. State practice seems to have sensed this need. Hence, the clean-​slate rule has not reflected the state of affairs of existing international relations, particularly in respect of States belonging to the same geographical region or those purporting to share the same basic values.101 These considerations are certainly applicable to the latest wave of State succession cases. Nonetheless, no settled State practice supports the exclusive general validity of this doctrine. The only conclusion which can safely be drawn is that a universally applicable rule of international law for treaty succession does not yet exist, neither one based on the clean-​ slate rule nor on the continuity theory (although a certain tendency towards the latter cannot be denied). Rather, different rules and practices have emerged for the categories of State succession outlined above and with respect to particular kinds of treaties and contexts.

A.  Unilateral declarations and devolution agreements A preliminary word on the practice of unilateral declarations and devolution agreements is necessary before discussing the law applicable to specific categories of State succession and particular types of treaties. As a general matter, the legal effects of treaty succession result from the application of a generally applicable rule of international law, either derived from customary international law or treaty law (eg the VCSST for those States party to it). Moreover, in almost all cases a specific rule can be agreed upon by the relevant States, that is, the new State and the State which is the other party to the relevant treaty. A new State may also conclude a devolution agreement with the predecessor State or issue a unilateral declaration on treaty succession.102 Both of these instruments purport 100 According to the universalists who rely on Kant, international relations rest on the transnational bonds between individuals, all of whom share common interests. Cf ‘Taking Reichs Seriously: German Unification and the Law of State Succession’ (1990) 104 Harv L Rev 588, 602. 101 Thus, the United States departed from the position laid down in the Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987) in favour of considerations dictated by the need for stability of legal rights and obligations. Cf Williamson and Osborne (n 98) 261, 263–​5. 102 Cf UN Legislative Series, Materials on Succession of States, UN Doc ST/​LEG/​SER.B/​14 (United Nations, New  York 1967)  (including examples of earlier practice); OG Rapousis, ‘State Succession and Devolution Agreements Revisited: A Note on Sanum v. Laos’ (2018) 21 Max Planck Ybk UN Law 353, 372–​5 (discussing effect of devolution agreements in context of recent arbitral case).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  395 to indicate those treaties to which the new State has (or has not) succeeded. As the VCSST confirms, however, neither a unilateral declaration by the successor State (Article 9) nor a devolution agreement between the predecessor and successor State (Article 8) can of itself have any legal effect on another State party. The other party to the treaty must usually acquiesce or explicitly express its consent thereto pursuant to the notion that a treaty cannot create rights or obligations for a third party without its consent (the pacta tertiis rule).103 A declaration of succession has no legal effect with respect to State succession in treaties, other than as a notification of succession by a newly independent State pursuant to Articles 17 and 18 VCSST. In this respect, Article 9(1) VCSST undoubtedly reflects customary international law in providing that a State does not succeed to treaties ‘by reason only of the fact that the successor State has made a unilateral declaration providing for the continuance in force of the treaties in respect of its territory’.104 This understanding is confirmed by the UN Secretary-​General’s practice according to which general declarations of succession do not suffice to establish the State’s status as a party to a multilateral treaty.105 Thus, the Secretary-​ General’s practice is to duly comply with a new State’s request to circulate its ‘general’ declaration of succession to all UN members, but not to ‘consider such a declaration as a valid instrument of succession to any of the treaties deposited with’ the Secretary-​General while informing the new State of this position.106 Despite the lack of legal effect of devolution agreements and unilateral declarations for third States,107 they remain significant in practice, as the example of Hong Kong108 or declarations issued by the SFRY’s successor States indicate.109 As to multilateral treaties, it has been the practice of depositaries—​particularly the UN Secretary-​General—​to request a successor State to specially confirm the succession expressed in its respective devolution agreement.110 In general, both devolution agreements and unilateral declarations enunciate the attitude of the relevant successor State111 and thus further predictability and stability in the context of an area of law otherwise tending towards uncertainty.

B.  Newly independent States Part III VCSST (Articles 16–​30) prescribes specific rules for treaty succession involving newly independent States.112 The practice was inconsistent at the time of the VCSST’s adoption. Its provisions—​namely Articles 17 and 27—​applied a modified version of the 103 See J Charney, ‘Universal International Law’ (1993) 87 AJIL 529, 534–​42 (questioning whether and when international law should bind non-​consenting States). 104 Cf A Kolliopoulos, ‘Article 9: Déclaration unilatérale d’un État successeur concernant les traités de l’État prédécesseur’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 329. 105 Treaty Section, UN Office of Legal Affairs, Summary of Practice of the Secretary-​General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties (UN, New York 1994) UN Doc ST/​LEG/​7/​Rev. 1 (‘UN Depositary Practice’). 106 Ibid [303]. 107 Cf Makonnen 1983 (n 37) 278–​82; PK Menon, The Succession of States in Respect to Treaties, State Property, Archives, and Debts (Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston 1991) 4–​9. 108 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 336–​40; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 155–​8. 109 Kolliopoulos (n 104) 314–​17. 110 See [1962] YBILC, vol II, 122 [133] (cited in Watts (n 65) 1019). 111 See Aust (n 108) 322–​6. 112 On provisional application, see Chapter 10 of this volume.

396  Treaty Application clean-​slate doctrine known as the Nyerere formula.113 According to this formula, international agreements dating from colonial times should be renegotiated when a State becomes independent, since the nation should not be bound by a treaty that it was not in a sovereign position to conclude at that time.114 Accordingly, such a State should be entitled—​ upon its independence—​to review the international treaties of its colonial power and decide which of the agreements it would accept and which repudiate. Such an ‘optional’ approach to events of State succession was certainly not new; however, it can hardly be stated that it was already recognized under customary international law. In contrast to the pure tabula rasa (clean-​slate) doctrine, the Nyerere formula differs to the extent that under the former a new State emerges without any of the obligations of the predecessor State whereas, under the latter, this is only an assumption.115 The Nyerere formula does not rule out or prejudice the possibility, or desirability, of renewal (after a legal interruption during the succession) of commitments or agreements of mutual interest to the parties concerned.116 Both the doctrine and the formula, with variations in specific cases, served as a framework for State succession among East African States as well as for many other developing countries. In most instances, predecessor States and third States have accepted—​if not indeed supported—​the application of the Nyerere formula.117 Thus, while at the time of its elaboration the practice of newly independent States was not entirely consistent, the practice of States after 1978 shows that the provisions of Part III VCSST have largely been followed. In particular, States followed the practice of provisional application enshrined in Article 27 VCSST in respect of multilateral treaties in line with the Nyerere formula.118 With the end of the process of decolonization, however, these rules for newly independent States have ceased to be particularly pertinent in modern practice.119

C.  Succession of States other than newly independent States 1. Cession of territory Article 15 VCSST prescribes the so-​called ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule to cases of cession of territory.120 According to this rule, when part of the territory of one State becomes part of the territory of another, treaties of the former cease to apply to the territory while 113 See Nyerere (n 116); see also Makonnen 1986 (n 99) 146–​8. 114 Makonnen 1986 (n 99) 121–​4. 115 Ibid. 116 See J Nyerere, ‘Problems of State Succession in Africa: Statement of the Prime Minister of Tanganyika’ (1962) 11 ICLQ 1211, 1211–​12 (‘[W]‌e are willing on a basis of reciprocity to continue in force for a period of two years from Independence Day all valid bilateral treaties which would otherwise have ended when we became an independent State. During that two-​year period, we will negotiate with the States concerned with a view, where appropriate, to continuing or changing these treaties in a mutually acceptable manner. We are also willing and anxious that Tanganyika should play her role in the family of nations by participation not only in those multi-​lateral treaties which the United Kingdom may have extended or applied to the territory of Tanganyika but also even in those not so applied. However, because of the wide range of subject-​matter covered by such treaties and also of the difficulties of applying the interim solution proposed for bilateral treaties, we have considered that the simplest solution is to deal with each of these treaties by specific arrangements as soon as possible. We are, however, prepared on a basis of reciprocity to treat such instruments as being in force vis-​à-​vis other States who rely upon them in their relations with Tanganyika’). 117 Makonnen 1986 (n 99) 139–​43; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 830. 118 See also M Pertile, ‘Article 27: Traités multilatéraux’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 986–​7. 119 But cf n 76–77​and accompanying text. 120 See the text of Art 15 VCSST (Succession in respect of part of territory).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  397 the treaties of the latter extend to the territory. State practice before and after 1978 has confirmed the rule as part of customary international law.121 For example, the retransfer of Hong Kong by the United Kingdom to China was subject to particular agreements,122 which per se do not have third party effect, but were guided by the ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule. More recently, the same rule was confirmed by the Court of Appeal of Singapore with respect to the territorial scope of application (in respect of Macao) of the bilateral investment treaty between China and Laos.123 The Swiss Federal Supreme Court also applied the ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule by analogy in the context of a case implicating an investment agreement between Ukraine and Russia. However, as noted, the applicability of the law of State succession to cases of annexation is generally excluded.124

2. Incorporation The VCSST did not anticipate or accommodate the important case of the former GDR that was incorporated into the FRG. Neither Article 31 VCSST relating to the ‘effects of a uniting of States in respect of treaties in force at the date of the succession of States’125 nor Article 15 relating to the ‘succession in respect of part of territory’ covered the complete incorporation of one State by another, existing State. It is undisputed that the GDR enjoyed the status of a State as a separate subject of international law,126 irrespective of the particular view of the FRG.127 But, by 3 October 1990, the GDR ceased to exist as a separate State and became part of the FRG. This unification did not result in a new State; the FRG remained identical with the FRG before unification, albeit enlarged in terms of territory and population. Still on the eve of this event, both States agreed on the regulation of questions relating to treaties concluded by them. Article 11 of the Unification Treaty128 provided for the automatic extension of treaties concluded by the FRG to the entire territory of the State, in application of the ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule, except for certain explicitly mentioned treaties deemed of a ‘highly political’ nature. As to the GDR’s treaties, according to Article 12 of the Unification Treaty, these were to become the subject of negotiations between Germany and the relevant other State party, taking into account various factors, including the need for ‘protection of confidence’, the interests of the States concerned, the FRG’s treaty obligations, the competence of the EC, as well as the principles of a ‘free, democratic basic order governed by the rule of law’.129 It was further

121 Cf eg Stern (n 32) 169; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 823–​4. 122 Cf Joint Declaration of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Question of Hong Kong (signed 19 December 1984)  1399 UNTS 61; Joint Declaration of the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of Portugal on the Question of Macao (signed 13 April 1987) 1498 UNTS 229; Aust (n 108) 336–​40. 123 Sanum Investments Ltd v Government of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic [2016] SGCA 57. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson publicly repudiated the Court’s holding with respect to the treaty’s applicability to Macao. See Rapousis (n 102). 124 See Section I.A. See also Russian Federation v A and others, Swiss Federal Supreme Court, 16 October 2018, 4A_​398/​2017, ILDC 2961 (CH 2018) (report and analysis by Odile Ammann). 125 See Section II.C.3. 126 Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 9–​10; RW Piotrowicz and others, The Unification of Germany in International and Domestic Law (Rodopi, Amsterdam 1997) 73–​84. 127 The GDR was, like the FRG, a UN member and a State party to numerous bilateral and multilateral treaties. 128 [1991] 30 ILM 463. 129 Ibid 472; see also JA Frowein, ‘The Reunification of Germany’ (1992) 86 AJIL 152, 158.

398  Treaty Application envisaged that Germany would define its final stance concerning those treaties only after consultations with the other parties to the treaty concerned.130 For future situations of incorporation, the case of the former GDR131 indicates that Article 31 VCSST is not a reliable guide to the relevant customary international law. In contrast, the principle of the ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule generally remains applicable, that is, the treaties of the incorporated State cease to apply while the remaining State’s treaties remain in force and extend to the enlarged territory.132 As noted, the law and practice of succession by IOs offers a point of comparison. For example, there are parallels between incorporation in the State succession context and the case of a newly created or pre-​existing IO succeeding to the treaties previously binding on a dissolved IO.133

3. Merger In contrast to incorporation, the case of Yemenite unification and other instances of a union of States with the predecessor States ceasing to exist point to Article 31 VCSST as expressing an emerging customary rule for merger.134 In this context, the VCSST enshrines a territorially limited continuity approach. In particular, Article 31(1) provides that ‘[w]‌hen two or more States unite and so form one successor State, any treaty in force at the date of the succession of States in respect of any of them continues in force in respect of the successor State’ unless the States otherwise agree or ‘it appears from the treaty or is otherwise established that the application of the treaty in respect of the successor State would be incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty or would radically change the conditions for its operation’. Article 31(2) provides that any treaty continuing in force under Article 31(1) ‘shall apply only in respect of the part of the territory of the successor State in respect of which the treaty was in force at the date of the succession of States’ unless, in the case of a multilateral treaty not of the category mentioned in Article 17(3),135 ‘the successor State makes a notification that the treaty shall apply in respect of its entire territory’ or, in all cases, unless ‘the successor State and the other States Parties otherwise agree’. The unified Republic of Yemen was created pursuant to a 1990 agreement between North and South Yemen.136 A corresponding joint letter addressed to the UN Secretary-​ General accepted Article 31’s direction that the treaties of both States should continue, declaring that ‘all treaties and agreements concluded between either the Yemen Arab Republic or the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and other States and international

130 Cf with respect to consultations Klabbers and others (n 66) 88. 131 Cf certain exceptions in Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 246–​82. 132 See ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 8–​10; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 831. Cf A-​L Graf-​Brugère, ‘Article 31: Effets d’une unification d’États à l’égard des traités en vigueur à la date de la succession d’États’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1097. 133 But see Schmalenbach (n 67)  [4]‌(categorizing the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Community, and the European Union as a case of ‘dissolution and replacement’). 134 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6)  283–​5; D Cottran, ‘Some Legal Aspects of the Formation of the United Arab Republic and the United Arab States’ (1959) 8 ICLQ 346; M Shaw, International Law (8th edn CUP, Cambridge 2017) 730–​1. Cf Graf-​Brugère (n 132) 1098–​9. 135 Art 17(3) VCSST provides: ‘When, under the terms of the treaty or by reason of the limited number of the negotiating States and the object and purpose of the treaty, the participation of any other State in the treaty must be considered as requiring the consent of all the parties, the newly independent State may establish its status as a party to the treaty only with such consent.’ 136 Agreement between the Yemen Arab Republic and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen on the Establishment of the Republic of Yemen (done 22 April 1990, entered into force 21 May 1990) translation in [1991] 32 ILM 820.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  399 organizations in accordance with international law which are in force on 22 May 1990 will remain in effect’.137

4. Separation Article 34 is one of the core VCSST provisions, adopting a continuity theory for separating States other than newly independent States. It provides that ‘any treaty in force at the date of the succession of States in respect of the entire territory of the predecessor State continues in force in respect of each successor State so formed’. Any treaty that applied only to that part of the territory of the predecessor State which has become a successor State is likewise to continue in force in respect of the latter only. With regard to a remaining predecessor State, Article 35 VCSST provides that existing treaties remain in force after the succession in respect of the remaining territory, likewise subject to special agreement by the States concerned and the nature of the treaty in question. The ILC’s commentary on draft Articles 32 to 34, which became Articles 33 to 35 VCSST, reveals that State practice was not entirely consistent.138 Nevertheless, it suggested a sufficiently clear trend supporting the ILC’s compromise on these draft articles.139 In reality, however, inconsistencies in the practice before and after the VCSST’s adoption cast doubts on whether the continuity rule expressed in Article 34 VCSST applies to all cases of separation.140 Generally, the most recent practice of successor States in cases of separation has been less uniform than in the recent cases of dissolution.141 That practice nevertheless offers support for Article 34’s limitations on the continued legal force of treaties insofar as the States concerned (the parties to the relevant treaty) could otherwise agree or continuity as reflected in Article 34(1) VCSST would not apply if ‘it appears from the treaty or is otherwise established that the application of the treaty in respect of the successor State would be incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty or would radically change the conditions for its operation’. With regard to bilateral treaties, this limit is usually reflected in the practice of States through an agreement on a list of treaties that are considered to be still applicable. This list is deemed to be declaratory only;142 it is normally not submitted to parliamentary approval or other domestic constitutional procedures generally required for the conclusion of treaties.143 Practice also shows that, in the case of multilateral treaties, succession has generally been deemed admissible with ex tunc effect upon a notification of succession.144 In the case of bilateral treaties, however, succession was 137 Ibid. 138 [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 260–​6; Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 3. 139 Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 3. 140 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 832; Klabbers and others (n 66) 100, 102; see also Humphrey Waldock, Fourth Report on Succession in re Treaties, UN Doc. A/​CN4/​249, 1971 YBILC, vol II(1), 146 [2–​3] (emphasizing in the Commentary that—​for bilateral treaties especially—​their personal character and the need for a new treaty relationship with the other State party counselled against a rule of continuity). 141 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 832. 142 See the list of bilateral treaties drawn up by Austria and the Czech Republic: ‘Promulgation of the Federal Chancellor concerning the bilateral treaties in force between the Republic of Austria and the Czech Republic’ (31 July 1997) Federal Law Gazette III No 123/​1997. Similar lists have been annexed to agreements between other States, see ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 14. 143 In contrast, the United States and Ukraine concluded an international agreement detailing the terms of Ukraine’s succession to various US–​USSR treaties. Agreement Concerning the Succession of Ukraine to Bilateral Treaties between the United States and the Former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with Annex (Exchange of notes at Kiev 10 May 1995) reprinted in (1995) 89 AJIL 761–​2; S Cummins and D Stewart (eds), Digest of United States Practice in International Law 1991–​1999, Vol I (International Law Institute, Washington DC 2005) 748–​50. 144 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 831–​3.

400  Treaty Application made subject to individual appraisals by the parties, although generally a tendency towards continuity has been maintained.145 In that sense, the original scheme for succession to bilateral treaties as formulated by Waldock, which did not distinguish between newly independent States and others in the case of bilateral treaties, remains instructive.146 Important recent cases of separation concerned the former republics of the USSR, Eritrea, Timor-​ Leste, Montenegro, Kosovo (if the latter is considered a State), and South Sudan. As far as their legal status is concerned, the States presently existing on the territory of the former USSR cannot be treated in an equal manner.147 Notably, the Baltic States did not consider themselves new States but identical with those existing prior to the Second World War and occupied since then by the USSR. As a result, they declined any succession to treaties entered into by the USSR.148 Despite singular views to the contrary,149 the opinion prevails that the Baltic States re-​established the Statehood they possessed before 1940150 and, therefore, did not fall under the regime of State succession.151 Moreover, although the Baltic States contended they were newly independent States, they were not entitled to that qualification and State practice since then has generally rejected their qualification as such.152 Ukraine and Belarus also operated as special cases since they were already members of the UN and parties to several international multilateral and bilateral treaties and had enjoyed a certain restricted international legal personality prior to their full independence and Statehood in 1991.153 The remaining States emerging from the USSR undoubtedly became new States subject to the regime of State succession. Unlike colonies, these entities enjoyed the same legal status as all other Union Republics in the framework of the Soviet Union.154 The signatories of the Agreement of Minsk of 8 December 1991 (Belarus, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), and Ukraine) committed themselves ‘to discharge the international obligations incumbent on them under treaties and agreements entered into by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’.155 Through a 21 December 1991 Protocol to the Minsk Agreement other States forming the CIS (the Community of Independent

145 ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 27; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 831–​3. 146 Cf Waldock (n 140). On the distinction between Waldock’s conception of treaty succession in the case of bilateral treaties and Art 34 VCCST, see P Dumberry, ‘State Succession to Bilateral Treaties: A Few Observations on the Incoherent and Unjustifiable Solution Adopted for Secession and Dissolution of States under the 1978 Vienna Convention’ (2015) 28 LJIL 13, 27. On Waldock’s role in the ILC’s work on treaty succession, see Craven (n 15) 104–​5 and Sarvarian (n 4) 796–​7. 147 For a comprehensive account concerning the former Soviet Union, see T Långström, Transformations in Russia and International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2003) 179–​293. 148 See R Mullerson, ‘New Developments in the Former USSR and Yugoslavia’ (1993) 33 VJIL 299, 310. 149 Cf Klabbers and others (n 66) 96. 150 Mullerson (n 148) 309–​10; L Love, ‘International Agreement Obligations after the Soviet Union’s Break-​Up: Current United States Practice and its Consistency with International Law’ (1993) 26 Vand J Transnat’l L 373, 398 (focusing on the US position). 151 E Wyler, ‘Le droit de la succession d’États à l’épreuve de la fiction juridique’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1640–​2. 152 Beato (n 58) 555 (noting that ‘[s]‌ince the former republics were not dependent territories in a traditional colonial framework, they are not newly independent and cannot legally adopt a clean slate approach’); Craven (n 15) 15 (discussing the link between newly independent States and so-​called ‘salt-​water’ colonies). 153 Cf R Rich, ‘Recognition of States: The Collapse of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union’ (1993) 4 EJIL 37, 41; HJ Uibopuu, Die Völkerrechtssubjektivität der Unionsrepubliken der UdSSR (Springer, Vienna 1975) 275 et seq; K Bühler, State Succession and Membership in International Organizations: Legal Theories versus Political Pragmatism (Kluwer, The Hague 2001) 171–​2. 154 See generally H Hausmaninger, ‘The Committee of Constitutional Supervision of the USSR’ (1990) 23 Cornell Int’l L J 287. 155 [1992] 31 ILM 145 (Art 12).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  401 States—​ie all former Union Republics with the exception of Georgia and the Baltic States) joined the commitment under the Minsk Agreement.156 The Russian Federation raised difficult problems by claiming an identity with the former USSR. This posed the question of whether events had produced either a dismemberment of the former USSR or a separation of certain parts of the territory of the USSR combined with a redesignation of the USSR as the Russian Federation. Under the latter view, the Russian Federation would remain party to all treaties into which the USSR had entered.157 The Russian Federation officially adopted this view, declaring itself as the ‘continuator’ (‘prodolžatel’) and not a successor to the USSR.158 Even though the continuator concept was relatively novel at the time and initially controversial in doctrine,159 the Russian Federation’s view was generally accepted by other States and the UN where the name ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ was only replaced by the new name ‘Russian Federation’.160 Other recent cases of separation—​relating to Eritrea, Timor-​Leste, Montenegro, Kosovo (if the latter is considered a State),161 and South Sudan,162—​support the general assessment outlined earlier.163 The case of Eritrea, following its separation from Ethiopia in the wave of an armed struggle and its 1993 independence referendum, backs the general conclusion to the extent that its practice with respect to post-​independence treaty relations defies adherence either to a continuity or to a clean-​slate rule.164 In the case of Timor-​Leste, which most closely approximates a recent example of the ‘newly independent State’ scenario,165 the management of treaty succession was designed in a flexible manner, rather than by a strict application of the clean-​slate rule. Thus, Ronen notes that the constitution of Timor-​Leste ‘effectively adopts the clean slate approach . . . while reserving the right of Timor-​Leste to become party to specific treaties if it finds this appropriate’.166 Traoré notes that like other ‘newly independent States’ Timor-​Leste opted for a modified application of the Nyerere doctrine.167 Montenegro, which separated from the ‘State Union of Serbia and Montenegro’ on 3 June 2006, issued a declaration of succession in respect of a list of multilateral agreements.168 156 [1992] 31 ILM 147; The Declaration of Alma Ata noted that the USSR ceased to exist with the establishment of the CIS and made the continued legal force of treaties dependent on compatibility with relevant ‘constitutional procedures’. Ibid 148–​9. See also Rich (n 153) 44–​7. 157 This practice accords with Art 35 VCSST, which provides that in the case of separation—​and subject to limited exceptions—​when ‘the predecessor State continues to exist, any treaty which at the date of the succession of States was in force in respect of the predecessor State continues in force in respect of its remaining territory’. 158 Klabbers and others (n 66) 98 et seq. 159 Cf Craven (n 15) 67–​75. 160 Ibid; Långström (n 147) 190–​1. 161 Panoussis (n 26) 1853–​89; Q Qerimi and S Krasniqi, ‘Theories and Practice of State Succession to Bilateral Treaties: The Recent Experience of Kosovo’ (2013) 14 German LJ 1639–​60. 162 Moussa (n 25) 1891; Helal (n 25) 907–​85. 163 P Dumberry and D Turp, ‘State Succession with Respect to Multilateral Treaties in the Context of Secession: From the Principle of Tabula Rasa to the Emergence of a Presumption of Continuity of Treaties’ (2014) 13 Baltic Ybk Int’l L 27–​65; V Mikulka, ‘Article 34: Succession d’États en cas de séparation de parties d’un État’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1153–​207; V Mikulka, ‘Article 35: Cas de l’État qui subsiste après séparation d’une partie de son territoire’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1209–​28. 164 On the relevant practice, and exceptions see Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 422–​4; Mikulka, ‘Article 34’ (n 163) 1201; see note 229 et seq and accompanying text. 165 Cf Dumberry and Turp (n 163) 46–​7. 166 Ronen (n 23)  146 (noting that ‘[i]‌n practice, Timor-​Leste did not draw on prior action by Portugal or Indonesia, but acceded independently to various treaties’). 167 SB Traoré, ‘Les régimes d’administration internationale de territoire et la succession en matière de traités’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 1728. 168 Cf Historical Information on Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, ‘Montenegro’ (24 September 2007), at .

402  Treaty Application Generally, its practice confirms the existence of a presumption of continuity for treaty relations, but also the practical primacy of negotiations and mutual agreement in the case of both bilateral and multilateral agreements.169 The case of South Sudan, which gained independence on 9 July 2011 and joined the UN shortly thereafter, offers an example of another consensus-​based separation. The practice of South Sudan offers as yet little clarity on the application of any general rule of treaty succession. Despite arguments that South Sudan would automatically succeed to certain multilateral treaties,170 its practice has been to purport to accede to multilateral treaties.171 Moreover, as a riparian to the Nile River, the question of the fate of the Nile River Treaty of 1959 in respect of South Sudan has been subject to debate. As yet, there is little additional clarity on South Sudan’s practice with respect to other bilateral or multilateral treaties.172 In contrast to the consensus-​based separation of Montenegro and South Sudan, the situation of Kosovo (if it is considered a State) offers a more complex picture for a number of reasons discussed in the context of the SFRY’s dissolution. In sum, while distinctions exist in the way in which bilateral versus multilateral treaty succession is managed, a background rule that could be described as a rebuttable presumption of continuity of treaty relations of a separating State seems to prevail, but is frequently—​and in individual cases largely—​modified for particular treaty relationships or treaties on a case-​by-​case basis.

5. Dissolution In contrast to cases of separation where the prior practice was inconsistent, at the time of its adoption, Article 34 VCSST did codify the customary international law applicable to cases of dissolution.173 Moreover, subsequent practice has generally, if not exactly, confirmed this rule, particularly in the cases of the former SFRY and the former CSFR. These two cases of dissolution displayed more consistency in the continued application of multilateral treaties than the USSR’s separation. Nevertheless, in the case of multilateral treaties, the practice of the UN Secretary-​General additionally requires a declaratory notification of succession by the States concerned.174 In the case of bilateral treaties, negotiations tend to be the rule, leading to exchanges of notes including non-​constitutive lists of treaties to remain in force, similar to cases of separation.175 169 Ibid; Tams (n 48) (focusing on pre-​2006 practice, but offering some references to independent Montenegro’s practice); Dumberry 2018 (n 3) 62–​5 (focusing on BITs while also noting that ‘Montenegro’s practice is quite diverse’). 170 UNMISS and UNHCHR, ‘A Report on Violations and Abuses of International Human Rights Law and Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Context of the Fighting in Juba, South Sudan, in July 2016’ (January 2017) 9 available at (arguing that South Sudan is bound by ‘automatic succession’ to international human rights treaties ratified by its predecessor State). 171 UNGA, ‘Letter dated 31 October 2013 from the Permanent Representative of South Sudan to the United Nations addressed to the President of the General Assembly’ (31 October 2013), UN Doc A/​68/​565 (citing human rights treaties South Sudan considered ‘acceding’ to); ICRC, ‘South Sudan: world’s newest country signs up to the Geneva Conventions’, News Release 12/​154 (19 July 2012); see also Moussa (n 25) 1935; see also Zimmermann and Devaney (n 49) 527; see also Sarvarian (n 4) 807–​8. 172 Moussa (n 25) (concluding that, so far, South Sudan’s practice suggests a ‘pragmatic’ and case-​by-​case approach); Dumberry 2018 (n 3) 253 (noting South Sudan’s approach to treaty succession remains ‘ambiguous and in many ways still uncertain’) and 44–​5 (referencing recent practice in BIT context). 173 Cf somewhat more restrictively Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 825–​6. 174 UN Depositary Practice (n 105) [303]; see generally A Hêche, ‘State Succession in Respect of Treaties and Notifications: A Bottleneck Approach’ (2019) 33 Journal of Sharia & Law 61–​100. 175 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 831–​2; Dumberry (n 146) 30 (finding that ‘[t]‌he continuation of a great number of bilateral treaties has ultimately been the result of an agreement between the states concerned’). This understanding was also reflected in Case C-​216/​01, Budějovický Budvar, národní podnik v Rudolf Ammersin GmbH (Opinion of Advocate General Tizzano) ECR 2003 I-​13617.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  403 The violent dissolution of the SFRY occurred in the context of the proclamation of independence by Slovenia and Croatia on 29 June 1991.176 Following the delivery of Opinion No 7 of the EC Arbitration Commission,177 the EU recognized both as independent States on 15 January 1992.178 Together with Bosnia and Herzegovina,179 all three States became new members of the UN on 22 May 1992 and were accepted, although differently, by the community of States.180 As to North Macedonia (formerly known as FYROM), the question of its recognition was overshadowed by the dispute over its name.181 Once it was admitted to the UN on 8 April 1993,182 it was also accepted by the community of States as an independent State.183 The remaining part of the former SFRY184 claimed legal identity with the SFRY.185 However, other States did not accept this claim and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was required to apply for new membership in the Council of Europe and the UN, respectively.186 The view that this State was a new one was confirmed by EU Member States’ recognition of the FRY in April 1996187 and by its admission to the UN as a new State in 2000.188 Hence, the former SFRY has to be considered as dismembered and so far, six (and, if Kosovo is regarded as one, seven) new States have emerged on its territory.189 Notwithstanding the fact that unilateral declarations cannot produce any legal effect for other States,190 Slovenia included in one of its first constitutional acts a provision according 176 Klabbers and others (n 66) 102 et seq; Rich (n 153) 36–​65; cf UNSC Res 757 (1992); L Silber and A Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (Penguin, New York 1997). 177 Cf (1993) 4 EJIL 80–​4. The ‘Badinter’ EC Arbitration Commission was an organ of the Conference on Yugoslavia, convened by the European Community in 1991 and tasked with giving advisory opinions, inter alia, relating to questions of State succession arising during the process of the SFRY’s disintegration. See eg M Craven, ‘The European Community Arbitration Commission on Yugoslavia’ (1996) BYBIL 333–​413. 178 S Trifunovska (ed), Yugoslavia Through Documents: From its Creation to its Dissolution (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1994) 501 (reproducing ‘Statement by the Presidency [of the European Community] on the Recognition of Yugoslav Republics’). 179 In Opinion No 4 (11 January 1991), the EC Arbitration Commission declared Bosnia and Herzegovina as having not yet achieved the status as a ‘sovereign and independent State’. (1993) 4 EJIL 74–​6. Trifunovska (n 178)  521–​2 (reproducing EC Declaration on Recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina and President Bush’s Statement on recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia). 180 Trifunovska (n 178)  579–​80 (reproducing UNGA resolutions on the admission of Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia). 181 Ibid  883–​4. 182 UNGA Res 47/​225 (8 April 1993); P Williams, ‘The Treaty Obligations of the Successor States of the Former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia: Do They Continue in Force?’ (1994) 23 Denv J Intl L & Pol 1, 5. 183 In contrast to its findings on Bosnia and Herzegovina, EC Arbitration Commission Opinion No 6 found that Macedonia satisfied the tests of the Guidelines on the Recognition of New States adopted by the Council of the European Communities on 16 December 1991. (1993) 4 EJIL 77–​80. 184 D Lloyd, ‘Succession, Secession, and State Membership in the United Nations’ (1994) 26 NYU J Intl L & Pol 761, 782 n110. 185 Trifunovska (n 178)  532–​4 (reproducing ‘Declaration on a New Yugoslavia’); cf Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) (‘Bosnian Genocide Case’) (Provisional Measures) [1993] ICJ Rep 3, 15. 186 Cf (1993) 4 EJIL 90–​1 (finding, in Opinion No 10 (4 July 1992), that ‘the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) is a new state which cannot be considered the sole successor to the SFRY’); UNSC Res 777 (1992) (noting SFRY ‘has ceased to exist’ and FRY ‘should apply for membership’ in the UN); see Trifunovska (n 178) 721–​4 (reproducing FRY statements on UNGA and UNSC resolutions); Williams (n 182) 40 (pointing to Council of Europe (COE) position on SFRY’s dissolution). 187 COE, ‘Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on recognition by EU Member States of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ (Brussels, 9 April 1996) Doc No 6399/​96 (Presse 82); R Caplan, Europe and the Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia (CUP, Cambridge 2005) 139–​40. 188 UNGA Res 55/​12 (1 November 2000). 189 Cf ICJ, Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo (Advisory Opinion) [2010] ICJ Rep 403. 190 See Section II.A above.

404  Treaty Application to which the ‘[i]‌nternational agreements concluded by Yugoslavia and relating to the Republic of Slovenia shall be effective in the territory of the Republic of Slovenia’.191 In the framework of the Meeting of the Legal Advisers within the Council of Europe, the representative of Croatia stated that the ‘country would respect all the treaties of former Yugoslavia (unless they conflicted with the constitution)’.192 The case of Kosovo is more complicated than that of the other successor States of the SFRY due to the protracted road towards an independence still disputed by a significant number of States, a diverse practice in the field of treaty succession limited largely to certain bilateral treaties, as well as the imposition of an international territorial administration on Kosovo.193 The other, though peaceful, recent case of dismemberment arose with the emergence of the Czech and Slovak Republics.194 Domestic legislation provided that the CSFR (formerly CSSSR) would cease to exist on 1 January 1993 and would be succeeded by two independent new States, the Czech Republic and the Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic).195 By the same date, both new States were recognized by the United States and the Member States of the EU.196 Like Slovenia and Croatia, the parliaments of both component parts of the CSFR adopted analogous declarations in December 1992 according to which, as of 1 January 1993, they declared themselves bound by multilateral and bilateral treaties and agreements to which the CSFR was a party by that date.197 These declarations were accompanied by corresponding provisions of constitutional-​level domestic law in both countries.198 In sum, with certain modifications, as indicated earlier, the continuity principle as laid down in Article 34 VCSST forms the vantage point for treaty succession in cases of dissolution, frequently accompanied by declaratory notifications of succession in the case of multilateral treaties, and frequently modified by agreement between the parties in accordance with the varying context of each case of succession, especially in the case of bilateral treaties.199 191 Cf Trifunovska (n 178) 292–​8 (reproducing Art 3 of the Republic of Slovenia Assembly Constitutional Law on the Enforcement of the Basic Constitutional Charter on the Autonomy and Independence of the Republic of Slovenia (25 June 1991)); Williams (n 182) 38–​9. 192 Doc CAHDI (93) 11 (12 August 1993) 7; Williams (n 182) 16–​19. 193 See Dumberry 2018 (n 3) 51–​3 (finding that ‘Kosovo’s practice with other States does not support any proposition in favor of the automatic continuation of treaties’); Traoré (n 167) 1729–​35; see also T-​H Cheng, ‘State Succession and Commercial Obligations: Lessons from Kosovo’ in MH Arsanjani and others (eds), Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of W. Michael Reisman (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2011) 675–​703. 194 See J Rychlik, ‘The “Velvet Split” of Czechoslovakia (1989–​1992)’ in MM Stolarik (ed), The Czech and Slovak Republics: Twenty Years of Independence, 1993–​2013 (CEU, Budapest 2017) 23–​46. 195 Ibid  43–​4. 196 Williams (n 182) 7. 197 ‘Proclamation of the National Council of the Slovak Republic to the Parliaments and Peoples of the World’ (3 December 1992)  and ‘Proclamation of the Czech National Council to all Parliaments and Nations of the World’ (17 December 1992) in UNGA, ‘Letter Dated 31 December 1992 from the Permanent Representative of Czechoslovakia to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-​General’ UN Doc A/​47/​848, Annexes I and II; see also Klabbers and others (n 66) 402 and 480. 198 Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 15. 199 Dumberry advances a strict standard for treaty succession in the case of bilateral treaties. Dumberry (n 146) 22 (arguing that ‘it is plainly unjustifiable to apply the principle of automatic continuity to bilateral treaties’ and suggesting that ‘bilateral treaties do not automatically continue to be in force as of the date of succession unless both states that are implicated explicitly (or tacitly) agree to such a continuation’). Reviewing recent cases concerning bilateral investment treaties, he concludes elsewhere that the studied ‘awards are neither clearly supporting the principle of continuity nor the principle of tabula rasa’. See P Dumberry, ‘An Uncharted Question of State Succession: Are New States Automatically Bound by the BITs Concluded by Predecessor States Before Independence?’ (2015) 6 J Int’l Disp Settlement 74, 96.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  405

D.  Legal regimes not affected by State succession Even where customary legal rules exist for particular categories of treaty succession, those rules will not govern all treaties. Some treaties create legal regimes that are not affected by State succession.

1. Boundaries The law and practice of State succession to boundary treaties is strongly influenced by the recognition of the particular nature and purpose of such treaties. As the ICJ explained in the Temple of Preah Vihear case, ‘one of the primary objects’ of a boundary treaty is to ‘achieve stability and finality’.200 Article 11(1) VCSST provides that a ‘succession of States does not as such affect . . . a boundary established by a treaty or . . . obligations and rights established by a treaty and relating to the regime of a boundary’. The ILC’s First Report on Succession of States and Governments in Respect of Treaties in 1968 found that: [t]‌he weight both of opinion and practice seems clearly to be in favour of the view that boundaries established by treaties remain untouched by the mere fact of a succession. The opinion of jurists seems, indeed, to be unanimous on the point . . . [and] State practice in favour of the continuance in force of boundaries established by treaty appears to be such as to justify the conclusion that a general rule of international law exists to that effect.201

Subsequent practice also confirms that this rule may be considered as customary both with regard to land202 and maritime boundaries.203 Although subject to vivid debate at the ILC,204 this rule enhances the stability of boundaries and is in conformity with the principle of the intangibility of frontiers as reflected in the generally applicable principle of uti possidetis.205

2. Other territorial regimes Besides the special case of boundary regimes, another traditional distinction was generally made between personal and dispositive treaties.206 Dispositive treaties have been conceptualized as non-​contractual, tied to a particular geographical space, tending towards permanence, and relatively independent of a particular sovereign.207 Article 12 VCSST provides that dispositive treaties—​termed ‘other territorial regimes’ in the Convention—​ are not affected by State succession. Examples cited by scholars include treaties of cession, peace treaties, and treaties that grant ‘rights of way over territory’.208 As the ILC pointed 200 Case Concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v Thailand) (Merits) [1962] ICJ Rep 6, 34. 201 [1968] YBILC, vol II, 92–​3. 202 Cf Frontier Dispute (n 33) 567; Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v Chad) [1994] ICJ Rep 6, 38; Opinion No 3 of the Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia (Badinter Commission) [1992] 31 ILM 1499–​500; ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 29. 203 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 490; Bernárdez (n 33) 432; J-​P Pancracio, ‘Article 11: Régimes de frontière’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 396–​7. 204 See Pancracio (n 203) 373–​97 (reviewing the ILC debate on this topic). 205 Bernárdez (n 33) 421–​37. 206 On the varied terminology used to describe ‘territorial treaties’, see B Miltner, ‘Territory and its Relationship to Treaties’ in Bowman and Kritsiotis (n 35) 501–​5. 207 Cf Love (n 150) 378; G Distefano, ‘Article 12: Autres régimes territoriaux’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 399–​458. 208 Love (n 150) 378–​9.

406  Treaty Application out, the ‘weight of the opinion amongst modern writers supports the traditional doctrine that treaties of a territorial character constitute a special category and are not affected by a succession of States’.209 Although this ‘other territorial regimes’ category lacks a precise definition (aside from including the boundary regimes mentioned above), the ILC referred to a number of potential candidates, including ‘treaties for the neutralization or demilitarization of a particular territory, treaties according freedom of navigation on international waterways or rivers, [and] treaties for the equitable use of the water resources of an international river basin’.210 It also suggested this category is ‘limited to cases where a State by a treaty grants a right to use territory, or to restrict its own use of territory, which is intended to attach to territory of a foreign State or, alternatively, to be for the benefit of a group of States or of all States generally’.211 In the Gabčíkovo-​Nagymaros case, the ICJ explicitly confirmed the customary nature of Article 12 VCSST.212 It found that the territorial regime on the Danube established by the 1977 Treaty between Hungary and the CSSR had ‘establish[ed] a territorial régime within the meaning of Article 12’ of the VCSST since it created rights and obligations ‘attaching to the parts of the Danube to which it relates’ and therefore the treaty ‘itself cannot be affected by a succession of States’.213 More recent questions have emerged over whether South Sudan succeeded to obligations under the Nile Waters Treaty of 1959.214

3. Permanent sovereignty over natural resources The principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources, which was derived—​mostly by developing countries—​from the principle of self-​determination, was a point of contention during the VCSST’s elaboration, particularly due to its connection to the concept of acquired rights.215 Finally, Article 13 VCSST was elaborated and provided that nothing in the convention ‘shall affect the principles of international law affirming the permanent sovereignty of every people and every State over its natural wealth and resources’.216 The precise extent of the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources was—​and remains—​ subject to debate even if it has been generally recognized as a principle of international law.217 4. Other special categories of treaties The legal effects of State succession may also depend on the nature and content of the relevant treaty in other respects, in particular based on the treaty’s subject matter or the nature 209 [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 83. 210 Ibid 204. 211 Ibid 206; see also ILA, Effect of Independence on Treaties (1965) 352–​5. 212 Case concerning the Gabčíkovo-​Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (Judgment) [1997] ICJ Rep 7, 71–​2  [123]. 213 Ibid. 214 See Helal (n 25) 907–​85; C Leb and M Tignino, ‘State Succession to Water Treaties: Uncertain Streams’ in L Boisson de Chazournes, C Leb, and M Tignino (eds), International Law and Freshwater: The Multiple Challenges (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2013) 421–​44. 215 See also Craven (n 15) 196–​7 (reviewing US and UK positions at the Vienna Conference). O’Connell was an early proponent of the doctrine of acquired rights, cf DP O’Connell, ‘Economic Concessions in the Law of State Succession’ (1950) 27 BYBIL 93, 97 (see on this point also Craven (n 15) 95). 216 Cf M Hébié and C Maia, ‘Article 13: La présente Convention et la souveraineté permanente sur les richesses et les ressources naturelles’ in Hêche and others (n 1) 459–​528. 217 NJ Schrijver, Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties (CUP, Cambridge 1997, reprinted CUP 2008) 377; see also International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 1; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3, Art 1.

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  407 of the treaty commitment. In some cases, the rules for such other special categories remain contested or vague, and are thus still emerging. (i) Human rights and humanitarian law treaties Times of fundamental change are particularly conducive to occurrences of State succession. In such instances, the guarantees accorded to individuals through various human rights and humanitarian law treaties may be especially relevant—​particularly due to the specificity of treaty rules and the existence of compliance mechanisms that are lacking in the case of customary rules. In view of massive violations of human rights perpetrated in the context of, for example, the breakup of the SFRY, many have argued that the nature of human rights and humanitarian treaties should in principle not be affected by State succession.218 The VCSST is silent on the particular fate of human rights or humanitarian treaties in cases of State succession.219 Today, it remains unclear whether customary international law includes a rule of automatic succession to multilateral humanitarian and human rights treaties.220 The practice of the Czech and Slovak Republics with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides some degree of support for such a rule, albeit in a regional context.221 Moreover, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)222 and to a certain extent the Eritrea-​Ethiopia Claims Tribunal223 have pronounced themselves in favour of automatic succession in the case of certain universal human rights and humanitarian treaties. But, the ICJ has remained silent on the issue.

218 F Pocar, ‘Some Remarks on the Continuity of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Treaties’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 282–​93 (discussing and evaluating the relevant practice); A Trindade, ‘International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium’ (2005) 317 RdC 105–​15; MT Kamminga, ‘State Succession in Respect of Human Rights Treaties’ (1996) 7 EJIL 469, 484; R Mullerson, ‘The Continuity and Succession of States, by Reference to the Former USSR and Yugoslavia’ (1993) 42 ICLQ 473, 479; see also Human Rights Committee, CCPR General Comment No. 26: Continuity of Obligations, adopted at the sixty-​first session of the human rights committee on 8 December 1997, CCPR/​C/​21/​ Rev.1/​Add.8/​Rev.1. 219 Art 12bis of the ILC draft originally foresaw automatic succession in respect of certain universal multilateral treaties, including particularly human rights treaties, but the ILC could not reconcile it with the rest of the draft articles, especially the clean-​slate principle. See [1974] YBILC, vol II(1), 172–​3. 220 The ILA has taken the view that customary international law does not mandate automatic succession for treaties dealing with the protection of human rights. See ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 33; ILA Committee on Aspects of the Law of State Succession, ‘Conclusions’ (‘noted’ by the 73rd Conference of the International Law Association), Resolution No 3/​2008 and Annex (17–​21 August 2008) [11] (concluding that ‘Treaties related to the protection of human rights are generally perceived by the doctrine as governed by the succession rule. However, international practice is not homogeneous. Some successor States opted to accede to those treaties. It seems that no specific rule has emerged thereon. Hence, general rules on State succession with regard to treaties remain applicable’); see also Zimmermann and Devaney (n 49) 533–​6 (‘despite support from a number of international legal scholars, neither the support of successor States since the end of the Cold War nor human rights bodies provides unequivocal support for the development of a rule of automatic succession with respect to humanitarian treaties’); Aust (n 108) 323-​24 (with respect to viewing human rights as acquired rights that warrant automatic succession, there is ‘no good authority for this view, which, although well meant, is rather politically motivated’); James Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (8th ed, OUP Oxford 2012) 440 (‘recent state practice indicates successor states will often accept human rights . . . treaties although this is arguably contingent on the successor state’s consent rather than a rule of automatic succession’). 221 On this issue, including a discussion of Czechoslovakia, see A Rasulov, ‘Revisiting State Succession to Humanitarian Treaties:  Is There a Case for Automaticity?’ (2003) 14 EJIL 141–​70 (concluding that ‘in international law, the treaties of humanitarian character are not subject to automatic succession’ but favouring a transformation of the acquired rights theory so that obligations arising from a human rights treaty are not affected by State succession). 222 See n 227 and accompanying text. 223 See n 229 and accompanying text.

408  Treaty Application In its judgment regarding preliminary objections in the Croatia-​Serbia Genocide case, the ICJ found that the FRY succeeded to the Genocide Convention, without elaborating specifically how this succession occurred.224 Rather, the ICJ took account of the text of the FRY’s declaration and Note of 27 April 1992 on succession, alongside the consistent conduct of the FRY then and thereafter to find ‘that from that date onwards the FRY would be bound by the obligations of a party in respect of all the multilateral conventions to which the SFRY had been a party at the time of its dissolution, subject of course to any reservations lawfully made by the SFRY limiting its obligations’. Since the Genocide Convention had been one of these conventions, the ICJ held that the FRY in 1992 had accepted the obligations of that Convention. However, just like in its judgment on preliminary objections in the Bosnian Genocide case,225 the Court did not pronounce itself on how this occurred, whether by way of automatic succession or via Article 34’s codification of a customary rule of international law. In its 2015 Judgment on the merits of the Croatia-​Serbia Genocide case, the ICJ reiterated its earlier finding, noting that it had already held ‘that succession resulted from the declaration made by the FRY on 27 April 1992 and its Note of the same date’ and stressing that ‘[t]‌he date on which the notification of succession was made coincided with the date on which the new State came into existence’.226 In contrast, the Appeals Chamber of the ICTY held in the Čelebići case that: irrespective of any findings as to formal succession, Bosnia and Herzegovina would in any event have succeeded to the Geneva Conventions under customary law, as this type of convention entails automatic succession, ie, without the need for any formal confirmation of adherence by the successor State. It may be now considered in international law that there is automatic State succession to multilateral humanitarian treaties in the broad sense, ie, treaties of universal character which express fundamental human rights.227

The Appeals Chamber found that: the Geneva Conventions f[ell] within this category of universal multilateral treaties which reflect rules accepted and recognised by the international community as a whole. The Geneva Conventions enjoy nearly universal participation . . . In light of the object and purpose of the Geneva Conventions, which is to guarantee the protection of certain fundamental values common to mankind in times of armed conflict, and of the customary nature of their provisions, the Appeals Chamber is in no doubt that State succession has no impact on obligations arising out from these fundamental humanitarian conventions.228

224 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v Serbia) Judgment (Preliminary Objections) [2008] ICJ Rep 412, 454-​55 [117]. 225 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Yugoslavia) Judgment (Preliminary Objections) [1996] ICJ Rep 595, 612 [23] (noting that ‘[w]‌ithout prejudice as to whether or not the principle of “automatic succession” applies in the case of certain types of international treaties or conventions, the Court does not consider it necessary, in order to decide on its jurisdiction in this case, to make a determination on the legal issues concerning State succession in respect to treaties which have been raised by the Parties.’); but see ibid 654–​5 (separate opinion by Judge Weeramantry arguing for a rule of automatic succession to human rights and humanitarian treaties). 226 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Croatia v. Serbia) (Judgement) [2015] ICJ Rep 3, 52 [104]. 227 Čelebići Case (Prosecutor v Delalić et al) [2001] ICTY Case No IT-​96-​21-​A, [111]. 228 Ibid [112]–​[113].

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  409 Similarly, in the Partial Award relating to Prisoners of War, the Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission observed that ‘[t]‌reaty succession may happen automatically for certain types of treaties’.229 However, in the instance at hand, the Commission found that it had ‘not been shown evidence that would permit it to find that such automatic succession to the Geneva Conventions occurred in the exceptional circumstances here, desirable though such succession would be as a general matter’230 since ‘[f]rom the time of its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, senior Eritrean officials made clear that Eritrea did not consider itself bound by the Geneva Conventions’.231 Moreover, this evidence was complemented by the fact that ‘[d]uring the period of the armed conflict and prior to these proceedings, Ethiopia likewise consistently maintained that Eritrea was not a party to the Geneva Conventions’232 and the ‘ICRC, which has a special interest and responsibility for promoting compliance with the Geneva Conventions, likewise did not at that time regard Eritrea as a party to the Conventions’.233 These divergent views correspond to a broader analysis of the practice relating to the Genocide Convention234 undertaken by Gaeta, who concluded that ‘it is unclear whether the succession to the Convention is automatic, or voluntary for a new State, though the latter view has more support’.235 A similar assessment is offered by Distefano and Henry in a more recent study of State succession in the context of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.236 (ii) ‘Political’ treaties Another category of treaties subject to particular rules lacks any clear definition; those treaties whose application to the successor State ‘would be incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty or would radically change the conditions for its operation’.237 This characterization—​used repeatedly in the VCSST238—​is borrowed from the VCLT and tends to address those treaties sometimes also called ‘political’.239 Despite various attempts at defining such types of treaties,240 their definition remains as vague as the ‘enigmatic’ concept of a treaty’s ‘object and purpose’ itself.241 In practice, however, States have overcome the difficulty related to the vagueness of this designation by drawing up lists of those agreements that should remain in force.

229 Eritrea Ethiopia Claims Commission, Partial Award, Prisoners of War, Ethiopia’s Claim 4 (The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia v The State of Eritrea), The Hague, 1 July 2003, [24]. 230 Ibid. 231 Ibid. 232 Ibid. 233 Ibid. 234 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (adopted 9 December 1948, entered into force 12 January 1951) 78 UNTS 277. 235 P Gaeta (ed), The UN Genocide Convention: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2009) 493. 236 G Distefano and E Henry, ‘Chapter 9: Final Provisions, Including the Martens Clause’ in A Clapham, P Gaeta, M Sassòli (eds), The 1949 Geneva Conventions: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2015) 167 (noting in particular that ‘[t]‌he fact that a great number of new states chose to accede to the Geneva Conventions, or made simple declarations of succession according to which no opinio juris may be inferred, leads to a negative answer to the question of the existence of a customary rule providing for automatic mandatory succession to the Geneva Conventions.’). 237 Cf VCSST Arts 31(3), 32(6), 30(3)(a), 33(5), 34(2)(b), 35(c), 36(3), 37(2). 238 See Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 9. 239 Ibid. See also Jennings and Watts (n 78) 211. 240 Hafner and Kornfeind (n 1) 9 (with further references). 241 See I Buffard and K Zemanek, ‘The “Object and Purpose” of a Treaty: an Enigma?’ (1998) ARIEL 311–​43.

410  Treaty Application (iii) Multilateral treaties As far as multilateral treaties are concerned, one particular issue is whether the clause determining the conditions for becoming a party to the treaty also applies to the successor State or States. Both the VCSST242 and UN practice recognize that the conditions governing the right to become party to a specific treaty define also the category of States which may succeed to this treaty. Thus, the UN Secretary-​General’s Summary of Practice states that ‘[i]‌n the absence of provisions which set specific conditions for succession or which otherwise restrict succession; the Secretary-​General is guided by the participation clauses of the treaties as well as by the general principles governing the participation of States’.243 This practice even acknowledges the possibility that treaty succession may be excluded.244 (iv) Constitutive treaties of international organizations (IOs) The regulation of the succession to constitutive treaties of IOs is widely subject to the special internal rules of the respective organizations. Generally, these rules do not allow for succession, but rather require accession to the organization’s constitutive instrument(s).245 Practice before and after the VCSST’s adoption246 has generally not accepted succession of new States to the constitutive instruments of IOs in cases of cession, dissolution, or separation. This has been confirmed in the recent—​and as of yet tentative—​treaty succession practice relating to South Sudan.247 In cases of merger or incorporation, however, the practice has been for the incorporating State or the unified State to continue, or ‘substitute’, the IO membership, even if only following a notification of succession.248 Article 4 VCSST also anticipates special internal rules of IOs that would in some cases and under specific circumstances provide for succession; these are found especially among international and regional financial organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and regional development banks.249 (v) Disarmament and arms control treaties Agreements relating to disarmament, arms control, and demilitarization engender particular problems and have been discussed by several scholars and the ILA in the course of 242 VCSST Art 17(3) provides: ‘When, under the terms of the treaty or by reason of the limited number of the negotiating States and the object and purpose of the treaty, the participation of any other State in the treaty must be considered as requiring the consent of all the parties, the newly independent State may establish its status as a party to the treaty only with such consent’. Moreover, the VCSST frequently refers to this provision in latter articles that do not relate to newly independent States, so it must be considered generally applicable. 243 UN Depositary Practice (n 105) [297]. 244 Ibid [295] (citing the example of a treaty open only to members of a regional commission which is not open to a new State). 245 See generally Bühler (n 153). 246 Cf O’Connell 1956 (n 7) 183–​211. 247 Moussa (n 25) 1931–​3. 248 Bühler (n 153) 289. 249 Art 4 VCSST provides that the ‘Convention applies to the effects of a succession of States in respect of: (a) any treaty which is the constituent instrument of an international organization without prejudice to the rules concerning acquisition of membership and without prejudice to any other relevant rules of the organization; (b) any treaty adopted within an international organization without prejudice to any relevant rules of the organization’. See also CT Ebenroth and MJ Kemner, ‘The Enduring Political Nature of Questions of State Succession and Secession and the Quest for Objective Standards’ (1996) 17 U Pa J Int’l Econ L 753, 709–​803. On South Sudan, see eg IMF, ‘Press Release:  IMF Receives Membership Application from South Sudan, Seeks Contributions to Technical Assistance Trust Fund to Help New Country’ (20 April 2011) Press Release No 11/​145 (reporting on South Sudan’s membership application and noting that ‘Sudan will remain a member . . . and retain all its quota in the Fund as well as all its assets in, and liabilities to, the IMF’).

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  411 its work on State succession.250 The latter emphasized the contribution of the practice of certain successor States of the USSR (Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine in particular) on whose territory nuclear weapons systems were situated.251 The particular solutions found in that scenario suggest that the regulation of both disarmament and arms control treaties largely depends on the intention of the parties and the purposes of the original treaty.252 Zimmerman has additionally emphasized the effect of the territorial nature of some types of disarmament or arms control treaties as a relevant factor for a presumption of their continuity.253 Vagts emphasized that succession issues would need to be addressed differently in the case of ‘generalized commitments not to possess or use certain weapons, on the one hand, and specific agreements about the number of weapons, on the other’.254 The former could be seen as resembling other treaties codifying customary international law while the latter would lead to further issues concerning the legal status of the respective treaty commitments.255 In sum, the specific context, purpose, and nature of each particular treaty is relevant and no general rule can be discerned, even if the need for stability and predictability supports a general notion of continuity (or at least the obligation to negotiate in good faith towards a regulation of disarmament and arms control).256

III.  Other Aspects of the Law of Treaty Succession Article 20 VCSST only deals with reservations in the context of newly independent States and is therefore of considerably restricted use today.257 Recent practice shows that States may only retain the predecessor State’s reservations but not formulate new ones with respect to treaties to which they are succeeding.258 Special problems may arise in the case of merger where reservations of the predecessor States conflict.259 The ILC, as part of its work on reservations to treaties, has dealt with the status of reservations, acceptances of, and objections to reservations, and interpretative declarations in the case of succession of States.260 In this context, the ILC has maintained the newly independent States category261 despite an emerging tendency of renouncing it. Articles 36 and 37 VCSST deal, respectively, with questions of treaty succession with respect to a predecessor State’s status as a contracting and signatory State. Article 36 VCSST provides that in cases of separation or dissolution, a successor State may, ‘by making a notification, establish its status as a contracting State to a multilateral treaty which is not in force if, at the date of the succession of States, the predecessor State was a contracting State to the 250 See ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 31–​2; P Pazartzis, La Succession d’États aux Traités Multilateraux á la Lumière des Mutations Territoriales Récentes (Pedone, Paris 2002) 180–​3; Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 835. 251 ILA Draft Conference Report 2008 (n 50) 31–​2. 252 See Zimmermann 2016 (n 4) 1568; ILA Resolution 3/​2008 (n 220) [10] (finding that ‘[s]‌uccession with regard to disarmament treaties is governed by the object and purpose thereof. In some cases, this has [led] to the application of the non-​succession rule to the successor States.’). 253 Zimmermann 2016 (n 4) 1568. 254 Vagts (n 17) 292–​3. 255 Ibid. 256 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 746–​7. 257 See the text of Art 20 VCSST. 258 Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 770. 259 Ibid 771. 260 See ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 35–​7. 261 Ibid Sec 5.

412  Treaty Application treaty in respect of the territory to which the succession of States relates’. This provision has largely been confirmed by recent State practice.262 Article 37 VCSST provides an analogous provision for cases where, before the date of succession, the predecessor State had signed a multilateral treaty subject to ratification, acceptance, or approval. While this rule did not constitute customary international law before 1978, it has since been largely confirmed by recent State practice.263 Another issue relevant for determining the effects of the applicable rules on treaty succession is the determination of the date of succession. Especially in cases where State succession is the consequence of a protracted process or it is uncertain whether the new entity is a State, it can be difficult to ascertain the exact date when State succession occurs.264 Thus, one may contrast, for example, the protracted dissolution of the SFRY in the context of armed conflict or the case of some successor States of the USSR with several cases of decolonization or, more recently, the case of South Sudan’s emergence as a new State, which occurred on a predetermined date.265

Conclusion With the waning of the decolonization era, States have moved further away from the clean-​ slate doctrine, which, together with the continuity theory, has traditionally framed the law of treaty succession. Even if the principle of continuity in cases of treaty succession can be said to form a starting point of the law today, negotiations among States often modify this general precept. Likewise, different rules and practices have emerged for various categories of State succession and with respect to particular kinds of treaties. Any generalization thus fails to accord with the contextual nature of the law of treaty succession. At the same time, the moving boundaries rule for cases of cession and incorporation enjoys wide support in State practice. Similarly, constitutive treaties of IOs are generally not considered as permitting succession, but rather require accession. There is also legal certainty regarding the rule that certain boundary and territorial regimes are not affected by State succession. At the same time, while oriented towards continuity, negotiation—​particularly in the case of bilateral treaties—​plays an important role in State practice in cases of dissolution and separation, albeit to different extents in each case. Thus, the law of State succession with regard to treaties illustrates a still existing divergence of views and practice, although certain generally accepted tendencies are already recognizable. These tendencies point in the direction of a continuity of treaties, at least in respect of certain types of treaties such as those concerning human rights. This development supports a developing reliance on stable and predictable cross-​border exchanges, is in the interest of the individuals concerned, and seeks to ensure that their rights are preserved even in cases of State succession.



262

Zimmermann 2000 (n 6) 832–​3.

264

Ibid 785 et seq. On South Sudan, see Moussa (n 25) and Helal (n 25).

263 Ibid. 265

State Succession and Treaty Relationships  413

Recommended Reading KG Bühler, State Succession and Membership in International Organizations:  Legal Theories versus Political Pragmatism (Kluwer, London 2001) M Craven, The Decolonization of International Law: State Succession and the Law of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2007) P Dumberry, A Guide to State Succession in International Investment Law (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2018) PM Eisenmann and M Koskenniemi (eds), La Succession d’Etats: La Codification à l’Épreuve des Faits/​ State Succession Tested against the Facts (Martinus Nijhoff, London 2000) A Hêche, G Distefano, and G Gaggioli (eds), La convention de Vienne de 1978 sur la succession d'États en matière de traités: Commentaire article par article et études thématiques (Bruylant, Paris 2016) J Klabbers, M Koskenniemi, O Ribbelink, and A Zimmermann (eds), State Practice Regarding State Succession and Issues of Recognition:  The Pilot Project of the Council of Europe (Kluwer, London 1999) Y Makonnen, ‘International law and the new states of Africa: a study of the international legal problems of state succession in the newly independent states of Eastern Africa’ (Ethiopian National Agency for UNESCO, Addis Ababa 1983) DP O’Connell, ‘State Succession in Relation to New States’ (1970-​II) 130 RdC 101 P Pazartzis, La Succession d’États aux Traités Multilateraux á la Lumière des Mutations Territoriales Récentes (Pedone, Paris 2002) B Stern, ‘La Succession d’Etats’ (1996) 262 RdC 9 DF Vagts, ‘State Succession: The Codifiers’ View’ (1993) 33 VJIL 275 A Zimmermann, Staatennachfolge in völkerrechtliche Verträge (Springer, Berlin 2000) A Zimmermann and JG Devaney, ‘Succession to Treaties and the Inherent Limits of International Law’ in C Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014)

17

Treaty Bodies and Regimes Geir Ulfstein

Introduction Treaties will generally set out the substantive rights and obligations of the treaty parties. But treaties are also used to establish institutions for international cooperation. Such institutions may take many forms such as formal international organizations (IOs) or international courts and tribunals (ICs). But treaties may also set up organs that are neither IOs nor ICs in the traditional sense. Such organs may be labelled ‘treaty bodies’.1 Today, treaty bodies serve various functions. Some have many characteristics of an IO. In the international environmental context, treaty bodies have a multiplicity of tasks, including developing new substantive commitments, guiding sub-​organs and the secretariat, and ensuring implementation of States’ obligations. But treaty bodies may also have more specialized competences. For example, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, set up by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has a specific function—​to make substantive recommendations on the outer limit of continental shelves. Bodies established by human rights and arms control treaties are essentially limited to controlling implementation of the relevant treaty by States parties, or, in the case of human rights treaty bodies, to resolving disputes between individuals and States. Treaty bodies have not received much scholarly attention, either in the literature on treaty law, the law of international institutions, or specialized works on international environmental law, human rights, etc. Clearly, treaty law applies to treaty bodies: their powers and procedures must be determined based on the constituting treaty. But treaty law does not have much to say about treaty bodies’ competence to establish subsidiary bodies; the legal status of their decisions; or whether treaty bodies have international legal personality (and thus the capacity to possess and act on international legal rights and obligations). Such issues are usually the domain of international institutional law. However, it may be asked whether the tenets of international institutional law as developed for IOs apply wholesale (or even partly) to treaty bodies. After all, if the parties have carefully determined not to establish an IO, why should the law of IOs—​or, as the case may be, the law of ICs—​apply? This chapter examines the current status of treaty bodies in international law and practice. It explores why States have established them, the various structural forms they take, as well as their authority to act both internally and externally, on topics such as substantive decision-​making, compliance, and coordination with other treaty bodies, IOs, and States. This analysis reveals how treaty bodies reflect developments towards an increasingly 1 In addition to IOs and ICs, treaty bodies should be distinguished from forms of cooperation resting on a non-​ binding foundation, such as the Organization for Security and Co-​operation in Europe (OSCE), commitments discussed in Chapter 3.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  415 public character of international law, as international organs exercising functions delegated by States. They may also be seen as aspects of a growing international legalization, judicialization—​and even constitutionalization—​of international law. But, in the aggregate, the proliferation of treaty bodies may also be seen as an aspect of deconstitutionalization given the increased institutional fragmentation they have generated. Moreover, as international institutions are increasingly empowered, their exercises of authority are more and more questioned in terms of democratic control, respect for the rule of law, and human rights.2 Treaty bodies are not immune from such inquiries. Indeed, treaty bodies may be charged with contributing to a deformalization of international law, representing expert bodies and other, more informal, organs that may be seen as less accountable than traditional IOs.3 Recently, we have seen growing scepticisms against multilateral approaches to international governance.4 This may also affect the willingness to cooperate through treaty bodies.

I.  Why Have Treaty Bodies Been Established? The reasons for establishing treaty bodies rather than full-​fledged IOs or ICs may vary among different subject matters and from case to case. Generally speaking, three rationales stand out. First, States may choose to create treaty bodies to minimize interference in their sovereignty. For example, the minimalist approach to institutional creation was a deliberate choice in Antarctic cooperation. It took forty years before a permanent secretariat was established, in part because of a suspicion that even the establishment of a secretariat could lead to an internationalization of Antarctica, threatening States with sovereignty claims in the territory.5 Similarly, human rights treaty bodies interfere less with State sovereignty by resolving individual complaints by non-​binding decisions rather than the binding judgments produced by international courts. Second, treaty bodies may also be the preferred option due to a reluctance to establish new IOs or a sense that it is inappropriate to use existing IOs for new purposes. In international environmental law, treaty bodies emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in concert with growing dissatisfaction with traditional IOs because of their cost and bureaucracy. Creating treaty bodies thus might seem less costly and more effective. They avoid difficulties in using an existing IO with an already fixed membership. And they make choosing the location of a new IO unnecessary.6

2 J Klabbers, ‘Setting the Scene’ in J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009) 37–​43. 3 M Koskenniemi, ‘The Fate of Public International Law:  Between Technique and Politics’ (2007) 70 MLR 1,  9–​15. 4 HG Cohen, ‘Multilateralism’s Life Cycle’ (2018) 112 AJIL 1, 47–​66. 5 K Scott, ‘Institutional Developments within the Antarctic Treaty System’ (2003) 52 ICLQ 473, 476, 479; see also P Vigni, ‘The Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty: Achievements and Weaknesses Three Years After its Establishment’ in G Triggs and A Riddell (eds), Antarctica: Legal and Environmental Challenges for the Future (BIICL, London 2007) 18; F Francioni, ‘Establishment of an Antarctic Treaty Secretariat: Pending Legal Issues’ in D Vidas (ed), Implementing the Environmental Protection Regime for the Antarctic (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 2000) 125–​6. 6 R Churchill and G Ulfstein, ‘Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-​Noticed Phenomenon in International Law’ (2000) 94 AJIL 623–​60, 629–​31.

416  Treaty Application Third, the choice of treaty bodies rather than IOs in international human rights and arms control may be due to their limited functions. As noted, supervisory organs usually only supervise States’ implementation of treaty obligations while the meeting of the parties’ only function is to elect members of such supervisory bodies. There are, however, cases where it may be difficult to explain why States opted either for an IO or a treaty body. For example, the Convention on Chemical Weapons and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty both established IOs. But, despite similarities in subject matter and obligations, the Anti-​Personnel Landmine Convention did not, establishing a meeting of the parties instead, whose function is to ‘consider any matter with regard to the application or implementation of this Convention’.7

II.  The Structure of Treaty Bodies Treaty bodies almost always include a central plenary organ, but depending on their functions and relationship to other treaties, subsidiary bodies and a secretariat may also be established. The plenary organ of treaty bodies may be called the Conference of the Parties (COP) or a different denomination like Meeting of the Parties (MOP). It will meet regularly, often annually. A ‘bureau’ may be elected to serve on its behalf between regular meetings and to operate as a facilitating organ during plenary body sessions. Protocols are formally separate treaties from the treaty that spawned them. Nevertheless, substantive overlap between the parent convention and its protocol(s)—​and full or partial overlap in membership between the two—​sometimes militates in favour of joint institutions. In other cases, a protocol’s more specialized functions or different membership may prevent such integration. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) is an example of a protocol with a separate treaty body—​a MOP—​that meets in conjunction with the COP of the foundational Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. In contrast, the plenary body of the regional Convention on Long-​Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention) also serves as the governing body of its relevant protocols. The Paris Agreement to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides that the Convention’s COP shall serve as the Agreement’s MOP, but parties to the Convention that are not parties to the Agreement may participate only as observers when the COP acts in this capacity. And while the Antarctic Treaty and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) contain several identical substantive obligations, they have legally separate institutions.8 Thus, insofar as cooperation is needed, this must be undertaken at an inter-​institutional level. Protocols may also increase the competence of existing treaty bodies. In the human rights context, the (First) Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) establishes the Human Rights Committee’s power to deal with individual complaints. On the other hand, the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture

7 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 2056 UNTS 211, Art 11. 8 M Jacobsson, ‘The Antarctic Treaty System:  Future Challenges’ in G Triggs and A Riddell (eds), Antarctica: Legal and Environmental Challenges for the Future (BIICL, London 2007) 12.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  417 establishes a separate Subcommittee to conduct visits to places where persons are deprived of their liberty and to make appropriate recommendations on their protection.9 In addition to the plenary organ, subsidiary bodies may be established, whether through express treaty provisions or by plenary body decisions. For example, the meeting of States parties to the Anti-​Personnel Landmine Convention established intersessional Standing Committee meetings, contact groups, and an Implementation Support Unit.10 Subsidiary bodies may have different functions from plenary organs, including providing financial assistance (eg the Montreal Protocol’s Executive Body), technology transfer, compliance control (eg the Paris Agreement’s Compliance Committee), or scientific advice. Membership may replicate the COP or operate with more limited numbers. Subsidiary bodies may even be composed of persons acting in their individual capacity. These organs will generally be under the guidance of the plenary body, but their independent status may prevent such guidance, as is the case for meetings of the parties to human rights supervisory organs vis-​ à-​vis the various committees that oversee State implementation of those treaties or hear individual complaints relating to them. Aside from a plenary organ and any subsidiary bodies, a treaty body may have a secretariat. The secretariat may be designated in the treaty itself; the treaty may establish an interim secretariat and leave the final decision to the plenary body; or the treaty may not contain any provision on a secretariat. Establishing a secretariat is important to ensure a permanent organ that can act between meetings of the plenary and any subsidiary bodies that otherwise serve these bodies. Typical secretariat functions include conducting studies, preparing draft decisions for the other treaty bodies, providing technical assistance to parties, and receiving and circulating reports on implementation of commitments. The secretariat may also serve as the conduit for cooperation with relevant IOs and other treaty bodies; a role the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) described as ‘necessary for the exercise of the functions of the Assembly and its subsidiary bodies and the fulfilment of the purposes of the Court’.11 While plenary and subsidiary bodies are independent organs, many treaties locate their secretariats within existing IOs. Global treaties on human rights and the treaty bodies established by UNCLOS have their secretariats situated as part of the UN. Although some establish more autonomous secretariats, global environmental treaties generally have their secretariat in the UN, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), or the International Maritime Organization (IMO). For example, the UNFCCC established an interim secretariat and left the final decision to its COP. The COP decided that ‘the Convention secretariat shall be institutionally linked to the United Nations, while not being fully integrated in the work programme and management structure of any particular department or programme’.12 When a treaty body uses an existing IO to perform secretariat functions, the location of that secretariat may be different from that of the host organization. For example, the secretariat of the Convention 9 Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 18 December 2002, entered into force 22 June 2006) 2375 UNTS 237, Art 11. 10 S Maslen, The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (OUP, Oxford 2005) 272. 11 Establishment of the Permanent Secretariat of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (12 September 2003) ICC-​ASP/​2/​Res.3. 12 UNFCC COP Decision 14/​CP.1[2]‌, ‘Institutional Linkage of the Convention Secretariat to the United Nations’ (6 June 1995) FCCC/​CP/​1995/​7/​Add.1,  42.

418  Treaty Application on Biological Diversity (CBD) is based in Montreal, whereas the ‘host’, UNEP, is located in Nairobi. In an unusual case, the Ramsar Convention uses a non-​governmental organization (NGO)—​the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—​as its secretariat.13

III.  The Functions and Competences of Treaty Bodies A treaty body’s functions are spelled out in the constitutive treaty, although, as discussed later, it may have ‘implied powers’ as well. Assigned functions can range widely. Some plenary bodies have fairly limited functions. For example, meetings of the parties in human rights treaties merely elect members of supervisory organs, such as the Human Rights Committee or the Committee against Torture. The UNCLOS Meeting of States Parties (SPLOS) elects members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and deals with budgetary and administrative matters of the Tribunal.14 In contrast, plenary bodies such as those associated with multilateral environmental organizations (MEAs) have a wide range of powers. Typical functions include: (i) matters internal to the MEA such as establishing subsidiary bodies, adopting rules of procedure, and giving guidance to subsidiary bodies and the secretariat; (ii) development of the parties’ substantive cooperation by adopting new binding or non-​binding commitments; (iii) supervision of the MEA’s implementation and State party compliance; and (iv) external activity including arrangements with States, IOs, or organs of other MEAs, which raise questions of the treaty body’s ‘international legal personality’. In each of these areas a treaty body may have delegated competence to act or its powers may evolve over time. For example, the meeting of States parties in the Anti-​Personnel Landmine Convention was originally just intended to serve as a permanent forum in the absence of a secretariat and a vehicle for observing the Convention’s application and implementation; over time, however, it has developed into a ‘major decision-​making event’.15

A.  Treaty bodies at the internal level A treaty body’s internal competence typically includes powers to adopt rules of procedure, financial regulations, the budget, and to establish and give guidance to subsidiary bodies and a secretariat. The Consultative Meeting of the Antarctic Treaty thus distinguishes its ‘Decisions’ on an ‘internal organizational matter’ from ‘Measures’ on substantive matters adopted under Article IX of the Treaty.16 Powers at the internal level may be explicitly 13 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention) (adopted 2 February 1971, entered into force 21 December 1975) 996 UNTS 245 (as amended) Art 8. 14 UNCLOS (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 397, Art 319(2). There has, however, been disagreement on the mandate of the Meeting of States Parties to discuss ‘matters of a substantive nature relating to the implementation of the Convention’. ‘Report of the twenty-​first Meeting of States Parties’ (29 June 2011) SPLOS/​231 [119]–​[120]. The competence of the Meeting of States Parties continues to be ‘hotly contested’, see J Harrison, ‘The Law of the Sea Convention Institutions’ in AG Oude Elferink, KN Scott, T Stephens, and D Rothwell (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Law of the Sea (OUP, Oxford 2015) 373–​99, 377. 15 Maslen (n 10) 272. 16 Decision 1, ‘Final Report of the Nineteenth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting’ (Seoul 8–​19 May 1995); P Gautier, ‘Institutional Developments in the Antarctic Treaty System’ in T Scovazzi and F Francioni (eds), International Law for Antarctica (2nd edn Kluwer, The Hague 1996) 44–​6.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  419 established in the treaty, either (i) by specifying the different treaty body functions, or (ii) by setting out more general powers to exercise the functions required for achieving the treaty’s objectives. Sometimes, the treaty may not offer much guidance, and it may be necessary to turn to principles of international institutional law. The ICJ first accepted the doctrine of implied powers for IOs in the 1949 Reparations case, which concerned the UN’s capacity to bring legal claims externally.17 In 1954, in the UN Administrative Tribunal case, the ICJ held that the UN also had competence to establish a subsidiary organ—​a tribunal to render binding judgments in disputes with employees.18 Should such implied powers also be accepted as a basis for treaty bodies operating at the internal level? At the outset, caution is warranted in applying doctrines applicable to IOs when the treaty parties consciously decided not to establish an IO, but instead established the more modest set-​up of a treaty body. On the other hand, it may be difficult to find any determination or intention by the parties not to apply the doctrine of implied powers. The same reasoning used for IOs would seem suitable for treaty bodies: the relevant functions may be considered necessary to achieve the objectives of the cooperation. Furthermore, internal level decisions by the treaty organ will not impose new substantive obligations on Member States, and should, as such, be more acceptable than implying substantive decision-​ making powers. At the same time, the particular—​and possibly more limited—​functions of a treaty body may militate against accepting as wide a set of internal powers as for IOs. If we start with the work of the plenary body, there should be no reason not to accept that this organ may adopt its own rules of procedure, to the extent that such rules are not laid down in the treaty itself. For example, meetings of the parties to human rights treaties must have the competence to decide procedures for nomination and election of members of supervisory bodies, and these bodies in turn must be able to decide on procedures for dealing with the examination of State reports, individual complaints, and the adoption of any General Comments interpreting the treaty’s obligations. Treaty bodies will not necessarily have the capacity to dispose of their own financial resources, but if they do, they should also have the power to adopt appropriate financial regulations and the budget. Furthermore, if the treaty body is a political organ, it may have powers concerning the procedural rights and obligations of Member States (eg exclusion or suspension of voting and other rights) and representatives of Member States (eg approval of credentials). The treaty body should also have the power to implement any rules of procedure in practice (eg adopting meeting agendas, allotting the speaking order, and admitting observers from IOs, NGOs, and non-​Member States). Treaty bodies will also generally be in a position to establish subsidiary organs. But while plenary political organs may have extensive express or implied powers to establish subsidiary bodies, the competence of more specialized organs may be limited. For example, supervisory human rights bodies consisting of independent experts, due to their function as expert bodies, should not—​or only to a limited extent—​be allowed to delegate substantive decision-​making powers to a secretariat. It is more acceptable that a subgroup—​or individual members—​of such bodies be allocated special responsibilities in such cases. 17 Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174. 18 Effect of Awards of Compensation Made by the UN Administrative Tribunal (Advisory Opinion) [1954] ICJ Rep 47, 53.

420  Treaty Application If subsidiary organs are established, the treaty organ establishing them should have the powers to control such organs—​unless they are meant to have an autonomous status, such as scientific bodies or organs for dispute settlement. In this sense, an elaborate hierarchical structure may be developed, which in practice may be comparable to that of an IO. The establishment of a secretariat itself may also be a controversial issue where the treaty is silent, as evidenced by the Antarctic Treaty experience where it took decades to establish one. If a separate secretariat is designated in the treaty or established by the treaty body, there is no question about the treaty body controlling the secretariat. Furthermore, the treaty body would be the supreme organ when it comes to recruiting and instructing secretariat personnel. More intricate questions arise if the secretariat functions are undertaken by an existing IO. The treaty body’s independent status means that the IO hosting the secretariat may only exercise the powers flowing from this particular function, and has no powers to instruct the treaty body or its subsidiary bodies. As regards the secretariat, however, matters are different. Both the treaty body and the host organization possess powers in relation to the secretariat. The treaty body and its subsidiary bodies must be considered to have the authority to instruct the secretariat in substantive as well as procedural matters. On the other hand, as the host organization employs the secretariat officials, it has the right to appoint, instruct, and terminate staff. If contradictory instructions occur, the relevant officials would be obliged, under the internal law of the IO, to carry out its instructions. These instructions, however, could violate the commitments undertaken by the IO in agreeing to serve as a host organization for the treaty body. As with IOs, moreover, internal decisions, such as guidance by the treaty body to subsidiary bodies and the secretariat, should be considered to be binding unless the treaty or the relevant decision itself specifically indicates that it was intended to be non-​binding.19

B.  Substantive decision-​making 1. Vehicles for treaty body decision-​making Treaty bodies may have important roles in developing the substantive commitments of States parties. In doing so, they contribute to the dynamic character of international law and overcome the cumbersome treaty-​making process. On the other hand, treaty bodies may also balance the desire for effective decision-​making with the need for State consent, which is sought to ensure the legitimacy for international obligations as well as their national implementation. In practice, different treaty bodies have different functions and therefore also different roles and powers when it comes to substantive decision-​making—​ie establishing new substantive obligations for States parties, either as international ‘legislation’ or ‘executive’ decisions in individual cases. Treaty bodies often have explicit delegated law-​making powers comparable to plenary organs of IOs. But only exceptionally will such organs have the competence to adopt binding new obligations for Member States by majority voting. One example is Article 2(9) 19 CF Amerasinghe, Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2005) 163–​4; HG Schermers and NM Blokker, International Institutional Law: Unity within Diversity (6th edn Brill Nijhoff, Leiden 2018) 788.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  421 of the Montreal Protocol, which allows the MOP to adopt certain new obligations in the form of ‘adjustments’—​with binding effect for all parties. This authority has never been used. However, its mere existence may induce States’ willingness to accept such obligations through consensus. Considerable ingenuity has been demonstrated in making substantive decision-​making more effective, short of binding decisions by majority-​voting, including amendments and protocols, recommendations, and interpretations of the relevant treaty. First, treaty bodies may have authority to adopt amendments to the relevant treaty text and its annexes or new legal instruments in the form of protocols. Although State consent is required for these new commitments to enter into force, the existence of the treaty body’s authority may facilitate recognition of the need for amendments and protocols as well as their eventual negotiation.20 A second, more potent, way of decision-​making can be found in the Antarctic Treaty. Article IX provides that the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) may adopt recommendations which shall become ‘effective’—​presumably legally binding—​when approved by the States parties.21 While it is up to each State to decide whether to accept the binding character of the recommendation, such acceptance does not require a ratification procedure. Third, treaty bodies may also contribute to international ‘legislation’ by interpreting the relevant treaty or by adopting recommendations in the form of soft law. For example, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf has a ‘quasi-​legislative’ function. Its recommendations on the outer limit of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles will, if implemented by the coastal State, be ‘final and binding’.22 This represents a unique example of a scientific-​administrative international body contributing to a binding determination of the interpretation of a treaty on complex issues, with wide-​reaching legal and political implications. Similarly, the ICC Assembly of States Parties has the power to adopt and amend ‘elements of crime’ which shall ‘assist the Court in the interpretation and application of Articles 6, 7, 8 and 8bis’ (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression), subject to the condition that such elements ‘shall be consistent’ with the Rome Statute.23 Interpretative measures adopted by COPs are also important in international environmental law. In some cases, this power of interpretation is expressly conferred by the MEA. Thus, Article 10(1) of the Montreal Protocol authorizes the MOP to interpret the term ‘agreed incremental costs’ (incurred by developing States parties in complying with the Protocol) by establishing an ‘indicative list of . . . incremental costs’.24 But, more commonly, a COP will interpret a MEA not because the agreement authorizes it, but because experience in operating the MEA or scientific, technical, or other developments are perceived as requiring it.25 For example, in 2003, the Montreal Protocol MOP acknowledged ‘that the 20 Additional processes, ie tacit consent by States parties, exist to streamline the process by which amendments to annexes of treaties or protocols enter into force. For further details see Chapter 14 (on treaty amendments). 21 Antarctic Treaty (1 December 1959, entered into force 23 June 1961)  402 UNTS 71, Art IX; A Watts, International Law and the Antarctic Treaty System (Grotius, Cambridge 1992) 25; Gautier (n 16) 42. 22 UNCLOS (n 14) Art 76(8). 23 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2002) 2187 UNTS 90, Art 9. 24 Montreal Protocol (adopted 16 September 1987, entered into force 1 January 1989) 1522 UNTS 3, Art 10(1). 25 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 636–​43.

422  Treaty Application meaning of the term “State not party to this Protocol” may be subject to differing interpretations with respect to hydrochlorofluorocarbons by Parties to the Beijing Amendment’ and made a decision on the definition of this term.26 Supervisory bodies of human rights conventions often have authority to issue ‘General Comments’ on their respective treaties.27 While such comments are formally not ‘legislation’, and not issued by a body competent to undertake lawmaking, they are interpretations of the respective conventions, to be applied in examining State reports and in compliance procedures. Realistically speaking, as they set out in more detail the obligations contained in the conventions, they may be regarded as a form of soft legislation.28

2. The sources of treaty body competence over substance To the extent that treaty bodies have a comparable structure and function as traditional IOs, they should be expected to have comparable lawmaking powers. But as with powers at the internal level, caution is advised in determining the scope of lawmaking powers. They may be constrained by both the relevant body’s function(s) and the possible intention of the parties to restrict delegated powers by establishing a treaty body rather than an IO. When assessing more closely whether tenets of IO law should apply, there is no reason to deny the application of the principle of effective interpretation to the relevant treaty.29 It must be assumed that the parties desired to achieve effects with their cooperation, be it in the field of human rights, arms control, or the environment. But, as with IOs, there is more reason to be sceptical about the doctrine of implied powers when it comes to substantive lawmaking. Unlike the determination of internal powers, substantive lawmaking means that new obligations are imposed on States parties. The point of departure should thus be that lawmaking power must be based on explicit authority in the treaty. Substantive decisions of a non-​binding character may, however, be more easily accepted on the basis of implied powers than binding decisions. Difficult questions may arise when determining substantive powers in concrete cases. For example, the decision by the COP of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal to ban transboundary movement of covered waste from OECD to non-​OECD countries was controversial. Some States argued that the decision was not legally binding because the COP could not alter parties’ substantive obligations merely by utilizing its explicit general power to take action to achieve the Convention’s objectives. The COP sought to resolve the controversy by adopting an amendment to the Convention that incorporated the substance of the decision.30 As of 20 February 2019, the amendment had received ninety-​five ratifications, but was not yet in force.31 26 Decision XV/​3, ‘Obligations of Parties to the Beijing Amendment under Article 4 of the Montreal Protocol with respect to hydrochlorofluorocarbons’ (Fifteenth Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer 11 November 2003) UNEP/​OzL.Pro.15/​9, 44–​5. 27 See eg International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 40(4), (5). 28 See H Keller and L Grover, ‘General Comments of the Human Rights Committee and their Legitimacy’ in H Keller and G Ulfstein (eds), UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Law and Legitimacy (CUP, Cambridge 2012). 29 For further discussion of interpretation of the constitutive treaties of IOs see Chapter 22. 30 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 639. 31 See Decision IX/​26, ‘President’s statement on the possible way forward on the Ban Amendment’ (Report of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal on its ninth meeting 27 June 2008) UNEP/​CHW.9/​39; see also Amendment to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, MTDSG,

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  423 In contrast, Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change enables the MOP to adopt ‘rules’ relating to the operation of the system for trading in emissions of greenhouse gases. The use of the word ‘rules’ suggests that such measures are intended to be legally binding. This idea is supported by the fact that Article 17 refers to ‘relevant principles, modalities, rules and guidelines’, indicating that ‘rules’ are different from, for example, non-​binding ‘principles’ or ‘guidelines’.32 Such an interpretation is also supported by substantive considerations. For instance, a party that makes use of the ‘rules’ on emission trading by buying emission quotas cannot, arguably, be accused of non-​compliance with the Protocol when it wants to add these quotas to its emission limits in the Protocol.33 This example demonstrates that there may be a fine distinction between effective interpretation and the use of implied powers: relevant arguments may be found in both the wording and object and purpose of the treaty. But even if the treaty body is not empowered to make binding interpretations, its decisions are not necessarily without legal significance. Reliance on such practice may, however, raise complex questions regarding the relationship between treaty law and the law of international institutions. Article 31(3)(a) and (b) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) requires, respectively, that treaty interpretation takes into account ‘any subsequent agreement between the parties regarding the interpretation of the treaty or the application of its provisions’ and ‘any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation’. The International Law Commission distinguishes between Conferences of States Parties for, on the one hand, meetings between parties to a treaty for review and implementation, and, on the other hand Conferences forming part of an international organization.34 Practice by the former Conference is seen as relevant for the purpose of Article 31(3)(a) and (b), while the latter practice is viewed as formal practice by the IO, rather than by the States parties. Those views notwithstanding, it seems more natural to see the former practice as the practice of the treaty body, rather than the collective practice of States parties.35 This view is even clearer when the treaty body does not consist of representatives of States parties, but rather independent experts, as is the case with the supervisory organs of human rights conventions.36 Decision-​making by treaty bodies has proven more effective than traditional consent-​ based treaty processes. However, how treaty bodies take these decisions—​that is, by majority vote or consensus—​requires some scrutiny. Since the mid-​1960s, treaty bodies have increasingly used a consensus requirement to keep powerful States on board. But a consensus Ch XXXVII, 3.a, at . 32 Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (adopted 16 March 1998, entered into force 16 February 2005) [1998] ILM 22, Art 17. A second commitment period was adopted by the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, but no amendment was made to Art 17. The Doha amendment is not yet in force. See the Doha Amendment, at . 33 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 639. More sceptical about the binding character is J Brunnée, ‘COPing with Consent: Law-​Making Under Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2002) 15 LJIL 1, 24–​6. 34 Report of the International Law Commission, 70th Session (30 April–​1 June and 2 July–​10 August 2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10,  83. 35 For different views on the significance of institutional practice in interpretation of the UN Charter, see JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Law-​Makers (OUP, Oxford 2006) 88–​9 and J Klabbers, ‘Checks and Balances in the Law of International Organizations’ (2008) 1 Ius Gentium 141, 151–​2. 36 See ILC 70th Session (n 34) 110.

424  Treaty Application requirement may prevent decisions or make them ‘constructively’ vague.37 It may also be contested what is meant by consensus, as evidenced by adoption of the Cancun Agreements by consensus under the UNFCCC in 2010 over the vocal objections of Bolivia.38 A compromise between consensus and simple majority voting may be to require qualified majorities and/​or weighted voting. The Montreal Protocol combines those two techniques by requiring a double majority under the aforementioned Article 2(9); a two-​thirds majority must include a majority of developing States parties and a majority of developed States parties. All told, the possibility to object to, and so not be bound by decisions a State does not like, serves also to protect against treaty bodies gaining overly wide-​reaching powers on decision-​making by majority-​voting.39

C.  Supervisory treaty bodies International law has traditionally left the enforcement of treaty obligations to individual States parties, whether through suspension or termination of treaties as a consequence of material breach; invoking State responsibility, including countermeasures; or, by initiating proceedings before international courts. In recent years, States have sought to supplement these essentially bilateral approaches with multilateral arrangements to ensure national implementation. Many treaties now establish their own collective and individual mechanisms in the form of supervisory treaty bodies to serve treaty implementation and enforcement. Originally inspired by mechanisms developed in the International Labour Organization (ILO), so-​called ‘non-​compliance procedures’ now exist in several fields, including human rights, international environmental law, and arms control. Supervisory treaty bodies are well-​suited to apply measures of a more facilitative quality in lieu of traditional coercive approaches, consonant with the view that a ‘managerial approach’ rather than an ‘enforcement approach’ may better address non-​compliance questions.40 Treaty organs may also be better designed to prevent non-​compliance rather than waiting to address reparations for damages post-​hoc. Finally, these bodies may also offer a new structure for communication rather than confrontational approaches that might undermine the cooperative spirit in ongoing international cooperation under the same treaties. These are all plausible reasons why treaties may contain non-​compliance procedures. An alternative explanation exists, however; namely that States prefer non-​compliance procedures because—​instead of leaving decisions to a third-​party court or an arbitral tribunal—​ they allow States more control over the process and its outcome. Furthermore, a decision resulting from a non-​compliance procedure is not final in the form of res judicata, and may therefore be seen as less intrusive on State sovereignty. A fundamental requirement for assessing compliance with international obligations is information about relevant facts, be it the emission of relevant polluting substances, the 37 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 642–​3. 38 L Rajamani, ‘The Cancun Climate Agreements: Reading the Text, Subtext and Tea Leaves’ (2011) 60 ICLQ 499, 514–​18; See also ILC 70th Session (n 34) 90 ff. 39 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 643. 40 G Ulfstein, T Marauhn, and A Zimmermann, ‘Introduction’ in G Ulfstein, T Marauhn, and A Zimmermann (eds), Making Treaties Work: Human Rights, Environment and Arms Control (CUP, Cambridge 2007) 9.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  425 treatment of human beings, or the manufacturing and storage of weapons. States have traditionally been responsible for providing such data through reporting obligations. Expert Review Teams (ERTs) established under the Kyoto Protocol, however, offer an example of how fact-​finding can be done by independent treaty bodies. ERTs provide a ‘thorough and comprehensive technical assessment’ of ‘all aspects of the implementation by a Party of the Kyoto Protocol’, and identify ‘any problems in, and factors influencing, the fulfilment of commitments’ as well as ‘questions of implementation’ with regard to a party’s performance.41 We find also human rights treaty bodies empowered to conduct fact-​finding inquiries on the territory of States parties if they have reason to believe that serious human rights violations are taking place.42 Beyond fact-​finding, human rights treaty bodies may—​to the extent agreed to by the relevant State—​consider individual complaints and, as discussed above, issue General Comments on the interpretation of relevant treaty obligations. The Aarhus Convention is special among MEAs in contemplating a right for individuals and NGOs to trigger cases of non-​compliance, presumably as an aspect of the Convention’s human rights character.43 Decisions of supervisory treaty bodies are generally based on express authorization in the respective treaty texts, but ‘implied powers’ are also occasionally used. For example, it has been disputed whether the adoption of General Comments by human rights treaty bodies can only be based on specific treaty provisions, including subsequent State practice, or may exist by necessary implication.44 Likewise, the adoption of interim measures lacks an explicit basis in the relevant conventions. Implied powers have also been claimed as the legal basis for follow-​up procedures.45 Human rights treaty bodies have been successful in achieving acceptance for all of these activities. Thus, these practices may be considered to constitute both subsequent practice of the treaty bodies (under international institutional law) and the subsequent practice by the States parties (under the law of treaties).46 What legal status human rights treaty body findings have is more controversial. Some human rights literature has claimed that views adopted by the Human Rights Committee (HRC) in cases of individual complaints involving the ICCPR are, although formally not binding, to a great extent comparable to judicial decisions.47 In its General Comment No 41 UNFCCC, Decision 23/​CP.7, ‘Guidelines for Review under Article 8 of the Kyoto Protocol’ (Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Seventh Session, Marrakesh, 29 October–​10 November 2001) Annex [4]‌and [48(b)(iv)]. 42 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1465 UNTS 85, Art 2; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13, Art 8. 43 Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-​Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (adopted 25 June 1998, entered into force 30 October 2001) [1998] ILM 517, Art 15. 44 Keller and Grover (n 28). 45 G Ulfstein, ‘Individual Complaints’ in H Keller and G Ulfstein (eds), UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Law and Legitimacy (CUP, Cambridge 2012) 73. 46 See discussion by the International Law Association, Committee on International Human Rights Law and Practice, Report of the Seventy-​First Conference (Berlin) (ILA, London 2004) 629. 47 See R Hanski and M Scheinin, Leading Cases of the Human Rights Committee (2nd edn Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University, Turku 2007) 23; M Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR commentary (2nd edn NP Engel, Kehl 2005) XXVII; HJ Steiner, R Goodman, and P Alston, International Human Rights in Context:  Law, Politics and Morals (3rd edn OUP, Oxford 2008) 915; M Nowak, K Buchinger, and E McArthur, The United Nations Convention against Torture (OUP, Oxford 2008) 777; S Joseph, J Schultz, and M Castan, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Cases, Materials, and Commentary (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2004) 24; C Tomuschat, Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism (3rd edn OUP, Oxford 2014) 267. See also W Kälin and J Künzli, The Law of International Human Rights Protection (OUP, Oxford 2009) 225.

426  Treaty Application 33, the HRC accepted that its function is not ‘as such, that of a judicial body’.48 But the HRC stated that its Views exhibit ‘some important characteristics of a judicial decision’. The Views are arrived at ‘in a judicial spirit’, including ‘the impartiality and independence of Committee members, the considered interpretation of the language of the Covenant, and the determinative character of the decisions’. Furthermore, the General Comment established that the Views represent ‘an authoritative determination’49 and that States parties ‘must use whatever means lie within their power in order to give effect to the views of the Committee’.50 This gives an impression that, to the HRC at least, its Views are tantamount to legally binding decisions. Despite opposition from some States, there are arguments for taking the practice of treaty bodies into account because doing so accords with the object and purpose of States parties: they established these organs to ensure the treaty’s effective implementation and to obtain authoritative interpretations of treaty obligations. The ICJ endorsed this view in the Diallo case, stating that the HRC practice should be accorded ‘great weight’ since it ‘was established specifically to supervise the application of that treaty [the ICCPR]’. The argument was thus based on the parties’ intention. But the Court also used a ‘systemic’ argument for relying on HRC practice, referring to the need ‘to achieve the necessary clarity and the essential consistency of international law, as well as legal security’.51 The same arguments could be made for other treaty bodies to accord their opinions ‘great weight’, recognizing that there might be more scrutiny by international or national courts since such bodies would have less eminence in judicial decision-​making than the HRC. Although often contemplated as a facilitative process, a finding of non-​compliance may be regarded as a sanction, in the form of ‘naming and shaming’, creating political embarrassment for the relevant State. Such finding in itself does not, however, entail legal consequences—​except possibly with respect to internal treaty cooperation between the parties (eg States that violate their commitments will not be elected to treaty organs). Therefore, such findings should not require an explicit treaty basis. Likewise, the introduction of positive measures in the form of incentives—​for example, of a financial or technological character—​should be accepted without express authorization. The situation is more complicated when it comes to explicit sanctions. IOs have imposed different sanctions with or without an explicit basis, such as suspension of voting rights or representation, or of other rights and privileges of membership.52 The reluctance of States to accept imposition of such sanctions in treaty bodies without an explicit treaty basis is illustrated by Article 18 of the Kyoto Protocol. It establishes that mechanisms ‘entailing binding consequences shall be adopted by means of an amendment to this Protocol’. It is not obvious what kind of measures should be regarded as entailing ‘binding consequences’, but it would be difficult to accept, for example, deduction of emissions quotas at a penalty rate as

48 HRC, ‘General Comment No. 33:  The Obligations of States Parties under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (5 November 2008) CCPR/​C/​GC/​3, [11]. 49 Ibid [13]. 50 Ibid [20]. 51 Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of Congo) [2010] ICJ Rep 639, [66]. That said, the ICJ only used HRC practice to corroborate its own interpretation, although it did refer to HRC findings in individual Communications (ie Views) as well as its General Comments as ‘case law’. 52 Schermers and Blokker (n 19) 916–​18.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  427 adopted by the MOP as part of its Marrakesh Accords, without a treaty basis in the form of an amendment.53

D.  Treaty bodies at the external level 1. Treaty body treaty-​making Treaty bodies may also need to have a ‘foreign policy’. For instance, the relationship to the IO providing a secretariat must be arranged; there may be a need for a headquarters agreement with the State hosting the secretariat as well as States hosting meetings of the parties and subsidiary bodies; implementation of commitments by States parties may require financial assistance and capacity-​building and, hence, involvement by treaty bodies may require arrangements with international financial institutions; and, finally, to the extent that relevant international problems are interconnected, it may be necessary to require cooperation among different treaty bodies and IOs. These needs raise the question of the ‘international legal personality’ of treaty bodies to enter into binding agreements under international law.54 Treaties establishing treaty bodies will rarely set out a treaty-​making capacity. This absence of explicit provisions is, however, also common to most IOs, without preventing them from enjoying such legal capacity. Thus, although some treaties may be interpreted to include a reference to treaty-​making capacity for treaty bodies, the main basis for accepting such powers would, as for IOs, be implied powers. Doing so would accord with the flexible approach used by the ICJ in the Reparations case, where it noted that not all subjects of law are identical in their nature or the extent of their rights, which turn instead on ‘the requirements of international life’ and the ‘progressive increase in the collective activities of States’.55 Furthermore, accepting an external capacity for treaty bodies would allow such bodies to possess rights and obligations under international law, but would not itself provide them with a capacity to create new obligations for States parties or third States. When it comes to treaty bodies resembling IOs in their structure and functions, such as the organs established by MEAs, there seems little reason not to accord them powers at the external level, to the extent such powers are needed to fulfil their functions. The reason MEAs establish treaty bodies instead of formal IOs comes from a desire to accomplish ‘institutional economy’, not to prevent their effectiveness. Such capacities may also be based on subsequent practice by treaty bodies.56 As is demonstrated by the establishment of the Antarctic Treaty secretariat, the recognition of international legal personality may be highly controversial.57 But the Headquarters Agreement for the Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty defines the 2010 ATCM and the Argentine Republic as its parties, implying that the ATCM possesses a treaty-​making capacity. 53 G Ulfstein and J Werksman, ‘The Kyoto Compliance System: Towards Hard Enforcement’ in OS Stokke, J Hovi, and G Ulfstein (eds), Implementing the Climate Regime. International Compliance (Earthscan, London 2005)  57–​8. 54 See on international legal personality: JE Nijman, The Concept of International Legal Personality (TMC Asser Press, The Hague 2004); R Portmann, Legal Personality in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2010). 55 Reparations Case (n 17) 174, 178. 56 Churchill and Ulfstein (n 6) 651. On the international legal personality of MEA secretariats see also B Desai, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (CUP, Cambridge 2010) 124–​5. 57 Vigni (n 5) 21–​2.

428  Treaty Application On the other hand, the constitutive treaty or the functions of a treaty body may restrict its treaty-​making capacity. For example, the Rome Statute establishes that the ICC’s relationship with the UN shall be regulated ‘through an agreement to be approved by the Assembly of States Parties to this Statute and thereafter concluded by the President of the Court on its behalf ’.58 This means that while the consent of the ICC Assembly as a treaty body is necessary, the Court as such (not the Assembly as a treaty body) is party to the agreement with the UN. The structure and functions of supervisory organs established by treaties on arms control or human rights do not provide the same basis for accepting powers to enter into treaties. There may, however, be a need to coordinate activities, be it between the treaty body and the host IO for the secretariat or between different treaty bodies of the same character, such as harmonizing reporting requirements for States parties to different human rights conventions. While a capacity to enter into binding international agreements in the form of treaties should not readily be accepted, there should be no reason for denying these bodies’ capacity to enter into political understandings or agreements, such as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Restrictions on treaty body external capacity may also follow from general international law. The ICJ held, for instance, in the Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion that the World Health Organization (WHO) could not, under reference to ‘the principle of speciality’, request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons.59

2. The fragmentation of treaty regimes The large number of treaty bodies may—​in addition to the multitude of IOs and ICs—​ contribute to a fragmented international architecture, at the expense of comprehensive policy-​making. Inconsistent and contradictory decisions may also occur. On the other hand, the existence of different treaty orders and institutions may have benefits by providing possibilities for designing the institutional set-​up to the specific needs of the problem at hand; giving focus to marginalized interests; and increasing the pool of experience in developing policy-​making and jurisprudence. The coordination problems associated with treaty body proliferation may be met (i) by increased formal or informal cooperation among different treaty regimes and (ii) by taking account of other treaty body decisions as well as those of relevant IOs and ICs. In international environmental law, this challenge has been met by increased cooperation between the COPs of different MEAs60 and between COPs and IOs.61 In human rights, the High Commissioner for Human Rights took the initiative to streamline and strengthen the human rights treaty body system.62 This culminated in adoption of General Assembly resolution 68/​268, ‘Strengthening and Enhancing the Effective Functioning of the Treaty Body 58 Rome Statute (n 23) Art 2; see also ibid Art 3(2) on a similar procedure for entering into a Headquarters Agreement. 59 Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, [25]. 60 See KN Scott, ‘International Environmental Governance:  Managing Fragmentation through Institutional Connection’ (2011) 12 Melbourne J Intl L 1–​40. 61 See eg MA Young, Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2011) 154–​84. 62 See the website titled, ‘The Treaty Body Strengthening Process’, established by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: .

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  429 System’, in 2014.63 As for the ICJ, it takes due account of the practice of human rights treaty bodies, as it did in the Diallo case as well as by respecting the complementarity between it and bodies like the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which it did in the Georgia v Russian Federation case.64 In practice, different treaty regimes interact in different ways, and States and other actors may use the existence of different regimes in strategic ways.65 A more ambitious approach to international coordination and comprehensive policy-​ and decision-​making would be to merge different treaty bodies, and possibly replace them by IOs and ICs. Thus, a World Environmental Organization has been proposed to overcome the fragmented institutional framework and strengthen international environmental governance.66 In international human rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has proposed a ‘unified treaty body’,67 while a more ambitious proposal involves establishing a World Court of Human Rights.68 Such proposals have, however, been met by considerable reluctance from States. Less ambitious approaches seem more realistic—​at least in the short term.

Conclusions Treaty bodies are established by treaties, but their manifold structures and functions do not easily fit into the traditional scheme of treaty law. To the extent that their legal powers and capacities, their procedures, and the legal status of their decisions must be determined, the law of treaties has to be supplemented by the law of international institutional law, especially the law of IOs. International institutional law is characterized by its open-​ended nature. It may indeed be asked which parts of it are truly general, as opposed to specific rules for each institution.69 But this also means that this body of law has sufficient flexibility to be adapted to legal issues concerning treaty bodies, taking due account of their explicit foundation in the relevant treaties and their specific functions.

63 UNGA Res 68/​26 (9 April 2014) UN Doc A/​RES/​68/​268. 64 Case Concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russian Federation) [2011] ICJ Rep 70. 65 See eg K Raustiala and DG Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Plant Genetic Resources’ (2004) 58 IO 277–​309; RO Keohane and DG Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Climate Change’ Discussion Paper (2010) Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements. 66 See G Ulfstein, ‘International Framework for Environmental Decision-​Making’ in M Fitzmaurice, DM Ong, and P Merkouris (eds), Research Handbook on International Environmental Law (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2010)  42–​3. 67 OHCHR, ‘Concept Paper on the High Commissioner’s Proposal for a Unified Standing Treaty Body’ (22 March 2006) HRI/​MC/​2006/​2. 68 G Ulfstein, ‘Do We Need a World Court of Human Rights?’ in O Engdahl and P Wrange (eds), Law at War—​ The Law as it was and the Law as it should be (Brill, Leiden 2008). See also the debate between Manfred Nowak and Marin Scheinin, and, on the other hand, Philip Alston: M Nowak, ‘The Need for a World Court of Human Rights’ (2007) 7 Human Rts L Rev 251–​9; M Scheinin, ‘The Proposed Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: A Blueprint for UN Human Rights Treaty Body Reform Without Amending the Existing Treaties’ (2006) 6 Human Rts L Rev 131–​42; J Kozma, M Nowak, and M Scheinin, A World Court of Human Rights—​Consolidated Statute and Commentary (Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Studienreihe des Ludwig Boltzmann Instituts fur Menschenrechte, Vienna/​Graz 2010); and P Alston, ‘Against a World Court of Human Rights’ (2014) 28 Ethics & Int’l Affairs 197–​212. 69 Amerasinghe (n 19) 16–​20.

430  Treaty Application The creation of treaty bodies in various areas of international law raises challenges in ensuring effective and consistent policy-​and decision-​making. But institutional plurality can also serve important functions in ensuring a design suited to the treaty’s particular purposes, and increasing the pool of knowledge-​based practice. There are also remedies available to promote coordination—​and even to merge these bodies if needed. Increased power to treaty bodies does raise issues of accountability and legitimacy of their activities, concerns well known from the work of IOs and ICs. It can be argued that treaty bodies present special dilemmas due to their less formal character. There is, however, nothing in the legal technique of using treaty bodies that by itself provides for more or less political or judicial control. Nor do they provide for more or less protection of rule of law guarantees or human rights than IOs and ICs. Control and protection can be instituted, adjusted for special needs, whether the powers are being exercised by formal IOs or ICs, or treaty bodies.70 Today, States may choose cooperation through treaty bodies for several reasons: costs, effectiveness, protection of State sovereignty, or avoiding the need to locate a new IO or court. In the case of single purpose treaty bodies—​such as the supervisory bodies of international human rights treaties—​establishing an IO seems hardly necessary. But even in more complex institutional settings, States should be allowed flexibility in designing the format of their cooperation, including the use of treaty bodies when considered appropriate. It will then be for the lawyers to adapt the law, including the law of treaties and international institutional law, to suit such institutional innovations. Whether current scepticisms against international institutions will affect the willingness to cooperate through treaty bodies remains to be seen.

Recommended Readings CF Amerasinghe, Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2005) J Brunnée, ‘Coping with Consent:  Law-​Making under Multilateral Environmental Agreements’ (2002) 15 LJIL 1–​52 R Churchill and G Ulfstein, ‘Autonomous Institutional Arrangements in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: A Little-​Noticed Phenomenon in International Law’ (2000) 94 AJIL 623–​60 B Desai, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (CUP, Cambridge 2010) H Keller and G Ulfstein (eds), UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Law and Legitimacy (CUP, Cambridge 2012) RO Keohane and DG Victor, ‘The Regime Complex for Climate Change’ (2011) 9 Perspectives on Politics  7–​23. J Klabbers, An Introduction to International Institutional Law (CUP, Cambridge 2015) J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009)  1–​45 M Koskenniemi, ‘The Fate of Public International Law: Between Technique and Politics’ (2007) 70 MLR  1–​30 N Rodley, ‘The Role and Impact of Treaty Bodies’ in The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (OUP, Oxford 2013)

70 G Ulfstein, ‘Institutions and Competences’ in J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009) 50–​1.

Treaty Bodies and Regimes  431 HG Schermers and NM Blokker, International Institutional Law:  Unity within Diversity (6th edn Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2018) G Ulfstein and J Werksman, ‘The Kyoto Compliance System:  Towards Hard Enforcement’ in OS Stokke and others (eds), Implementing the Climate Regime. International Compliance (Earthscan, London 2005) MA Young, Trading Fish, Saving Fish: The Interaction between Regimes in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2011)

18

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation Christopher J Borgen

Introduction Studies addressing how States can respond to conflicting international legal obligations are nothing new.1 However, warnings of the possible systemic fragmentation of international law are a more recent by-​product of the conception of international law as an integrated, though primitive, legal system combined with the reality of specialized treaty regimes.2 Fragmentation is thus a ‘macro-​level’ or systemic manifestation of the ‘micro-​level’ or ‘State-​level’ problem of conflicting legal obligations under two or more sources of law. Scholars have used the term ‘fragmentation’ to refer to ‘a vast array of phenomena’.3 The ILC organized a Study Group (ILC Study Group) to consider fragmentation as a consequence of the expansion and diversification of international law.4 It defined fragmentation as ‘the emergence of specialized and (relatively) autonomous rules or rule-​complexes, legal institutions and spheres of legal practice’.5 Scholars often subdivide the concept of fragmentation into overlapping phenomena: (a) when States have conflicting obligations due to being parties to two or more treaties, and (b) fragmentation due to competing interpretations of the same obligation by different international institutions.6 The first type is usually discussed in analysing potential clashes between two or more functionally specific regimes, such as those for trade, human rights, 1 See eg C Rousseau, ‘De la compatibilité des norms juridiques contradictories dans l’ordre international’ (1932) 39 RGDIP 33–​192; H Lauterpacht, ‘The Covenant as the “Higher Law” ’ (1936) 17 BYBIL 54–​65; CW Jenks, ‘The Conflict of Law Making Treaties’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 403; J Mus, ‘Conflicts Between Treaties in International Law’ (1998) 45 Netherlands Intl L Rev 208–​32. 2 T Broude, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On:  Martti Koskenniemi and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2013) 27 Temp Int’l & Comp L J 279, 285 (stating that ‘what we recognize today as “fragmentation,” whether in its institutional or normative dimensions, is very much a post-​Cold War phenomenon’). 3 T Megiddo, ‘Beyond Fragmentation: On International Law’s Integrationist Forces’ (2019) YJIL 115, 118. 4 ILC Study Group, Fragmentation of International Law:  Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.682, 8 (‘Fragmentation Report’). The UNGA’s Sixth Committee supported the ILC recommendation for a broad study dealing with treaty conflicts oriented on the VCLT as a guide. UNGA, Report of the Study Group on Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law, UNGA, 55th Session (2003), UN Doc A/​ CN.4/​L.644,  6. 5 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 10–​11. 6 Different writers have unpacked the concept of fragmentation in various ways. For a similar—​though tripartite—​description of fragmentation types, see Fragmentation Report (n 4) 30–​1. Disputes over the environmental effects of the UK ‘MOX Plant’ nuclear facility exhibited both versions of fragmentation, generating three different proceedings under three different normative regimes: an arbitral tribunal pursuant to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea; dispute settlement under the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-​East Atlantic; and proceedings before the European Court of Justice pursuant to the European Community and Euratom treaties. Ibid 12–​13. Eyal Benvenisti and George Downs have described fragmentation as the result of ‘the increased proliferation of international regulatory institutions with overlapping jurisdictions and ambiguous boundaries’. E Benvenisti and G Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stan L Rev 595, 596. Tamar Megiddo has described

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  433 environmental protection, and/​or labour rights.7 Competing interpretations, in turn, often relate to the proliferation of international courts and tribunals and the effects of their overlapping jurisdictions and potential divergences.8 Fragmented interpretation is not limited to tribunals from different substantive regimes:  for example, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) may have different interpretations of a particular doctrine, such as State responsibility for the acts of non-​State actors. In any case, both versions of fragmentation are affected by the increase of functionally specialized regimes.9 Increasing legalization can have a ‘snowball effect’, as international organizations and tribunals generate further lawmaking and law-​ interpreting activity.10 These concerns are complicated by the debate over whether international law has different regional traditions. During the Cold War, ‘Western’ views of international law contrasted with Soviet doctrine. Over time, the discussion has broadened to include Islamic, East Asian, Latin American, Russian (as opposed to Soviet), post-​colonial, and other approaches.11 Moreover, there is disagreement over whether or not fragmentation is even occurring.12 And, among commentators who perceive fragmentation, there is a second level of debate over whether it is generally a positive or negative influence on the development of international law.13 Benvenisti and Downs note that practitioners tend to be concerned about possible inconsistencies due to the multiplicity of fora, while academics either downplay the theorized negative effects of fragmentation or describe it as an opportunity for broadening the range of voices involved in shaping international law.14 Anthony Colangelo has posited

two somewhat conflicting figurative accounts [of fragmentation]. According to the first account, international law is breaking up into discrete islands with no bridge to connect them. According to the second account, international law is suffering from excessive overlap between the jurisdictions of an ever increasing number of international organizations and legal regimes. Megiddo (n 3) 118–​19. 7 For a prominent example, see J Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms in International Law: How WTO Law Relates to Other Rules of International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2003). 8 See Y Shany, The Competing Jurisdictions of International Courts and Tribunals (CUP, Cambridge 2003); JI Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Tribunals?’ (1998) 271 RdC 101; CPR Romano, ‘The Proliferation of International Judicial Bodies: The Pieces of the Puzzle’ (1999) 31 NYU J Intl L & Poly 709. 9 The ILC Study Group’s Fragmentation Report considered functional differentiation of treaty regimes as part of a broader phenomenon of increasing specialization and autonomization, both domestically and internationally. Fragmentation Report (n 4) 10–​11; see also Jenks (n 1) 403. 10 Regarding IOs as lawmakers, see JE Alvarez, International Organizations as Law Makers (OUP, Oxford 2005). 11 See CJ Borgen, ‘Whose Public, Whose Order?:  Imperium, Region, and Normative Friction’ (2007) 32 YJIL 331, 338–​54; see also X Hanqin, Chinese Contemporary Perspectives on International Law: History, Culture and International Law (Hague Academy of International Law, Leiden 2012); L Mälksoo, Russian Approaches to International Law (OUP, Oxford 2015); A Roberts and others (eds), Comparative International Law (OUP, Oxford 2018). 12 Regarding scholarship on the diversity of sources of international regulation and fragmentation that informed the ILC Study Group, see Fragmentation Report (n 4) 11 n11, 12 n14. 13 Scholarship that exhibits concern about the potential effects of fragmentation includes CJ Borgen, ‘Resolving Treaty Conflicts’ (2005) 37 GW Intl L Rev 573; Pauwelyn (n 7); G Guillaume, ‘The proliferation of international judicial bodies: The outlook for the international legal order’, Address by the ICJ President to the UNGA’s Sixth Committee (27 October 2000) at . Examples of scholarship that does not see fragmentation as a serious problem include Charney (n 8); M Koskenniemi and P Leino, ‘Fragmentation of International Law? Postmodern Anxieties’ (2002) 15 LJIL 553. 14 Benvenisti and Downs (n 6) 597.

434  Treaty Application that fragmentation may even be a step in a recursive process towards greater systematic coherence.15 Among those who consider fragmentation a problem that must be minimized, there is also disagreement over whether the most effective response would be (a) to use the tools of interpretation and canons of construction or (b) to frame the issue as being more like a question of conflicts of laws and apply techniques such as interest balancing. This chapter focuses on fragmentation through the optic of conflicting obligations between treaties, as well as, to a lesser extent, between a treaty and another source of law.16 Although there will be brief mention of techniques analogized from conflicts of laws, the emphasis will be on three texts: (i) the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT); (ii) the 2006 ILC Study Group Report on Fragmentation of International Law;17 and (iii) the ILC Study Group’s Conclusions.18 While numerous canons of construction are used to address the clash of obligations under international law, Article 30 VCLT codifies certain techniques concerning conflicts between ‘successive treaties relating to the same subject-​matter’,19 while also recognizing that Article 30’s normative framework applies only in certain defined instances, making it an important, but incomplete, response to treaty conflicts. As Richard Kearney and Robert Dalton, two US negotiators involved in drafting the VCLT, explained: In essence [Article 30 VCLT] provides that: (a) if a treaty says it is subject to another treaty, the other treaty governs on any issue of compatibility; (b) as between parties to one treaty who become parties to a second, the second governs on any point where it is incompatible with the first; (c) if some of the parties to the first treaty are not parties to the second treaty, and vice versa, the first governs between a party to both and a party only to the first; the second governs between a party to both and a party only to the second.20

Written before much of the State practice that raised concerns over treaty conflicts—​such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements, the burgeoning of the European Union (EU), and the enactment of most of the over 2,900 bilateral investment treaties that now exist among 234 States and other subjects of international law21—​it is important to assess the VCLT’s efficacy in light of current challenges at both the systemic and individual State levels. The consolidated ILC Study Group report, finalized by Martti Koskenniemi and issued in 2006, considered diplomatic and lawyerly tactics for resolving normative conflicts.22 The 15 AJ Colangelo, ‘A Systems Theory of Fragmentation and Harmonization’ (2016) 49 NYU J Int’l L & Pol’y 1, 3–​4, 7–​8,  57. 16 This chapter does not focus on fragmentation issues that are not a function of treaty conflicts. 17 Fragmentation Report (n 4). 18 ILC Study Group, Conclusions of the work of the Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (2006) included in ILC, Report on the Work of its 58th Session (1 May–​9 June and 3 July–​1 August 2006) UN Doc A/​61/​10 [251] (‘Study Group Conclusions’). 19 Art 30(1) VCLT. 20 RD Kearney and RE Dalton, ‘The Treaty on Treaties’ (1970) 64 AJIL 495, 517. 21 Concerning the total number of BITs, see UNCTAD, ‘Recent Developments in International Development Agreements (May 2018) IIA Monitor no 1, 2. Concerning the number of parties to BITs, see UNCTAD, ‘Investment Instruments Online’ at . It is interesting to note, however, that 2017 witnessed the conclusion of the fewest BITs since 1983 (and, terminations of existing BITs actually outnumbered newly formed ones). UNCTAD, ‘Recent Developments’ ibid. 22 See Fragmentation Report (n 4) 9.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  435 ILC Study Group also produced forty-​two conclusions regarding fragmentation and possible responses to normative conflicts.23 Though not without some controversy, these texts are perhaps the most complete statement on treaty conflicts and the question of fragmentation produced under UN auspices. This chapter will proceed in three sections. Section I reviews the causes of normative conflict, while Section II examines the various ways a treaty can conflict with another treaty or source of law. Section III surveys different techniques for addressing normative conflict via conflict avoidance clauses, treaty interpretation, the VCLT, and the classic canons of treaty construction (lex prior, lex posterior, and lex specialis). The chapter concludes with a discussion of the broader theme concerning international law’s systemic fragmentation.24

I.  Drivers of Conflict and Fragmentation In the wake of the proliferation of international institutions in the immediate post-​Cold War years, three factors spurred treaty conflicts and possibly systemic fragmentation: (a) the regionalization of institutions; (b) the functional specialization of treaty regimes; and (c) the role of state practice in light of these issues.

A.  Regionalization Regions are a physical (geographic) space, but also constitute areas of normative similarity. In such instances, regionalism ‘refers to particular orientations of legal thought and culture’.25 Political geographer Harm de Blij has observed that ‘[t]‌he world seems to be divided into about a dozen realms within which boundaries are usually, though not always, reasonably “easy,” but between which they tend to be tough to cross, surface or otherwise’.26 De Blij’s realms are North America, Middle America (Mexico and Central America), South America, Europe, North Africa/​Southwest Asia, Sub-​Saharan Africa, Russia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Austral realm (Australia/​New Zealand), and the Pacific realm (the Pacific islands).27 Each area is a geographic space, but each is also a normative realm.28

23 Study Group Conclusions (n 18); but see ILC, Report on the work of its fifty-​eighth session (2006): Topical summary of the discussion held in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly during its sixty-​first session, prepared by the Secretariat, Addendum (23 January 2007) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​577/​Add.1 [17] (‘Sixth Committee Discussion’) (noting views of some Sixth Committee representatives that the use of ‘vague expressions’ in the ILC Study Group Conclusions ‘reflected the fact that the general system of international law did not provide clear guidance on how to resolve possible conflicts of norms’). 24 This chapter will focus on treaty conflicts between States. There is, however, growing scholarship on conflicts involving other subjects of international law, such as IOs. 25 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 103. 26 H de Blij, Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America: Climate Change, the Rise of China, and Global Terrorism (OUP, New York 2005) 121. 27 Ibid  122–​3. 28 But, particularly in today’s Eurasia, many States are themselves the boundaries between two normative systems and have aspects of both. Elsewhere, I have called these countries or regions systemic borderlands. See Borgen (n 11) 354–​6.

436  Treaty Application While these ideas have found a receptive audience among political scientists and geographers, ‘[t]‌here is a very strong presumption among international lawyers that notwithstanding such influences, the law should be read in a universal fashion’.29 The ILC Study Group Report also noted Sir Robert Jennings’s observation that: Universality does not mean uniformity. It does mean, however, that such regional international law, however variant, is part of the system as a whole, and not a separate system, and it ultimately derives its validity from the system as a whole.30

This distinction between universality and uniformity allows for significant regional variation among substantive rules, even if there are common procedural rules. If that is the case, then regionalism (regardless of whether one views it as part of a single international legal system or not) can be quite divergent and robust, leading to significant normative conflicts. The EU is one example of a robust regional system with respect to treaties; the relationship of obligations among EU members to those owed to non-​members has spawned numerous studies, including a chapter in this Guide.31 Recent prominent cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union have grappled with the relationship of the EU’s legal regime to other treaty obligations of EU Member States: Kadi considered the relationship of EU obligations to Security Council decisions and Achmea stated the obligations of two Member States under EU law superseded their obligations to each other under a bilateral investment treaty.32 The ILC Study Group itself downplayed the role of geographic regionalism in causing normative fragmentation. But it pointed to the relative importance of competition among interest groups, explaining ‘where previously the moving forces behind international law may have been geographical regions, today those forces are often particular interests that are globally diversified: trade interests, globalization lobbies, environmentalist or human rights groups and so on’.33 These interests may spur the construction of specialized regimes.

B.  Specialization The specialization of treaty regimes that have overlapping memberships can lead to conflicting obligations and interpretations. This can be especially pronounced if each regime also uses its own dispute resolution forum. At times, this simply results in differing substantive regimes having idiosyncratic rules governing the resolution of treaty conflicts.34

29 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 105. 30 Ibid 105 (quoting R Jennings, ‘Universal International Law in a Multicultural World’ in M Bos and I Brownlie (eds), Liber Amicorum for the Rt Hon Lord Wilberforce (OUP, Oxford 1987)). Pierre-​Marie Dupuy has argued for the unity of international law as well. See generally PM Dupuy, ‘L’unité de l’ordre juridique international’ (2002) 297 RcD 9–​489; see also Fragmentation Report (n 4) 12. 31 See Chapter 6, Section II, 134–35 et seq; J Klabbers, Treaty Conflict and the European Union (CUP, Cambridge 2009); J Grimes, ‘Comment: Conflicts Between EC Law and International Treaty Obligations: A Case Study of the German Telecommunications Dispute’ (1994) 35 HILJ 535; see also Borgen (n 13) 608–​10. 32 Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, C-​402/​05 (3 September 2008); Slovak Republic v. Achmea BV, C-​284/​16 (6 March 2018). Regarding Kadi, see HG Cohen, ‘Finding International Law, Part II: Our Fragmenting Legal Community’ (2012) NYU J Int’L L & Pol’y 1049, 1098–​9. 33 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 105. 34 M Hirsch, ‘Interactions between Investment and Non-​investment Obligations’ in P Muchlinski and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Investment Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) 154, 173 et seq.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  437 But this can also lead to each dispute resolution forum favouring its own substantive regime over obligations stemming from other specialized regimes or from general rules of international law. Such favouritism may be deliberate or merely a matter of proclivity. For example, in the case of investment regimes: [I]‌nvestment tribunals have addressed arguments regarding inconsistencies between the investment agreement and non-​investment law in a very cautious (and even suspicious) manner. Thus far, no investment tribunal has absolved a host state from its investment obligations, or significantly reduced its responsibility to compensate the injured investor in such cases.35

Results such as this point to the problem that the proliferation of tribunals may lead to a proliferation of parochial—​and potentially conflicting—​interpretations of the legal obligations of States parties to more than one treaty regime.36

C.  State practice: mistake or strategy? Finally, we also need to consider the choices that States make within this environment. To what extent are conflicting obligations inadvertent or the result of a deliberate strategy? States may inadvertently undertake conflicting obligations. The negotiators of a new treaty may not have appreciated the ‘legislative and institutional activities in the adjoining fields and the general principles of international law’.37 At times, this may be the result of focusing on domestic politics rather than pre-​existing international obligations. As mentioned earlier, interest groups in fields such as international trade, environmental regulation, or human rights, among others, might vie for treaties that support their policy preferences. Sometimes one treaty is ratified. Sometimes another. Sometimes both. Consequently, disaggregated domestic interests lead to the aggregated (and possibly conflicting) obligations of the State.38 However, States can also make a strategic decision to enter into a regime that could potentially supersede or pre-​empt other obligations. Benvenisti and Downs describe a process by which powerful States pursue various ‘fragmentation strategies’, such as ‘avoiding broad integrative agreements in favour of a large number of narrow agreements that are functionally defined’, as a means to emphasize their own relative power and hamper cross-​issue coalition-​building among weaker States.39

35 Ibid 179. 36 In the discussion held by the Sixth Committee on the report of the ILC for its 58th Session: ‘It was . . . pointed out that the proliferation of adjudicatory bodies, sometimes with overlapping jurisdiction, had a distinct impact on the integrity of international law. It was therefore necessary that the international community remain alert to the interplay between the substantive and institutional aspects of fragmentation.’ Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [16]. But see Charney (n 8). 37 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 11. 38 See Megiddo (n 3) 120–​1. 39 Benvenisti and Downs (n 6) 599.

438  Treaty Application

II.  How a Treaty Can Conflict with Another Source of Law Having considered the systemic or ‘macro’ concerns of fragmentation, this section focuses on the ‘micro’ level issues of how a treaty may conflict with other sources of international legal obligation. We will first note the ILC’s description of normative conflicts and then turn to how treaties may conflict with jus cogens, custom, and other treaties.

A.  The International Law Commission’s typology of normative conflicts The ILC Study Group explained that conflicts among international legal norms can arise from:

(a) (b) (c) (d)

relations between special and general law; relations between prior and subsequent law; relations between laws at different hierarchical levels; and relations of law to its ‘normative environment’ more generally.40

The ILC Study Group continued: Such relations may be conceived in varying ways. At one end of the spectrum is the case where one law (norm, rule, principle, rule-​complex) simply invalidates the other law. This takes place only in hierarchical relations involving jus cogens. Much more often priority is ‘relative’. The ‘other law’ is set aside only temporarily and may often be allowed to influence ‘from the background’ the interpretation and application of the prioritized law. Then there is the case where the two norms are held to act concurrently, mutually supporting each other. And at this end of the spectrum is the case where, finally, there appears to be no conflict or divergence at all. The laws are in harmony.41

A treaty can come into normative conflict with another treaty, with customary international law, or with jus cogens.42 Moreover, divergent decisions of two international tribunal can be described as a conflict between two treaty regimes. Although each of these areas of conflict will be considered, this chapter focuses on resolving conflicts between treaties, including conflicts that lie along the four dimensions of relations identified by the ILC Study Group.

B.  Conflicts between a treaty and jus cogens Conceptually, the simplest conflict is when a treaty conflicts with jus cogens. Under the ILC Study Group framework, this is a category ‘c’ relationship between laws at different 40 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 16 (cross-​references omitted). 41 Ibid 16. 42 Conflicts with sources of domestic law are not considered in this chapter. Also, inconsistencies between a treaty and a subsidiary source of law, such as tribunal case law, do not normally constitute a conflict; subsidiary sources tend to be interpretations of treaties and customary international law rather than a competing source of law.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  439 hierarchical levels. The hierarchically superior law—​the jus cogens norm—​supersedes the treaty.43 This is the result regardless as to which of the two was first in time.44 One survey from 2008 concluded, though, that ‘international tribunals have demonstrated a cautious approach and declined to pronounce any treaty void because of conflict with peremptory norms’.45 Thus, while such conflicts exist in theory, as a matter of practice, tribunals seem to avoid framing a situation in such terms.

C.  Conflicts between a treaty and customary international law The VCLT does not explicitly address the topic of conflicts with customary international law. Article 31(3)(c), however, does require taking account of ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’ in the good faith interpretation of a treaty.46 Therefore, inconsistencies between treaty and custom will most likely be resolved through an interpretative exercise, whether by enforcing the parties’ manifest intent or, where there is no evidence of an intended relationship between the treaty and custom, as a function of canons of construction such as lex specialis, lex posterior, or lex prior.47

D.  Conflicts between treaties So far, this chapter has noted different types of normative conflict without unpacking the idea of how treaties can conflict. Perhaps because ‘[c]‌onflicts between treaties is one of the most difficult areas of the law of treaties, which historically received little attention and still involves many unresolved issues’,48 there is no generally accepted definition of what constitutes such a conflict.49 Of course, in the strictest sense, a treaty conflict is 43 See P Daillier, M Forteau, and A Pellet, Droit International Public (8th edn LDGJ, Paris 2009) 300. Recently, the ILC began studying the issue of peremptory norms of general international law. Conclusion 10 of the current draft text states: Invalidity and termination of treaties in conflict with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens) 1. A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens). The provisions of such a treaty have no legal force. 2. If a new peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens) emerges, any existing treaty which is in conflict with that norm becomes void and terminates. The parties to such a treaty are released from any obligation further to perform the treaty. Statement of the Chairperson of the Drafting Committee, Oral interim report Mr Charles Chernor Jalloh 14 (26 July 2018), Peremptory Norms of General International Law (Jus Cogens), International Law Commission (70th session New York, 30 April–​1 June, and Geneva, 2 July–​10 August 2018), at . 44 Art 53 VCLT (‘[a]‌treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law’); Art 64 VCLT (‘If a new peremptory norm of general international law emerges, any existing treaty which is in conflict with that norm becomes void and terminates’); see also SA Sadat-​Akhavi, Methods of Resolving Conflicts between Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2003) 53. 45 Hirsch (n 34) 179. 46 For more discussion of this rule, see Chapter 19, Section II.A.3, 469–70 et seq. 47 Hirsch (n 34) 160. For more on these canons, see Section III.D below. 48 M Fitzmaurice, ‘Treaties’ in Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (Oxford 2015) [109] . 49 Pauwelyn (n 7) 166. In fact, most scholars examining the topic fail to even provide a definition, ignoring the possibility that a mere divergence between treaties does not necessarily constitute a conflict. Ibid 167; Jenks (n 1) 426.

440  Treaty Application when a party to two treaties cannot simultaneously honour its obligations under both. For example, assume State A forms a treaty (Treaty I) with State B promising that B will have access to A’s markets at terms no worse than any other State. Some years later, State A becomes part of a regional trade agreement with States C, D, E, and F, and to which B is not a party. This second treaty (Treaty II) requires that Member States accord each other, and only each other, the best terms of market access. This ‘architecture’ can be written in shorthand as AB:ACDEF. On these facts there is undoubtedly a conflict as A is required by Treaty I to give B the same terms as C, D, E, and F while Treaty II requires that A deny B those terms of trade.50 However, this narrow definition of a conflict between treaties is too restrictive.51 For example, States are not only concerned with when a State cannot simultaneously perform its obligations under two treaties but also in cases where one treaty frustrates the goals of another. Thus, treaty conflicts may be defined more broadly to include cases where a State is party to two or more treaty regimes and either the mere existence of (or the actual performance under) one treaty is reasonably expected to frustrate the purpose of another treaty. There is also the situation where the obligations under two treaties may point in the same general direction but there are different specifics to the obligations; in cases of such ‘Multisource Equivalent Norms’ (MSENs), ‘the question of which of them is applicable remains’.52 Under all these scenarios, policy-​makers face the same questions: Which treaty should prevail? And are there any useful, principled methods to resolve the conflict? Commentators have divided their consideration of such questions based on treaty membership: (a) where the two treaties have identical parties; (b) where there is partial commonality of parties; and (c) where there is no commonality of parties. The first category—​complete unity of parties (AB:AB)—​receives relatively little interest because the issue of treaty conflict simply turns on whether the later treaty was meant to supersede the earlier treaty. Moreover, as all interested States are parties to both treaties, negotiation and bargaining may be relatively straightforward. Even if the later treaty is not meant to replace the earlier, a subsequent treaty may provide a binding interpretation of one or more provisions in the earlier agreement. As Richard Gardiner has explained, Article 31(3)(a) VCLT addresses situations where ‘the parties to a treaty have, subsequent to its conclusion, reached firm agreement on what one of its provisions means’.53 In Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v Chad), for example, the ICJ considered an 8 September 1919 convention between Great Britain and France, which was ‘Supplementary to the Declaration signed at London on 21 March 1899, as an addition

50 Consider the clash between Germany’s obligations to the United States under a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (FCN Treaty) and its obligations under the Treaty of Rome (establishing the European Community) and subsequent European Union (EU) legislation. See Grimes (n 31) 536–​41. 51 Early ILC rapporteurs argued for broader definitions. Lauterpacht focused on ‘inconsistency’ of norms and Waldock on the idea that conflict occurred when two treaties could not be reconciled. See H Lauterpacht, ‘First Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1953] YBILC, vol II, 154–​5; H Waldock, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1963] YBILC, vol II, 54–​61. 52 R Michaels and J Pauwelyn, ‘Conflict of Norms or Conflict of Laws?:  Different Techniques in the Fragmentation of Public International Law’ (2012) Duke J Comp & Int’l L 349, 350. 53 R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) 244.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  441 to the Convention of 14 June 1898 which regulated the Boundaries between British and French Colonial Possessions’.54 The Court wrote: Inasmuch as the two States parties to the Convention are those that concluded the Declaration of 1899, there can be no doubt that the ‘interpretation’ in question constituted, from 1919 onwards, and as between them, the correct and binding interpretation of the Declaration of 1899.55

Where two treaties are not obviously concerned with the same subject, however, a consistent reading may not occur, and one treaty could frustrate the purpose of the other. Thus, while there may be no intent to supersede the earlier treaty, the later treaty may nonetheless render the earlier treaty dysfunctional. By contrast to instances of complete unity of parties, cases of no commonality of parties tend to be the most difficult to resolve. For bilateral treaties, such a conflict occurs when States A and B are parties to Treaty I, States A and C are parties to Treaty II, and A’s obligations to C are incompatible with A’s obligations to B. This can be diagrammed as AB:AC.56 As discussed later, neither the VCLT nor the customary canons of treaty construction offer a ready solution to such conflicts. This is a form of conflict that drafters need to attempt to head off in the drafting stage, if at all possible. Different architectures can occur in the third set of cases involving partial commonality of parties. One case involves increasing membership from Treaty I between States A and B to Treaty II involving States A, B, C, and D (diagrammed as AB:ABCD). Conversely, there can be decreasing membership (diagrammed as ABCD:AB), where Treaty II may be an inter se agreement.57 Both increasing and decreasing membership scenarios may produce potential conflicts between States A and B, where there is a unity of parties, or between A and C or D, where there is no commonality between Treaties I and II. Additionally, one can envision a conflict between multilateral treaties where there is a partial unity of parties (diagrammed as ABCD:ABEF), where A and B’s obligations to E and F are incompatible with their earlier obligations to C and D.58

III.  Resolving Normative Conflicts Involving Treaties The foregoing has shown the various roots and manifestations of conflicts. With such complexity, it is not surprising that international law has developed multiple mechanisms for resolving normative conflicts. For treaty conflicts, at least four possible solutions exist involving: (a) careful drafting; (b) interpretative mechanisms; (c) the VCLT; or (d) the application of classic canons of construction. 54 Ibid 250. 55 [1994] ICJ Rep 6, 29–​31 [60]; see also Gardiner (n 53) 250. However, if Treaty II is not meant to be related to Treaty I, then while it may still overlap and conflict with Treaty I, one could argue that it should not be considered an inter se agreement in the strict sense. 56 See W Czaplinski and GM Danilenko, ‘Conflict of Norms in International Law’ (1990) 21 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 3, 24. 57 See W Karl, ‘Conflicts Between Treaties’ in R Wolfrum and others (eds), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (Max Planck Institute, Berlin 2000) vol 4, 935, 936. 58 Ibid.

442  Treaty Application

A. Conflict clauses Potential treaty conflicts are best addressed in the drafting stage.59 If the treaties are not actually incompatible, then there is no need to resort to the VCLT or general principles of interpretation.60 Two types of conflict avoidance clauses are possible: (1) clauses that prioritize the present treaty; and (2) clauses that prioritize another treaty.61

1. Clauses that provide for the priority of the present treaty A clause may state that the current treaty will supersede conflicting treaties. Hans Blix and Jirina Emerson catalogued six general types of such clauses, where: (a) the ‘present treaty prevails over all other treaties’; (b) the ‘present treaty prevails over earlier treaties’; (c) the ‘present treaty prevails over earlier treaties for parties to the present treaty’; (d) the parties to the present treaty undertake an ‘[o]‌bligation not to enter into later treaties inconsistent with the present one’; (e) ‘[s]‌ upplementary agreements [are] permitted if compatible with the present treaty’; and (f) the parties to the present treaty undertake an obligation to modify existing treaties they may have with third parties.62 Conflict avoidance clauses may refer to treaties generally or to specific agreements. For example, the 1999 Food Aid Convention states in Article XXVI that ‘[t]‌his Convention shall replace the Food Aid Convention, 1995, as extended, and shall be one of the constituent instruments of the International Grain Agreement, 1995’.63 Where clauses prohibit later conflicting treaties, they may specifically state that parties shall not enter into later treaties that would conflict with the current agreement. Article 8 of the NATO Treaty provides an example: ‘Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this treaty.’64 There is also the special case of the UN Charter. Article 103 states that the obligations under the Charter will prevail over any conflicting obligation from another international 59 See eg ibid 936. 60 See ibid (stating that ‘[i]‌ncompatibility of contents is an essential condition of conflict’). 61 H Blix and JH Emerson (eds), The Treaty Maker’s Handbook (Oceana Publications, New York 1973) 210–​22 (‘Treaty Maker’s Handbook’). Anthony Aust identified five types of conflict avoidance clauses that prioritize the present treaty: 1.  ‘The treaty prevails over all other treaties, past and future’ 2.  ‘The parties shall not enter into later inconsistent treaties’ 3.  ‘An existing treaty shall not be affected’ 4. ‘For parties to the treaty it prevails over earlier treaties’ 5.  ‘Compatible supplementary treaties are permitted’. A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 194–​202. See also Daillier and others (n 43) 293–​7 for numerous examples of conflict avoidance clauses. 62 Treaty Maker’s Handbook (n 61) 210–​17. 63 See UN Office of Legal Affairs, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook (UN Sales No E04V3 2003) at 86 (citing Food Aid Convention of 1999) (‘UN Final Clauses Handbook’). 64 North Atlantic Treaty (signed 4 April 1949, entered into force 24 August 1949) 34 UNTS 243, Art 8.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  443 agreement. The ICJ analysed this article in the Lockerbie case, finding that a Security Council resolution promulgated under UN auspices, and thus under Article 103, trumped any conflicting treaty including, in that case, the Montreal Convention.65 Finally, conflict clauses can assist in resolving priority among MSENs. Michaels and Pauwelyn give the example of Article 189.4 on the relation of the EC-​Chile Free Trade Agreement to WTO obligations.66 The EC-​Chile Free Trade Agreement states, in relevant part: Unless the Parties otherwise agree, when a Party seeks redress of a violation of an obligation under this Part of the Agreement which is equivalent in substance to an obligation under the WTO, it shall have recourse to the relevant rules and procedures of the WTO Agreement, which apply notwithstanding the provisions of this Agreement.67

2. Clauses providing for the priority of another treaty Alternatively, a clause may state that one or more treaties should be given priority over the current treaty. As Aust puts it, these clauses mean ‘[a]‌n existing treaty shall not be affected’.68 Blix and Emerson list four types of these clauses, where:

(a) (b) (c) (d)

the ‘existing treaties prevail’; the ‘existing or future treaties giving greater benefits prevail’; the ‘present treaty [is] to be modified to conform to a future treaty’; or ‘[s]‌upplementary agreements, not necessarily consistent with the present treaty, [are] permitted’.69

Article 90 of the 1980 UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) provides the following example: ‘This Convention does not prevail over any international agreement which has already been or may be entered into and which contains provisions concerning the matters governed by this Convention, provided that the parties have their places of business in States parties, to such agreement.’70 Other typical phrases declare that the present treaty is ‘compatible with, or not to be construed as impairing’ an earlier treaty.71 This is exemplified by Article 4(2) of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty: ‘[n]‌othing in this Protocol shall derogate from the rights and obligations of the Parties to this Protocol under the other international instruments in force within the Antarctic Treaty system’.72 Conflict avoidance clauses are not mutually exclusive. Clauses providing for the priority of the existing treaty or the priority of another treaty may both exist within a single text. 65 Aust (n 61) 196 (citations omitted). Art 103 states that ‘In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligations under the present Charter shall prevail’. 66 Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 372–​3. 67 Ibid 373 (citing the Agreement Establishing an Association Between the European Community and Its Member States, of the One Part, and the Republic of Chile, of the Other Part (18 November 2002) Art 189.4(c)). 68 Aust (n 61) 197. 69 Treaty Maker’s Handbook (n 61) 217–​22. 70 UN Final Clauses Handbook (n 63) 87 (quoting Art 90 CISG). 71 Karl (n 57) 939. 72 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (signed 4 October 1991, entered into force 14 January 1998) [1991] 30 ILM 1461, 1463.

444  Treaty Application A treaty may thus use a combination of these clauses to provide a comprehensive description of its relations to other treaties.73

B.  Interpretation to avoid conflict If there are no express priority provisions within the four corners of the agreements—​ or if any such clause is ambiguously worded—​one would likely turn to the principles of treaty interpretation and the law of treaty conflicts in an attempt to resolve the situation.74 In doing so, the first step is to try to find a harmonious interpretation of both treaties.75 When there are multiple possible interpretations of a treaty text, one of which would cause a violation of another international norm, lawyers should avoid it in favour of an interpretation that is not violative of other obligations. The ILC Study Group Report quoted the ICJ’s opinion in the Right of Passage case to support this presumption of compatibility: It is a rule of interpretation that a text emanating from a Government must, in principle, be interpreted as producing and intended to produce effects in accordance with existing law and not in violation of it.76

The Oxford Handbook on International Investment Law points to two more recent examples of this principle in operation: the NAFTA case SD Myers v Canada and the investment arbitration SPP v Egypt where tribunals sought harmonious readings of party obligations such that there was no true conflict between the treaties.77 One result of this ‘generally accepted’ presumption against a conflict of norms is that ‘the State relying on a conflict of norms will have the burden of proving it’.78 Thus, in the EC-​ Hormones case, the WTO Dispute Settlement Board indicated that: WTO members, as sovereign entities, can be presumed to act in conformity with their WTO obligations. A party claiming that a Member acted inconsistently with WTO rules bears the burden of proving that inconsistency.79

73 See eg UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Art 311; see also UN Final Clauses Handbook (n 63) 86–​7. Additional examples of conflict avoidance clauses may be found in Part VII(17) of this Guide, 732–36 et seq. 74 Art 31 VCLT is of particular importance regarding interpretation to avoid conflicts. For a detailed discussion of the VCLT’s interpretative rules (Arts 31–​33) see Chapters 19–​22. 75 Or, of the treaty and any potentially conflicting customary rule. See Study Group Conclusions (n 18) [18]–​[19]. But see Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [25] (noting that some delegations found that the Conclusions concerning interpretation left open questions as to which principles of international law were generally recognized). 76 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 26, quoting Case concerning the Right of Passage over Indian Territories (Portugal v India) (Preliminary Objection) [1952] ICJ Rep 125, 142. 77 See Hirsch (n 34) 163–​8, 173–​4 (discussing SD Myers Inc v Canada (US-​Canada) (13 November 2000) [2001] 40 ILM 1408 (NAFTA/​UNCITRAL Tribunal) and SPP (ME) v Egypt, ICSID Case No ARB/​84/​3 (1994) 19 Ybk Commercial Arbitration 51). 78 Pauwelyn (n 7) 240. 79 As quoted in ibid, 241, citing to WTO, Decision of the arbitrators under DSU art 22 in European Communities—​Measures Concerning Meat and Meat Products (Hormones) (US request for suspension) (1997) WT/​DS28 and WT/​DS48,  [9]‌.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  445 This burden may in turn advantage the party that has entered into two supposedly conflicting treaties. Moreover, given the proliferation of dispute resolution fora, the application of this presumption of compatibility within each forum may (either deliberately or intuitively) ultimately favour the enforcement of the treaty from within that regime. This seems to be the case, for example, in the international investment context.80 Negotiators who wish to avoid this situation should be cautious and assume that clauses that may conflict will conflict. Consequently, treaty drafters should clarify ex ante the desired relationship between the two norms whether through clauses of abrogation or precedence. The presumption of compatibility, however, remains only a presumption. Since treaty interpretation is based on the words’ ‘clear meaning’, sometimes interpretation will not make a conflict disappear: [I]‌f interpretation leads to the conclusion that one norm in and of itself, or as it is implemented or relied upon by a state, does constitute a breach of another norm, that is where the role of interpretation of treaty terms as a conflict-​avoidance technique stops. To put it differently, interpretation of the terms in question may resolve apparent conflicts; it cannot resolve genuine conflicts.81

When there is a genuine conflict that was not avoided by drafting and cannot be resolved by interpretation, one may next attempt to apply any relevant rules from the VCLT.

C.  The VCLT rules on treaty conflicts As is often the case in codifications, the VCLT attempts to draw bright-​line rules. Article 30 contains the main treaty conflict rules, but Articles 26 (pacta sunt servanda), 31 (interpretation), and 41 (inter se agreements) are also useful in addressing normative conflicts. Article 30 applies to ‘successive treaties relating to the same subject-​matter’.82 Although originally a cause of some disagreement, States now generally agree that determining the 80 Hirsch (n 34) 179. 81 Pauwelyn (n 7) 272. 82 Art 30(1) VCLT. The meaning of ‘same subject matter’ is discussed in this chapter’s Conclusion. More generally, Art 30 VCLT provides: 1. Subject to Article 103 of the Charter of the United Nations, the rights and obligations of States parties to successive treaties relating to the same subject-​matter shall be determined in accordance with the following paragraphs. 2. When a treaty specifies that it is subject to, or that it is not to be considered as incompatible with, an earlier or later treaty, the provisions of that other treaty prevail. 3. When all the parties to the earlier treaty are parties also to the later treaty but the earlier treaty is not terminated or suspended in operation under article 59, the earlier treaty applies only to the extent that its provisions are compatible with those of the latter treaty. 4. When the parties to the later treaty do not include all the parties to the earlier one: (a) as between States parties to both treaties, the same rule applies as in paragraph 3; (b) as between a State party to both treaties and a State party to only one of the treaties, the treaty to which both States are parties governs their mutual rights and obligations. 5. Paragraph 4 is without prejudice to article 41, or to any question of the termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty under article 60 or to any question of responsibility which may arise for a State from the conclusion or application of a treaty the provisions of which are incompatible with its obligations towards another State under another treaty.

446  Treaty Application timing of the earlier treaty’s conclusion is based on date of adoption, not entry into force.83 According to the ILC’s Commentary on an earlier version of Article 30, it ‘comes into play only after it has been determined under [Article 59] that the parties did not intend to abrogate, or wholly to suspend the operation of, the earlier treaty’.84 (Article 59, for its part, is of only limited use, applying only when all the parties to Treaty I are also parties to Treaty II.85) Article 30(2) VCLT endorses the use of conflict avoidance clauses that give priority to the earlier treaty: ‘[w]‌hen a treaty specifies that it is subject to, or that it is not to be considered incompatible with, an earlier or later treaty, the provisions of the other treaty prevail’.86 Where the treaty lacks such a clause, Article 30(3) provides a rule for cases of complete unity of parties: ‘[if] the earlier treaty is not terminated or suspended under article 59 [of the VCLT87], the earlier treaty applies only to the extent that its provisions are compatible with those of the later treaty’. Article 30(3) thus effectively codifies a default lex posterior canon of construction.88 Article 30(4) addresses the harder case where the later treaty does not include all of the parties to the earlier treaty. It applies the rule set forth in paragraph 3 (the lex posterior rule) to States that are parties to both treaties. But when one State is party to both treaties and another State is only party to one, then the treaty to which they both belong governs their relationship.89 In a conflict where there is no commonality, such as one diagrammed AB:AC, Article 30 VCLT allows each treaty to remain effective between each of the parties. The VCLT does, however, acknowledge that this is without prejudice to questions of responsibility that ‘may arise for a State from the conclusion or application of a treaty, the provisions of which are incompatible with its obligations towards another State under another treaty’.90 The issue thus becomes not a question of conflict resolution, but of the law of responsibility.91 Otherwise, though, the parties are left to negotiate whatever solution they are able.92 83 Aust (n 61) 204. 84 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 253 (emphasis in original); see also EM Vierdag, ‘The Time of Conclusion of a Multilateral Treaty’ (1988) 59 BYBIL 75, 91 n61; UN Final Clauses Handbook (n 63) 85 (‘[U]‌nless there is evidence of contrary intention, the parties are presumed to have intended to terminate or modify the earlier treaty when they conclude a subsequent treaty that is incompatible with the earlier one’). 85 See Vierdag (n 84) 91. 86 Art 30(2) VCLT. 87 Art 59 VCLT (providing for the termination or suspension of an earlier treaty where it is established that was the parties’ intention or if the later treaty’s provisions are ‘so far incompatible with the earlier one that the two treaties are not capable of being applied at the same time’). 88 See UN Final Clauses Handbook (n 63) 85 (‘[I]‌n the case of successive treaties relating to the same subject-​ matter concluded among the same parties, the principle of lex posterior derogat priori applies’); Daillier and others (n 43) 297 (‘Cette disposition n’est que l’application du principe lex posterior derogate priori, don’t la mise en oeuvre ne fait pas problem puisque les deux traits sont issus des memes États’). 89 Art 30(4)(b) VCLT. 90 Art 30(5) VCLT. 91 There is increasing focus in scholarship on the relationship between normative conflicts and the law of responsibility. Professor Kristen Boon has written: As a general proposition . . . the law of responsibility is relevant to all breaches of international obligations, including breaches that originate from conflicting norms. Thus when one instrument or norm obliges a state to take an action that is incompatible with a second instrument or norm, conflicting international obligations arise. These conflicts can create legal responsibility, because breaches of any international obligations constitute international wrongs. Moreover, conflicting domestic laws are not a valid reason for breaching international obligations. Under the Draft Articles on IO Responsibility, the same principles apply to IOs. IOs may incur responsibility for breaching their international legal commitments, even when this occurs as a result of conflicting obligations. K Boon, ‘Regime Conflicts and the UN Security Council: Applying the Law of Responsibility’ (2011) 42 GW Intl L Rev 787, 799 (citations omitted). 92 The result is like the EU/​US/​German dispute, where the ‘renegotiation’ was essentially a trade skirmish. See n 50.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  447 Besides Article 30, other VCLT clauses can play a role in resolving treaty conflicts. As described earlier, interpretation can be used to avoid potential conflicts. Article 31 is particularly important in this respect. Article 26, for its part, codifies pacta sunt servanda, stating ‘[e]‌very treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’. As discussed later, pacta sunt servanda allows for Treaty I to remain in force in the face of a conflicting subsequent norm in Treaty II. Article 41 concerns the status of an inter se agreement, a subsequent agreement to modify a multilateral treaty by some, but not all, parties to the original treaty. It provides that the inter se agreement cannot adversely affect the object or purpose of the original treaty, nor may it affect a third party’s enjoyment of rights or the performance of obligations under the original treaty.

D.  Customary canons of construction No set of black letter rules can fully respond to the multitude of potential treaty conflicts. The variety of conflict architectures, as well as substantive interrelations (general rules, special rules, same subject matter or different subject matter), and the temporal element combine and recombine to frustrate any set of bright-​line rules. There are too many factors open to interpretation to allow agreement on which rules apply in all but the simplest cases. If the VCLT does not provide applicable rules, one may turn to the customary canons of construction, especially lex posterior, lex prior (in concert with pacta sunt servanda), or lex specialis. These canons are generally viewed as techniques, not obligatory rules (except perhaps, as discussed later, under certain circumstances).93 Moreover, not only can these canons render opposing results (consider the relationship of lex posterior to lex prior), but, as will be discussed in subsection 4, later, there is scepticism over their use to resolve any normative conflict that can be characterized as across two or more substantive regimes.94

1. Lex posterior Lex posterior derogat legi priori (lex posterior) considers the parties’ evolving intent and favours the most recent treaty by the same parties.95 If the same States are parties to two treaties, which cannot be interpreted in a compatible manner, then the parties may apply

93

As Richard Gardiner explains later in this Guide: Sir Humphrey Waldock avoided all the principles and maxims of interpretation then in common use. Taking as examples ones frequently referred to in their Latin forms (‘ut res magis valeat quam pereat, contra proferentem, eiusdem generis, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, generalia specialibus non derogant’), he characterised these as ‘for the most part, principles of logic and good sense valuable only as guides to assist in appreciating the meaning’, principles whose use was thus discretionary rather than obligatory. Chapter 19, 471. 94 See Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 363–​5. 95 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 116 n290. Aufricht’s summary of pre-​VCLT treaty conflict resolution techniques focused on lex posterior. In his view, there were five requirements for lex posterior to work: (1) the same subject as the earlier treaty; (2) the later treaty covers the same parties as the earlier treaty; (3) the later treaty is on the same level or a higher level as the earlier treaty; (4) the scope of the later treaty is of the same degree of generality as the earlier treaty; and (5) the legal effects of the later treaty are different from the earlier. H Aufricht, ‘Supersession of Treaties in International Law’ (1952) 37 Cornell L Q 655, 700.

448  Treaty Application lex posterior.96 It is a technique related to a rule of priority among domestic statutes, in which the later in time statute is favoured over the earlier statute.97 Lex posterior has sometimes been referred to ‘as a general principle of law recognized by civilized nations’.98 It was applied by the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) in numerous cases including the Mavrommatis Concession cases and the Electricity Company of Sofia case.99 But this does not mean it is universally followed today.100 Lex posterior is most useful when there is a unity of parties (AB:AB) or partial commonality, where the counterparty is the same in both treaties, such as a potential conflict between A and counterparty B in two treaties diagrammed as ABCD:AB. A more serious problem arises when the parties are not identical, which is often the case in conflicting treaties concerning politico-​military affairs.101

2. Lex prior and pacta sunt servanda By contrast, the lex prior principle would specifically enforce the earlier treaty. Vattel argued that States were not allowed to enter into conflicting treaties; if there was a conflict, the later treaty would be null and void.102 Lex prior is a technique derived from ideas in domestic law of the illegality of a contract to break a contract.103 This canon is most often invoked in cases where there is divergent membership between the two treaties.104 The ILC Study Group noted that the strongest references to lex prior are from the early twentieth century.105 Both the Central American Court of Justice in San Juan River (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) and the PCIJ in Customs Regime between Austria and Germany, used lex prior where there was a diversity of parties between the first and second treaty.106 However, both courts also showed a reluctance to void the later treaty, whether based on jurisdictional grounds (San Juan River) or by not explicitly recognizing a conflict between the later and earlier treaties (which was the approach used in the PCIJ’s Oscar Chinn decision107). Sir Humphrey Waldock, the ILC’s fourth Special Rapporteur on the Law of Treaties, thus emphasized that PCIJ jurisprudence ‘had rejected inconsistency as a ground for invalidity’.108

96 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 118–​19. 97 Ibid 124. 98 Ibid 116–​17. 99 See, eg, ibid 120–​1; N Matz-​Lück, ‘Treaties, Conflicts between’ in Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Law (Oxford 2015) [15]; see also Mavrommatis Palestine Concessions (Greece v UK) [1924] PCIJ Rep Series B No 2, 31; Jurisdiction of the European Commission of the Danube (Advisory Opinion) [1927] PCIJ Rep Series B No 14, 23; Electricity Company of Sofia and Bulgaria (Belgium v Bulgaria) [1939] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 77, 92. 100 Some have questioned whether either lex prior or lex posterior ‘have been generally accepted as default rules of unwritten public international law’. A Schulz, The Relationship Between the Judgments Project and Other International Instruments (Hague Conference on Private International Law, December 2003) Preliminary Doc No 24, 14. 101 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 121. 102 E de Vattel, The Law of Nations (1758) (J Chitty (trans) 1863, reprinted by AMS Press, New York 1982) 196. 103 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 124. 104 Karl (n 57) 937. 105 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 123. 106 San Juan River (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) reprinted in (1917) 11 AJIL 181 (Cent Am Ct of Justice 1917); Customs Regime between Austria and Germany (Advisory Opinion) 1931 PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 41, 50. 107 Oscar Chinn Case (UK, Ireland v Belgium) 1934 PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 63 (Hurst, J, dissenting) in (1938) 3 WCR 416, 462. 108 Kearney and Dalton (n 20) 518.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  449 In 1951, the ICJ suggested in the Reservations case that the Genocide Convention could not be frustrated or impaired by the contracting parties’ later agreements.109 However, post-​ Second World War examples of international tribunals using lex prior have been few and far between.110 The ILC Study Group noted that although there are few modern examples of the application of lex prior, it has survived in the scholarly literature in part due to its relation to contract doctrine, especially as expounded by Lauterpacht.111 There is, however, some evidence that lex prior is re-​emerging in a limited way in the investment treaty arbitration context. As one commentator notes: ‘Where the host state voluntarily undertook the non-​investment international obligation after the obligation vis-​à-​vis the investor had been undertaken, the host state would not be absolved of its investment obligation’ by the investment treaty tribunal.112 A similar interpretive rule to lex prior is pacta sunt servanda, which is codified in the VCLT.113 While pacta sunt servanda is a cornerstone of international law, its effect on conflicting treaties is not clear. Some scholars interpret pacta sunt servanda as not favouring the earlier treaty but rather simply making each treaty enforceable, even though they may pose potentially incompatible obligations.114 Others claim that pacta sunt servanda favours enforcement of the earlier treaty while preventing enforcement of the later.115 Under both views, it is clear that Treaty I must be honoured (unless a State makes the policy choice of breaching and incurring responsibility). The disagreement concerns the effect of pacta sunt servanda on Treaty II: Is the second treaty abrogated or should it simply be followed to the fullest extent possible without frustrating the first treaty? Both lex prior and pacta sunt servanda principles are most likely to be used where there is no commonality between the two treaties (eg AB:AC) or where there may be partial commonality overall (eg ABCD:ABEF) but no commonality among the specific counterparties to the conflict (eg comparing A’s obligations to C or D to its obligations to E or F).

3. Lex specialis and self-​contained regimes Instead of deciding which treaty controls based on the timing of the conflicting treaties’ conclusion, the interpretive rule lex specialis focuses on the treaties’ scope and precision by giving effect to the more narrowly gauged treaty.116 Grotius explained that ‘Among those treaties which [in previously listed characteristics], are equal, the preference is given to such as are more particular, and approach nearer to the point in question’.117 Scholars disagree over whether lex specialis causes one legal regime to supersede another, or if this should be assessed on a rule-​by-​rule basis.

109 Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Advisory Opinion) [1951] ICJ Rep 21; but see Fragmentation Report (n 4) 122–​3 (questioning how much the Reservations case supports the lex prior principle). 110 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 122–​3. 111 Ibid 124. 112 Hirsch (n 34) 174–​5. 113 Art 26 VCLT. 114 See eg Schulz (n 100) 14. 115 See eg Aufricht (n 95)  672–​3 (arguing for interdiction of later conflicting treaties even in cases of non-​ identical parties). 116 For a history of lex specialis in Roman law, see Fragmentation Report (n 4) 34 n57. 117 H Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Bk II, Ch XVI, Sec XXIX; Fragmentation Report (n 4)  36; but see Fragmentation Report (n 4) 37 (noting that Scelle favoured the general rule over the special rule); see also Daillier and others (n 43) 292–​3.

450  Treaty Application Although the VCLT does not use this interpretive norm, lex specialis may still apply in conflicts between multilateral treaties of general application and international regimes for a specific issue area.118 (Lex specialis can also be formulated to focus on the breadth or narrowness of specific clauses or rules that are regional, as opposed to global.) It is used most often when the parties to both the general treaty and the specific treaty are the same,119 and the treaties deal with the same subject matter.120 Two possible results of lex specialis are that the specific rule (a)  is interpreted within the context of the general standard, or (b) it replaces the general rule.121 When applied to treaties as a whole, lex specialis is usually understood to mean that the special treaty supersedes the general treaty. But lex specialis is not just used for comparing treaties holistically; it is applied at times to find priority between clauses in two instruments. When comparing clauses, there are three possible outcomes: (1) the special clause cancels out the general clause; (2) the special clause is deemed supplementary to the general clause; or (3) the general clause is considered as overriding the special clause.122 As noted later, this third interpretation has been criticized by some. But it is not always clear whether lex specialis should apply in a particular case. Anthony Colangelo observed: In the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons case, for example, the ICJ concluded that two areas of law containing the right not to be arbitrarily deprived of life—​each providing a different standard—​applied to the same set of facts. The Court found that both international human rights law, set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, applied ‘in times of war’. As with different interpretations of the law by different bodies, this fragmentation dynamic between different areas of law is horizontal and its resolution, if any, does not cleanly admit of a predetermined answer based on the superiority of one area over the other.123

For some, the corpus of international humanitarian law would be the lex specialis. Other commentators would say that international humanitarian law does not displace the whole of human rights law; rather, there would need to be an assessment of whether a rule from either regime would be the lex specialis in a given situation. And still others would contend that the canon of lex specialis would not apply because they view this situation as being cross-​regimes. For example, the commentary in the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations took the view that:

118 Jenks (n 1) 414. 119 See eg Fragmentation Report (n 4) n141. 120 The ILC Study Group agreed with Fitzmaurice that lex specialis only applies when both treaties are on the same subject matter. Fragmentation Report (n 4)  62–​3; GG Fitzmaurice, ‘The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1951–​4: Treaty Interpretation and Other Treaty Points’ (1957) 33 BYBIL 203, 237. 121 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 35. The former seems to be the view of both Mus and Fitzmaurice. Ibid n58. 122 Aufricht (n 95) 697. ILC, Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with Commentaries [2001] YBILC, vol II, Art 55 (ASR) (containing a lex specialis rule so that the ASR does not apply ‘where and to the extent that the conditions for the existence of an internationally wrongful act or the content of implementation of the international responsibility of a State are governed by special rules of international law). The commentary accompanying Art 55 ASR notes that lex specialis requires more than the same subject matter; there must be an actual inconsistency or one provision intended to exclude the other. Art 55 ASR, Commentary [4]‌; Fragmentation Report (n 4) 50. 123 Colangelo (n 15) 15.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  451 The precise interplay between the law of armed conflict . . . and international human rights law remains unsettled and is determined with respect to the specific rules in question. Nevertheless, the International Group of Experts was unanimous in the view that both the law of armed conflict and international human rights law apply to cyber-​related activities in the context of an armed conflict, subject to the application of the principle of lex specialis. For instance, although human rights treaty provisions prohibiting arbitrary deprivation of life are non-​derogable, whether a cyber attack . . . during an armed conflict violates that prohibition is determined primarily by reference to the lex specialis law of armed conflict rules regarding the conduct of hostilities . . .124

For its part, the ILC Study Group found that there are certain cases in which the lex specialis doctrine could not be invoked and that the general rule, not the special rule, would be enforced.125 The Sixth Committee discussion noted this conclusion and expressed concerns that it ‘substantially blurred the lex specialis principle’.126 According to the ILC Commentary to its Articles on State Responsibility, self-​contained regimes can be thought of as a strong form of lex specialis and noted the 1923 SS Wimbledon and 1980 Hostages cases as examples of the application of this concept.127 However, the ILC Study Group argued that the term ‘self-​contained regime’ is a misnomer, as no set of rules operates completely independently of the general rules of public international law and there is no evidence that any rule-​regime claims to operate independently of the VCLT.128 The Sixth Committee, in its discussion of the Study Group’s Conclusions, raised the argument that the Study Group’s definition of ‘self-​contained regime’ was actually too broad and that regimes, as per the Committee’s reading of the Hostages case, are self-​contained only if they include ‘their own system of sanction in case of breach’.129

4. The interrelations of the canons of construction

It is not uncommon to see more than one of these general principles of interpretation used to resolve a treaty conflict. Lex specialis and lex posterior are often used in conjunction with one another when the narrower treaty is also the later treaty.130 However, Erika de Wet has written ‘that the lex specialis and lex posterior principles are rarely applied by national, regional, or international courts and tribunals when resolving conflicts between international obligations’.131 Other cases are resolved by techniques that are neither a strict application of lex posterior or lex specialis, but rather cases where the ‘earlier and general instruments

124 MN Schmitt (ed), Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (CUP, Cambridge 2017) 181. 125 Study Group Conclusions (n 18) [10]. 126 Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [21]. 127 Fragmentation Report (n 4)  65–​6 (citing ILC Commentary on Art 55(5) ASR); see, also Case of the SS Wimbledon (Great Britain v Germany) [1923] PCIJ Rep Ser A No 1; Case Concerning United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (United States of America v Iran) [1980] ICJ Rep 3. 128 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 94. For further critical analysis of the self-​contained regime idea, see B Simma, ‘Self-​contained Regimes’ (1985) Netherlands Ybk Intl L 111; Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [22]–​[24]. 129 Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [23]. 130 Aufricht (n 95) 698–​9. 131 E De Wet, ‘The Place of Peremptory Norms and Article 103 of the UN Charter Within the Sources of International Law’ in S Besson and J D’Aspremont, The Oxford Handbook on Sources of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2017) 625, 629.

452  Treaty Application remains “in the background”, controlling the way the later and more specific rules are being interpreted and implemented’.132 Although these general principles may dovetail in certain instances, inasmuch as they are largely adapted from domestic canons of statutory construction, it should be of little surprise that these interpretative principles can conflict. Karl Llewellyn, discussing domestic statutory interpretation, famously argued that ‘there are two opposing canons on almost every point’.133 The same holds true in international law. There is, at the very least, a tension between the notions of lex posterior (favouring the later treaty) and lex prior and pacta sunt servanda (favouring the earlier treaty), if not an outright clash between such principles. A possible resolution of this dilemma turns on the architecture of the conflict. If the States are parties to both treaties, lex posterior or possibly lex specialis could be used. If there is no unity of the counterparties, then lex prior or pacta sunt servanda are more likely responses.134 Michaels and Pauwelyn argue that ‘intra-​systemic’ conflict rules such as canons of construction (or, one might add, Article 30 VCLT) have the possibility of working well when the conflict is between a specific treaty regime and general international law or between two sets of obligations within a particular treaty regime.135 However, they argue that such techniques may not be helpful when a conflict is across treaty regimes because ‘the fiction of the unitary lawmaker’ that is knowingly superseding one rule for another is difficult to support in such cross-​regime scenarios; thus ‘it becomes increasingly difficult to devise a neutral perspective from which neutral conflict solutions could be formulated’, such as deciding which of two regimes is the lex specialis.136 Moreover, The ILC Study Group noted that Article 30 VCLT’s techniques are disappointing when applied to conflicts across regimes because ‘[a]‌straightforward priority of one treaty over another (that is in fact, of one regime over another) cannot be reasonably assumed on a merely chronological basis’.137

E.  Insights from conflict of laws While various commentators have argued that the VCLT and the canons are ineffective in the face of cross-​regime conflicts, others have replied that this is much ado about nothing and that the canons of construction and the VCLT rules should be broadly applied. Still, others have looked for other possible doctrinal responses to treaty conflicts. Though beyond the main focus of this chapter, it is important to note that Jenks, Jessup, and other commentators have addressed the possibility of adapting conflicts of laws techniques in order to resolve treaty conflicts.138 Others critique the use of concepts such as ‘domicile’ and interest balancing for not translating well where the State in question is a party in more than one treaty regime.139 Of the various possible responses derived from conflict of laws, 132 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 22. 133 KN Llewellyn, ‘Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons about How Statutes are to be Construed’ (1950) 3 Vand L Rev 395, 401. 134 Daillier and others (n 43) 299. 135 Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 363–​5. 136 Ibid 367. 137 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 138. 138 Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 351–​2. 139 See Colangelo (n 15) 16–​17; Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 358–​62.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  453 Michaels and Pauwelyn consider the ‘functional approach’—​which attempts to characterize the situation and identify which law is most appropriate based on functional grounds—​as having the most promise.140

F.  State practice reconsidered: domestic action and mitigation Beyond the doctrinal concerns of the VCLT and the application of the canons, the role of decisions by State and non-​State actors is important in defining whether and to what extent a potential normative conflict actually frustrates the purpose of a treaty or prevents an obligation from being fulfilled. If State practice—​either inadvertently or by conscious decision—​can drive fragmentation, it can also be a force for integration.141 As the previous sections have shown, the choices that a State makes in negotiating anti-​conflict clauses or in how they interpret their obligations, can play a role in avoiding or mitigating the effects of fragmentation. Tamar Megiddo emphasizes the role that States (and non-​State actors) can play in offsetting fragmentation and integrating legal obligations. However, as Megiddo notes, ‘it is probably not common practice for most States to thoroughly consider each and every contemplated policy’s alignment with the full panoply of its international obligations’.142 Moreover, keeping in mind the concerns of Benvenisti and Downs, the State would not only need to have the means, but also the will to integrate, as opposed to allow (or pursue) fragmentation.

Conclusion: From Treaty Conflicts to Systemic Fragmentation, and Back Again States undertake conflicting legal obligations. As those obligations aggregate, they may increase the fragmentation of international law. In closing, we return to the central questions of what to do about treaty conflicts at the micro level and fragmentation at the macro level? For much of the last sixty years, the literature on responding to treaty conflicts has mostly examined the VCLT’s strengths and weaknesses. Although the VCLT responds to some scenarios, the basic critique is that its description of what is a conflict—​and thus its prescriptions—​are too narrow. The two key shortcomings of Article 30 are its emphasis on successive treaties of the ‘same subject matter’ and the lack of a clear rule when there is no unity of parties. The ‘same subject matter’ issue has been the source of some debate. Critics contend that although treaties about different policy areas (say, trade and the environment) may actually overlap, they are not about the same subject matter.143 Others have responded that this critique is an overly narrow reading of the VCLT.144 If the obligation of one treaty frustrates or causes a breach of the obligations under another treaty then, the argument goes, they are



140

Michaels and Pauwelyn (n 52) 362. See generally Megiddo (n 3). 142 Ibid 129. 143 I argue this in Borgen (n 13) 603–​4. 144 See eg Klabbers (n 31) 93; Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [26]. 141

454  Treaty Application about the same subject matter. This is a pragmatic work-​around, but it should be noted that it is not at all clear that this is what the VCLT’s drafters intended.145 The second main critique is that most of the clauses in Article 30 VCLT assume a unity of parties and that it is on less sure footing even in cases of partial unity,146 let alone no unity of parties. The VCLT would allow the obligations to each party to survive, thus there is no solution to the conflict in the VCLT, just a recognition that a conflict exists. Nor do the canons of construction have a clear solution for this dilemma either. Conflicts where there is a unity of parties can often be resolved by lex posterior. Where there is no commonality, then lex prior (and pacta sunt servanda) seems to be used more, rarely superseding the later treaty, but more often giving rise to independent causes of action under both treaties. But even in these instances, the effectiveness of the canons of construction may be undercut if the treaties are from two different specialized regimes. The ILC Study Group suggested that rather than focusing on the terminology of ‘subject matter’, what is important is whether or not treaties are in the same treaty regime: The distinction between treaties dealing with the ‘same subject-​matter’ and treaties within the same ‘regime’ may appear slight, but it constitutes an important practical shift of perspective. In the former case, focus is on the object that is being regulated while in the latter case, focus is on the intent of the States parties and the institutions they have established. The former is dependent on an abstract characterization of an issue as a ‘human rights issue’, an ‘environmental problem’ or a ‘trade question’—​and meets with the difficulty that often many characterizations may be applied to a single problem and different actors may have an interest to characterize the problem in different ways so as to ensure that their preferred rule-​systems will be applied. By contrast, the notion of a ‘regime’ points to the institutional arrangements that may have been established to link sets of treaties to each other. Treaties may of course enter into conflict both within and across regimes. To make that distinction is merely to point out that the task of settling the conflict—​for example, by seeking a ‘mutually supportive solution’—​may be much easier or more straightforward in the former than in the latter situation where at issue is often a conflict of wider objectives or values underlying the very regimes themselves.147

But, as described in the previous section, the ILC Study Group also critiqued the efficacy of Article 30 VCLT in the case of conflicts across treaty regimes. Some commentators have responded to this deficiency by seeking tools from other areas, such as conflicts of law; the ILC Study Group combined a hopeful with a professional challenge: the fragmentation of the substance of international law—​the object of this study—​does not pose any very serious danger to legal practice . . . The emergence of new ‘branches’ of the law, novel types of treaties or clusters of treaties is a feature of the social complexity of a 145 For a third way to interpret the ‘same subject matter’ phrase, see Daillier and others (n 43) 291 (defining the phrase in terms of the generality or specificity of each treaty: treaties with the same specificity level may be on the same subject matter, with those that are not falling into the category of lex specialis—​‘Mais il ne faut pas oublier que l’article 30 ne vise que les accords successifs portant “sur la même matière”, ce qui a été interprété come significant: “ayant le meme degree de généralité” ’). 146 Such as in the case of ABC:AD, when the issue is whether A’s obligations to B and C conflict with its obligations to D. Here, A’s obligations to B, C, and D all survive. 147 Fragmentation Report (n 4) 131.

Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation  455 globalizing world. If lawyers feel unable to deal with this complexity, this is not a reflection of problems in their ‘tool-​box’ but of their imagination about how to use it.148

Yet, as Benvenisti, Downs, and others have written, some States may have strategic incentives to foster fragmentation. While reasonable people may disagree as to whether normative fragmentation is a current or potential future threat, the ILC Study Group made a point worthy of emphasis. International lawyers seeking to avoid or resolve treaty conflicts must expand their repertoire of techniques, utilizing the tools already available to them. This is not to say that the current rules—​either in the VCLT or in the customary canons of construction or conflict of laws—​are able to solve all treaty conflicts. They cannot.149 But lawyers do have other techniques—​of interpretation, of drafting, of coordination—​that can either avoid or draw the sting from potential conflicts. Recent scholarship, including this chapter, exemplifies this emphasis. Colangelo argues ‘that the resolution of fragmentation will be a recursive, incremental process growing out of the system’s cumulative adaptation to an ever-​expanding international law administered by a proliferating number of bodies’.150 This will require actors to have a ‘presumption of coherence’ as well as a ‘presumption of catholicity—​the idea that courts should consult the whole universe of available international legal materials’.151 Aside from the role of the VCLT and the canons, this chapter has discussed the importance of negotiating conflict clauses and of the use of interpretation to avoid conflict. In reviewing the ILC Study Group’s Conclusions, the Sixth Committee found that there is further work to be done on the theoretical level, particularly in the relationship of treaty interpretation to conflict resolution.152 The scholarly debate concerning systemic fragmentation may be subsiding,153 but the need for careful lawyering is greater than ever. If anything, the reason that the worst scenarios of fragmentation have not come to pass is due to the efforts of drafters, diplomats, advocates, and jurists. There may not be a silver bullet that ends treaty conflict and systemic fragmentation but there are many practitioners and scholars addressing these issues, and many tools in their toolboxes.

Recommended Reading H Aufricht, ‘Supersession of Treaties in International Law’ (1952) 37 Cornell L Q 655 G Binder, Treaty Conflict and Political Contradiction:  The Dialectic of Duplicity (Praeger, New York 1988) E Benvenisti and G Downs, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes: Political Economy and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2007) 60 Stan L Rev 595 H Blix and JH Emerson (eds), The Treaty Maker’s Handbook (Oceana Publications, New York 1973)

148 Ibid 114–​15. 149 See Daillier and others (n 43)  292 (‘Aucune des solutions proposées par les auteurs ne semble d’ailleurs entièrement satisfaisant . . .’). 150 Colangelo (n 15) 57. Arguably, even if international law is not ‘ever expanding’, the already existing possibilities of fragmentation would nonetheless be addressed via the recursive incremental process that Colangelo describes. 151 Ibid 35–​6, 46. 152 Sixth Committee Discussion (n 23) [30]–​[31]. 153 See Megiddo (n 3) 123–​5 (discussing the state of the debate over fragmentation).

456  Treaty Application K Boon, ‘Regime Conflicts and the UN Security Council: Applying the Law of Responsibility’ (2011) 42 GW Intl L Rev 787 CJ Borgen, ‘Resolving Treaty Conflicts’ (2005) 37 GW Intl L Rev 573 T Broude, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On: Martti Koskenniemi and the Fragmentation of International Law’ (2013) 27 Temple Int’l & Comp L J 279 JI Charney, ‘Is International Law Threatened by Multiple International Tribunals?’ (1998) 271 RdC 101 AJ Colangelo, ‘A Systems Theory of Fragmentation and Harmonization’ (2016) 49 NYU J Int’l L & Pol’y 1 W Czaplinski and GM Danilenko, ‘Conflict of Norms in International Law’ (1990) 21 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 3 PM Dupuy, ‘L’unité de l’ordre juridique international’ (2002) 297 RcD 9 R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) ILC, Report on the work of its fifty-​eighth session (2006): Topical summary of the discussion held in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly during its sixty-​first session, prepared by the Secretariat, Addendum (23 January 2007) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​577/​Add.1 ILC Study Group, Conclusions of the work of the Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law (2006) included in ILC, Report on the Work of its 58th Session (1 May to 9 June and 3 July to 1 August 2006) UN Doc A/​61/​10 CW Jenks, ‘The Conflict of Law Making Treaties’ (1953) 30 BYBIL 403 J Klabbers, Treaty Conflict and the European Union (CUP, Cambridge 2009) M Koskenniemi and P Leino, ‘Fragmentation of International Law? Postmodern Anxieties’ (2002) 15 LJIL 553 T Megiddo, ‘Beyond Fragmentation: On International Law’s Integrationist Forces’ (2019) YJIL 115 J Mus, ‘Conflicts between Treaties in International Law’ (1998) 45 Netherlands Intl L Rev 208 J Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms in International Law:  How WTO Law Relates to Other Rules of International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2003) CPR Romano, ‘The Proliferation of International Judicial Bodies: The Pieces of the Puzzle’ (1999) 31 NYU J Intl L & Poly 709 C Rousseau, ‘De la compatibilité des noms juridiques contradictoires dans l’ordre international’ (1932) RGDIP 33 SA Sadat-​Akhavi, Methods of Resolving Conflicts between Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2003) Y Shany, The Competing Jurisdictions of International Courts and Tribunals (CUP, Cambridge 2003)

PART V

TR E AT Y IN T E R PR ETAT ION

19

The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation Richard Gardiner

‘The Vienna Rules’1



SECTION 3. INTERPRETATION OF TREATIES Article 31 General rule of interpretation 1. A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose. 2. The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall comprise, in addition to the text, including its preamble and annexes: (a) any agreement relating to the treaty which was made between all the parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty; (b) any instrument which was made by one or more parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by the other parties as an instrument related to the treaty. 3. There shall be taken into account, together with the context: (a) any subsequent agreement between the parties regarding the interpretation of the treaty or the application of its provisions; (b) any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation; (c) any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties. 4. A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended. Article 32 Supplementary means of interpretation Recourse may be had to supplementary means of interpretation, including the preparatory work of the treaty and the circumstances of its conclusion, in order to confirm the meaning resulting from the application of article 31, or to determine the meaning when the interpretation according to article 31: (a) leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure; or (b) leads to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.

1 Rules for treaty interpretation from the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). References in this chapter to ‘the Vienna rules’ are to the articles reproduced here.

460  Treaty Interpretation







Article 33 Interpretation of treaties authenticated in two or more languages 1. When a treaty has been authenticated in two or more languages, the text is equally authoritative in each language, unless the treaty provides or the parties agree that, in case of divergence, a particular text shall prevail. 2. A version of the treaty in a language other than one of those in which the text was authenticated shall be considered an authentic text only if the treaty so provides or the parties so agree. 3. The terms of the treaty are presumed to have the same meaning in each authentic text. 4. Except where a particular text prevails in accordance with paragraph 1, when a comparison of the authentic texts discloses a difference of meaning which the application of articles 31 and 32 does not remove, the meaning which best reconciles the texts, having regard to the object and purpose of the treaty, shall be adopted.

Introduction The idea that there are rules applicable to interpretation of all treaties is one that in past times would have been controversial, or at best uncertain as regards the content of any such rules. Now, however, the rules in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) are accepted as customary international law and not open to challenge.2 Nevertheless, as a set of principles ancillary to the instruments whose interpretation they assist, and as provisions which are themselves set out in a treaty, these rules require interpretation. Their very brevity leaves considerable scope for this. The present chapter addresses two questions. The first is in what sense are the Vienna rules on treaty interpretation ‘rules’? The second is how are the rules to be used in interpreting treaties? The answer to the first question provides much of the answer to the second one. But the second is worth additional attention, mainly because the rules’ application in practice reveals interpretations that do not stand out from simply reading them. At the outset, it is important to note that too much should not be claimed for the Vienna rules. In any particular instance, the difficult part of the art of treaty interpretation involves going beyond the rules themselves, that is the evaluation and judgement required in applying the rules to a particular treaty to produce an actual interpretation. The International Law Commission (ILC), which drew up the draft articles, stated in its Commentary on them: ‘the Commission confined itself to trying to isolate and codify the comparatively few general principles which appear to constitute general rules for the interpretation of treaties’.3 This endorsed the analysis by the ILC’s Special 2 See RK Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford, 2015 and paperback edn 2017) ch 1, s 2. The present chapter covers much that is considered in greater detail in Treaty Interpretation, without citing it at every point. 3 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 218–​19 [4]‌–​[5]. This chapter is confined to the rules on treaties between States; a discussion of the rules of treaty interpretation involving international organizations is found in Chapter 22 (Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation: International Organizations).

The Vienna Convention Rules  461 Rapporteur, Sir Humphrey Waldock, whose proposals avoided all the principles and maxims of interpretation then in common use. Taking as examples ones frequently referred to in their Latin forms (‘ut res magis valeat quam pereat, contra proferentem, eiusdem generis, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, generalia specialibus non derogant’), he characterized these as ‘for the most part, principles of logic and good sense valuable only as guides to assist in appreciating the meaning’, principles whose use was thus discretionary rather than obligatory.4 It is clear that the ILC’s approach was not to exclude such principles and maxims, but to concentrate on the minimum necessary to stand as rules. A more specific indication of the role of the rules describes their structure as having become ‘the virtually indispensable scaffolding for the reasoning on questions of treaty interpretation, and this despite the intention of the authors of the Convention that it should not establish anything like a hierarchy of rules’.5 The image of scaffolding nicely captures the supporting and enabling role of the Vienna rules. The extent to which these rules also sustain the resulting interpretation takes the interpreter beyond this metaphor, reflecting the growing and helpful tendency of courts and tribunals to expose their use of particular elements of the rules while constructing an interpretation.

Preliminary Considerations A prerequisite to assessing the VCLT provisions as rules for treaty interpretation is identifying what they aim to achieve. Even if one accepts that they only provide ‘scaffolding for the reasoning on questions of treaty interpretation’, the ultimate target provides part of the standard for their evaluation. In this respect, Waldock suggested that: The process of interpretation, rightly conceived, cannot be regarded as a mere mechanical one of drawing inevitable meanings from the words in a text, or of searching for and discovering some preexisting specific intention of the parties with respect to every situation arising under a treaty . . . In most instances interpretation involves giving a meaning to a text.6

This seems unnecessarily cautious. The interpreter is always ‘giving’ a meaning to the text even where the meaning is perfectly obvious. The same reason gives ground to question the observation of McNair: ‘Strictly speaking, when the meaning of the treaty is clear, it is

4 H Waldock, ‘Third Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1964] YBILC, vol II, 54 [5]‌–​[6]; cf J Klingler, Y Parkhomenko, C Salonidis (eds), Between the Lines of the Vienna Convention?:  Canons and Other Principles of Interpretation in Public International Law (Kluwer, Alphen aan den Rijn 2019) and AA Yusuf and D Peat, ‘A Contrario Interpretation in the Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice’ (2017) 3 Can J Comp & Contemp L 1. Sir Humphrey Waldock (the fourth Special Rapporteur on the law of treaties) was the principal architect of the Vienna rules and is referred to here in that capacity as ‘Waldock’. 5 H Thirlway, ‘The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1960–​1989, Supplement 2006: Part Three’ (2006) 77 BYBIL 1, 19. 6 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 53 [1]‌(citing Part III of the ‘Harvard draft codification of international law’ in (1935) 29 AJIL Supp 653, 946 (original emphasis)).

462  Treaty Interpretation “applied”, not “interpreted”.’7 In order to apply a provision of a treaty, it must first be given meaning. Defining interpretation as ‘giving meaning’ inevitably imports an active role for the interpreter. Noting Waldock’s apt observation that the process of interpretation is not to be viewed as a mere mechanical one, the role of the person giving a meaning to the terms of a treaty introduces elements of subjectivity and creativity. Thus, judgement is a necessary component of the process. Rules can assist judgement but cannot replace it. A widely perceived generalization about the international legal system is that in executing legal rules, judgments are less confined to courts than in national legal systems. The truth of this need not be investigated here because treaty interpretation is not solely the province of international courts and tribunals, nor even of courts more generally. States, their governments, legislative bodies, international organizations, and many others also have to give meaning to treaty provisions.8 National courts increasingly do tackle interpretation of treaties.9 But so do international organizations, their constitutions being typically in the form of treaties, while their ancillary courts, tribunals, or legal secretariats may have an interpretative role as well.10 The extent to which the Vienna rules have found a home in the practice of these bodies and within national administrations and legal systems is variable and difficult to assess. However, the trend is towards their use and no evidence exists of their being rejected.11

I.  The Vienna Rules—​Historic Controversy A full account of the historical development of the rules of treaty interpretation is beyond the scope of this chapter.12 It is, however, useful to be aware of one of the main 7 AD McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) 365 n1. For more on the distinction between interpretation and application, see Gardiner (n 2) 26–​30; but cf M Milanovic, ‘The ICJ and Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation’ EJIL Talk! (14 July 2009) . On the ILC and this distinction, see Section II.A.3, 469 et seq. 8 See Gardiner (n 2) Ch 4; A Roberts, ‘Power and Persuasion in Investment Treaty Interpretation: The Dual Role of States’ (2010) 104 AJIL 179; WM Reisman, ‘Necessary and Proper: Executive Competence to Interpret Treaties’ (1990) 15 YJIL 316. 9 On the role of national courts see Chapter 15 (Domestic Application of Treaties); Gardiner (n 2) Ch 4, s 4; HP Aust and G Nolte, The Interpretation of International Law by Domestic Courts: Uniformity, Diversity, Convergence (OUP, Oxford 2016); CH Schreuer, ‘The Interpretation of Treaties by Domestic Courts’ (1971) 45 BYBIL 255. 10 See Chapter 22, Section II, 536–40 et seq. 11 But for suggestions that a differential approach should be considered, see N Jain, ‘Interpretive Divergence’ (2017) 57 VJIL 45; see also M Waibel, ‘Uniformity Versus Specialization (2):  A Uniform Regime of Treaty Interpretation?’ in C Tams and others (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2014) 375. 12 For such an account see Gardiner (n 2) Ch 2; O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:  A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011), vol I, Pt III, s 3; ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009); O Dörr and K Schmalenbach, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018). For an elaboration of more detailed rules on treaty interpretation, see U Linderfalk, On the Interpretation of Treaties: The Modern International Law as Expressed in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer, Dordrecht 2007). For examples of detailed studies of specialized areas, see T Gazzini, Interpretation of International Investment Treaties (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2016); TH Yen, The Interpretation of Investment Treaties (Brill/​Nijhoff, Leiden 2014); L Grover, Interpreting Crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (CUP, Cambridge 2014); JR Weeramantry, Treaty Interpretation in Investment Arbitration (OUP, Oxford 2012); I Van Damme, Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body (OUP, Oxford 2009); G Letsas, A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (OUP, Oxford 2007); F Engelen, Interpretation of Tax Treaties under International

The Vienna Convention Rules  463 criticisms originally levelled against the Vienna rules. Professor McDougal, a member of the American delegation at the Vienna Conference where the text of the VCLT was finalized, saw the rules as highly restrictive, with an ‘insistent emphasis upon an impossible, conformity-​imposing textuality’.13 McDougal also considered that what he saw as the rigour of the ILC’s insistence upon the ‘primacy of the text’ authorized only ‘a minimum recourse to preparatory work’.14 That such a restrictive character is not the case has been amply demonstrated in practice (as discussed later); but it was equally clearly never the ILC’s intention that the rules should be constricting in the way McDougal saw them in his speech to the Vienna Conference. Of his views expressed there, it has been noted: ‘McDougal’s speech probably caused more confusion about treaty interpretation than any intervention on the subject before or since. He so badly mischaracterized the ILC draft—​and did so with such flair both at the conference itself and thereafter (publishing his prepared text in this Journal [AJIL] later that year)—​that his description has taken on a totemic power that it does not deserve’.15 That the treaty text was taken by the ILC as the starting point for interpretation, and that wholly extraneous evidence of intention was excluded, is neither open to challenge nor surprising. Using the text as the starting point for interpretation is hardly ‘conformity-​ imposing textuality’ and ‘the general rule’ (which is the whole of Article 31) goes well beyond treaty text. At the very least, the inclusion of subsequent practice in the treaty’s application and reference to rules of international law applicable in relations between the parties shows that textuality does not reign supreme. Nor was reference to preparatory work relegated to a minimal role or exceptional situations. Article 32 VCLT categorizes preparatory work as among the supplementary means of interpretation but—​rather contrary to appearances from the text—​was neither intended to preclude routine consideration of preparatory work nor has it done so. The ILC’s view, as reported by Waldock, was that: This formulation [the precursor to Article  32] seemed to the Commission about as near as it is possible to get to reconciling the principle of the primacy of the text . . . with frequent and quite normal recourse to travaux préparatoires without any too nice regard for the question whether the text itself is clear. Moreover, the rule . . . is inherently flexible, since the question whether the text can be said to be ‘clear’ is in some degree subjective.16

Law (IBFD Publications, Amsterdam 2004); N Shelton, Interpretation and Application of Tax Treaties (LexisNexis, London 2004). 13 MS McDougal, ‘The International Law Commission’s Draft Articles upon Interpretation:  Textuality Redivivus’ (1967) 61 AJIL 992. 14 Ibid 995. 15 JD Mortenson, ‘The Travaux of Travaux: Is the Vienna Convention Hostile to Drafting History?’ (2013) 107 AJIL 780, 810 (footnote omitted); U Linderfalk, ‘AJIL Symposium: Is the Vienna Convention Hostile to Drafting History? A Response to Julian Davis Mortenson’ (2 February 2014) . 16 Waldock, ‘Sixth Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1966] YBILC, vol II, 99 [20].

464  Treaty Interpretation Somewhat paradoxically, only by adopting an excessively literal approach to interpretation of the Vienna rules—​an approach at variance with the text, its preparatory work, and its application in practice—​could they be seen, in McDougal’s words, as ‘highly restrictive principles’.17 Indeed, acknowledging that these are ‘principles’ is itself rather at odds with the notion of these rules being ‘conformity-​imposing’ and ‘highly restrictive’. McDougal’s criticisms may, however, appear to have some force in relation to the exact formulation of Article 32 on preparatory work (and other supplementary materials). Quite apart from their general classification as ‘supplementary’, the differing roles envisaged for preparatory work according to the outcome of applying the general rule seems itself at odds with the ILC’s intention as expressed in Waldock’s quoted statement. In practice, Article 32 has been applied without too close a regard for its precise terms, being taken more as indicative of a need for caution in using preparatory work and a reflection of its often rather haphazard character.

II.  Are the Rules on Treaty Interpretation ‘Rules’? A.  The general rule: Article 31 The section of the VCLT covering treaty interpretation opens with Article 31 entitled General rule of interpretation. Common usage describes this article, along with the next two, as the ‘rules of interpretation’. A starting point for assessing the nature of these provisions as ‘rules’ is their content and formulation. The title of Article 31 indicates that the whole of the article is the general rule. The use of the singular ‘rule’ was deliberate. The ILC’s Commentary articulated a ‘crucible’ approach to interpretation: The Commission, by heading the article ‘General rule of interpretation’ in the singular and by underlining the connexion between paragraphs 1 and 2 and again between paragraph 3 and the two previous paragraphs, intended to indicate that the application of the means of interpretation in the article would be a single combined operation. All the various elements, as they were present in any given case, would be thrown into the crucible, and their interaction would give the legally relevant interpretation. Thus, Article 27 [now 31] is entitled ‘General rule of interpretation’ in the singular, not ‘General rules’ in the plural, because the Commission desired to emphasize that the process of interpretation is a unity and that the provisions of the article form a single, closely integrated rule.18

The first paragraph of Article 31 is couched in ‘mandatory’ language: ‘A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose’ (emphasis added). However, while this looks like a rule in the sense of a requirement or regulation, there are a number of reasons to suggest that its meaning is not so firm and inflexible.



17 18

McDougal (n 13) 999. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 219 [8]‌(emphasis in original).

The Vienna Convention Rules  465 First, it has to be accepted that there is commonly no single ‘ordinary’ meaning of a word and thus there is the need for a direct link to the context and the treaty’s object and purpose. That linkage immediately qualifies any impression that the ordinary meaning is simply a literal approach. Context and object and purpose are not additional or optional elements. They are pointers to the appropriate ordinary meaning and thus must also be put in the crucible. Second, Article 31’s opening paragraph is part of a set of provisions forming the single general rule. Paragraph (3) indicates additional factors to be ‘taken into account’. These factors include (a) subsequent agreement between the parties on the meaning, (b) subsequent practice showing the meaning, and (c) applicable rules of international law. The interpreter takes these factors (where present) into account in determining whether they trump any impression given by applying the first paragraph of the general rule. This demonstrates emphatically the error of treating just the first paragraph as the general rule or viewing the later stated elements of the general rule as subsidiary. Third, paragraph (4) of Article 31 requires a special meaning to be given to a treaty term if it is established that the parties so intended. Hence, the parties to a treaty can deliberately displace the ordinary meaning or themselves guard against an overly literal interpretation.19 Fourth, it is apparent from Waldock’s statement that, though formulated as rules, these provisions have a more liberal character: The Commission was fully conscious  . . .  of the undesirability—​if not impossibility—​of confining the process of interpretation within rigid rules, and the provisions of [the draft articles] . . . do not appear to constitute a code of rules incompatible with the required degree of flexibility . . . any ‘principles’ found by the Commission to be ‘rules’ should, so far as seems advisable, be formulated as such. In a sense all ‘rules’ of interpretation have the character of ‘guidelines’ since their application in a particular case depends so much on the appreciation of the context and the circumstances of the point to be interpreted.20

Fifth, the ILC’s ‘crucible’ approach described above envisages a fluid interaction of Article 31’s elements producing the legally relevant interpretation. The crucial interaction is not to be formulaic in the sense of a purely mechanical process.

1. Context contrasted with circumstances of conclusion If the effect of these observations indicates that the Vienna rules are as much guidelines as rules, particularly given the great variation in treaties and issues to which they apply, the last part of the ILC’s words (quoted at the fourth point above) does reflect a distinction made in the rules between context and circumstances of conclusion. The context to which Article 31(1) refers is defined in Article 31(2) to include the whole treaty text, including its preamble and annexes, any agreement relating to the treaty made between all the parties in connection with the treaty’s conclusion, and any instrument made by one or more parties in 19 For an example of a special meaning, see the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘refouler’ in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137, and its 1967 Protocol (adopted 31 January 1967, entered into force 4 October 1967) 606 UNTS 267, considered in R v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport ex parte European Roma Rights Centre [2004] UKHL 55, [2005] 2 AC 1, 31 [18], per Lord Bingham and cf Sale v Haitian Centers Council 509 US 155 (1993) 179 et seq. 20 Waldock, ‘Sixth Report’ (n 16) 94 [1]‌.

466  Treaty Interpretation connection with the treaty’s conclusion and accepted by the other parties as an instrument related to the treaty. This definition gives ‘context’ a specific content for purposes of treaty interpretation. McDougal saw it as too prescriptive and narrow. He sought application of a principle of ‘contextuality’, taking into account anything that could be construed as relevant to the twin tasks of (i) realizing the shared expectation of the parties as to the outcome of the ‘continuing process of communication and collaboration between the parties’ (which he saw as the true concept of a treaty) and (ii) reflecting the shared values of the community.21 It is not, however, because the VCLT is excessively literalist in approach, or that its rules are excessively prescriptive in nature, that context is defined more narrowly than McDougal’s posited principle of contextuality. Instead, the Vienna rules distinguish between (a) context as an indispensable adjunct to finding the ordinary meaning of the terms used and (b) ‘the circumstances of conclusion’ of a treaty which, in the Vienna scheme, are part of the supplementary means of interpretation in Article 32. True, this may place a premium on the texts that provide the element of context in the general rule as against the more general surrounding circumstances. True also that Article 31’s interpretative elements are couched in mandatory terms, while the supplementary means in Article 32 are interpretative tools to which ‘recourse may be had’. But this difference is more of an attempt to give guidance on priorities or emphasis than an indication that the general rule has the character of a straightjacket. The rather gentle application made in practice of differentiating between the general rule and supplementary means serves to confirm this understanding. Article 31(2) functions to bring into consideration other material generated in connection with the treaty’s conclusion. As with several other elements of the Vienna rules, this is more a description of what is to be considered rather than how the material should be used to fashion the interpretation. Even so, it still does not provide a rigid rule for demarcation of what is admissible as interpretative material.

2. Agreements and practice: Article 31(2)–​(3) Paragraphs (2)(a) and (2)(b) of Article 31 have a common feature: both refer to acts ‘in connection with the conclusion of the treaty’. Beyond that, they are somewhat different. Paragraph (2)(a) defines context by looking to an instrument evidencing the agreement of all parties and hence of direct interpretative significance. An example of such an instrument is a diplomatic conference’s ‘Final Act’, which typically provides a brief account of the proceedings leading up to the treaty’s adoption and may include interpretative indications agreed by the negotiators. Paragraph (2)(b) envisages as context an instrument made by one or more parties accepted by the others as related to the treaty, but not necessarily agreed to by those others. For example, an interpretative declaration accompanying a State’s instrument of ratification is made in connection with a treaty’s conclusion and accepted by other parties as related to it, but may not receive those parties’ agreement as to whether it is the correct interpretation. As regards the former category (paragraph 2(a)), the principle of taking into account what amounts to an agreement by the parties relating to the treaty seems clear in a general 21 MS McDougal, HD Lasswell, and JC Miller, The Interpretation of International Agreements and World Public Order: Principles of Content and Procedure (New Haven Press, New Haven, reprint with additions 1994) xxix–​xxxix,  197–​9.

The Vienna Convention Rules  467 sense. However, differences in practice as to (i) what constitutes a firm agreement and (ii) the absence of precision as to when a treaty is ‘concluded’, combine to make the provision less of a clear rule than it may seem. It is easy enough to identify a Protocol of Signature or a specific protocol on interpretation as coming within Article 31(2)(a). An instrument described as a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’, whether accompanying a treaty or standing alone, may be more difficult to classify.22 That title provides no conclusive indication as to the legal character of its content. Sometimes this term is used for an instrument containing commitments of the same character as a treaty, while at other times it is used to describe an instrument recording mere understandings or setting out the terms of a ‘political commitment’ which are not viewed as legally binding under international law. The VCLT’s text does not, however, specifically require interpretative agreements to be in a particular form. From the immediate context it seems probable that Article 31(2)(a) requires evidence of the fact of agreement on meaning rather than a formal legally binding agreement itself. Article 31(3)(b) requires account to be taken of ‘any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation’. That clearly attributes interpretative significance to the fact of agreement where there is no formal instrument. Given that approach, there is no particular reason to suppose that Article 32(2)(a) requires an agreement in treaty form. Hence, if a memorandum accompanying a treaty provides sufficiently clear evidence of agreement between the parties as to the treaty’s meaning, there is little reason to exclude it.23 Article 31(2)(b) separately brings into interpretative play ‘any instrument which was made by one or more parties in connection with the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by the other parties as an instrument related to the treaty’. The reference to an ‘instrument’ does not raise the same potential uncertainty whether the ‘agreement’ of the parties has to be formal in the sense of a treaty. Nor does the requirement of showing that the parties other than the maker of that instrument accepted it as related to the treaty suggest that they necessarily agree to the instrument’s content. The VCLT does not specify what such content may be, but, as in the case of the Article’s previous paragraph, Article 31(2)(b) requires that the instrument be connected with the treaty’s conclusion. It seems probable that in the context of unilateral instruments, or instruments not reflective of agreement of all parties, typically the content will involve interpretative declarations. Such declarations are commonly made on signature, ratification, accession, etc, along with reservations.24 Moreover, the moment of a treaty’s ‘conclusion’ may be difficult to pinpoint because there is no single procedure for the various stages that follow completion of treaty negotiations and its entry into force. Signature indicates that the process of drawing up the treaty is ‘concluded’, but it cannot be assumed to be the only key stage when so many treaties are subject to ratification. Even within the VCLT itself, different provisions give different meanings to the term ‘conclusion’.25

22 See Chapter 3, 59 et seq; A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) Ch 3; Gardiner (n 2) Ch 3. For an example of a protocol on interpretation, see the Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 of the European Patent Convention, Munich, 1973 [1974] 13 ILM 348. 23 See eg US–​UK Arbitration concerning Heathrow Airport User Charges (30 November 1992) 102 ILR 215. 24 The ILC has included provisions on interpretative declarations in its work on reservations: see ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 23 et seq. 25 See Pt II, s 1 VCLT, headed ‘Conclusion of Treaties’; Arts 4, 40 VCLT; see further Gardiner (n 2) Ch 6, s 2.1.

468  Treaty Interpretation Within the immediate context of the general rule on interpretation, an interpretative agreement connected with a treaty’s conclusion (treated as context by Article 31(2)(a)) can be contrasted with ‘any subsequent agreement’ (to be taken into account pursuant to Article 31(3)(a)). The possibility of ‘subsequent’ agreement suggests that there must have been an earlier fixed point of agreement appropriate for collective action. The most likely moment for an interpretative agreement among all parties in connection with the treaty’s conclusion is at signature because this could affect the basis on which States start the process of committing themselves to the treaty. However, this does not inevitably fix ‘conclusion’ as the moment of opening for signature. If no States signed, or if very few ratified the treaty, there might follow an agreement among all negotiating States to interpret some offending provision in a particular way, which would overcome the obstacle States had found to participation. Such an agreement seems as likely to be seen as connected with conclusion of the treaty as one made on signature. Although the instruments to which Article 31(2)(b) refers are in the same immediate context as those in Article 31(2)(a) given their location in the general rule, their situation is somewhat different. There is no contrasting provision in Article 31(3). Nor is there the same sense of collective action involving all parties. The occasion of a deposit of an instrument of ratification may be just the moment for making a unilateral interpretative declaration. Hence ‘conclusion’ in Article 31(2)(b) may be more appropriately understood as including the process of successive lodging of instruments of ratification, accession, etc—​or what might be viewed as a rolling process of conclusion. Leaving aside this difficulty over the meaning of ‘conclusion’, a positive theme unites Articles 31(2)(a), 31(3)(a), and 31(3)(b)—​the notion that agreement on interpretation among the treaty parties is the very best indicator of its proper interpretation. They are the entities with the power to amend, terminate, or replace the treaty. Beyond the imposition of a few peremptory rules, international law allows States free reign in treaty-​making. Hence the parties can interpret a treaty authoritatively. Those who seek to give the first paragraph of Article 31 a stronger role than agreements of the parties or practice evidencing the parties’ agreement on the meaning of a treaty provision perhaps underestimate the difference between a national system of law and international law, the latter reflecting to a major extent the sovereign character of the principal entities that it regulates. More specifically, in its commentary on the draft articles, the ILC assimilated the effect of subsequent interpretative agreements with those made at a treaty’s conclusion, albeit without treating as context such subsequent agreements by virtue of their later adoption: But it is well settled that when an agreement as to the interpretation of a provision is established as having been reached before or at the time of the conclusion of the treaty it is to be regarded as forming part of the treaty . . . Similarly, an agreement as to the interpretation of a provision reached after the conclusion of the treaty represents an authentic interpretation by the parties which must be read into the treaty for purposes of its interpretation.26

The ILC also indicated that the elements in paragraph (3) of Article 31 were no less part of the general rule than paragraph (2)’s provisions: ‘But these three elements27 are all of an

26 27

[1966] YBILC, vol II, 221 [14]. The comment refers also to relevant rules of international law, which are the subject of Art 31(3)(c) VCLT.

The Vienna Convention Rules  469 obligatory character and by their very nature could not be considered to be norms of interpretation in any way inferior to those which precede them.’28

3. Rules of international law: Article 31(3)(c) Somewhat in contrast to the provisions on subsequent agreement and subsequent practice, Article 31(3)(c) is rather unrevealing of its intentions. It requires account be taken of ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’. Such laconic wording rather masks the provision’s purpose. It appears to offer a rule requiring attention to other rules. It seems trite to say that an interpretation should take account of applicable law, though in the context of international relations, two particular issues are immediately apparent. The first is whether the law to be taken into account is that as it was at the time the treaty was made or whether evolution in the law affects its interpretation. The second issue is the extent to which other treaty relations between the parties may have an interpretative role. First, although it is not clear from the text of Article 31(3)(c), its origins lie in the so-​ called ‘intertemporal’ rule. The ILC’s initial draft on this topic considered the first limb of the intertemporal rule as requiring that ‘a treaty is to be interpreted in the light of the law in force at the time when the treaty was drawn up’.29 However, a second part of the rule required that, subject to the first limb of the rule, ‘the application of a treaty shall be governed by the rules of international law in force at the time when the treaty is applied’.30 The ILC scrapped this formulation in view of the difficulty of reconciling the principle that terms of a treaty should be interpreted in the light of international law as at the time of the treaty’s conclusion with taking appropriate account of developments in the law up to the time when a difference in interpretation is being resolved. It expected intertemporal issues to be resolved by appropriate interpretation of the particular treaty in issue: ‘correct application of the temporal element would normally be indicated by interpretation of the term in good faith’.31 Hence, part of the intertemporal rule was ultimately included by reference to good faith in the first part of the general rule. But the main principle, expressed by Waldock was that:  ‘The question whether the terms used were intended to have a fixed content or to change in meaning with the evolution of the law could be decided only by interpreting the intention of the parties’.32 Thus, this outcome leaves scope to the interpreter to decide what the treaty envisages in taking account of developments in international law. 28 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 220 [9]‌. For an extensive review of the role of subsequent agreements and practice in treaty interpretation, see the International Law Commission’s ‘Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties’ (with commentaries) ILC Report of 70th Session, Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-​third Session, Supp No 10 (A/​73/​10), ch IV, s E (‘ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice’); G Nolte (ed), Treaties and Subsequent Practice (OUP, Oxford 2013); R Moloo, ‘When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Relevance of Subsequent Party Conduct to Treaty Interpretation’ (2013) 31 Berkeley JIL 39. 29 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 8–​9 (including Waldock’s commentary). This reflected the classic formulation of the intertemporal rule in the words used by Judge Huber in Island of Palmas (Netherlands v USA) Arbitration (1928) 2 RIAA 829, 845: ‘a juridical fact must be appreciated in the light of the law contemporary with it, and not the law in force at the time when a dispute in regard to it arises or falls to be settled’. 30 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 8–​9; Judge Huber, Island of Palmas (n 29) (‘The same principle which subjects the act creative of a right to the law in force at the time the right arises, demands that the existence of the right, in other words its continued manifestation, shall follow the conditions required by the evolution of law’). 31 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 222 [16] (emphasis added). 32 [1966] YBILC, vol I(2), 199 [9]‌.

470  Treaty Interpretation Second, Article 31(3)(c)’s reference to ‘rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’ is somewhat opaque as to whether it includes treaty relations. Once again, reference to the ILC’s work is required to clarify the provision. An earlier draft had referred to ‘rules of general international law’. The VCLT elsewhere refers to a ‘peremptory norm of general international law’. In the latter context, the phrase ‘general international law’ was used in part to avoid confusion with general multilateral treaties.33 There is no authoritative definition of ‘general international law’, so it is not possible to say if in other contexts treaties would be excluded from its scope. In Article 31(3)(c), however, the word ‘general’ was deleted, and a proposal to include the word ‘customary’ in its place was rejected, suggesting that the distinction required in relation to peremptory norms was not intended here.34 Further, ILC debate, though sparse, clearly supported the view that treaties are potentially within the scope of Article 31(3)(c). One member of the ILC welcomed the text as amended to delete ‘general’: [the] new text should be maintained, because it set out the important principle that a treaty constituted a new legal element which was additional to the other legal relationships between the parties and should be interpreted within the framework of other rules of international law in force between them. But it should not be qualified by the insertion of the word ‘general’, which would exclude specific or regional rules of international law binding on the parties. That was a particularly important matter where one treaty had to be interpreted in the light of other treaties binding on the parties.35

Similarly, another member saw the revised wording as including ‘rules of written law’, a phrase that must point primarily to treaties: The omission of the word ‘general’ before the words ‘international law’ was justified, because a treaty concluded between several States should be interpreted in the light of the special international rules applying to those States, whether they were customary rules or rules of written law. It must be emphasized, however, that to be taken into consideration in interpreting the treaty, those rules, although not ‘general’, must be ‘common’ to the parties to the treaty.36

This history and analysis of Article 31(3)(c)’s text only takes one part of the way to understanding its purport. As discussed further below, the provision’s role is only gradually being revealed through emerging practice.

B.  Supplementary means: Article 32 The contrast between ‘means’ in the heading of Article 32 and ‘rule’ in Article 31 suggests a clear difference in interpretative roles. Article 31 ostensibly lays down a prescriptive rule



33

See eg debate in [1963] YBILC, vol I(1), 70 [40]. [1966] YBILC, vol I(2), 191 [74]. 35 Ibid 190 [70] (Jiménez de Arechaga). 36 Ibid 197 [52] (Yasseen). 34

The Vienna Convention Rules  471 using the mandatory ‘shall’ in each of its paragraphs. Article 32 offers an option: ‘recourse may be had to supplementary means’. Yet, such a literal approach does not properly reflect the apparent differentiation and real relationship between the two articles. In effect, the meaning of ‘supplementary’ is built into the two functions or uses of supplementary means identified in Article 32. The first function is to ‘confirm’ a meaning resulting from application of the general rule in Article 31. The second is to ‘determine’ the meaning when the interpretation according to Article 31 leaves the meaning ambiguous, obscure, or leads to manifestly absurd or unreasonable results. Both formulations clarify the sense in which supplementary means are ‘supplementary’. From this, it becomes clear that Article 32 does not simply allow use of preparatory work in some circumstances and forbid it in others. Rather the ILC’s preparatory work and the ICJ’s practice in interpreting the VCLT establish a different principle.37 The principle is that the greater the reliance to be placed on supplementary means, the more closely defined are the circumstances in which they may be used. Use to ‘confirm’ a meaning is unrestricted, while use to ‘determine’ the meaning is subject to the prerequisites stated in the article. This is why McDougal’s criticisms of the apparent relegation of preparatory work to a limited role have so little substance. McDougal proposed that supplementary means should have the same engagement in the interpretative process as all the elements in the general rule. As evidence of the important role of supplementary means (even extending beyond preparatory work), he pointed to the need of the Vienna Conference delegates to consult Waldock to understand fully the drafts they were discussing: In parenthesis, it could be added that the mere presence at this Conference of Sir Humphrey Waldock, in the role of former Special Rapporteur, is the best testimony, not always mute, of the impossibility in application of the textuality approach. Time after time during the course of our deliberations, even with the preparatory work of the Commission before us, we have found it necessary to appeal to Sir Humphrey for enlightenment about the ‘ordinary’ meanings of the simple Convention before us. The tremendous clarity he has brought to our deliberations and the enormous influence he has had with us have been due, I submit, not to his skill in flipping pages of a dictionary or as a logician, but rather his very special knowledge of all the circumstances attending the framing of our draft Convention.38

This entertaining caricature of the general rule’s defects and of Waldock’s role as proxy for—​ or extension of—​preparatory work is actually rather destructive of the points McDougal was advancing. The Vienna Conference was concerned with establishing the final version of treaty provisions, rather than interpreting existing terms. Hence, Waldock’s role was not merely as an interpreter of text. He was the conduit for communicating to the Vienna Conference the ILC’s thinking behind the proposed text and for clarifying the drafts.

37 See eg Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana v Namibia) [1999] ICJ Rep 1045, 1076 [49]; M Peil, ‘Scholarly Writings as a Source of Law: A Survey of the Use of Doctrine by the International Court of Justice’ (2012) 1 Camb J Int’l & Comp L 136, 151–​2. 38 ‘Statement of Professor McDougal, US Delegation, to Committee of the Whole, Vienna Conference, 19 April 1968’, as reproduced in (1968) 62 AJIL 1021, 1025. This differs a little in tone but not in substance from the summary records of the Statement itself. UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of First Session (26 March–​24 May 1968) UN Doc A/​Conf.39/​11, 167–​8 [45] (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’).

472  Treaty Interpretation The differentiation between using supplementary means to confirm a meaning and their more restricted role when providing the decisive element in establishing meaning actually provides a clearer indication of the relationship between the general rule and supplementary means than McDougal’s amalgamation into one set of provisions having the same status. The provisions that were adopted show how the process may adapt to individual circumstances. The adopted text also better reflects a sensible approach to interpretation that proceeds from reviewing relevant elements and moving on, by way of a reasoned assessment, to a conclusion. Hence, Waldock reported on the ILC’s approach: ‘There had certainly been no intention of discouraging automatic recourse to preparatory work for the general understanding of a treaty.’39 This, it can be seen, is quite different from deploying preparatory work only to confirm or determine meaning in the process of interpretation. In further response to McDougal’s criticisms, reference to use of ‘preparatory work’ (in context, recorded preparatory work) and surrounding circumstances (in Article 32, ‘the circumstances of conclusion’) does reflect the direction in which an interpreter’s attention is strongly drawn. The question is how far to go down that route? It seems all too obvious that treaty interpreters cannot generally have the live testimony of all those who had a hand in drawing up a treaty. So, the preparatory work must be reasonably limited to permanent records (the travaux préparatoires). The ILC sensibly declined to attempt a universal definition of such preparatory work. The ways in which treaties are negotiated and the modes of recording their development are too multifarious. But the ILC followed Waldock’s recommended approach: Recourse to travaux préparatoires as a subsidiary means of interpreting the text, as already indicated, is frequent both in State practice and in cases before international tribunals. Today, it is generally recognized that some caution is needed in the use of travaux préparatoires as a means of interpretation. They are not, except in the case mentioned [agreements, instruments, and other documents ultimately covered elsewhere in the Vienna rules], an authentic means of interpretation. They are simply evidence to be weighed against any other relevant evidence of the intentions of the parties, and their cogency depends on the extent to which they furnish proof of the common understanding of the parties as to the meaning attached to the terms of the treaty. Statements of individual parties during the negotiations are therefore of small value in the absence of evidence that they were assented to by the other parties.40

Noting first that Waldock was not an ‘individual party’ but, having been Special Rapporteur, was the guide, motivator, and mouthpiece of the ILC on this topic, the theme in this extract is integration of the use of preparatory work with the rest of the process of treaty interpretation, albeit with proper caution and appropriate evaluation. The cardinal principle for admissibility and use of preparatory work is that its cogency depends on how far it provides evidence of a ‘common understanding of the parties as to the meaning’ when weighed against other evidence. Thus, there is no clear-​cut rule on preparatory work, but rather a principle requiring interpreters to use judgement.



39 40

Vienna Conference, First Session (n 38) 184 [69]. Waldock, Third Report (n 4) 58 [21] (emphasis in original, footnotes omitted).

The Vienna Convention Rules  473 The VCLT’s preparatory work reveals acceptance by the Vienna Conference of the ILC’s draft rules virtually unchanged (except for an expansion of the provision on treaties in multiple languages). Such acceptance adds justification for importing the ILC’s records into the body of preparatory work to be evaluated as evidence of the Vienna rules’ meaning.41 However, acceptance by the Conference of texts proposed by the ILC is only one factor in favour of using records as material for interpreting the rules; others include the strength of agreement within the ILC and at the Conference on any particular point and the growing subsequent practice of referring to the ILC’s work on the Vienna rules. Both McDougal and Waldock recognized that preparatory work is very readily considered by treaty interpreters. Where they differed was in the role and content of the principles reflected in Article 32. McDougal saw preparatory work as part of the whole body of interpretative evidence, making the supplementary and circumscribed role ascribed to preparatory work unacceptable to him. Waldock evidently considered the text of Article 32 to be a fair reflection of the Commission’s aim of ‘reconciling the principle of the primacy of the text . . . with frequent and quite normal recourse to travaux préparatoires’.42 In any event, Waldock’s view has prevailed in the interpretation given to that text in practice. There are good reasons for distinguishing use of supplementary means, including preparatory work, to ‘confirm’ the meaning established by application of the general rule from using them to ‘determine’ the meaning where application of the general rule leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure, or produces a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable. Clearly, this second use gives supplementary means, such as preparatory work, a potentially crucial role in interpretation. It is therefore hardly surprising, or unreasonable, that where the preparatory work is to be the determining factor, its admission to that role is defined in more precise terms. Preparatory work is itself notoriously difficult to use in finding proof of the parties’ common understanding. Thus, only when the general rule fails, or produces a manifestly questionable result, should primacy be given to preparatory work. The circumstances in which preparatory work is determinative are rare. However, the opportunity to deploy it to support an interpretation resulting from application of the general rule is more common and is not subject to the qualifying conditions. Nevertheless, some difficulty centres on the term ‘confirm’. In ordinary use—​and perhaps misuse—​one might be asked to ‘confirm’ one’s name despite not having given it yet; one may confirm an order or reservation only made provisionally or which will lapse if not confirmed; one may confirm a booking that is already firm but for which one has forgotten the details or which one senses may not have registered adequately with the recipient, and so on. As application of the general rule requires evaluating elements of differing weight and reliability, ‘confirming’ a meaning may assume a range of roles according to the circumstances. At the lightest end of the scale, it may mean little more than looking at the preparatory work to see whether any help lies there. At the other extreme, the preparatory work may weigh heavily in the balance by confirming a meaning offered by the general rule, while stopping short of being the one determining factor. Once again, a distinction made by Waldock at an early stage of deliberations on the role of preparatory work is helpful:



41 42

Gardiner (n 2) 114–​16. See n 16 and accompanying text.

474  Treaty Interpretation There is, however, a difference between examining and basing a finding upon travaux préparatoires, and the [International] Court itself has more than once referred to them as confirming an interpretation otherwise arrived at from a study of the text. Moreover, it is the constant practice of States and tribunals to examine any relevant travaux préparatoires for such light as they may throw upon the treaty. It would therefore be unrealistic to suggest, even by implication, that there is any actual bar upon mere reference to travaux préparatoires whenever the meaning of the terms is clear.43

This support for attributing to preparatory work a role throwing, where possible, light on the treaty’s terms was accompanied by an indication of a loose approach to preparatory work being part of the ‘supplementary’ means of interpretation. Just as the ‘crucible’ approach does not see the elements of the general rule as hierarchical or sequential (other than as a logical sequence of thoughts which may be reiterated in a different order), so too the distinction between the general rule and supplementary means was not slotted into any particular sequence. Waldock noted that it was ‘unrealistic to imagine that the preparatory work was not really consulted by States, organizations and tribunals whenever they saw fit, before or at any stage of the proceedings, even though they might afterwards pretend that they had not given it much attention’.44 In practice, the Vienna rules have received extensive attention and been referred to in many judgments, awards, and decisions—​perhaps to a greater extent than the ILC expected. Those instances of interpretations that most closely track the rules tend to set out the interpretative evidence or materials, including relevant preparatory work, and follow this presentation with a reasoned analysis leading to a conclusion. To the suggestion that revealing the content of preparatory work before setting out a reasoned interpretation does not do justice to the distinction between the general rule and supplementary means, and may prejudice application of the general rule, the response is that the operative reasoning can (and should) relegate the supplementary materials to their proper role, even if the preparatory work has been disclosed at an earlier stage. Research suggests that ‘international law experts might be better able than non-​experts to discount irrelevant information in the process of treaty interpretation’.45 The key is understanding the differences between the permissible roles of supplementary means of interpretation and using each of these means properly. Thus, the essence of Article 32 is its clear distinction between the rather loose idea of confirming meaning and the much more clearly circumscribed possibility of relying on preparatory work to determine a treaty’s meaning. What is agreed and binding is the treaty, not the preparatory work. The Vienna rules accept the interpretative role of well-​defined ancillary material in the general rule and, with due caution, a limited role for the less well-​ defined preparatory work that can be elevated to a higher role only in controlled situations (ambiguity or obscurity, or manifest absurdity or unreasonableness).

43 Waldock, Third Report (n 4) 58 [20] (footnotes omitted). 44 [1964] YBILC, vol I, 314 [65]; the phrase ‘verify or confirm’ had been used in an early draft of Art 32, but ‘verify’ was dropped as being included in ‘confirm’, thus suggesting a broad meaning for the latter term. 45 Y Shereshevsky and T Noah, ‘Does Exposure to Preparatory Work Affect Treaty Interpretation? An Experimental Study on International Law Students and Experts’ (2017) 28 EJIL 1287; see also JL Dunoff and MA Pollack, ‘Experimenting with International Law’ (2017) 28 EJIL 1317.

The Vienna Convention Rules  475

C. Languages: Article 33 The division of the rules of interpretation into a general rule and supplementary means of interpretation engendered the most substantial debate at the Vienna Conference; but it did not result in any change from the ILC’s scheme. Where there was a change was in how different languages could assist or affect treaty interpretation. To the ILC’s draft of what became Article 33, the Vienna Conference added a rule of last resort: where a difference of meaning remained after applying all the other Vienna rules, ‘the meaning which best reconciles the texts, having regard to the object and purpose of the treaty, shall be adopted’ (Article 33(4)). Though couched in terms of a rule, the idea of ‘reconciling’ divergent language texts by ‘having regard’ to the treaty’s object and purpose is not a formula of scientific precision. The starting point is stated in Article 33(1), namely that parallel language texts are equally authoritative unless it is specifically stated or agreed that a particular text is to prevail. This is accompanied by the presumption in Article 33(3) that terms have the same meaning in each authentic text. The remaining provision, Article 33(2), identifies which translations made after a treaty has been authenticated are to be treated as authentic. Like many other elements of the Vienna rules, the article on languages is as much about identifying what is admissible material for use in interpretation as how to use that material in the interpretative process. The provision tries to identify relevant concepts and select appropriate terminology. Since the starting point of any interpretation must be a text, identification of the correct text is a prerequisite. However, the Vienna rules recognize that the aim is to interpret the agreement of the parties expressed in a text. The ILC therefore attached importance to the idea of there being only a single agreement, even if expressed in different languages. Where more than one language is used, describing the expressions of agreement in differing languages as ‘texts’ could indicate plurality rather than unity. Describing the expressions of agreement in different languages as ‘versions’ could imply an even greater departure from the concept of the unity of a treaty. Article 33 adopts a pragmatic, if inconsistent, approach. It keeps to the principle of unity by stating that the singular ‘text’ is equally authoritative in each language unless, where so indicated, ‘a particular text’ is to prevail. In reality, this acknowledges the customary usage of referring to authentic texts in different languages as ‘texts’ in the plural. The term ‘version’ is reserved for describing later translations accepted as authentic. The article also distinguishes between the descriptions ‘authentic’ and ‘authoritative’. It follows the concept of ‘authentication’ in Article 10 VCLT, namely the process for establishing a text as definitive at the end of negotiations.46 Associating the term ‘authentic’ with the finalized terms in different languages leaves the word ‘authoritative’ to describe the subsequent status and effect of a text authenticated in different languages. This approach in itself provides a lesson in treaty interpretation, particularly for the importance attached by the ILC to the link between ordinary meaning and context at the outset of the general rule. The ordinary meaning of ‘authentic’ in Article 33 is informed by the context, that is by considering use of the term in the Convention’s provisions on



46

For a more detailed discussion of the process of authentication, see Chapter 9, 219–21 et seq.

476  Treaty Interpretation treaty-​making. Elsewhere than in the context of the Convention, ‘authentic’ may have a different ordinary meaning, as in its use by the ILC in the expression ‘authentic interpretation’ (meaning one made by the parties).47 Thus, the ordinary meaning of ‘authentic’ is not established by a ‘conformity-​imposing textuality’ (in McDougal’s terms), but by selecting an ordinary meaning of the term in its context. More generally, the ILC recognized that discrepancies between languages are bound to occur: Few plurilingual treaties containing more than one or two articles are without some discrepancy between the texts. The different genius of the languages, the absence of a complete consensus ad idem, or lack of sufficient time to co-​ordinate the texts may result in minor or even major discrepancies in the meaning of the texts.48

The result is that the provisions on languages do no more than raise some presumptions, leaving considerable discretion to the interpreter.

III.  The Vienna Rules in Practice The analysis of the Vienna rules thus far has essentially looked at the words of the provisions and the preparatory work recording their development to see how far the provisions have the character of prescriptive rules. It is suggested that though the general rule is couched in mandatory language and identifies in clear terms what must be taken into account, the envisaged interpretative exercise is actually quite flexible. It is dependent on which elements may be present in any given case, and even more so in that any determination made by an interpreter in a particular case depends on the application of judgement in evaluating the relationship between the various elements and their respective values in giving meaning to the treaty’s terms by that process. Just as the Vienna rules give the parties’ interpretative agreement (whether express or through practice) a value potentially equal to any treaty term’s ordinary meaning in its context and in the light of the treaty’s object and purpose, so too do they make it appropriate to consider practice in applying a treaty. There is now very extensive practice in courts and tribunals, both international and national, showing explicit use of the Vienna rules.49 However, neither this body of case law, nor the much less readily located practice of States in interpreting treaties when applying them, has yet established conclusively the agreement of all the VCLT parties (or of all States when the rules are viewed as customary international law) on many of the issues raised above. Nevertheless, examples from practice are offered 47 See eg the ILC’s Commentary on its draft articles noting that an interpretative agreement reached after the treaty’s conclusion ‘represents an authentic interpretation by the parties which must be read into the treaty for purposes of its interpretation’, [1966] YBILC, vol II, 221 [14] (emphasis added), cited by the ICJ in Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (n 37) 1075 [49] and in the NAFTA arbitration Methanex v USA (Merits), Award of 3 August 2005, [2005] 44 ILM 1345, 1354 [19]. 48 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 225 [6]‌. For many examples of difficulties and confusions in multilingual treaties see D Shelton, ‘Reconcilable Differences? The Interpretation of Multilingual Treaties’ (1997) 20 Hastings Intl and Comp L Rev 611. 49 See Gardiner (n 2) Part II.

The Vienna Convention Rules  477 here to confirm that the Vienna rules are more in the nature of principles and indications of admissible material. They reveal a quite loose structure for developing interpretations, rather than a straightjacket or formulaic set of requirements.

A.  General application of the Vienna rules There is, however, one preliminary point of practice that does constitute a firm rule: the Vienna rules are now the rules of customary international law applicable to all treaties, even though the VCLT itself is not retroactive. Thus, even though the law of treaties as stated in the VCLT has a more limited scope of application when applied to its parties than do the rules of customary international law, the Convention’s provisions on treaty interpretation now reflect the latter and have general application. This is subject to one caveat since the Vienna rules allow parties to attribute special meanings to terms if they deliberately so choose; and it may well follow that they could choose to apply their own specific rules of interpretation as a means of achieving their own special meaning.50 How can one be sure that the Vienna rules have the wide applicability just discussed? There is a great body of evidence attesting to this, including endorsement by the ICJ.51 That this evidence leads to the conclusion that the rules do form part of customary international law was summed up in an arbitration in which the President of the ICJ was the presiding arbitrator, where the Award stated: It is now well established that the provisions on interpretation of treaties contained in Articles 31 and 32 of the Convention reflect pre-​existing customary international law, and thus may be (unless there are particular indications to the contrary) applied to treaties concluded before the entering into force of the 1969 [VCLT] in 1980. The International Court of Justice has applied customary rules of interpretation, now reflected in Articles 31 and 32 of the 1969 [VCLT], to a treaty concluded in 1955 . . . and to a treaty concluded in 1890, bearing on rights of States that even on the day of Judgment were still not parties to the 1969 [VCLT] . . . There is no case after the adoption of the [1969 VCLT] in which the International Court of Justice or any other leading tribunal has failed so to act.52

That the Vienna rules have been ‘acknowledged’ by the ICJ, other international courts and tribunals, and national courts as the governing rules does not, however, provide a full indication, still less an assessment, of their actual use by such bodies. In many cases, their actual 50 Cf The American Convention on Human Rights (adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 19; L Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights: Expansionism at the Service of the Unity of International Law’ (2010) 21 EJIL 585. 51 On identification of a rule in a treaty as reflecting a rule of customary international law, and the role of the ICJ and other courts and tribunals in establishing this, see draft conclusions 11 and 13 of the ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (n 28). 52 Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway (Belgium v Netherlands) (2005) XXVII RIAA 35, 62 [45] (emphasis added). For cases of the ICJ, other international courts and tribunals, and judgments of domestic courts acknowledging the Vienna rules’ applicability, see Gardiner (n 2) Ch 1, s 2.

478  Treaty Interpretation use has only been introduced gradually and remains limited in scope. Indeed, in practice, the rules are not always fully deployed.53 There are, moreover, two reasons why categorical assertions about the extent of use of the Vienna rules are difficult. First, there is no obligation on interpreters to provide a running commentary on how they are applying the rules of interpretation as they develop their argument in a particular instance. Hence, absence of reference to particular elements of the Vienna rules does not necessarily mean that they are not being applied. Second, all the elements of the rules may not be applicable in any particular case. For example, there may be no subsequent agreement on interpretation, no established interpretation through practice, no circumstances warranting determination of meaning by supplementary means, and so on. Nevertheless, reported instances show a repeated focus on Article 31(1) alone, which does raise the strong suspicion that that paragraph is sometimes viewed by itself as the general rule of interpretation.54 This suspicion is largely confirmed where a restricted view of Article 31 is stated expressly. Thus, despite longstanding authoritative assertions of the Vienna rules’ applicability in UK courts, it has nevertheless been stated that: article 31 of the 1969 VCLT on the Law of Treaties (1980) (Cmnd 7964) provides that a treaty shall be interpreted ‘in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose’. This is the starting point of treaty interpretation to which other rules are supplementary: see articles 31(2), 31(3), 31(4) and 32. The primacy of the treaty language, read in context and purposively, is therefore of critical importance.55

This is correct in viewing Article 31(1) VCLT as a ‘starting point’ for interpretation; but the statement that the further paragraphs of Article 31 are ‘supplementary’ is quite at odds with the indication in that Article’s heading that the whole of Article 31 is the general rule. The ILC emphatically confirmed and integrated this indication in its ‘crucible’ approach.56 Further, Article 32’s heading and its preparatory work make it clear that it is those provisions that are the ‘supplementary’ means of interpretation, not the successive elements of the general rule in Article 31. The real danger of excessive emphasis on Article 31’s first paragraph is that it relegates the further elements of that Article, such as subsequent agreement between the parties on interpretation and subsequent practice amounting to such agreement, to a subordinate role. Yet, such agreements are an ‘authentic’ interpretation and, where present, could be determinative. The ICJ has observed that ‘the subsequent practice of the parties, within the meaning of Article 31(3)(b) of the VCLT, can result in a departure from the original 53 See ‘Opinion, Professor WM Reisman, 22 March 2010, on the International Legal Interpretation of the Waiver Provision in CAFTA Chapter 10’ in connection with Pac Rim Cayman LLC v Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No ARB/​ 09/​ 12 (CAFTA), [19] . 54 See the examples, particularly the assessment of the practice of the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights, in Villiger (n 12) 436–​7; Gardiner (n 2) 13–​20, 136–​41 (on the Court of Justice of the European Union). 55 In Re Deep Vein Thrombosis and Air Travel Group Litigation [2006] 1 AC 495, 508, and see further Gardiner (n 2) 144–​50. On the approach adopted in certain other States, see Villiger (n 12) 438. 56 See n 18 and accompanying text.

The Vienna Convention Rules  479 intent on the basis of a tacit agreement between the parties’.57 Thus, such an interpretative agreement achieved through practice can trump a meaning that might be derived from application of Article 31(1) alone.

B.  Ordinary meaning in context In examining the manner of the Vienna rules’ application, one finds numerous cases where dictionaries have been used as the starting point for interpreting a treaty. But these neither show that the rules are based on McDougal’s feared ‘conformity-​imposing textuality’, nor do they even typically suggest a single ordinary meaning. Dictionaries tend to produce a range of probable ordinary meanings. The interpretative exercise therefore rapidly moves on to consider further elements of the general rule. In Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana v Namibia),58 the ICJ stated that it was interpreting words in a treaty of 1890 between Great Britain and Germany to give them their ordinary meaning, and that it was determining the meaning of ‘main channel’ of the river forming a disputed frontier by ‘reference to the most commonly used criteria in international law’. Judge Higgins, concurring but making her own declaration, found this ‘somewhat fanciful’. She considered that no ‘ordinary meaning’ of the term ‘main channel’ existed either in international law or in hydrology: The analysis on which the Court has embarked is in reality far from an interpretation of words by reference to their ‘ordinary meaning’. The Court is really doing something rather different. It is applying a somewhat general term, decided upon by the Parties in 1890, to a geographic and hydrographic situation much better understood today . . . The Court is indeed, for this particular task, entitled to look at all the criteria the Parties have suggested as relevant. This is not to discover a mythical ‘ordinary meaning’ within the Treaty, but rather because the general terminology chosen long ago falls to be decided today . . . At the same time, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are seeking to give flesh to the intention of the Parties, expression [seemingly: ‘expressed’] in generalized terms in 1890. We must trace a thread back to this point of departure. We should not, as the Court appears at times to be doing, decide what in abstracto the term ‘the main channel’ might today mean, by a mechanistic appreciation of relevant indicia.59

This comment follows more closely the ILC’s scheme that sought, not simply to avoid a ‘mechanistic appreciation’ of interpretative elements, but more positively to see that context and a treaty’s object and purpose informed the ordinary meaning of treaty terms (at least as a precursor to use of further elements of the rules). Although context is given a broader definition than just immediate context, this does not of course exclude the use of immediate context. The WTO Appellate Body’s decision in Canada—​Measures Affecting the Export of 57 Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) [2009] ICJ Rep 213, [64]; but see further n 69. 58 Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (n 37). 59 Ibid 1113–​14 [1]‌–​[4] (Declaration of Judge Higgins).

480  Treaty Interpretation Civilian Aircraft used both elements of context.60 The case concerned the definition of ‘subsidy’ in the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (the ‘SCM Agreement’). Canada argued that ‘subsidy’ could mean an amount measured by the cost to the government as much as the benefit to the recipient. The Appellate Body looked to the immediate context in Article 1 SCM’s definition of ‘benefit’, then investigated other relevant elements of that Agreement and the structure of the provision. Finding that a ‘benefit does not exist in the abstract, but must be received and enjoyed by a beneficiary or a recipient’, logic implied the existence of a recipient as did the use of the term ‘conferred’. The context supported this reading in that a related provision in the same treaty referred to the ‘benefit to the recipient conferred pursuant to paragraph 1 of Article 1 [the provision under interpretation]’. The Appellate Body found the structure of the whole provision to have two discrete elements, viz: ‘a financial contribution by a government or any public body’ and that ‘a benefit is thereby conferred’, such structure suggesting that a contribution from the government flowed to a beneficiary.61 Hence, the term referred to what the beneficiary received, not the cost to the government. It can be seen from this reasoning (if not abundantly obvious already) that reference to context cannot be usefully made in a purely mechanistic fashion and pursuing ‘conformity-​imposing textuality’. Even less rule-​orientated is the requirement to make an interpretation ‘in the light of ’ the treaty’s object and purpose. While this reference to a treaty’s object and purpose has the role of assisting in giving meaning to the terms used (as is described later), the phrase is not simply a teleological imperative subordinating the terms of the treaty to its purpose. Rather, it is an enabling provision allowing the selection of meaning to take this factor into account.62 It is not therefore a rule in the sense of a prescriptive formula, even though it is an indication of a factor to be considered. Finding a treaty’s object and purpose is a somewhat open-​ended operation. The ILC and the ICJ have linked it with the good faith requirement in the opening words of the general rule to produce a ‘principle of effectiveness’. This principle has two aspects: (i) it incorporates the Latin maxim preferring a meaning that ascribes some effect to a term rather than no effect (ut res magis valeat quam pereat); and (ii) it imports a teleological element into the interpretation. The ILC noted: When a treaty is open to two interpretations one of which does and the other does not enable the treaty to have appropriate effects, good faith and the objects and purposes of the treaty demand that the former interpretation should be adopted.63

The ICJ applied both aspects of the principle of effectiveness in Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v Chad).64 Application of the narrower aspect (the Latin maxim) led it to 60 WTO, Canada—​Measures Affecting the Export of Civilian Aircraft—​Decision AB-​1999–​2 (2 August 1999) WT/​DS70/​AB/​R. 61 Ibid 39–​40 [155]–​[157]. 62 See the account in Gardiner (n 2) Ch 2, s 4 of the Harvard draft articles on the law of treaties where the approach to interpretation made pervasive reference to the treaty’s purpose as a guide to interpretation. For an example of this element in practice see Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v Japan: New Zealand intervening) Judgment [2014] ICJ Rep 226, 251–​2 [56]–​[58]. 63 ‘Commentary on draft articles’ [1966] YBILC, vol II, 219 [6]‌. 64 Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v Chad) (Merits) [1994] ICJ Rep 6.

The Vienna Convention Rules  481 interpret a provision referring to frontiers ‘that result from the international instruments’ defined in the Annex to the treaty, as meaning all the frontiers resulting from those instruments. The Court also applied a more general principle of effectiveness to conclude that the aim of the treaty was to resolve all the issues over these frontiers.65

C.  Interpretation agreed by the parties There is relatively little cause for invitations to courts and tribunals to interpret treaties where the parties have themselves reached a clear interpretative agreement. It seems reasonably safe to say that many differences over interpretation will be resolved by the parties’ agreement recorded in some form or other. Disputes are most likely to arise where there is uncertainty if there is actually agreement, where agreements are not kept, or where they produce results that one party dislikes and seeks to repudiate. However, the principle seems clear: The parties are the best interpreters of their own agreement. Adoption of an interpretative agreement may be specifically envisaged in the treaty.66 Such a situation is really covered by the Vienna provision requiring the context to be taken into account, meaning the full text of the treaty under interpretation. The Vienna provisions on interpretative agreements have an even greater reach than that, including as they do agreements shown by concordant practice. The latter is probably most readily evidenced by practice following an agreement or understanding.67 However, the ultimate test of the notion that the parties are the best interpreters of their agreement is whether they can establish by interpretation something others might view as an amendment. If all parties agree on the meaning of a treaty, it matters little how this could be viewed by others.68 The process of international agreement seems loosely structured in this regard. There may be practical difficulties if there is a party who objects to a failure to follow an amending procedure, or particularly if one or more parties has constitutional requirements to follow. However, the parties are collectively masters of their own treaty relations subject to the few peremptory rules of international law. That it is difficult to find good examples of this raising issues may be explained by the probability that if there is an amending procedure, the parties are likely to follow it if there is a need for a serious change. However, the ICJ appears to have endorsed the possibility of a changed meaning being established by practice of the parties, suggesting this must, a fortiori, be possible by express 65 Ibid 25–​6 [51]–​[52]. 66 This can, however, raise difficulties where the parties adopt an interpretation of a provision while it is the subject of an arbitration. See eg North American Free Trade Association Agreement (Canada–​Mexico–​US) (signed 8, 11, 14, and 17 December 1992, entered into force 1 January 1994) [1993] 32 ILM 296 and [1993] 32 ILM 605 (Art 1131 provides that an interpretation by the NAFTA Commission is to be binding on NAFTA tribunals); Arbitration under Chapter Eleven of NAFTA, Pope & Talbot v Canada (Award in respect of Damages) [2002] 41 ILM 1347. 67 See, for example, Decision XV/​3 of the Fifteenth Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, where the parties indicated their desire ‘to decide . . . on a practice in the application of Article 4, paragraph 9 of the Protocol by establishing by consensus a single interpretation of the term “State not party to this Protocol”, to be applied by Parties’ (11 November 2003) UNEP/​OzL.Pro.15/​9, 44–​5. 68 Compare the indication by the ILC that subsequent agreements and subsequent practice that establish agreement of the parties on interpretation of a treaty do not necessarily have conclusive or overriding effect. ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (n 28) Commentary to Conclusion 3 [3]‌. The Commission does not offer examples, but it is conceivable that the issue could now arise where a non-​State actor can invoke a treaty, such as in human rights or international investor claims.

482  Treaty Interpretation agreement. The ICJ viewed interpretation by subsequent practice as itself a tacit agreement, noting in Costa Rica v Nicaragua: It is true that the terms used in a treaty must be interpreted in light of what is determined to have been the parties’ common intention, which is, by definition, contemporaneous with the treaty’s conclusion . . . This does not however signify that, where a term’s meaning is no longer the same as it was at the date of conclusion, no account should ever be taken of its meaning at the time when the treaty is to be interpreted for purposes of applying it. On the one hand, the subsequent practice of the parties, within the meaning of Article 31(3)(b) of the 1969 VCLT, can result in a departure from the original intent on the basis of a tacit agreement between the parties . . . 69

Issues arising over interpretations agreed by the parties have been the subject of detailed examination by the ILC in its work on ‘Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties’ which has resulted in a set of conclusions and accompanying commentaries.70 The conclusions provide only cautious assistance for application of the relevant Vienna rules, but the commentaries contain a compendious resource of analysis and materials on this topic.

D.  Relevant rules of international law This provision in Article 31(3)(c)—​requiring account to be taken of any relevant rules of international law applicable in the parties’ relations—​has attracted growing attention recently. The development of international law and the proliferation of treaties have added complexity to the range of legally relevant material to be taken into account. In this context, the ILC endorsed a study of ‘fragmentation’ of international law, such fragmentation arising principally through the parallel development of new specialist sets of rules such as those of international environmental law and international economic law. The potential of Article 31(3)(c) for assisting in reconciling divergent regimes was a feature of this study as set out in ‘the Koskenniemi Report’, which also provides useful accounts of relevant practice.71 The ILC’s work on Article 31(3)(c) offers guidance on the specific issue of using related treaties in interpretative practice: Application of other treaty rules. Article 31(3)(c) also requires the interpreter to consider other treaty-​based rules so as to arrive at a consistent meaning. Such other rules are

69 Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) [2009] ICJ Rep 213, [63]–​[64]; but see ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (n 28) Conclusion 7 (giving further consideration, including a presumption in favour of interpretation, over amendment or modification). 70 ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (n 28), Ch IV. 71 See ILC, 58th Session, ‘Report of the Study Group on Fragmentation of International Law:  Difficulties arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’, finalized by M Koskenniemi (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.682, 206–​44; further, ILC Report (18 July 2006) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​L.702; ILC Report on its 58th session (2006), UN Doc A/​61/​10, Supp No 10, 400–​23 (‘ILC Report on its 58th Session’); see also C McLachlan, ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration and Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention’ (2005) 54 ICLQ 279; Gardiner (n 2) Ch 7.

The Vienna Convention Rules  483 of particular relevance where parties to the treaty under interpretation are also parties to the other treaty, where the treaty rule has passed into or expresses customary international law or where they provide evidence of the common understanding of the parties as to the object and purpose of the treaty under interpretation or as to the meaning of a particular term.72

A more general difficulty over using relevant international law rules in treaty interpretation is shown by the ICJ’s approach in the Oil Platforms case.73 The majority judgment invoked the Vienna provision (Article 31(3)(c)) to use the general international law of self-​defence as the starting point for interpreting whether the United States could justify its destruction of Iranian oil platforms by reference to a provision in a bilateral US–​Iranian treaty. The majority found that the United States could not establish self-​defence, but held that it had nevertheless not violated any treaty provisions, particularly the provision on freedom of commerce. Oil Platforms’ significance lies in its application of Article 31(3)(c). One of the judges who concurred in the outcome nevertheless considered that the majority had not used the Vienna rules correctly: ‘It has rather invoked the concept of treaty interpretation to displace the applicable law.’74 Similarly, another concurring judge opined that: the approach taken by the Court is putting the cart before the horse. The Court rightly starts by saying that it is its competence to interpret and apply [the bilateral treaty provision], but it does so by directly applying the criteria of self-​defence under Charter law and customary law and continues to do so until it reaches its conclusion . . . The proper approach in my view would have been to scrutinize the meaning of the words [in the bilateral treaty provision] . . . 75

What is important to stress about these criticisms is their indication that the majority took an illogical approach by investigating whether a defence under general international law was absent, without deciding first whether there was any breach of the treaty in issue to which a defence needed to be raised. The criticism was thus not that the majority had failed to take a sufficiently literal or textual approach when invoking Article 31(3)(c). Rather, it was that the majority had strayed outside the realm of treaty interpretation using too loose an allusion to the reference to international law in the Vienna rules.

E. Supplementary means It is harder to find fault with the prevailing loose application of Article 32’s provisions, principally as it affects use of preparatory work. As noted above, the provision’s use of preparatory work ‘to confirm’ a meaning built up by application of the general rule does offer a very 72 ILC Report on its 58th Session (n 71) 414–​15 [21]. 73 Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v United States of America) (Merits) [2003] ICJ Rep 161. For commentary, see FD Berman, ‘Treaty “Interpretation” in a Judicial Context’ (2004) 29 YJIL 315; D French, ‘Treaty Interpretation and the Incorporation of Extraneous Legal Rules’ (2006) 55 ICLQ 281. 74 Judge Higgins, Oil Platforms (n 73), Separate Opinion [49]. 75 Judge Kooijmans, Oil Platforms (n 73), Separate Opinion [42]–​[43].

484  Treaty Interpretation broad scope for its application. The approach taken in practice by courts and tribunals to use of preparatory work may perhaps be best exemplified by a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights where the typical form is to state the history of the applicable provision of the European Convention as part of an account of the relevant law before applying the law to the particular facts and assertions. Thus, in Witold Litwa v Poland, the Court considered whether the word ‘alcoholics’ in a provision of the Convention permitting ‘the lawful detention . . . of persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts or vagrants’ applied solely to those having an addiction to alcohol or could justify detention of someone behaving drunkenly.76 After stating the facts and relevant domestic law, the Court set out the preparatory work, showing that there was an early concern to protect a State’s right to take necessary measures to fight vagrancy and alcoholism. As the draft text developed, the right of States to take measures combating ‘drunkenness’ was translated as l’alcoolisme in the French text. That thought was recast consistent with other provisions so that it related to a person rather than a condition. By this route ‘drunkenness’ became transformed into ‘alcoholics’. Explicitly applying the Vienna rules, the Court accepted that an ordinary meaning of ‘alcoholics’ was persons who are addicted to alcohol. However, the immediate context of the treaty provision in question included categories of individuals (i) linked by possible deprivation of liberty to be given medical treatment, (ii) because of considerations dictated by social policy, or (iii) on both these grounds.77 This suggested that the provisions allowed deprivation of liberty not only because such persons were a danger to public safety, but also because their own interests might require their detention. The Court found that the treaty’s object and purpose was not to detain persons in a clinical state of alcoholism, but to give authority for taking into custody those whose conduct and behaviour under the influence of alcohol posed a threat to public order or themselves. Such risk of public disorder or harm to the intoxicated person arose whether or not they were addicted to alcohol.78 In reaching this interpretation, the Court ostensibly relied on context as well as the treaty’s object and purpose to displace an apparently unequivocal ordinary meaning. It then ‘confirmed’ this view by reference to the provision’s preparatory work, noting that the commentary on the preliminary draft acknowledged the right of States to take measures to combat vagrancy and drunkenness. Although this application of the Vienna rules seems fully in keeping with their proper use, it is difficult not to conclude that consideration of the preparatory work before formal application of the general rule convinced the Court of the correct interpretation. Further, it seems inevitable that courts and tribunals commonly consider preparatory work before formulating their judgment or award. Only in the loosest sense is this process ‘confirming’ a meaning established by the general rule, even if (as in the earlier example) care is taken to construct the interpretation giving respect to the structure of the Vienna rules. Where preparatory work is being used to ‘confirm’ a meaning, its role is, in effect, cumulative with the application of the general rule. In practice, however, there may be a sliding scale to the effect that the clearer the result from application of the general rule, the less precision is demanded from the preparatory work. Where, for example, a change in terminology

76

ECtHR App No 26629/​95 (Judgment of 4 April 2000). Ibid [60]. 78 Ibid [61]–​[62]. A fuller account of the case is given in Gardiner (n 2) Ch 1, s 5.1. 77

The Vienna Convention Rules  485 in the developing negotiations is not very clearly explained in preparatory work, its significance and reliability may be balanced against the clarity of the text.79 Likewise, the implications of rejection of a proposed provision or uncontroverted assertions recorded in preparatory work as to an expected meaning can only be assessed in light of the particular circumstances and evaluation of the result of the general rule’s application.80 All too often, preparatory work is confusing and unrevealing. This has led some courts to reject its use unless it very directly and conclusively addresses the point in issue.81 However, in the main, from the attention courts and tribunals do give preparatory work, along with consideration of the circumstances of conclusion, it is clear that the separation of these elements into a class of supplementary means of interpretation has neither resulted in undue insistence on the ‘primacy of the text’ nor been taken as authorizing only the ‘minimum recourse to preparatory work’ foreseen by McDougal. On the contrary, the classification of preparatory work in a separate and supplementary category of rules appears to have produced little by way of diminution of their interpretative effect.

F.  Languages If anything, the part of the Vienna rules that tends to be viewed as a separate category is the content of Article 33 on interpreting treaties in multiple languages. This may be because the matter only arises in certain cases where there appears to be a potential difference between the languages which could help the interpreter. The language factor is very much individual to each treaty. There is also the considerable difficulty of working with many languages where not only the nuances of the words, but the process of thought and the legal environment behind the words may be quite alien to the interpreter. It is, therefore, difficult to reveal any trend through the cases as distinct from showing that particular ones tackle particular points. One case from the ICJ shows how even a comparison of two languages from five authentic ones can produce a confusing picture. In the LaGrand case, the ICJ indicated by way of provisional measures that the United States should not execute a German national pending the Court’s final decision on consular access issues.82 LaGrand was nevertheless executed before that decision. The Court then had to determine if its indication of provisional measures imposed on the United States an international legal obligation to comply. In deciding that its indications of provisional measures did establish legal obligations, the Court only referred in its reasoning to the French and English texts of its Statute (although Germany had included the relevant words in all five authentic languages in its memorial). The Court began by applying Article 31(1) VCLT. It noted considerable differences 79 See eg Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v Bahrain) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1994] ICJ Rep 112, where the majority view attached more weight to what those judges saw as a meaning clear in its context as contrasted with unclear preparatory work, while the principal dissenter, Judge Schwebel, saw clear conclusions to be drawn from the preparatory work rather than finding a meaning in a term which was ambiguous and not clarified by its context. See Gardiner (n 2) 366–​72. 80 Compare Hosaka v United Airlines 305 F.3d 989 (9th Cir 2002), certiorari denied 537 U.S. 1227 with Pierre-​ Louis v Newvac 584 F.3d 1052 (11th Cir 2009); see Gardiner (n 2) 386–​8. 81 See the trend in cases in the United Kingdom to require that preparatory work must clearly and indisputably point to a definite legal intention: ‘Only a bull’s-​eye counts. Nothing less will do’. Effort Shipping Company v Linden Management [1998] AC 605, 623; see also Gardiner (n 2) 383–​5. 82 LaGrand Case (Germany v USA) [2001] ICJ Rep 466.

486  Treaty Interpretation of emphasis, the French terms being of more potential mandatory effect than the English. In the latter language, the use in the Court’s statute of ‘indicate’ instead of ‘order’, of ‘ought’ instead of ‘must’ or ‘shall’, and of ‘suggested’ instead of ‘ordered’ implied that decisions of this kind lacked mandatory effect. The Court concluded that it was ‘faced with two texts which are not in total harmony’ and proceeded to apply Article 33(4) VCLT, attempting to reconcile the texts by reference to the Statute’s object and purpose.83 The Court considered that the Statute’s object and purpose was to enable the Court to fulfil its functions, principally the basic function of judicial settlement of international disputes by binding decisions. Hence, the Court was not to be hampered in the exercise of this function by the respective rights of the parties to a dispute not being preserved. Thus, the Court concluded that indications of provisional measures had to be binding.84 Such a brief summary does scant justice to the Court’s reasoning and on the language issue it was confronted with only some of the issues that may arise. Others include: how to deploy the presumption of the same meaning in all authentic texts;85 whether the ‘original’ language of a treaty has particular significance (that is where one language was used for negotiating and drafting, the others being translations);86 how to treat texts where translations are of legal concepts in different languages;87 reconciliation where one or more texts are clear but another is ambiguous;88 the significance of different punctuation in different languages;89 and use of preparatory work in reconciling differences between languages.90

IV.  Beyond the VCLT The Vienna rules only state the general principles of treaty interpretation. There is no indication in these rules what further means are to be used, although the listed supplementary means are not exclusive. As the Vienna rules are mainly concerned with what is to be taken into consideration, with only limited indications of how evaluation of these elements is to be accomplished, there is scope to look beyond the rules. Thus, use of traditional maxims of construction of legal instruments is not ruled out. As noted earlier, however, these are really means of analysing the context when applying the first part of the general rule.91 83 Ibid [101]. 84 Ibid [102]. 85 Cf Case Concerning Elettronica Sicula SpA (ELSI) (USA v Italy) [1989] ICJ Rep 15; WTO, United States—​ Final Countervailing Duty Determination with Respect to Certain Softwood Lumber from Canada—​Appellate Body Report (2004) WT/​DS257/​AB/​R [59]–​[60]. 86 See LaGrand (n 82). 87 See Ehrlich v Eastern Airlines 360 F.3d 366 (2nd Cir 2004); Abbott v Abbott 130 S.Ct. 1983 (2010). 88 See Border and Transborder Armed Actions (Nicaragua v Honduras) [1988] ICJ Rep 69; Wemhoff v Germany (Judgment of 27 June 1968) Series A No 7, 23 (European Court of Human Rights); Busby v State of Alaska 40 P.3d 807 (Alaska Ct Appeals 2002). 89 See the discrepancy between a comma and a semi-​colon in the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, and Charter of the International Military Tribunal, London, 8 August 1945, in Trial of Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, vol 1, Documents (HMSO, London 1947); E Schwelb, ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ (1946) 23 BYBIL 178, 188, 193–​5; see also United States—​Measures Affecting the Cross-​Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services—​WTO Appellate Body Report (7 April 2005) WT/​DS285/​AB/​R. 90 See LaGrand (n 82); Case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v USA) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1984] ICJ Rep 392. 91 See n 4 and accompanying text.

The Vienna Convention Rules  487 Particular approaches are not mandated by the rules such as that of ‘restrictive interpretation’. The latter had been taken as applying a presumption that deference to State sovereignty requires a minimalist interpretation of the rights granted by a State in a treaty. However, the ICJ has stated that this is not part of the general rule.92 In contrast, some general and specific interpretative approaches have developed within individual courts or institutions. For example, the European Court of Human Rights has provided a focus for development of the evolutive approach and, as one of its own doctrines, adopted a ‘margin of appreciation’ in favour of States’ discretion.93 However, neither of these is at variance with the Vienna rules. If the context in which the provisions of a treaty are located and a full application of the principles of treaty interpretation lead to the conclusion that a particular approach or doctrine is the right one to use, that is quite consistent with the Vienna rules.94

Conclusion The convenient shorthand of describing Articles 31–​33 VCLT as setting out the ‘rules’ of interpretation reflects the title given to the first of those provisions, but only in part their content. To the extent that they are a mandatory code, they are rules. However, their content and their proper interpretation show a nature which is more akin to principles than rules. They have not proved to be highly restrictive nor has their application suggested that they import an insistent emphasis on conformity-​inducing textuality. Their flexible interpretation and application in practice attest to a character better described by the metaphor imagining them as ‘scaffolding’.95

Recommended Reading DJ Bederman, Classical Canons: Rhetoric, Classicism and Treaty Interpretation (Ashgate, Aldershot 2001) FD Berman, ‘Treaty “Interpretation” in a Judicial Context’ (2004) 29 YJIL 315 A Bianchi, D Peat, and M Windsor (eds), Interpretation in International Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) I Buffard and K Zemanek, ‘The “Object and Purpose” of a Treaty: An Enigma?’ (1999) 3 ARIEL 311 E Criddle, ‘The 1969 VCLT on the Law of Treaties in US Treaty Interpretation’ (2003–​2004) 44 VJIL 431 M Fitzmaurice, O Elias, and P Merkouris, Treaty Interpretation and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: 30 Years on (Brill, Leiden 2010) D French, ‘Treaty Interpretation and the Incorporation of Extraneous Legal Rules’ (2006) 55 ICLQ 281 RK Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) T Gazzini, Interpretation of International Investment Treaties (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2016) DB Hollis, MR Blakeslee, and LB Ederington (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005)

92 Dispute regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) [2009] ICJ Rep 213 [48]; see also L Crema, ‘Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation(s)’ (2010) 21 EJIL 681; Gardiner (n 2) 406–​8. 93 See A Legg, The Margin of Appreciation in International Human Rights Law (OUP, Oxford 2012) 3, 17. 94 Cf G Letsas, ‘Strasbourg’s Interpretive Ethic: Lessons for the International Lawyer’ (2010) 21 EJIL 509; I Van Damme, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body’ (2010) 21 EJIL 605. 95 Thirlway (n 5) 19.

488  Treaty Interpretation F Horn, Reservations and Interpretative Declarations to Multilateral Treaties (North-​Holland, Amsterdam 1988) J Klingler, Y Parkhomenko, C Salonidis (eds), Between the Lines of the Vienna Convention?: Canons and Other Principles of Interpretation in Public International Law (Kluwer, Alphen aan den Rijn 2019) G Letsas, A Theory of Interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights (OUP, Oxford 2007) U Linderfalk, On the Interpretation of Treaties: The Modern International Law as Expressed in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer, Dordrecht 2007) MS McDougal, HD Lasswell, and JC Miller, The Interpretation of Agreements and World Public Order: Principles of Content and Procedure (Yale University Press, New Haven 1967, re-​issued as The Interpretation of International Agreements etc with a new introduction and appendices, New Haven Press, New Haven 1994) C McLachlan, ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration and Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention’ (2005) 54 ICLQ 279 DM McRae, ‘The Legal Effect of Interpretative Declarations’ (1978) 49 BYBIL 155 P Merkouris, Article 31(3)(c) VCLT and the Principle of Systemic Integration: Normative Shadows in Plato’s Cave (Brill, Leiden 2015) JD Mortenson, ‘The Travaux of Travaux:  Is the Vienna Convention Hostile to Drafting History?’ (2013) 107 AJIL 780 G Nolte (ed), Treaties and Subsequent Practice (OUP, Oxford 2013) Daniel Peat, Comparative Reasoning in International Courts and Tribunals (CUP, Cambridge 2019) P Sands, ‘Treaty, Custom and the Cross-​fertilization of International Law’ (1998) 1 Yale Hum Rts & Dev L J 85 R Sapienza, ‘Les Déclarations Interprétatives Unilatérales et l’Interprétation des Traités’ (1999) 103 RGDIP 601 H Thirlway, ‘The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1960–​1989, Supplement 2006: Part Three’ (2006) 77 BYBIL 1 I Van Damme, Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body (OUP, Oxford 2009) C Warbrick, ‘Introduction’ to B Macmahon (ed), The Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway (Belgium-​ Netherlands) Award of 2005 (TMC Asser Press, The Hague 2007) MK Yasseen, ‘L’Interprétation des Traités d’après la Convention de Vienne sur le Droit des Traités’ (1976–​III) 151 RcD 1

20

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time Eirik Bjorge and Robert Kolb

Introduction Treaty interpretation in accordance with the rules codified in Articles 31–​33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT)1 aims to establish the proper meaning of a treaty provision in relation to a set of facts.2 Put another way, the aim of treaty interpretation is establishing the meaning and object of a provision as it has been expressed in the parties’ agreement. It is hardly surprising in that regard that Articles 31–​33 VCLT make no mention of the common intention of the parties.3 The common intention of the parties is to be ascertained, in the interpretation of the treaty, through the means of interpretation set out in the VCLT.4 In treaty-​making the parties typically recite in their treaty what they ‘have agreed’;5 the treaty records an agreement already reached. If treaty-​making is concerned with recording the parties’ agreement in the treaty, based on their intentions, treaty interpretation might be described as the opposite process: drawing out, from the treaty, what the agreement of the parties was in relation to circumstances that postdate the treaty.6 Articles 31–​33 VCLT, therefore, set out the correct way of drawing out, by objective means, that agreement from the international instrument that is the treaty. International courts and tribunals take this approach, although they may use different terminology. Two recent examples bear this out. First, in Ethiopia–​Eritrea Border the Ethiopia–​Eritrea Boundary Commission observed that, in interpreting the treaties before it: The Commission will apply the general rule that a treaty is to be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose. Each of these elements guides the interpreter in establishing what the Parties actually intended, or their ‘common will’.7

1 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (adopted 23 May 1969, entered into force 27 January 1980) 1155 UNTS 331 (VCLT). 2 See R Kolb, Interprétation et création du droit international (Bruylant, Brussels 2006) 24–​5; see also F Berman and E Bjorge, ‘Treaties’ in C Greenwood and D Sarooshi (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law (10th edn OUP, Oxford forthcoming) §629. 3 The only mention of intention, or any variation thereof, is in Art 31(4) VCLT: ‘A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended.’ 4 See C de Visscher, Problèmes d’interprétation judiciaire en droit international public (Pedone, Paris 1963) 50. 5 The agreement precedes the treaty; this is clear from the traditional phrase in a treaty’s final preambular recital: ‘Have agreed as follows’. See eg Preamble VCLT. 6 For a similar understanding of the relationship between treaty-​making and treaty interpretation, see P Reuter, The Law of Treaties (Paul Kegan, London 1995) 96–​7. 7 Delimitation of the Border between Eritrea and Ethiopia (2002) 130 ILR 1, 34 [3.4] (citing the Tribunal chaired by Lord McNair in Argentina-​Chile Frontier Case (‘Palena’) (1966) 38 ILR 10, 89).

490  Treaty Interpretation Second, in Rhine Chlorides, the Tribunal observed that the general rule of interpretation codified in Article 31 VCLT: Should be viewed as forming an integral whole, the constituent elements of which cannot be separated. Moreover, this is the approach that is now taken by the International Court of Justice and by certain international arbitral bodies. All the elements of the general rule of interpretation provide the basis for establishing the common will and intention of the parties by objective and rational means.8

Certain principles can be drawn from the arbitral determinations in Ethiopia–​Eritrea Border and Rhine Chlorides. First, as already emphasized, what tribunals call the parties’ intention is what has to be to be ultimately established and, as that is the outcome of the interpretative process, it would have been nonsensical for ‘intention’ to have been listed as one of the means of interpretation that provide the basis for its own establishment.9 Second, the intention to be established is the common intention of the parties, not the intention of only one or some of them.10 Third, the means of interpretation to be relied on for the establishment of the parties’ intention are ‘objective and rational’11 means. They are not meant to provide glimpses of the subjective will or inner minds of the treaty parties or the treaty-​ makers, but rather to be objective and rational externalizations that allow an interpreter to deduce intention.12 Finally, the intention of the parties is necessarily a presumed or objectivized intention of the parties.13 In this sense, the common intention is expressed and to some extent resorbed into the various tools of interpretation as mentioned in the VCLT or existent in customary practice. Intention, in other words, is the background of the interpretative process; it is rarely a method in itself, but it can exceptionally become one. It has to be added that not infrequently the interpreter cannot found any interpretation on something like an ascertainable common intention of the parties. The interpreter must then have recourse only to objective means of interpretation, which can in turn be more or less constructively linked to some presumed common intention of the parties, if the interpreter wishes to reassure the subjects in dispute and is not afraid of adverting to fictitious devices. Interpretation, even of seemingly clear words in the treaty, will be to some extent a subjective undertaking because rational minds can disagree on the correct interpretation in a given case.14 To give one example, Article 77(4) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, precisely describes how the coastal State exercises over the continental shelf sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring it and exploiting its natural resources where: The natural resources referred to in this Part consist of the mineral and other non-​living resources of the seabed and subsoil together with living organisms belonging to sedentary species, that is to say, organisms which, at the harvestable stage, either are immobile on or 8 Rhine Chlorides (Netherlands/​France) (2004) 144 ILR 259, 293 [62]. 9 See de Visscher (n 4) 50. 10 See [1964] YBILC, vol II, 58 [21] (Waldock). 11 Rhine Chlorides (n 8) 293 [62]. 12 F Capotorti, Convenzione di Vienna sul diritto dei trattati (CEDAM, Milan 1969) 36. 13 See G Gaja, ‘Trattati internazionali’ (1999) 15 Digesto delle discipline pubblicistiche 344, 355–​6. 14 See eg RE Fife, ‘Les techniques interprétatives non juridictionnelles de la norme internationale’ (2011) 115 RGDIP 367; see also C Miles, ‘Indeterminacy’ in J d’Aspremont and S Singh (eds), Fundamental Concepts for International Law: The Construction of a Discipline (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2019) 447.

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  491 under the seabed or are unable to move except in constant physical contact with the seabed or the subsoil.15

Different States and writers have interpreted the aspect of this provision on sedentary species very differently.16 Does it cover crabs that can move long distances and climb over rocks and into tubs and in other ways lift themselves up from the seabed or subsoil? What of lobsters? And what of shells that can jump by clapping? These interpretations have been subjective in that, for example, they have taken colour from the broader interests of the State at issue, and the broader views of the interpreter. All of those who have put forward these varying interpretations argue, nevertheless, that their interpretation is the correct one based on the same means of interpretation.17 There is, in other words, agreement on what are the main means on which the interpretation will be based. The subjective and centrifugal forces of interpretation are on the whole checked (but not dominated) by the objective tools of interpretation set out in the VCLT and in customary international law. This approach, where the means of interpretation set out in Articles 31–​33 VCLT are relied upon with a view to establishing an objectivized intention, is in our view the approach to take to understand the concept of the evolutionary interpretation of treaties.18 The issue is framed by a principle, a contrary principle (exceptional to the first?), and certain corollary rules. The main principle is ‘contemporaneity’, that is, the meaning of a term has to be established against the background at the time of conclusion of the treaty (‘contemporaneity’ as seen from the perspective of the parties to the treaty); the second principle is the principle of evolution, where the meaning is determined according to needs and circumstances at the time of interpretation (this is ‘contemporaneity’ as seen from the perspective of the interpreter); and corollary matters such as the principle that the ascription of evolutionary meaning retroacts to the time of the treaty’s conclusion (ie the provision is taken to have always had that meaning). These three aspects of the problem are now addressed in turn.

I.  The Principle of Contemporaneity International courts and tribunals have regularly and consistently emphasized the primacy of the principle of contemporaneity in treaty interpretation. The International Court of Justice stressed in Namibia the ‘primary necessity of interpreting an instrument in accordance with the intentions of the parties at the time of its conclusion’.19 As is also clear from 15 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Art 77(4) (UNCLOS). The provision is based on the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Continental Shelf (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 10 June 1964) 499 UNTS 311, Art 2(4) (GCCS). 16 See eg FV Garcia Amador, The Exploitation and Conservation of the Resources of the Sea:  A Study of Contemporary International Law (2nd edn Sijthoff, Leiden 1959) 128; MM Whiteman, ‘Conference on the Law of the Sea: Convention on the Continental Shelf ’ (1958) 52 AJIL 629, 639; O de Ferron, Le droit international de la mer II (Droz, Geneva 1960) 210; C Rousseau, ‘Brésil et France: incidents de pêche’ (1963) 67 RGDIP 133, 134; F de Hartingh, ‘La position française à l’égard de la Convention de Genève sur le plateau continental’ (1965) 11 Annuaire française de droit international 725, 731. 17 See eg SIA North Star Ltd v Public Prosecuting Authority (2019) 185 ILR 199. 18 See E Bjorge, The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2014). 19 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) [1971] ICJ Rep 16, 31 [53].

492  Treaty Interpretation its judgment in Navigational and Related Rights, the point of departure for treaty interpretation is that: the terms used in a treaty must be interpreted in light of what is determined to have been the parties’ common intention, which is, by definition, contemporaneous with the treaty’s conclusion. That may lead a court seised of a dispute, or the parties themselves, when they seek to determine the meaning of a treaty for purposes of good-​faith compliance with it, to ascertain the meaning a term had when the treaty was drafted, since doing so can shed light on the parties’ common intention.20

According to the Commission in Ethiopia/​Eritrea, the terms of a treaty are (similarly) to be interpreted by reference to the circumstances prevailing when the treaty was concluded: ‘a treaty should be interpreted by reference to the circumstances prevailing when the treaty was concluded’, which involves ‘giving expressions (including names) used in the treaty the meaning that they would have possessed at that time’.21 This point of departure will be negatived only if the parties to the treaty expressed or implied an intention that the treaty terms should be subject to evolution over time; or if the interpreter holds that this is the only reasonable interpretation, to the extent an intention of the parties cannot be ascertained in a single situation.22 The principle is thus that a juridical fact must be appreciated in the light of the law contemporary with it: treaty terms are in the first instance to be interpreted on the basis of the meaning they bore at the time the treaty was concluded and in the light of circumstances then prevailing.23 This principle of contemporaneity was classically expounded by Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice as meaning that the terms of a treaty must be interpreted in accordance with the meaning they had, or in the sense they would normally have been used, in the period when the treaty was entered into.24 Thus the treaty must, in the first instance, be interpreted as ‘at the date of its conclusion, and in the light of current usages and practices at that time’.25 In other words, a retroactive projection of words or concepts that have emerged only subsequently is not allowed, unless some exception applies. The root of this non-​retroactivity is linked with a fundamental principle of the law of treaties and international law in general: good faith. It would be unreasonable to burden the parties with a meaning of their common undertaking that they could not have known at the time they concluded their treaty.26 This is all the more true since projecting back into the treaty a novel meaning would in practice mean that in most cases some disequilibrium is imported 20 Dispute Regarding Navigational and Related Rights (Costa Rica v Nicaragua) [2009] ICJ Rep 213, 242 [63]. See also ICS Inspection and Control Services Limited (United Kingdom v The Republic of Argentina) (Award on Jurisdiction) (10 February 2012)  PCA Case No 2010/​09, [289] (UNCITRAL); Daimler Financial Services AG v Argentine Republic (Award) (22 August 2012)  ICSID Case No ARB/​05/​01, [220]. For more see D McRae, ‘Evolutionary Interpretation: The Relevance of Context’ in G Abi Saab and others (eds), Evolutionary Interpretation and International Law (Hart, Oxford 2019) 57, 61–​2. 21 Border between the State of Eritrea and the Federal Democratic Republic of Eritrea (2002) 130 ILR 1, 34 [3.5]. 22 See Section II. 23 Berman and Bjorge (n 2) § 633(4). 24 G Fitzmaurice, ‘The Law and Procedure of the International Court of Justice 1951–​4: Interpretation and other Treaty Points’ (1957) 33 BYBIL 203, 225. 25 Ibid. 26 Thus, for example, ‘[t]‌he intentions of the parties . . . may certainly not be subsequently imported under the guise of objects and purposes not thought of at the time’. National Union of Belgian Police (1980) 57 ILR 262, 293–​4 (Judge Fitzmaurice, sep op).

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  493 into the treaty: one party will benefit more from the ‘new’ interpretation than the other (or others). As such, this course departs from what the parties could—​and should—​have expected that their words meant. Good faith requires protecting the legitimate expectations of the parties that treaty terms will not be used to upset what they could and should have expected them to mean.27 Furthermore, the contemporaneity principle is a direct and natural consequence of the ‘ordinary meaning’ principle enshrined in Article 31 VCLT.28 The meaning must manifestly have appeared as being ‘ordinary’ for the parties obligated under the treaty, not only for the interpreter who enters onto the scene later; this flows from the rationale of the ordinary meaning rule, which is not to confront one or more parties with meanings that are idiosyncratic or unexpected, and to which the State would probably not have given its consent. This again triggers the principle of good faith. The point made here is illustrated in Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute, where a Chamber of the International Court, applying the VCLT, held that: to interpret ‘above’ in the sense of ‘to the north of ’ is to strain the ordinary meaning of the word ‘above’, and could be misplaced, with reference to a period when the convention of placing north at the top of a map was not habitual. The various contemporary sketch-​plans produced with the survey records in these proceedings are aligned in whatever way most conveniently fits the paper, so that north may be at the top, bottom or side of the sheet.29

The principle of contemporaneity is today a part of the customary international law principles of treaty interpretation given expression in Articles 31–​32 VCLT.30 Thus Rousseau observed in 1970 that it went without saying that the interpreter must take into account the meaning that the treaty terms had at the time when the treaty was adopted, because the presumption must be that that would have been what the treaty parties will have had in mind.31 And in 1976 Ambassador Yasseen explained that the principle of contemporaneity was an integral part of the Vienna Convention. He observed that: A moins qu’une intention différente ne ressorte du traité, le sens ordinaire doit être celui de l’époque de la conclusion du traité . . . Il serait artificiel de prêter aux parties l’intention d’avoir, du point de vue linguistique, employé les mots dans un sens évolutif. Il est difficile en effet de présumer que les parties aux traités ont employé, du point de vue linguistique, les mots dans le sens inconnu et peut-​être imprévisible que les mots pourraient acquérir dans l’avenir.32

The case law shows, moreover, that the principle of contemporaneity applies throughout the treaty and is not limited to any one term. The classic authority is Grisbadarna (Norway/​ Sweden), where, interpreting a treaty from 1658, the tribunal observed first that it ‘must 27 See R Kolb, Good Faith in International Law (Hart, Oxford 2017). 28 J Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law (9th edn OUP, Oxford 2019) 367. 29 Land, Island and Maritime Frontier Dispute (El Salvador v Honduras: Nicaragua intervening) [1992] ICJ Rep 351, 428 [109]. 30 See especially Fitzmaurice (n 24) 225 and [1964] YBILC, vol II, 9–​10 (Waldock). 31 C Rousseau, Droit international public Tome I (Sirey, Paris 1970) 282; see DP O’Connell, International Law Vol I (Stevens & Sons, London 1970) 262. 32 M Yasseen, ‘L’interprétation des traites d’après la Convention de Vienne sur le droit des traités’ (1976) 151 RcD 26, 27.

494  Treaty Interpretation have recourse to the principle of law in force at that time’ (in the circumstances, the principle of appurtenance of land territory), which is a general statement of the principle.33 The award shows that the principle of contemporaneity does not only operate to govern the interpretation of any one specific term: its application is a broader one, in the sense that the interpretation of the language of the treaty as a whole needs to be done with recourse to principles in force at the time when the treaty was drafted. As a second example, the arbitral tribunal in Ambatielos observed of the treaties at issue in that proceeding, ‘[n]‌aturally, their wording was influenced by the customs of the period, and they must obviously be interpreted in the light of this fact’.34 Here, too, the principle of contemporaneity was made to operate for the interpretation not only of one or more discrete treaty terms but, more broadly, to the treaty language as a whole.

II.  The Principle of Evolution Closely tied to the principles of contemporaneity is the principle of evolution. If, as Judge Huber observed in Island of Palmas, ‘a juridical fact must be appreciated in the light of the law contemporary with it, and not the law in force at the time when a dispute in regard to it arises or falls to be settled’,35 it is also true that ‘[t]‌he same principle which subjects the act creative of a right to the law in force at the time the right arises, demands that the existence of the rights, in other words its continued manifestations, shall follow the conditions required by the evolution of law’.36 Any evolutionary treaty interpretation derives from the VCLT rules of treaty interpretation rather than operating outside of—​or in tension with—​ those rules.37 That means that the evolutionary interpretation of treaties, being based on the rules of interpretation codified in the VCLT, operates like other types of interpretation.38 This is the approach international courts and tribunals have adopted.39 The evolutionary interpretation of treaties is, therefore, not an autonomous method of interpreting a treaty. It results from the combination of the means and methods enshrined in the VCLT (or resulting from customary international law), with regard to the not infrequent problem that some terms cannot be reasonably applied in the present world with the sense they had in the past. The meaning thus produced would be unreasonable or absurd, upsetting the treaty equilibrium, and cannot be squared with the actual or presumed intention of the parties (which, to reiterate, is the central premise for all treaty interpretation). The rule of non-​retroactivity of meaning (that is, the principle of contemporaneity set out earlier) thus cannot be absolute. Exceptions exist when (i) the type of wording used in the treaty makes reference to an (often implied) intention of the parties to allow the term to

33 The Grisbadarna Case (Norway v Sweden) (1910) 4 AJIL 226, 231. 34 Ambatielos Claim (Greece v United Kingdom) (1956) 12 RIAA 83, 108. 35 Island of Palmas (Netherlands v United States of America) (1928) 2 RIAA 829, 845. 36 Ibid. See E Bjorge, ‘Island of Palmas’ in E Bjorge and C Miles (eds), Landmark Cases in Public International Law (Hart, Oxford 2017) 111. 37 See G Marceau, ‘L’interprétation évolutive par le juge OMC:  sophisme ou nécessité?’ (2018) 122 RGDIP 23, 50. 38 Ibid  48–​9. 39 Namibia (Advisory Opinion) (n 19) 35; Aegean Sea Continental Shelf [1978] ICJ Rep 3; Costa Rica v Nicaragua (n 20) 213. See Bjorge (n 18) 76–​83.

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  495 evolve by taking on a new meaning over time, or (ii) when objective reasons call for an evolutionary approach in the absence of any clear guidance as to the parties’ intentions.40 That approach, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) explained in relation to ‘generic’ treaty terms in Navigational Rights, is founded on the idea that, where the parties have used generic terms in a treaty, the parties necessarily having been aware that the meaning of the terms was likely to evolve over time, and where the treaty has been entered into for a very long period or is ‘of continuing duration’, the parties must be presumed, as a general rule, to have intended those terms to have an evolving meaning.41

Notice the use of the term ‘necessarily’ (‘the parties necessarily having been aware’). This term shows that the ICJ did not indulge in researching any true intention of the parties: it projected an implied intention, which it imputed to the parties, because it seemed reasonable to interpret the treaty terms in that way. Generic terms include, in particular, undefined normative standards that are, by their very nature, susceptible to an evolutionary approach. As Ambassador Yasseen explained, terms such as ‘convenient’ and ‘appropriate’ (‘“convenable”, “approprié”, etc., qui reflètent une réalité évolutive’) might be subject to evolutionary interpretation.42 Thus the evolutionary trigger is linked to terms referring to a concept that may change over time: Si le sens de ces termes reste le même, ce qui est convenable ou approprié peut par contre changer dans le temps. Par conséquent, ce qui est convenable ou approprié au moment de la conclusion du traité peut ne pas l’être au moment de son application.43

For its part, the ICJ has held terms such as ‘commerce’44 and ‘territorial status’,45 or even ‘sacred trust’,46 to be generic, no doubt because in those cases the terms at issue were of such a nature that they referred to concepts evolving over time. In addition, the parties had necessarily been aware that their meaning was likely to evolve over time, and the treaty at issue had been entered into for a very long period of time or was of continuing duration. In other cases, these requirements for labelling a term as generic have not been fulfilled, such as in cases relating to the treaty terms ‘dispute’47 and ‘centre of the main channel’,48 and international courts and tribunals have relied in such cases instead on the principle of 40 The distinction between terms that are intended to evolve and those that are not is sometimes expressed in legal writings by the concepts of ‘renvoi fixe’ (where the interpreter must seek the historical meaning of the word, on the basis of the principle of contemporaneity) and ‘renvoi mobile’ (where the interpreter must make an evolutionary interpretation). Cf A Martin, ‘L’interprétation dite évolutive de termes insérés dans des traités internationaux’ in Essays in Honour of Jacques-​Michel Grossen (Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basle and Frankfurt 1992) 444. 41 Costa Rica v Nicaragua (n 20) 243 [66]. 42 Yasseen (n 32) 27. 43 Ibid. 44 Costa Rica v Nicaragua (n 20) 213. 45 Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (n 39) 32 [77]. 46 Namibia (Advisory Opinion) (n 19) 31–​2 [53]. 47 Rights of Nationals of the United States of America in Morocco (France v United States of America) [1952] ICJ Rep 176. 48 Kasikili/​Sedudu Island (Botswana/​Namibia) [1999] ICJ Rep 1045, 1062 [25].

496  Treaty Interpretation contemporaneity. Indeed, the practice of international tribunals and other organs on such issues is now well developed.49 Whether a term’s meaning is to evolve or not is, moreover, an issue to be decided in the light of all the circumstances of each particular case. No general rule can be proffered. The starting point to its use is the interpreter’s sense that a term’s original meaning is unable to fit reasonably the changing circumstantial setting of an evolving world. If the treaty equilibria would be upset by adhering to a traditional meaning, interpreters should not presume this to be right or, by that token, what the parties intended. Whether and when this is the case is manifestly an issue of fact and, as such, a question to be decided in the light of a wide array of particular circumstances. Is it always the case that contemporaneity is the basic rule and evolutionary interpretation the exception? For some schools of thought, this seems to be the correct approach.50 Yet it may not make sense to universalize a rule–​exception framework. The exception may in some subject areas itself grow into a common rule or understanding, as the case law of some human rights bodies, and international courts and tribunals interpreting the constituent instruments of international organizations has shown at least in some phases.51 Furthermore, as already mentioned, everything depends on the circumstances of the particular situation, in the context of all the means and methods of interpretation. Thus it may not be out of order to interpret the term ‘telegraph’ to include the ‘telephone’ after the invention of the latter, at least for the purposes of some regulation.52 The question is here not so much whether this course is allowed or is to be justified under some rule–​exception scheme, but rather whether it is the most reasonable (and consequently the correct) understanding of the terms at issue, in view of the various means of interpretation (such as the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms and the object and purpose of the instrument of which the provision is part). And finally, as the telephone example shows, the distinction between evolutionary interpretation and analogy is not always easy to draw. The rule on evolutionary interpretation, as discussed in the previous paragraph, is often linked to interpretation by some subsequent practice. Thus the ILC’s Conclusion 8, in its Draft Conclusions on subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties, which is entitled ‘Interpretation of treaty terms as capable of evolving over time’, is in these terms: Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice under article 31 and 32 may assist in determining whether or not the presumed intention of the parties upon the conclusion of the treaty was to give a term used a meaning which is capable of evolving over time.

In its Commentary the ILC observes that: draft conclusion 8, by using the phrase ‘presumed intention’, refers to the intention of the parties as determined through the application of the various means of interpretation that 49 For a series of examples of evolutionary understandings of terms contained in various texts, see Kolb (n 2) 524–​30. 50 See Belgian Police Case (n 26) 293–​5 (Judge Fitzmaurice, sep op); Crawford (n 28) 365–​7. 51 See H Tigroudja and L Hennebel, Traité de droit international des droits de l’homme (2nd edn Pedone, Paris 2018). For more on human rights treaty interpretation, see Chapter 21; for more on the interpretation of constituent instruments of international organizations, see Chapter 22. 52 See Netherlands v Ned Lloyd (District Court of Rotterdam) (1977) 74 ILR 212, 215–​16 (covering ‘telephone’ under the term ‘telegraph’ for purposes of the law of armed conflict); see also Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (‘Ijzeren Rijn’) Railway (Belgium v Netherlands) (2005) 27 RIAA 35, 73 [80].

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  497 are recognized in articles 31 and 32 . . . [A]‌lthough interpretation must seek to identify the intention of the parties, this must be done by the interpreter on the basis of the means of interpretation that are available at the time of the act of interpretation and that include subsequent agreements and subsequent practice of parties to the treaty. The interpreter thus has to answer the question of whether parties can be presumed to have intended, upon the conclusion of the treaty, to give a term used a meaning that is capable of evolving over time.53

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights exemplified this approach in Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v Hungary.54 The ruling fleshes out the well-​known approach of the European Court, set out in Tyrer v United Kingdom, according to which the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a ‘living instrument’ to be ‘interpreted in the light of present-​day conditions’.55 That case concerned the interpretation of Article 10(1) ECHR.56 A non-​governmental organization, Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (the Hungarian Helsinki Committee), had sought information concerning the work of an ex officio defence counsel, which the Hungarian authorities had classified as personal data that was not subject to disclosure under Hungarian law. The Grand Chamber concluded that, in the circumstances of the case, Article 10(1) ECHR included a right to access to information. The Grand Chamber began by noting that Article 10(1) provides that ‘the right to freedom of expression . . . shall include the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by a public authority’.57 As a matter of broad contextual interpretation, it noted that compared to other international instruments, such as Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),58 the provision does not expressly encompass a freedom to seek information.59 The Court stressed that the question whether, in the absence of express reference to access to information in Article 10, an applicant’s complaint that he or she was denied access ‘can nevertheless be regarded as falling within the scope of this provision is a matter which has been the subject of gradual clarification in the Convention case-​law over many years’.60 Given the opportunity the Grand Chamber was afforded in Magyar Helsinki Bizottság to take stock of 53 ILC, ‘Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties’ (with commentaries) ILC Report of 70th Session, Official Records of the General Assembly, 73rd Sess, Supp No 10 (2018) UN Doc A/​73/​10, 67 [9]‌(‘ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice’). See Chapter 14, 336–37 et seq, for more on the distinction between interpretation and amendment. 54 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v Hungary (App no 18030/​11) (2016) ECLI:CE:ECHR:2016:1108JUD001803011. 55 Tyrer v United Kingdom (App no 5856/​72) (1978) 58 ILR 339, 353; see N Rodley, ‘Tyrer v United Kingdom’ in Bjorge and Miles (n 36) 325. 56 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) 213 UNTS 222, Art 10(1) (ECHR) (‘Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers’). 57 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (n 54) [117]. 58 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 19 (ICCPR). 59 International courts and tribunals often advert to such broad contextual interpretations. See eg Air Services Agreement of 27 March 1946 (United States v France) (1978) 54 ILR 304, 334 [66–​7]; Maffezini v Kingdom of Spain (2000) 124 ILR 1, 24 [58]; Acquisition of Polish Nationality [1923] PCIJ Rep Series B No 7, 14–​15; Employment of Women during the Night [1932] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 50, 381; Affaire relative à l’or de la Banque nationale d’Albanie (Etats-​Unis d’Amérique, France, Italie, Royaume-​Uni) (1953) 12 RIAA 13, 48; Ambatielos Claim (n 34) 109; R Kolb (n 2) 463. 60 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (n 54) [127].

498  Treaty Interpretation its case law, the Court found it ‘useful to take a broader look at the question of the extent to which the right of access to information can be gleaned from Article 10’.61 It appeared from the travaux préparatoires that a previous version of what was to become Article 10 had contained the right to seek information, but there was no record of any discussions that led to this being omitted or any debate on the elements that constituted freedom of expression.62 Against that background, the Court was not persuaded that any conclusive relevance could be attributed to the travaux préparatoires.63 However, the drafting history of one of the later additional protocols to the Convention revealed ‘a common understanding between the bodies and institutions of the Council of Europe that Article 10, paragraph 1 of the Convention, in its wording as originally drafted, could reasonably be considered as already comprising the “freedom to seek information” ’.64 The Court observed furthermore that ‘in the great majority of the Contracting States, in fact in all the thirty-​one States surveyed with one exception, the national legislation recognises a statutory right of access to information and/​or official documents held by public authorities, as a self-​standing right aimed at reinforcing transparency in the conduct of public affairs generally’.65 This is an exemplification of the European Court relying on the parties’ subsequent practice so that it ‘may assist in determining whether or not the presumed intention of the parties upon the conclusion of the treaty was to give a term used a meaning which is capable of evolving over time’.66 The Court referred to an ‘evolving convergence as to the standards to be achieved’ within the Contracting States, and ‘a perceptible evolution in favour of the recognition, under certain conditions, of a right to freedom of information as an inherent element of the freedom to receive and impart information enshrined in Article 10’.67 There is a close nexus between the subsequent agreements and subsequent practice of the parties in relation to treaty interpretation and the evolutionary interpretation of treaties.68 As the ILC has observed, ‘authentic interpretations by the parties’ are among the primary criteria for treaty interpretation: the Commission’s approach to treaty interpretation was on the basis that the text of the treaty must be presumed to be the authentic expression of the intention of the parties, . . . making the ordinary meaning of the terms, the context of the treaty, its objects and purposes, and the general rules of international law, together with authentic interpretations by the parties, the primary criteria for interpreting a treaty.69

This is because, in the law of treaties generally and in treaty-​making especially, no one is better placed than the States parties to give authoritative statements as to their treaty. It is the States who have, in the words of Macbeth, ‘done the deed’.70 As the Permanent Court

61

Ibid [133]. Ibid [135]. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid [136]. 65 Ibid [139]. 66 ILC Report on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice (n 53) 67 (Draft Conclusion 8). 67 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (n 54) [150]. 68 G Nolte, ‘Treaties and Their Practice’ (2018) 293 RcD 206, 336–​61. 69 [1964] YBILC, vol II, 204–​5 [15]. 70 W Shakespeare, ‘Macbeth’, Act 2, Scene 2. 62

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  499 observed in Jaworzina, therefore, ‘it is an established principle that the right of giving an authoritative interpretation of a legal rule belongs solely to the person or body who has power to modify or suppress it’.71 It must not be forgotten that, as Crawford has observed, ‘the parties to a treaty own the treaty’; ‘[i]‌t is their treaty’.72 Therefore subsequent agreements between the parties and subsequent practice in the application of the treaty that establish the agreement of the parties possess ‘the same importance for the process of interpretation as the ordinary meaning of the terms of the treaty, the context of these terms, and the object and purpose of the treaty’.73 Even the European Court, however, has drawn certain limits to the evolutionary interpretations it is prepared to make of its Convention. It has not been prepared to derive from treaty instruments rights that were not included there at the outset, and it has been careful not to apply evolutionary interpretation to provisions that are determinative of the scope of other provisions of the treaty instrument. Thus the Grand Chamber of the European Court recognized in Johnston v Ireland ‘that the Convention and its Protocols must be interpreted in the light of present-​day conditions’, but held that the Court ‘cannot, by means of an evolutive interpretation, derive from these instruments a right that was not included therein at the outset. This is particularly so here, where the omission was deliberate’.74 And, second, in Bankovic v Belgium the Grand Chamber refused to apply an evolutionary interpretation to Article 1 ECHR, which concerns jurisdiction. The Grand Chamber observed that ‘the notion of the Convention being a living instrument to be interpreted in light of present-​ day conditions is firmly rooted in the Court’s case-​law’,75 but that ‘the scope of Article 1, at issue in the present case, is determinative of the very scope of the Contracting Parties’ positive obligations and, as such, of the scope and reach of the entire Convention system of human rights’ protection’.76 In this latter context, the Court was not prepared to take an evolutionary view of the law.

III.  Do Evolutionary Interpretations Have Retrospective Effect? This leads to the question whether evolutionary interpretations have effect ex tunc or ex nunc. In other words, do such interpretations have retrospective effect? The answer suggested in the jurisprudence of the International Court and its predecessor seems to be in the affirmative. For example, the Permanent Court of International Justice in German Minority Schools emphasized in 1931 that when it interpreted a treaty provision, then in accordance with the rules of law, the interpretation given by the Court to the terms of the Convention has retrospective effect—​in the sense that the terms of the Convention must be held to have always borne the meaning placed upon them by this interpretation.77 71 Jaworzina, (Advisory Opinion) [1923] PCIJ Rep Series B No 8, 37. 72 J Crawford, ‘A Consensualist Interpretation of Article 31(3) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ in G Nolte (ed), Treaties and Subsequent Practice (OUP, Oxford 2013) 29, 31. 73 Nolte (n 68) 336. 74 Johnston v Ireland (App no 9697/​82) (1986) 89 ILR 154, 174 [53]. 75 Bankovic v Belgium (App no 52207/​99) (2001) 123 ILR 94, 110 [64]. 76 Ibid 111 [65]. 77 Access to German Minority Schools in Upper Silesia [1931] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 40, 19.

500  Treaty Interpretation The principle is, in the words of President Basdevant’s Dictionnaire de la terminologie du droit international, that, in the interpretation of a convention, the convention ‘doit être réputée avoir eu toujours le sens déterminé par cette interprétation’.78 This flows from the very concept of interpretation as classically conceived: the interpreter does not create a new meaning for treaty terms but discovers objectively the meaning the terms have and had (even if that assertion is to some extent fictional). There is a second reason for this rule. If the evolutionary interpretation had no retroactive effect, that would mean that treaty terms would have a floating meaning: at a moment x term y would have meaning z; at a moment x+1 it would have a meaning z1; at a moment x+2 it would have a meaning z2, etc. Such a course would fragment the treaty in time as reservations fragment it ratione personarum; it would, moreover, add a further degree of legal uncertainty to the concept of the treaty.79 To be sure, the meaning to be ascribed to a treaty is to some extent floating in fact; it changes according to evolutionary interpretations, as the case may be; but, legally, the meanings in issue are considered to have always been the correct ones since the beginning of the life of the treaty. The discrepancy between fact and law shows that the legal order works not infrequently with ‘unrealistic’ tools in order to achieve some social purpose. Such devices can become legal fictions, which are not vicious, but perform valuable legal purposes. In other words, it is clear that the retro-​projection of the new meaning into the original treaty is to some extent a fictional element in treaty interpretation. But legal construction does not necessarily seek to describe the reality of what occurs; there are sometimes legal reasons to depart from that reality and to put forward a legal truth. In our case, the maintenance of a unitary meaning of the treaty terms and the avoidance of further intertemporal problems with shifting meanings at non-​or hardly determinable moments of time provides the main rationale for the legal fiction here. The International Court followed this canonical framework for issues relating to evolutionary interpretation in its LaGrand jurisprudence.80 There the Court interpreted Article 41 of its Statute on the basis that ‘the object and purpose of the Statute is to enable the Court to fulfil the functions provided for therein’.81 The meaning ascribed to Article 41 (namely that it allows the issuance of binding provisional measures) was retro-​projected to the time of the provisions’ adoption. A few years later, in Bosnian Genocide, the Court observed that its determination in LaGrand as to the binding effect of orders regarding provisional measures was not to be read so as to suggest that provisional measures indicated before LaGrand were not binding, ‘since in the [Judgment in La Grand] the Court did no more than give the provisions of the Statute the meaning and scope that they had possessed from the outset’.82 These conceptions of retroactivity were enriched in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights by its consideration that a meaning can be ‘progressively clarified’. Hence the 78 J Basdevant, Dictionnaire de la terminologie du droit international (Sirey, Paris 1960) 545; see also P Daillier, M Forteau, and A Pellet, Droit international public (8th edn LGDJ, Paris 2009) 276. 79 On the legal effects of reservations, see Chapter 12. 80 LaGrand (Germany v United States of America) [2001] ICJ Rep 466. 81 Ibid 506 [109]; see C Miles, ‘LaGrand’ in Bjorge and Miles (n 36) 509; Statute of the International Court of Justice (adopted 26 June 1945)  892 UNTS 119; see also P Couvreur, The International Court of Justice and the Effectiveness of International Law (Brill, Leiden 2017) 82; G Guillaume, ‘Methods and Practice of Treaty Interpretation by the International Court of Justice’ in G Sacerdoti, A Yanovich, and J Bohanes (eds), The WTO at Ten: The Contribution of the Dispute Settlement System (CUP, Cambridge 2006) 465, 469; Bjorge (n 18) 116–​17. 82 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) [2007] ICJ Rep 43, 230 [452].

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  501 European Court in its evolutionary interpretation in Magyar Helsinki Bizottság pointed out that it was doing no more than engaging in the ‘gradual clarification in the ECHR case-​law over many years’.83 Quaere if this is really a departure from the general rule. Leading publicists had since the 1990s taken the view that a right to access to information did inhere in Article 10(1).84 The European Court was therefore perhaps no more than catching up with a representative view on what Article 10 had meant since its beginnings. But even if one views evolutionary interpretation as the latest stage in a clarification that comes about by degrees and over time—​and is based on some intention of the parties ‘which is, by definition, contemporaneous with the treaty’s conclusion’85—​then it makes eminent sense to say that evolutionary interpretations must have retrospective effect. At the same time, extending to evolutionary interpretation a retrospectivity of meaning does not retroactively make an already committed act internationally wrongful, nor give rise to international responsibility where none would otherwise have existed. If one or more treaty parties acted in the past based on a meaning of treaty terms different from what an international court or tribunal at a later point come to determine—​as a matter of evolutionary interpretation—​to be the true meaning of the provision, the fact that before that determination the treaty had been applied under some other understanding does not render internationally liable the State party that adopted that conduct.86 Again, this is so for reasons of stability of treaties and legal security. A State party might once have acted on some understanding of the treaty; the other States parties did at that time not contest that understanding: consequently, they cannot now change attitude and contest it ex post facto, arguing that only now the true meaning of the provision has been elucidated. In that regard, there is no retroactivity. This is in keeping with the law on State responsibility. Article 13 of the Articles on State Responsibility provides that: ‘An act of a State does not constitute a breach of an international obligation unless the State is bound by the obligation in question at the time the act occurs.’87 The principle is ‘in keeping with the idea of a guarantee against the retrospective application of international law in matters of State responsibility’.88 As Crawford has observed, ‘an act of state will only be considered to be a breach for the purposes of the Article where it is in violation of a rule of international law binding on the state at the time of the act’.89 This position is partly analogous to claims of nullity under treaty rights not acted upon in due time, and which are then, under Article 45 VCLT, forfeited. The difference lies in the fact that, under that provision, the cause of the nullity has been discovered and no action took place, whereas, in the case of evolutionary interpretation, the provision’s ‘new’ meaning is known only at a time when it is legally made impossible to raise the claim. Thus the issue under Article 45 VCLT is underpinned by both legal security and good faith: the one under the rubric of evolutionary interpretation is based only on the category of legal stability. That said, it does not seem that the question has been raised in 83 Magyar Helsinki Bizottság (n 54) [127]. 84 See G Nolte, ‘Die Herausforderung für das deutsche Recht der Akteneinsicht durch europäisches Verwaltungsrecht’ (1999) 52 Die öffentliche Verwaltung 363, 369. 85 Costa Rica v Nicaragua (n 20) 242 [63]. 86 See R Kolb, The International Law of State Responsibility (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2017) 37, 48–​9. 87 ILC, ‘Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with Commentaries’ (3 May–​23 July 1999) UN Doc A/​56/​10, 55 [3]‌(Article 13(1)). 88 Ibid. 89 J Crawford, State Responsibility: The General Part (CUP, Cambridge 2013) 244.

502  Treaty Interpretation practice. No State has sought to avail itself of a retroactive claim of responsibility for breach of treaty because of an evolutionary interpretation made by some international court or tribunal—​nor is it likely to occur in the foreseeable future either. But, if it does, it will raise a nice question of interpretation, governed by the principles set out above. The evolutionary interpretation of treaties does, in brief, encapsulate an element of retroactivity, but not retroactivity as to a claim to responsibility.90 As such, any treaty retroactivity is partial, since it is bifurcated. Indeed, the only fraction of retroactivity under the evolutionary rule is the one relating to the proper meaning of a provision.

Conclusion The present chapter has endeavoured to show that the main issues as regards evolutionary interpretation can be stated quite easily and solved according to very few principles. If, however, one goes further into the subject matter, the issues in question become extremely intricate and a number of nice legal problems appear. For now it is enough to highlight five conclusions about the interpretation of treaties over time that represent the more easily scaled face of the mountain. First, evolutionary interpretations are made on the basis of an array of means of ordinary interpretation, as enshrined in Articles 31–​33 VCLT and customary international law. Evolutionary interpretation is neither an aim per se or a method of interpretation of its own. It is an understanding of the meaning of terms in their context. Second, evolutionary interpretation is an issue of fact and law arising in the circumstances of particular cases. It cannot be expressed in a set of precise or even rigid rules of mechanical application. Third, the main principle is that of ‘contemporaneous interpretation’, a term referring not to the interpreter but to the parties (ie contemporaneous to the time of conclusion of the treaty). It seems generally reasonable to understand treaty terms as the parties themselves could and should have understood them when they used them at the time they drafted and concluded their treaty. Any contrary principle applied as a general rule would imply that the parties would be confronted with constantly varying meanings which they could not have contemplated at the moment of the treaty’s conclusion, or even at later stages in relation to their unfolding understanding of their instrument. For even the unfolding understanding may lag sometimes behind the time of the interpreter, which is a radical ‘now’. Fourth, it makes no sense to apply the principle of contemporaneity in all circumstances, since there are some terms used in treaties that make legal sense only when understood to evolve over time. The parties will often be, or ought to have been, aware of this fact, which allows the interpreter handily to impute the novel meaning of the term to the intention of the parties. When such generic, or sometimes legal, terms are used, the interpretation is evolutionary (as an example of the latter case, consider ‘war’ becoming ‘armed conflict’ after 1949 for the purposes of the law of armed conflict). Fifth, and finally, to keep the unity of the treaty and its terms, the new interpretation is retrospective, having effect back to the time of the treaty’s conclusion. This avoids a fragmentation of treaty meanings in time, and avoids planting within the treaty text the seeds of legal uncertainty. Beyond those five points, one necessarily moves into 90 The VCLT itself provides, in Art 73, that its provisions ‘shall not prejudge any question that may arise . . . from the international responsibility of a State’.

The Interpretation of Treaties over Time  503 the treacherous shifting sands of legal subtlety and intertemporal linguistics, which require more in-​depth descriptions and analysis.91

Recommended Readings G Abi Saab and others (eds), Evolutionary Interpretation and International Law (Hart, Oxford 2019) D Alland, ‘L’interprétation de droit international public’ (2014) 326 RdC 41 J Arato, ‘Subsequent Practice and Evolutive Interpretation: Techniques of Treaty Interpretation over Time and their Diverse Consequences’ (2010) 9 Law & Practice Int’l Cts & Tribunals 443 R Bernhardt, ‘Evolutive Interpretation, Especially of the European Convention on Human Rights’ (1999) 42 German Ybk Int’l L 11 E Bjorge, The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2014) E Bjorge, ‘Island of Palmas’ in E Bjorge and C Miles (eds), Landmark Cases in Public International Law (Hart, Oxford 2017) C Djeffal, Static and Evolutive Treaty Interpretation: A Functional Reconstruction (CUP, Cambridge 2015) TO Elias, ‘The Doctrine of Intertemporal Law’ (1980) 74 AJIL 285 M Fitzmaurice, ‘Dynamic (Evolutive) Interpretation of Treaties:  Part I’ (2008) 21 Hague Ybk of Intl L 101 M Fitzmaurice, ‘Dynamic (Evolutive) Interpretation of Treaties:  Part II’ (2009) 22 Hague Ybk of Intl L 3 R Higgins, ‘Time and Law—​International Perspectives on an Old Problem’ (1997) 46 ICLQ 501 G Marceau, ‘L’interprétation évolutive par le juge OMC: sophisme ou nécessité?’ (2018) 122 RGDIP 23 A Martin, ‘L’interprétation dite évolutive de termes insérés dans des traités internationaux’ in Essays in Honour of Jacques-​Michel Grossen (Helbing & Lichtenhahn, Basle and Frankfurt 1992) 444 N Rodley, ‘Tyrer v United Kingdom’ in E Bjorge and C Miles (eds), Landmark Cases in Public International Law (Hart, Oxford 2017) EE Triantafilou, ‘Contemporaneity and Evolutive Interpretation under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ (2017) 32 ICSID Rev 138 MP van Alstine, ‘Dynamic Treaty Interpretation’ (1998) 146 U Penn L Rev 687 J Wyatt, Intertemporal Linguistics in International Law: Beyond Contemporaneous and Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation (Hart, Oxford 2019)

91 For such a much more in-​depth analysis and description of all the problems evidenced by the evolutionary interpretation of treaties, see J Wyatt, Intertemporal Linguistics in International Law: Beyond Contemporaneous and Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation (Hart, Oxford 2019).

21

Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation Human Rights Başak Çalı

Introduction Is the interpretation of treaties regulating international human rights a specialized regime? This question is itself open to interpretation along two dimensions. First, it could be understood to advocate exceptions for human rights treaties from the interpretative regime set out in the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties (VCLT). Second, it could instead be understood to ask if there exist specialized interpretive rules due to the demands of the subject matter that human rights treaties regulate. A discussion of the first dimension is necessary before any analysis of the second dimension (that is, the specific rules of treaty interpretation in the field of human rights law).1 Accordingly, this chapter starts by discussing what it means to have specialized rules for treaty interpretation in the field of international human rights treaties. This will focus first on whether human rights treaties call for exceptional interpretive rules beyond the VCLT paradigm. In the second section, attention turns to the interpretive strategies developed across human rights treaties. This section aims to show that human rights treaty interpretation is specialized in the sense that making these treaties and their provisions ‘effective’ in application animates how human rights interpreters approach treaty interpretation. In this part of the chapter, I shall also discuss how the interpretation of human rights treaties takes place within the context of general international law and other treaties that may be in force between States parties. In the third section, I turn to how the forum for interpretation matters, be it specialized or generalist international bodies or domestic courts. I conclude by emphasizing that the relationship between human rights treaty interpretation and general rules of treaty interpretation has a symbiotic relationship. Human rights treaty interpretation has not only produced specialized interpretive canons, it has also extorted some influence on our understanding of the general rules of treaty of interpretation. The central argument of this chapter is two pronged. First, human rights treaty law does not constitute an exceptional and isolated regime as some commentators suggest. The principles of interpretation enshrined in Articles 31 and 32 VCLT are flexible enough to 1 This chapter will discuss international human rights treaty law and provide examples from human rights treaty interpreting bodies including regional human rights courts and commissions, UN treaty monitoring bodies, and other entities that interpret general international law such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Law Commission (ILC), and domestic Constitutional courts. A comparative analysis of all institutions that interpret international human rights law, however, is beyond the scope of this chapter (and, indeed, this Guide).

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  505 incorporate human rights treaties, which are a subset of normative multilateral treaties in international law.2 Second, international human rights law does have specialized rules of treaty interpretation. As the chapter demonstrates by a close analysis of the structure of human rights treaties, much of that specialization stems from the necessities of specifying the broad and abstract provisions of human rights treaties. There are, however, doctrinal variations amongst human rights treaty interpreters as to how such specialization manifests itself. Disagreements as to the role of human rights in the development of constitutional law and general international law animate divergences amongst human rights treaty interpreters as to how general rules of interpretation are brought to bear on human rights treaty interpretation.

I.  International Human Rights Treaty Interpretation: Exceptional or Specialized? Does international human rights treaty interpretation have its own interpretive scheme distinct and separate from the general principles of treaty interpretation codified in the VCLT? Or, is it a specialized regime due to the subject matter it regulates, but one nevertheless located within the confines of Article 31and 32 VCLT? There are supporters of both views. On the one hand, scholars argue that the sui generis nature of human rights calls for an interpretative practice that disregards traditional principles of general international law.3 On the other hand, there are those who say that the interpretation of human rights treaties are specialized and that this is an inevitable development in international law.4 On this latter view, international human rights treaty interpretation may be no more specialized than, for example, international trade law or investment law.5 In terms of practice, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that UN treaty bodies, regional human rights courts, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Law Commission (ILC), or domestic courts have systematically advocated either of these views. In fact, evidence shows that these bodies refer to the VCLT as a guide to interpretation and that human rights treaty interpreters—​be they regional human rights courts or UN treaty bodies—​are creating their own specialized interpretive canons and doctrines in the course of interpreting specific provisions of human rights treaties.6

2 The only exception within the VCLT regime as far as human rights treaties and other treaties of a humanitarian character are concerned is Art 60(5). It states that the capacity to terminate or suspend treaties following material breach does not apply to ‘provisions relating to the human person contained in the treaties of a humanitarian character’. For further discussion of this provision, see Chapter 24, Section II.B, 578–79 et seq. 3 Cf DF Vagts, ‘Treaty Interpretation and the New Ways of Law Reading’ (1993) 4 EJIL 499. Those who hold this view are famously called ‘droit de l’hommistes’ (human rightists) by Alain Pellet. A Pellet, ‘ “Droit de l’hommisme” et droit international’ (2001) 1 Revue Droits Fondamenteux 167. 4 Cf J Tobin, ‘Seeking to Persuade: A Constructive Approach to Human Rights Treaty Interpretation’ (2010) 23 Harvard Human Rts J 1. 5 Cf I Van Damme, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body’ (2010) 21 EJIL 605; A Roberts, ‘Power and Persuasion in Investment Treaty Arbitration’ (2010) 104 AJIL 179. 6 See with reference to the Human Rights Committee, R Higgins, ‘Human Rights: Some Questions of Integrity’ (1989) 52 MLR 1; with reference to the European Court of Human Rights, A Mowbray, The Development of Positive Obligations Under the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Court of Human Rights (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2004); with reference to the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights, L Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights:  Expansionism at the Service of the Unity of International Law’ (2010) 21 EJIL 585.

506  Treaty Interpretation What is more, differences in opinion on this preliminary question can be better conceived as disagreements on the rules of treaty interpretation in international law more generally. International lawyers do not agree on how best to interpret and apply the VCLT let alone what constitutes a clear diversion from its terms.7 The way in which one approaches and organizes the VCLT provisions is thus central to deciding whether the interpretation of human rights treaties is sui generis or in line with the VCLT.8 The VCLT’s rules of interpretation are set out in Articles 31 and 32. Of these two articles, Article 31 sets out the general rule for treaty interpretation. Specifically, Article 31 anchors interpretation in (a) text, (b) context, and (c) the object and purpose of a treaty.9 The context within the scope of Article 31 refers to the preamble of a treaty, its annexes, any agreement made between all the parties of that treaty when concluding it, and any instrument made by any of the parties to the treaty in connection with the treaty’s conclusion, but accepted by all. Article 31(3) further invites interpreters to take into account any subsequent agreements between the States parties or any subsequent State practice in the application of a treaty. Context, according to Article 31, therefore, involves respect both for historical context at the time of the conclusion of the treaty and the subsequent evolution of that context over time.10 Finally, Article 31(4) allows States to give a special meaning to a term contained in a treaty. Article 32 further sets out the original intentions of States parties to a treaty as a supplementary means of treaty interpretation.11 Even though the order in which interpretive techniques should be employed is made clear between Articles 31 and 32, it has long been debated how Article 31’s tripartite interpretive formula of wording, context, and object and purpose should be understood and how these relate to other provisions contained in Articles 31 and 32.12 Some commentators have understood Article 31 as imposing a literal ordering, where wording, context, and object and purpose should be employed as interpretive tools in the order they appear.13 This formula, associated with McNair, suggested a ‘sliding scale’ approach to what interpretation entails.14 Further interpretive work is only required when the wording of the treaty is not clear. In that sense, the more literally unclear a provision becomes, the more necessary it is to refer to context and a treaty’s object and purpose. Others have held that the intentions of the drafters of the VCLT was more in favour of travaux préparatoires playing a more primary role in treaty interpretation and not merely a clarifying role in cases where interpretation leaves matters ‘manifestly absurd or unreasonable’.15

7 See O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, Pt III; E Bjorge, The Evolutionary Interpretation of Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2014) 188–​94; O Dörr and O Schmalenbach, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) Pt III, s 3. 8 For a discussion of the VCLT articles on interpretation, see Chapter 19; R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015); A Orakhelashvili, The Interpretation of Acts and Rules in Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008); U Linderfalk, On the Interpretation of Treaties: The Modern International Law as Expressed in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Springer, Dordrecht 2007). 9 For Article 31’s text, see Chapter 19, 459. 10 For a discussion on interpreting treaties over time, see Chapter 20. 11 For Article 32’s text, see Chapter 19, 459. 12 See Gardiner (n 8) 30–​5. 13 For a classical defence of this position, see A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) 364–​83. Cf I Sinclair, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 114–​19. 14 McNair (n 13) 365. 15 See JD Mortenson, ‘The Travaux of Travaux: Is the Vienna Convention Hostile to Drafting History?’ (2013) 107 AJIL 780.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  507 Since 1969, however, there has been wider support for a holistic approach to Article 31. This approach emphasizes the importance of an interpreter’s judgement as to how the wording, context, and object and purpose interact with each other.16 The original source for this perspective lies with ILC Commentaries on the draft VCLT describing treaty interpretation as a ‘single combined operation’ where wording, context, and object and purpose are ‘thrown into a crucible’,17 which subsequently led this approach to be called the ‘crucible approach’.18 The ILC, in its work on subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties, confirmed this view in 2018.19 The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) was an early subscriber to the crucible approach. It interpreted Article 31 in the same way and applied it in the famous Golder case even before the VCLT came into force: In the way in which it is presented in the ‘general rule’ in Article 31 of the Vienna Convention, the process of interpretation of a treaty is a unity, a single combined operation; this rule, closely integrated, places on the same footing the various elements enumerated in the four paragraphs of the Article.20

What the ILC and the ECtHR have in common is their understanding of what Article 31 instructs the interpreter to do. Instead of conceiving Article 31 as a mechanistic formula, they regard it as guiding the interpreter’s judgement as to what measure of wording, context, and object and purpose are relevant.21 In the practice of treaty interpretation, however, it may be difficult to distinguish whether an interpreter is carrying out a mechanistic interpretation or exercising interpretive judgement. The difference between these approaches is often one of description of the method of the interpreter rather than the outcome of the interpretation. It is thus possible to conceive the McNair argument about a lexical priority to ‘wording of the text’ at face value—​as not too far removed from that of the ‘crucible’ interpretation. Indeed, it is reasonable to suggest that if the wording of a treaty is very clear and is widely shared by all interpreters then one does not need to carry out a detailed analysis of the context and the treaty’s object and purpose. This does not mean, however, that the treaty text is not in need of interpretation or that interpretation is an activity separate from understanding the wording of a text.22 It simply means that the meaning that emerges from the text ‘fits’ with the context and the object and 16 See Gardiner (n 8) 9–​11; Van Damme (n 5) 619–​20. 17 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 219–​20 [8]‌; cf also ILC Study Group, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’ (13 April 2006)  UN Doc A/​CN.4/​ L.682, [428]. 18 Gardiner (n 8) 9–​11. 19 International Law Commission (ILC), ‘Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties’ (with commentaries) ILC Report of 70th Session, Official Records of the General Assembly, 73rd Sess, Supp No 10 (A/​73/​10), ch IV; see also G Nolte (ed), Treaties and Subsequent Practice (OUP, Oxford 2013). 20 Golder v United Kingdom (App No 4451/​70) (1975) 1 EHRR 524, [30]. The Court since then continuously endorsed the importance of the VCLT in its case law. See Rantsev v Cyprus and Russia (App No 25965/​04) 51 EHRR 1, 7 January 2010, [30]; Hassan v United Kingdom (Grand Chamber) (App No 29750/​09) ECHR, 16 September 2014, [100]. 21 DM McRae, ‘Approaches to Interpretation of Treaties:  The European Court of Human Rights and the WTO Appellate Body’ in S Breitenmoser and others (eds), Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law: Liber Amicorum Luzuis Wildhaber (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-​Baden 2007) 1407. 22 See on this point and the distinction between neutral and semantic concepts, R Dworkin, Justice in Robes (Harvard University Press, London 2006).

508  Treaty Interpretation purpose of the treaty so well that the interpreters do not find themselves in strong disagreement about that meaning. Such strong overlap between wording and object and purpose, however, is not often the case in human rights treaty provisions—​hence the controversy about what matters most—​ wording, context, or object and purpose, and in what way. This is primarily because the provisions of human rights treaties often do not lend themselves easily to tight wording. They state rights in abstract ways without stating in concrete detail either their scope or what duties they impose on States parties. One obvious explanation for this is the treaty negotiation process and the difficulties of getting agreements on certain words or concepts.23 Commentators in other fields of international law would concur, however, that this is not necessarily a problem sui generis with respect to human rights treaties, but generally permeates all international law treaty-​drafting processes.24 There is, however, a deeper explanation for the frequent lack of clear fit between the ordinary wording of human rights treaties, their context, and their object and purpose, which makes human rights treaties a demanding case for interpretation. This explanation is based on the very nature of the conceptual structure of these treaty provisions. As many commentators have noted, human rights treaties do not only create reciprocal obligations between States parties, but also—​and extensively—​create obligations for States in relation to their treatment of individuals.25 More importantly, this observation about the nature of human rights treaties is a descriptive statement, rather than a statement of lex ferenda. Human rights law provisions in UN and regional human rights treaties regulate the conduct of States towards individuals by way of assigning rights to individuals and correlative duties to States. This is the common feature of all human rights treaty structures.26 Each treaty text lists the rights that individuals are entitled to claim from State authorities.27 These rights are formulated in general wording. They do not often include information about in what contexts they apply, what types of relationships they cover, where they apply, and what kinds of concrete circumstances, if any, would allow their legitimate restriction. Consider Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.28

23 For an historical account, see B Simpson, Human Rights and the End of the Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention (OUP, Oxford 2004); for a contemporary account, see A Dhir, ‘Human Rights Treaty Drafting through the Lens of Mental Disability:  The Proposed International Convention on Promotion and Protection of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities’ (2005) 41 Stanford J Intl L 181. 24 For debates on similar ambiguity in international trade law, cf eg P Linsday, ‘The Ambiguity of GATT Article XXI: Subtle Success or Rampant Failure?’ (2003) 52 Duke L J 1277; and in international criminal law, cf G Fletcher and JD Ohlin, ‘Reclaiming Fundamental Principles of Criminal Law in the Darfur Case’ (2005) 3 J Intl Crim Justice 539–​61. 25 M Craven, ‘Legal Differentiation and the Concept of the Human Rights Treaty in International Law’ (2000) 11 EJIL 489, 513–​17. 26 Human rights treaty structures differ, in this respect from other categories of normative treaties, notably those for international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international environmental law. 27 The American Convention on Human Rights (adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 32. The African (Banjul) Charter on Human and People’s Rights (adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) 1520 UNTS 217, ch 2, however, also assign duties to individuals. 28 ICCPR (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 7.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  509 The obligations of States with respect to these rights are characteristically not listed in the treaty provisions themselves, but rather stated in a single, all-​encompassing provision that assigns States duties to respect and ensure treaty rights.29 Article 2(1)–​(2) ICCPR provides an example of this effect: (1) Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. (2) Where not already provided for by existing legislative or other measures, each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take the necessary steps, in accordance with its constitutional processes and with the provisions of the present Covenant, to adopt such laws or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognized in the present Covenant.30

This lack of precision goes hand in hand with the establishment of interpretive bodies for all UN and regional human rights treaties, pointing to the centrality of authoritative interpretation for the application of human rights treaties. The allowance of the right to make individual applications before treaty bodies established for all core global and regional human rights treaties (with only two current exceptions:  the UN Migrant Workers Convention whose individual complaint mechanism is not yet operative, and the Arab Charter for Human Rights which does not provide for individual complaints) further highlights the centrality of concrete individual human rights claims for the interpretation of human rights treaties over time. Does handing out leaflets in a privatized shopping mall that has been historically a public space come under the scope of freedom of assembly?31 What responsibility does a State have with respect to actions of non-​State military forces acting in its territory?32 Do individuals who are right at the border crossing of a country come within its jurisdiction for the purposes of the obligation of non-​refoulement?33 None of these questions can be resolved solely by analysing (respectively) the text of the right to be free from torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment; the right to freedom of assembly; or the right to life provisions in various human rights treaties. With respect to State duties, as the term ‘legislative and other measures’ in Article 2(2) ICCPR points out, there is an inherent flexibility as to how States parties can respect and ensure compliance with a human rights provision.34 The application of human rights treaties require that such measures be given the requisite ‘effect’. This can only be done by assessing 29 See European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (opened for signature 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953)  213 UNTS 222, Art 1 (ECHR); American Convention on Human Rights (opened for signature 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 1(1)–​(2); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 19 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3, Art 1 (ICESCR); Banjul Charter (n 27) Art 1. 30 ICCPR (n 28) Art 2(1)–​(2). 31 Cf Appleby and others v United Kingdom (App No 44306/​98) ECHR, 6 May 2003, [48]–​[49]. 32 Case of the Rochela Massacre v Colombia (11 May 2007) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 163, [66]–​[68]. 33 Cf ND and NT v Spain (App Nos 8675/​15 and 8697/​15) ECHR, 3 October 2017. 34 Cf UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 May 2008) 2515 UNTS 3, Art 4 (‘Disabilities Convention’).

510  Treaty Interpretation whether the conduct of State authorities corresponds to an appropriate conception of their duties under human rights treaties. It should be clear by now that the core activity of international human rights treaty interpretation and application involves subsuming particulars under generals in the domain of the relationship between the State and the individual. Descriptively, this means that situations when only the wording (or wording together with historical treaty context) paves the way for the meaning of the text are limited by the nature and the operation of human rights treaties. Any interpreting agent has to specify what comes within the scope of a human rights treaty and what types of duties States have towards individuals in an infinite number of situations and why such duties must trump other duties, rights, or immunities States have under particular conditions. Human rights listed in treaties range among civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. There are also cross-​cutting human rights treaties that focus on all types of rights with respect to vulnerable or special groups, such as women, children, the disabled, the next of kin of the disappeared, or torture victims.35 Each of these treaties requires a complex analysis of scope and duty specification. Such duties range from duties to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights as well as duties to promote human rights.36 Even prohibitive and absolute provisions of human rights treaties, most notably the prohibition on torture, show that defining the scope and specifying duties in concrete instances of an alleged violation requires a more burdensome interpretive process. Simply put, wording is never enough to interpret or apply a human rights treaty.37 Does this conceptual structure of human rights treaties mean that human rights treaty interpretation is all about ‘object and purpose’? Does the lack of clarity of the scope of rights and the lack of duty specification mean that the wording, the context, and the history of texts are disregarded altogether at the expense of teleological interpretation?

35 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (opened for signature 7 March 1966, entered into force 4 January 1969) 660 UNTS 195; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13 (CEDAW); Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (adopted 10 December 1984, entered into force 26 June 1987) 1465 UNTS 85 (CAT); Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990)  1577 UNTS 3; International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (adopted 18 December 1990, entered into force 1 July 2003) 2220 UNTS 3; Disabilities Convention (n 34); International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (adopted 20 December 2006, entered into force 23 December 2010) 2716 UNTS 3. 36 The duty specification with respect to individual human rights treaties follows different trajectories. For example, the ECHR and the American Convention on Human Rights employ a negative obligation and positive obligation framework, specifying a range of duties on an article-​by-​article and case-​by-​case basis. See Mowbray (n 6) 7–​220. The ICESCR follows a tri-​partite conceptual framework, with duties to respect, protect, and fulfil. See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), ‘General Comment 12: The right to adequate food (art 11)’ UN Doc E/​C.12/​1999/​5. CEDAW has a four-​layer duty framework, with duties to respect, protect, fulfil, and actively promote. See Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, ‘General Comment 28’ (16 December 2010) CEDAW/​C/​Grand Chamber/​28. Cf IE Koch, ‘Dichotomies, Trichotomies or Waves of Duties?’ (2005) 5 Human Rts L Rev 81–​103. 37 For interpretive difficulties on torture with respect to a single human rights treaty, see Ireland v United Kingdom (1976) 19 Ybk ECHR 512, [163] (EComHR) (on the minimum level of severity); Soering v United Kingdom (App No 14038/​88) (1989) 11 EHRR 439, [88]–​[91] (on deportation and real risk of torture); Cakici v Turkey (App No 23657/​94) ECHR, 8 July 1999, [98]–​[99] (on the treatment of the next of kin of the disappeared); see also S Greer, ‘Is the Prohibition against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment Really “Absolute” in International Human Rights Law?’ (2015) 15 Human Rts L Rev 101; N Mavronicola, ‘Is the Prohibition Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment Absolute in International Human Rights Law? A Reply to Steven Greer’ (2017) 17 Human Rts L Rev 479.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  511 To characterize human rights treaty interpretation solely as telos-​driven does not survive close scrutiny. An important part of the response to this argument requires going back to the hierarchical distinction McNair drew between wording, context, and object and purpose. The crucible interpretation approach requires that the components of interpretation fit together. It does not, however, tell us what measure of use of these methods constitutes a perfect fit. The vague wording of rights, and the blanket provisions of duties, logically necessitates visiting the object and purpose of the provision—​or the treaty—​and its fit with the wording and context over time. This is not, as I have been careful to emphasize, because the subject matter is ‘human rights’ as the droit de l’hommiste charge would have it. On the contrary, the argument is functional. The claim that insists that human rights treaties have an exceptional regime of interpretation favours a very particular—​not a widely shared—​ interpretation of Article 31 VCLT; it favours a hierarchical ordering of wording, context, and object and purpose. But the crucible approach, which has received widespread support, demands that the wording, context, and the object and purpose fit. It also allows for the meaning of a treaty interpretation to evolve over time. In sum, human rights treaty interpretation, regardless of the theoretical orientation of the interpreter, is open-​ended and demanding. As we shall see later, human rights treaty interpreters routinely disagree about the best interpretation of human rights treaties and the correct fit between text, context, and object and purpose.38 Despite such criticism of actual practice, however, there does not seem to be evidence to suggest that the crucible approach cannot accommodate the interpretive challenges of human rights treaty provisions.39

II.  Specialized Interpretive Principles in the Field of Human Rights Treaty Law The preceding section has shown that human rights treaties do not require exceptional rules of interpretation that are hermeneutically sealed off from the VCLT regime. On the contrary, interpretation of human rights treaties is a case of applying Articles 31 and 32 VCLT to a particular domain of international law. Indeed, human rights courts often echo the fact that human rights treaties and the VCLT are not competing frameworks. Consider this ECtHR statement: The Court recalls that the Convention must be interpreted in the light of the rules set out in the Vienna Convention 1969 (Golder v. the United Kingdom judgment of 21 February 1975, Series A no. 18, § 29) . . . The Court must also take into account any relevant rules of international law when examining questions concerning its jurisdiction and, consequently, determine State responsibility in conformity with the governing principles of international law, although it must remain mindful of the Convention’s special character as a human rights treaty (the above-​cited Loizidou judgment (merits), at §§ 43 and 52). The Convention 38 Cf generally F Ni Aolain, ‘The Emergence Of Diversity: Differences in Human Rights Jurisprudence’ (1995) 19 Fordham Intl L J 101; F Viljoen, ‘Minority Sexual Orientation as a Challenge to Harmonised Interpretation of International Human Rights Law’ in CM Buckley, A Donald, and P Leach (eds), Towards Convergence in International Human Rights Law: Approaches of Regional and International Systems (Brill, Leiden 2016) 156. 39 See M Fitzmaurice, ‘Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties’ in D Shelton (ed), The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) 739.

512  Treaty Interpretation should be interpreted as far as possible in harmony with other principles of international law of which it forms part.40

This section focuses on the specialized principles of interpretation in the human rights field. The aim here is not to go through the jurisprudence of all human rights treaties. Neither is it to document the inconsistencies of interpretations within the same or across different institutions—​something that has attracted much commentary.41 Rather, the aim is to show that Article 31 VCLT in particular has informed the adoption and elaboration of an effectiveness approach to human rights treaty interpretation. In other words, human rights interpreters across a diversity of treaty contexts have come to view the interaction between wording, context, and object and purpose as requiring ‘effective, real, and concrete’ protection of human rights provisions.

A.  The effectiveness approach and human rights treaties Even though all human rights treaties have their own distinct context and wording, there is nevertheless significant convergence around the notion that the core interpretive task for any interpreter is to make human rights treaty provisions ‘effective, real, and practical’ for individuals as right-​holders under international law.42 This is sometimes called the principle of effectiveness (ut res magis valeat quam pereat).43 Effectiveness is an overarching approach to human rights treaty interpretation. It animates a range of other more fine-​grained, specific interpretive principles developed in the context of each human rights treaty. Examples include the interpretive principles of ‘autonomous concepts’, ‘living instrument’, and ‘practicality’ in the ECtHR context;44 the ‘responsiveness to African circumstances’ in the case of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights;45 the consideration of the ‘real situation’ in the case of the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights;46 and the ‘dynamic instrument doctrine’ put forward by the Committee against All Forms of Discrimination against Women.47 These principles all derive from the interpretive consensus that interpretations 40 Bankovic and others v Belgium and 16 other NATO States (App No 52207/​99) ECHR 12 December 2001, [55]–​[57]. 41 K Mechlem, ‘Treaty Bodies and the Interpretation of Human Rights’ (2009) 42 Vanderbilt J Transnatl L 905; MB Dembour, When Humans Become Migrants: Study of the European Court of Human Rights with an Inter-​ American Counterpoint (OUP, Oxford 2015); see also Buckley and others (n 38). 42 The ECtHR explains its mission as making ‘[the European Convention on Human Rights] safeguards practical and effective’. Loizidou v Turkey (Preliminary Objections) (1995) 20 EHRR 99, 102. 43 D Rausching, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Travaux Préparatoires (Metzner, Frankfurt 1978) 251. For a discussion of this principle’s operation in the international organizations’ context, see Chapter 22, Section I.B.1, 529–31 et seq. 44 Tyrer v United Kingdom (App No 5856/​72) (1978) 2 EHRR 1, [31]; Chassagnou and others v France (App Nos 25088/​94, 28331/​95, 28443/​95) (1999) 29 EHRR 615, [100]; Selmouni v France (App No 25803/​94) (1999) 29 EHRR 32, [101]; Mamatkulov and Askarov v Turkey (App Nos 46827/​99 and 46951/​99) ECHR, 4 February 2005, [102]. 45 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, The Social-​Economic Rights Action Centre and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights/​Nigeria (2001) Decision on Communication No 155/​96, [68]. 46 Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process Law (Advisory Opinion) (1 October 1999) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 16, [121]; Juridical Condition and Rights of Undocumented Migrants (Advisory Opinion) (17 September 2003) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 18, [121]; Atala Riffo and Daughters v Chile (24 February 2012) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 239, [92]. 47 CEDAW, ‘General Recommendation No 25: Temporary Social Measures’ (2004) UN Doc HRI/​Gen/​1/​Rev.7 270, [3]‌(‘The Convention is a living instrument’).

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  513 that are devoid of actual and timely effect for human rights protections do not cohere with good faith interpretations of the wording and context of human rights treaties in the light of their object and purpose.48 As Gardiner explains, the principle of effectiveness has two aspects.49 The first aspect directs the interpreter to give meaning to each and every treaty provision so that each term has effect rather than no effect.50 This aspect comes from the good faith requirement of Article 31. The second aspect involves taking either a teleological or an evolutive approach to interpretation (or a combination of both). In human rights treaty interpretation we find that interpreters have developed all aspects of effectiveness, often in tandem with each other, in conversation with the VCLT. The first aspect of effectiveness in the human rights treaty context means that the interpretation of provisions should have real effect in terms of the concrete and actual lives of individuals who are the recognized right-​holders of human rights treaty law. That is, human rights interpretations must have ‘practical effect’. The much-​cited ECtHR case of Airey is a helpful demonstration of this aspect.51 The case involved whether the right of access to court involved a duty to provide legal aid. The Irish government argued that there was no duty to provide legal aid because the applicant can exercise her right by appearing in person. The ECtHR rejected this argument on the grounds that human rights treaties require effective rights, not merely formal rights. In a well-​known quote, the Court summed up the good faith aspect of effectiveness: ‘The Convention is intended to guarantee rights that are not theoretical or illusory, but rights that are practical and effective.’52 According to this first version, effectiveness instructs the interpreters to attribute ‘sincerity’ to the original intentions of the drafters (ie the context) in realizing human rights of individuals. The distinction between formalistic protection versus effective protection offers an animating reason to choose between conflicting understandings of the wording of the text. The second version of effectiveness offers a deeper account of what really makes a human rights provision effective. In this teleological variant, it goes beyond an analysis of whether an existing protection is formal or effective as a matter of fact and asks the question of under what kinds of circumstances human rights treaty provisions can be trumped by other concerns53 or legitimately infringed. This version of effectiveness hinges on the question of whether treaty texts in principle should be interpreted in favour of the particular individual right (and expanding correlating duties) or in favour of the public interest that would restrict or not recognize a right or its correlating duty.54 A common trend amongst human rights interpreting bodies has been to adopt an understanding that favours the first option and thereby to assert that human rights treaties come with the presumption that protection of human rights has priority to sovereign rights.55 48 See Tyrer (n 44) 15–​16 [31]; Case of the Mapiripan Massacre v Colombia (15 September 2005) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 134, [104]–​[108]. 49 Gardiner (n 8) 179–​81; Chapter 19, Section III.B, 479–81 et seq. 50 See The Corfu Channel Case (United Kingdom v Albania) (Merits) [1949] ICJ Rep 4, 24. 51 Airey v Ireland (App No 6289/​73) (1981) 3 EHRR 305. 52 Ibid [24]. 53 See eg R Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2011) 227–​331 (articulating rights as trumps). 54 This latter approach resonates with the notion of ‘restrictive interpretation’, which presumes that the drafters intended to leave States freedom of action (or inaction) in cases of ambiguity. Cf eg L Crema, ‘Disappearance and New Sightings of Restrictive Interpretation(s)’ (2010) 21 EJIL 681. 55 This general principle is not without problems as priority does not mean absolute priority. Cf B Çalı, ‘Balancing Human Rights: Methodological Problems with Weights, Scales and Proportions’ (2007) 29 HRQ 251;

514  Treaty Interpretation The Human Rights Committee’s (HRC’s) view on the interpretation of the right to life is a good example of problematizing original intent in favour of teleological effectiveness: The right to life is a right which should not be interpreted narrowly. It concerns the entitlement of individuals to be free from acts and omissions that are intended or may be expected to cause their unnatural or premature death, as well as to enjoy a life with dignity. Article 6 guarantees this right for all human beings, without distinction of any kind, including for persons suspected or convicted of even the most serious crimes.56

This general preference for expansive interpretations of rights and duties and restrictive interpretations of sovereignty, however, also comes with problems. Central questions in this regard are whether teleological effectiveness equals unwarranted expansionism and whether international human rights treaty interpreters who are beyond the reach of domestic democratic accountability can impose their subjective views on States under this so-​called principle of ‘effective interpretation’.57 There is no clear indication, however, that this is the automatic outcome of effectiveness in human rights treaty interpretation. The function of the teleological aspect of effectiveness in the case of human rights treaties is better understood as shifting the burden of proof from the individual to the State in justifying the infringement of—​or lack of measures for—​protecting rights.58 The effectiveness principle articulated by the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights comes closest to the full-​blown teleological interpretation that sceptics have in mind. This Court holds that interpretation in favour of the individual (which it calls the principle of pro-​person) must be followed, even if this comes at the expense of the wording or context.59 The (former) European Commission on Human Rights, and subsequently the ECtHR, has been more cautious in defining the parameters of effectiveness. The Commission, for example, held that effectiveness requires seeking: the interpretation that is most appropriate in order to realise the aim and achieve the objective of the treaty, not that which would restrict to the greatest possible degree the obligations undertaken by the parties.60

MK Addo and N Grief, ‘Does Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights Enshrine Absolute Rights?’ (1998) 9 EJIL 510. 56 HRC, ‘General Comment No. 36 on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life’ (2018) UN Doc CCPR/​G/​C/​36, [3]‌. 57 For a generally sceptical account of effectiveness as a subjective imposition, see M Waibel, ‘Demystifying the Art of Interpretation’ (2011) 22 EJIL 571, 582. 58 This may occur, for example, in cases of declarations of states of emergency that derogate from the protection of rights temporally pursuant to Art 4 ICCPR. Cf HRC, ‘General Comment 29, States of Emergency (article 4)’ (2001) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.11. Or, it may arise in cases interpreting the ICESCR’s ‘progressive realization’ clauses. Cf CESCR’s ‘General Comment 12’ (n 36). 59 19 Tradesmen v Colombia (5 July 2004) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 109, [173]. State Obligations Concerning Change of Name, Gender Identity and Rights Derived From a Relationship Between Same Sex Couples (Interpretation and Scope of Articles 1(1), 3, 7, 11 (2), 13, 17, 18 and 24, in Relation to Article 1 of the Inter American Convention on Human Rights (Advisory Opinion) (24 Nov 2017) OC-​24/​17 Inter American Court of Human Rights Series A No 24, [189]. 60 Wemhoff v Germany (App No 2122/​64) (1968) 1 EHRR 55, 75.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  515 Here the notion of ‘greatest possible degree’ indicates that effectiveness is not about burdening the State with a large range of impractical or unrealistic obligations and that the interpretation that may seem the most beneficial to the individual may not be chosen due to other principles at work. Most notably, the doctrine of the margin of appreciation (which calls for deference to interpretations of domestic institutions based on concerns that the appropriate forum resolve conflicts between rights and public interest) is held to work against pro-​person interpretations.61 In other words, effectiveness in the eyes of the ECtHR cuts both ways. Human rights treaty obligations cannot be interpreted in expansive ways without regard to whether or not it is reasonable, realistic, or legitimate for States to have these correlating obligations. Effectiveness is neither about ‘inflation of rights’ nor about ‘inflation of duties’. Human rights treaty interpreters also depart from effectiveness when making the case for evolutive interpretations of human rights treaties over time. Given the continuous societal and technological developments in the lifetime of a human rights treaty, effective protection of treaty rights over time demands the adaptations of human rights provisions to contemporary developments and risks. The ‘living instrument’ doctrine—​a common departing point for all international human rights interpreters—​manifests this concern for effectiveness of treaty rights over time.62 Having said this, when and for what reasons present day conditions should have a decisive influence on treaty interpretation and whether these allow for rewriting of human rights treaties, without any formal amendments taking place, is subject to disagreement amongst human rights interpreters.63 In order to increase the legitimacy of their case for effectiveness over time, human rights interpreters rely on the VCLT’s provisions on subsequent practice and subsequent agreements. The concept of subsequent practice and subsequent agreements have taken on different specialized meanings in different human rights treaty contexts. Of all the specialized human rights law interpreters, the ECtHR, is the most well-​known institution with its explicit emphasis on one particular type of subsequent practice, that is the subsequent domestic State practice of Council of Europe Member States.64 Under its ‘European consensus 61 The ECtHR is the only treaty body that explicitly applies the margin of appreciation as a general principle to counterbalance effectiveness in some instances. See E Benvenisti, ‘Margin of Appreciation, Consensus, and Universal Standards’ (1999) 31 NYU J Intl L & Pol’y 843, 844. For a confined use of the margin of appreciation in cases of nationality rights, see Proposed Amendments to the Naturalization Provisions of the Constitution of Costa Rica (Advisory Opinion) (19 January 1984) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series A No 4, [62]. Regarding the HRC’s approach to the margin of appreciation, see Y Shany, ‘All Roads Lead to Strasbourg?: Application of the Margin of Appreciation Doctrine by the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee’ (2018) 9 J Int’l Disp Settlement 180–​98. 62 See eg Loizidou v Turkey (App No 15318/​89) 23 EHRR 513, [71] (holding that the living instrument doctrine not only applies to the Convention’s substantive provisions, but also to those that govern the operation of the Convention machinery); see also Atala Riffo and Daughters v Chile (n 46); Atasoy and Sarkut v Turkey, HRC Communication Nos 1853/​2008 and 1854/​2008 (29 March 2012)  UN Doc CCPR/​C/​104/​D/​1854-​1854/​ 2008, [7.13]. On the employment of the living instrument doctrine beyond human rights law, see D Moeckli and ND White, ‘Treaties as Living Instruments’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 136–​71. 63 See, for example, the differences in how same-​sex marriage is interpreted by the ECtHR in Chapin and Charpentier v France (App No 40183/​07) ECHR 9 July 2016 and the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights in Advisory Opinion OC-​24/​17 (n 59). 64 See Bayatyan v Armenia (Grand Chamber) (App No 23459/​03) ECHR 7 July 2011; Demir Baykara v Turkey (Grand Chamber) (App No 34503/​97) ECHR 12 November 2008; Nait Liman v Switzerland (Grand Chamber) (App No 51357/​07) ECHR 14 March 2018. For a similar approach, see also Case of Artavia Murillo and others (In Vitro Fertilization) v Costa Rica (Preliminary exceptions, Merits, Reparations, and Costs) (28 November 2012) Inter American Court of Human Rights Series C No 257. On regional consensus, see also Centre for Minority Rights Development (Kenya) and Minority Rights Group (on behalf of Endorois Welfare Council) v Kenya (App No 276/​03) ACHPR 25 November 2009, [151].

516  Treaty Interpretation doctrine’ the ECtHR asks whether there is adequate consensus amongst the legislators and judiciaries of the Council of Europe Member States that would justify a departure from an existing treaty interpretation.65 Yet, this Court is careful to emphasize that European consensus is one factor amongst many in establishing the significance of subsequent practice and subsequent agreements.66 Human rights interpreters also locate their human rights treaties in the context of subsequent agreements in the field of human rights and employ these as part of existing or emerging global consensus.67 In the case of the UN Treaty Bodies, efforts to legitimate effective interpretation over time takes on a proactive shape. UN Treaty Bodies solicit comments from States parties and non-​governmental organizations during their drafting processes of general comments.68 In light of the above, could the overarching effectiveness approach and the specific doctrines it gives rise to be regarded as being a radical departure from Article 31 VCLT? The subsequent practice of the States developed in response to the effectiveness approach developed by human rights treaty interpreters does not show this. There has been no wholesale rejection of effectiveness as a general interpretative frame for human rights treaties. Yet, States on the receiving end of effective human rights treaty interpretations do demand that the effectiveness approach closely reflects their evolving intent to be bound by treaties and their authoritative interpretations. In the context of the ECtHR, this has manifested itself in the insertion of the principle of subsidiarity in the preamble of the ECHR though a 2012 amendment.69 In the context of UN human rights treaty bodies, too, States more and more submit their own conceptions of effective interpretation in the context of updating general comments.70

B.  Effectiveness and the role of general international law in the interpretation of human rights treaties If effectiveness animates the measure of text, context, and object and purpose in human rights treaty interpretation, it remains to ask how does effectiveness interact with the additional requirement in Article 31(3) VCLT, requiring parties to take into account ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’? Human rights treaty interpreters do this, locating human rights treaty interpretation as

65 For an in-​depth discussion, see K Dzehtsiarou, European Consensus and the Legitimacy of the European Court of Human Rights (CUP, Cambridge 2015). 66 See Christine Goodwin v United Kingdom (Grand Chamber) (App No 28957/​95) ECHR 11 July 2002, [85]. 67 Demir Baykara v Turkey (n 64) [85]. The case of the African Court for Human and Peoples’ Rights is unique in this respect, as Art 7 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights lays down that ‘[t]‌he Court shall apply the provision of the Charter and any other relevant human rights instruments ratified by the States concerned’. See also The Beneficiaries of the Late Norbert Zongo, Abdoulaye Nikiema alias Abiasse, Ernest Zongo and Blaise Ilboudo and the Burkinabe Movement on Human and Peoples' Rights v Burkina Faso (App No 013/​2011) ACHPR 28 March 2014. 68 See eg Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ‘Call for Comments: Draft General Comment on Article 12 of the Convention—​Equal Recognition before the Law & Draft General Comment on Article 9 of the Convention—​Accessibility’ (2013) at . 69 Protocol No 15 Amending the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, CETS 213, 24.VI.2013. 70 See, for example, ‘Comments of the Netherlands to the Draft General Comment on Article 6 (Right to Life) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ available at .

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  517 part of—​and not in isolation from—​general international law and other related treaties and instruments.71 This is in line with a more general duty to attempt to reach coherence amongst different bodies of international law, even though this may not be possible in each concrete instance.72 Human rights interpreters interact with Article 31(3) in two directions.73 First, Article 31(3) may lead to the identification of an accumulation of interpretations. Second, Article 31(3) may lead to the identification of an actual or potential conflict with other bodies of international law. Resolution of such conflicts have taken different paths amongst different human rights interpreters with varying consequences for the relationship between general international law, its sub-​branches, and human rights treaty interpretation. Whilst some human rights treaty interpreters defend the special meaning of international law terms in human rights treaties (or assign priority to human rights treaties over other international law), others have turned to norm accommodation. In the case of accumulation, other international law obligations or treaties regulating similar subject matters (as well as general international law) serve as a means of reaching an overlapping interpretation of human rights treaty provisions by cumulatively confirming a particular interpretation. The international comparative method employed by the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court for Human and Peoples’ Rights, the ECtHR, and UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies explicitly point in this direction.74 The regional human rights commissions and courts and quasi judicial UN treaty bodies cite and interpret other international treaty law obligations—​such as the UN Charter,75 UN human rights treaties,76 statutes of international criminal courts,77 provisions of international humanitarian law,78 or International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions79—​to confirm commonalities of meaning amongst human rights treaties or other international law. In the case of the Inter-​ American Court of Human Rights, in particular, this extends to identification of some of its treaty provisions as jus cogens norms.80 This practice of paying attention to the general and regional human rights treaty context enables interpreters to solidify the meanings of their 71 Cf Golder (n 20) [29]; Al-​Adsani v United Kingdom (App No 35763/​97) (2001) 34 EHRR 273, [55]; Right to Information on Consular Assistance (n 46) [113]; A Rachovitsa ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration in Human Rights Law’ (2017) 66 ICLQ 557–​88. 72 Cf Andrajeva v Latvia (App No 55707/​00) ECHR 18 February 2009, [75]. 73 For an elaboration of these two modes of interaction, see J Pauwelyn, Conflict of Norms in Public International Law: How WTO Law Relates to Other Rules of International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2003) 161–​212. 74 On regional human rights cross citation practices, see L Burgorgue Larsen, ‘ “Decompartmentalization”: The Key Technique for Interpreting Regional Human Rights Treaties’ (2018) 16 Int’l J Con L 187–​213. 75 Al Dulimi and Montana Management v Switzerland (Grand Chamber) (App No 5809/​08) ECHR 21 June 2016, [139]. 76 Soering (n 37) [88] (citing CAT); Opuz v Turkey (App No 33401/​02) ECHR 9 June 2009, [72]–​[77] (citing CEDAW). 77 Rizvanovic v Bosnia and Herzegovina, CCPR/​C/​110/​D/​1997/​2010 (21 March 2014); A. v Denmark, CEDAW/​ C/​62/​D/​53/​2013 (19 November 2015) (citing the Statute of the International Criminal Court). 78 Case of Bámaca-​Velasques v Guatemala (25 November 2000) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 70, 17 (citing the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court); Hassan v United Kingdom (n 20) passim (citing Geneva Conventions). 79 Ituango Massacres v Colombia (Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs) (1 July 2006) Inter-​ American Court of Human Rights Series C No 148, [157] (citing ILO Convention No 29); National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers v The United Kingdom (App No 31045/​10) ECHR 8 April 2014, [76] (citing ILO Convention No 87 and the European Social Charter). 80 Gomes-​Lund et al (Guerrilha do Araguaia) v Brazil (24 November 2010) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 219, [19] (Separate Opinion Judge Figueiredo-​Caldas).

518  Treaty Interpretation human rights treaty provisions in light of the broader context of international law.81 It also has the potential of having effects external to the interpretation of a human rights treaty, in particular when, human rights interpreters also engage in the interpretation of general international law to confirm overlapping content.82 Second—​and alternatively—​interpreters interact with other human rights treaties and the general international legal context in ways that portend actual or potential conflict. Effectiveness and systemic integration pull human rights interpreters in opposite directions in these cases. Conflict implies that the ‘taking into account’ language of Article 31(3) ultimately takes the form of resolving conflicts between a particular human rights treaty and relevant international law (including other human rights treaties). Three further approaches to interpretation have emerged in human rights treaty interpretive practice in this respect that warrant attention. For starters, there is the self-​contained autonomous meaning rule, which addresses the question of whether certain words raised in various legal contexts must always have the same meaning.83 If the answer to this is negative, then human rights treaty interpreters have an argument for declaring some international law as not ‘relevant’ to the interpretation of a particular treaty. The interpretive approach to defining ‘jurisdiction’ clauses in human rights treaties is a good illustration of this. Under Article 29 VCLT, ‘unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, a treaty is binding upon each party in respect of its entire territory’. Human rights treaties interpreters have produced an autonomous approach to human rights treaty application beyond the territory of each State by holding that human rights treaties also apply when States have ‘effective control’ over persons or territories outside of their territory.84 This development in itself, does not modify the concept of territorial application of treaties in public international law. Yet, by introducing a different or ‘specialized’ conception of jurisdiction, it creates a new rule concerning the spatial and personal application of human rights treaties.85 81 A  good example of this is the interpretation of the exhaustion of domestic remedy clauses across treaty contexts. All regional courts have confirmed that only those remedies that are ‘effective’ need to be exhausted. Velasquez Rodriguez v Honduras (29 July 1988) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 4, [63]–​[64]; Akdivar v Turkey (App No 21893/​93) ECHR 30 August 1996, [66]–​[69]. 82 This has been particularly true for the case of UN Charter interpretations by the ECtHR, which has pointed out that the UN Security Council is bound by human rights norms similar to those of the ECHR. Cf Al Dulimi v Switzerland (n 75). 83 A similar interpretive principle exists in the context of the relationship between domestic law and human rights treaty law called the ‘autonomous concepts doctrine’. This doctrine holds that treaty words have a self-​ contained, independent meaning if the word overlaps with the wording of domestic law. Konig v Germany (App No 6232/​73) ECHR 28 June 1978, [88]–​[89]. 84 Sergio Euben Lopez Burgos v Uruguay, HRC Communication No R.12/​52 (1981) UN Doc Supp No 40 A/​36/​ 40, [12]; Loizidou (n 42) [62], Al-​Skeini and Others v the United Kingdom (Grand Chamber) (App No 55721/​07) ECHR 7 July 2011, [133–​140]; HRC, ‘General Comment 31, The Nature of the Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant’ (29 March 2004) UN Doc A/​59/​40, [10]; Committee against Torture, ‘Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee Against Torture regarding United States of America’ (25 July 2006) CAT/​C/​ USA/​CO/​2, [14]–​[15]; HRC, ‘Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee regarding United States of America’ (15 September 2006) CCPR/​C/​USA/​CO/​3, [10]. The Security Council, the UN General Assembly, as well as treaty interpreting bodies and regional courts have also come to endorse this view. See UNSC Res 1265 (17 September 1999) UN Doc S/​Res/​1265, [4]‌; UNGA, ‘Respect for human rights in armed conflicts’ UNGA Res 3319 (XXIX) (14 December 1974); Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, 232-​237 [10]–​[18] (‘Nuclear Weapons’); Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (DRC v Uganda) [2005] ICJ Rep 168, 185. For more on Article 29 VCLT and jurisdiction, see Chapter 13, 312–14 et seq. 85 M Milanovic, ‘From Compromise to Principle: Clarifying the Concept of State Jurisdiction in Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 8 Human Rts L Rev 411, 416. Some States challenge this specialized interpretation of jurisdiction. Cf eg ‘Fourth Periodic Report of the United States of America to the UN Committee on Human Rights concerning

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  519 Next, there is the presumption of priority of a particular human rights treaty provision over other rules of international law. This may have the consequence of declaring that another body of international law is not relevant to the human rights treaty interpretation context. The priority of human rights treaties or their individual provisions have been argued on two grounds. The first ground involves establishing that a human rights treaty provision is jus cogens and subsequently arguing that it takes priority because of its jus cogens qualification.86 The second ground is to argue that human rights treaty obligations are more prominent than other treaty obligations because of the comparative prominence of the treaty’s subject matter or the particular nature of the obligations attached to specific rights in the treaties. The 2006 case of Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v Paraguay of the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights, which concerned a conflict between a Paraguayan bilateral investment treaty and the American Convention on Human Rights, is an example of the prominent subject matter argument.87 The Court argued that the normative-​multilateral nature of human rights treaties gives them priority over bilateral non-​human rights law treaties, even if those treaties postdate the human rights treaty in question, and thereby rule out the use of the later-​in-​time (lex posterior) maxim. The rationale for giving the human rights treaty priority was because a reciprocal bilateral obligation that a State agrees to undertake cannot override a non-​reciprocal obligation that the State already has.88 The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the cases of Kadi and Al Barakaat invokes the non-​derogable nature of the right to fair trial for the EU as the central reason for its priority over UN law.89 This suggests that interpreters may rank provisions of individual treaties, rather than the treaties themselves, as more prominent obligations. There are important differences between arguments for jus cogens priority and priority based on the prominence of human rights treaties or individual provisions. Whilst the former is an absolute formulation, the latter is a relative ordering where the prominence of human rights treaties has to be pitted against the prominence of other treaty obligations.90 Third, there is the approach of norm accommodation of relevant international law in the interpretation of human rights treaties. Unlike the previous approaches, this approach accepts that human rights treaty interpretation can be influenced by the existence of international laws that apply at the same time. Two possible scenarios of accommodation may occur. In the first scenario, human rights treaty law interpretation fully gives way to rights and obligations that exist in another area of international law (in which case the priority the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ (30 December 2011) [504]–​[505] at . 86 Case T-​315/​01 Kadi v Council and Commission [2005] ECR II-​3649, [226]; Case T-​306/​01 Yusuf & Al Barakaat [2005] ECR II-​3533, [277]; HRC, ‘General Comment No 24: General comment on issues relating to reservations made upon ratification or accession to the Covenant or the Optional Protocols thereto, or in relation to declarations under article 41 of the Covenant’ (4 November 1994) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.6, [10]. 87 Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v Paraguay (29 March 2006) Inter-​American Court of Human Rights Series C No 146. See also Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, ‘Concluding observations on the combined eighth and ninth periodic reports of Canada’ (2016) CEDAW/​C/​CAN/​CO/​8-​9, [19]. 88 Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community (n 87) [140]–​[141]. 89 Joined Cases C-​402/​05 P and C-​415/​05 P Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission (Grand Chamber) (2008) ECR I-​06531, [316]. 90 B Simma, ‘Harmonising Investment Protection and International Human Rights:  First Steps towards a Methodology’ in C Binder and others (eds), International Investment Law for the 21st Century, Essays in Honour of Christoph Schreuer (OUP, Oxford 2009) 678.

520  Treaty Interpretation rule operates in the opposite direction).91 In a second scenario, some provisions of human rights treaties are interpreted in light of the relevant international law where that law is shown to be lex specialis. Conflicts between human rights treaty provisions with respect to the right to life and international humanitarian law (jus in bello) provisions on military necessity are examples of this.92 As the above discussion shows, how the relevant international law is taken into account in the interpretation of human rights treaties manifests diverging pathways. The ECtHR, for example, does not employ jus cogens or priority to human rights law, when it discusses the relevance of general international law for interpreting human rights treaties, whereas the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights has done so on more than one occasion.93 For its part, the ECtHR has been more open to accommodation norms of other parts of international law. These different pathways of engaging in systemic integration of international law by human rights treaty interpretations also produce varying external effects; they manifest gaps and deeper contestations in general rules of treaty interpretation concerning systemic integration as a principle of interpretation.

III.  The Interpretive Forum: Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties by Specialized or General International Bodies or Domestic Courts How effectiveness is doctrinally defended, and the relationship between effectiveness, subsequent treaties and practice, and systemic interpretation varies among different interpretive fora. In other words, the way in which Article 31 VCLT operates is relative to the evolving legal context of each treaty.94 Human rights treaty interpretation by specialized institutions exhibit context-​specific path dependencies. For example, the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights places more weight on the pro person principle. The ECtHR prefers being more in sync with the evolution of comparative domestic law (in particular through its European consensus doctrine) and does not assert a forceful priority for the European Convention over international law. For some, the latter is compromising the effectiveness approach, giving way to restrictive interpretations of human rights treaties.95 For others, it is the Inter-​American model that goes too far.96 On the other hand, non-​specialized international courts and institutions find themselves in a different context when interpreting or taking into account human rights treaty law. They usually do so under different circumstances than specialized institutions. As discussed earlier, specialized human rights interpreters are motivated to identify the most effective protection for the individual right holder in light of the constraints of the wording, 91 Al Adsani (n 71); Jones and others v United Kingdom (App Nos 34356/​06 and 40528/​06) ECHR 14 January 2014; Hassan v United Kingdom (n 20); see also L Crema, ‘Subsequent Practice in Hassan v United Kingdom: When Things Seem to go Wrong in the Life of a Living Instrument’ (2015) 15 Questions of Intl L 3–​22. 92 Varnava and Others v Turkey (Grand Chamber) (App No 16064/​90) ECHR 18 September 2009, [185]. 93 See nn 59–​63 and accompanying text. 94 On the significance of regional contexts in the interpretation of human rights law, see B Çalı, MR Madsen, and F Viljoen, ‘Comparing Regional Human Rights: Defining a Research Agenda’ (2018) 16 Int’l J Con L 128. 95 Crema (n 54). 96 J Contesse, ‘Contestation and Deference in the Inter-​American Human Rights System’ (2016) 79 Law & Contemp Problems 123, 143.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  521 context, and taking into account any relevant international law. Generalists, however, are usually motivated to identify the full range of relevant international law and exclusively focus on human rights treaty law only if a priority rule applies in a specific context. For specialists in other fields, human rights treaty law may only be a candidate amongst other relevant international law in interpreting their core domain, be it trade, the environment, or international criminal law. Whilst there is a forceful case for specialist human rights interpreters to employ effective interpretation of human rights treaties, this does not necessarily hold for non-​specialized interpreters, in the absence of rules or a judicial culture directing them to do so. Thus, there is a continuous risk of fragmentation of human rights treaty interpretation between specialists and non-​specialists. There is emerging evidence that the ICJ will follow human rights interpreters when engaging with a human rights treaty.97 Yet, the ICJ also does not seemed convinced by the priority to human rights principles developed by some of the human rights interpreters in the domain of general international law.98 Finally, there is the question of whether interpretive principles developed by specialized bodies can have the same currency when received by domestic courts. Domestic courts are similar to specialized human rights treaty interpreters in the sense that their interpretive functions take place in the context of individual rights claims in most cases. Unlike specialist or generalist international interpreters, however, domestic courts often pit the effectiveness principle—​in particular effectiveness over time—​against the principles of integrity, coherency, and stability of their own constitutional law. Whilst the transnationalist models of interpretation give primacy to human rights interpretations emitted by international courts and bodies, nationalist models of interpretation are more sceptical of the direct authority of interpretive principles developed by international courts.99 The case for the ‘nationalist’ model’s self-​contained interpretations of human rights treaties by domestic courts in light of the domestic system’s object and purposes does not survive scrutiny under the VCLT. Any interpreter is actually under a duty to consider the treaty’s object and the purpose, wording, and context. Furthermore, domestic interpretations of an international human rights treaty that significantly diverge from the interpretations of its final interpreter (such as a regional human rights court) are likely to raise questions about whether domestic courts enjoy the authority to offer autonomous interpretations of multilateral human rights treaties. Ultimately, however, whether the principles developed by regional courts and specialized bodies have direct effect and are legally binding on the domestic interpretation process depends on the status of such interpretations in domestic law.100 It is nevertheless safe to argue that the effectiveness principle may at the very least have persuasive value in human rights regarding domestic courts. 97 In Diallo, for example, the ICJ stressed that ‘it must take due account of the interpretation of that instrument adopted by the independent bodies which have been specifically created, if such has been the case, to monitor the sound application of the treaty in question’. Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v Democratic Republic of the Congo) [2010] ICJ Rep 639, 664 [67]; see also B Simma, ‘Mainstreaming Human Rights: The Contribution of the International Court of Justice’ (2012) 3 J Int’l Disp Settlement 25. 98 Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy, Greece Intervening) [2012] ICJ Rep 179, 228–​37 [130]–​ [155] (Dissenting Opinion of Judge Cançado Trindade); ibid 291, 298–​303 [26]-​[42] (Dissenting Opinion of Judge Yusuf). 99 See Chapter 15, Section III, 367–75 et seq. 100 Ibid; see also R van Alebeek and A Nollkaemper, ‘The Legal Status of Decisions by Human Rights Treaty Bodies in National Law’ in H Keller and G Ulfstein (eds), UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy (CUP, Cambridge 2012) 356; M Kanetake, ‘UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring Bodies before Domestic Courts’ (2018) 67 ICLQ 201.

522  Treaty Interpretation

Conclusion This chapter surveyed the existing rules for human rights treaty interpretation. It has shown that human rights treaties generally do not have an exceptional regime of treaty interpretation. There are specific approaches to interpreting human rights treaties to the extent required by the interpretive task before the interpreter. In this respect, it is only natural that there are some special rules in each domain of international law. Importantly, special does not mean rules that are out of touch with general international law. Special simply means the approaches mentioned herein are a necessity for the everyday business of interpretation. This chapter has further shown that special rules of interpretation called for by human rights treaties have been crystallized under the overarching umbrella of effectiveness. Effectiveness is a general orientation for making sense of the wording, context, and the object and purpose of human rights treaties. It is demanded by the circumstances of the human rights treaties themselves, which regulate the rights of individuals to which States have correlating duties to give effect. In other words, effectiveness is not a preferred principle by some. Rather, it flows from the relationship of the treaty’s wording, context, and the object and purpose over time. This overarching principle has given rise to many more specific principles in the context of each treaty and its interpreting body, including mediating principles that show the limits of effectiveness. An important consequence of the employment of effectiveness has been to disregard original intent and formal protection of rights in favour of evolving intent, dynamic interpretation, and practical protection of rights over time. The chapter has also demonstrated that human rights interpreters do not agree on the extent to which subsequent State conduct or other international law should accompany pro person interpretations as a matter of domestic or international law. Whilst commitment to effectiveness is a constant theme in human rights treaty interpretation, choices made under this umbrella of effectiveness differ. How human rights treaties should be located within the broader framework of international law, in particular, turns to deeper questions about the overall normative place of human rights in general international law and domestic constitutional law. In the end, this discussion shows that the VCLT is not only a flexible regime, but it is one with gaps. The principle that it covers—​that of crucible interpretation—​is too abstract not to be applicable to human rights treaties. Yet, crucible interpretation does not conclusively address normative questions concerning regime interaction, be it the interaction of overlapping domestic and international rights regimes or international regimes in potential or actual conflict. As this chapter has explained, human rights treaty interpretation has not only been an important testing ground for making sense of general rules of interpretation, but it has also offered an important site for reflections on the silences in the VCLT rules of interpretation themselves.

Recommended Reading C Buckley, A Donald, and P Leach (eds), Towards Convergence in International Human Rights Law: Approaches of Regional and International Systems (Brill, Leiden 2016) L Burgorgue-​Larsen, A Ubeda de Torres, and R Greenstein, The Inter-​American Court of Human Rights: Case Law and Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011)

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: Human Rights  523 B Çalı, MR Madsen, and F Viljoen, ‘Comparing Regional Human Rights: Defining a Research Agenda’ (2018) 16 Int’l J Con L 128 C Chinkin, ‘Human Rights’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 509 M Craven, ‘Legal Differentiation and the Concept of the Human Rights Treaty in International Law’ (2000) 11 EJIL 489 M Fitzmaurice, ‘Interpretation of Human Rights Treaties’ in D Shelton (ed), The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) 739 M Forowics, The Reception of International Law in the European Court of Human Rights (OUP, Oxford 2010) J Gerards, General Principles of the European Convention on Human Rights (CUP, Cambridge, 2018) M Kanetake, ‘UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring Bodies before Domestic Courts’ (2018) 67 ICLQ 201 L Lixinski, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights: Expansionism at the Service of the Unity of International Law’ (2010) 21 EJIL 585 A Rachovitsa ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration in Human Rights Law’ (2017) 66 ICLQ 557 M Shenin (ed), Human Rights Norms in ‘Other’ International Courts (CUP, Cambridge 2018) B Simma, ‘International Human Rights and General International Law:  A Comparative Analysis’ (1993) Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, Vol IV(2), 163 J Tobin, ‘Seeking to Persuade:  A Constructive Approach to Human Rights Treaty Interpretation’ (2010) 23 Harvard Human Rts J 1

22

Specialized Rules of Treaty Interpretation International Organizations Catherine Brölmann

Introduction International law has generally treated questions of the legal personality and legal powers of international organizations (IOs) as a distinct subject—​notably one of international institutional law.1 But IOs, whatever their form or function, will also regularly trigger questions of treaty law and practice.2 Most (but not all3) IOs are created by treaty, and that ‘constituent instrument’ provides the necessary starting point for delimiting the IO’s functions and competences. This chapter addresses treaty interpretation in the IO context, with particular attention to the interpretation of founding or constitutive treaties of international organizations. The choice of topic for this chapter is premised on the idea that not all interpretive rules are the same for all treaties. This is a well-​tried proposition. As early as 1930, Arnold McNair recommended that ‘we free ourselves from the traditional notion that the instrument known as the treaty is governed by a single set of rules’,4 distinguishing for instance treaties of a category that would now be called ‘objective regimes’5 from ‘treaties creating constitutional international law’ (comprising the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Statute of the PCIJ), and from ‘treaties akin to charters of incorporation’ (instruments creating the non-​political Unions, Institutes and Commissions of the time). More recently, Joseph Weiler called for a ‘re-​examination of treaty interpretation’ in particular, and proposed identifying and applying different hermeneutics to different treaty regimes.6 The recent interest in different canons of treaty interpretation hinges on distinguishing interpretative practices for different areas of substantive law and concomitant interpretive communities, for example investment treaties or human rights treaties.7 Constitutive 1 Cf eg J Klabbers, An Introduction to International Organizations Law (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2015); H Schermers and NM Blokker, International Institutional Law (6th edn Brill-​Nijhoff, Leiden 2018). 2 In addition to interpretation issues, IO constituent instruments may also trigger treaty law questions as to who can consent to that instrument; whether and how reservations or amendments can be made to it; and what processes exist for parties to withdraw from the founding treaty or terminate the IO itself. 3 Klabbers (n 1) 11 (noting how the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was created by a UN General Assembly resolution, while the IO status of other entities, like the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), remains unclear). 4 A McNair, ‘The Function and the Differing Legal Character of Treaties’ (1930) 11 BYBIL 100, 118. 5 Objective regimes were dealt with in detail in the first edition of this volume. See D Bederman, ‘Third Party Rights and Obligations in Treaties’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) Ch 13. 6 J Weiler, ‘Prolegomena to a Meso-​theory of Treaty Interpretation at the Turn of the Century’, IILJ International Legal Theory Colloquium: Interpretation and Judgment in International Law (NYU Law School, 14 February 2008) 576; J Weiler, ‘The Interpretation of Treaties—​A Re-​examination’ (2010) 21 EJIL 507. 7 Issues of human rights treaty interpretation are discussed in Chapter 21 of this Guide.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  525 treaties of IOs may be set apart as ‘treaties creating organizations’ à la Arnold McNair in his early article, or as belonging to the category of ‘law-​making treaties’.8 But it must be recalled that they are, beyond these divisions, a special category. IOs are to some extent separate and ‘internal’ legal orders, so that interpretation of their founding texts can be said to take place at the cutting edge of treaty law and institutional law. Is such differentiation accommodated by the interpretative framework set out in Articles 31–​33 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT)? On the one hand, a case can be made that constituent treaties are exceptional, warranting a separate interpretative framework. As discussed later, this position is bolstered by the decisions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the latter of which seem to have developed a ‘distinct’ teleological approach for interpreting EU Treaties in lieu of the VCLT’s more textual orientation.9 On the other hand, some constituent treaties explicitly disavow a special approach. The World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Dispute Settlement Understanding, for example, anticipates that any clarification of the WTO’s constituent agreements will be done ‘in accordance with the customary rules of interpretation of public international law’.10 Moreover, the VCLT framework itself is famously broad, subsidiary, and not very hierarchically structured.11 As a result, it may be best to approach treaty interpretation in this context, not as a separate regime, but rather as a version of the VCLT framework to which additional or supplementary approaches have emerged in light of the ‘special’ characteristics that these constitutive instruments possess. This chapter addresses treaty interpretation in the IO context in two sections. Section I  examines the interpretation of constitutive treaties and IO secondary rules. Section II looks at the role of organizations as treaty interpreters. Examples are drawn predominantly from the UN context and, to a lesser degree, the European Union. These organizations and their constitutive treaties, especially the UN Charter, have received extensive and articulate interpretations. They may also be generally representative of similar treaties, for which concrete examples are less accessible.12 The ICJ, moreover, has issued several seminal decisions in this field (eg the 1949 Reparation and the 1996 WHO Legality of Nuclear Weapons cases), which can (still) be said to reflect the state of the law and count as authoritative statements on the nature of IO constitutive treaties.

8 ‘Lawmaking treaties’ (traités loi) involve ‘a series of generalized, and not particularly reciprocal, statements of standards, norms, rules, rights, duties and benefits which the contracting parties . . . postulate’ and may be contrasted with ‘contractual treaties’ (traités–​contrat), which involve ‘a series of reciprocally operating rights, duties and benefits, the treaty being more or less synallagmatic’; lawmaking treaties generally seem susceptible to a more contextual and functional interpretation than ‘contractual treaties’. Cf S Rosenne, Developments in the Law of Treaties 1945–​1986 (CUP, Cambridge 1989) 182–​3. 9 Cf eg R Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) 136. 10 Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1869 UNTS 401, Annex 2, Art 3.2. For more on interpretation of WTO Agreements, cf I van Damme, ‘Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body’ (2010) 21 EJIL 605. 11 Chapter 19 addresses the VCLT’s general rules of treaty interpretation. Such interpretation is frequently described as ‘an art not an exact science’. Cf eg P Merkouris, ‘Interpretation is a Science, is an Art, is a Science’ in M Fitzmaurice and others (eds), Treaty Interpretation and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: 30 Years on (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2010) 8–​12. 12 Accord Gardiner (n 9) 127–​8.

526  Treaty Interpretation

I.  Interpretation of Constitutive Treaties What is a constitutive treaty? Generally, it is a treaty among States13 that establishes an institution with one or more organs with a ‘will’ distinct from that of those States creating it (to loosely adopt a generally accepted definition). Thus, the treaty legally constitutes the IO, and in doing so, details its functions and competences. But a constitutive treaty frequently also creates substantive rights or obligations for States parties. Thus, the UN Charter constitutes the UN, but also binds parties to specific conduct (eg Article 2(4)’s prohibition on the unlawful use of force). The interpretation of constitutive treaties is important, as it is the primary legal exercise for determining the IO’s competences. Thus, it often touches upon—​in political terms—​the degree to which the IO’s Member States are ‘Masters of the Treaty’. For a long time after the dawn of IOs in the second half of the nineteenth century, IOs were perceived as open platforms and functional vehicles for State action. They possessed little to no autonomy vis-​à-​vis their Member States, nor did they maintain ‘external relations’. The interpretation of a founding treaty for the purpose of establishing the organization’s competences was thus not a regular concern, and where it was at issue, the (Permanent) Court applied regular doctrine for treaty interpretation.14 Organizations themselves were very much looked at as a ‘contractual agreement’ between States, as Otto von Gierke wrote in 1868 about the Administrative Unions of his time.15 But the rise of IOs in the UN era led to a dramatic change in outlook on constitutive treaties. As IOs became more independent from their Member States, the treaties creating them garnered new attention.

A.  Constitutive treaties as a separate category Today, Article 5 VCLT affirms that constitutive treaties are a distinct class: ‘The Present Convention applies to any treaty which is the constituent instrument of an international organization and to any treaty adopted within an international organization without prejudice to any relevant rules of the organization’ (emphasis added). Thus, the VCLT applies to constitutive treaties by default, reserving to the IO the ability to have its rules govern the treaty creating it. In practice, this reservation clause has been focused on the IO’s rules involving consent to be bound, reservations, amendments, etc.16 But nothing in Article 5 precludes it 13 Although on occasion an IO can be a member of another IO; thus, the EU, for example, is a party to the constitutive treaties of the WTO and the FAO. 14 Klabbers (n 1) 51–​3. 15 O von Gierke, ‘Community in Historical Perspective’ in M Fisher (trans) of A Black (ed), Das Deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht (1868) (CUP, Cambridge 1990). 16 Art 5’s application to treaties ‘adopted within’ an IO may be less relevant as a separate category. The practice of big ‘open’ IOs on matters such as the text’s adoption does not differ much from its adoption in an ad hoc diplomatic conference organized by the IO. The International Law Commission’s Conclusions on Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties single out constitutive treaties in Conclusion 12. International Law Commission (ILC), ‘Draft Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties’ (with commentaries) ILC Report of 70th Session (2018), Official Records of the General Assembly, 73rd Sess, Supp No 10 (A/​73/​10), ch IV (‘ILC Conclusions on Interpretation’). Otherwise, cf DH Anderson, ‘Article 5 Convention of 1969’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I, 94–​5; and K Schmalenbach, ‘Article 5—​Treaties Constituting International Organizations and Treaties Adopted Within an International Organization’ in O Dörr

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  527 from applying to interpretation where an IO (as in the aforementioned WTO case) specifies one or more interpretative rules for its founding treaty. Underlying this distinctive treatment of constitutive treaties is the notion that they have a special nature. They are ‘self-​contained’, albeit not in the traditional sense of a particular area of substantive law or lex specialis,17 but rather as a semi-​independent or ‘internal’ legal order based on specific institutional rules. Constitutive treaties may even be seen as having a ‘constitutional’18 function, binding Member States to a set of coherent ‘internal’ laws on the IO’s competences, functions, and goals. Judge Alvarez’s dissenting opinion in the ICJ’s Genocide case emphasized the institutional character of IO constitutive treaties: the new international law, so far as concerns multilateral conventions of a special character . . . includes . . . those which seek to develop world international organization or to establish regional organizations . . .

Alvarez went on to argue that such treaties should not be linked to ‘[t]‌he preparatory work which preceded them; they are distinct from that work and have acquired a life of their own’.19 Some years later, a majority of the ICJ specifically referred to the ‘special’ nature of constitutive treaties: On the previous occasions when the Court has had to interpret the Charter of the United Nations, it has followed the principles and rules applicable in general to the interpretation of treaties, since it has recognised that the Charter is a multilateral treaty, albeit a treaty having certain special characteristics.20

Nor did the VCLT change the ICJ’s views. In a landmark ruling in response to a request of the World Health Organization (WHO) for an Advisory Opinion on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons, the Court emphasized that constitutive treaties are hybrid instruments, combining a multilateral treaty with a self-​contained or ‘institutional’ aspect: From a formal standpoint, the constitutive instruments of international organizations are multilateral treaties, to which the well-​established rules of treaty interpretation apply . . . But the constitutive instruments of international organizations are also treaties

and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018)  89–​99. 17 Hence IO legal orders arguably do not trigger the criticism of ‘self-​contained regimes’ set forth eg in B Simma and D Pulkovski, ‘Of Planets and the Universe: Self-​contained Regimes in International Law’ (2006) 17 EJIL 483. 18 Although the ‘constitutional’ aspect of treaties constituting IOs may explain their distinct treatment, this chapter does not engage with the (rich) debate on possible ‘constitutional’ features of treaty regimes and constitutional functions for the international community. On that subject cf eg J Dunoff and J Trachtman, Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance (CUP, Cambridge 2010); J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009). 19 Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Advisory Opinion) [1951] ICJ Rep 15, 51 (Dissenting Opinion of Judge Alvarez). 20 Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1962] ICJ Rep 151, 157 (emphasis added).

528  Treaty Interpretation of a particular type; their object is to create new subjects of law endowed with a certain autonomy, to which the parties entrust the task of realising common goals. Such treaties can raise specific problems of interpretation owing, inter alia, to their character which is conventional and at the same time institutional.21

B.  Specialized rules of interpretation Conceptualizing founding treaties as a separate treaty category has, in turn, made room for a specialized interpretive practice. In the same WHO Legality case, the Court pointed out that: the imperatives associated with the effective performance of its functions, as well as its own practice, are all elements which may deserve special attention when the time comes to interpret these constitutive treaties.22

What sort of ‘special attention’ do constitutive treaties receive? Traditionally, treaty interpretation accords considerable weight to the aspect of consent underlying the treaty. Hence, Articles 31 and 32 VCLT emphasize a textual approach, whether alone or in concert with an ‘intentional’ approach; a similar method may be gleaned from the ICJ’s practice.23 Moreover, although part of the VCLT rule, there is generally less concern for ‘object and purpose’ as a tool to establish the text’s meaning.24 In contrast, the interpretation of constitutive treaties appears generally inspired by the principle of effectiveness,25 and by an approach along the lines of Alvarez’s dissenting opinion26 (now en vogue for ‘objective regimes’), namely, conceptually to separate the treaty from the regime it creates. Accordingly, we find two trends in the interpretation of constitutive treaties27 that stand apart from the standard VCLT approaches: (i) a ‘teleological approach’ to the text, similar to 21 Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (Request by WHO) (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 66, 74–​5 (emphasis added) (‘WHO Legality case’). 22 Ibid (emphasis added). 23 Cf eg Anglo-​Iranian Oil Co (United Kingdom v Iran) (Judgment) [1952] ICJ Rep 93, 104 (‘[The Court] must seek the interpretation which is in harmony with a natural and reasonable way of reading the text, having due regard to the intention [of the Parties]’). For analysis of the textual and ‘subjective’ approach in ICJ jurisprudence, see S Torres Bernárdez, ‘Interpretation of Treaties by the International Court of Justice Following the Adoption of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ in G Hafner and others (eds), Liber Amicorum Professor Seidl-​ Hohenveldern (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1998) 721–​48. 24 Cf Arts 31–​33 VCLT and identical language found in the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, Arts 31–​33 (1986 VCLT). The ICJ applied the ‘object and purpose test’ in a moderate form eg in The Ambatielos Claim (Greece v United Kingdom) [1952] ICJ Rep 28, 45; cf I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 131 (‘there is also the risk that the placing of undue emphasis on the “object and purpose” of a treaty will encourage teleological methods of interpretation’). 25 A Orakhelashvili, The Interpretation of Acts and Rules in Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) 394, 397. 26 Alvarez (n 19); see also Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v Chad) [1994] ICJ Rep 6, 37–​8 [72]–​[73]. 27 T Sato, Evolving Constitutions of International Organizations (Brill, Dordrecht 1996) esp 41–​159 (including all ICJ cases involving constitutive instruments through 1982). Sato’s conclusions are more cautious than earlier ones by Denis Simon. Cf D Simon, L’interpretation judiciaire des traités d’organizations internationales: morphologie des conventions et fonction jurisdictionelle (Pedone, Paris 1981) 194 (‘l’interprétation jurisdictionelle des traités constitutifs tend effectivement priviléger le development des finalités institutionelles’); see also CE Amerasinghe, Principles of the International Law of International Organizations (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2005) 24–​65.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  529 traditions in national law of statutory interpretation in an organic, constitutional context; and (ii) a particular importance attached to the ‘practice of the organization’ as opposed to the practice of the original treaty parties.

1. The telos of the treaty and the organization’s function as an interpretive tool

Some terminological distinctions at this point are helpful. According to Article 31 VCLT, the ‘object and purpose’ is used to elucidate a textual approach for discerning the ‘ordinary meaning’ to be given to a treaty’s terms.28 This is not quite the same as a ‘teleological approach’, which in its classic sense is a general interpretive approach, taking the treaty’s objective as a guiding principle for interpretation of the text. In addition, there is a third, ‘evolutionary’ or ‘living instrument’ interpretive approach, which is yet different in that it takes into account the social context and may even necessitate reformulation of the original object and purpose.29 All three approaches play a role in interpreting constitutive treaties, but the teleological approach is most prominent. In some cases, a constitutive treaty text may be sufficiently clear that a textual approach is employed. The ICJ, for example, did so in the Conditions of Admission and IMCO cases.30 But where the text leaves room for doubt, the interpreter must decide on a guiding principle for further interpretation. The principle of in dubio mitius (favouring interpretations protecting the liberty of the third party or the sovereignty of individual States) is familiar from the context of ‘contractual treaties’ (traités–​contrat) and domestic contract law. Indeed, when the legal context suggests the contractual element of the constitutive instrument deserves priority—​for example, in contentious cases in which acceptance of the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction is at issue31—​the Court has adhered to the traditional rules for treaty interpretation and adopted a fairly conservative approach.32 But more often when it comes to constitutive treaties, in dubio mitius plays little role.33 In its place, interpreters rely on the principle of effet utile or effectiveness (sometimes called ‘functionality’).34 And when effectiveness is the guiding principle in the choice of interpretive methods, it generally brings on a teleological approach.

28 Gardiner (n 9) 211. 29 See Chapter 20; see also CM Brölmann, ‘Limits to the Treaty Paradigm’ in M Craven and M Fitzmaurice (eds), Interrogating the Treaty:  Essays in the Contemporary Law of Treaties (Wolf Legal Publishers, Nijmegen 2005) 28–​39; E Bjorge, ‘The Vienna Rules, Evolutionary Interpretation, and the Intentions of the Parties’ in A Bianchi, D Peat, and M Windsor (eds), Interpretation in International Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) 189–​204. 30 Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership in the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1948] ICJ Rep 48, 63. In the IMCO case, the ICJ interpreted ‘largest ship-​owning nations’ to be a function of registered tonnage based on the treaty text, its drafting history, and maritime usage generally. Constitution of the Maritime Safety Committee of the Inter-​Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (Advisory Opinion) [1960] ICJ Rep 150, 169. In doing so, the Court endorsed two ‘flags of convenience’ States falling under the interpreted term, even though from a teleological stance their participation may have been counterproductive to IMCO’s purpose of improving safety in shipping. 31 Rosenne (n 8) 234 (including case law references). 32 Cf Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [1984] ICJ Rep 392, 403–​11 [24]–​[42] (interpreting Art 36(5) ICJ Statute). 33 J Kokott, ‘States, Sovereign Equality’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2011) [26] online at . 34 Cf Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt (Advisory Opinion) [1980] ICJ Rep 73, 96 (emphasizing ‘their [of the host State and the organization] clear obligation to co-​operate in good faith to promote the objectives and purposes of the Organization’); cf Sato (n 27) 154.

530  Treaty Interpretation In the ICJ, the Reparation case,35 the Effects of Awards case,36 and the 1971 Namibia opinion37 are all instances where there was little attention for the ‘intentions’ of the treaty parties, while the degree of teleological reasoning in interpreting the UN Charter exceeded that of traditional interpretive exercises.38 In all three cases, moreover, the interpretation involved UN competence, suggesting that a teleological approach applies whenever the interpretation of the constitutive instrument is aimed at determining the competences of the IO, and thus moves within an institutional discourse.39 In such cases, it appears the Court generally departs from the traditional framework, ‘proceed[ing] directly to an interpretation of the constitutive instrument as it stands at the time of the interpretation’,40 with a corresponding disinterest for the intention of the parties and the travaux préparatoires.41 Beyond recognizing an IO’s implied powers, the ICJ’s Reparation case is the canonical example of teleological treaty interpretation, explicitly inspired by the principle of effectiveness. The Court, without precedent of any of the new ‘constitutional’ perspectives on IO constitutive treaties, attributed legal personality to the organization ‘by some unorthodox [viz teleological] reasoning’,42 even though it could have reached the same conclusion along more traditional lines, using the travaux préparatoires of the Charter. In fact, part of the San Francisco Conference had considered international legal personality to be implied by the Charter as a whole.43 The other landmark decision in this respect is the 1996 WHO Legality case, where the ICJ seemed to take its interpretive exercise one step beyond a regular (even if teleological) treaty interpretation. After it determined the functions of the organization by reference to the classic law of treaties interpretive canon,44 the Court moved into a teleological discourse, proceeding from the functions of the organization, rather than working towards establishing them. This included not only references to ‘the practice followed by the Organization’,45 but also an—​unprecedented—​constitutional or ‘systemic approach’ in which it relied on an interpretation of the UN Charter reference to ‘specialized agency’ as the basis for limiting its reading of the WHO Constitution: 35 See generally Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1949] ICJ Rep 174 (‘Reparation case’). 36 Effect of Awards of Compensation made by the United Nations Administrative Tribunal (Advisory Opinion) [1954] ICJ Rep 47, 53 (relying on the teleological approach for the competence of the UNGA to establish the Administrative Tribunal, but on the textual approach for determining the judicial nature of the Tribunal itself). 37 See generally Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South-​West Africa) (Advisory Opinion) [1971] ICJ Rep 16. 38 Not everyone endorsed this approach; Rosenne and Sinclair both criticized it. Rosenne (n 8) 237 (seeing teleological approach for constitutive treaties as potentially ‘unproductive in the political sense and [ . . . ] prejudicial to the authority of the Court’); Sinclair (n 24) 131. 39 Here, the doctrine of ‘implied powers’ holds a prominent place. Cf eg Reparation case (n 35) 182; WHO Legality case (n 21) 79. For examples in which the contractual element of a constitutive treaty is dominant, and the classic interpretive rules are applied, see n 30 and accompanying text. 40 Rosenne (n 8) 234; cf ibid 195 (finding, with regard to ICJ interpretation of the UN Charter, that there is ‘little doubt that adherence to “traditional” legal concepts of the law of treaties is not a prominent feature of the interpretation of those provisions by the Court, although it is not displaced entirely’). 41 For in-​depth studies of the interpretation of IO constitutions, see Sato (n 27)  (re the ICJ); Rosenne (n 8) 234; Simon (n 27). A seminal treatise is the chapter on ‘Interpretation of Constitutions’ in E Lauterpacht, ‘The Development of the Law of International Organization by the Decisions of International Tribunals’ (1976/​IV) 135 RcD 379, 414–​65. 42 Rosenne (n 8) 238. For the Court’s reasoning, see Reparation case (n 35) 179. 43 12 UNCIO 703, 710 (Committee no IV/​2 of San Francisco Conference of opinion that no explicit reference to UN international personality was needed as ‘[i]‌n effect, it will be determined implicitly from the provisions of the Charter taken as a whole’); Rosenne (n 8) 238. 44 WHO Legality case (n 21) 75–​6. 45 Ibid 76 [21]; see also n 48 and accompanying text.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  531 As these provisions [in Article 63 UN Charter] demonstrate, the Charter of the United Nations laid the basis of a ‘system’ designed to organise international cooperation in a coherent fashion . . . It follows . . . that the WHO Constitution can only be interpreted, as far as the powers conferred upon that Organization are concerned, by taking due account . . . also of the logic of the overall system contemplated by the Charter . . . [A]‌ny other conclusion would render virtually meaningless the notion of a specialised agency.46

2. Practice of the organization as an interpretive tool A second feature of constitutive treaty interpretation (especially by the ICJ) involves referencing ‘the practice of the organization’.47 Even in decisions that emphatically rely on traditional methods of interpretation, there seems to be additional recourse to consistent practice by the IO itself.48 In the WHO Legality case, the ICJ reaffirmed that an organization’s constitutive treaty was to be: [i]‌nterpreted in accordance with their ordinary meaning, in their context and in the light of the object and purpose of the . . . Constitution, as well as of the practice followed by the Organization.49

But this practice of the organization is not to be confused with the ‘subsequent practice’ of the contracting parties from which their anticipatory consent to the treaty’s interpretation can be construed. In other words, IO practice cannot be put on the same footing as the interpretive tool envisaged by Article 31(3)(b) VCLT.50 The reason is precisely that the organization’s application of its constitutive treaty is to be attributed to the organization itself, independent of the ‘will’ or intention of the contracting parties.51 If and when the ‘practice of the organization’ as such is accepted as relevant for the purpose of interpretation (common in interpretive exercises regarding the functions of the organization), it means a new tool is added to the law of treaties armamentarium, while (as, for example, in the ICJ’s Opinions involving interpretation of IO constitutions) the ‘subsequent practice’ of the parties mentioned in Article 31 VCLT disappears into the background.52 To determine when we are dealing with ‘subsequent practice’ of the organization or of the (Member) States can be problematic. It has been observed that ‘[i]‌n principle relevant practice will be that of those on whom the obligation of performance falls’;53 often those 46 WHO Legality case (n 21)  79–​80 [26] (emphasis added). For more on ‘functional decentralisation’ see Schermers and Blokker (n 1) [1693]. 47 Cf Certain Expenses case (n 20) 157; Namibia case (n 37) 22 [22]; see also Sato (n 27) 41–​159. 48 Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations [1950] ICJ Rep 7, 9. 49 WHO Legality case (n 21) 76 [21] (emphasis added). Note that both in Art 2(1)(j) of the 1986 VCLT and Art 2(b) of the 2011 ILC Draft Articles on the Responsibility of IOs (‘DARIO), the ‘rules of the organization’ are defined as comprising ‘the constituent instruments . . . and . . . established practice of the organization’. See Art 2(1)(j) of the 1986 VCLT; DARIO [2011] YBILC, vol II, 39, 40 (Art 2(b)). 50 Art 31(3)(b) of both the 1969 and 1986 VCLT requires interpreters to take account of ‘any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation’. See discussion of this provision in Chapter 19, Section II.A.2, 459 et seq. 51 But see paragraph 45 of ‘Written Statement submitted on behalf of the Secretary-​General of the United Nations of 2 October 1998’ in relation to Difference relating to Immunity from Legal Process of a Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights [1999] ICJ Rep 62 (implicitly equating ‘the established practice of the Organization, as confirmed by the Mazilu opinion’ with the ‘subsequent practice’ of Art 31(3)(b) of the 1969 and 1986 VCLT). 52 There is a similar dearth of (substantive) references to the intention of the parties. Cf eg Lauterpacht (n 41) 438 et seq. See also ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) [26]–​[37]. 53 Gardiner (n 9) 281, cited also in ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) 101 [23].

532  Treaty Interpretation will be States. The 2018 ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties (‘ILC Conclusions on Interpretation’) single out the practice of the organization as such, and also a rich and layered notion of ‘Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice of the parties [ . . . that . . .] may arise from, or be expressed in, the practice of an international organization’.54 It is worth recalling the much more restrained approach to ‘practice of the organization’ in the 2018 ILC Conclusions on Identification of Customary International Law—​in Conclusion 4(2) and commentary55—​ even if the contrast is possibly more contextual than conceptual.56 Otherwise, the commentary to Conclusion 12(2) of the ILC Conclusions on Interpretation points out how the authorship of relevant practice even might be shared between the organization and the Member States, as when the ICJ in the Wall case subtly refers to ‘the accepted practice of the General Assembly’.57 Finally, there have been interpretive references to the practice of a particular IO organ rather than to the practice of the organization as such. In such cases, the practice of organs may be considered to have the same legal effect as that of the IO on the principle that organs represent the international legal person in its entirety.58 Article 2(1) VCLT references ‘the established practice of the organization’ as a form of ‘rules of the organization’,59 but leaves the internal division of IO competences entirely to the institutional discretion of the organization. From the perspective of general international law and the law of treaties such decentralization within the organization clearly removes the IO’s Member States one step further from control of the IO ‘practice’, which may subsequently shape the interpretation of the treaty to which they originally became a party. Put differently, relying on the practice of IO organs adds another layer between the general law of treaties and the constitutive treaty to be interpreted. Judge Spender already noted this fact in his Certain Expenses dissent: I find difficulty in accepting the proposition that a practice pursued by an organ of the United Nations may be equated with the subsequent conduct of parties to a bilateral agreement and thus afford evidence of intention of the parties to the Charter.60

Nonetheless, the Court reaffirmed the validity of employing the practice of an IO organ (in casu the UN’s Security Council) as an interpretive tool in the Namibia opinion.61

54 ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16), Conclusion 12(3) and (2), respectively (emphasis added). 55 ILC, ‘Conclusions on identification of Customary International Law, with commentaries’ (2018) ILC Report of the 70th Sess, UN Doc A/​73/​10, ch V, 130–​1. 56 As constitutive treaty interpretation is a more diffuse and ‘inward-​turned’ exercise than the identification of a rule of customary international law, it may require less stringent parameters for the determination of practice; this is not unlike the way attribution of conduct with the consequence of rendering applicable a particular field of law has seemed to allow for a lower threshold than attribution of conduct with the consequence of making a State legally responsible—​something which famously led to divergent concepts of ‘control’ in the ICTY and the ICJ (an issue that lies outside the scope of this chapter). 57 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136, 150 (emphasis added); see ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) 100. 58 Analogous reasoning justifies extending an IO’s treaty-​making capacity to its organs—​such as the UN’s treaty-​making capacity extending to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 59 Art 2(1)(j) of the 1986 VCLT (‘ “rules of the organization” means, in particular, the constituent instruments, decisions and resolutions adopted in accordance with them, and established practice of the organization’). 60 Certain Expenses case (n 20) 189 (emphasis in the original). 61 Namibia case (n 37) 22 [22].

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  533 The role of the ‘practice of the organization’ in treaty interpretation may be further complicated if such practice plays dual roles. At times, IO practice might be a tool to establish the correct interpretation of the treaty text; at other times, the IO practice itself might be an interpretation of that text. This distinction between interpretation and application is, however, often fuzzy. The premise that ‘when the meaning of the treaty is clear, it is “applied”, not “interpreted” ’,62 has been convincingly questioned with regard to treaties in general and seems especially relevant with respect to organizations.63 A broad approach appears warranted, where many instances of application can be regarded as implicit acts of interpretation.64 This is all the more so since interpretation in turn is a key method for IOs to change the rules of the organization when formal amendment of the constitutive treaty is not feasible.65

C.  Constitutive treaties beyond the UN Charter For reasons noted at the outset, the discussion so far has had a UN focus. But interpretation of constitutive treaties other than the UN Charter generally shows the same pattern.66 Special attention, however, is due to interpretation of the treaties establishing the EU (including the earlier European Community) by the CJEU (previously the European Court of Justice). These do not differ substantively from the ICJ’s interpretive exercises, even though the CJEU is meant to operate only within the—​comparatively ‘constitutional’—​EU legal order.67 Although the CJEU has not rejected the VCLT framework, it has tended to cite only the first paragraph of Article 31.68 Moreover, in its (sparse) references to the rules of interpretation as part of the general law of treaties, the CJEU can be seen to employ a large degree of teleological reasoning coupled with a reluctance to use the travaux préparatoires as a supplementary means of interpretation.69 In the same vein, the CJEU does not generally recognize subsequent practice of the treaty parties as a tool for interpreting the EU Treaties.70 As a further sign of its self-​contained outlook, the European Court has been known to perform, as one commentator put it, a ‘Baron von Münchhausen trick’ relying on the object 62 A McNair, The Law of Treaties (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 1961) 365 n1; cf also M Milanovic, ‘The ICJ and Evolutionary Treaty Interpretation’ (14 July 2009) EJIL Talk! (interpretation is ‘the activity of establishing the linguistic or semantic meaning of a text; [application is] the activity of translating that text into workable legal rules to be applied in a given case’). 63 Cf eg Gardiner (n 9) 26–​30; Chapter 19, Preliminary Considerations, 461–62 et seq. 64 See Schermers and Blokker (n 1) [1351]. 65 Ibid [1185]; P Kunig, ‘Interpretation of United Nations Charter’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2006) online at . 66 See eg Amerasinghe (n 27) 24–​65; Schermers and Blokker (n 1) [1346]–​[1350]. 67 The CJEU’s interpretations address, however, both the founding treaties for the EU and treaties between the EU and non-​Member States. See Gardiner (n 9) 137–​40. For a discussion of EU external treaty relations, see Chapter 6. 68 Gardiner (n 9) 137–​40. 69 Cf eg PJ Kuijper, ‘The Court and the Tribunal of the EC and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969’ (1999) 25 Legal Issues of Euro Integ 1–​23 (‘Kuijper 1999’); PJ Kuijper, ‘The European Courts and the Law of Treaties: The Continuing Story’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 256–​78 (‘Kuijper 2011’). 70 The Court made this point explicitly in Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission [1994] ECR I-​3641 (point 36) and Opinion 1/​94 [1994] ECR I-​5267 (point 52 and 61). Contrary to the ICJ, however, the CJEU does not seem to accept (as yet) the subsequent practice of Community institutions for purposes of interpretation. See Kuijper 1999 (n 69) esp 9–​10.

534  Treaty Interpretation and purpose test of Article 31(1) VCLT in its interpretation of an EU constitutive treaty71 to underscore the special character of that treaty, and then using its own case law as ‘context’ in the sense of Article 31(2) VCLT to substantiate the particular character of that EU treaty as opposed to another treaty concluded among EU Member States.72 Taken together, these patterns show constitutive treaty interpretation moving out of a contractual framework into an institutional one—​and thus out of the law of treaties discourse into the institutional law discourse—​in which ‘treaty parties’ become ‘Member States’. Nor is this move limited to international tribunals. Consider a (lesser known) case before the Netherlands’ Council of State by the Dutch Seamen’s Welfare Foundation, addressing the interpretation of the constitutive treaty of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The Foundation argued that ‘ratification’ of an ILO treaty by ILO Member States pursuant to Article 19(5) of the ILO Constitution implied that the previous stage of ‘adoption’ by the ILO Plenary Conference (per Article 19(1) ILO Constitution) equalled ‘signature’ in terms of the law of treaties. As such, the Netherlands as an ILO member had incurred a legal obligation under Article 18 VCLT73 not to defeat the object and purpose of ILO Treaty No 163 (concerning Seafarers’ Welfare) after its ‘adoption’ in the ILO Plenary Conference—​ an obligation the Netherlands was claimed to have breached by terminating a subsidy to the Foundation. The Council of State, however, did not adopt this contractual view of ILO treaty-​making. Instead, it considered the adoption of ILO Convention No 163 to be part of an institutional legal process, to which Article 18 VCLT did not apply.74

D.  Interpretation of IO secondary law The cutting face between a contractual framework and an institutional framework for interpretation is brought out even more by those rules that are the ‘secondary law’ of IOs. These are the normative acts produced by IOs, which derive their original validity from the primary law of the organization, that is, the constitutive treaties.75 Most IOs have organs that can take decisions binding on the organization (with ‘internal’ effect) or upon Member States. Sometimes this competence is given to non-​plenary organs, and sometimes the rules enacted by the organization are binding on a resolutive condition, such as the ‘standards’ adopted or amended by the Council in the International Civil Aviation Organization by a two-​thirds majority.76 Comparable procedures for the enactment of ‘regulatory acts’ exist 71 Cf eg Opinion 1/​91 [1991] ECR I-​6079 (point 14); Case 270/​80 Polydor v Harlequin Records [1982] ECR 329. 72 Kuijper 1999 (n 69) 2–​4. 73 For a detailed discussion of Art 18 VCLT see Chapter 9 (224 et seq) of this edition and Chapter 8 of this volume’s first edition: C Bradley, ‘Treaty Signature’ in D Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (OUP, Oxford 2012) Ch 8. 74 Dutch Seamen’s Welfare Foundation [Stichting Zeemanswelzijn Nederland] v The Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, 27 July 2005, Administrative Law Division of the Council of State (200410468/​ 1, LJN No. AU0095, AB (2006) No. 177). For an English translation and commentary see Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts (OUP, Oxford 2009) . 75 The scope of normative acts will differ from IO to IO, and will (largely) depend on ‘what the constituent treaty says’, but as Klabbers notes, a treaty may not be clear on what acts are authorized and unanticipated acts may emerge in practice. Klabbers (n 1) 155. Moreover, distinctions must be made between IO normative acts that are legally binding versus those that are not. Ibid 182. 76 Convention on International Civil Aviation (opened for signature 7 December 1944, entered into force 4 April 1947) 15 UNTS 295, Arts 37, 54(1), 90.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  535 in the WHO (where lawmaking functions reside in the plenary organ) and in several other UN Specialized Agencies.77 There has been some debate as to whether this growing body of rules78 constitutes (i) derivative (or ‘delegated’) treaty obligations for the IO’s Member States—​that is, deriving from the constitutive treaty, or whether they, on the other hand, amount to (ii) legislative acts by an organization simply binding its Member States.79 Essentially the same question arises in asking whether various systems of IO standard-​setting are covered by existing categories of sources, or rather constitute a new source of international law.80 Both views are defensible and the debate is so far inconclusive (which legitimates secondary IO rules being treated in the current Section I): on the one hand, the binding character of regulatory acts can be construed from an ex ante expression of consent on the part of States;81 on the other hand, their binding force can be traced to the institutional competences of the decision-​making organ as such. That said, the latter perspective is increasingly dominant among public international law scholars.82 The EU is an example of an organization that from the outset expressly had the legislative paradigm prevail for reasons of practical and doctrinal necessity: obligations stemming from EU law (Articles 288 and 289 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)) are clearly set apart from obligations stemming from the EU’s founding treaties, or primary European law. Still, in the external international framework, the CJEU (first ECJ) had made a notable move that can be said to amount to a paradigm shift: the Court of First Instance in 2005 conceptualized UNSC Resolutions as derivates of the UN Charter (with an ensuing concern about judicial review and a possible breach of the conflict clause in Article 108 UN Charter),83 whereas the Grand Chamber in 2008 famously abandoned the law of treaties paradigm to shift to a ‘constitutional’ perspective.84

77 WHO Constitution (opened for signature 22 July 1946, entered into force 7 April 1948) 14 UNTS 185, Arts 21–​22; see also CH Alexandrowicz, The Law-​Making Functions of the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations (Angus and Robertson, London 1973) 40–​69 (on ‘quasi-​legislative acts’ of Specialized Agencies); F Kirgis, ‘Specialized Law-​Making Processes’ in C Joyner (ed), The United Nations and International Law (CUP, Cambridge 1997) 65, 70 et seq. 78 M Benzing, ‘International Organizations or Institutions, Secondary Law’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2007) online at . 79 Compare M Fitzmaurice, ‘Modifications to the Principles of Consent in Relation to Certain Treaty Obligations’ (1997) ARIEL 275, 316–​17 (adhering to the derivative view) with Alexandrowicz (n 77) 152 (on the regulatory acts of UN Specialised Agencies: ‘this is no doubt an extra-​treaty process’). 80 Compare GM Danilenko, Law-​Making in the International Community (Martinus Nijhoff, Boston 1993) 192 (‘they hardly qualify as new formal sources of general international law existing independently of a specific treaty arrangement’) with V Degan, Sources of International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, Boston 1997) 6 (considering ‘non-​ obligatory’ rules such as ICAO standards, to which, nevertheless, ‘the respective states almost invariably conform themselves’, as a possible newly emerging source of international law). 81 This was the ICJ’s approach to dealing with the conflict between the 1971 Montreal Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 748—​originating under the UN Charter—​as a traditional case of conflicting treaties. Cf Case concerning Questions of Interpretation and Application of the 1971 Montreal Convention Arising from the Aerial Incident at Lockerbie (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United States) (Provisional Measures) [1992] ICJ Rep 126. 82 Cf C Tomuschat, ‘Obligations Arising for States Without or Against Their Will’ (1993) 241 RdC 195, 328 (‘An honest assessment of the new legal position created by the establishment of an international organization must find a different justification’). 83 Case T-​315/​01 Yassin Abdullah Kadi v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities (21 September 2005) [2005] ECR II-​3649 (‘Kadi I CFI’). 84 Joined Cases C-​402/​05P and C-​415/​05P Yassin Abdullah Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities (3 September 2008) [2008] ECR I-​ 6351 (‘Kadi I ECJ’).

536  Treaty Interpretation Meanwhile, when it comes to IO secondary law in general, the interpretative practice differs somewhat from the practice relating to constitutive instruments. An additional principle favouring the ‘paramount importance of contextual interpretation’ is at work, meaning that ‘legal acts always have to be construed by reference to and in accordance with the constitutive instrument of the organization’ and ‘in conformity with general international law binding on the international organization, especially rules of jus cogens’.85 Moreover, some scholars emphasize that, contrary to primary IO law (ie the constituent treaty), ‘interpretation according to the object and purpose, has to be referred to more cautiously . . . This is a result of the delegated character of secondary rules’.86 In the context of the EU ‘lawmaking’ done pursuant to authorities in EU treaties, the very paradigm of ‘treaty interpretation’ has retreated into the background.87

II.  Organizations as Interpreters This section briefly addresses the organization’s role as interpreter of its constitutive treaty or (especially in the case of ‘treaty organs’) of other treaties, so it is about the authority to interpret. It is fair to say that ‘the invisible college’ of international (institutional) lawyers is fragmented along the functional lines of the different international organizations; we may then assume that each organization represents a single epistemic community, or ‘interpretive community’.88 However, this is not necessarily so—​think of the ‘three UNs’;89 or of the well-​ known contrast between the UN sector involved in Peace and Security (‘New York’) and the UN sector involved in Human Rights work (‘Geneva’). Added to this is the fact that different professions in law—​the legal adviser and the judge, to name two—​are known to form distinctive interpretive communities.90 This said, for reasons of simplicity the following will consider the interpretive powers borne (A) by the organization in general, including organs and ‘treaty organs’, and (B) by (organs of) the organization in a judicial function. Section (C) will touch upon the largely unclassified phenomenon of COPs and MOPs.

A.  Interpretation by the organization The constitutive treaty and the secondary rules of the organization are interpreted first of all by IOs themselves.91 In a well-​known passage in the Certain Expenses case, the ICJ examined which IO organs had interpretive authority: 85 Benzing (n 78) [47]. 86 Ibid [48]; see also Orakhelashvili (n 25) 486–​93. 87 Cf Kuijper 2011 (n 69) 268–​70 (survey of CJEU practice). 88 For this slightly different and in the context of this chapter more apposite notion, see M Waibel, ‘Interpretive Communities in International Law’ in Bianchi and others (n 29) 147–​65. 89 Namely, the Secretariat, Member States, and NGOs. Cf T Weiss, T Carayannis, and R Jolly, ‘The “Third” United Nations’ (2009) 15 Global Governance 123–​42. 90 A Zidar, ‘Interpretation and the International Legal Profession—​Between Duty and Aspiration’ in Bianchi and others (n 29) 133–​46. 91 O Schachter, ‘The UN Legal Order: An Overview’ in C Joyner (ed), The United Nations and International Law (CUP, Cambridge 1997) 3, 9–​13; Rosenne (n 8) 241 (with references); Sato (n 27) 161–​226 (detailed survey analysing the legal effects of such interpretations); see also ‘International Bureaucracies as Actors in Legal Discourse’ in I Venzke, The Practice of Interpretation and International Law:  On the Semantic Authority of International

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  537 In the legal systems of States, there is often some procedure for determining the validity of even a legislative or governmental act, but no analogous procedure is to be found in the structure of the United Nations . . . As anticipated in 1945 therefore, each organ must, in the first place at least, determine its own jurisdiction.92

Thus, when the question arises which organ(s) are competent to interpret the constituent instrument, it is in the first place the rules of the organization that determine this (as general international law is agnostic on this point). A recent study has confirmed this course.93 This section excludes international ‘courts and tribunals’ (discussed separately later), but includes so-​called ‘treaty organs’,94 so long as their activity is not limited to (semi-​)judicial review of cases but also entails, inter alia, issuing general legal comments. Occasionally, bodies created by non-​constitutive treaties are incorporated in an international organization, and become treaty organs (or treaty bodies) or ‘expert bodies’ (in ILC terminology).95 Treaty organs may interpret (constitutive and other) treaties and to an extent their incorporation can be mentioned under ‘the organization at large’ even if their existence was not envisaged by the constitutive treaty. For example, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) was established by the States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) rather than by the treaty itself.96 Yet, the CESCR does produce General Comments, as does the Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).97 Such interpretive role of IOs is an expression of—​in institutional rather than treaty terms—​the IO’s compétence de la compétence.98 In a classic voluntarist framework, a treaty is interpreted by its parties, with additional interpretive tools such as ‘subsequent practice’ (Article 31(3) VCLT) easily traceable to the original States parties’ consent. However, in the interpretation of IO functions and competences laid out in constitutive treaties, the role of the contracting parties seems to have moved to the background. States are simply less likely unilaterally to interpret constitutive instruments of treaties, although as the Dutch Seamen’s Welfare Foundation case suggests, States (or their organs) will still do so on occasion. States undoubtedly continue to Institutions in Communicative Law-​making (OUP, Oxford 2012) Ch III.A (expounding how international institutions, comprising both international ‘bureaucracies’ and ‘international courts’, have a large degree of semantic authority in the attribution of meaning to treaty texts). 92 Certain Expenses case (n 20) 168 (emphasis added). 93 ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) 102 [31] (‘Many international organizations share the same characteristic of not providing for an “ultimate authority to interpret” their constituent instrument. The conclusion that the Court has drawn from this circumstance is therefore now generally accepted as being applicable to international organizations’). 94 For a discussion of treaty bodies and treaty regimes, see Chapter 17; see also Schermers and Blokker (n 1) [386]–​[388]. 95 The ILC Conclusions on Interpretation, which rubricate on the basis of institutional features and not function, include a separate Conclusion 13 ‘Pronouncements of expert treaty bodies’. See ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) 106–​16. 96 ICESCR (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3. The CESCR was established by ECOSOC Res 1985/​17 (28 May 1985). 97 ICCPR (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171, Art 28. 98 Cf DB Hollis, ‘Why State Consent Still Matters: Non-​State Actors, Treaties, and the Changing Sources of International Law’ (2005) 23 Berkeley J Intl L 137, 165–​71; Orakhelashvili (n 25) 511–​24.

538  Treaty Interpretation auto-​interpret legal-​substantive (as opposed to ‘constitutional’) provisions of constitutive treaties (eg Article 51 UN Charter on self-​defence; Article 7 ICCPR’s prohibition on torture) irrespective of any interpretations of those provisions by the IO or its organs. But, for IO functions and competence, the IO drives the interpretative enterprise, as indicated by the fact that essentially all ICJ cases involving interpretations of constitutive treaties came via advisory opinions—​requested by the Organization—​and not inter-​State contentious cases. Having an organization interpret the constitutive instrument by which it was created is, however, a phenomenon that has long served as a fault line between the treaty perspective and the institutional perspective.99 Proceeding from the latter, it makes sense that an IO would determine its own competences and test its own mandate by going back to its constitutive treaty. But, in a contractual framework, there is less support for the IO doing so in lieu of the original contracting parties, and the notion has virtually no place in the VCLT system.100 It has nonetheless become a generally accepted approach to IO law. In the same way, treaty bodies regularly engage in interpretation of ‘their’ treaty. When done in a teleological spirit, this can spur a general lawmaking process, as when the CESCR inferred a right to water from Articles 11 and 12 ICESCR.101 In other instances, the treaty organ’s interpretation may produce controversy, as was the case in 1994 with the Human Rights Committee’s self-​declared right to judge reservations to the ICCPR.102 In the case of the UN, both the Security Council and the General Assembly have claimed (and exercised) such self-​interpretive authority.103 Famous examples include the Security Council’s interpretation of Article 39 UN Charter’s ‘threat to the international peace’ provision to include situations within existing State borders,104 and the General Assembly’s claim, under the Uniting for Peace Resolution, to a role in furthering international peace and security, including the establishment of peacekeeping missions.105 If we view the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), not as a distinct Court, but as a subsidiary organ established by the UN Security Council pursuant to Article 41 UN Charter, the notorious passage in the 1995 Tadic case (where the Tribunal assessed and approved of its own existence based on UNSC competence) is another case in point.106 Organs of other organizations, such as at the ILO or the Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), have also produced relevant interpretations, generating subsequent adherence.107

99 EP Hexner, ‘Interpretation by Public International Organizations of their Basic Instruments’ (1959) 53 AJIL 341, 343 (‘the function of authoritative interpretation rests with the ordinary executive organs of these [Bretton Woods] institutions and not with any tribunal external to them’). 100 The one notable exception is Art 20 VCLT where, in requiring the competent IO organ to accept reservations to the IO’s constituent instrument (unless the treaty otherwise provides), IO organs presumably interpret their constituent instrument. 101 CESCR General Comment 15 (20 January 2003) E/​C.12/​2002/​11. 102 UNCHR, ‘General Comment No. 24’ (4 November 1994) CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev.1/​Add.6; see also ‘Observations of the United States and the United Kingdom on General Comment 24’ (28 March 1995) UN Doc A/​50/​40. 103 Cf Kunig (n 65) [16]. 104 Cf UNSC Res 232 (16 December 1966) UN Doc S/​RES/​232 (1966); UNSC Res 418 (4 November 1977) UN Doc S/​RES/​418. 105 UNGA, ‘Uniting for Peace Resolution’ (3 November 1950) UN Doc A/​RES/​377 (V). 106 Prosecutor v Dusko Tadić a/​k/​a ‘Dule’ (Decision on the Defense Motion for the Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 2 October 1995 (Case No IT-​94-​1-​AR72) [26]–​[40]. 107 Amerasinghe (n 27) 25–​6.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  539

B.  (Semi-​)Judicial interpretation Although some courts are organs of an IO, it is more helpful to conceptualize them primarily as independent reviewers—​and in that sense (semi-​)judicial interpreters—​of the application of legal rules in a constitutive treaty. Hence, in this chapter, international courts and tribunals are set aside from (organs of) ‘international organizations’, even when they are not domestic courts or stand-​alone international tribunals such as the International Criminal Court,108 but rather bodies that institutionally belong to a particular organization (eg the ICJ as the UN’s principal judicial organ) or functional sphere (eg the European Court of Human Rights as part of the Council of Europe). Thus, in addition to the IO itself, these bodies exist to interpret constitutive treaties, most often the regulatory part of the same treaty that created them. This chapter focuses on the constitutional components of these treaties; as indicated earlier, disputes over the interpretation of the non-​constitutive parts of the treaty are best approached under the VCLT’s general interpretative framework. The interpretation of an organization’s primary or secondary law is singled out and detached from the application whenever it is the subject of a declared difference of opinion or dispute. In these cases, the relevant choices of procedure, body, and competence are governed (in principle) by the rules of the organization itself, notably those laid down in the constitutive instrument. As is clear from Section I of this chapter, through its advisory function, the ICJ has an important role in the interpretation of institutional questions of the Charter regime. Likewise, the work of the CJEU and its predecessors has elucidated fine points of the institutional facets of the European Union. Often constitutive treaties such as the UN Charter are silent about the competent interpretive authority in case of dispute. At the San Francisco Conference in 1944, the proposal to appoint the ICJ as the authoritative interpreter of the Charter was rejected.109 However, even without the formal attribution, the Court has subsequently (and logically) assumed a central role in the Charter’s interpretation. And that role has been generally accepted (witness the large number of cases). This said, neither the request for an advisory opinion to the Court—​nor the outcome—​are formally binding, so other (diplomatic) means of resolving an interpretive dispute may always be sought.110 Some constitutive treaties do envisage a binding decision, whether by the ICJ (eg Article 37 ILO Constitution) or by an arbitral tribunal (eg Article XIV UNESCO Constitution). Other founding treaties provide for non-​binding opinions by the ICJ or another tribunal, often as a last resort. An alternative mechanism, seen most often with international financial institutions (IFIs), gives final and binding interpretative competence to the IFI’s supreme plenary organ.111 In sum, interpretation of the constitutive treaty and the secondary 108 See eg the recent Case of The Prosecutor v Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-​Bashir (Judgment 6 May 2019) ICC Appeals Chamber No ICC-​02/​05-​01/​09 OA2 (ICC undertakes to give a decisive interpretation of the Rome Statute). 109 Cf Doc XII UNCIO 709; Certain Expenses case (n 20)  168 (‘Proposals made during the drafting of the Charter to place the ultimate authority to interpret the Charter in the International Court of Justice were not accepted . . . As anticipated in 1945, therefore, each organ must, in the first place at least, determine its own jurisdiction’); Kunig (n 65) [7]‌. 110 An assertion by one or more States parties of a right to intervene under Art 63 ICJ Statute when a (binding) interpretation is at issue would greatly complicate the ICJ’s interpretation of a constitutive treaty. As yet, however, that situation has not presented itself. 111 See eg IMF Articles of Agreement (adopted 22 July 1944, entered into force 27 December 1945) 2 UNTS 39, Art XXIX(a). These variations and other provisions are discussed by Amerasinghe (n 27) 26–​32.

540  Treaty Interpretation rules of an organization is entrusted first of all to the organization and to competent (semi-​) judicial bodies.

C.  Interpretation by conferences and meetings of the parties That said, a phenomenon gaining importance in recent decades is the continuous process of treaty interpretation (if not implementation and review) in the periodic conferences of States parties to a treaty which take place under different headings—​most notably that of conferences of the parties (COPs) and meetings of the parties (MOPs). Some conferences are an organ of an existing international organization (as in the WTO, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation (ICAO));112 others (as in many multilateral environmental treaties) are not. Even if most COPs according to most commentators do not amount to an international organization,113 they do bring an institutional dimension to the treaty regime, which warrants their being mentioned at the fringes of IOs’ interpretive practices. Conclusion 11(3) of the ILC Conclusions on Interpretation—​ which at present offers one of the most systematic legal descriptions of COP and MOP practices with regard to interpretation from the point of view of general international law—​confirms  that A decision adopted within the framework of a Conference of States Parties embodies a subsequent agreement or subsequent practice under [VCLT] article 31, paragraph 3, in so far as it expresses agreement in substance between the parties regarding the interpretation of a treaty, regardless of the form and the procedure by which the decision was adopted, including adoption by consensus.114

Concluding Remarks Interpretive practice vis-​à-​vis constitutive treaties (or the segments in these treaties which regulate the functioning of the organization rather than the behaviour of the States parties) and secondary rules of an organization can be said to differ from general treaty interpretation notably because of two features. First, special weight is given to the ‘object and purpose’ of the treaty by way of a general teleological approach to interpretation, rather than as a means to establish the text’s ‘ordinary meaning’ per Article 31 VCLT. Second, special weight is also given to the subsequent practice of the organization. In contrast, classic interpretive methods that safeguard the State party’s ‘sovereign will’—​such as recourse to the travaux préparatoires, party intention, and the subsequent practice of treaty parties—​seem to have faded into the background.

112 ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16) 83 (Commentary to Conclusion 11(1)). 113 T Staal, Authority and Legitimacy of Environmental Post-​Treaty Rules (Hart, Oxford 2019). 114 ILC Conclusions on Interpretation (n 16)  82–​93. For more on COPs and MOPs in relation to the law of treaties, see Chapter 17.

Rules of Treaty Interpretation: IOs  541 Arguably, these points of distinction are brought into the interpretive process by the extra layer of the IO legal order. Or, from a doctrinal perspective, these distinctions reflect a shift from a contractual (treaty) approach to constitutive treaties to an institutional perspective (or even ‘paradigm’). As a result, it is the IO, not the States parties, that ends up taking on interpretative questions. That additional layer, which is constituted by the institutional order with ‘rules of the organization’ (cf Article 5 VCLT), is visible also in the mechanism of IOs as treaty interpreters. Interpretation of the rules of IOs begs a basic question that does not arise with other treaties: is treaty interpretation even at issue, or is it about a different exercise, viz the institutional law of a particular organization? In other words, are UN Security Council resolutions a form of treaty law or do they amount to ‘international legislation’?115 Was the 1999 new ‘strategic concept’ of NATO116 a (highly ‘evolutive’) interpretation of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty or a redefinition of powers and competences by an organization making use of its compétence de la compétence? From a formal perspective, the answer to such questions determines the applicability of the law of treaties. And, in accordance with the focus of this book, the current chapter in its examinations has proceeded from the perspective of treaty law rather than that of institutional law. Paragraph 3 of Article 31 VCLT can serve as a linchpin, with the reference to subsequent agreement and subsequent practice leaving room for the ‘living’ treaty regime of an international organization. Without entering into the thorny question of whether Article 31(1) represents the general, default rule on treaty interpretation,117 it is fair to say that the 2018 ILC Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice in Relation to the Interpretation of Treaties have brought the interpretive tools offered in paragraph 3 into the limelight. These provisions are particularly notable as they introduce a time factor into the interpretive process, including thorny questions of distinguishing between interpretation and application, and between interpretation and modification. Returning to the prime category of ‘rules of the organization’, some time ago constitutive treaties were stated to be so fundamentally different from other treaties that it would have been ‘deceptive to see in diplomatic and legal (including judicial) incidents concerning the constitutive instruments “precedents” for the general law of treaties, and vice versa’.118 This is perhaps overstating the special character of constitutive treaties. On a general note, the law of treaties is the primary legal tool for their interpretation. But, even so—​arguably because of the IO’s semi-​separated internal legal order—​the receptiveness of constitutive treaties to the classic VCLT interpretative framework is somewhat limited. With the multiplication of levels of governance and sites of semantic authority supported by treaty regimes that run across State boundaries, the mechanism of ‘constitutive interpretation’ of treaties is only likely to become more prominent in the future.

115 Cf Gardiner (n 9) 128 (asking whether UNSC resolutions are subject to the Vienna rules or better treated as unilateral acts). 116 Cf NATO, ‘The Alliance’s Strategic Concept’ (24 April 1999) . 117 ILC member Tladi has cautioned against putting the entire instrumentarium of Art 31 on the same footing. See D Tladi, ‘Is the International Law Commission Elevating Subsequent Agreements and Subsequent Practice?’ EJIL Talk! (30 August 2018) at . 118 Rosenne (n 8) 257–​8.

542  Treaty Interpretation

Recommended Reading CE Amerasinghe, Principles of the International Law of International Organizations (2nd edn CUP, Cambridge 2005) Chapter 2 M Benzing, ‘International Organizations or Institutions, Secondary Law’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2007), online at A Bianchi, D Peat, and M Windsor (eds), Interpretation in International Law (OUP, Oxford 2015) CM Brölmann, The Institutional Veil in Public International Law; International Organizations and the Law of Treaties (Hart, Oxford 2007) CM Brölmann, ‘Typologies and the “Essential Legal Character” of Treaties’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 79–​102 O Corten and P Klein, The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol I O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) RK Gardiner, Treaty Interpretation (2nd edn OUP, Oxford 2015) J Klabbers, An Introduction to International Organizations Law (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2015) P Kunig, ‘Interpretation of United Nations Charter’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (OUP Oxford 2006), online at G Nolte, Treaties and Subsequent Practice (OUP, Oxford 2013) A Orakhelashvili, The Interpretation of Acts and Rules in Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2008) S Rosenne, Developments in the Law of Treaties 1945–​1986 (CUP, Cambridge 1989) T Sato, Evolving Constitutions of International Organizations (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1996) H Schermers and NM Blokker, International Institutional Law: Unity within Diversity (6th edn Brill-​Nijhoff, Leiden 2018)

PART VI

AVOIDING OR E X I T I NG TR E AT Y C OMM I TM E NT S

23

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties Jan Klabbers

Introduction It may well be the case, as a seasoned international law practitioner once suggested, that the validity or invalidity of treaties is a topic of no practical significance whatsoever.1 Few treaties have ever been declared invalid and, indeed, it is quite rare for States even to argue that a treaty they are parties to should be declared invalid.2 Moreover, it is by no means clear who should declare a treaty invalid and whether, for instance, this could be done by a court in one of the States that are parties to the treaty—​although this sometimes happens, as will be discussed later. In short, validity is a topic shrouded in mystery and practically not terribly relevant. And yet, the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) would have had a gaping hole in its middle if it had not paid any attention to the validity or invalidity of treaties: no legal system can do without rules on the validity of legal instruments, be it legislation, contracts, or treaties. This chapter aims systematically to discuss the rules on validity of treaties as laid down in the VCLT, while paying attention (if and when appropriate) to the corresponding position under the 1986 Vienna Convention3 as well as the presence (or lack) of relevant State practice (Section III). Before doing so, it will address a few peculiarities about the function of validity that underlies the Vienna Convention(s) (Section II), and it will start with some general reflections on validity (Section I), inspired by the curious circumstance that each and every lawyer will have some intuitive understanding of what validity refers to, yet scholarly exposés on validity are few and far between.

I.  The Concept of Validity Legal systems typically need rules to establish whether the norms prevailing in them are valid or invalid, and they need these rules for at least two reasons. A first reason is to enable the legal system to distinguish between law and non-​law. After all, it cannot be the case that every utterance of normative import or intent will be seen as law: a formal criterion of legal validity serves to distinguish the legal from the moral, the social, or the courteous, and

1 See A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (CUP, Cambridge 2000) 252 (‘It has to be said . . . that the subject is not of the slightest importance in the day-​to-​day work of a foreign ministry’). In the third edition, the statement was toned down a little. See A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 273. 2 While I would hesitate to make the absolute claim that no international tribunal has ever found a treaty to be invalid, the fact is that I have been unable to locate examples of such findings. 3 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543 (1986 VCLT).

546  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments serves to distinguish the accepted from the merely desirable. Such a criterion may focus on the identity of the aspiring law-​giver, or may focus on the lawmaking process itself. Thus, most international lawyers would probably maintain that the Pope cannot make law for the global society: he lacks the power to do so these days, even though a few centuries ago this was less clear. Whatever the Pope says may be authoritative, but it will not be regarded as international law. That is not to say that the Pope cannot make law at all, but merely that he cannot make valid international law. Likewise, treaties consented to by States tend to be regarded as law (or at least as sources of obligations4), even though other instruments accepted by States and their representatives—​think of resolutions adopted at ministerial conferences or within international bodies—​may not qualify as law. A second reason why legal systems insist on rules on validity is to protect basic values of the system. Few domestic legal systems will recognize a contract to kill as a valid legal contract, simply because few domestic legal systems think murder is a great idea. Less obviously, many legal systems will insist that the signing of wills be witnessed by several people so as to establish that those wills are the result of an underlying intention rather than the result of coercion, and likewise insist on marriages being witnessed and performed by duly authorized individuals. Here then, the value to be protected is the reality of the consent of the author. And as the examples already suggest, both reasons for having validity rules—​to distinguish law from non-​law and to protect basic values—​tend to shade into each other. Thus, formal thresholds (eg ‘a valid decision requires a 2/​3 majority’) typically exist to protect a minority, because protecting minorities against the tyranny of the majority can be seen as a value in its own right. Discussing validity then is by no means an exercise in fatuousness or eccentricity, much less even legalism; instead, validity ‘deals with the practical problem of determining what rules are to be used in legal reasoning, a choice on which the freedom or the well-​being of individuals or communities depends’.5 The statement that a rule or an instrument is valid, then, typically suggests that it is applicable within a certain community, and must be accepted as such by the members of that community. It does not necessarily follow that such a rule or instrument is also binding. While, arguably, it used to be the case that there was a high correspondence between ‘legally valid’ and ‘legally binding’ rules and instruments (so much so that in Kelsen’s days, the two concepts could still be treated as synonymous6), it is now quite plausible to suggest that documents devoid of legally binding force should nonetheless be tested for validity. Surely, a General Assembly resolution endorsing genocide should be held invalid regardless of its non-​legal nature because it undermines a fundamental community value, in much the same way as a General Assembly resolution ‘adopted’ by only five Member States will not be considered valid: it will be deemed to lack the required support.7

4 On the distinction, see GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law’ in FM van Asbeck and others (eds), Symbolae Verzijl (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1958) 153–​76. 5 See G Sartor, ‘Legal Validity as Doxastic Obligation’ (2000) 19 Law and Philosophy 585, 611. 6 In his Principles of International Law, Kelsen clearly thinks of validity and bindingness as one and the same when observing that the validity starts when the treaty enters into force and may be affected by, eg, dissolution of the treaty by mutual consent. See H Kelsen, Principles of International Law (Rinehard, New York 1952) 355–​6. MacCormick is not entirely convinced that this was actually Kelsen’s position; referring to Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law, he speaks of this being Kelsen’s opinion ‘or perhaps of his translators’. See N MacCormick, Institutions of Law: An Essay in Legal Theory (OUP, Oxford 2007) 160–​1. 7 See similarly IF Dekker, ‘Making Sense of Accountability in International Institutional Law’ (2005) 36 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 83–​118.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  547 It bears repetition, therefore, to say that validity is not the same as ‘bindingness’; rather, it is to say that the binding nature of an instrument follows—​or may follow—​from its validity.8 Consequently, the binding nature of an instrument can be affected by considerations of validity or invalidity, but also by other concerns. Thus, it may happen that a treaty never enters into force: it never becomes binding law, but not because of a defect relating to its validity. Or a treaty may be terminated, in which case it stops being valid and binding law but, again, its bindingness does not end because of a transgression of any of the grounds of validity.9 Following Kelsen, norms or instruments are valid along a number of different dimensions. Writing almost a century ago, Kelsen distinguished two such dimensions, holding that a valid norm is always valid in relation to time and space: ‘That a norm is valid will always mean that it is valid in some space or another and for some time or another . . .’10 Later, in the specific context of international law, Kelsen added that the sphere of validity of an international legal norm also encompasses the personal and material spheres: whose behaviour does the norm regulate, and which behaviour does it regulate?11 Importantly though, for Kelsen the first two spheres (time and place) pertained to the rule or instrument as such, whereas the personal and material spheres pertained to the human behaviour that the rule or instrument applied to: hence, the latter two have different objects, so to speak. In other words, following this model, the Genocide Convention is valid law for many States (place) since its entry into force in 1951 (time), telling States and other actors (persons) not to engage in genocide (material). Much confusion concerning the idea of validity has stemmed from the circumstance that different approaches to law entertain different criteria of validity: positivists typically rely on procedural processes to determine validity, while naturalists emphasize axiological validity, and realists tend to think that a rule is valid only if it is actually respected. Still, as Giovanni Sartor has pointed out, for everyday purposes these distinctions need not detain any analysis. For everyday purposes, it suffices to proclaim that validity is doxastic in nature: what matters is that valid norms need to be accepted by their audiences, not why they must be so accepted.12 That is not to say such grounds are irrelevant: they will, for example, come back in discussing whether instruments need be considered invalid in their entirety, or whether they are only partly invalid. The positivist position often boils down to stating that no severance is possible: adoption via the wrong procedure affects the entire instrument, not just a part of it. On the other hand, the naturalist and the realist may well be able to live with severance. Chances are, that a treaty contains many provisions which are just or which are respected, and only a single provision that is considered unjust, or that is ignored in practice.

8 See MacCormick (n 6) 162–​3. 9 See similarly M Kohen, ‘Article 42—​Convention de 1969’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), Les Conventions de Vienne sur le Droit des Traités: Commentaire Article par Article (Bruylant, Brussels 2006) 1593, 1598–​600. Note that an English translation was published as O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011). Needless to say, the titles of individual chapters remain close to their original French titles. 10 See H Kelsen, Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory (Litschewski Paulson and Paulson (trs), Clarendon Press, Oxford 1992) (first published 1934) 12. 11 See Kelsen, Principles (n 6) 93. 12 See Sartor (n 5).

548  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments The international legal order, unwritten and especially unsystematic as it mostly is, has rules on validity just like any legal order, but few of these are explicitly formulated for the purpose of establishing validity. International law is mostly concerned with facilitating agreement, and thus not ‘big’ on formalities, and this circumstance, as we will see, will affect the rules on validity considerably. Although seemingly international law is stricter when it comes to the identity of possible lawmakers (not everyone is entitled to participate), even here the law seems to facilitate and follow political necessity.13 The tension, in other words, is between formalism (with which validity rules are usually associated) and the pragmatics of political agreement. This is, to some extent, a false tension, but that does not render it less relevant, if only because it is often repeated. One of the reasons why this is a false dichotomy is that with respect to treaties, as discussed later, the main validity requirement resides in State consent: without consent, there will be no valid treaty. This is not to say that consent is necessarily the only validity criterion (it is not, as jus cogens considerations may also play a role), nor is it automatically to suggest that all instruments consented to are therefore treaties (although an argument can be made that consent creates a rebuttable presumption that a treaty has actually been concluded). What it does suggest though, is that the formalism often associated with validity criteria and the pragmatics of political agreement, when it comes to international law, tend to go hand in hand: if States reach political agreement, the most relevant validity requirement (for all practical purposes, that is) has been met.14 International law’s validity rules are not, however, limited to the role of consent in treaty-​making. Notwithstanding the informality of the international legal order, with some deduction one can identify other rules of validity; for example, the rules on decision-​ making within international organizations (IOs). It is clear that the UN General Assembly needs to be able to command a majority for most of its binding decisions on topics such as the UN budget; a decision endorsed by a mere minority will not be accepted as valid. Likewise, a binding decision by the Security Council will only be deemed valid if it commands a three-​fifths majority and as long as this majority includes the concurring votes of the permanent members. While admittedly the meaning of ‘concurring vote’ has undergone some change since the Charter was concluded,15 the basic principle still stands: a decision which is not supported by the concurring votes of the permanent members will not be considered valid.16 International courts and tribunals have not been overly verbose on validity in international law, perhaps because there is room for the argument that validity can practically only be enforceable in a highly institutionalized legal order comprising compulsory jurisdiction. Although it is, one would think, only open to courts or similar institutions to 13 It is, for example, rarely argued that liberation movements cannot conclude valid agreements because they are not among the generally accepted subjects of international law just yet. See in more detail J Klabbers, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Recognition: Subjects Doctrine and the Emergence of Non-​state Actors’ in J Petman and J Klabbers (eds), Nordic Cosmopolitanism:  Essays in International Law for Martti Koskenniemi (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2003) 351–​69. 14 I explore this in greater detail in Chapter 3 of J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009). 15 See Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) Notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 297 (1970) (Advisory Opinion) [1971] ICJ Rep 16, 22 [22]. 16 Much the same applies to the rules on admission or expulsion of Member States. See Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State to the United Nations (Advisory Opinion) [1950] ICJ Rep 4 (‘UN Admissions case’).

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  549 declare legal instruments to be invalid (a statement to that effect by, say, the President of the United States, or the Queen of the United Kingdom, will always run the risk of being considered self-​serving), the international legal order is not quite sufficiently organized. Indeed, typically, decisions on validity (at least practically, if not necessarily conceptually) presuppose compulsory jurisdiction: where two States agree that a treaty concluded between them is invalid, such invalidity is difficult to disentangle from, for example, termination by common accord.17 Moreover, it can be postulated that the efficacy of a system of rules on validity benefits from being embedded in a hierarchical and harmonized legal order: an instrument cannot be considered invalid in one corner of the legal system, yet be considered valid in a different location within that same legal system.18 Here Kelsen’s four dimensions of validity may prove illuminating: a treaty between Germany and France is valid law for those two States, but inapplicable (rather than invalid) elsewhere, and it would be inappropriate to proclaim it valid for Germany but invalid for France. It is precisely this problem which caused such an uproar in the wake of the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Kadi. The Court’s decision to invalidate (in part) the EU Regulation implementing Security Council sanctions strongly suggests that there is a problem with the underlying Security Council resolution: if invalid in the EU, can these sanctions still plausibly be considered valid elsewhere? On the other hand, Kadi raises the question whether a domestic or regional legal order can substitute its own validity criteria (in casu: EU Regulations should conform to EU human rights standards, even when importing verbatim Security Council resolutions) for those of the more centralized legal order?19 Perhaps because of the above-​mentioned conceptual and political issues, the Inter­ national Court of Justice (ICJ) itself has not been very outspoken. On some occasions, it has addressed the validity of decisions of IOs, but without being able or willing to produce a general theory on validity or invalidity. In IMCO Maritime Safety Committee, the ICJ held that a decision had been adopted in violation of IMCO’s constituent document.20 In WHA, it found that the World Health Assembly lacked the power to ask the same ICJ for an advisory opinion21 (although it seemed to found its decision predominantly on the basis, not of the World Health Organization (WHO) Constitution, but on the place of the WHO within the UN family—​a position that is not explicitly written down anywhere22). By contrast, in Certain Expenses it accepted that UN organs are presumed to act intra vires and are themselves to be the first arbiters of the legality of their own action.23 17 See B Simma, ‘Termination or Suspension of Treaties: Two Recent Austrian Cases’ (1978) 21 German Ybk Intl L  74–​96. 18 The rationale is that a number of important procedural issues remain open unless there is some organized legal order within which validity issues are embedded, with one pressing example being the question whether a court should only look into validity if it is raised by one of the parties to a dispute, or whether it should do so ex officio. In Oscar Chinn, for example, the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) chose to stay close to the parties’ arguments. See The Oscar Chinn Case (UK v Belgium) [1934] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 63. 19 See Case C-​402/​05 P, Kadi v Council and Commission [2008] ECR I-​6351. Kadi suggests the far-​reaching inter-​penetration of norms stemming from different legal orders, something further explored in J Klabbers and G Palombella (eds), The Challenge of Inter-​legality (CUP, Cambridge 2019). 20 See Constitution of the Maritime Safety Committee of the Inter-​ Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization (Advisory Opinion) [1960] ICJ Rep 150, 171. 21 See Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 66. 22 See J Klabbers, ‘Global Governance at the ICJ: Re-​reading the WHA Opinion’ (2009) 13 Max Planck Ybk UN L  1–​28. 23 See Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, Paragraph 2, of the Charter) (Advisory Opinion) [1962] ICJ Rep 151, 168.

550  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments And in Namibia, the ICJ had no problem accepting that the procedure for making valid decisions by the Security Council had changed through practice.24 The one thing connecting these four decisions would be the proposition that the Court is reluctant to subject the activities of the leading political institutions of global governance to strict legal scrutiny (something also confirmed by its reluctance to engage with an argument that the Security Council had unwittingly contributed to the Bosnian genocide25), but that it is a bit quicker to do so when the activities of politically less important institutions (IMCO, WHO) are at stake. Yet even this highly abstract conclusion is possibly not airtight: in Admissions II, the ICJ accepted that the two main political organs—​the General Assembly and the Security Council—​are engaged in some kind of institutional balance.26 This, in turn, would suggest that even their freedom is hemmed in—​at least in situations where they threaten to step on each other’s toes. Be that as it may, the ICJ has offered no consistent or coherent view on the validity of international institutional law, let alone international law more generally. And the ICJ is not alone: none of the other relevant international law actors have pronounced, let alone agreed, on the issue. As such, a general theory on (in)validity in international law remains to be formulated.

II.  Validity and Treaties The only explicit validity rules circulating in the international legal order are the rules on validity and invalidity of treaties, as laid down in Articles 46 through 53 VCLT. In essence, most of these (Articles 46 through 52) deal with defects in the consent of a State to be bound, underlining the point made earlier that consent is practically speaking the most relevant general validity requirement when it comes to treaties.27 Such defects can have three broad sources, they can: (i) be based on improper procedure or authorization; (ii) be the result of something misleading; or (iii) be the result of coercion. In all cases, the underlying rationale is that the consent to be bound has been affected: but for the affecting circumstance, the State concerned would not (or would most likely not) have expressed its consent to be bound.28 The one remaining article deals with the substance of a treaty: a treaty concluded in violation of a jus cogens norms is void. The emphasis on defects in State consent makes theoretical sense. Treaties are typically conceptualized as the result of a consensus ad idem; if so, a premium is placed on the reality of this consensus, and if the consensus ad idem is affected by fraud, coercion, or misrepresentation, it follows that there is not really a consensus ad idem and thus,

24 See South West Africa case (n 15) [22]. 25 See Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)) (Order) [1993] ICJ Rep 3, [25]. 26 See generally UN Admissions case (n 16). 27 There are implicit rules hidden in the definition of treaties in the 1969 and 1986 VCLTs, to the effect that, for purposes of those conventions, treaties can only be concluded by States or IOs. This is without prejudice though to the possibility of other actors concluding agreements that, under customary international law, could qualify as treaties. 28 The International Law Commission (ILC), in the commentary accompanying its final draft articles, made this point explicitly when discussing fraud. Fraud would potentially nullify a treaty, if it would have induced a State ‘to give a consent to a treaty which it would not otherwise have given’. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 177, 245.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  551 in a meaningful way, no treaty. The required underlying political agreement29 would be absent.30 In light of earlier work on validity, it is useful to note that the VCLT’s drafters no longer regarded treaty conflicts as sources of invalidity. Amongst pre-​Vienna Convention legal thought, the connection of treaty conflict to invalidity had been par for the course. In one of the few monographs on the topic, Vitta devoted quite a bit of attention to conflicts with other treaties and with existing norms of customary international law as potential sources of invalidity,31 as did McNair in his magnum opus.32 Indeed, the International Law Commission’s (ILC’s) second Special Rapporteur on the law of treaties, Hersch Lauterpacht, started his discussion of treaty conflict with a draft article to the effect that treaties which would conflict with other treaties would be invalid, only to realize quickly that such a rule would be too rigid to be of much use: subsequent paragraphs of the same draft article allowed for some broadly worded exceptions.33 Still, decent policy arguments could be invoked for viewing treaty conflict as an issue of validity.34 Two arguments in particular come to mind. First, there is the argument that allowing for treaty conflicts would amount to stimulating the breach of existing treaties: nullity here would be conceptualized as the sanction for such a breach. Second, this would apply with special force if the earlier treaty has a legislative or even constitutional character, as judges Van Eysinga and Schücking found in the 1934 Oscar Chinn case.35 To their mind, a bilateral Anglo–​Belgian agreement on trade and transport in the Congo ran foul of an earlier multilateral treaty establishing the general legal framework for the treatment of Africa by its European colonizers, and thus should have been held invalid.36 The ILC’s first Special Rapporteur on the law of treaties, JL Brierly, never got around to discussing validity and quickly resigned, having confessed to being less than fully interested in codification generally.37 His three successors (Lauterpacht, Fitzmaurice, and Waldock), however, all devoted considerable attention to issues of validity, and it is fair to say that at least in quantitative terms, the topic of validity ranks among the more central ones of the VCLT.38 The Convention not only contains eight articles detailing grounds of invalidity, but also four articles devoted (in part) to setting up the role of invalidity provisions,39 29 Note that the term ‘political agreement’ here is not used as an alternative to ‘legal agreement’, but rather as the first step towards the latter: States reach agreement in the body politic, which, if it passes the validity test, automatically becomes a legal agreement. For further detail, see J Klabbers, The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 1996). 30 Note, however, that consent in the law of treaties may derive its very meaning from being central to the conclusion and validity of treaties. For further discussion, see M Craven, ‘The Ends of Consent’ in MJ Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 103–​35. 31 See E Vitta, La validité des traités internationaux (Brill, Leiden 1940) 172–​215. 32 See A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) 213–​36. 33 For brief discussion, see J Klabbers, ‘Beyond the Vienna Convention: Conflicting Treaty Provisions’ in E Cannizzaro (ed), The Law of Treaties beyond the Vienna Convention (OUP, Oxford 2011) 192–​205. 34 For a more general discussion, see Chapter 18 (Treaty Conflicts and Systemic Fragmentation). 35 See Oscar Chinn case (n 18) (dissenting opinions of Judges van Eysinga and Schücking). 36 It is possibly a useful reminder of the contextuality of most things that many might nowadays agree that the earlier agreement—​the General Act of the Berlin Conference—​itself would be invalid due to its conflict with a jus cogens norm. 37 See JL Brierly, ‘The Codification of International Law’ (1948) 47 Michigan L Rev 2–​10. 38 For brief and convenient discussions on an article-​by-​article basis, see ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009); O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018). 39 Arts 42–​5 VCLT.

552  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments and another four devoted (again, in part) to elements of procedure.40 In addition, the VCLT has three articles spelling out the consequences of invalidity.41 Hence, almost a quarter of the VCLT’s eighty-​five articles have to do, in one way or another, with the invalidity of treaties. This contrasts sharply to other branches of the law of treaties, which (regardless of their pivotal importance and intellectual complexities) have been dealt with in far fewer provisions. For example, the regime on reservations, arguably the central topic of the VCLT, is addressed in five articles (six, if the definition of Article 2, paragraph 1(d) is included). One of the hallmarks of the VCLT’s approach, and a clear indication that the intention was to create something of a ‘self-​contained regime’, that is, a regime that tolerates no interference from elsewhere,42 is the circumstance that Article 42(1) stipulates that the validity of a treaty ‘may be impeached only through the application of the present Convention’. In other words, the list of grounds of invalidity is meant to be exhaustive; no reasons for invalidating a treaty can be put forward that cannot be found in the Vienna Convention. Still, the ILC did not pay too much attention to this in its commentary, mostly justifying the closed nature of its listing of grounds of invalidity by reference to the need for ‘stability of treaties’. Validity was supposed to be the normal state of affairs, ‘which may be set aside only on the grounds and under the conditions provided for’ according to the draft of what would become Article 42.43 Yet, closing off the Convention’s validity regime is awkward, for a variety of reasons. First, it may be difficult to squeeze some past examples into the VCLT framework. For instance, it is sometimes claimed that the infamous Munich agreement, by which Hitler’s Germany gained control over Czechoslovakia, should be declared invalid, but on which exact ground remains an open question. Reuter, in his classic textbook, treats ‘Munich’ as an example of fraud,44 but this, somehow, is less than fully convincing. Hitler’s intentions, one might surmise, were perfectly clear: those intentions were nasty, no doubt, but not necessarily fraudulent. Second, and related, there is the jurisprudential staple that rules are by their very nature both over-​inclusive and under-​inclusive.45 In particular, the latter is relevant here, as it suggests that occasions may arise where something happens that would warrant the treaty to be invalidated, yet that would be impossible to fit plausibly into the VCLT categories.46 One example may be bribery of a negotiator that is not attributable to a State, yet without which the treaty would not have been concluded. As a matter of legal systematics, so the Commission must have thought, such a case has no place in the law of treaties, dealing as it does with relations between States. Yet surely, as a practical matter, bribery by the private sector may be 40 Arts 65–​8 VCLT. 41 For ease of reference, I include Art 64 (on the later emergence of a new jus cogens norm). The other two are Arts 69 and 71 VCLT. 42 See eg M Koskenniemi, Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law. Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission (Erik Castrén Institute, Helsinki 2007) [124]. 43 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 236. 44 See P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traités, Cahier (ed) (3rd edn Presses Universitaires de France, Geneva 1995) 156–​7 and accompanying endnote. 45 The best treatment, quite possibly, is F Schauer, Playing by the Rules: A Philosophical Examination of Rule-​ based Decision-​making in Law and in Life (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1991). 46 The ILC, it seems, was well aware of the issue, given the care with which it made clear that obsolescence and desuetude would be instances of termination by common agreement, and thus covered by the parallel idea relating to treaty termination. A hint to this effect can be found in the commentary to what was draft Art 51, [1966] YBILC, vol II, 249.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  553 the more obvious concern. Following the letter of the Vienna Convention and its legislative history,47 it would be very difficult to invalidate a treaty on grounds of private sector bribery of a State representative.48 Third, it was probably a bit naive at any rate to suppose that political practice could be closed off by means of a rigid, if reluctant, Grundnorm, as I have called it elsewhere (with a wink and a nod to Kelsen).49 Post-​Vienna Convention practice suggests that authors and even courts do not hesitate to bring within the VCLT’s reach all sorts of activities that the VCLT itself excluded from its scope. In particular, arguments have been made to the effect that the classic maxim rebus sic stantibus (which, to be sure, is not a ground of invalidity but justifies unilateral treaty termination or suspension50) covers occurrences such as a succession of States51 and even the outbreak of armed conflict.52 But, the VCLT explicitly excludes these from its own scope and thus, logically, also from the scope of the rebus sic stantibus maxim.53 Even the circumstance that an entire convention has been devoted to State succession in respect of treaties (or that, later, the effect of armed conflict on treaties has come to be regarded as a topic fit for separate study and perhaps codification by the ILC) has not deterred such arguments.54 In this light, it was not too difficult to predict that, all good intentions on the part of the ILC notwithstanding, the closing off of the invalidity and termination regimes would not meet with great success. Those intentions of an exhaustive list were furthermore dealt something of a blow when the same ILC saw fit, in the same Vienna Convention, to include a rule that goes a long way towards establishing the opposite of what Article 42 aims to achieve. Whereas Article 42 aims to turn the law of treaties into a self-​contained regime, Article 31(3)(c), containing the so-​called ‘principle of systemic integration’,55 aims to do the opposite.56 It opens the door for all possible arguments in interpreting treaties. This too was, no doubt, defensible in its own right, if only to underline that international law is something of a unitary legal order, but the combination of the two was always likely to be problematic.57 As things stand, it is unlikely that Article 42 either reflected customary international law in 1969 or has since crystallized into customary international law, if only because, as a provision, it is geared to the internal 47 The ILC explicitly explained that in order to nullify a treaty, ‘the corrupt acts must be shown to be directly or indirectly imputable to the other negotiating State’. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 245. 48 Incidentally, ‘buying’ votes or trading votes at lawmaking conferences may come close, but at least the latter is often seen as fairly innocent. See eg O Eldar, ‘Vote-​trading in International Institutions’ (2008) 19 EJIL 3–​41. 49 See J Klabbers, ‘Reluctant Grundnormen: Articles 31(3)(c) and 42 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Fragmentation of International Law’ in M Craven, M Fitzmaurice, and M Vogiatzi (eds), Time, History and International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2007) 141–​61. 50 The unilateral nature of such termination, incidentally, seems highly questionable. See A David, The Strategy of Treaty Termination: Lawful Breaches and Retaliations (Yale University Press, New Haven 1975). 51 See eg S Oeter, ‘State Succession and the Struggle over Equity’ (1995) 38 German Ybk Intl L 73–​102. 52 See Case C-​162/​96 Racke v Hauptzollamt Mainz [1998] ECR I-​3655. 53 Art 73 VCLT provides: ‘The provisions of the present Convention shall not prejudge any question that may arise in regard to a treaty from a succession of States or from the international responsibility of a State or from the outbreak of hostilities between States.’ 54 This refers to the 1978 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (concluded 23 August 1978, entered into force 6 November 1996) 1946 UNTS 3, and to the ILC’s work on the effect of armed conflict on treaties, carried out by Ian Brownlie and, since 2009, Lucius Caflisch. The latter has resulted in a set of draft articles brought to the attention of the General Assembly, but not in a separate convention. 55 See generally C MacLachlan, ‘The Principle of Systemic Integration and Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention’ (2005) 54 ICLQ 279–​32; Koskenniemi (n 42). 56 Art 31(3)(c) VCLT holds that in the interpretation of treaties, due account shall be taken of ‘any relevant rules of international law applicable in the relations between the parties’. 57 See further Klabbers (n 49).

554  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments workings of the VCLT itself, and can have no meaningful existence outside the scope of the Convention. That does not mean, however, that no additional grounds of invalidity can be found, and as noted, a case has been made for conflicting treaties to result in invalidity. While this is no longer done (partly, no doubt, because inapplicability of conflicting provisions is so much less dramatic than invalidity, and thus politically far more opportune), it cannot be excluded that other grounds of invalidity may arise or, alternatively, that considerations which are now seen to lead to termination, such as the fundamental change of circumstances, may come to be treated as grounds of invalidity.

III.  The Grounds of Invalidity As noted, the Vienna Convention’s provisions on validity largely focus on defects in the consent of treaties. This is most readily explained by the circumstance that the VCLT focuses on treaties as instruments, rather than as obligations.58 Treaties, in other words, are conceptualized not in terms of their substance, but as agreements (or, more likely perhaps, disagreements59) reached by States and reduced to writing: form takes precedence over substance. This orientation automatically turns the prism towards the formal characteristics of treaties, ranging from means of expressing consent to be bound to means for limiting consent, and including defects in the consent. There are, in the Convention, only two exceptions to this: one is the reference to jus cogens as a validity criterion, the other is formed by the repeated references to the ‘object and purpose’ of treaties.60 That is not to say that international law is ‘big’ on formalities after all, but it is to say that considerations of form help the system to channel substance and, what is more, this emphasis on form in the VCLT is required in particular so as not to interfere with substance. Simply put, international law is (barring jus cogens considerations) simply not interested in what States agree, but only in that they reach agreement.

A. Constitutional concerns The first two grounds of invalidity as mentioned in the VCLT and the 1986 VCLT relate to the propriety of a State’s consent in light of its own constitutional order. Article 46 does so explicitly under reference to a State’s treaty-​making rules,61 while Article 47, in less spectacular fashion, deals with a representative’s authority to express consent to be bound.62 58 See generally S Rosenne, ‘Bilateralism and Community Interest in the Codified Law of Treaties’ in W Friedmann, L Henkin, and O Lissitzyn (eds), Transnational Law in a Changing Society: Essays in Honor of Philip C. Jessup (Columbia University Press, New York 1972) 202–​27. 59 In Philip Allott’s lovely phrase, treaties are a ‘disagreement reduced to writing’. See P Allott, ‘The Concept of International Law’ (1999) 10 EJIL 31, 43. 60 On the latter, see J Klabbers, ‘Some Problems regarding the Object and Purpose of Treaties’ (1997) 8 Finnish Ybk Intl L 138–​60. 61 Art 46 VCLT provides, in relevant part, that a State ‘may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of its internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance’. 62 Art 47 VCLT provides: ‘If the authority of a representative to express the consent of a State to be bound by a particular treaty has been made subject to a specific restriction, his omission to observe that restriction may not be invoked as invalidating the consent expressed by him unless the restriction was notified to the other negotiating States prior to his expressing such consent.’

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  555 The ILC, in its commentary, made abundantly clear that in both cases the provisions represented an ultimum remedium. Given the expectation that governments should know what they are doing and that they have all sorts of possibilities to intervene between signing a treaty and its eventual entry into force,63 Articles 46 and 47 should not be invoked too lightly.64 This is reflected in their wording, which, in both cases, is cast in negative form: the grounds should not be invoked, unless there is a very good reason to do so. Article 46, as noted, addresses a violation of domestic treaty-​making provisions, providing that a State may not invoke a violation thereof unless the violation concerned a rule of fundamental importance and was manifest. The initial ILC draft had clearly been considered inadequate, as it never defined what ‘manifest’ meant, and made no distinction between fundamental and less fundamental domestic provisions. Consequently, both elements were added at the Vienna Conference, partly on the basis of an amendment proposed by the United Kingdom.65 The requirement that the domestic rule at issue must be a rule of fundamental importance is sometimes taken to mean that only violations of constitutional provisions can qualify under Article 46,66 but this, surely, is untenable. For one thing, it would be difficult to pinpoint with any precision which rules in the United Kingdom, in the absence of a single written constitutional document, qualify as ‘constitutional’. More importantly though, it would amount to ordering States what to put in their constitutions: there are States where the constitutions remain silent on the precise treaty-​making procedure to be followed and where, instead, the matter is organized in generic legislation.67 Still, it is clear that elements of domestic procedure laid down in some inter-​ministerial circular or internal memorandum will not qualify. The least one can do is expect governments, if they want their treaty-​making provisions to be taken seriously, to take them seriously enough themselves to be given some recognizable and cognizable legal form. This also follows from the requirement that a violation must be ‘manifest’: this is defined by Article 46(2) VCLT as ‘objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith’. It will normally be next to impossible for a treaty partner to know the contents of a circular or aide-​memoire in force in the other State. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the first time the ICJ addressed Article 46, the claim faltered precisely on this ground. Cameroon, so the Court stipulated, could not have known the details of Nigeria’s treaty-​making provisions when Nigeria invoked Article 46 to get a boundary agreement declared invalid. The Court drily suggested that limitations on a Head of State’s treaty-​making capacity could not be relied upon ‘unless at least properly 63 Even in respect of treaties in simplified form, a government has ‘the necessary means of controlling the acts of its representative and of giving effect to any constitutional requirements’. See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 242. 64 Additionally, the ICJ hinted that acquiescence may play a role here as well: in a boundary dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria, it noted that Nigeria only invoked invalidity a few years after the agreement had been concluded, and had even failed to do so when the treaty was amended. See Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v Nigeria; Equatorial Guinea Intervening) (Judgment) [2002] ICJ Rep 303, 431 [267]. 65 The definition of ‘manifest’ was proposed by the United Kingdom; the limitation to rules of fundamental importance seems to have been added by the Drafting Committee, in the spirit of an adopted but differently worded amendment proposed by Peru and Ukraine. See UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Official Records: Documents of the Conference (1969) UN Doc A/​CONF/​39/​11/​Add.2, 165–​6. 66 See SE Nahlik, ‘The Grounds of Validity and Termination of Treaties’ (1971) 65 AJIL 736–​56. 67 An example is the Netherlands, where treaty-​making is governed by a State Act. For a general overview in Dutch, see EW Vierdag, Het Nederlandse Verdragenrecht (Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle 1995); for a brief discussion in English, see J Klabbers, ‘The New Dutch Law on the Approval of Treaties’ (1995) 44 ICLQ 629–​43.

556  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments publicized’, and even more drily remarked that ‘there is no general legal obligation for States to keep themselves informed of legislative and constitutional developments in other States which are or may become important for the international relations of these States’.68 It is perhaps no surprise that the arena for making ‘Article 46 arguments’ is the domestic political arena rather than its international counterpart. It turns out that the Article is sometimes invoked as a domestic politico-​legal argument by domestic forces opposed to a particular treaty. Thus, the Article 46 argument was made by members of the US Senate in objection to the conclusion of the Panama Treaty in 1977.69 Still, such appeals are bound to remain unsuccessful and, in the curious way of some law, self-​defeating: a veritable catch-​ 22. The very invocation of Article 46 domestically would seem to suggest that there is some uncertainty as to the treaty-​making procedure to be used; and if that is the case, then a violation can hardly ever qualify as ‘manifest’. That said, there have been cases where domestic courts have held that a treaty-​making act had been concluded in violation of that State’s domestic treaty-​making procedures. This can be read, for example, in the decision of Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court in Singarasa v Attorney-​ General, rendered in 2006.70 The Court held that in accepting the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Sri Lanka’s President had acted ultra vires, although the Court framed the President’s actions in terms of inconsistency with Sri Lanka’s domestic law rather than in terms of Article 46; indeed, Article 46 is never mentioned.71 By contrast, a 2017 decision of Ghana’s Supreme Court does refer to Article 46, and holds that an agreement concluded by Ghana’s President, seemingly as a non-​legally binding administrative agreement, with the United States concerning the resettlement of two former Guantánamo detainees from Yemen into Ghana, is ‘unconstitutional’.72 The Court did not go as far as to declare the agreement invalid under international law, and arguably it could not have done so unilaterally. Subsequent to the judgment, the agreement was ratified by Ghana’s Parliament, thereby overcoming the ‘Article 46’ problem.73 In passing, the Court all but denied the possibility of non-​legally binding administrative agreements and, more worryingly, suggested that States have the duty to conduct ‘basic due diligence’ on the domestic treaty-​making procedures of their prospective treaty partners; in doing so, it flatly contradicted the ICJ’s approach in Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria, as discussed earlier. The 1986 VCLT, although not in force, adds that the validity of IO treaties can possibly be affected by the rules of the organization but, again, in very limited circumstances. The 68 See Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (n 64) [265], [266] respectively. The ICJ effectively reproduced the reasoning in Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya), [2017] ICJ Rep 3, 23–​4 [48]–​[50]. In a similar vein, the arbitral panel in Guinea-​Bissau v Senegal reached the conclusion that a 1960 boundary agreement concluded between colonizers France and Portugal had been validly concluded because France was entitled, in good faith, to expect that the treaty was valid despite not being submitted to Portugal’s Parliament. Note though that the tribunal explicitly did not base itself on Art 46 VCLT, which, in 1960, did not yet exist as such. See Case Concerning the Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989 (Guinea-​Bissau v Senegal) (1990) 83 ILR 1 [54], [59]. 69 See generally T Meron, ‘Article 46 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Ultra Vires Treaties)’ (1979) 50 BYBIL 175–​99. 70 S.C.Spl(LA) No 182/​99 (Sri Lanka, 2006), reproduced in (2010) 138 I.L.R. 469. 71 To be sure, Sri Lanka is neither a signatory nor a party to the VCLT. 72 See Banful v Attorney General, J1/​7/​2016 [2017] GHASC 10 (Ghana, 22 June 2017). 73 See further LR Helfer, ‘Treaty Exit and Intra-​Branch Conflict at the Interface of International and Domestic Law’ in C Bradley (ed), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) 355, 369.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  557 CJEU seems to have relied to some extent on this provision when suggesting in the case France v Commission that an agreement concluded by the European Commission (instead of the EU—​or, at the time the European Community—​as such) would nonetheless be seen as binding upon the EU. In doing so, the Court rejected the Commission’s claim that it had merely concluded an administrative agreement, and seemed to suggest that even if internally ultra vires, the agreement would still produce legal effects under international law.74 Admittedly, the Court did not specifically refer to Article 46 or its counterpart in customary international law, but it seems likely that its opinion was informed by Article 46, as something of a background consideration. Indeed, the Court must have realized that an appeal to internal EU rules as grounds for invalidity would not be likely to impress the Commission’s treaty partner too much.75 Whether Article 46 qualifies as customary international law would seem debatable. There is little practice, after all, and while the rule is sometimes invoked, it is rarely honoured. But this perhaps points to a more general theoretical problem: the rules making up the law of treaties are not quite comparable to ‘regular’ rules of behaviour. Whereas it makes sense to discuss, say, diplomatic relations in terms of customary law, the law of treaties is largely residual in nature, and facilitates the creation and maintenance of legal relations between States. It does not, however, consist of clear injunctions or prohibitions, with one or two exceptions.76 Hence, it may not be all that useful to discuss the law of treaties in terms of customary international law. That said, a provision such as Article 46 makes eminent sense, but does so perhaps more as a logical necessity than as the crystallization of many instances of State practice.77 More generally, in light of the wide variety of possible ways to express consent, which may include opting-​in or opting-​out procedures, it becomes even more difficult than before to get a sense of each other’s treaty-​making provisions and whether these have actually been respected. Much the same applies to domestic procedures, where phenomena such as tacit approval by parliaments may be difficult to distinguish, from the outside, from situations where parliaments are not consulted or their prerogatives circumvented. All this conspires to make successful invocation of Article 46 less, rather than more, likely.

B.  Error, fraud, corruption Article 48 addresses the issue of errors in the formation of treaties, and specifically excludes linguistic errors from its scope: these can be rectified in accordance with Article 79.78 74 See Case C-​327/​91 France v Commission [1994] ECR I-​3641. Bothe reaches a similar conclusion: see M Bothe, ‘Article 46—​Convention de 1986’, in Les Conventions de Vienne (n 9) 1719, 1721. 75 As a technical matter, the EU is neither bound by the 1969 nor the 1986 VCLT. Still, the CJEU (as well as the General Court, previously known as the Court of First Instance) has on various occasions applied the law of treaties, typically by invoking the customary status of the rule concerned. See generally J Klabbers, ‘Re-​Inventing the Law of Treaties: The Contribution of the EC Courts’ (1999) 30 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 45–​74. 76 The interim obligation of Art 18 for instance seems to be the sort of rule that States are unlikely to contract out of. 77 What I have in mind here is an argument comparable to Fitzmaurice’s claim that pacta sunt servanda is best seen as a kind of natural rule, natural in the sense that it would be difficult to imagine a legal order without such a rule. See Fitzmaurice (n 4). 78 Art 48 VCLT provides in relevant part that a State may invoke an error in a treaty to invalidate consent ‘if the error relates to a fact or situation which was assumed by that State to exist at the time when the treaty was concluded and formed an essential basis of its consent to be bound by the treaty’.

558  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments If linguistic errors do not, as such, affect a treaty’s validity, then the most common errors will be geographical representations. However, as these typically illustrate graphically what is also expressed in words and in terms of geographical coordinates, maps too are unlikely to be declared invalid. That leaves, for all practical purposes, a fairly empty category: the error may only be invoked if it ‘relates to a fact or situation which was assumed’ to exist at the time of conclusion, and if it formed ‘an essential basis’ of a State’s consent to be bound. Indeed, Article 48 was largely drawn from the ICJ’s reasoning in the Temple case, which declined to find that an error in a map invalidated a border treaty, since errors to which a State has itself contributed cannot be invoked by that same State, if the State knew of the error, or if it was ‘put . . . on notice of a possible error’.79 In this light, it is perhaps no coincidence that one of the few examples ever mentioned is a hypothetical, launched by the US representative to the 1968 Vienna Conference, Richard Kearney. Kearney, worried about an earlier draft that suggested that the error could only be invoked if it was literally part of the treaty, provided the example of a treaty for the sharing of hydroelectric power. Such a treaty, he opined, might be based on a mistaken calculation of the capacity of turbines, and thus give rise to all sorts of mistaken figures.80 By the same token, one might consider an agreement on fisheries, based on assumptions regarding the whereabouts of the fish stock, to be invalidated on ground of error should those assumptions prove wrong. Kearney’s main concern with respect to his turbine example was that the underlying calculation would not necessarily itself be part of the treaty, and that thus a requirement that the error be ‘in the treaty’ might be too strict. The United States tabled a formal amendment to delete the words ‘in a treaty’, but withdrew it upon the explanation of Special Rapporteur Sir Humphrey Waldock that the reference was meant so as not to broaden the scope by allowing States to refer to all possible sorts of facts so as to invalidate a treaty. Creating a nexus to the treaty itself was considered necessary and, apparently, this reply persuaded the US representative.81 Generally, errors are not lightly to be presumed. A political miscalculation by a statesman can hardly qualify. Accordingly, the claim that Norway’s Foreign Minister Ihlén did not realize the consequences of what he was doing when he promised not to contest Denmark’s sovereignty over Eastern Greenland was rightly dismissed by the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ).82 After all, allowing such a claim to serve as a ground of invalidity would open Pandora’s Box: it is part of the art of statesmanship that one can (or should) make a reasonable assessment of the consequences of political action. Sometimes errors may be the result of deliberate misrepresentations, or fraud. Fraud is dealt with in Article 49 and, again, the practical utility would seem limited.83 As noted, Hitler’s conduct at Munich is sometimes treated as fraudulent, but this has neither resulted in the formal invalidity of the Munich agreement nor has it been established that his conduct was, in fact, fraudulent. More generally, it would seem that there are no recorded 79 See Case concerning the Temple at Preah Vihear (Cambodia v Thailand) (Merits) [1962] ICJ Rep 6, 26. 80 See UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of the First Session (26 March–​24 May 1968) UN Doc A/​CONF/​39/​11, 249 (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’). 81 See ibid 254. 82 See Legal Status of Eastern Greenland [1933] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 53. 83 Art 49 VCLT reads: ‘If a State has been induced to conclude a treaty by the fraudulent conduct of another negotiating State, the State may invoke the fraud as invalidating its consent to be bound by the treaty.’

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  559 instances of fraud,84 although it cannot be excluded that this owes something to possible embarrassment on the part of States having been defrauded. The ILC, in the commentary to its 1966 draft articles, defined fraud as including ‘any false statement, misrepresentation or other deceitful proceedings by which a State is induced to give a consent to a treaty which it would not otherwise have given’.85 This then helps distinguish fraud from error: fraud is by definition deceitful, whereas errors may also be the result of an honest mistake. If fraud needs to be distinguished from error, it also needs to be distinguished from corruption of a State’s representative, which is addressed in Article 50.86 Tellingly perhaps, both (draft) articles were discussed together during the 1968 Vienna Conference, and several possible examples were listed which could fall within either category—​or both. Courtesies, small gifts, and honorary decorations would not be unusual in diplomatic practice, but would hardly amount to fraud or corruption, so the communis opinio held. As a result, the entire discussion of fraud and corruption got mired into discussion of either what the two terms mean in various domestic legal systems, or whether the consequence of their presence should be relative or absolute invalidity of the treaty concerned. And as if that discussion was not unstructured enough, the representative of the Holy See (French law professor René-​Jean Dupuy) felt the need to introduce the desirability of jus cogens at this juncture, blissfully oblivious as to whether or not this was the relevant moment for discussing jus cogens.87 In all, the preparatory works on both Articles 49 and 50 therewith ooze a rarefied atmosphere, akin to people desperately trying to remember why, on the hottest day during an extremely warm summer, they brought their winter coats with them. Moreover, there is the risk, elegantly formulated by the UK representative, Sir Ian Sinclair, that where practice is very rare, trying to regulate it may be counterproductive. As Sir Ian put it, aiming to include fraud as a ground for invalidity ‘might encourage States to invoke grounds of fraud more frequently’.88 As with Article 46, it is difficult to maintain that the provisions on error, fraud, and corruption have crystallized into customary international law. Useful as such provisions no doubt are, practice would simply seem to be too scarce to meaningfully speak of customary international law. Again, the better view may be that such provisions need a place in any legal order for the simple reason that one cannot do business on the basis of error, fraud, or corruption. Doing business, whether between individuals or States, needs to be based, to some extent at least, on mutual trust, so it makes sense to have rules protecting this minimum amount of trust.

C.  Coercion Politically, the more relevant concerns relate to coercion of States and their representatives, and these are dealt with in two separate articles (Articles 52 and 51, respectively). 84 See Aust, 3rd edn (n 1) 276. 85 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 245. 86 Art 50 VCLT holds: ‘If the expression of a State’s consent to be bound by a treaty has been procured through the corruption of its representative directly or indirectly by another negotiating State, the State may invoke such corruption as invalidating its consent to be bound by the treaty.’ 87 See Vienna Conference, First Session (n 80) 258–​9. 88 Ibid 261.

560  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments In both cases, the result will be absolute nullity. Originally, the big political issue was the discussion of how exactly to define coercion: would it cover only military coercion, or also pressure by other means, such as economic or political pressure? In this light, Article 51 is the relatively simpler of the two, dealing with coercion against a State’s representatives.89 What the Commission had in mind, it seems, was physical violence: it referred to ‘third-​degree methods of pressure’ being employed against Czechoslovakia’s President and Foreign Minister by Nazi-​Germany, aspiring to create a German protectorate over Moravia and Bohemia.90 In addition to physical violence though, the ILC also memorably remarked that a threat to ruin a diplomat’s career ‘by exposing a private indiscretion’ could qualify as coercion.91 Note that Article 51 is drafted in a peculiar manner. Taken literally, the text suggests that what is invalidated in case of coercion of a representative is the act by which the State expresses consent to be bound, rather than the treaty itself. Taken literally, this may have serious consequences, as the treaty—​in case of bilateral treaties—​then remains unfinished (ie not concluded). The legal effects of a treaty not being concluded differ from those of an invalidated treaty, especially if the defect has been identified only after the treaty already entered into force. Perhaps surprisingly, during the Vienna Conference the United States tabled an amendment allowing for relative nullity. As Herbert Briggs, a member of the US delegation (as well as the US member of the ILC) argued, it might be the case that the State whose consent is procured by the coercion of its representative nonetheless finds that, on balance, the agreement is worth keeping. If so, absolute nullity appears to be too strong a sanction.92 While some western States endorsed the US proposal, the US amendment and similar ones tabled by Australia and France were eventually rejected, and one can only speculate that their western origins did them no favours: in all likelihood, rich nations are the ones expected to be most likely to engage in subtle forms of coercion. Again, there is (fortunately perhaps) a dearth of actual cases, and it would for that reason be difficult to maintain that the coercion of representatives is part of customary international law. Again though, it cannot completely be excluded that the lack of cases owes something to the understandable reticence of those who have been coerced to make the coercion public, in particular when it concerns ‘private indiscretions’ being exposed. Rather more explosive was the situation concerning coercion of the State itself, which eventually found provision in Article 52 VCLT.93 The underlying idea is simple enough: States should not impose their wills on other States, and every treaty resulting from an attempt to do so suffers from a lack in the required consensus ad idem. Still, to give effect to such a position is not at all easy: Grotius already struggled with it. Curiously, when discussing promises, Grotius claimed that while a coerced promise is binding, the coercing agent should release the promisor of his obligation.94 This would have the dual advantage of keeping the sanctity of promises intact, while securing the justice of preventing damage. 89 Art 51 VCLT states: ‘The expression of a State’s consent to be bound by a treaty which has been procured by the coercion of its representative through acts or threats directed against him shall be without any legal effect.’ 90 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 246. 91 Ibid. 92 See Vienna Conference, First Session (n 80) 267. 93 Art 52 VCLT reads: ‘A treaty is void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.’ 94 See H Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace (Kelsey (trs), Clarendon Press, Oxford 1925) 334.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  561 More generally, he pointed out that fear has no place in the formation of contracts,95 and that the conclusion of unequal treaties was not a particularly good idea.96 Here too, problems of delimitation came up. Thus, Grotius noted that treaties between victors and vanquished may qualify as unequal treaties, but that such treaties could also be concluded ‘between more powerful and less powerful peoples that have not even engaged in war with each other’.97 Indeed, it turned out that these two examples of unequal treaties (victory treaties, and treaties between States with huge power differences) would create systemic puzzles for international lawyers. The first is the phenomenon of the peace treaty which, almost by definition, is the result of coercion, and thus raises the issue of demarcating the just from the unjust use of coercion. The easy answer is to refer to the prohibition of the use of force contained in the UN Charter, and Article 52 VCLT duly takes this step: coercion is defined as the use of force ‘in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations’. While this may be easy to apply in some cases (think of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990), difficulties may nonetheless occur. It might be difficult to identify which of the parties used force in violation of the Charter’s principles, and which party used force in legitimate self-​defence. Perhaps then the smarter cause is to forego the temptation of imposing an all too victorious peace treaty upon the vanquished—​something Woodrow Wilson repeatedly advocated during the First World War when publicly announcing to be striving for a ‘peace without victory’.98 Even so, his attempt to secure a peace without victory after the First World War bore no fruit. The Versailles Treaty, negotiated without Germany’s participation between the victorious powers, is often seen as the textbook example of a treaty procured by means of coercion.99 During the 1968 Vienna Conference, a number of mainly non-​aligned nations tabled an amendment that the notion of coercion should not only address military force, but also the more subtle emanations of political and economic pressure.100 This came as no surprise: a similar discussion had taken place within the ILC, as the Commission’s final report recalled.101 The amendment would eventually not be taken on board and would not even be voted on. While many States had expressed their support, others found that the inclusion of economic and political pressure would fatally undermine the stability of treaty relations, and it was even pointed out that economic and political pressure can take many forms: the industrial State without natural resources can just as easily be bullied into accepting a treaty by a State richer in natural resources as the other way around.102 In order to prevent a stalemate, the Dutch representative, Willem Riphagen, proposed to append a declaration condemning the use of political and economic pressure in the conclusion of treaties while keeping Article 52 limited to coercion as embodied in the UN Charter.

95 See ibid 348. 96 See ibid 396. 97 Ibid 397. 98 See the fine biography by JM Cooper, Jr, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (Knopf, New York 2009). 99 For further discussion, see also J Klabbers, ‘Clinching the Concept of Sovereignty: Wimbledon Redux’ (1998) 3 ARIEL 345–​67. 100 See the discussion at the 48th meeting of the Committee of the Whole (1968) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​C.1/​ SR.48, 269–​71. 101 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 246. 102 The point was made by Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga, the representative of Uruguay. See Vienna Conference, First Session (n 80) 277.

562  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments This was accepted; the earlier amendment was dropped without a vote, and the Final Act of the Vienna Conference included a declaration condemning coercion also by non-​forceful means.103 While Article 52 gave rise to lots of discussion both before and during the Vienna Conference, its practical impact seems to have remained fairly limited, at least if discussion in the literature is a reliable yardstick: relatively few scholarly works have been devoted to coercion in the law of treaties, and those which touch upon the topic tend to focus either on the use of force in general,104 or concentrate on the category of unequal treaties and tend to do so from a largely historical perspective.105 Likewise, there is little recorded State practice. Aust mentions the possible example of a military agreement concluded between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and NATO, with the FRY complaining about duress, only to dismiss it.106 Perhaps this follows logically from the problem of delimitation between justifiable and unjustifiable pressure, and the intricate problem of proving coercion in the conclusion of treaties. As the Court of Arbitration deciding the Dubai-​Sharjah Border Arbitration sensibly remarked, pressure of some sort or another is endemic in international negotiations, yet ‘[m]‌ere influences and pressures cannot be equated with the concept of coercion as it is known in international law’.107

D.  Jus cogens By contrast, much ink has been spilt on the concept of jus cogens—​the idea that there are certain peremptory norms of international law that States cannot derogate from via treaty.108 The idea of jus cogens gained momentum when the Nazi-​regime in Germany prompted Alfred Verdross to write a brief note on forbidden treaties in international law.109 Still, the notion is problematic within the VCLT system. Since the Vienna Convention conceptualizes treaties as instruments rather than obligations, it follows that considerations relating to the substance of treaties (as opposed to their formal characteristics) have a hard time being integrated. Yet, jus cogens focuses precisely on considerations of substance: it aims to limit the contractual freedom of States by stipulating that States are not allowed to conclude treaties to engage in certain activities. This is intuitively attractive: inasmuch as domestic legal orders are unwilling to accept and recognize certain contracts (eg a contract to kill), so too is international law unwilling to allow States to conclude treaties providing for

103 See ibid 328–​9. 104 The same is observed by HG de Jong, ‘Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties’ (1984) 15 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 209–​47. 105 A fine example is M Craven, ‘What Happened to Unequal Treaties? The Continuities of Informal Empire’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Intl L 335–​82. 106 See Aust, 3rd edn (n 1) 278. 107 See Dubai-​Sharjah Border Arbitration (1981) 91 ILR 543, 571. 108 Some of the more useful works include L Hannikainen, Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) in International Law (Finnish Lawyers’ Publishing Company, Helsinki 1988); G Gaja, ‘Jus Cogens Beyond the Vienna Convention’ (1981/​III) 172 RcD 271–​316; A Paulus, ‘Jus Cogens in a Time of Hegemony and Fragmentation—​An Attempt at a Re-​appraisal’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Intl L 297–​334, and T Weatherall, Jus Cogens: International Law and Social Contract (CUP, Cambridge 2015). A broader critique of some of the thinking underlying the jus cogens idea and similar trends is P Weil, ‘Towards Relative Normativity in International Law?’ (1983) 77 AJIL 413–​42. 109 See A Verdross, ‘Forbidden Treaties in International Law’ (1937) 31 AJIL 571–​7.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  563 genocide, slavery, aggression, or racial segregation. What renders this problematic are two factors. First, there is little agreement as to which norms belong to the corpus of jus cogens; second, there is a lack of clarity as to how norms come to be recognized as such. The first of these did not bother the ILC too much: it felt confident that the ‘full content of this rule’ could be elaborated in State practice and in the case law of international tribunals. This had the advantage, from the drafters’ point of view, of not closing off the discussion: it allowed for the inclusion of new rules over time, and ensured that the drafters did not have to make difficult, perhaps impossible, choices. Put differently: it is unlikely that any list of jus cogens norms would have been accepted by the Vienna Conference, and even if such a list would have made the grade, it would probably have deterred quite a few States from ratifying the Vienna Convention. Hence, playing down the relevance of such a list was useful for purposes of completing the Convention, but has resulted in a veritable explosion of suggestions since 1969. That would not be much of a problem, arguably, if it would have been possible to find a workable method for the identification of jus cogens norms. Article 53 does prescribe such a method: a rule of jus cogens is defined as a norm ‘from which no derogation is permitted’ and which is ‘accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole’ as such a non-​derogable norm.110 There is some agreement that it relates to norms of high moral fibre (the prohibitions of genocide, torture, apartheid, slavery, and aggression are often mentioned), but even this does not close the ranks. Much trouble is caused by the absence of an international legislature to decide on what counts as a jus cogens prohibition. Article 53 tries to compensate for this by suggesting that it is ‘the international community of States as a whole’ which decides, but given that no such community exists in institutionalized form, authors have had a free hand in suggesting norms for inclusion, and have not hesitated to utilize this freedom. The ICJ has been rather quiet on this front: it took until 2006 before the Court was willing to classify the genocide prohibition as a jus cogens norm, while simultaneously noting that violation of such a norm as such would not grant the Court jurisdiction.111 In earlier decisions and opinions, the Court had sometimes hinted at jus cogens, but never actively used the term.112 For example, in its opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons, the ICJ held that two norms of humanitarian law are amongst the ‘intransgressible principles’ of international law, but stopped short of referring to them as jus cogens—​intentionally, we may presume.113 By the same token, on another occasion, the Court classified self-​determination as an ‘erga omnes principle’, but did not refer to it as a jus cogens rule.114 110 Art 53 VCLT reads: ‘A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.’ It follows, that agreement between a group of like-​minded States on the non-​derogability of a certain norm does not automatically turn that norm into a norm of jus cogens. 111 See Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility) [2006] ICJ Rep 6, 31 [64]. 112 In Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v USA) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, 100–​1 [190], the ICJ used the term but did so while citing the ILC and the parties to the dispute; it is doubtful whether this can be regarded as an unqualified endorsement. 113 See Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, 257 [79]. 114 See East Timor (Portugal v Australia) [1995] ICJ Rep 90, 102 [29]. In the ICJ’s 2019 advisory opinion on the Chagos Islands, several individual judges referred to the right to self-​determination as a jus cogens rule. The majority opinion however did not do so. See Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from

564  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments Other international tribunals have sometimes found jus cogens norms to exist, most emphatically perhaps the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in Furundžija with its conclusion that the prohibition on torture so qualifies.115 Then again, in one sense at least Furundžija was a relatively easy case: there was no need to pit the jus cogens prohibition of torture against any other rules of international law to establish its peremptory status. Where such a need has arisen, courts have been a bit less emphatic. Thus, the European Court of Human Rights has held that while the torture-​prohibition forms part of the jus cogens corpus, this does not set aside the immunity of States from civil suit, although it may affect their immunity from criminal proceedings.116 More generally, it will surely be the case that the mere label of jus cogens does not bring political debate to a halt. It is one thing to agree that genocide or torture are jus cogens, but quite another to agree on what constitutes genocide or torture. Domestic courts have been somewhat less hesitant than the ICJ in identifying the existence of jus cogens, and there is one case where a domestic court invalidated a headquarters agreement with a small international organization because the agreement affected due process considerations thought to be jus cogens.117 It remains speculative, but perhaps in this case a unilateral finding of invalidity was facilitated by the circumstance that the treaty partner was an international organization, that is, an entity without a legal order of its own, so to speak. Beyond this example, domestic courts may have identified jus cogens, but have been reluctant actually to apply it. They have sometimes held, for example, that perpetrators could benefit from sovereign immunity. Thus, in Siderman de Blake, a US court held that torture qualified as a jus cogens norm, but that the government of Argentina was immune from suit.118 In Princz, another US court reached a similar conclusion with respect to the genocide perpetrated by Nazi-​Germany before and during the Second World War.119 These positions, however, seem conceptually awkward: if a norm is one from which no derogation is permitted, then surely sovereign immunity should not function as a shield. Upholding immunity even for jus cogens violations can be—​and has been—​rationalized by making a rigid distinction between substantive law and procedural rules: on such a construction, the fact that the States concerned could not be sued does not detract from their possible guilt and from the fundamental nature of the rules breached. Yet somehow this seems too clever by half.120 Perhaps a more plausible explanation may be that for many domestic courts, particularly those whose legal systems do not automatically incorporate international law, upholding an international jus cogens norm over considerations Mauritius in 1965 (Advisory opinion) 25 February 2019, available at . 115 See Prosecutor v Furundžija (1998) ICTY Case IT-​95-​17/​1, reproduced (2002) 121 ILR 213. 116 See Al-​Adsani v United Kingdom (Decision of 21 November 2001) App No 35763/​97, [61]. 117 The case concerned is Washington Cabrera J.E. c Comisión Técnica Mixta de Salto Grande, a 1983 decision by Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice, mentioned in Weatherall (n 108) 460. The decision is available at . 118 See Siderman de Blake v Republic of Argentina, 965 F.2d 699 (9th Cir 1992). 119 See Hugo Princz v Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F.3d 1166 (DC Cir 1994). Moreover, the court found that engaging in an act prohibited by jus cogens does not constitute an implied waiver to immunity. 120 Such a construction is hinted at by Zimmermann, noting that jus cogens rules and rules on immunity are best seen ‘as involving two different sets of rules which do not interact with each other’. See A Zimmermann, ‘Sovereign Immunity and Violations of International Jus Cogens—​Some Critical Remarks’ (1995) 16 Michigan J Intl L 433, 438. In a similar vein, see J Finke, ‘Sovereign Immunity: Rule, Comity or Something Else?’ (2010) 21 EJIL 853, 869.

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  565 of sovereign immunity would typically imply an unwanted result: the prevalence of international law over domestic law, as immunity law is typically regulated in domestic legislation.121 On the other hand, if jus cogens is regarded as domestic law, a different result may follow. Indeed, the decision of Italy’s Court of Cassation in Ferrini goes some way towards this: the Court held that Germany could not invoke immunity in respect of allegations of forced labour during the Second World War, and specifically invoked the domestication of ‘fundamental human rights’: these ‘automatically become an integral part of Italian law’.122 On such a reading, any conflict between international law and domestic law dissipates, and jus cogens can come to be applied as a matter of domestic law. The reluctance of the ICJ, and the conceptual awkwardness of other courts, may well find its source in the general reluctance of States to accept the ultimate price to pay for acceptance of the jus cogens category. In the end, it would seem that the jus cogens notion is only workable within a hierarchical system of law (unlike the still predominantly horizontal international legal order), and with an acceptance of the possibility of legislation by majority.123 Surely, the position, sometimes heard in the 1970s and 1980s—​that the apartheid prohibition was accepted as a norm of jus cogens, but that this could not affect South Africa because of its non-​acceptance thereof—​bordered on the bizarre.124 The one State that engages in an unwanted practice cannot escape from universal condemnation by acting as a persistent objector, at least not without diluting the very idea of jus cogens. Jus cogens should either be imperative enough to bind all, or it is not jus cogens. As the above suggests, jus cogens has started to live a life outside the limited context of the conclusion of treaties,125 and it is probably no coincidence that the topic was placed on the agenda of the International Law Commission in 2014, this time mostly to investigate its meaning and consequences in general international law, that is, going beyond the context of the law of treaties. To date, Special rapporteur Dire Tladi has produced four reports.126 One may perhaps stipulate that empirically jus cogens seems to have been a reasonable success within the law of treaties. After all, few treaties are concluded in order to facilitate genocide, slavery, or apartheid. While the relevance of facts is never self-​evident, this may be taken as a sign that States do not conclude such treaties because they think such treaties will be invalid—​although it may also mean that they refrain from concluding such treaties because they think them distasteful, impractical, or not in their best interest. That said, the recent popularity of treaties which facilitate torture through so-​called ‘extraordinary 121 Surely, the European Court of Human Rights too would be sensitive to such a concern; it is keen not to be seen as replacing the domestic law of its Member States. 122 See Ferrini v Federal Republic of Germany (Court of Cassation Italy, Judgment of 11 March 2004) 128 ILR 658, 666. Note, however, that the ICJ rejected this approach and held that the decision of Italy’s Court of Cassation was not in conformity with international law, upholding a strict separation between substance and process. See Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v Italy; Greece Intervening) [2012] ICJ Rep 99. 123 In particular, France was troubled by the very category of jus cogens: troubled enough not to sign the Vienna Convention. See generally O Deleau, ‘Les positions francaises à la Conférence de Vienne sur le droit des traités’ (1969) 15 Annuaire Français de Droit International 7–​23. 124 Cassese came very close to such a position when allowing for application of the persistent objector doctrine to the creation of jus cogens norms. See A Cassese, International Law in a Divided World (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986) 178. 125 See generally Weatherall (n 108). 126 Thus far, the most recent was produced in 2019: D Tladi, ‘Fourth report on peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens)’ (31 January 2019) ILC 71st Sess, UN Doc A/​CN.4/​727.

566  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments rendition’ casts some doubt on whether the torture prohibition still qualifies as a jus cogens norm: if too many States engage in torture, then either all those activities are invalid or, more likely perhaps, the conclusion must be reached that the norm is no longer recognized as one from which no derogation is permitted. The more common usage of jus cogens would seem to be as a yardstick for the legality of official behaviour more generally. The scenarios in cases such as Al-​Adsani, Ferrini, Princz, and Siderman de Blake did not involve treaty-​making by the United Kingdom, Nazi-​ Germany, or Argentina, but concerned the way in which those States treated individuals. By the same token, Furundžija and the ICJ’s Armed Activities case did not involve the validity of treaties. The ICJ has once been called upon (without answering the call) to assess the legality of a Security Council resolution in light of a proposed jus cogens norm: this arose when Bosnia complained that an arms embargo imposed on both Bosnia and Serbia during the Yugoslav conflict affected Bosnia’s capacity for self-​defence, and therewith contributed to ethnic cleansing or even genocide.127 In short, the idea of jus cogens is no longer limited to being a validity test for treaties (if it ever was), but has come to assume the role of a general—​and genuine—​ordre public notion.

Conclusions At the end of the day, the notion of validity (or invalidity) seems to have little practical effect in the law of treaties, and, if jus cogens be excepted, has not given rise to much theoretical reflection either. There is widespread agreement that some rules on validity are useful and required, and there is widespread agreement that the consent defects identified by Articles 46–​52 VCLT are amongst the rules that should be present, and that the jus cogens idea is, well, a really good idea as such. The precise details, however, remain to be filled in. It is therefore, naturally, no coincidence that the procedure invented in the Vienna Convention to address issues of validity and invalidity (Articles 65–​68 VCLT), has also remained a dead letter. Such a procedure was considered necessary as soon as provisions on invalidity were introduced: it would not be a good idea to have States proclaim the invalidity of treaties left, right, and centre. Still, in the absence of instances of State practice, the procedures too have remained under-​utilized. And perhaps this relative neglect of validity is as it should be. A legal order in which the contractual activities of its main members are often invalidated would be a highly problematic legal order. Likewise, a legal order where invalidity is the norm, rather than a rare exception, has quite a problem. And even then, it is one thing to invalidate treaties, but quite another to scrutinize the acts of public authorities within any given legal order; it is surely no coincidence that the jus cogens notion has come to be seen as a test of the validity of the exercise of public authority rather than of treaties alone. Still, in the absence—​or very limited existence—​of global public authorities and the necessary presumption of validity of treaties, it stands to reason that the notion of invalidity does not do much work in the international legal order.

127 See Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia-​Herzegovina v Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)) (Order of 13 September 1993) [1993] ICJ Rep 3, [25].

The Validity and Invalidity of Treaties  567

Recommended Reading A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 273–​82 O Corten and P Klein (eds), Les Conventions de Vienne sur le Droit des Traités: Commentaire Article par Article (Bruylant, Brussels 2006) M Craven, ‘What Happened to Unequal Treaties? The Continuities of Informal Empire’ (2005) 74 Nordic J Intl L 335–​82 HG de Jong, ‘Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties’ (1984) 15 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 209–​47 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Formal Sources of International Law’, in FM van Asbeck and others (eds), Symbolae Verzijl (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1958) 153–​76 D Greig, Invalidity and the Law of Treaties (BIICL, London 2006) P Guggenheim, ‘La validité et la nullité des actes juridiques internationaux’ (1949/​I) 74 RcD 191–​268 L Hannikainen, Peremptory Norms (Jus Cogens) in International Law (Finnish Lawyers’ Publishing Company, Helsinki 1988) H Kelsen, Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory (Litschewski Paulson and Paulson trs) (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1992, first published in 1934) J Klabbers, ‘Law-​making and Constitutionalism’, in J Klabbers, A Peters, and G Ulfstein, The Constitutionalization of International Law (OUP, Oxford 2009) 81–​125 J Klabbers, ‘Reluctant Grundnormen: Articles 31(3)(c) and 42 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Fragmentation of International Law’ in M Craven, M Fitzmaurice, and M Vogiatzi (eds), Time, History and International Law (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2007) 141–​61 A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) T Meron, ‘Article 46 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Ultra Vires Treaties)’ (1979) 50 BYBIL  175–​99 SE Nahlik, ‘The Grounds of Validity and Termination of Treaties’ (1971) 65 AJIL 736–​56 P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traits Cahier (ed) (3rd edn Presses Universitaires de France, Geneva 1995) G Sartor, ‘Legal Validity as Doxastic Obligation’ (2000) 19 Law and Philosophy 585–​625 A Verdross, ‘Forbidden Treaties in International Law’ (1937) 31 AJIL 571–​7 ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) E Vitta, La validité des traités internationaux (Brill, Leiden 1940) T Weatherall, Jus Cogens: International Law and Social Contract (CUP, Cambridge 2015)

24

Reacting against Treaty Breaches Bruno Simma and Christian J Tams

Introduction States regularly proclaim the sanctity of treaty obligations and few principles are as firmly established as pacta sunt servanda.1 Yet, treaty breaches are by no means exceptional: adapting one of international law’s most celebrated statements, one might even say that ‘almost all nations, almost all the time, consider their rights under a given treaty to be violated’.2 By way of a snapshot, at the time of writing, eleven of fourteen active contentious cases pending before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) involve claims, by one State, that a certain treaty has been violated.3 And this ignores the many treaty breaches that do not reach the spotlight, but are addressed quietly (eg by means of a phone call between representatives of the States concerned) or are not addressed at all. Against this background, a recent textbook is surely right to state that ‘most disputes submitted to international adjudication involve some problem of treaty interpretation’.4 The frequency of real or alleged treaty breaches is neither a source for major concern, nor should it come as a great surprise. While some argue that States today are more cautious before entering into new treaties, especially multilateral ones, the last 150 years have seen a significant trend towards ‘treatification’, and treaty commitments have come to cover ever greater areas of international relations. That some of these commitments should occasionally be breached is only natural: nobody is perfect, and States certainly are not. More importantly, not all treaty breaches are intentional, or show disrespect for international law as a system, let alone its ground rule of pacta sunt servanda. Often, breaches result from mere oversights or lack of information: to give just one example, before States like Paraguay, Germany, and Mexico were beginning to raise the matter, few people were likely to be aware of the requirements imposed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) with respect to consular notification.5 Or, treaty disputes may be due to different, plausible interpretations of a given treaty commitment—​for example, with respect to the scope of an 1 In the introductory lines of its commentary on draft Art 23 (which eventually became Art 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT)), the International Law Commission (ILC) observed: ‘Pacta sunt servanda—​the rule that treaties are binding on the parties and must be performed in good faith—​is the fundamental principle of the law of treaties’. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 211. 2 Cf L Henkin, How Nations Behave (2nd edn Columbia University Press, New York 1979) 47 (‘almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time’). 3 For a list of ICJ cases see . The figures given exclude proceedings that remain on the Court’s docket after a judgment on the merits has been rendered, such as Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros and DRC v Uganda. 4 A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 205. 5 Cf Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (adopted 24 April 1963, entered into force 19 March 1967) 596 UNTS 261, Art 36 (VCCR). For details on the ‘litigation saga’ see eg B Simma and C Hoppe, ‘From LaGrand and Avena to Medellin—​A Rocky Road Toward Implementation’ (2005) 14 Tulane J Intl Comp L 7.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  569 obligation to prevent the commission of acts of genocide, as was the case in the proceedings between Bosnia and Serbia before the ICJ.6 Finally, at times, conflicting obligations may even require States to disregard obligations arising under one treaty to comply with the demands of another—​in which case, conflict resolution techniques such as the lex specialis principle, or jus cogens, may clarify questions of precedence.7 And, of course, not every treaty breach is in itself dramatic; the spectrum of what is covered by the term ‘treaty breach’ is huge. It comprises acts of aggression amounting to a large-​scale violation of Article 2(4)8 of the UN Charter just as it does one State’s imposition of an 11 per cent ad valorem import tax on foreign goods where a treaty binds the tariff to 10.9 per cent. Against this background, it seems natural that real or alleged treaty breaches are by no means an exceptional feature of international law, shaped by well over a century of treatification. The real question is whether international law provides means and methods to respond to them. This chapter addresses that question. We do so in four steps. First, we provide an overview of the international regime governing reactions against treaty breaches. In the next two sections, we analyse the two most relevant generally available means of response under the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility respectively. Our final section offers some concluding observations. In addressing questions of treaty breaches and responses, we will focus on rules of international law regulating inter-​State behaviour. Notwithstanding this restriction, it seems clear that treaty breaches can be committed by and against different (non-​State) subjects of international law, notably by and against international organizations. While these raise some special problems (eg relating to determining whether the organization itself or its members bear responsibility9), they are in principle subject to the rules developed to govern inter-​State relations.10

I.  Specific and General Rules Governing Reactions Against Treaty Breaches: An Overview A.  Responses ‘in [their] infinite variety’11 Just as treaty breaches are manifold, so are the possible reactions against them. The point may be illustrated by reverting to the examples of treaty breaches just mentioned and to 6 Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v Serbia and Montenegro) (Judgment) [2007] ICJ Rep 43. 7 For many details on these—​and other—​conflicts see the ILC Study Group, ‘Fragmentation of International Law: Difficulties Arising from the Diversification and Expansion of International Law’ (13 April 2006) UN Doc A/​ CN.4/​L.682. 8 See eg UNGA Res 3314 (XXIX) (14 December 1974), fifth preambular paragraph (describing aggression as ‘the most serious and dangerous form of the illegal use of force’). 9 For brief comment on this see B Simma and C Tams, ‘Article 60 (1986)’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, [3]–​[4]. 10 Leaving aside the inclusion of references to ‘international organizations’, Art 60 of the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543, follows the wording of Art 60 of the 1969 VCLT (addressed below, in Section II). By the same token, Arts 51–​7 of the 2011 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations adapt Arts 49–​54 of the Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (addressed below, in Section III) with only minor modifications. See also Chapter 5, Section III, 107 et seq. 11 Cf R Baxter, ‘International Law “In Her Infinite Variety” ’ (1980) 29 ICLQ 549.

570  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments consider possible responses. State A’s aggression in scenario 1 could prompt State B—​the victim of the armed attack—​to resort to self-​defence under Article 51 UN Charter. State C might want to refer to Article 51 to justify its military support for State B (‘collective self-​ defence’), while State D might decide to freeze assets to exercise pressure on State A. Other States are likely to protest against the violation of international law, while the Security Council could address the matter by imposing sanctions or encouraging enforcement action in defence of State B’s territorial integrity. In scenario 2, the limited violation of tariff bindings by State X is most likely to be addressed bilaterally, through diplomatic channels, perhaps with the assistance of other States, if State Y (whose exports are affected) does not decide to ignore the matter altogether so as not to jeopardize its friendly relations with State X. In a variation to scenario 2 (which one might refer to as scenario 2bis), violations of tariff bindings that are of a more relevant character might prompt State Y to respond in kind by disregarding its own tariff bindings. If the matter is governed by World Trade Organization (WTO) law, State Y might institute panel proceedings under the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding. Alongside these more formal responses, States X and Y, but presumably also other States with some interest in the matter, might seek a friendly settlement, which might involve consultations, expressions of concern, incentives, or protests against State X’s disregard of international trade rules.

B.  Treaty-​specific rules and general legal concepts From this briefest of illustrations, it becomes clear that the range of possible reactions against treaty breaches is vast. A State’s reaction against a treaty breach depends on a variety of factors, including, inter alia: (i) the character or gravity of the breach; (ii) the relations between the States involved in the dispute; (iii) the competence of international institutions to address the matter; and (iv) more particularly, the availability of an independent forum for dispute resolution. More importantly, the scenarios illustrate that a State’s response to a treaty breach may be governed by two different categories of rules.12 The first category comprises what might be termed ‘treaty-​specific’ reactions: a treaty can itself regulate reactions against breaches of its provisions. In scenario 1 above, State B’s reliance on self-​defence would be ‘treaty-​specific’, as Article 51 UN Charter permits a specific form of self-​help against a particular breach of the same treaty (namely a qualified use of force against a breach amounting to an ‘armed attack’). By the same token, State C could avail itself of the treaty-​specific possibility of aiding the victim of an armed attack by means of collective self-​defence, just as the Security Council could make use of its treaty-​specific enforcement competence under (and subject to the requirements of) Chapter VII of the UN Charter. In scenario 2bis, State Y’s decision to institute WTO dispute settlement proceedings would also be ‘treaty-​specific’, as WTO law envisages Panel and Appellate Body proceedings as suitable modes for resolving disputes about violations of the covered agreements. However, not all treaties address reactions against breaches, and even those that do need not be exhaustive in their regulation. Irrespective of any treaty-​specific provision, reactions 12 The following distinction draws on C Tams, ‘Enforcement’ in G Ulfstein and others (eds), Making Treaties Work (CUP, Cambridge 2007) 395–​6; and further C Tams, ‘Regulating Treaty Breaches’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 440–​67.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  571 against treaty breaches can be based on general legal concepts, which comprise the second category of rules governing responses to treaty breach. In the scenarios mentioned above, State D’s decision to freeze State A’s assets (unless authorized by the Security Council) cannot be based on a specific treaty provision and therefore must be justified differently. Similarly, if State Y decides to respond to State X’s violation of tariff bindings by levying excessive import duties outside the WTO context, it is unlikely that there will be a treaty-​ specific rule justifying such a tit-​for-​tat response. More generally, few treaties lay down express rules governing protests against treaty breaches. The legality of these responses depends then, not on the express terms of the treaty whose breach prompted them, but on general rules external to the treaty. The distinction between treaty-​specific and general rules governing reactions against treaty breaches is of considerable importance. While the treaty itself is the obvious locus for addressing questions of breaches and responses, treaty-​specific rules are of limited relevance for a study focusing on general aspects of treaty law. They are no doubt common and, taken together, constitute an important element of the international regime governing responses against treaty breaches. But precisely because of their heterogeneity, they escape easy classifications. There are but few limits to the creativity of treaty parties in designing regimes of reactions against treaty breaches, and few models that have not been tried out. In fact, the two simplified scenarios already mentioned reveal the spectre of approaches, ranging from bilateral consultations to legal or quasi-​legal proceedings, but also encompassing the (potentially massive) use of military force in self-​defence. To provide an overview over treaty-​specific rules ‘in [their] infinite variety’13 would be impossible; what is more, it would be of limited utility as treaty-​specific rules are by definition of no general relevance outside the specific treaty’s field of application. For this reason, the subsequent discussion focuses on responses available under general concepts.

C.  Intrinsically lawful responses versus responses presupposing title to respond Excluding reactions based on treaty-​specific provisions considerably narrows the scope of inquiry. It may be further restricted on the basis of functional criteria. Notably, a further distinction can be drawn between responses that depend on a title, or justification; and responses that are permissible as a matter of course. This latter category would comprise protests, or forms of pressure that are unfriendly, but intrinsically lawful (often described as retorsions14). International law does not regulate these responses in any detail—​and it opts against regulation deliberately, as the responses do not reach the threshold of (prima facie) illegality. Like treaty-​based responses, intrinsically lawful reactions can be hugely relevant: very often, protests—​especially by a large group of States—​may be an extremely effective way of resolving a dispute about treaty breaches. On the other hand, they may sometimes exacerbate tensions and deepen existing frictions. 13 Baxter (n 11) 549. 14 ILC, ‘Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with Commentaries’ [2001] YBILC, vol II, 128 [3]‌(ASR). For more on retorsion, see eg OY Elagab, The Legality of Non-​Forcible Countermeasures in International Law (OUP, Oxford 1987) 4, 29–​30; KJ Partsch, ‘Retorsion’ in R Bernhardt (ed), Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (Amsterdam, Elsevier 2000) vol IV, 232.

572  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments By contrast, responses that cross the threshold of (prima facie) illegality require regulation. Of course, international law must permit effective responses against treaty breaches, but it cannot give carte blanche to responding States. Not surprisingly, it seeks to strike a balance between the two competing considerations. This balancing exercise has been influenced by changing views of treaty stability and effectiveness within the international community, and is reflected in the general legal regimes permitting coercive responses against treaty breaches.

D.  Treaty law responses versus countermeasures International law enshrines two main categories of coercive responses against treaty breaches: (i) the suspension or termination of treaties under the law of treaties; and (ii) the non-​performance of obligations justified as a countermeasure under the law of State responsibility.15 The first of these is of obvious relevance: given that treaty breaches affect treaty obligations, one would expect the general law of treaties to address the matter—​for example, by laying down a general provision on potential responses. This general provision is Article 60 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), which puts forward a very nuanced and highly influential regime governing responses to treaty breaches. As discussed in the next section, it draws fine distinctions based on the impact of the breach, and on the character of the treaty affected, while also clarifying which obligations are ‘sacrosanct’ and cannot be suspended or terminated even in cases of breach. The general law of treaties does not exhaustively regulate responses to treaty breaches. It might have done so; however, the VCLT as the key text setting out the law of treaties addresses treaty breaches only in passing.16 As a consequence, there remains room for 15 In addition to the two main forms discussed herein, commentators remain fascinated by a third concept, the exceptio inadimpleti contractus. This concept, viewed by some as a general principle of law, is said to permit the non-​performance of an obligation in relation to a State that had previously violated its own reciprocal obligation. The exceptio has clearly influenced the principle of reciprocity, which—​as we discuss later—​informed the drafting of Art 60 VCLT. However, following the acceptance of Art 60, very little suggests that the exceptio continues to exist as an autonomous defence permitting responses to treaty breaches. Quite to the contrary, as far as responses based in the law of treaties are concerned, ‘Article 60 regulates the legal consequences of treaty breach in an exhaustive way, thus no version of the exceptio has survived the codification of the law of treaties—​may it rest in peace’. Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 (Judgment) [2011] ICJ Rep 695, 708 [29] (Separate Opinion of Judge Simma); see also ibid [4]‌–​[29] for a fuller discussion. It is worth noting that, in the case to which this separate opinion was appended, the majority of the Court showed a curious ‘Berührungsangst‘ (ibid [6] (Separate Opinion of Judge Simma); it chose not to rule out that there could be some room for the exceptio, without however indicating how it could apply. See Application of the Interim Accord of 13 September 1995 [2011] ICJ Rep 644, 690–​91 [161]. For a comprehensive account of the earlier debate, see B Simma, ‘Reflections on Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Its Background in General International Law’ (1970) 20 ÖZÖR 19–​23, 52–​5 (‘Simma, Reflections’); for attempts to carve out a niche for the exceptio, see J Crawford, ‘Third Report on State Responsibility’ (2000) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​507/​Add.2, [324]–​[325]; R Provost, ‘Reciprocity in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law’ (1994) 65 BYBIL 398–​400; and most recently, M Xiouri, ‘The Exceptio Non Adimpleti Contractus in Public International Law’ (2019) 21 Int’l Comm L Rev 56–​92. 16 See S Rosenne, Breach of Treaty (Grotius, Cambridge 1985) 3–​8. Rosenne rightly notes that the VCLT approach deliberately distinguishes the ‘law of treaties’ from the ‘law of obligations’ imposed by treaties. Ibid 4. This distinction, he observed, ‘made it necessary to find another basis for the systematic classification and treatment of the law of international obligations as such . . . This was found in a thorough reconstruction of the nature, scope and treatment of the law of State responsibility’. Ibid. The ICJ has emphasized this as well. Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (Judgment) [1997] ICJ Rep 7, 38 [47] (the VCLT ‘confines itself to defining—​in a limitative manner—​the conditions in which a treaty may lawfully be denounced or suspended; while the effects of a denunciation or suspension seen as not meeting those conditions are, on the contrary, expressly excluded from the scope of the Convention by operation of Article 73. It is moreover well established that, when a State has

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  573 responses based, not on the general law of treaties, but on the law of State responsibility, which is detailed in the 2001 Articles on State Responsibility (ASR). In State responsibility ‘jargon’, a treaty breach amounts to an internationally wrongful act, and entails the ensuing duties of cessation (where applicable) and reparation.17 More importantly, the general rules of responsibility also contain provisions governing the invocation of responsibility and inducing the wrongdoer to return to legality by way of countermeasures.18 Countermeasures can in fact be taken against all forms of wrongful acts, but it is clear that they are also available against treaty breaches. They permit ‘the non-​performance for the time being of international obligations of the State taking the measures towards the responsible State’19 (having violated a treaty). And they are subject to a number of conditions and exclusionary clauses. On the face of it, countermeasures and treaty law responses may seem similar. Subject to certain conditions, both are available against a treaty breach. Both concepts allow for reactions that take the form of suspension of treaty benefits. And, of course, States invoking the two concepts must establish an entitlement to do so—​they must be affected by the previous breach against which their response is directed. Yet, notwithstanding these commonalities, international law draws a fine, conceptual distinction between countermeasures, on the one hand, and treaty law responses on the other.20 It does so, moreover, for good reasons. Despite their similarities, the two types of responses serve different purposes. Countermeasures aim to compel the defaulting State to cease its violation of international law and/​or restore the situation that would have existed had there been no such violation.21 In contrast, treaty law responses aim to remedy a situation in which the balance of rights and obligations within a treaty relationship has been upset due to a prior breach by the defaulting State.22 At least in theory, treaty law responses must be restricted to synallagmatic pairs of obligations. In contrast, a party resorting to countermeasures may choose—​subject to a number of specific exceptions—​which obligation it intends to violate. In addition, both forms of reaction may be distinguished by their effect on the norm in question. A countermeasure constitutes the (justified) violation of a binding norm; it has no effect on the continued existence of the norm as such. In contrast, reactions under Article 60 VCLT involve the temporary or permanent extinction of a norm; that is, they—​ at least temporarily—​remove the underlying legal bond between the disputing parties.23 committed an internationally wrongful act, its international responsibility is likely to be involved whatever the nature of the obligation it has failed to respect’); Art 73 VCLT (VCLT is ‘without prejudice’ to questions arising from a treaty on ‘the international responsibility of a State’). 17 ASR (n 14) Arts 2, 30, and 31. 18 Ibid Arts 22, 49–​54. 19 Ibid Art 49(1). 20 For further details on this point, see B Simma and C Tams, ‘Article 60 (1969)’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, [4], [69]–​[73]. The proceedings in the Interim Accord case before the ICJ would seem to confirm the conceptual distinction set out in the text: both the parties and the Court treated treaty-​based and responsibility-​based responses separately. See Interim Accord case (n 15) [118]–​[122] and [161]–​[165]. 21 See Art 49(1) ASR (countermeasures are taken ‘in order to induce that State to comply with its obligations’); for commentary, see ibid 129–​30 [7]‌. 22 F Capotorti, ‘L’extinction et la suspension des traites’ (1971-​III) 134 RdC 417, 548–​9; Simma, Reflections (n 15) 20–​1. 23 Cf Crawford (n 15) [324]–​[325] (referencing the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Case (n 16) 39 [48]). See also Provost (n 15) 398–​9.

574  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments This difference is reflected in the different legal regimes governing countermeasures and treaty law responses, which the next sections spell out.

II.  The Law of Treaties: Article 60 VCLT The regime set out in Article 60 constitutes an ambitious attempt to categorize the system of treaty-​based responses against violations of international agreements. Within the framework of the general law of treaties, it aims at balancing two competing considerations, namely the need for effective responses against treaty breaches and the overarching interest in preserving treaty commitments. This balancing exercise has resulted in a very complex and perhaps overambitious regime. It is characterized by four features: (a) the decision to make treaty-​based responses dependent on a qualified (‘material’) breach; (b) an attempt to restrict the scope of the right to suspend or terminate treaties; (c) the development of a complex categorization of treaties with a view to identifying States entitled to respond against breaches; and (d) the submission of the right to suspend or terminate treaties to cumbersome procedural preconditions.

A.  The requirement of a material breach Pursuant to the opening phrases of Article 60(1) and (2) VCLT, suspension and termination of treaties can only be sought in response to breaches of a material character.24 With a view to ensuring the stability of treaty relations, drafters thus chose not to codify any remedies against immaterial breaches,25 an approach followed for both termination and mere suspension of treaties.26 Article 60(3) ‘defines’ a material breach by distinguishing two cases. The first of these is an obvious one: pursuant to Article 60(3)(a), the repudiation of a treaty (ie any attempt by a State to relieve itself from its obligations27) will generally28 constitute a material breach. While practice applying paragraph 3(a) is sparse,29 the Namibia case and 24 Cf [1966] YBILC, vol II, 255 [7]‌. The term ‘material breach’ was adopted in 1963 upon the proposal of the ILC’s Special Rapporteur, Sir Humphrey Waldock; it substituted the term ‘fundamental breach’ suggested by the previous Special Rapporteur, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice. See H Waldock, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1963] YBILC, vol II, 75 [11] (‘Waldock, Second Report’); GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 31 (draft Art 19(2)) (‘Fitzmaurice, Second Report’); and the clear account in T Giegerich, ‘Article 60’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018), [19]–​[23]. 25 This raises the question whether reactions against immaterial breaches are permitted under general international law; see Section III, 585–92 et seq. 26 In contrast, Fitzmaurice had drawn a distinction between suspension and termination. In his view, at least partial suspension would have been justified in response to breaches of a lesser character, cf Fitzmaurice, Second Report (n 24) 30 (draft Art 18); GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Fourth Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 50 (draft Art 37) (‘Fitzmaurice, Fourth Report’). 27 See UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of Second Session (9 April–​22 May 1969) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11/​Add.1, 115 [73] (‘Vienna Conference, Second Session’); P Reuter, Introduction au droit des traités (PUF, Paris 1995) 182 (note to [301]). During the Vienna Conference, various delegations submitted alternative proposals substituting the term ‘repudiation’, see M Gomaa, Suspension or Termination of Treaties on Grounds of Breach (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1996) 26 n4. 28 This does not comprise repudiations ‘sanctioned by the present Convention’, ie cases in which a State is entitled not to perform a treaty pursuant to Arts 46–​64 VCLT; see Giegerich (n 24) [25]. 29 See Gomaa (n 27) 151. The provision was unsuccessfully raised in some cases before municipal courts, see eg Australian Federal Court, Hempel and Another v Attorney-​General (Judgment) (1987) 87 ILR 159, 163.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  575 the more recent Slovenia-​Croatia case provide illustrations. In Namibia, the ICJ held that by disregarding obligations deriving from a 1922 agreement, South Africa had ‘disavowed’ the mandate,30 which the majority considered to amount to a repudiation.31 In the more recent arbitration between Slovenia and Croatia, the Arbitral Tribunal clarified that ‘repudiation’ meant the ‘rejection of a treaty as a whole’.32 It then found that irregular contacts between the agent of a party and a party-​appointed arbitrator in ‘blatant violation’ of the arbitration agreement did not amount to a repudiation if the defaulting party ‘recognised its continuing obligations under the . . . agreement’.33 The more relevant aspect of the material breach ‘definition’ is given in Article 60(3)(b), which qualifies as material any ‘violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty’. In so doing, it adopts an understanding of ‘material breach’ that may at first seem counterintuitive. Contrary to what might be expected, there is no reference to the intensity or gravity of the breach; instead, the provision’s focus is on the character of the treaty obligation that is being breached. This notably means that Article 60 does not permit responses against grave breaches of treaty provisions that are not essential.34 Conversely, but more controversially, the textual analysis suggest that trivial breaches of essential provisions can constitute material breaches under Article 60(3)(b). Whether this is indeed a desirable approach may be open to debate,35 especially since earlier draft provisions had required a substantial violation.36 The clear wording of Article 60(3)(b), however, admits of little doubt in this respect.37 Neither the text of the provision nor the International Law Commission’s (ILC’s) commentary clarify what is meant by an ‘essential provision’. It is clear from the wording that the determination has to be made in light of, and with reference to, the treaty’s object and purpose.38 The term ‘essential’ suggests that the provision in question must have been at the heart of a treaty.39 However, from the travaux, it appears that the ILC did not intend this to be overly restrictive; hence it considered that provisions of an ancillary character could be 30 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South-​West Africa) (Advisory Opinion) [1971] ICJ Rep 16, 47 [95]. 31 Ibid; see also ibid 218 (Separate Opinion of Judge de Castro). It must be noted, however, that the Court did not clearly distinguish between cases of ‘repudiation’ (Art 60(3)(a)) and ‘violations of essential provisions’ (Art 60(3)(b)). In an Annex to his dissenting opinion, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice criticized the majority’s approach; in his view, South Africa had denied the obligation’s existence, which was not the same as to repudiate it. Ibid Annex [6]‌. 32 Arbitration between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Slovenia, Partial Award (30 June 2016) PCA Case No 2012-​04, [213]. (The first-​named author was a member of the Arbitral Tribunal in this case.) 33 Ibid [208] and [214]. 34 The drafting history is very clear on this point. At the Vienna Conference, delegates rejected a Finnish proposal pursuant to which grave breaches of treaties should generally give rise to a right to suspend performance or terminate the treaty, irrespective of the essential (or otherwise) character of the provision affected. UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Official Records: Documents of the Conference (1968–​1969) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​14/​ Add.2, 181 [522] (‘Vienna Conference, Official Records’). 35 DW Greig, ‘Reciprocity, Proportionality, and the Law of Treaties’ (1994) 34 VJIL 295, 342–​3; P Malanczuk, Akehurst’s Modern Introduction to International Law (7th edn Routledge, London 1997) 143. 36 See Waldock, Second Report (n 24)  draft Art 20 (providing that ‘[a]‌material breach of a treaty results from . . . a breach so substantial as to be tantamount to setting aside any provisions . . . the failure to perform which is not compatible with the effective fulfilment of the object and purpose of the treaty’); [1966] YBILC, vol II, 255 [6]; F Kirgis, ‘Some Lingering Questions About Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ (1989) 22 Cornell Int L J 554. 37 See Gomaa (n 27) 33. 38 As the ILC made clear in its commentary, this primarily requires an analysis of the reasons that led to the conclusion of the treaty. [1966] YBILC, vol II, 255 [9]‌. By way of illustration, cf Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America) (Judgment) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, 137 [273]. 39 Gomaa (n 27) 31.

576  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments essential.40 This statement (which may surprise at first sight) has to be seen in the context of debates about dispute settlement clauses. These clauses are typically not a treaty’s one and only central aspect, and yet, the drafters were keen to clarify that their violation could amount to a ‘material breach’.41 Given the absence of clear normative guidance, it is no surprise that courts and tribunals charged with applying Article 60 have not come up with comprehensive definitions. Some judgments in fact merely restate the necessity of distinguishing between ‘normal’ and ‘material’ treaty violations.42 Statements made in proceedings before Austrian courts would seem to confirm that provisions may acquire an ‘essential’ status over time if the normative framework of the treaty changes.43 From the ICJ’s approach in the Nicaragua case, it may be inferred that flagrant violations of generally formulated treaty obligations are likely to be seen as ‘material breaches’ in the sense of Article 60(3)(b). There, the Court considered the mining of Nicaraguan ports and direct attacks on ports and oil installations to be material breaches of the bilateral Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (FCN) Treaty, while US import restrictions on Nicaraguan sugar and its efforts to prevent international organizations from granting loans to Nicaragua were held not to be ‘material’.44 Finally, in the more recent arbitration between Croatia and Slovenia, the Arbitral Tribunal emphasized that where the parties (or one of them) had taken action in response to a breach, it was necessary to determine in light of this ‘remedial action’ whether the object and purpose of a treaty could still be attained.45 Of course, these attempts to make sense of the concept of ‘material breach’ remain closely tied to the facts of each case, some of which were very particular. Generally, international practice and jurisprudence still seem to grapple with applying the curious ‘definition’ in Article 60(3) to specific instances.

B.  The scope of the right Article 60 not only elaborates upon conditions restricting the suspension/​termination of a treaty; it also regulates the scope of that right. It does so, however, in a rather rudimentary, and not always compelling, way. To some extent, the regulation had to remain fragmentary, as material breaches, depending on the circumstances, may produce very different effects. Some undermine the treaty as a whole, others affect only some of its aspects—​and responding States will tailor their responses accordingly. Even so, 40 [1966] YBILC, vol II, 255 [9]‌; see also Waldock, Second Report (n 24) 75 [11]. In order to broaden the scope of the provision, the ILC replaced Fitzmaurice’s term ‘fundamental breach’ with the notion of a ‘material breach’. For Fitzmaurice’s use of terminology, cf Fitzmaurice, Second Report (n 24) 31 (draft Art 19(2)). 41 See Waldock, Second Report (n 24) 75 [11]; for a different interpretation of Art 60(3)(b), see the statement of the Uruguyan delegate Jiménez de Arechaga. UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of the First Session (26 March–​24 May 1968) UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​11, 356 [39] (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’). Apart from the example of dispute settlement clauses, no other examples of such ‘essential ancillary’ character are given. 42 See eg Malachtou v Armefti and Armefti (Judgment of the Cyprus Supreme Court of 20 January 1987) 88 ILR 199, 210. 43 See the position taken by the Austrian government in a Swiss–​Austrian dispute relating to the right to acquire real property under a Treaty of Establishment of 1875, noted by P Fischer and G Hafner, ‘Austrian Practice in International Law’ (1976) 26 ÖZÖR 301, 345–​6. The case is discussed in B Simma, ‘Termination and Suspension of Treaties. Two Recent Austrian Cases’ (1978) 21 German Ybk Intl L 74. 44 Nicaragua case (n 38) 138 [275]–​[276]. 45 Croatia Slovenia case (n 32) [219]–​[225].

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  577 Article 60 presents a curious mix of strict limitations and non-​regulation. Three features stand out. First, contrary to what might be suggested by its title—​‘Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty . . .’—​Article 60 deliberately limits the right of termination. Both Article 60(1) (dealing with material breach and bilateral treaties) and 60(2)(a) (dealing with collective responses to material breach) are addressed later, and both deal with suspension and termination. But States’ individual responses under Article 60(2)(b) and 2(c) (dealing with multilateral treaty breach in the absence of unanimity) are restricted to the suspension of an agreement. The exclusion of termination in these latter two provisions reflects the drafters’ opinion that in the case of multilateral treaties, the interest of third parties in the stability of treaty relations had to be taken into account.46 Second, compared to responsibility-​based responses (addressed in Section III), Article 60 severely limits the discretion of States in choosing how to respond to material breaches. Article 60(1) and (2) make it clear that the responding party may only suspend or terminate the same treaty breached by the defaulting State. Article 60 does not justify the suspension or termination of other treaties. This reflects the purpose of treaty-​based responses, which are designed to re-​establish the balance of rights between treaty parties, and as a matter of principle, seems uncontroversial. One might query, however, whether the principle should have been qualified. Notably, the ILC discussed whether (exceptionally) responding States could suspend or terminate another treaty, if it was closely linked to the one materially breached.47 This indeed would have been preferable, especially for formally distinct treaties that could only be agreed by way of a ‘package deal’.48 The ILC’s decision not to include any provision on interrelated treaties however answered this question in the negative.49 Third, and in contrast, within the framework of the same treaty, responding parties enjoy a wide measure of discretion to choose which parts they wish to suspend, terminate, or leave intact. In particular, they may decide whether to suspend or terminate a treaty in whole or in part.50 As Article 44(2) makes clear, this freedom is not affected by the VCLT rules on separability, which, in view of the drafters, would have imposed too big a restraint.51 Perhaps more surprisingly, Article 60 does not require responses to be proportionate. This was deliberate insofar as the drafters decided against including a requirement of ‘qualitative 46 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 255 [7]‌. For multilateral treaties that are bilateral in application (the subject of Art 60(2)(a)), this approach seems misleading; any response to their violation, whether termination or suspension, would only affect the two parties to the dispute. The complete exclusion of termination thus seems unwarranted here. Simma, Reflections (n 15) 67–​8; Gomaa (n 27) 104. 47 [1963] YBILC, vol I, 121 [79] (De Luna); cf also A Verdross and B Simma, Universelles Völkerrecht (3rd edn Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1984) 520 n42; E Schwelb, ‘Termination or Suspension of the Operation of a Treaty as a Consequence of its Breach’ (1967) 7 IJIL 316–​17; A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon, Oxford 1961) 571; Simma, Reflections (n 15) 22; M Virally, ‘Le principe de la réciprocité en droit international contemporain’ (1967-​ III) 122 RdC 1, 44–​5. 48 By way of example, one might think of the German–​Polish negotiations of October 1975, which led to the conclusion of two distinct, but interrelated treaties; the first obliging Germany to grant Poland a credit, the other obliging Poland to modify its hitherto restrictive rules on the freedom of movement. For references see Verdross and Simma (n 47) 520 n42. 49 Cf G Arangio-​Ruiz, ‘Third Report on State Responsibility’ [1991] YBILC, vol II, 23 [72]. 50 This applies to all responses under Art 60, even though the wording of Art 60(2)(a) remains misleading. For details see the debates at the Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 167 [30], 168 [32]. 51 As pointed out by Waldock (Expert Consultant), the rules laid down in Art 44 (then draft Art 41) could in some situations have even prevented responding parties from suspending the very provision that had been violated by the defaulting party, cf Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 237 [40]. See further Waldock’s explanation for draft Art 26 of the 1963 draft. Waldock, Second Report (n 24) 90 [1]‌. The Vienna debates (which, at least initially, were controversial) are reproduced in Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 229–​34.

578  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments proportionality’,52 that is, a duty of responding parties to limit their reactions to the very obligations that had been materially breached, or that were connected to them in some way.53 It is another question whether responding States have to observe the limits of quantitative proportionality, that is, restrict themselves to responses of similar intensity.54 The question may arise in particular where a State seeks to respond against trivial violations of essential provisions.55 In this case, the text of Article 60 does not seem to limit the intensity of reactions—​once there has been a material breach, the responding State is free to suspend (or indeed terminate) the treaty in whole or in part. The better view would presumably be to ‘read’ proportionality into the text of the provision, in the way this is being suggested for other responses to qualified violations of international law.56 There is considerable evidence that proportionality constitutes an overriding principle generally governing reactions against breaches of international law.57 However, the matter is far from settled, and the text itself does not support this more restrictive approach.58 Finally, the right to suspend or terminate a treaty is restricted by the exclusionary clause of Article 60(5) VCLT, which declares certain treaty provisions to be sacrosanct.59 Under this provision, States may not suspend or terminate ‘provisions relating to the protection of the human person contained in treaties of a humanitarian character, in particular to provisions prohibiting any form of reprisals against persons’. The purpose of the clause is to protect the beneficiaries of humanitarian treaties from losing their rights in the course of inter-​State disputes.60 The drafting history suggests that despite the curious wording, this exclusion is intended to cover provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.61 The ICJ, in the Namibia opinion, seemed to consider Article 60(5) to reflect general international law.62 However, upon consideration, its relevance—​at least within 52 Cf Simma, Reflections (n 15) 21–​2, 78; Arangio-​Ruiz (n 49) 24 [77]. 53 Notably, during the Vienna Conference, delegates rejected a US amendment that would have limited reactions to responses in kind: see Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 34) 181 [522]; Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 389. 54 On quantitative proportionality, see ASR (n 14) Art 51, pursuant to which ‘[c]‌ountermeasures must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question’, a topic discussed at nn 112–​19 and accompanying text. 55 See nn 24–​45 and accompanying text, for comment on the curious way Art 60 seeks to define ‘material breach’. Where a trivial breach of an essential provision qualifies as a material breach, it could not be said that proportionality was ‘pre-​built into the mechanism’ of Art 60. Cf Gomaa (n 27) 120. 56 By way of illustration, see the ICJ’s advisory opinion in Nuclear Weapons, reading proportionality (and necessity) into the rules governing self-​defence: ‘The submission of the exercise of the right of self-​defence to the conditions of necessity and proportionality is a rule of customary international law.’ Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (Advisory Opinion) [1996] ICJ Rep 226, 245 [41]. 57 In the words of Willem Riphagen, ‘a “rule of [quantitative] proportionality” would seem to govern in principle all . . . legal consequences [of an internationally wrongful act]’. ILC, ‘Preliminary Report on State Responsibility’ [1980] YBILC, vol II, 112 [27]; see also Verdross and Simma (n 47) 520 [816]. 58 Contrast, for example, the parties’ different approaches in the ICAO Council case. In the view of India, reactions under Art 60 did not have to be proportionate. Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council (India v Pakistan) [1972] ICJ Pleadings 422 [52] (Reply by India). Predictably, Pakistan took the opposite approach. Ibid 384 [38] (Counter-​Memorial of Pakistan). 59 On the drafting history of the provision, see E Schwelb, ‘The Law of Treaties and Human Rights’ (1973–​1975) 16 Archiv des Völkerrechts 1, 14–​26. In addition, it is worth reiterating that (in line with the lex specialis maxim), Art 60 is ‘without prejudice’ to special (treaty-​specific) rules agreed in particular agreements. See Section I.B 570–71 et seq.; and the discussion in the Croatia Slovenia case (n 32) [203]–​[206]. 60 For the drafting process, see Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 354 [12]; Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 27) 112 [20]; Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 34) 269 (quoting UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​L31). 61 See Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 354 [12] (Bindschedler) and further G Barile, ‘The Protection of Human Rights in Article 60, Paragraph 5 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ in International Law at the Time of its Codification. Essays in Honour of Roberto Ago (Giuffre, Milan 1987) vol II, 3–​14. 62 Namibia case (n 30) 47 [95].

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  579 human rights law proper—​is more limited than is usually assumed. This is so because very often (as will be discussed in the next section), material breaches of human rights treaties do not affect any other treaty party in a particular way. Hence, often no other State has standing to suspend or terminate human rights treaties. Article 60(5), of course, clarifies this and thus removes legal uncertainty; however, even without its inclusion, human rights provisions would have effectively been protected against suspension and termination.63 Interestingly, Article 60(5) is the only exclusionary clause expressly restricting the right to suspend or terminate treaties. While seeking to declare human rights provisions sacrosanct, the drafters did not include a more comprehensive exclusionary clause. Since the adoption of Article 60, it has occasionally been discussed whether States should be precluded from suspending or terminating treaty provisions that enshrine provisions of a peremptory nature.64 Such an approach would indeed seem implicit in the rationale underlying jus cogens norms, as norms ‘from which no derogation is permitted’.65 However, Article 60 fails to take up the matter, and given the paucity of practice, it is no surprise that uncertainties remain.

C.  Standing to suspend or terminate treaties As the suspension or termination of a treaty affects its international obligations, a State invoking Article 60 must be legally entitled to do so. In this respect, two aspects need to be distinguished. First, any response finds its ultimate justification in the prior breach by the other State party. However, that in itself is not enough:  in addition, the responding State must, second, have been affected by that prior breach. It must have ‘standing’ to react. Standing is addressed in Article 60(1) and (2), which distinguish between bilateral and multilateral treaties and collective and individual responses. The result is a very complex regime of ‘standing to respond against treaty breaches’. This regime is not beyond criticism, but it has had a lasting influence on our understanding of the character of multilateral obligations more generally and in a modified way reappears in the relevant provisions addressing standing to invoke State responsibility. That the regime of standing is so complex is due to the rise of multilateral treaty obligations. Within the framework of a multilateral treaty, it may be extremely difficult to assess which of the parties should be entitled to respond against another party’s material breach. Of course, some treaties say so expressly (eg by recognizing a right of each and every State party to respond against breaches66) and within regimes providing for regular recourse to third-​party dispute resolution, some courts or tribunals have clarified the requirement of locus standi.67 But in the absence of such treaty-​specific approaches, the 63 The point is covered below, in Section II.C, and further explored in Simma and Tams (n 20) [45]. 64 See eg ibid [49]–​[51]. 65 Art 53 VCLT. 66 See eg European Convention on Human Rights (adopted 4 November 1950, entered into force 3 September 1953) ETS 5, Art 33 (ECHR); American Convention on Human Rights (adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 45; African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) [1982] 21 ILM 58, Art 47; Constitution of the International Labour Organization (adopted 9 October 1946, entered into force 20 April 1948) 15 UNTS 35, Art 26; Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Art 259 (formerly Art 227 of the Treaty establishing the European Community). 67 See eg the jurisprudence of WTO Panels and the Appellate Body on questions of standing to bring WTO complaints:  WTO, European Communities—​Regime for the Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas (‘Bananas III’)—​Report of the Panel (22 May 1997) WT/​DS27/​R [7.46]–​[7.51], and Bananas III—​Appellate Body

580  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments general rules governing standing to raise breaches of multilateral obligations are by no means easy to assess. At the outset, it is worth noting that bilateral treaties present few problems. Where one State violates a bilateral treaty in a material way, the other party obviously has standing to respond to that breach. Subject to the exclusions mentioned in Article 60(5) VCLT, a treaty party can thus suspend or terminate each and every bilateral treaty breached by the other side. With respect to multilateral treaties, matters are more complex.68 During the travaux, and ever since, the key question has been whether the position of States parties to multilateral treaties should be assimilated to that of States under bilateral treaties, that is, within a clearly defined reciprocal legal relationship. On this, the ILC’s debates reveal considerable uncertainty.69 Drafters on the one hand acknowledged that all parties had an interest in the treaty’s observance. On the other hand, they accepted that not all multilateral treaties could be treated alike and that material violations would not always affect all parties in the same way. The ILC initially favoured the first of these approaches and stressed the solidarity of all parties within a multilateral treaty framework: according to draft Article 42(2)(a), adopted in 1963, ‘any other party’ could respond to breaches of multilateral treaties by way of suspension.70 This was refreshingly simple, but critically received by governments71 and in the literature72—​especially since the ‘solidarity view’ neglected that a material breach might affect different parties very differently, and seemed to place insufficient emphasis on the stability of treaty relations.73 Taking up these concerns, the eventual standing regime moved away from the ‘solidarity approach’. In so doing, the drafters managed to ensure (more) treaty stability, but had to embrace complexity. The regime eventually put forward in Article 60(2) is best understood in terms of one restrictive rule and two more liberal exceptions.

1. The restrictive rule The restrictive rule is found in Article 60(2)(b), pursuant to which ‘specially affected’ States are entitled to suspend (but not terminate) treaties. The attribute ‘specially affected’ is not defined, but it clearly was introduced to indicate the move away from the solidarity approach just outlined. In order to be specially affected, a party to a treaty must have been individually injured by the material breach in question; the general interest in seeing the Report (9 September 1997)  WT/​DS27/​AB/​R [131]–​[136], respectively. For comment see J Waincymer, WTO Litigation: Procedural Aspects of Formal Dispute Settlement (Cameron, London 2002) 154–​7. 68 It is worth noting that notwithstanding the heterogeneity of multilateral treaties (which under the VCLT scheme cover narrow tripartite agreements just as much as universal lawmaking agreements), the drafters of the VCLT put forward one rule for all of them. 69 For further details, see Simma and Tams (n 20) [26]–​[40]. 70 [1963] YBILC, vol II, 204. This was based on Waldock’s draft (Waldock, Second Report (n 24) 72 (Art 20(4)(a))), which however went further in accepting a right of ‘any other party’ to suspend or terminate the treaty in relation to the defaulting State. Within the ILC, Waldock’s attempt to broaden the circle of parties entitled to respond to material breaches of multilateral treaties was endorsed inter alia by Rosenne (who later changed his view on the matter), Castren, and Briggs. See [1966] YBILC, vol I(1), 60 [26], 61 [40], [47]. The opposite view was taken by Verdross, [1963] YBILC, vol I, 294 [62]; and, in 1966, by Cadieux, de Luna, and Rosenne, [1966] YBILC, vol I(1), 62 [60], 63 [70], and 128 [7]‌. 71 See eg [1966] YBILC, vol II, Annex, 381 §17 (the Netherlands); and cf Simma, Reflections (n 15) 69–​70. 72 See eg Schwelb (n 47) 321–​6; H Rolin, ‘Statement’ (1967) 52 Annuaire de l’Institut de Droit International, vol II, 359–​61. 73 One recurring point of concern was that draft Art 42(2)(a) would have permitted non-​compliance with standard-​setting conventions protecting collective interests. Cf Schwelb (n 47) 321–​6; Rolin (n 72) 359–​61.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  581 terms of the treaty observed (which is shared by ‘any party to the treaty’) is not sufficient.74 In practice, such ‘special effects’ are accepted in mainly two scenarios. First, one State may have a particular interest in seeing a multilateral obligation performed. This is notably the case for multilateral obligations that—​despite binding a plurality of States—​are performed in a strictly bilateral context.75 Like under bilateral treaties, these obligations are based on synallagmatic relations, giving rise to reciprocal rights and duties between pairs of States. Duties under multilateral diplomatic or consular agreements provide a classic example: while the treaties in question are multilateral, obligations arising under them are to be performed between pairs of receiving and sending States. The same would seem to apply to obligations arising under multilateral treaties on judicial assistance, the exchange of trade benefits, or conventions in the field of humanitarian law. In all these cases, the ‘litmus test’ is whether the multilateral treaty’s application takes place between pairs of States and in what has been described as a ‘quasi-​bilateral’ setting. If this is the case, a material breach of the multilateral treaty will ‘specially affect’ the other State party to the quasi-​bilateral setting—​the sending or receiving State; the State having requested judicial assistance; the State party to an armed conflict; or, the State profiting directly from an exchange of benefits. Second, even where the obligation is to be performed outside quasi-​bilateral settings, the effect of the material breach may still ‘specially affect’ one State.76 It may occur, for example, where a State violates treaty-​based rights of foreign nationals (which would specially affect the State of nationality); where one State’s material breach of an environmental obligation produces particularly grave effects on the territory of another State (such as the coastal State suffering from an oil spill); or, arguably, where one State party has a special responsibility to guarantee a treaty status (such as a special right to protect nationals of another State belonging to a distinct ethnic group).77 Of course, these examples merely illustrate the general approach, and there is no hard and fast rule comprehensively defining instances of special effects based on special consequences. Thus, Article 60(2)(b), on the one hand, sets out a flexible requirement of ‘special effects’, but on the other hand, in requiring some form of special effect in the first place, requires States seeking to respond against a treaty breach to establish some form of individual injury. This marks a significant modification of the ILC’s initial approach, and restricts the circle of States entitled to respond to material breaches under Article 60(2)(b).

2. Two liberal exceptions There are two limited settings where this rather restrictive approach limiting standing to respond against material breaches is given up. The first of these exceptions is found in Article 60(2)(a), which addresses collective responses. As is clear from the text, when acting collectively, all other parties enjoy wide freedom to react against material breaches of multilateral treaties. They can suspend the treaty in whole or in part or terminate it 74 See DN Hutchinson, ‘Solidarity and Breaches of Multilateral Treaties’ (1988) 59 BYBIL 188–​9; Schwelb (n 47) 324. 75 See Simma and Tams (n 20) 1362 et seq. 76 Cf Provost (n 15) 401; Schwelb (n 47) 324. 77 Schwelb (n 47) 324. See, for example, Annex IV and Art 10(2) of the 1946 Peace Treaty with Italy—​providing for a right of protection of the Austrian government with respect to German-​speaking inhabitants of South Tyrol—​and the decision by the European Commission on Human Rights in Austria v Italy (App 788/​60) (1961) 4 Yearbook 116, 142 (EComHR).

582  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments either in the relations between themselves and the defaulting State, or as between all the parties. In other words, they may choose between finally or temporarily expelling the violator from the treaty, or bringing the whole treaty relationship to an end. In order to do so, however, they have to act unanimously. This may be a realistic option in treaties with a limited number of parties, but it is increasingly difficult in universal multilateral treaty regimes with wide membership. It does not come as a surprise, then, that Article 60(2)(a) has been of limited practical relevance. In its 1971 advisory opinion on Namibia, the ICJ seemed to interpret the termination of the mandate for South West Africa as an exercise of the Article 60(2)(a) right.78 Perhaps the suspension of Egypt’s membership in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in 1979, could be seen as another instance on point (provided one is willing to accept that Egypt’s entering into peace agreements with Israel could amount to a material breach of the OIC Charter).79 Yet these are isolated—​and dubious—​incidents. The second exception is found in Article 60(2)(c). It, too, has limited practical relevance, but is conceptually important. Article 60(2)(c) recognizes that, for a small circle of obligations, each party to a treaty can respond to material breaches individually, irrespective of any special injury, thus accepting the premise of the ‘solidarity approach’. It does so, however, only with respect to a very narrowly formulated category of obligations, namely so-​called ‘integral’ obligations.80 These are described, in rather complicated terms, as obligations ‘a material breach of [which] by one party radically changes the position of every party with respect to the further performance of its obligations’. The provision refers back to a category of treaties, initially described by Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice,81 that operate on the basis of ‘global reciprocity’.82 The objective of such treaties can only be achieved through the interdependent performance of obligations by all parties.83 Examples discussed by the drafters include disarmament treaties or treaties prohibiting the use of particular weapons; to these, treaties prohibiting the acquisition of territory by force may be added.84 In order to be meaningful, the VCLT drafters assumed, these treaties would have to be performed by every party vis-​à-​vis every other party. Conversely, one party’s non-​compliance would affect all other parties to the treaty. On the basis of this understanding, Article 60(2)(c) recognizes the right of each and every other party to respond to material breaches. What is more, because of the obligations’ interdependent (or 78 Cf Namibia case (n 30) 47 [94]. This interpretation would be problematic because the UNGA’s resolution was not unanimous, but adopted by 114 votes to two with three abstentions. As evident from the wording of the provision, Art 60(2)(a), however, requires unanimity. 79 See OIC Charter, 914 UNTS 103, and OIC Resolution 18/​10-​P of 12 May 1979. The case is discussed in KD Magliveras, The Exclusion from Participation in International Organisations (Brill, Leiden 1999) 237–​8. 80 For brief comments, see M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, Utrecht 2005) 158–​64; LA Sicilianos, ‘The Classification of Obligations and the Multilateral Dimension of the Relations of International Responsibility’ (2002) 13 EJIL 1127. 81 Fitzmaurice, Second Report (n 24)  31, 54 [126] (draft Art 19(1)(ii)(b) and (iii) and commentary); GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Third Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1958] YBILC, vol II, 27–​8, 41 [78] and 44 [91]–​[93] (draft Art 18(2), 19(a) and commentary), Fitzmaurice, Fourth Report (n 26) 45–​6, 66 [82], 70 [102]. 82 Sicilianos (n 80) 1135. 83 Crawford (n 15) [91]; J Crawford, ‘The Standing of States: A Critique of Article 40 of the ILC’s Draft Articles on State Responsibility’ in D Fairgrieve (ed), Judicial Review in International Perspective:  Liber Amicorum in Honour of Lord Slynn of Hadley (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2000) 29–​32 (‘Crawford, The Standing of States’); C Feist, Kündigung, Rücktritt und Suspendierung von multilateralen Verträgen (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001) 49–​52; Gomaa (n 27) 34–​5; Simma, Reflections (n 15) 76; Sicilianos (n 80) 348. 84 See eg Fitzmaurice, Second Report (n 24) 54 [126] and n73.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  583 ‘integral’) structure, responses cannot be restricted to relations between the defaulting and responding party because the responding party’s suspension would necessarily be a violation of its obligation vis-​à-​vis all other (non-​defaulting) parties. Article 60(2)(c) spells out the implications of this ‘global reciprocity’ concept; and exceptionally allows for responses by each and every treaty party. As is clear from the preceding paragraphs, to lay down a general regime governing standing to respond against breaches has been a considerable challenge. The ILC’s debate on what became Article 60 is relevant precisely because it marked one of the first occasions at which the UN’s main codification body discussed questions of standing in depth, and in full awareness of the rise of multilateralism. Not surprisingly, then, Article 60’s approach has ‘spilled over’ into subsequent attempts to formulate rules of standing, notably in the context of the ILC’s State responsibility project. That said, as much as it was a ‘first’, the ILC’s Article 60 debates were also a ‘last’ in some respects. They reflect the international community’s approach to standing at a time when the key concepts giving expression to collective interests were only beginning to be considered. While a ‘solidarity approach’ was considered, the drafters did not discuss public interest concepts such as obligations erga omnes (to be defined, one year after the VCLT’s adoption, as obligations in whose observance ‘all States can be held to have a legal interest’85), and they decided not to reflect the new category of jus cogens within a regime governing standing against treaty breaches. On that basis, they generally favoured a restrictive regime of standing, which remained premised on specially sustained injury, resisting the temptation to turn Article 60 into an instrument of public interest enforcement.

D.  Procedural conditions governing the exercise of the right of response A mere two years after the VCLT’s opening for signature, the ICJ held that Article 60 might ‘in many respects be considered as a codification of existing international law on the subject’.86 In line with this statement, the preceding discussion has treated Article 60 and treaty-​based responses under customary international law together. With respect to the procedural conditions governing the exercise of the right, matters are different. The VCLT subjects individual responses to treaty breaches to a cumbersome regime that, to date, has not been applied; and customary international rules on treaty-​based responses do not contain equivalent restrictions. Article 60(1), 2(b), and 2(c) (ie those provisions addressing individual responses) expressly provide that the responding State is entitled to invoke the prior breach as a ground for suspension or termination.87 This formula clarifies that the Article 60 invocation does not itself affect the treaty relationship, but that the legal effects of suspension or 85 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgium v Spain) (Judgment) [1970] ICJ Rep 3, 32 [33]. 86 Namibia case (n 30) 47 [94]–​[95]. 87 In the ILC’s draft articles, this formula was used only for its versions of [1]‌and [2(b)]; the ILC’s version of [2(c)] had entitled parties ‘to suspend the operation of the treaty’. The inconsistency between [2(b)] and [2(c)] was removed following a proposal by the United Kingdom. Vienna Conference, Official Records (n 34) 269 (quoting UN Doc A/​CONF.39/​L.29); for the relevant debates see Vienna Conference, First Session (n 41) 478, 484; Vienna Conference, Second Session (n 27) 115.

584  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments termination are only entailed according to the procedural rules of Articles 65–​68 VCLT.88 A responding State’s intention to suspend or terminate a treaty in whole or in part therefore only takes effect once the procedure of Articles 65–​68 has been followed.89 And this is by no means a mere formality. Rather, these provisions envisage the notification of any claims; the lapse of a three-​month period during which other parties can protest; dispute resolution by a method chosen by the responding and protesting parties; and, failing their agreement on a mode of dispute resolution, a process of mandatory conciliation pursuant to Annex 1 VCLT.90 Predictably, the ‘procedural straightjacket’ set out in Articles 65–​68 has not proved particularly popular. States and other actors of international law have drawn a distinction between Article 60’s substantive aspects—​which, by and large, they have applied as customary international law—​and its procedural implementation mechanism. In practice, this has meant that States affected by a material breach have suspended or terminated treaties without instituting the VCLT’s dispute settlement procedures. In line with that understanding, the ICJ, in Armed Activities (DRC v Rwanda) expressly noted that Article 66 (providing for compulsory conciliation) was not ‘declaratory of customary international law’.91 In the Racke case, which concerned the parallel problem whether responses based on the clausula rebus sic stantibus would require prior attempts at dispute settlement, the European Court of Justice adopted the same line of reasoning, holding that ‘the specific procedural requirements there laid down [ie in Article 65 VCLT] do not form part of customary international law’.92 While some decisions have taken a more favourable position,93 the more convincing view is that Articles 65–​68 do not reflect general international law. This in turn provides some justification for the approach of States just described: because of its temporal restrictions,94 and still rather modest ratifications record,95 the VCLT more often than not, is not applicable as treaty law, but merely insofar as it reflects custom. As Articles 65–​68 do not reflect custom, States enjoy considerable leeway in seeking to avoid the cumbersome implementation procedure governing the exercise of the right to suspend or terminate a treaty.96

88 Gomaa (n 27) 98. 89 Kirgis maintains that Arts 65–​68 do not apply to partial suspension of treaties, as neither Art 65 nor Art 42(2) referred to it. See Kirgis (n 36) 558. The argument is, however, not convincing, as the Art 60 formula ‘to invoke as a ground’ is to be understood as a comprehensive reference to the procedure envisaged in Arts 65–​68. 90 For details, including on the dramatic debates surrounding the adoption of Arts 65 et seq, see I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) 226–​33. 91 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (New Application: 2002) (Democratic Republic of the Congo v Rwanda) (Jurisdiction and Admissibility, Judgment) [2006] ICJ Rep 6, 51 [125]. 92 Racke GmbH and Co v Hauptzollamt Mainz, Case C-​162/​96 [1998] ECR I-​3655, [52]–​[59]. 93 See especially the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case, where the ICJ’s judgment noted that ‘[b]‌oth Parties agree[d] that Articles 65 to 67 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, if not codifying customary law, at least generally reflect customary international law and contain[ed] certain procedural principles which are based on an obligation to act in good faith’. Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) [109]. 94 Cf Arts 4 and 84(2) VCLT (providing for non-​retroactivity). 95 Fifty years after its adoption, the Convention has been ratified, or acceded to, by 116 States (cf ). Prominent ‘non-​ratifying’ States include France, the United States, India, Iran, and Indonesia. 96 For further comment on this point, see ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 813–​14; Verdross and Simma (n 47) [840]; J Verhoeven, ‘Jus Cogens and Reservations or “Counter-​Reservations” to the Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice’ in K Wellens (ed), International Law: Theory and Practice; Essays in Honour of Eric Suy (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1998) 199–​200.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  585

E. Interim conclusions The preceding considerations suggest that Article 60 has shaped our thinking about responses against treaty breaches, but that it is not immune from criticism. Drafters were keen to ensure that States would not lightly suspend (let alone terminate) treaties—​hence the requirement that the right to suspend/​terminate presupposes a prior material breach, the cumbersome conditions governing its exercise, the restriction of responses to the treaty affected by the prior breach, and the rather cautious approach to standing. If one accepts the drafters’ approach, one might wonder whether the notion of ‘material breach’ ought not to have been defined differently, or why the scope of the right is not limited by a proportionality test. Yet, more fundamentally, it seems that the drafters may have lost sight of the necessary balance between the need to ensure the stability of treaties, while also permitting effective responses against breaches. Article 60 is really designed to address major ruptures in treaty relations, but leaves the smaller, ‘everyday’ problems unaddressed. In hindsight, the regime devised in Article 60 may well have been an over-​ambitious attempt to ‘civilize’ inter-​State relations. Article 60 certainly achieves its aim—​that is, to preserve the stability of treaties. But by subjecting treaty suspension and termination to rather stringent conditions, the drafters inadvertently restricted Article 60’s ‘appeal’ to States seeking to respond against another State’s treaty breaches. Not surprisingly, treaties adopted after the VCLT have increasingly formulated treaty-​specific rules on responses against breaches. And perhaps more importantly, with respect to general concepts, the VCLT’s narrow approach has meant that responding States intending to suspend treaty obligations have relied, not on the general law of treaties, but on the law of State responsibility instead. Inadvertently, then, Article 60’s limited ‘appeal’ may have paved the way for a ‘renaissance’ of the concept of countermeasures.

III.  The Law of State Responsibility: Countermeasures The second general concept permitting prima facie unlawful responses against treaty breaches is that of countermeasures. The concept of countermeasures is situated within the law of State responsibility and has been shaped by that doctrine rather than by the general law of treaties. As noted earlier,97 conceptually, countermeasures follow a different rationale than treaty-​based responses based on Article 60: their aim is not to re-​establish a balance of rights among treaty partners, but to induce or compel the State responsible for a treaty breach back into compliance. Compared to treaty-​based responses, countermeasures are a broader concept, and their regulation under international law is more flexible. In order to bring out these features, this section clarifies the legal regime of countermeasures by comparing it to Article 60 treaty-​based responses. This comparative approach will enable us to highlight four main aspects of the countermeasures regime: (i) the possibility of resorting to countermeasures against any treaty breach (as well as any other breach of international law); (ii) the wide discretion of States in calibrating their response, limited largely by the



97

See nn 20–​3 and accompanying text.

586  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments requirement of proportionality; (iii) the different approach to the problem of standing; and (iv) the decision not to submit countermeasures to far-​reaching procedural preconditions.

A.  The requirement of a prior breach The first element is that in order to be justified, a countermeasure ‘must be taken in response to a previous international wrongful act of another State and must be directed against that State’.98 This is at times formulated as a limitation, indicating that it is not sufficient for the responding State to consider international law to have been breached.99 And indeed, in prescribing that there must be an actual breach, the international legal regime of countermeasures embraces an objective standard. This is fully in line with the overall legal regime governing responses to wrongfulness, and should not be read to require an objective assessment of the situation by a third party. A responding State remains free to determine whether there has been a breach, but it does so at its own risk.100 From the comparative perspective adopted here, what stands out in this element is not the decision to require the actual commission of a breach, but the fact that, unlike in the law of treaties, any actual breach can be met by way of a countermeasure. There are two aspects to this. First, the formulation very clearly brings out the breadth of the concept of countermeasures, which is available against all ‘previous international wrongful act[s]‌of another State’, including (but not limited to) treaty breaches.101 Second, and more pertinently, unlike under Article 60, there is no threshold requirement. Countermeasures can be taken against all treaty breaches, irrespective of their material character. This means that, even within the field of treaty breaches, countermeasures have a wider scope of application than treaty-​based measures. Conversely, the decision to leave out any threshold requirement reinforces the need for limits on the scope of responses, notably through the concept of proportionality.

B.  The scope of the right to respond The breadth of the concept of countermeasures is reflected in the rules governing the scope of the right to resort to them. These rules are clearly influenced by the purpose of countermeasures as an instrument of law enforcement. Beyond that, moreover, countermeasures are characterized by their flexibility. Unlike treaty-​based responses, States enjoy an 98 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) 55 [83]. 99 ASR (n 14) [3]‌(commentary to Art 49 ASR). Clarification of this point is often felt to be necessary, since the Air Services arbitral award misleadingly stated that ‘each State establishes for itself its legal situation vis-​à-​vis other States’. Case Concerning the Air Services Agreement of 27 March 1946 [1978] 54 ILR 304, [81]. 100 The matter is, of course, different if applicable rules make resort to countermeasures dependent upon some form of authorization, such as within the WTO regime. Cf WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding [1994] 33 ILM 1226, Annex 2, Art 22; WTO, United States–​Sections 301–​310 of the Trade Act of 1974—​Panel Report (22 December 1999) WT/​DS152/​R [7.35]–​[7.46]. On procedural preconditions restricting the resort to countermeasures see nn 141–​145 and accompanying text. 101 This is in line with the international law approach to questions of responsibility generally, which does not draw distinctions between breaches of treaty and breaches of general international law:  cf ASR (n 14)  Art 12 (‘There is a breach of an international obligation by a State when an act of that State is not in conformity with what is required of it by that obligation, regardless of its origin or character’).

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  587 extremely wide margin of discretion in choosing how to respond to treaty breaches via countermeasures. This wide discretion in turn is limited by the overarching requirement that countermeasures must be proportionate, as well as by a range of exclusionary clauses protecting particularly important obligations. Against this background, the legal rules governing the scope of countermeasures can be presented in four steps.

1. Countermeasures focus on inducing compliance

As an enforcement concept, countermeasures must be taken for a specific purpose. They must ‘induce the wrongdoing State to comply with its obligations under international law’.102 This limited function implies that countermeasures are not designed to alter the underlying legal relationship between the responding and targeted State. Rather, they merely justify non-​ compliance with international law for an interim period and a specific purpose.103 It follows that countermeasures—​notwithstanding the negative connotations of the traditional term ‘reprisals’—​are not an instrument of private vengeance and must not be used as a form of punishment.104 While firmly established conceptually (and indispensable as a matter of legal policy), these guidelines are rather difficult to translate into strict rules in practice. The prohibition against punishment mainly goes to the State’s motivation in adopting countermeasures. Unless States go on record,105 this motivation may often be difficult to police, especially since—​like punishment—​countermeasures are by definition coercive. As for the interim character of countermeasures, the general rule is that countermeasures be temporary and reversible. But Article 49(3) ASR deliberately opts against any absolute approach, instead stating that ‘[c]‌ountermeasures shall, as far as possible, be taken in such a way as to permit the resumption of performance of the obligations in question’ (emphasis added).106 Even with this caveat, it is clear that countermeasures only justify non-​compliance as long as this is required to induce compliance.107

2. Countermeasures are not limited to the treaty breached It is with respect to the choice of obligations that can be violated that countermeasures are most clearly different from treaty-​based responses. Unlike Article 60 VCLT, the law of countermeasures does not prescribe which obligations can be disregarded in order to induce the targeted State back into compliance. Subject to a number of exclusionary rules (addressed later), this is a matter for the responding State to decide. There are two aspects to this. First, given the general character of the concept, it is clear that countermeasures cannot be restricted to the non-​performance of obligations under the same treaty. Second, and less obviously, international law has refrained from formulating special rules for responses that affect obligations connected to the ones initially breached.108 A responding State may no 102 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) [85]. This is taken up in ASR (n 14) Art 49(1). 103 Cf ASR (n 14) Art 49(2) (‘Countermeasures are limited to the non-​performance for the time being of international obligations of the State taking the measures towards the responsible State’). 104 Ibid 130 [1]‌(commentary on Art 49). 105 By way of illustration, see the discussions reflected in the ICJ’s Interim Accord case (n 15) [120]–​[122] and [164], and for statements placed on record, [74]–​[80]. 106 For details see ASR (n 14) 131 [9]‌; Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) [87]. 107 This is expressly spelled out in ASR (n 14) Arts 52(3)(a), 53. 108 For a discussion of whether such ‘reciprocal countermeasures’ are subject to an autonomous regime see Crawford (n 15) [327]–​[329]. For an attempt to formulate autonomous rules cf W Riphagen, ‘Sixth Report on State

588  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments doubt choose to take such so-​called ‘reciprocal countermeasures’,109 but the legal regime of countermeasures does not require it to do so, nor indeed does it subject reciprocal countermeasures to a special legal regime.110 As a consequence, the circle of obligations that can be disregarded by way of countermeasures is much wider than those affected by treaty-​based responses. A responding State can respond against treaty breaches notably by violating its obligations towards the targeted State under other treaties, or indeed under general international law. For example, a breach of a bilateral treaty on economic cooperation may be met with economic sanctions violating WTO law, just as violations of diplomatic immunity may prompt the freezing of assets. The law of countermeasures does not presuppose any nexus, or requirement of qualitative proportionality,111 between the initial violation and the response thereto. This flexibility, in turn, reinforces the need for some limitations on the response, which are found in exclusionary clauses and the overarching requirement of proportionality.

3. Proportionality: countermeasures must be commensurate with the injury suffered Proportionality—​in its ‘quantitative’ variant112—​is the key substantive criterion limiting the exercise of the right to take countermeasures. It is a common limitation on responses against wrongfulness and a crucial element in the quest to ‘tame’ countermeasures. Its application to the law of countermeasures raises few conceptual problems: what is required is a comparison between the effects of the initial breach and the responding State’s reaction. In the words of the ICJ (endorsed by the ILC), ‘the effects of a countermeasure must be commensurate with the injury suffered’.113 This indeed is a necessary limitation, one instrumental to ensuring that countermeasures do not become measures of punishment and which helps keep its results acceptable. As the ILC’s work clarifies, the proportionality comparison is primarily between the levels of injury (ie quantitative), but also the importance of the interest protected by the rule infringed and the seriousness of the breach.114 While relatively unproblematic conceptually, the application of proportionality poses two problems. First, because States have discretion in choosing which obligations they intend to disregard to induce the targeted State back into compliance, any proportionality analysis may involve a comparison between ‘disparate integers’115 or ‘apples and oranges’.116 This is not a specific problem of countermeasures, but rather one that affects many fields of proportionality analysis. However, the fact that States enjoy a large measure of discretion Responsibility’ [1985] YBILC, vol II(1), 10 (draft Art 8 of Part Two, drawing on PCIJ’s judgment in Diversion of Water from the Meuse [1937] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 70, 4, 50, 77). 109 See eg the Air Services arbitration (n 99) 304. 110 See eg ASR (n 14) 128–​9 [4]‌–​[5]. 111 Cf the terminology used at nn 52–​54 and accompanying text. 112 Ibid. 113 ASR (n 14) Art 51. This goes back to the ICJ’s judgment in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) [85]–​[87]. For earlier attempts to formulate versions of a proportionality requirement, cf Air Services arbitration (n 99) [83] (‘It is generally agreed that all counter-​measures must, in the first instance, have some degree of equivalence with the alleged breach’); Naulilaa Award (1930) 2 RIAA 1011, 1028 (‘[E]‌ven if one were to admit that the law of nations does not require that the reprisal should be approximately in keeping with the offence, one should certainly consider as excessive and therefore unlawful reprisals out of all proportion to the act motivating them’). 114 ASR (n 14) 135 [6]‌(commentary to Art 51). 115 T Franck, ‘On Proportionality of Countermeasures in International Law’ (2008) 102 AJIL 715, 729. 116 M Schmitt, ‘Fault Lines in the Law of Attack’ in S Breau and A Jachec-​Neale (eds), Testing the Boundaries of International Law (BIICL, London 2006) 293.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  589 in choosing which obligations to ‘target’ by way of countermeasures renders it particularly acute. To illustrate, consider the fictitious example of a State responding to a prior violation of an FCN Treaty by adopting a travel ban. The two acts are so different that it is not easy to assess their equivalence. Second, the absence of a regular scrutiny procedure further complicates matters. As shown later, as a matter of principle, countermeasures are not subject to any form of prior authorization or independent assessment; like other private responses, they are to be taken by the responding State on the basis of its own (auto)assessment of the situation.117 Both problems, taken together, limit the effectiveness of a proportionality test in taming countermeasures—​but they do not render it pointless. Quite to the contrary, in the absence of regular independent assessments, it is the unorganized international legal community that evaluates responses, through statements, protests, or approval (whether tacit or express). In its evaluation, the community is guided by occasional pronouncements by international courts and tribunals, which—​notwithstanding the absence of regular judicial scrutiny—​have assessed the proportionality of countermeasures in cases such as Naulilaa, Air Services, and Gabcikovo.118 Based on these pronouncements, international practice, and clarification exercises like the ILC’s work on State responsibility, the notion of proportionality—​it is submitted—​offers at least a benchmark for scrutinizing responses and acts as a restraint in clear-​cut cases.119

4. Countermeasures must not affect obligations under rules of jus cogens and dispute settlement procedures Finally, beyond the overarching requirement of proportionality, international law shields a number of particularly important obligations from the application of countermeasures. Within the ILC’s text, these exclusions are spelled out in Article 50 ASR. They follow the same logic as the exclusionary clause of Article 60(5) VCLT, but (having been adopted in 2001)  are more up-​to-​date with contemporary international law.120 In essence, two categories of obligations are ‘ringfenced’ against countermeasures. First, countermeasures do not justify the non-​performance of obligations imposed by rules of jus cogens. This takes account of the fact that modern international law accepts jus cogens effects beyond the VCLT121 and that fundamental substantive interests protected by the concept cannot be opted out of unilaterally.122 It follows that obligations flowing from recognized peremptory rules—​notably the duty not to use force in violation of the UN Charter, or obligations under peremptory rules of human rights law or international humanitarian law—​must not be the subject of countermeasures.

117 See nn 141–​145 and accompanying text. 118 See Naulilaa Award (n 113) 1101; Air Services arbitration (n 99) 304; Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 16) 7, respectively. 119 Cf Franck (n 115) 764. 120 Contrast the authors’ more sceptical analysis of Art 60(5) at nn 59–​65 and accompanying text. 121 Within the ILC’s text on State responsibility, see notably ASR (n 14) Arts 26, 40–​1. For an early and balanced study of these and other instances, see G Gaja, ‘Jus Cogens Beyond the Vienna Convention’ (1981) 172 RdC 273. For an ambitious attempt to ‘peremptorize’ broad areas of international law, see A Orekhelashvili, Peremptory Norms in International Law (OUP, Oxford 2006). 122 In the words of the ILC, ‘[e]‌vidently, a peremptory norm, not subject to derogation as between two States even by treaty, cannot be derogated from by unilateral action in the form of countermeasures’. ASR (n 14) 132 [9] (Commentary to Art 50).

590  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments Second, good reasons suggest that countermeasures may not affect obligations that were agreed precisely to peacefully resolve disputes between the responding State and the targeted State. This implies that, as the ICJ put it in the ICAO Council case when speaking about treaty suspension, ‘a merely unilateral suspension [cannot] per se render jurisdictional clauses inoperative, since one of their purposes might be, precisely, to enable the validity of the suspension to be tested’.123 It follows that where States are bound by dispute settlement provisions covering the dispute in question, the responding State is not relieved from fulfilling these obligations when resorting to countermeasures.124 According to the ILC, the same rationale applies to minimum obligations designed to ensure the inviolability of diplomatic and consular immunities. Following this argument—​which draws some support from the ICJ’s Tehran Hostages judgment125—​countermeasures ought not to affect the existence of basic channels of communication since they may be a conduit for the resolution of the dispute.126

C.  Standing to take countermeasures Given the broad character of the concept, the identification of States entitled to resort to countermeasures assumes particular importance. Not surprisingly, there is much debate about ‘standing to take countermeasures’. The ILC’s work on State responsibility—​which addresses the matter within the framework of the rules governing the implementation of responsibility—​has helped clarify some of the issues, but leaves open one crucial question. The regime set out in Articles 42 and 49 of the ILC’s text to a large extent follows the VCLT rules on standing to suspend or terminate treaties, while Article 54 points to an unresolved question ignored by Article 60 VCLT. Articles 42 and 49 ASR deal with standing on the basis of the acquis of agreed rules devised in Article 60 VCLT, whose approach—​as noted earlier—​has ‘spilled over’ into the law of State responsibility.127 In essence, these provisions recognize the right of States to resort to countermeasures if the obligation breached was owed to them bilaterally or if the breach of a multilateral obligation ‘specially affected’ them (because of the quasi-​bilateral structure of performance or because the wrongful act had produced specific, individualized consequences).128 What is more, the standing regime set out in the ASR follows Article 60 even into the muddy terrain of integral obligations.129 Taking up the rationale of ‘global reciprocity’130 informing Article 60(2)(c) VCLT, Article 42(b)(ii) ASR accepts that where 123 Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council (India v Pakistan) [1972] ICJ Rep 46, 53. 124 ASR (n 14) Art 50(2)(a). 125 United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran [1980] ICJ Rep 3, 38–​40 [83]–​[86] (misleadingly describing diplomatic law as a ‘self-​contained regime’, which ‘on the one hand, lays down the receiving State’s obligations regarding the facilities, privileges and immunities to be accorded to diplomatic missions and, on the other, foresees their possible abuse by members of the mission and specifies the means at the disposal of the receiving State to counter any such abuse’). For a critical analysis cf B Simma, ‘Self-​contained Regimes’ (1985) Netherlands Ybk Intl L 111. 126 ASR (n 14) 133–​4 [14]–​[15] (commentary to Art 50). 127 See Section II.C, 579–83 et seq. During the course of its second reading on State responsibility, the ILC deliberately opted to follow the Art 60 VCLT approach: cf ASR (n 14) 117 [4]‌; J Crawford, The Standing of States (n 83) 23. 128 Cf ASR (n 14) Art 42(a) and 42(b)(i). 129 Ibid 119 [13]–​[14] (commentary to Art 42). 130 Sicilianos (n 80) 1135.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  591 an interdependent/​integral obligation has been breached ‘[t]‌he other States parties . . . must all be considered as individually entitled to react to a breach’, including by means of countermeasures.131 In another respect, however, debates about standing to take countermeasures have moved beyond the Vienna Convention acquis. There is much debate about a new version of the ‘solidarity approach’132 to questions of standing—​namely the question whether States could resort to countermeasures in order to defend collective interests protected by treaties dealing with humanitarian matters or other public policy concerns.133 These renewed discussions are part of a more general debate about the right of individual States to act as guardians of collective interests.134 Given the crucial role of multilateral treaties as ‘workhorses of community interest’,135 this general debate directly implicates the legal regime(s) governing responses to treaty breaches. The international community has yet to reach agreement on this matter, but developments since the mid-​1960s (when the VCLT rules were drafted) point in favour of allowing ‘solidarity measures’ under certain circumstances. More specifically, in its 1970 judgment in the Barcelona Traction case, the ICJ recognized that all States can be held to have a legal interest in seeing certain fundamental rules complied with (which it termed obligations erga omnes).136 Since 1970, States have accepted the rationale behind this erga omnes dictum and, on a number of occasions, have taken countermeasures in response to grave and systematic breaches of collective interest provisions.137 In its work on State responsibility, the ILC considered these instances to be too sporadic to amount to a settled practice, and was cautious not to endorse expressly a right of individual States, irrespective of any individual injury, to take ‘solidarity measures’.138 However, it did embrace the idea of collective interest enforcement in Article 48 of its text and accepted that a practice was emerging.139 Other bodies, such as the Institut de droit international have (rightly) gone beyond the ILC’s approach and recognized that where a State is responsible for a ‘widely acknowledged grave breach of ’ a treaty protecting obligations erga omnes, ‘all the States to which the obligation is owed: . . . are entitled to take non-​ forcible counter-​measures under conditions analogous to those applying to a State specially affected by the breach’.140 Indeed, this last position seems to reflect the current state of the law and marks the acceptance of a modest version of the solidarity approach within the law of countermeasures.

131 ASR (n 14) 119 [14] (commentary to Art 42). For critical comment, see Tams, ‘Enforcement’ (n 12). 132 Cf n 70–​73 and accompanying text. 133 For details, see M Akehurst, ‘Reprisals by Third States’ (1970) 44 BYBIL 1; J Charney, ‘Third State Remedies in International Law’ (1989) 10 Michigan J Intl L 57; C Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2005) 198 et seq. 134 On which see C Tams, ‘Individual States as Guardians of Community Interests’ in U Fastenrath and others (eds), From Bilateralism to Community Interest. Essays in Honour of Judge Bruno Simma (OUP, Oxford 2011) 379. 135 B Simma, ‘From Bilateralism to Community Interest’ (1994) 250 RdC 217, 322. 136 Barcelona Traction (n 85) 32–​3 [33]–​[34]. 137 For a detailed assessment see Tams (n 133) 198–​249. 138 See ASR (n 14)  140 [3]‌(commentary to Art 54, noting ‘Practice on this subject is limited and rather embryonic’). 139 Ibid (listing some of the more prominent examples). 140 Institut de droit international, ‘Resolution on “Obligations and Rights Erga Omnes in International Law” ’ [2006] 71 Annuaire de l’Institut de droit international 289. The Institut’s approach is convincing because, while going beyond the ILC’s position, it is careful to limit the right to take collective countermeasures to instances of ‘widely acknowledged grave breaches’ of international law, and ties it back to the erga omnes concept.

592  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments

D.  Procedural conditions governing the exercise of the right to countermeasures The question remains whether States seeking to resort to countermeasures need to comply with procedural requirements. Just as with treaty-​based measures, this is a matter of some controversy.141 From a policy perspective, the imposition of procedural conditions has seemed to many to be the best way of taming the archaic countermeasures concept. During the first reading of the ILC’s work on State responsibility, the ILC’s Special Rapporteur Arangio Ruiz submitted far-​reaching proposals in this respect. He proposed to require the prior exhaustion ‘of all the amicable settlement procedures available under general international law, the United Nations Charter or any other dispute settlement instrument to which [a State seeking redress] is a party’ and a system for ‘post-​countermeasures’ dispute settlement.142 These proposals certainly marked one of the high-​points of attempts to ‘civilize’ the private enforcement of international law, but they proved overly ambitious. Stressing the legitimacy of countermeasures (which were a fact of life and served to uphold the rule of law), States and commentators responded by arguing for a leaner regime, which would balance the interests of responding and targeted States in a more nuanced way.143 Debates eventually resulted in Article 52 ASR, which requires responding States to give ‘advance warning’ to the targeted State and provide it with an opportunity to respond to the claims underlying the dispute.144 Beyond this minimum requirement, Article 52 deliberately refrains from making resort to countermeasures dependent on the prior exhaustion of further dispute settlement procedures (nor does it establish mechanisms for ‘post-​countermeasures’ dispute settlement). It does, however, recognize the primacy of third party dispute resolution in two settings. First, it affirms that comprehensive dispute settlement systems can exclude the availability of coercive self-​help altogether. Second, it excludes resorting to countermeasures in situations in which the underlying dispute is pending before a court or tribunal, with the caveat that where the dispute settlement process breaks down, the right to take countermeasures revives. These safeguards are complemented by the provision—​mentioned above, as part of the exclusionary clauses145—​that countermeasures must not affect dispute settlement obligations agreed between the disputing parties. Taken together, it would seem that the more modest system devised by the ILC indeed preserves existing institutionalized dispute settlement without ‘choking’ countermeasures.

141 See notably the symposium on ‘Counter-​measures and Dispute Settlement’ in (1994) EJIL, vol 5 (contributions by G Arangio-​Ruiz, V Vereshchetin, M Bennouna, J Crawford, C Tomuschat, D Bowett, B Simma, and L Condorelli). 142 See notably G Arangio-​Ruiz, ‘Fourth Report on State Responsibility’ [1992] YBILC, vol II(1), 1; G Arangio-​ Ruiz, ‘Fifth Report on State Responsibility’ [1993] YBILC, vol II(1), 1 (proposals for draft Art 12 and a ‘dispute settlement annex’). 143 See eg B Simma, ‘Counter-​measures and Dispute Settlement: A Plea for a Different Balance’ (1995) 5 EJIL 102 (on which the subsequent observations draw). 144 See ASR (n 14) Art 52(1) (‘[b]‌efore taking countermeasures, an injured State shall: (a) call upon the responsible State, in accordance with Article 43, to fulfil its obligations under Part Two; (b) notify the responsible State of any decision to take countermeasures and offer to negotiate with that State’). As the ILC noted, exceptionally, such notification can be dispensed with where ‘urgent countermeasures’ are necessary to preserve the responding State’s rights, notably where the notification would allow the targeted State to avoid the effects of the countermeasure: see ASR (n 14) Art 52(2), and paragraph 6 of the commentary. 145 See nn 120–​126 and accompanying text.

Reacting against Treaty Breaches  593

Conclusion The legal regime governing countermeasures differs markedly from the treaty law rules permitting the suspension or termination of treaties in response to breaches. Mindful not to lay down overly restrictive rules that States would merely circumvent, the international community’s ‘agents’ of legal development—​the ILC, States in their comments on the ILC’s work, and international courts and tribunals—​have devised a regime that is considerably more flexible than that of Article 60, and which permits the suspension of treaty obligations under less stringent conditions. The divergence can be explained by reference to differences between the enforcement concept of countermeasures, on the one hand, and the defensive concept of treaty law responses on the other. But presumably, they are also a reflection of a more sceptical approach towards over-​ambitious attempts to civilize inter-​State relations. As the more flexible general concept permitting coercive responses against treaty breaches, countermeasures thus still retain their role as an important feature of the international regime governing response against treaty breaches. If, nevertheless, even resort to the more flexible concept of countermeasures today is rather rare, then this reflects the increasing prominence of treaty-​specific regimes providing for ‘tailor-​made’ rules on responses against treaty breaches. Modern treaty regimes in fields such as international environmental law, arms control, or human rights law have reached a degree of sophistication that general legal concepts (like countermeasures or treaty law responses) simply cannot match. If we may be permitted to adapt a well-​known statement by a well-​known international lawyer, coercive responses to treaty breaches—​whether justified as countermeasures or under Article 60 VCLT—​today seem to be ‘vehicle[s]‌that hardly ever leav[e] the garage’.146 Yet, like rarely used vehicles, they do remain around, ready to be taken out for the occasional trip, when the circumstances so require. Thus, they should not be discarded lightly.

Recommended Reading DW Bowett, ‘Treaties and State Responsibility’ in D Bardonnet and others (eds), Le droit international au service de la paix, de la justice et du développement. Mélanges Michel Virally (Pédone, Paris 1991) 137 F Capotorti, ‘L’extinction et la suspension des traités’ (1971-​III) 134 RdC 417 OY Elagab, The Legality of Non-​Forcible Countermeasures in International Law (OUP, Oxford 1987) C Feist, Kündigung, Rücktritt und Suspendierung von multilateralen Verträgen (Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001) T Giegerich, ‘Article 60’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) M Gomaa, Suspension or Termination of Treaties for Grounds of Breach (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1996) DW Greig, ‘Reciprocity, Proportionality, and the Law of Treaties’ (1994) 34 VJIL 295 DN Hutchinson, ‘Solidarity and Breaches of Multilateral Treaties’ (1988) 59 BYBIL 151 FL Kirgis, ‘Some Lingering Questions About Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ (1989) 22 Cornell Intl L J 549

146 Cf I Brownlie, ‘Comment’ in J Weiler and A Cassese (eds), Change and Stability in International Law-​Making (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1988) 108, 110. The original statement referred to jus cogens. Developments since 1988 show that even vehicles that at one point hardly left the garage may become rather over-​used subsequently.

594  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments R Mazzeschi Pisillo, ‘Termination and Suspension of Treaties on Grounds of Breach’ in B Simma and M Spinedi (eds), United Nations Codification of State Responsibility (Oceana, New York 1987) 57 S Rosenne, Breach of Treaty (Grotius, Cambridge 1985) E Schwelb, ‘Termination or Suspension of a Treaty as a Consequence of its Breach’ (1967) 7 IJIL 309 LA Sicilianos, ‘The Relationship Between Reprisals and Denunciation or Suspension of a Treaty’ (1993) 4 EJIL 341 B Simma, ‘From Bilateralism to Community Interest’ (1994) 250 RdC 217 B Simma, ‘Reflections on Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and its Background in General International Law’ (1970) 20 ÖZÖR 5 B Simma and C Tams, ‘Article 60 (1969)’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, 1352 BP Sinha, Unilateral Denunciation of Treaty Because of Prior Violations of Obligations by Other Party (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 1966) CJ Tams, Enforcing Obligations Erga Omnes in International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2005; revised paperback 2010) CJ Tams, ‘Regulating Treaty Breaches’, in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis (eds), Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 440–​467 M Xiouri, ‘The Exceptio Non Adimpleti Contractus in Public International Law’ (2019) 21 Int’l Comm L Rev 56–​92

25

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments Malgosia Fitzmaurice

Introduction Much of the existing law of treaties promotes the stability and security of treaty relations. The fundamental principle pacta sunt servanda reflects this idea by requiring that parties must perform their obligations in good faith for all valid treaties in force.1 But the law of treaties does not favour stability and security exclusively. Escape valves do exist, permitting parties to terminate or suspend their obligations for various reasons. In some cases, the law of treaties does so to promote consent, such as where termination or suspension occurs in conformity with the parties’ own agreement, whether in the treaty itself or some later instrument.2 In a different set of cases—​those involving material breach—​the behaviour of other parties provides an alternative basis for a State to abrogate the treaty or suspend its own performance.3 This chapter deals with a third condition—​the existence of ‘exceptional circumstances’—​ that States can invoke to avoid (or remove) their treaty obligations. The following doctrines that may serve this purpose are analysed: (i) supervening impossibility of performance; (ii) fundamental change of circumstances; and (iii) necessity.4 The first two grounds are codified in Articles 61 and 62 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT). Necessity belongs to the realm of State responsibility (namely, Article 25 of the International Law Commission’s (ILC’s) Articles on State Responsibility (ASR)). As with the broader relationship between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility, the doctrine of necessity’s relationship with the law of treaties remains unclear and, despite certain case law, it is one of the most taxing areas of international law.5

1 Art 26 VCLT (‘Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith’). 2 See Chapter 26, Section II, 631–38 et seq. 3 See Chapter 24, Section II, 639–40 et seq. 4 Although not the focus of this chapter, the VCLT also permits treaty termination or suspension if: (i) all the parties to a treaty conclude a later treaty that they intended to govern or the provisions of the later treaty are so incompatible with the earlier treaty that the two cannot apply at the same time; or (ii) if the treaty conflicts with a new pre-​emptory norm of general international law. Arts 59 and 64 VCLT. In addition, the VCLT makes clear that certain external developments do not give cause for termination or suspension. Thus, a reduction in the number of parties below that necessary for entry into force does not offer a basis for termination unless the treaty otherwise provides. Art 55 VCLT. Similarly, the severance of diplomatic or consular relations does not affect treaty relations unless the existence of such relations is indispensable for the treaty’s application. Art 63 VCLT. 5 See eg J Crawford and S Olleson, ‘The Exception of Non-​performance: Links between the Law of Treaties and the Law of State Responsibility’ (2000) 21 Australian Ybk Intl L 55.

596  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments

I.  Supervening Impossibility of Performance The doctrine of supervening impossibility of performance is an uncontroverted basis for States to terminate or suspend their treaty obligations.6 Article 61 VCLT expresses the fundamental elements of the rule: 1. A party may invoke the impossibility of performing a treaty as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from it if the impossibility results from the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty. If the impossibility is temporary, it may be invoked only as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty. 2. Impossibility of performance may not be invoked by a party as a ground for terminating, withdrawing from or suspending the operation of a treaty if the impossibility is the result of a breach by that party either of an obligation under the treaty or of any other international obligation owed to any other party to the treaty.

Unlike other bases for terminating or suspending a treaty, however, the doctrine of impossibility has gone largely un-​theorized. Moreover, practically speaking, it has proven extraordinarily difficult for States to invoke. As a threshold matter, the doctrine on supervening impossibility of performance needs to be distinguished from the exception of non-​performance. The exception of non-​ performance purports to relieve a party from the obligation to perform where the other party has failed to perform the same or a related obligation.7 The legal basis for this exception, however, has not received sufficient analysis. It was not included in the VCLT nor—​ despite extensive discussion—​the codification of the 2001 ASR. Some viewed the exception of non-​performance as ‘a circumstance precluding wrongfulness’ or a kind of countermeasure for another State’s wrongful act or omission. Others, however, now view it as a rule of treaty interpretation, rather than a secondary rule suitable for the ASR.8 Today, there remain many unresolved questions concerning the exception of non-​ performance, such as its relationship with force majeure (a circumstance precluding wrongfulness) and, generally, the principle of pacta sunt servanda. As a result, it is easy to see this exception’s potential confusion with the doctrine of impossibility, particularly where one party’s wrongful behaviour makes it impossible for the other party to perform its obligations. But there are at least two differences between these concepts. First, the exception of non-​performance need not be limited to cases where a party cannot possibly perform; its wider meaning encompasses cases where a party may not perform because it is unfair to require performance because the other party has not performed its own (reciprocal) obligations. Second, the functions of the two doctrines are distinct. The exception of non-​ performance conditions a State’s legal responsibility for its acts or omissions; the doctrine of impossibility provides a basis for terminating or suspending the treaty itself. Termination 6 See eg Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (Judgment) [1997] ICJ Rep 7; ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 761; see also Crawford and Olleson (n 5) 62. 7 Crawford and Olleson (n 5) 56. 8 The ASR is an attempt to codify ‘secondary rules’, that is the conditions under which international legal responsibility arises and the legal consequences that flow therefrom, as distinct from codifying the ‘primary rules’, which are the actual conventional and customary obligations of international law. J Crawford, ‘Third Report on State Responsibility’ (2000) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​507/​Add.1-​4; Draft Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with Commentaries [2001] YBILC, vol II(2), UN Doc A/​56/​10, as corrected (ASR).

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  597 or suspension of a treaty may, of course, have consequences for a party’s obligation to perform, but that is not their focus, which lies instead with whether there are treaty obligations at all. Thus, more careful analysis is required of the relationship between the institutions of termination and suspension of treaties and exceptions to performance obligations, whether as part of the law of treaties or the law of State responsibility.9

A.  Views of the International Law Commission Within the broad issue of termination or suspension of treaties, supervening impossibility of performance has been analysed less than other doctrines such as fundamental change of circumstances. However, it was extensively discussed during the codification process of the VCLT by the ILC. And even, prior to this, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice had already made some pertinent observations on what circumstances would make performance impossible.10 Fitzmaurice’s examples referred to the extinction of the physical object to which the treaty relates, such as: the disappearance of an island owing to subsidence in the seabed; the drying up of the bed of a river permanently; the destruction of a railway by an earthquake; or the destruction of a plant, installation, canal, lighthouse, etc. He also noted that under certain circumstances the legal character of this exception may generate difficulties in interpretation. The question may arise to what extent granting rights in respect of an object involves a guarantee to maintain the object itself, or to refrain from all action liable to interfere with it. As an example, Fitzmaurice posed the question whether granting fishery rights in a river implies an obligation not to divert the water or impair the fisheries. According to him, answering such questions must depend on the interpretation of the treaty. Fitzmaurice also noted that certain authors wanted to divide the impossibility doctrine into physical and juridical impossibilities. However, he believed that allowing juridical impossibility would present inherent difficulties because a State would always be able to obtain release from its treaty obligations by entering into other incompatible obligations.11 Fitzmaurice was more open, in contrast, to recognizing supervening impossibility of performance for treaty regulations due to the disappearance of the treaty’s field of action. Examples would include:  treaties regulating certain matters regarding a system of capitulatory rights (after the disappearance of the system) and treaties concerning certain matters arising from a customs union after the disappearance of such a union. Fitzmaurice believed termination or suspension of such obligations could be based either on the doctrine of supervening impossibility of performance or fundamental change of circumstances, revealing the inherent difficulties in achieving clean-​cut differences between various doctrines aimed at releasing a State from its treaty obligations. Indeed, Fitzmaurice explained that in these types of cases, it is not so much that performance has become impossible, but: rather that performance would, even if possible, be absurd, inappropriate and meaningless, and that it is really no longer a question of performance, because there is no longer

9

Crawford and Olleson (n 5) 73. GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 50 [97]. 11 Ibid 50–​1 [97]–​[99]. 10

598  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments any sphere or field of action to which the treaty relates, or in which performance can take place.12

Sir Humphrey Waldock made similar observations in his own reports on the law of treaties.13 His comments on draft Article 21 (supervening impossibility of performance) took the view that the doctrine of supervening impossibility needed to be understood very strictly to separate cases falling under its remit and those falling under the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus (fundamental change of circumstances). Waldock, however, did not offer any precise guidance on the boundaries separating these two doctrines. He also disagreed with Fitzmaurice on whether the disappearance of one of the parties fell under the law of treaties or larger questions of State succession.14 The ensuing ILC discussion addressed how widely to define impossibility, how to distinguish it from fundamental change of circumstances, and how to differentiate it from the law of State responsibility. Mr De Luna thought the doctrine should include practical or relative impossibility, together with its incontrovertible application to factual impossibility of performance of an absolute character, which involves the disappearance or destruction of an object of a treaty. However, such a broadening of the scope of the applicability of this doctrine would, as Fitzmaurice observed, undermine the principle pacta sunt servanda. De Luna also admitted that relative impossibility of performance could prove troublesome regarding a clear-​cut distinction from the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances, which according to him was applicable where a treaty had lost all its meaning. For De Luna, the difference between these two doctrines was primarily based on the premise that, according to the doctrine of supervening impossibility, performance without being totally impossible has been rendered extremely difficult due to supervening circumstances.15 In addition to discussing what conditions could generate supervening impossibility of performance, the ILC discussion also evidenced unresolved difficulties in separating the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility. Tunkin viewed the reasons for a State’s non-​fulfilment of its obligations and its resulting responsibilities as separate issues belonging to the topic of State responsibility. He maintained that for State responsibility to arise from non-​performance of a treaty there must be a valid treaty in operation; however, the ILC draft (Article 43(1) and (2)) provided for the treaty’s suspension or termination due to the supervening impossibility of performance. Therefore, Tunkin believed that in those circumstances there would be no treaty in operation.16 The ILC’s attempt to make a significant distinction between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility regarding supervening impossibility of performance was ultimately inconclusive. Mr Bartoš distinguished two substantively different types of responsibility to clarify the issue: the first type derives from the treaty (analogous to liability ex contractu in private law) and the second type arises in certain cases outside the treaty.17 The dilemma of separating

12

Ibid 51 [101]. See eg H Waldock, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1963] YBILC, vol II, 79. 14 Ibid 78. 15 ILC, ‘Summary record of the 833rd meeting’ (1966) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SER.A/​1996, [4]‌–[​ 12]. 16 Ibid  [3]‌. 17 Ibid [22]. Bartoš did not specify what cases outside the treaty would entail responsibility, noting: If the Commission wished to cover both types of responsibility, it could say that there was always a responsibility for certain forms of conduct, independently of the obligations under the treaty. In consequence of 13

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  599 these two areas (the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility) was also reflected in the views of the Special Rapporteur, Waldock. He argued that certain cases should be treated as cases of force majeure, particularly where a substantial doubt existed as to the permanence of the impossibility since that situation ‘might simply be treated as a case where force majeure could be pleaded as a defence exonerating a party from liability for non-​performance’.18 Mr Ago also questioned whether the physical impossibility of carrying out a treaty necessarily always means that the legal obligation created by the treaty ceases to exist. He contrasted two distinct situations. The first arises when impossibility supervenes without any fault on the invoking State’s part such that it might not only be factually impossible to carry out the treaty, but the State could decide that it is no longer legally bound to implement that treaty. The second arises when the State is responsible, in whole or in part, for creating the conditions of impossibility of performance, such that the State might find it impossible to execute the treaty, but could not declare itself free from having to implement that treaty. This later limit on impossibility ended up being reflected in paragraph 2 of Article 61. During the VCLT Diplomatic Conference, additional proposals were made to broaden Article 61’s scope, such as instances of impossibility to make certain payments due to financial difficulties. The participating States chose not to do this, but recognized that such a situation may be treated as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness.19

B.  The relevant case law Supervening impossibility of performance was pleaded in two early cases before the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), but the Court rejected the claim in both instances.20 In 1991, the Libyan Arab Foreign Investment (LAFICO) v Republic of Burundi Arbitration raised the question of impossibility via a plea of force majeure.21 The Arbitral Tribunal declined, however, to accept this plea, because ‘the alleged impossibility [was] not the result of an irresistible force or an unforeseen external event beyond the control of Burundi. In fact, the impossibility was a result of a unilateral decision of a State’.22 Undoubtedly, the most relevant case applying the doctrine of supervening impossibility of performance was the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case.23 The case originated from a dispute regarding the implementation of the 1977 Treaty Concerning the Construction and Operation of the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros System of Locks between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The 1977 Treaty provided for construction of two series of locks at Gabčikovo the recent developments of public international law, and more particularly of the law of treaties, the duty to make reparation and the duty to be vigilant were becoming generalized. Ibid. 18 Ibid [23]. In general, the Commission viewed impossibility under the topic of force majeure as belonging to the realm of State responsibility rather than the law of treaties. 19 UN Conference on the Law of Treaties, Summary Records of First Session (26 March–​24 May 1968) UN Doc A/​Conf.39/​11, 361–​89 (‘Vienna Conference, First Session’). 20 Case Concerning the Payment of Various Serbian Loans Issued in France (France v Yugoslavia) [1929] PCIJ Rep Series A No 20 (July 12) [83]; Case Concerning the Payment in Gold of Brazilian Federal Loans Contracted in France (France v Brazil) [1929] PCIJ Rep Series A No 21 (July 12) [66]–​[83]. 21 (1991) 96 ILR 279, 318. 22 Ibid [53]. 23 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6).

600  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments (situated in Czechoslovak territory) and Nagymaros (situated in Hungarian territory) to establish ‘a single and indivisible operational system of works’.24 In its Judgment, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) emphasized the project’s integrated character, ‘with the two contracting parties on an equal footing in respect of the financing, construction and operation of the works’.25 The Court also noted that the 1977 Treaty provided for a flexible framework and that the Parties in practice acknowledged it.26 In terms of its functions, one purpose of the Treaty was to provide energy, but it also sought improvement of the navigability of the Danube, flood control, regulation of ice discharge, and the protection of the natural environment.27 In 1989, Hungary unilaterally suspended and subsequently sought to terminate the Treaty with the Slovak Republic (which became a Party by treaty succession after the so-​ called ‘Velvet Revolution’ that created separate Czech and Slovak Republics). The Slovak Republic started to put into operation a unilateral alternative locks system, the so-​called ‘Variant C’ solution and submitted the dispute to the ICJ. As Johann Lammers observed, this case created a host of issues relating to the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility.28 The first group of issues related to Hungary’s various grounds for justifying termination of the 1977 Treaty (eg supervening impossibility of performance, fundamental change of circumstances, material breach, reciprocal non-​ compliance), while the second group of issues related to questions of State responsibility and its relationship to the law of treaties (eg whether a state of necessity served as a circumstance precluding the wrongfulness of any Hungarian act). In terms of supervening impossibility of performance, Hungary specifically sought to rely on Article 61 VCLT. Hungary argued that the essential object of the 1977 Treaty—​ namely the joint economic investment undertaken by the two Parties, which was compatible with environmental protection—​had permanently disappeared and that ‘the Treaty had thus become impossible to perform’.29 The Court, however, decided that Hungary’s interpretation of impossibility was not in conformity with either the terms of its formulation in Article 61 or the intentions of the Diplomatic Conference that adopted the VCLT.30 The Court decided not to engage in the discussion (originally suggested by Fitzmaurice) as to whether the term ‘object’ in Article 61 can encompass disappearance of a legal regime. It found ‘even if that were the case, it would have to conclude that in this instance that regime had not definitively ceased to exist’.31 The Court pointed out (as it did repeatedly throughout the Judgment) that the 1977 Treaty included provisions enabling the parties to make necessary adjustments between economic and environmental issues. Moreover, the Court observed that the impossibility of joint exploitation was in fact caused by Hungary’s failure to carry out most of the work for which it was responsible under the Treaty. The Court relied on Article 61(2) VCLT to prohibit Hungary from 24 Treaty Concerning the Construction and Operation of the Gabcikovo-​ Nagymaros System of Locks (Czechoslovakia-​Hungary) (16 September 1977) 1109 UNTS 235, Art 1(1). 25 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [20]. 26 Ibid [138]. 27 Ibid [135]. 28 J Lammers, ‘The Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Case Seen in Particular from the Perspective of the Law of International Watercourses and the Protection of the Environment’ (1998) 11 LJIL 287, 289–​90. 29 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [103]. 30 Ibid [102]. 31 Ibid [103].

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  601 invoking impossibility of performance when it results from a party’s own breach of an obligation stemming from a treaty.

C. State practice Just because international tribunals have rarely relied on supervening impossibility of performance to terminate or suspend a treaty, does not mean that State practice does not rely on the doctrine. Although harder to document and still relatively rare, States have invoked supervening impossibility in situations not subject to judicial settlement. For example, impossibility might arise for defence treaties among militaries when one State (such as Costa Rica or Panama) abolishes its military (although other States might challenge that claim in accordance with Article 61(2) because the State’s acts create the conditions leading to impossibility of performance). Aust noted a further example in British attempts to invoke supervening impossibility to justify housing Argentina POW’s on its ships (in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention) where its tents had been destroyed.32 Finally, it is also worth recalling that even if there is an undoubted supervening impossibility of performance, the doctrine does not terminate or suspend treaties automatically. To invoke the doctrine, a State must notify the other party per specific procedures for termination or suspension laid out in the VCLT.33

D.  Conclusions on the supervening impossibility of performance There are a host of other questions about the impossibility doctrine that remain open, including the difference between factual and legal impossibility as well as the role of fault. Thus, although the final text of Article 61 codifies the fundamental issues concerning supervening impossibility of performance, outstanding issues remain subject to interpretation by States and international courts and tribunals. It must be observed that, somewhat surprisingly, the majority of scholars do not perceive this doctrine to be in any way controversial or giving rise to unresolved issues. For example, Nahlik in his seminal essay noted that ‘[t]‌here can hardly be any objection to the inclusion of “supervening impossibility of performance” among the causes of the termination of treaties’, this doctrine originates from an ancient concept of civil law, and it has always been considered to be a principle admitted by the general law of nations.34 However, the formulation of Article 61 and the approach of the Court in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case clearly indicate that States can only invoke supervening impossibility as a ground for exiting treaty commitments in exceptional circumstances more often identified in theory than in practice. Even then, the applicability of this doctrine is problematic due to the unresolved issues about its relationship to the law of State responsibility and what exactly qualifies as the ‘permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty’, which may lead to misunderstanding and confusion in practice.

32

A Aust, Modern Treaty Law & Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 261–​2. Arts 65–​8 VCLT. 34 SE Nahlik, ‘The Grounds of Invalidity and Termination of Treaties’ (1971) 65 AJIL 736, 747. 33

602  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments

II.  Fundamental Change of Circumstances The notion that a State may terminate or suspend its treaty obligations if circumstances have changed fundamentally since the treaty entered into force (rebus sic stantibus) has received extensive attention from scholars, courts, and States.35 Today, it is considered part of customary international law and codified in Article 62 VCLT. Nevertheless, although recognizing the doctrine’s existence, international tribunals have rarely applied it. At the same time, its negative formulation in Article 62 means that, in practice, it remains difficult for States to assert as a basis for terminating or suspending treaties.

A.  Views of the International Law Commission The doctrine of clausula rebus sic stantibus is a well-​established principle in contract law, dating back to the early commentaries of Thomas Aquinas.36 Gentili transferred the idea to international law, asserting that a treaty did not have to be observed if the conditions of affairs changed, providing that the change was unforeseeable.37 Vattel voiced a similar view; where the promise of an engagement was given dependent on certain circumstances, a change in those circumstances would result in exemption from the engagement, provided that those circumstances were essential for the promise that otherwise would not have been made.38 Grotius, however, had a more restrictive view, denying that continuation of present conditions is a tacit condition of promises.39 In practice, the rebus sic stantibus doctrine gained importance especially as States increasingly invoked it in their attempts to escape treaty obligations during the nineteenth century and in the inter-​ war period.40 An analysis of this doctrine constituted a substantial part of the work by ILC Rapporteurs Fitzmaurice and Waldock. Their analysis and the ensuing discussion within the ILC—​and during the Diplomatic Conference—​contributed to what became initially draft Article 59 and finally Article 62 VCLT. In broad brushstrokes, both Rapporteurs and the ILC were aware of the dangers of such a provision to the stability of treaties. The majority of the 35 See eg T Giegerich, ‘Article 62. Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 1143; M Shaw and C Fournet, ‘Article 62: Convention of 1969’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:  A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, 1382; Villiger (n 6)  762; R Mullerson, ‘The ABM Treaty:  Changed Circumstances, Extraordinary Events, Supreme Interests and International Law’ (2001) 59 ICLQ 509; A Vamvoukos, Termination of Treaties in International Law: The Doctrines of Rebus Sic Stantibus and Desuetude (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985); I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984); G Haraszti, ‘Treaties and the Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ (1975) 146 RcD 1; OJ Lissitzyn, ‘Treaties and Changed Circumstances (rebus sic stantibus)’ (1967) 61 AJIL 895. 36 Sinclair (n 35) 192–​3 (citing Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae II/​2, qu 110). 37 Ibid 192 (discussing A Gentili, De Jure Belli Liberi Tres (1598)). 38 E de Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law Applied to Conduct and to the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns (CG Fenwick (trs), Carnegie Institute, Washington 1916) (1758) vol III, Ch XVII, 211 [296]; see also Sinclair (n 35) 192. 39 H Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis libri tres (reprinted Clarendon Press, Oxford 1925) (1646) vol II, Ch XXV.2, 424. 40 In particular, Russia invoked this doctrine to justify its assertion in 1870 that the provisions of the 1856 Treaty on neutralization of the Black Sea were no longer binding upon it. Later, this doctrine was abused as a result of its indiscriminate invocation by States in the period preceding the Second World War to escape from inconvenient treaty obligations. See Sinclair (n 35) 193.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  603 Commission viewed this rebus sic stantibus principle as operating in tension with that of pacta sunt servanda.41 Fitzmaurice noted that the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus had a long tradition in law in general and should, in some way, be included in the text of the VCLT.42 He advanced three theories that could establish the juridical basis for this doctrine.43 The first theory rested on the implied intention of the parties: the presumption that the parties to a treaty expected the continued existence of the circumstances that formed the fundamental basis of their agreement. They had an implicit intention by which the treaty would come to an end in the event of an essential change of those circumstances. The second theory was based on the premise that international law contains an objective rule allowing the parties to a treaty to require its termination due to an essential change of circumstances. The third theory was a combination of the first two, implying a condition into every treaty for termination or suspension if there is an essential change of circumstances, but basing this implication on an objective rule of law, regardless of the intention of the parties. Both Fitzmaurice and Waldock supported the second of these theories. As Waldock phrased it, ‘the rebus sic stantibus doctrine is an objective rule of law rather than a presumption as to the original intention of the parties to make the treaty subject to an implied condition’.44 The discussion within the ILC stressed the exceptional character of this doctrine. It had been suggested by some members that a provision on fundamental change of circumstances should have procedural safeguards, requiring, for example, the exhaustion of negotiations or even a jurisdictional clause to protect parties to a treaty against threats to its stability.45 These suggestions were not included in the VCLT, but they evidence the ILC’s great caution in drafting this provision. The ILC and the Diplomatic Conference strove to introduce in draft Article 59 a proper balance between stability and change. To this end, it was decided that the fundamental change of circumstances doctrine does not bestow an automatic right to repudiate the treaty but only a right to request that other parties to the treaty release the State from its obligations.46 The prevailing, albeit, reluctant view was also that the doctrine was a principle of general international law and that in contemporary practice its application was not confined, as some had argued, only to so-​called perpetual treaties.47 The restrictive character of the doctrine was maintained by the Commission’s negative phrasing of the article and the exclusion from it of any treaty establishing a boundary, as a defence against this doctrine becoming a source of tensions if applied in that context. The ILC also relied on the principle of international law that a party cannot take advantage of its own wrong-​doing.48

41

However, there were also different views. For example, Mr Stuyt of the Netherlands suggested that: [o]‌nce a treaty came into existence, it had to be executed in good faith; otherwise it remained a dead letter. But whether or not the treaty remained binding, despite a fundamental change of circumstances, was an entirely different matter. It was a practical problem and could not be solved merely by referring to the logical principle of good faith. Vienna Conference, First Session (n 19) 367 [18]. 42 Fitzmaurice, Second Report (n 10)  [141]–​[163] (Art 21 of the Draft Code on the Law of Treaties and commentary). 43 Ibid [146]–​[148]. 44 Waldock, Second Report (n 13) 83 [8]‌. 45 ILC, ‘Summary record of the 835th meeting’ (1966) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​SR.835 [3]‌. 46 Vienna Conference, First Session (n 19) 369–​70 [35]–​[40]. 47 ILC, ‘Report of the International Law Commission on the Work of the Second Part of the Eighteenth Session 4 May–​19 July 1966, Official Records of the General Assembly, Twenty-​first Session, Supplement No. 9’ UN Doc A/​ 6309/​Rev.1, 257–​8; Lissitzyn (n 35) 912–​22. 48 Case Concerning the Factory at Chorzów (Germany v Poland) (Jurisdiction) [1927] PCIJ Rep Series A No 9, 31.

604  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments In its final form, Article 62 VCLT contains the following conditions for a treaty’s termination or suspension based on a fundamental change of circumstances: (i) change with regard to circumstances existing at the time of the treaty’s conclusion (unforeseen by the treaty parties) in principle must not be invoked as a ground for the treaty’s termination, unless (ii) the existence of those circumstances constituted an essential basis for the parties’ consent to be bound by a treaty, and (iii) the effect of the change radically transforms the extent of obligations still to be performed under the treaty. The ILC, however, provided no guidance as to the meaning of the terms ‘radically’ or ‘extent’.49 Article 62 VCLT limits its application by its exclusion in the following cases: (a) if the treaty establishes a boundary; or (b) if the fundamental change is the result of a breach by the party invoking it either of an obligation under the treaty or of any other international obligation owed to any other party to the treaty. Although it appears uncontested that the first of these exclusions covers both delimitation treaties and those ceding or attributing territory,50 it is less clear if it applies only to land or also to maritime boundaries.51 Land and maritime boundaries exhibit fundamental differences in that they have distinct functions and follow different principles. The aim of land boundaries is to achieve stability; whilst maritime boundaries are based on an equitable solution for otherwise shared resources. Delimitation and entitlements to land territory are often arbitrary and based on permanent occupation. In contrast, maritime entitlements are subject to the continuously applicable requirements such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Further, land boundaries delimit full sovereignty while maritime boundaries (with the exception of those that delimit the territorial sea) only delimit sovereign rights. Thus, as Arnadottir argues, ‘the terminology most commonly used to describe the lines delimiting maritime zones cannot, in itself, suffice to put maritime boundaries in the same category as land boundaries’.52

B.  Relevant case law and other instances of application Unlike supervening impossibility of performance, the change of circumstances doctrine has been invoked in a number of cases. However, courts are very cautious; while admitting the doctrine’s existence as a matter of principle, the majority of cases have not found sufficient grounds for its actual application.53

1. The Free Zones case Although the PCIJ did not rule on rebus sic stantibus in the Judgment in the Free Zones case,54 this case is noteworthy for the Parties’ pronouncements on the conditions for applying this doctrine, pronouncements that the ILC considered while drafting Article 62. 49 See F Kirgis, ‘Proposed Missiles and the ABM Treaty’ (2001) ASIL Insights . 50 See Case Concerning the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v Mali) (Judgment) [1986] ICJ Rep 554, [17] (viewing this exclusion to cover ‘both delimitation treaties and those ceding or attributing territory’). 51 S Arnadottir, ‘Termination of Maritime Boundaries Due to Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ (2016) 32 Utrecht J Intl & Euro L 94. 52 Ibid 109. 53 R Jennings and A Watts (eds), Oppenheim’s International Law, Vol 1: Peace (9th edn OUP, Oxford 1992) 1307. 54 Case of the Free Zones of Upper Savoy and the District of Gex (France v Switzerland) (‘Free Zones Case’) [1932] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 46, 97. The PCIJ said that:

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  605 In the case’s first phase, France referenced the clause rebus sic stantibus to substantiate the view that parties to the Treaty of Versailles had intended Article 435(2) to terminate the Free Zones regime, but not as a separate ground for terminating the treaty.55 By the dispute’s third phase, however, France argued that the treaties establishing the Sardinian zone had become void in accordance with the rule rebus sic stantibus and that the Court had the authority to recognize that the treaties were void because of a change of circumstances.56 In broad brushstrokes, Switzerland noted the lack of wide and uniform acceptance of the doctrine rebus sic stantibus, while also claiming that France’s failure to invoke the change of circumstances during the nineteenth century prevented it from invoking it as a ground for terminating the treaties.57 For its part, the PCIJ declined to opine on the matter.58

2. The Fisheries Jurisdiction cases The Fisheries Jurisdiction cases59 are important as the ICJ dealt with the subject matter of the fundamental change of circumstances doctrine soon after the VCLT’s signing. The ICJ relied on Article 62 VCLT’s formulation of this doctrine, indicating that it ‘may in many respects be considered as a codification of existing customary law on the subject’.60 Regarding the doctrine’s application, the Court had to analyse a 1961 Agreement between Iceland and the United Kingdom that allegedly came to an end as result of (i) changes in fishing techniques, and (ii) the international law on fisheries. The Court applied the conditions for invoking this principle very strictly regarding both alleged grounds of its applicability. The Court stated as follows: in order that a change of circumstances may give rise to a ground for invoking the termination of a treaty it is also necessary that it should have resulted in a radical transformation of the extent of the obligations still to be performed. The change must have increased the burden of the obligations to be executed to the extent of rendering the performance something essentially different from that originally undertaken.61 [a]‌s the French argument fails on the facts, it becomes unnecessary for the Court to consider any of the questions of principle which arise in connection with the theory of the lapse of treaties by reason of change of circumstances, such as the extent to which the theory can be regarded as constituting a rule of international law, the occasions on which and the method by which effect can be given to the theory if recognised, and the question whether it would apply to treaties establishing rights. Ibid 158 [186]. 55 See Free Zones Case [1929] PCIJ Rep Series C, No 17-​1, Vol 1, 89, 284 (Speeches made in Court) (France emphasizes that there cannot be treaties that enforce certain rules when the situations have so changed that the reason which caused the rules to be imposed no longer exist). In the dispute’s second phase, France emphasized that the examination of the effect of a change of circumstances according to international law was not involved. Free Zones Case [1930] PCIJ Rep Series C, No 19-​1, Vol 4, 1640–​1 (Other Documents). 56 See Case of the Free Zones of Upper Savoy and the District of Gex (France v Switzerland) [1932] PCIJ Rep Series C, No 58, 109–​46 (Documents of the Written Proceedings); ibid 405–​15 (Public Sittings and Pleadings). 57 Ibid 474–​5, 487. 58 Free Zones Case [1932] PCIJ Rep Series A/​B No 46, 158 (finding that, since the French argument failed on the facts, the PCIJ need not consider change of circumstances, including the extent to which it might be a rule of international law, when it could be invoked, or if it applied to the treaties agreed with Switzerland at issue in the case); see also ‘Article 28. Rebus Sic Stantibus’ in Harvard Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties (1935) AJIL Supp 1096–​126 (commentary). 59 Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (United Kingdom v Iceland) (Jurisdiction) [1973] ICJ Rep 4 (‘UK Fisheries Jurisdiction Case’); Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (Federal Republic of Germany v Iceland) (Jurisdiction) [1973] ICJ Rep 49. 60 UK Fisheries Jurisdiction Case (n 59) [36]. 61 Ibid [43].

606  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments In rejecting the fundamental change of circumstances claim, the Court emphasized the importance of the non-​foreseeability criterion embodied in Article 62(1) VCLT, which disavows the doctrine’s application if the change of circumstances was foreseen by the parties at the time of the Agreement’s conclusion. The Court also attached great importance to the VCLT’s procedural requirement that a third party determine if the particular situation merited the operation of the fundamental change of circumstances doctrine, since that process helps preserve the stability of treaties.62 Such a procedural requirement was already included in the compromisory clause referring the case to the ICJ. Briggs, in particular, noted the Court’s cautious attitude in applying this doctrine and its punctilious emphasis on the fulfilment of all relevant conditions (including the procedural ones).63

3. The Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case In the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case,64 in addition to claiming supervening impossibility of performance, Hungary also identified several substantive elements that allegedly had fundamentally changed at the time it notified the Czechoslovak government about the 1977 Treaty’s termination. These elements included: (i) the notion of ‘socialist integration’, for which the 1977 Treaty was initially a vehicle, had since ceased to exist; (ii) the ‘single and indivisible operational system’, which was substituted by a unilateral scheme; (iii) the fact that the basis of the planned joint investment had been frustrated by the emergence of both States as market economies; (iv) the change in Czechoslovakia’s attitude, which turned the framework treaty into an immutable form; and finally (v) the transformation of a Treaty consistent with ‘environmental protection’ into ‘a prescription for environmental disaster’.65 Slovakia argued that the changes identified by Hungary had not altered the nature of the obligations under the Treaty from those initially undertaken, so Hungary was not entitled to terminate the Treaty.66 The Court reiterated that Article 62 VCLT reflected customary international law, albeit again with the qualification ‘in many respects’.67 The Court found that the political situation was relevant to the 1977 Treaty’s conclusion. However, the treaty’s object and purpose—​ namely a joint investment programme for the production of energy, the control of floods, and the improvement of navigation on the Danube—​were not so closely linked to political conditions that changes in those conditions would radically alter the extent of the obligations still to be performed.68 Thus, the collapse of the communist regime and the aim of strengthening communist economic cooperation were not viewed by the Court as sufficiently fundamental as to constitute valid grounds for the termination of the 1977 Treaty. The Court expressed the view that even though the project’s profitability had diminished by 1992, it had not done so to the extent as to ‘radically’ transform the parties’ obligations. Likewise, the new developments in environmental knowledge were not completely unforeseen; Articles 15, 19, and 20 of the 1977 Treaty allowed the Parties, according to the Court, 62 Sinclair (n 35) 195. 63 HW Briggs, ‘Unilateral Denunciation of Treaties: The Vienna Convention and the International Court of Justice’ (1974) 68 AJIL 51, 68. 64 For the statement of facts see text accompanying nn 23–​7. 65 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [95]. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid [42]. 68 Ibid [104].

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  607 to consider such changes and accommodate them when implementing provisions of the 1977 Treaty. The Court summed up its analysis as follows: The changed circumstances advanced by Hungary are, in the Court’s view, not of such a nature, either individually or collectively, that their effect would radically transform the extent of the obligations still to be performed in order to accomplish the Project. A fundamental change of circumstances must have been unforeseen; the existence of the circumstances at the time of the Treaty’s conclusion must have constituted an essential basis of the consent of the parties to be bound by the Treaty. The negative and conditional wording of Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is a clear indication moreover that the stability of treaty relations requires that the plea of fundamental change of circumstances be applied only in exceptional cases.69

From this case (and the Fisheries Jurisdiction cases), it appears that the ICJ will treat the plea of fundamental change of circumstances in the most restrictive manner, according absolute priority to the stability of treaties, a principle which appears to trump the invocation of the doctrine of fundamental changes. The present author has doubts if at any time this doctrine will gain more currency in the Court’s practice. Until the present, it has remained only a theoretical possibility for treaty termination or suspension.

4. Racke v Hauptzollamt Mainz Uniquely, in Racke v Hauptzollamt Mainz,70 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) case, the plea of fundamental change of circumstances succeeded. The case arose from the suspension by the Council of Ministers of the European Communities (EC) of a Cooperation Agreement between the EC and Yugoslavia in 1991, following the outbreak of hostilities in the region. An importer of Yugoslav wines who became liable for higher import duties as a result of the suspension litigated the case before the German courts. The ECJ gave a preliminary ruling concerning the validity of the suspension in which it listed two conditions for successfully claiming fundamental change of circumstances. First, the Court identified the essential basis for the parties’ consent, finding it necessary that there was ‘a situation of peace in Yugoslavia, indispensable for neighbourly relations, and the existence of institutions capable of ensuring implementation of the cooperation envisaged by the Agreement throughout the territory of Yugoslavia’. The ECJ found that these conditions were no longer the case on the facts. Second, the ECJ emphasized that the fundamental change of circumstances must radically transform the extent of obligations undertaken by the parties. In this respect, the ECJ ruled that it was sufficient that no purpose was served by continuing to grant preferences with a view to stimulating trade where Yugoslavia was breaking up, since ‘the customary international law rules in question [do] not require an impossibility to perform obligations’. Accordingly, the plea of fundamental change of circumstances was upheld, provided that no ‘manifest error of assessment’ existed in the Council’s appreciation of the situation and its invocation of the plea.71 69 Ibid. 70 Case C-​162/​96 [1998] ECR-​1-​3655; see also J Klabbers, ‘Re-​inventing the Law of Treaties: The Contribution of the EC Courts’ (1999) 30 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 45, 57–​9; O Elias, ‘General International Law and the European Court of Justice: From Hypothesis to Reality?’ (2000) 31 Netherlands Ybk Intl L 3, 17–​22. 71 Racke (n 70) [53]–​[57].

608  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments It may be noted that the ECJ was not as strict as the ICJ in applying the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances.72 Commentators have observed that this case’s special features—​such as the fact of persistent war in a neighbouring country (in spite of a ceasefire agreement, the Resolution of the Security Council determined that the war constituted a threat to international peace and security)—​influenced the decision of the ECJ and the Council.73 It was also observed that the ECJ adopted perhaps a more lenient stand due to the fact that an individual (as opposed to an EC organ) pleaded the fundamental change of circumstances, raising the issue of whether an individual can even rely on customary international law to challenge the validity of EC law.74 More importantly, the ECJ’s observations on the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances were not at the core of its Judgment, which was a matter of judicial review of the Council of Ministers’ decision. The importance of the ECJ’s statements on applying the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances may thus be limited to this particular case, which is how the ECJ viewed its own role.75 Even though Article 73 VCLT specifically excludes the outbreak of hostilities from its scope, Racke also illustrates how questions may still arise as to whether such a situation qualifies as a fundamental change of circumstances.76 Doctrinal views on this subject are inconclusive and the practice is not uniform.77 Some authors view the effect of armed conflict on treaties as similar or even coterminous with a fundamental change of circumstances, accepting that a treaty can be suspended or terminated on this basis.78 But there are few examples of State reliance on this theory.79 US President Franklin D Roosevelt

72

Klabbers (n 70) 59. Ibid; Elias (n 70) 21–​2. 74 As Klabbers noted: This focus on the individual’s position, tuning the Court’s mind to the needs and interests of individuals, may have caused the Court to misconstrue the case as one in which the trader invoked the rebus sic stantibus doctrine . . . [I]‌t transpires that the opening up of international actors may well have consequences for the application of the law of treaties. One may wonder whether the Court would have come up with such a relaxed version of rebus sic stantibus had the case been brought by one of the Community institutions . . . and it seems questionable that the Council would have argued it with fervour had Yugoslavia complained against the suspension. Klabbers (n 70) [59]. 75 The ECJ opined that: [B]‌ecause of the complexity of the rules in question and the imprecision of some of the concepts to which they refer, judicial review must necessarily, and in particular in the context of a preliminary reference for an assessment of validity, be limited to the question whether, by adopting the suspending regulation, the Council made manifest errors of assessment concerning the conditions for applying those rules. Racke (n 70) [52]. See also Aust (n 32) 299. 76 For recent discussion of armed conflicts and treaties generally, see ILC Secretariat, ‘The Effect of Armed Conflict on Treaties: An Examination of Practice and Doctrine’ (2005) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​550, 68–​71 [120]–​[126] (‘ILC Memorandum’). 77 I  Brownlie, ‘First Report on Effects of Armed Conflict on Treaties’ (2005) UN Doc A/​CN/​4/​522, 7 [12]. Government comments to the ILC confirmed a lack of agreement on the scope of the problem. ILC, ‘Effects of armed conflicts on treaties, Comments and information received from Governments’ (2005) UN Doc A/​CN.4/​622. 78 ILC Memorandum (n 76)  68–​9 [121] (citing B Conforti and A Labella, ‘Invalidity and Termination of Treaties: Role of National Courts’ (1990) 1 EJIL 44; Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States (1987) §336(e); SH McIntyre, Legal Effects of World War II on Treaties of the United Nations (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1958) 25; I Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (6th edn OUP, Oxford 2003) 592). The Italian Court of Cassation reached a similar result, holding that armed conflict ‘cannot bring about the extinction of treaties, but may contribute to a supervening impossibility and perhaps to a change in the circumstances (rebus sic stantibus)’. Lanificio Branditex v Società Azais e Vidal (1975) Italian Ybk Intl L 232–​3. 79 In 1939, the French Foreign Ministry argued that war was a changed circumstance to terminate its acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction of the PCIJ. A Kiss, ‘L’extinction des traités dans la praqtique française’ (1959) 5 AFDI 784, 795. 73

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  609 invoked rebus sic stantibus to suspend American obligations under the International Load Line Convention of 1930, but his move engendered much criticism.80 Briggs characterized it as against the treaty’s provisions, while Rank suggested Roosevelt had not fulfilled the necessary conditions for invoking that doctrine (although Rank accepted that, under the right conditions, a State might terminate or suspend a treaty because of a situation of armed conflict).81

5. Fundamental change of circumstances and State practice: the ABM Treaty The Load Line Convention example reveals that, although courts have only occasionally applied the fundamental change of circumstances doctrine, States can still invoke it outside the judicial context. The Netherlands, for example, apparently relied on rebus sic stantibus in 1982 to suspend a development assistance agreement with Suriname when the government the Netherlands had agreed to assist was overthrown in a coup d’etat with a rash of accompanying human rights violations.82 States may also address the potential for fundamental changes in circumstances in advance in the treaty itself. Since fundamental change of circumstances is not regarded as jus cogens, parties can confirm, modify, or even waive its application in their treaties.83 Thus, in the bilateral 1972 Anti-​Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) between the United States and the Soviet Union, the parties included a termination clause that contained a variation on the fundamental change of circumstances rule. Article XV(2) allowed each party ‘in exercising its national sovereignty’ to withdraw from the Treaty ‘if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardised its national interests’. In 2001, US President George W Bush announced US withdrawal from the treaty, noting that the circumstances affecting US national security had changed fundamentally and the United States faced different types of threats than those it faced during the Cold War. According to President Bush, the ABM Treaty imposed on the United States such conditions as to generally impair its homeland security.84 Some commentators argued that the existence of Article XV(2) precluded US reliance on the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances to terminate that treaty.85 Others, including the author, believe that the US termination may be viewed both as an issue of the proper interpretation of Article XV(2) as well as an independent claim for fundamental change of circumstances.86 It may be argued that some, but not all, conditions imposed by the VCLT for invoking a fundamental change of circumstances were met in this instance. The VCLT requirement of change relative to the circumstances existing at the time of conclusion of the treaty (a temporal issue) was satisfied. In other words, the United States had a valid argument that 80 Opinion of Acting Attorney General Francis Biddle on Suspension of the International Load Line Convention, (1949) 40 Op Att Gen 69; R Rank, Modern War and the Validity of Treaties: A Comparative Study, Vol I (1952) 38; R Rank, Modern War and the Validity of Treaties: A Comparative Study, Vol II (1952) 337–​8 (‘Rank 2’); HW Briggs, ‘The Attorney General Invokes Rebus Sic Stantibus’ (1942) 36 AJIL 89. 81 Briggs (n 80) 96; Rank 2 (n 80) 338–​9, 340–​1; ILC Memorandum (n 76) 69–​71 [123]–​[124], [126]. 82 Villiger (n 6) 772. 83 Ibid 771. 84 GW Bush, ‘President Discusses National Missile Defence’ (Remarks, 13 December 2001) . 85 Vamvoukos (n 35) 200–​6. 86 See in-​depth M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, ‘The Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ in M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, Utrecht 2005) 185–​98.

610  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments circumstances which led to this treaty no longer existed. But the requirement that this be a ‘fundamental’ change is more difficult to assess, as there is no definition of this term and what can be described as ‘fundamental’ will depend on the circumstances in question. In this case, the end of the Cold War and the emergence of new threats from so-​called ‘rogue’ States would be the main ‘fundamental’ change of circumstance. In the Gabčikovo-​ Nagymaros case, the Court confirmed that a change of political circumstances was ‘certainly relevant’.87 The political circumstances surrounding the conclusion of the ABM Treaty appear to be even more compelling than those in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case, therefore giving credibility to the US argument and satisfying that requirement of Article 62 VCLT. On the other hand, a host of other considerations in the ABM analysis sets it apart from Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros.88 The latter analysis was done by the ICJ (a third party adjudicator) in a formal and legal setting, whereas the ABM Treaty termination issues were discussed at political and diplomatic levels. The facts of the case and the parties’ arguments might have differed if they had occurred before a third party in a judicial setting. Likewise, the Russian view that the US rebus sic stantibus argument was not compelling would have been perhaps assessed differently in a more formal process. Next, there is the requirement that the change must not be foreseen by the parties. In this instance, the question is whether the United States and the Soviet Union did foresee that the Cold War might end one day or that threats might arise from an actor not a party to the Treaty. On this point, Article XIII of the ABM Treaty provides that: 1. To promote the objectives and implementation of this Treaty, the Parties shall establish promptly a Standing Consultative Commission within the framework of which they will:  . . .  (d) consider possible changes in the strategic situation which have bearing on provisions of this Treaty;

The Standing Consultative Commission was established in 1972 by a Memorandum of Understanding and was used regularly by both parties for various purposes, including five-​ year periodic reviews of the Treaty required by its Article XIV(2).89 These Articles provided room for the ABM Treaty to accommodate changes of the kind that arose and allegedly gave rise to the issue of fundamental change of circumstances here; namely, changes in the strategic situation. That strategic situation was clearly at the heart of the conclusion of the ABM Treaty; but, Articles XIII and XIV(2) render the argument that any such changes were not foreseen in the Treaty lacking in credibility. The provisions in question gave an opportunity for the parties to both modify (Article XIII/​XIV(2)) and terminate (Article XV) the Treaty. The last requirement to be fulfilled is that the effect of the change must radically transform the ‘extent’ of the remaining obligations to be fulfilled under the treaty. For the ABM Treaty, the issue is whether the perceived threats to the United States in 1972 and 2001 changed radically, as they were no longer coming from the Soviet Union but from ‘rogue’ 87 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [104]. 88 Fitzmaurice and Elias (n 86) 188. 89 Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Anti-​Ballistic Missile Systems (signed 26 May 1972, entered into force 3 October 1972) 944 UNTS 13, Arts XIII–​ XIV (‘ABM Treaty’).

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  611 States. This is a matter of extensive disagreement, with varying views: that the threat posed by ‘rogue’ States is not real; that actual threats can be dealt with by technologies; and that diplomacy aimed at dealing with the missile proliferation problem was preferred, rather than abrogating the ABM Treaty. The argument can be made, however, that the new type of threats, coming not from the Soviet Union but from the ‘rogue’ States, has transformed radically the US commitment to control its nuclear weapons, due to the fundamental change of circumstances (unforeseen by the parties at the time of the Agreement’s conclusion). Therefore, it can be argued that the original obligation has changed radically, and the United States faces a new type of threat. In such a sensitive case concerning national security, moreover, these arguments are only speculative, since not all the arguments are known. This case is thus different from an invocation of the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances in a judicial context, where all the facts have to be argued and presented to other parties and a third party adjudicator.

6. Procedural requirements for the application of the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances Article 65(1)–​(3) VCLT lays out certain procedural requirements for applying the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances. Its legal character, however, remains unclear. In particular, two issues can be identified: (i) whether this requirement is a norm of customary international law; and (ii) whether it is an indispensable element of the doctrine as formulated in Article 62 VCLT. In the Fisheries Jurisdiction case, the ICJ attached great importance to the ‘procedural complement to the doctrine of changed circumstances’.90 It did not expressly say, however, that customary law required claims under the doctrine be submitted to a third party. Briggs, however, considered the Court’s finding to be ‘an essential part of the doctrine’.91 In contrast, in the Racke case, the ECJ stated that Article 65 was not binding on the Council (which had not complied with its procedural requirements) on the basis that it was not a part of customary international law and the EC was not a party to the VCLT. As regards the ABM Treaty, it may be said that the VCLT was not binding on Russia (the Soviet Union acceded to the VCLT in 1986)92 and the United States is not a party. At any rate, since the United States followed the ABM Treaty’s own termination procedure, it can hardly be said that that this case depended solely on the operation of the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances as a ground for the treaty’s termination. Article 65 remains important, however, particularly as its existence indicates a shift from subjective auto-​interpretation to the possibility of a more objective legal ruling on ‘fundamental change of circumstances’ claims.93 Under the auto-​interpretative subjective doctrine, the State wishing to withdraw from a treaty is the sole arbiter of whether a fundamental change of circumstances has occurred. The announcement of this would be sufficient, and most importantly, other parties would have no part in the termination of the treaty. Such a situation clearly does not contribute to maintaining the stability of treaty relations between 90 UK Fisheries Jurisdiction case (n 59) [45]. 91 Briggs (n 63) 68. 92 According to Art 4 VCLT, it does not apply to treaties such as the ABM Treaty that entered into force before the VCLT. 93 See B Cheng, ‘The Future of State Practice in a Divided World’ in R St J MacDonald and J Johnston (eds), The Structure of International Law: Essays in Legal Philosophy and Theory (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht 1983) 513.

612  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments States. At the other end of the spectrum, international law could require third-​party adjudication in all cases where fundamental change of circumstances is invoked. The VCLT took a middle way, including elements of decision-​making by the other parties to the treaty, and in extreme cases, requiring the involvement of a third-​party adjudicator. If a party to a treaty notifies other parties of its wish to withdraw or terminate the treaty, there are two possible scenarios: (i) either no party raises any objection; or (ii) one or more other parties objects, and they must seek a solution through the means indicated in Article 33 UN Charter. There is a consensus in the literature that a plea of fundamental change of circumstances entitles a party with the legal right to demand either that: (i) the parties or a competent international tribunal should declare the termination or suspension of the treaty; or (ii) the parties should negotiate for its revision in good faith with a view to resolving the dispute.94 It has been suggested that where the rights to negotiate or submit to third-​party adjudication are invoked, the other party (or parties) to the treaty are under a corresponding obligation to comply and if that corresponding obligation is not fulfilled, the State invoking the plea is entitled to terminate or suspend the treaty’s operation.95 However, neither the VCLT nor any other agreement includes a conventional obligation to submit the case to the ICJ or another third party. It would appear that negotiations in good faith are the only requirement. The question then left is what the legal position would be if those negotiations do not produce a solution, either in the form of an agreement that a treaty should be terminated, or an agreement to modify it (both of which are consensual solutions, rather than a separately and distinctly identifiable consequence of the legal doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances).

C.  Conclusion on the fundamental change of circumstances doctrine Many theoretical and practical aspects of the requirements of the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances remain under-​analysed. The lack of extensive State practice makes further analysis mainly speculative. Nevertheless, the legal construct of Article 62 VCLT has shifted the doctrine’s focus from a unilateral, subjective process into an objective procedure where other treaty parties may participate in assessing pleas of fundamental change of circumstances. The relevant ICJ case law leads to the conclusion that, although the Court in principle affirms the existence of this doctrine, in practice, difficulties arise even when it is invoked. The Court has jointly evaluated all elements of this doctrine and applied them to the cases at hand very restrictively. The doctrine’s application in the ECJ’s Racke case was less restrictive but, as explained earlier, many extra-​legal considerations may have contributed to that outcome. It may thus be said that the doctrine of fundamental change of circumstances is an exception in international law, used very sparingly by States and treated with great circumspection by the ICJ. As to the procedural requirements for applying this doctrine, this topic remains largely unexplored both from the theoretical and practical points of view. It would be purely speculative to predict whether its status will change or remain the same.

94

Vamvoukos (n 35) 206–​14.

95 Ibid.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  613 The difficulties of applying Article 62 were most recently evidenced in a suggestion of its application with respect to the UK withdrawal from the Treaty on European Union (TEU). Article 50 TEU provides the legal regime for an EU Member State’s withdrawal. There are some suggestions that the United Kingdom might be able to overstep Article 50 TEU by relying on international law, ‘invoking the Brexit vote as a “fundamental change in circumstances” according to Article 62(1)(a) VCLT’.96 As Odermatt argues, however, such proposals cannot be taken seriously. The negative formulation of Article 62 indicates that it is unlikely that the Court of Justice of the European Union would allow the United Kingdom to rely on it, whereas Article 50 TEU provides a straightforward ground for withdrawal from the EU Treaties. Odermatt thus argues that Article 50 TEU is the only method for withdrawal from the EU, displacing other methods of treaty withdrawal that exist under international law.97

III.  The State of Necessity and Treaty Obligations A. General introduction The state of necessity is not part of the law of treaties but belongs to the law of State responsibility and forms one of the circumstances precluding wrongfulness, codified in Article 25 of the 2001 ASR (formerly draft Article 33).98 Like a fundamental change of circumstances, the doctrine of necessity takes a negative formulation; it may not be invoked unless the act done out of necessity is the ‘only way for the State to safeguard an essential interest against grave and imminent peril; and does not seriously impair an essential interest of the State or States towards which the obligation exists, or of the international community as a whole’.99 Similarly, it cannot be invoked if the international obligation in question excludes invoking necessity or the State contributed to the situation of necessity.100 A state of necessity frequently constitutes a separate ground for States attempting to terminate (or suspend) their treaty obligations, as evidenced by the Gabčikovo-​ Nagymaros case. In doing so, it exemplifies the troublesome relationship between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility, which are at times almost impossible to distinguish. The plea of the state of necessity has been described as a fairly Machiavellian institution (ends justifying the means) and should be treated with the utmost caution and scepticism.101 96 J Ordematt, ‘Brexit and International Law: Disentangling Legal Orders’ (2017) 32 Emory Int’l L Rev 1062; see also, M Milanovic, ‘Brexit, the Northern Irish Backstop, and Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ EJIL: Talk! (18 March 2019) ; M Milanovic, ‘Negotiating Brexit in the Shadow of the Law of Treaties’ EJIL Talk! (12 March 2019) . 97 Ordematt (n 96). 98 See eg M Agius ‘The Invocation of Necessity in International Law’ (2009) Netherlands Intl L Rev 95 (‘Agius, NILR’); M Agius, LLM dissertation ‘The Invocation of Necessity in International Law’ [2006] (‘Agius, LLM dissertation’); see also volume 41 of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, which is devoted to the state of necessity. 99 ASR (n 8) Art 26. 100 Ibid Art 25. 101 See F Paddeu, Justification and Excuse in International Law; Concept and Theory of General Defences (CUP, Cambridge 2017) 429.

614  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments

B.  The relevant case law The most instructive illustration of cross-​fertilization between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility (specifically, the plea of necessity) is the aforementioned Gabčikovo-​ Nagymaros case.102 It is a classical case not only regarding its treatment of necessity in international environmental law, but also in its general approach to international law. There, the ICJ analysed not only the general aspects of this plea, but also the relationship between a state of necessity (and generally the law of State responsibility) and the law of treaties. Hungary justified its termination of the 1977 Treaty by suggesting that this act safeguarded its essential interests, specifically the health and vital interests of the population, particularly in the Szigetköz region. Hungary further argued that the ecological dangers posed by the 1977 Treaty were: (i) of an ‘exceptional’ character and threatened a ‘major interest’ of the State; (ii) ‘imminent’; and (iii) impossible to avert by means other than termination. The exceptional character of the interests involved severe pollution, a threat to the quality of drinking water, agriculture, and the essential interest of Hungary in maintaining its natural environment.103 Hungary also emphasized the imminent nature of the peril, particularly after Czechoslovakia put into operation ‘Variant C’. Finally, Hungary stressed the unavoidable character of its decision to terminate the project: The termination of the 1977 Treaty was the last possible legal reaction to Czechoslovakia’s illegitimate and persistent refusal of meaningful negotiations, which was only underscored by Czechoslovakia’s perseverance with Variant C in spite of Hungary’s urgent invitations to discontinue work as highly damaging and incompatible with the 1977 Treaty.104

Hungary stressed, moreover, that it did not contribute to the occurrence of the state of necessity.105 The Slovak Republic presented a vigorous reply to Hungarian assertions of a state of necessity. Further, it argued that an ‘ecological state of necessity’ did not exist either at the time of suspending the works, or at the time of Hungary’s termination notice. Slovakia even expressed some doubts as to whether there could be an ‘ecological state of necessity’, since such a plea would seriously undermine the stability of the law of treaties.106 In any case, the Slovak Republic suggested that when the Treaty was concluded, the best possible evidence of the project’s expected environmental impact was offered. It also claimed that Hungary did not believe that a state of necessity existed when it unlawfully suspended, abandoned, and terminated its performance under the 1977 Treaty. The Slovak Memorial argued: ‘[t]‌o invoke a State of ecological necessity, a State must believe it exists. And it must have held that deep and genuine belief at the moment it decided to act contrary to its international obligations’.107 The Slovak Republic asserted that Hungary’s actions were dictated by financial 102 For the statement of facts see text accompanying nn 23–​7. 103 J Crawford, The International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility (CUP, Cambridge 2002)  287–​8. 104 Ibid 291. 105 Ibid. 106 ICJ, P Tomka, ‘Verbatim Record of Oral Arguments in the Case concerning Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Project’ (15 April 1997, The Hague) UN Doc CR.97/​15, 60. 107 Slovak Republic, ‘Memorial Submitted to the ICJ for the Case Concerning the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Project’ (2 May 1994) vol I, 324.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  615 difficulties and its own perceptions of its energy needs rather than a state of necessity.108 Finally, it argued that in invoking the state of necessity, Hungary ignored the provisions of the 1977 Treaty, which had its own dispute settlement procedure based on objective data and its own built-​in mechanism for constant monitoring of environmental conditions. The Slovak position was that: [f]‌ull use of such mechanisms therefore precluded the unobserved development of any situation which could be characterised as a state of necessity and any negative developments could be resolved within the 1977 Treaty framework.109

Thus, the Slovak Republic introduced two elements to necessity not found in draft Article 33 or Article 25 ASR. First, Slovakia adopted ‘a subjective approach’, that is requiring the true belief of a State (Hungary) that the necessity exists. Second, it suggested that the dispute settlement procedure contained in the Treaty could preclude the emergence of a situation of necessity.110 In doing so, the Republic of Slovakia revealed the complexities of this institution and the lack of any agreement by States as to what constitutes a plea of necessity. The Court itself analysed the state of necessity against the background of Article 33 of the ILC 1980 draft Articles, ascertaining that it is a circumstance precluding wrongfulness recognized by international customary law.111 The Court confirmed that the state of necessity was not confined to the traditional grounds for its invocation, such as a grave danger to the existence of the State itself.112 The Court, following the ILC’s findings, also acknowledged that safeguarding the ecological balance could be considered an ‘essential interest’ of all States.113 However, the Court confirmed the exceptional character of necessity as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness and the stringent conditions attached to its invocation.114 For its part, the Court questioned the existence in 1989 of the threat of ‘a grave and imminent peril’ and whether Hungary’s suspension and termination of the 1977 Treaty and the abandonment of the works were the only method of safeguarding its essential interest against this peril. Regarding the erection of the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros barrage system, the Court stated that ‘[t]‌he Court considers, however, that, serious though these uncertainties might have been they could not, alone, establish the objective existence of a “peril” in the sense of a component element of a state of necessity’.115 The Court further explained that ‘peril’ in the context of a state of necessity ‘certainly evokes the idea of “risk”; that is precisely what distinguishes “peril” from material damage’.116 A state of necessity can only exist with a ‘peril’, ‘duly established’ at ‘the relevant point of time’. Further, the Court added ‘the mere 108 Ibid 325. 109 Ibid 332. 110 Slovakia could also have argued that Art 25(2)(a) ASR precludes the possibility of relying on the plea of the state of necessity as ‘the international obligation in question excluded the possibility of invoking necessity’, which may (albeit implicitly) indicate that the relevant existing treaty obligation could preclude reliance on the plea of necessity. 111 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [51]. 112 Ibid [53]. 113 See eg R Boed, ‘State of Necessity as a Justification for Internationally Wrongful Conduct’ (2000) 3 Yale Human Rights and Development L J 12. 114 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros (n 6) [51]; P Okowa, ‘Defences in the Jurisprudence of International Tribunals’ in GS Goodwin-​Gill and S Talmon (eds), The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie (OUP, Oxford 1999) 392. 115 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [54]. 116 Ibid.

616  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments apprehension of a possible “peril” could not suffice’ to establish the state of necessity.117 This follows from the requirement that a ‘peril’ must at the same time be ‘grave’ and ‘imminent’. The Court analysed the notion of ‘imminence’ as synonymous with ‘immediacy’ or ‘proximity’. According to the ILC, an ‘extremely grave and imminent peril’ must be a threat to a State’s interest at the actual time. The Court added, however, that in its view a ‘peril’ appearing over a long period of time might be considered ‘imminent’ ‘as soon as it is established at the relevant point of time; that the realization of that peril, however far off it might be, is not thereby any less certain and inevitable’.118 Against this background, the Court analysed the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros system of locks and barrages. As to the Nagymaros portion of the project, the Court viewed the dangers alleged by Hungary as of an uncertain character and therefore saw no ‘grave and imminent’ peril at the time of the suspension and abandonment of the works by Hungary. The ICJ observed, moreover, that the peril invoked by Hungary had already been present before 1989 and could not entirely be ascribed to work on the Nagymaros dam. The Court stressed that even if the system’s erection would have created serious risks, Hungary had at its disposal other means besides the project’s suspension and abandonment. The use of such, more costly techniques, according to the Court, was ‘not determinative of the state of necessity’.119 The Court invoked similar reasoning to deny Hungary’s plea of necessity in relation to the quality of certain ground and surface water and the effects on fauna and flora.120 As with fundamental change of circumstances, a separate and vital issue for determining the existence of the state of necessity is who can authoritatively make such a factual assessment—​the State claiming necessity or a third party? It may be inferred from the judgment in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case that: the current position is that the assessment must indeed be determined by a State, but that such an assessment may be scrutinized by affected parties, the international community as a whole and, as seen from case law, international legal bodies to which the case may be rendered. The very idea behind regime building efforts in the field of state responsibility builds upon the desire not to give much latitude to States, as regards the circumstances under which they may deviate from their international undertakings.121

Finally, the Court stated that even if it had been established that there was a state of necessity in 1989 linked to the performance of the 1977 Treaty, Hungary would not have been permitted to rely upon that state of necessity as it had helped, by act or omission, to bring it about.122 All told, the ICJ decision confirmed several legal characteristics of the state of necessity. First, the Court incontrovertibly reiterated that ecological concerns can give rise to the invocation of the plea of necessity. It clarified the question of who decides on the factual existence of necessity and it came up with a two-​tiered test; the first tier comprises a subjective test, that is, the State itself decides on the existence of a state of necessity. However, it cannot

117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. 119

Ibid [55]. Ibid [56]. 121 Agius, LLM dissertation (n 98) 16. 122 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros (n 6) [57]. 120

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  617 be the sole judge thereof; therefore, a second, objective tier is introduced and is applied by other States (the community of States) or judicial bodies. The Court also analysed the notion of ‘imminence’ as synonymous with ‘immediacy’ or ‘proximity’. According to the ILC, an ‘extremely grave and imminent peril’ must be a certain and inevitable threat to the State’s interest at the actual time.123 In its later, Construction of a Wall opinion, the ICJ elaborated that any solution must also be the ‘only means’ to avoid this peril; in that case, the Court found that Israel failed to establish that the construction of a wall along the route chosen was the only means to safeguard its interests against the perceived peril.124 Other issues about necessity have not been fully resolved. In the view of the present author, the Court has yet to deal in a persuasive manner with fundamental differences between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility. Additionally, some of the Court’s legal analysis of the elements of necessity (such as the above-​mentioned notion of ‘imminence’) has been very complicated and it is difficult to envisage how such a definition will be reflected in State practice. It may also be noted that although it cited, on several occasions, its reliance on customary international law regarding necessity and draft Article 33, it introduced elements that were not essential parts of those constructs, including ‘a subjective approach’, that is, the true belief of a State that the necessity exists. Aside from the ICJ, the problem of the state of necessity has arisen in several other international tribunals.125 For example, in 1999, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) decided that Guinea could not invoke a state of necessity to excuse the wrongful application of its custom laws to its exclusive economic zone. In doing so, it confirmed the statement by the ICJ in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case that a state of necessity, as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness, belongs to customary international law.126 Necessity has also been raised in connection with various bilateral investment treaty arbitrations, most notably those arising in connection with Argentina’s 2001–​02 financial crisis. Argentina has invoked the state of necessity to excuse its violation of various international obligations vis-​à-​vis foreign investors in its adoption of restrictive financial measures to stabilize its economy. All the awards rendered have confirmed a defence of necessity as part of customary international law, but the outcomes have varied on whether Argentina fulfilled the requirements for successfully invoking the rule.127 As Tanzi has noted, the closest an international investment arbitration has come to accepting a necessity defence has been within the framework of invoking state of emergency clauses under these bilateral investment treaties rather than under Article 25 ASR itself.128 123 Ibid [54]. 124 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Case (Advisory Opinion) [2004] ICJ Rep 136, 194–​5 [140]. 125 See A Tanzi, ‘State of Necessity’ in R Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (OUP, Oxford 2013) . 126 Ibid [5]‌; The M/​V 'SAIGA' (No 2), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines v Guinea (Merits, Judgment) (1999) ITLOS Case No 2, ICGJ 336. 127 Tanzi (n 125)  [8]‌. For example, in the CMS Gas Transmission Co case, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Tribunal held that the requirements of necessity under customary international law were not fully met so as to preclude the wrongfulness of the acts at issue. CMS Gas Transmission Company v Argentina, Award, ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​8, IIC 65 (2005), [2005] 44 ILM 1205, [315], [331]; accord Enron Corporation and Ponderosa Assets LP v Argentina, Award, ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​3, IIC 292 (2007), [303]; Sempra Energy International v Argentina, Award, ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​16, IIC 304 (2007), [344]; see also Tanzi (n 125) [9]. 128 Tanzi (n 125) [10]–​[12]. Thus, several ICSID awards have ruled Argentina could be excused from liability for breaches of the US–​Argentina BIT under the ‘emergency’ clause contained in Art XI of that treaty (which

618  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments

IV.  Distinguishing Supervening Impossibility of Performance, Fundamental Change of Circumstances, and the Law of State Responsibility (Including the Plea of Necessity) As mentioned earlier, the relationship between (i)  the law of treaty doctrines on supervening impossibility of performance and fundamental change of circumstances and (ii) the law of State responsibility doctrines of force majeure (Article 23 ASR) and the plea of necessity (Article 25 ASR), remain, in the view of the present author, unresolved. Certain commentators have promoted the view that there is a fast and clear distinction between the realm of the law of treaties and that of State responsibility by relying on the two systems’ different objectives. As crafted in Articles 61 and 62 VCLT, impossibility and fundamental change of circumstances regulate the future of any treaty relationship between the parties. In contrast, the law of State responsibility does not terminate or suspend the treaty; rather, it provides a State with a defence to preclude the wrongfulness of a past failure to perform that treaty.129 The idea of a clear distinction is further supported by the possibility of a temporary suspension of treaty relations as a part of the law of treaties.130 There is, however, a more elaborate explanation regarding the relationship between Article 61 VCLT and force majeure (Article 23 ASR). It is based on the premise that force majeure embraces supervening impossibility of performance, but is a wider concept, meaning that force majeure operates even when there is no impossibility of performance.131 Verhoeven argued that a supervening impossibility ‘necessarily constitutes force majeure, at least when it does not result from a breach by the State invoking it of its obligations’.132 He operates from the premise that: it seems reasonable to consider that the impossibility of performance that justifies the termination of the treaty under Article 61 of the Vienna Convention is fulfilled when force majeure under Article 23 is definitive, even if it is true that this leads to a particularly flexible interpretation of the notion of ‘object indispensable for the execution of the treaty’.133

Verhoeven’s views are confusing, however, as the invocation of circumstances precluding wrongfulness (such as force majeure or the state of necessity) only follows from the entitles a party to take measures necessary for the maintenance of public order or the protection of its own essential security interests); in so doing, the tribunals have equated the clause’s threshold with the application of a state of necessity, citing the period of crisis that led Argentina to enact restrictive financial measures to maintain public order and protect its essential security interests. See eg LG & E Energy Corp, LG & E Capital Corp and LG & E International Inc v Argentine Republic, Decision on Liability, ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​1, IIC 152 (2006), [2007] 46 ILM 36, [229], [245]; Continental Casualty Company v Argentina, Award, ICSID Case No ARB/​03/​9, IIC 336 (2008), [168], [243]. 129 R Lefeber, ‘The Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros Project and the Law of State Responsibility’ (1998) 11 LJIL 612. For more on circumstances precluding wrongfulness and the law of treaties, see C Binder, ‘Stability and Change in Times of Fragmentation: The Limits of Pacta Sunt Servanda Revisited’ (2012) 25 LJIL 909. On Art 61, see Villiger (n 6) 752; P Bodeau Livinec and J Morgan-​Foster, ‘Article 61 Convention of 1969’ in Corten and Klein (n 35) 1382, 1411; Giegerich (n 35) 1127. 130 See [1966] YBILC, vol II, 256. 131 J Verhoeven, ‘The Law of State Responsibility and the Law of Treaties’ in J Crawford, A Pellet, and S Olleson (eds), The Law of International Responsibility (OUP, Oxford 2010) 108. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  619 commission of an internationally wrongful act.134 It cannot be invoked in other circumstances, which do not involve wrongfulness, but prima facie resemble factually the circumstances that allow the invocation of some of the circumstances precluding wrongfulness (eg supervening impossibility, which can arise without wrongful acts by any State).135 Verhoeven’s views are inconsistent, moreover, with the Court’s adoption in Gabčikovo-​ Nagymaros of a strict division between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility. The Court said as follows: A determination of whether a convention is or is not in force, and whether it has or has not been properly suspended or denounced, is to be made pursuant to the law of treaties. On the other hand, an evaluation of the extent to which the suspension or denunciation of a convention, seen as incompatible with the law of treaties, involves the responsibility of the State which proceeded to it, is to be made under the law of State responsibility.136

The Court gave no guidance on how to assess the extent to which State responsibility is involved. The general gist of the Court’s statement, however, is that the non-​performance of a treaty under Article 61 should be assessed on the basis of the law of treaties, not the law of State responsibility. These differences of opinion demonstrate the problematic (and still unclarified) relationship between the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility. The borders between the two areas of law are often blurred. Attempts to distinguish them are not fully convincing and leave the possibility for confusion. The Rainbow Warrior Arbitration provides a useful example.137 In 1985 the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was sunk in New Zealand waters by two secret service French agents. The dispute was initially resolved via a 1986 Agreement, which prescribed that these agents were to be transferred to the remote island of Hao for three years, with any earlier release requiring the mutual consent of both governments. However, later in 1986, before this period expired, France—​without the agreement of New Zealand—​ removed them from Hao and transferred them to France on the basis of ill health and pregnancy. In the ensuing arbitration (required under the terms of the 1986 Agreement), France invoked force majeure and distress (circumstances precluding wrongfulness) as justifying its non-​compliance with the Agreement’s terms.138 New Zealand strenuously objected to such an explanation, relying exclusively on the law of treaties. It argued that in cases of a breach of a treaty, the only excuses available under the law of treaties were acceptable grounds to suspend, terminate, or invalidate treaties. Thus, France could only invoke supervening 134 For a more nuanced view, see Paddeu (n 101), especially 1–​63 (differentiating justifications and excuses, a distinction not uniformly acknowledged in international law). 135 As Sørensen explained regarding the state of necessity: There are particular rules of international law making allowance for varying degrees of necessity, but these cases have a meaning and a scope entirely outside the traditional doctrine of state of necessity. Thus, for instance, vessels in distress are allowed to seek refuge in a foreign port, even if it is closed . . . ; in the case of famine in a country, a foreign ship proceeding to another port may be detained and its cargo expropriated . . . In these cases—​in which adequate compensation must be paid—​it is not the doctrine of the state of necessity which provides the foundation of the particular rules, but humanitarian considerations, which do not apply to the State as a body politic but are designed to protect essential rights of human beings in a situation of distress. M Sørensen (ed), Manual of Public International Law (Macmillan, London 1968) 54. 136 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [47]. 137 New Zealand v France (Arbitration Tribunal) (1990) 82 ILR 499. 138 S Marks, ‘Treaties, State Responsibility and Remedies’ (1990) 49 CLJ 387, 388.

620  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments impossibility of performance under Article 61 to terminate its 1986 treaty commitments; but here the conditions for its invocation were not met. The Tribunal, however, accepted the French position and reasoned that the breach of a treaty can be justified on the grounds of a general law of State responsibility (even where there was no ground to terminate the treaty according to the law of treaties). As Susan Marks argued, this ‘puts into question the continued operation of the provisions of the Vienna Convention relating to the termination, suspension and invalidity of treaties’.139 She explained further that: [i]‌f a state wishing to avoid its obligations under a treaty can justify breaching the treaty by reference to the full range of excuses known to the law of state responsibility, why should it pay any heed to the stricter grounds and procedures applicable under the law of treaties?140

States cannot freely choose the rules applicable in cases of breach of an international obligation. Non-​compliance with treaty provisions should result in the application of the VCLT’s relevant rules. Indeed, the different spheres of the law of treaties and the law of State responsibility were emphasized by the ILC during its codification of the rules of State responsibility several times, particularly in discussing countermeasures and material breach of a treaty. However, several scholars favour the approach adopted by the Arbitral Tribunal in the Rainbow Warrior case and argue that: [t]‌he circumstances precluding wrongfulness cannot logically be precluded by the existence of provisions concerning termination, suspension or impossibility of performance, as circumstances precluding wrongfulness cancelled not the operation of the treaty, but only liability for what was unquestionably illegal conduct. The regimes are to be considered as complements to one another: a state whose act of termination or suspension is incompatible with the law of treaties may still escape responsibility if it can rely on the general excuses under the law of state responsibility.141

Such an argument, although logical and neat, cannot be fully supported by theory, the practice of States, or the relevant jurisprudence, especially the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case. Fundamental change of circumstances gives rise to similar confusion and misconceptions regarding the state of necessity. The predominant view is that the invocation of a state of necessity does not terminate treaty relations but only justifies non-​compliance; rules of State responsibility—​such as necessity—​could be treated as emergency rules that do not affect treaty relations between States and are temporary in character.142 But such a distinction does not conform to State practice or the case law (eg the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case); necessity is often pleaded as a ground for the termination of treaties, which are primary rules. Even if we adhere to the view that under the law of treaties, the treaty remains operative, rules of State responsibility like the rule of necessity excuse the wrongfulness of a State’s non-​performance of its treaty commitments and prevent the liability of a State. In doing so,



139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 142

Agius, NILR (n 98) 113. Ibid 113–​14.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  621 they defeat to a certain extent the stability of treaties and the fundamental principle of pacta sunt servanda.143 Crawford explained that circumstances precluding wrongfulness: operate more as a shield than a sword. While they may protect the State against an otherwise well-​founded accusation of wrongful conduct, they do not strike down the obligation, and the underlying source of the obligation, the primary rule, is not affected by them as such.144

As the Special Rapporteur reminds us, this issue was already raised by Fitzmaurice in 1959, during the ILC’s work on the codification of the law of treaties.145 The difficulties regarding the clear-​cut distinction between these two regimes may be due to the fact that although each set of norms to some degree regulates the same fields and the same situations: the law of State responsibility is separate from the law treaties  . . .  Nevertheless, international practice has confirmed that whenever State responsibility is incurred, the State has a right to invoke the circumstances precluding wrongfulness, as well as defenses under the law of treaties.146

General Conclusions Supervening impossibility of performance and fundamental change of circumstances constitute classical means of suspending and terminating treaty obligations. The relevant provisions of the VCLT adopt a very restrictive approach to the invocation of any grounds that would undermine the stability of treaties, especially fundamental change of circumstances. Such a restrictive approach is further strengthened by the existence of procedural rules to accompany any invocation of exceptional circumstances. The relevant case law, particularly that of the ICJ, upholds such strict application of exceptional circumstances. The ECJ was less exacting in one instance, but as suggested in the literature, that may have been caused by several circumstances peculiar to that case. The case of the ABM Treaty, moreover, indicates that where international adjudication is absent, the application of fundamental change of circumstances may not strictly follow the requirements of Article 62 VCLT, but instead rely to a great degree on extra-​legal factors.

143 Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case (n 6) [46]–​[47]. 144 J Crawford, ‘Second Report on State Responsibility (2nd Addendum, 30 April 1999)’ UN Doc A/​CN.4/​498/​ Add.2, [224] (emphasis in original). 145 J Crawford, ‘Second Report on State Responsibility (3rd Addendum, 1 April 1999)’ UN Doc A/​CN.4/​498/​ Add.3, 27–​33; [1999] YBILC, vol II(2), 82–​4; Fitzmaurice also stated as follows: some of the grounds justifying non-​performance of a particular treaty obligation are identical with some of those causing or justifying the termination of a treaty. Yet . . . the two subjects are quite distinct, if only because in the case of termination . . . the treaty ends altogether, while in the other [situation] . . . it does not in general do so, and (if a paradox is permissible) the non-​performance is not only justified, but ‘looks towards’ a resumption of performance so soon as the factors causing and justifying the non-​performance are no longer present. [1959] YBILC, vol II, 41 (emphasis added). 146 Agius, LLM dissertation (n 98) 43.

622  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments Finally, it must be noted that these exceptional circumstances are frequently confused with the rules on State responsibility, such as those concerning the state of necessity as a circumstance States may invoke to preclude liability for conduct that would otherwise be wrongful. In the case law, it is quite noticeable that States are unsure which set of rules to apply in cases of attempts to exit a treaty. Various explanations presented in the relevant literature are unconvincing on how to differentiate among the potentially applicable doctrines. Similarly, State practice indicates that there is a lack of certainty as to how and when to apply particular provisions. At present, moreover, as noted in the Gabčikovo-​Nagymaros case, it appears that rules of State responsibility precluding wrongfulness such as necessity may undermine the stability of treaties and the universality of pacta sunt servanda.147 Finally, as observed above, recourse to the State responsibility regime may be more lenient than the law of treaties, even in nullifying the relevant rules of the law of treaties regarding treaty termination or suspension.

Recommended Reading M Agius, ‘The Invocation of Necessity in International Law’ (2009) 56 Netherlands Intl L Rev 95 O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) J Crawford and S Olleson, ‘The Exception of Non-​Performance: Links between the Law of Treaties and the Law of State Responsibility’ (2000) 21 Australian Ybk Intl L 55 O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) M Fitzmaurice, ‘The Gabcikovo-​Nagymaros Case: The Law of Treaties’ (1998) 11 LJIL 321 M Fitzmaurice, ‘The Law of Treaties, The Law of State Responsibility and the Non-​Performance of Treaty Obligations: A View from the Case-​Law’ in M Bowman and D Kritsiotis, Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 748 M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, ‘The Doctrine of Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ in M Fitzmaurice and O Elias, Contemporary Issues in the Law of Treaties (Eleven International Publishing, Utrecht 2005) 185 M Fitzmaurice and P Merkouris, Treaties in Motion:  The Evolution of Treaties from Formation to Termination (CUP, Cambridge forthcoming 2020) ch 6 G Haraszti, ‘Treaties and the Fundamental Change of Circumstances’ (1975) 146 RcD 1 OJ Lissitzyn, ‘Treaties and Changed Circumstances’ (1967) 61 AJIL 895 R Mullerson, ‘The ABM Treaty: Changed Circumstances, Extraordinary Events, Supreme Interests and International Law’ (2000) 59 ICLQ 509 SE Nahlik, ‘The Grounds of Invalidity and Termination of Treaties’ (1971) 65 AJIL 747 F Paddeu, Justification and Excuse in International Law:  Concept and Theory of General Defences (CUP, Cambridge 2018) M Shaker, ‘Fundamental Change of Circumstances or the International Law Commission and the Doctrine of “Rebus Sic Stantibus” ’ (1967) Rev Egypt Dr Intl 109 I Sinclair, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (2nd edn MUP, Manchester 1984) CJ Tams, A Tzanakopoulos, and A Zimmermann (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2013)

147 S Lekkas and A Tzanakopoulos, ‘Pacta sunt servanda versus Flexibility in the Suspension and Termination of Treaties’ in C Tams and others (eds), Research Handbook on the Law of Treaties (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2013) 312–​40; Villiger (n 6) 361; Jean Salmon, ‘Article 26—​Convention of 1969’ in Corten and Klein (n 35) 659; K Schmalenbach, ‘Article 26—​Pacta Sunt Servanda’ in Dörr and Schmalenbach (n 35) 467.

Exceptional Circumstances and Treaty Commitments  623 CJ Tams, ‘Regulating Treaty Breaches’ in M Bowmn and D Kritsiotis, Conceptual and Contextual Perspectives on the Modern Law of Treaties (CUP, Cambridge 2018) 440 DF Vagts, ‘Rebus Revisited: Changed Circumstances in Treaty Law’ (2005) 43 Colum J Transnat’l L 459 A Vamvoukos, Termination of Treaties in International Law: The Doctrine of Rebus Sic Stantibus and Desuetude (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1985) ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009)

26

Terminating Treaties Laurence R Helfer

Introduction An old adage says that no one likes to talk about divorce before a wedding. Yet that is, in effect, precisely what States do when they negotiate new treaties. Buried in the back of most international agreements are provisions that describe procedures for the treaty parties to end their relationship. In addition, no fewer than thirteen articles of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) set forth termination, denunciation, or withdrawal rules that apply when States do not negotiate treaty-​specific rules on these topics.1 These ‘exit’ provisions share a distinctive attribute:  they authorize one treaty member acting unilaterally, or all treaty parties acting collectively, to end their legal obligations under an international agreement.2 The act of exiting pursuant to these provisions is thus distinguishable from a termination or withdrawal in response to breach by another treaty party.3 The structure and operation of treaty exit provisions were long overlooked by most legal scholars and political scientists.4 That silence has ended as commentators in both fields have devoted fresh attention to the design and use of international agreements in general and treaty flexibility mechanisms in particular.5 In addition, the recent rise of nationalist populism has triggered calls for States to withdraw from treaties and international organizations and from the jurisdiction of international courts. Recent actual and proposed exits 1 Arts 42–​5, 54–​6, 65–​8, 70–​1 VCLT. The VCLT applies only to treaties between States. Agreements involving international organizations are governed by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (adopted 21 March 1986, not yet in force) [1986] 25 ILM 543 (1986 VLCT). The first seventy-​two articles of the 1986 VCLT—​which is widely regarded as reflecting customary international law—​address the same subjects as Arts 1 through 72 of the original VCLT. A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013) 7–​8 and n7. Inasmuch as the 1986 VCLT’s provisions relating to termination, denunciation, or withdrawal are materially indistinguishable from those of the VCLT, this chapter focuses only on the VCLT. 2 LR Helfer, ‘Exiting Treaties’ (2005) 91 Virginia L R 1579, 1582 (explaining that ‘exit clauses create a lawful, public mechanism for a state to terminate its treaty obligations or withdraw from membership in an intergovernmental organization’). 3 Eg MM Gomaa, Suspension or Termination of Treaties on Grounds of Breach (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1996) 167–​8; S Rosenne, Breach of Treaty (Grotius, Cambridge 1985) 117–​25; AE David, The Strategy of Treaty Termination: Lawful Breaches and Retaliations (Yale University Press, New Haven 1975) 159–​202. For a discussion of treaty breach, see Chapter 24. It is also important to distinguish denunciation, withdrawal, and termination of a treaty pursuant to its terms from the termination or suspension of a treaty due to supervening impossibility or fundamental change of circumstances. For further discussion of those topics, see Chapter 25, Sections I and II, 596–601 et seq and 602–13 et seq, respectively. 4 Eg A McNair, The Law of Treaties (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1961) 510 (stating that treaty clauses permitting unilateral denunciation ‘occur[] so frequently that [they] hardly require[] illustration’ or discussion). 5 Eg LR Helfer, ‘Masterclass on Treaty Exit: Taking Stock of Three Generations of Research’ (2019) 52 Israeli L R 103; LR Helfer, ‘Flexibility in International Agreements’ in J Dunoff and M Pollack (eds), International Law and International Relations: Taking Stock: Insights from Interdisciplinary Scholarship (CUP, Cambridge 2012); B Koremenos, The Continent of International Law: Explaining Agreement Design (CUP, Cambridge 2016).

Terminating Treaties  625 span the length and breadth of international law, including agreements on trade, regional integration, foreign investment, criminal law, and human rights.6 This chapter reviews the research on treaty exit and draws upon recent examples and illustrations from a range of subject areas to discuss its practical, theoretical, and normative implications. Section I provides an overview of the international rules governing exit from multilateral and bilateral agreements, including key provisions of the VCLT. Section II highlights the wide variations in the design and invocation of treaty termination, denunciation, and withdrawal clauses. Section III sets forth a theory of treaty exit. It argues that termination, denunciation, and withdrawal clauses are tools for managing risk—​a pervasive feature of international affairs.7 A concluding section identifies avenues for future research for scholars and practitioners alike.

I.  The International Law of Treaty Termination, Withdrawal, and Denunciation It is helpful to begin with a definition of key terms. Denunciation and withdrawal are used interchangeably to refer to a unilateral act by which a nation that is currently a party to a treaty ends its membership in that treaty.8 In the case of multilateral agreements, denunciation or withdrawal generally does not affect the treaty’s continuation in force for the remaining parties.9 For bilateral agreements, in contrast, denunciation or withdrawal by either party results in the termination of the treaty for both parties. The termination of a multilateral agreement occurs when the treaty ceases to exist for all States parties.10 It is also useful to situate denunciation, withdrawal, and termination within a broader group of mechanisms and doctrines concerning treaty dissolution. For example, Article 59 VCLT describes situations in which a treaty ‘shall be considered as terminated if all the parties to it conclude a later treaty relating to the same subject matter’.11 Another temporal 6 For recent examples, see LR Helfer, ‘Treaty Exit and Intra-​Branch Conflict at the Interface of International and Domestic Law’ in C Bradley (ed), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) 355; J Pauwelyn and RJ Hamilton, ‘Exit from International Tribunals’ (2018) J Intl Disp Settlement 679. 7 RB Bilder, Managing the Risks of International Agreement (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1981), is an early and influential analysis of treaty flexibility mechanisms as risk management tools. 8 UN Office of Legal Affairs, Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook (UN Sales No E04V3 2003) 109 (‘Final Clauses Handbook’) (‘The words denunciation and withdrawal express the same legal concept’). Anthony Aust asserted that ‘although the term denunciation is sometimes used in relation to a multilateral treaty, the better term is withdrawal, since if a party leaves a multilateral treaty that will not normally result in its termination’. A Aust, Handbook of International Law (CUP, Cambridge 2010) 93. Although there is much to recommend this view, in fact multilateral agreements use both terms interchangeably. 9 There are a number of exceptions. If a multilateral agreement, such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-​Test-​ Ban Treaty, requires a particular State to join the agreement as a condition of its entry into force and that State subsequently withdraws from the treaty, ‘it can be assumed that . . . the treaty would be terminated’. ME Villiger, Commentary on the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2009) 694. Termination also occurs when a multilateral treaty specifies that it shall no longer be in force if denunciations reduce the parties to below a specified number. Eg Convention on the Political Rights of Women (adopted 20 December 1952, entered into force 7 July 1954) 193 UNTS 135, Art 8(2) (providing that the convention ‘shall cease to be in force as from the date when the denunciation which reduces the number of Parties to less than six becomes effective’). In the absence of such a clause, Art 55 VCLT provides that a treaty does not terminate even if the number of parties falls below the number needed for its entry into force. 10 Villiger (n 9) 685. 11 Art 59 VCLT (identifying those situations as occurring when ‘(a) it appears from the later treaty or is otherwise established that the parties intended that the matter should be governed by that treaty; or (b) the provisions of the later treaty are so far incompatible with those of the earlier one that the two treaties are not capable of being applied at the same time’).

626  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments incompatibility provision appears in Article 64 VCLT, which provides that a treaty terminates if it conflicts with a newly emerged peremptory norm.12 In addition, Article 61 authorizes a party to ‘invoke the impossibility of performing a treaty as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from it if the impossibility results from the permanent disappearance or destruction of an object indispensable for the execution of the treaty’.13 The VCLT’s exit provisions, together with those set forth in the agreement itself, are intended to be exhaustive.14 In practice, however, a treaty may end in other ways, such as upon the performance of all of its obligations, by implication, or by falling into desuetude.15 The foundational principle of State consent governs the design and operation of all treaty exit clauses.16 At the negotiation stage, State representatives have free reign to choose the substantive and procedural rules that will govern the future cessation of their relationship. Once those rules have been adopted as part of the final text, however, a State that ratifies or accedes to the treaty also accepts any conditions or restrictions on termination, withdrawal, or denunciation that the treaty contains.17 Unilateral exit attempts that do not comply with these conditions or restrictions are ineffective. A State that ceases performance after such an attempt remains a party to the treaty, albeit one that may be in breach of its obligations.18 President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change provides a recent example. Although the United States announced its intention to withdraw on 4 August 2017,19 a formal notice of withdrawal could not be deposited until ‘three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party’.20 Further, withdrawal will not take effect for an additional year, making 4 November 2020 the earliest date the United States could exit from the treaty. Until that date, the United States remains a party to the Paris Agreement.21 Similarly, despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s purported immediate withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute did not become effective until one year from the date it deposited its notice of withdrawal.22 12 Art 64 VCLT. For additional discussion, see N Kontou, The Termination and Revision of Treaties in the Light of New Customary International Law (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1994). 13 Art 61 VCLT. For a discussion of impossibility, see Chapter 25, Section I, 596–601 et seq. 14 Art 42(2) VCLT (‘The termination of a treaty, its denunciation or the withdrawal of a party, may take place only as a result of the application of the provisions of the treaty or of the present Convention’). 15 Aust (n 1) 269–​70. 16 See V Pergantis, The Paradigm of State Consent in the Law of Treaties: Challenges and Perspectives (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2017) 154–​88 (analysing State consent relating to treaty withdrawals). 17 Art 54(a) VCLT (‘The termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may take place . . . in conformity with the provisions of the treaty’); Villiger (n 9) 685 (characterizing Art 54(a) as ‘independent of the will of the parties in a particular situation’). Reservations to withdrawal, denunciation, or termination clauses are extremely rare. 18 Helfer (n 2) 1589 n23. 19 V Volcovici, ‘U.S. submits formal notice of withdrawal from Paris climate pact’ Reuters (4 August 2017) . 20 Paris Agreement, [2016] 55 ILM 740, Art 28. 21 SP Mulligan, ‘Withdrawal from International Agreements: Legal Framework, the Paris Agreement, and the Iran Nuclear Agreement’ Cong Research Serv (4 May 2018) 19–​20 . 22 Statute of the International Criminal Court, Status List, MTDSG, Ch XVIII No 10 n2 (indicating Philippine notice of withdrawal dated 17 March 2018, with effect from 17 March 2019)  . Complaints challenging the withdrawal were filed with the Philippine Supreme Court in 2018. The Court did not issue a decision prior to the effective date of the withdrawal and the cases may now be moot. M Navallo, ‘No SC action on pleas vs ICC withdrawal days before effectivity-​sources’ ABS-​CBN News (12 March 2019) .

Terminating Treaties  627 The treaty parties may, however, waive conditions or restrictions on exit and permit unilateral withdrawal, ‘at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States’.23 For example, Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) provides that once a Member State gives notice of its intent to withdraw, the European Union (EU) shall negotiate an agreement with that State to arrange the terms of its withdrawal and its future relationship with the Union.24 The State’s withdrawal is effective either upon the conclusion of that agreement or two years after the notification of withdrawal if no such agreement is reached.25 The withdrawing State and the EU can also jointly extend the withdrawal period, an option utilized during the ongoing negotiations between the United Kingdom and the EU over Brexit.26 In sum, States are the undisputed masters of treaty exit rules. As illustrated in Section II, they have utilized that power to negotiate a diverse array of termination, denunciation, and withdrawal clauses and to invoke those clauses in a wide variety of circumstances. But what if a treaty omits such clauses entirely? In such a situation, the VCLT provides default rules to govern the end of the parties’ relationship.

A.  Treaties with no provision for termination, denunciation, or withdrawal The most important—​and the most controversial—​of these exit default rules is Article 56(1) VCLT, which provides that a treaty that contains no provisions for termination, denunciation, or withdrawal ‘is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless: (a) it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal; or (b) a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty’.27 Article 56(2), in turn, requires twelve months’ notice before a withdrawal or denunciation effectuated pursuant to either of these clauses takes effect.28 Article 56 reflected an uneasy compromise among the members of the International Law Commission (ILC) as to whether States may exit from treaties that do not contain an express denunciation or withdrawal clause. In his 1957 report to the ILC, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice wrote that such treaties should be assumed to be of ‘indefinite duration, and 23 Art 54(b) VCLT. 24 Treaty on European Union (TEU) [2010] OJ C83/​13, Art 50(2). 25 Art 50(3) TEU. 26 European Council Decision taken in agreement with the United Kingdom extending the period under Article 50(3) TEU, EUCO XT 20013/​19 (11 April 2019) (extending withdrawal period until 31 October 2019) . The extension agreement recognized that the United Kingdom could have revoked its notification of withdrawal, an issue recently decided by the CJEU. Wightman v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2018] C-​621/​18, EU:C:2018:999 (ruling that an EU Member State may unilaterally revoke its notice of withdrawal from the TEU at any time before the withdrawal enters into force). 27 Art 56(1) VCLT. Another default rule is the presumption that exit rights ‘may be exercised only with respect to the whole treaty’. Villiger (n 9) 564; Art 44(1) VCLT (‘A right of a party, provided for in a treaty or arising under article 56, to denounce, withdraw from or suspend the operation of the treaty may be exercised only with respect to the whole treaty unless the treaty otherwise provides or the parties otherwise agree’). 28 Art 56(2) VCLT. Whether these VCLT rules constitute customary international law is an open question, but at least one scholar insists they have such status. See eg Villiger (n 9) 705 (noting it was ‘doubtful’ if Art 56 reflected customary international law at the time of the VCLT’s adoption, but contending that it has since ‘generated a new rule of customary law’).

628  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments only terminable . . . by mutual agreement on the part of all the parties’.29 Fitzmaurice also acknowledged, however, the possibility of several exceptions: This assumption, however, may be negatived in any case (a) by necessary inference to be derived from the terms of the treaty generally, indicating its expiry in certain events, or an intention to permit unilateral termination or withdrawal; (b) should the treaty belong to a class in respect of which, ex naturae, a faculty of unilateral termination or withdrawal must be deemed to exist for the parties if the contrary is not indicated—​such as treaties of alliance, or treaties of a commercial character.30

Sir Humphrey Waldock revisited the issue in a subsequent report to the ILC. The report included a detailed draft article on ‘treaties containing no provisions regarding their duration and termination’.31 Waldock disagreed with Fitzmaurice that there was a presumption against exit from treaties that lack a withdrawal or denunciation clause, and he reviewed State practice to identify the types of agreements for which exit was or was not permitted. The former category included: (i) a commercial or trading treaty, other than one establishing an international regime for a particular area, river or waterway; (ii) a treaty of alliance or of military co-​operation . . . ; (iii) a treaty for technical co-​operation in economic, social, cultural, scientific, communications or any other such matters . . . ; (iv) a treaty of arbitration, conciliation or judicial settlement [and] ‘a treaty which is the constituent instrument of an international organization’.32

In contrast, Waldock asserted that a treaty ‘shall continue in force indefinitely’ if it: (a) is one establishing a boundary between two States, or effecting a cession of territory or a grant of rights in or over territory; (b) is one establishing a special international regime for a particular area, territory, river, waterway, or airspace; (c) is a treaty of peace, a treaty of disarmament, or for the maintenance of peace; (d) is one effecting a final settlement of an international dispute; (e) is a general multilateral treaty providing for the codification or progressive development of general international law.33

Treaties not referenced in either list would be subject to a presumption against withdrawal ‘unless it clearly appears from the nature of the treaty or the circumstances of its conclusion that it was intended to have only a temporary application’.34 Waldock’s proposed typology divided the ILC and the VCLT’s drafters.35 The result was the compromise reflected in

29 GG Fitzmaurice, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1957] YBILC, vol II, 16, 22. 30 Ibid. 31 H Waldock, ‘Second Report on the Law of Treaties’ [1963] YBILC, vol II, 36 (draft Art 17). 32 Ibid draft Art 17(3)(a) and (b). 33 Ibid draft Art 17(4). 34 Ibid draft Art 17(5). 35 Eg T Christakis, ‘Article 56’ in O Corten and P Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (OUP, Oxford 2011) vol II, 1257–​66; T Giegerich, ‘Article 56’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds), Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018) 1039–​60.

Terminating Treaties  629 Article 56(1), quoted earlier, which refers to the treaty’s (frequently undefined) nature and the parties’ (often ambiguous) intent. In the years following the ILC reports, scholars have continued to debate the types of treaties whose nature implies a right to withdraw as well as the evidence needed to demonstrate that the parties recognized the possibility of unilateral exit even if they failed to memorialize such an option in the treaty.36 State practice has also been divided on these two issues. Several States have purported to quit multilateral conventions, including those establishing international organizations, notwithstanding the absence of an express exit clause.37 Others have withdrawn without providing the one-​year notice that Article 56(2) requires.38 Some of these actions triggered objections from other treaty parties.39 In the case of international organizations, the withdrawing States soon rejoined the organizations, acquiesced in the characterization of their conduct as a temporary cessation of participation, and paid a portion of the dues assessed against them during their absence.40 One of the most high-​profile disputes involving Article 56 VCLT concerns North Korea’s attempt to denounce the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1997. In response to the State’s action, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) issued a General Comment concluding that the ICCPR was not capable of denunciation or withdrawal.41 Tracking Article 56’s two-​part inquiry, the Committee first explained that the absence of an exit clause was not an oversight, inasmuch as the ICCPR’s First Optional Protocol and other contemporaneously negotiated human rights conventions expressly provided for withdrawal.42 It then reasoned that the rights protected by the ICCPR ‘belong to the people living in the territory of the State party’ and cannot be divested by changes in 36 Eg Pergantis (n 16)  157–​ 67; K Widdows, ‘The Unilateral Denunciation of Treaties Containing No Denunciation Clause’ (1982) 53 BYBIL 83. 37 Prominent examples include the withdrawal of Indonesia from the UN in 1965; of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland from UNESCO in the 1950s; and of the Soviet Union and eight Eastern European States from WHO in the same period. N Feinberg, ‘Unilateral Withdrawal from an International Organization’ (1963) 39 BYBIL 189, 204–​11; E Schwelb, ‘Withdrawal from the United Nations: The Indonesian Intermezzo’ (1967) 61 AJIL 661, 666–​71; Widdows (n 36) 99–​102. For an overview of State practice prior to the Second World War, see Christakis (n 35) 1262–​3. 38 For example, the United States purported to withdraw from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations with immediate effect. J Quigley, ‘The United States’ Withdrawal from International Court of Justice Jurisdiction in Consular Cases:  Reasons and Consequences’ (2009) 19 Duke J Comp & Intl L 263, 265–​6, 292–​3 (‘United States, in its communication to the U.N. Secretary-​General gave no time period, apparently purporting to make its withdrawal effective immediately’). For the text of the US note see UNTC, Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, Status List, MTDSG, Ch III, No 5 n10 . 39 A notable example occurred in 1971 when Senegal notified the UN Secretary-​General of denunciations of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone and the Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas. Senegal justified its actions by asserting that the treaties ‘ “profited the wealthier, the better equipped, and not the under-​developed, the poorer” who could only attest, powerless, to the over-​exploitation of biological resources situated in high seas areas adjacent to their territorial waters’. D Bardonnet, ‘La denunciation par le gouvernement sénégalais de la Convention sur la mer territoriale et la zone continiguë et de la Convention sur la pêche et la conservation des sources biologiques de la haute mer’ (1972) 18 Annuaire Française de Droit International 123, 133 (quoting declaration of Senegalese President). In response, the United Kingdom objected on the ground that the conventions were ‘not susceptible to unilateral denunciation’ and that it ‘therefore cannot accept the validity or effectiveness of the purported denunciation by the Government of Senegal’. UNTC, Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, Status List, MTDSG, Ch XXI No 1 n8  . 40 Eg M Akehurst, ‘Withdrawal from International Organisations’ (1979) 32 Current Legal Prob 143, 146–​9. 41 UN HRC, ‘General Comment 26’ (1997) UN Doc CCPR/​C/​21/​Rev1/​Add8/​Rev1, [5]‌. 42 Ibid  [2]‌.

630  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments government or State succession.43 As a result, the treaty ‘does not have a temporary character typical of treaties where a right of denunciation is deemed to be admitted, notwithstanding the absence of a specific provision to that effect’.44 The UN Secretary-​General also rejected North Korea’s purported denunciation, although he relied on a different legal theory. In the Secretary-​General’s view, unilateral exit from the ICCPR was precluded by Article 54 VCLT, which he interpreted as permitting North Korea to withdraw only with the consent of all of the other treaty parties.45 The UN Treaty Section referred to this interpretation in a notification sent to these States in response to North Korea’s action, and ‘[a]‌t least one State, Denmark, sent a Notification to the Secretary-​General agreeing with his understanding of Article 54 and stating that it did not consent to [North Korea’s] withdrawal’.46 North Korea ‘appears to have accepted’ that unilateral withdrawal from the ICCPR is not legally permissible.47 In 2000, the country ‘submitted its long overdue second periodic report’ to the HRC and ‘participated in the examination of that report’ in the following year.48

B.  The legal effects of exit In addition to providing default rules for treaties that lack express exit provisions, the VCLT sets forth important principles concerning the legal consequences of exit. Article 70 provides that ‘the termination of a treaty under its provisions or in accordance with the present Convention . . . releases the parties from any obligation further to perform the treaty’.49 Termination does not, however, ‘affect any right, obligation or legal situation of the parties created through the execution of the treaty prior to’ the date that the termination takes effect.50 Nor does it ‘impair the duty of any State to fulfil any obligation embodied in the treaty to which it would be subject under international law independently of the treaty’51—​an implicit reference to customary international law. These limitations are equally applicable to a State that unilaterally withdraws from or denounces a multilateral treaty.52 43 Ibid  [4]‌. 44 Ibid [3]‌; E Evatt, ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the ICCPR: Denunciation as an Exercise of the Right of Self-​defence?’(1998) 5 Australia J Human Rts 215, 219–​20. In part in reliance on the Committee’s analysis, most commentators have concluded that human rights treaties that lack an express exit clause—​including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty—​ are not susceptible to unilateral denunciation or withdrawal. Eg Helfer (n 2) 1642 n172; Villiger (n 9) 703; Y Tyagi, ‘The Denunciation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 79 BYBIL 86, 126–​33. 45 Art 54 provides that ‘[t]‌he termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may take place: (a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or (b) at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States’. Art 54 VCLT. 46 E Bates, ‘Avoiding Legal Obligations Created by Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 57 ICLQ 751, 755; H Klingenberg, ‘Elements of Nordic Practice 1998: Denmark’ (1999) 68 Nordic J Intl L 163, 164 (noting that ‘[o]‌ther states communicated similar responses’). 47 Aust (n 1) 256–​7. 48 Bates (n 46) 755–​6. 49 Art 70(1)(a) VCLT. 50 Art 70(1)(b) VCLT. 51 Art 43 VCLT. 52 Arts 43, 70(2) VCLT. A few human rights and humanitarian law conventions reiterate that an exiting State’s obligations continue until the date that a denunciation or withdrawal takes effect. Eg American Convention on Human Rights (adopted 22 November 1969, entered into force 18 July 1978) 1144 UNTS 123, Art 78(2). Other multilateral agreements expressly indicate which obligations survive a State’s unilateral exit. Eg UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 397, Art 317(2)

Terminating Treaties  631 In addition, as explained later, the large majority of denunciation and withdrawal clauses specify that the exiting State must give prior notice to other treaty parties. Notice is also required when a State asserts a basis for terminating or withdrawing from a treaty pursuant to the VCLT.53 During the notice period, the legal obligations of all States parties—​ including the nation that seeks to withdraw from or terminate the agreement—​continue unabated. States also remain responsible for any breaches that occur prior to or during the notice period, a responsibility that survives the State’s withdrawal or the treaty’s end.54 For example, in 2017 a Pre-​Trial Chamber of the ICC considered the legal consequences of Burundi’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute for an investigation commenced prior to the effective date of the withdrawal. The court concluded that it ‘retains jurisdiction over any crimes . . . that may have been committed in Burundi or by nationals of Burundi up to and including’ that date.55 The Pre-​Trial Chamber further held that, because the investigation commenced while Burundi was still a party to the Rome Statute, the State’s obligation to cooperate with the ICC investigation continues ‘subsequent to the entry into force of its withdrawal’ and ‘remains in effect for as long as the investigation lasts and encompasses any proceedings resulting from the investigation’.56 Taken together, these provisions restrict States from denouncing a treaty to avoid accountability for past violations of international law. They also discourage precipitous and opportunistic withdrawals in which a State seeks to exit and then immediately violate a rule that it previously accepted as binding.57

II.  The Design and Invocation of Termination, Withdrawal, and Denunciation Clauses This section considers the variations in how States design denunciation, withdrawal, and termination clauses in treaties, and the range of situations in which they invoke these clauses to end their treaty-​based relationships. This diversity suggests that exit provisions (providing that a denunciation does not affect the ‘financial and contractual obligations’ accrued while a State was a party). 53 Art 65(1) VCLT (‘A party which, under the provisions of the present Convention, invokes  . . .  a ground for . . . terminating [a treaty], withdrawing from it or suspending its operation, must notify the other parties of its claim’); see also Art 67 VCLT (requiring that notices of withdrawal, denunciation, or termination be in writing and be made by officials with actual treaty-​making powers or those possessing full powers); Art 68 VCLT (providing that notice of withdrawal, denunciation or termination may be revoked at any time before taking effect). 54 Eg Roodal v Trinidad and Tobago, Case 12.342, Inter-​Am Comm’n HR 89, OEA/​ser L/​V/​II114, doc 5 rev (2001) (concluding that ‘[n]‌otwithstanding Trinidad and Tobago’s denunciation of the Convention [on 26 May 1999], the Commission will retain jurisdiction over complaints of violations of the Convention by Trinidad and Tobago in respect of acts taken by that State prior to’ the date the denunciation became effective as well as over ‘acts taken by the State prior to [that date] even if the effects of those acts continue or are not manifested until after that date’). 55 Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorization of an Investigation into the Situation in the Republic of Burundi, ICC-​01/​17-​X-​9-​US-​Exp (25 October 2017) [24] (‘Burundi Investigation’). See also Ingabire v Rwanda, App No 003/​2014, ACtHPR (5 September 2016) [67]–​[68] (concluding that Rwanda’s withdrawal of its declaration recognizing the Court’s competence to review cases from individuals and non-​ governmental organizations did not divest the ACtHPR of jurisdiction to hear such cases that were pending on the date of the withdrawal). 56 Burundi Investigation (n 55) [26]; see M Ssenyonjo, ‘State Withdrawal Notifications from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: South Africa, Burundi and The Gambia’ (2018) 29 Crim L Forum 68. 57 LR Helfer, ‘Exiting Custom: Analogies to Treaty Withdrawals’ (2010) 21 Duke J Comp & Intl L 65, 78–​9.

632  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments are not mere boilerplate provisions but rather a tool for States to manage the benefits and risks of international cooperation. Treaty provisions that authorize unilateral denunciation and withdrawal are pervasive. They are found in multilateral and bilateral agreements covering a wide array of issue areas, including human rights, arms control, trade, investment, and environmental protection. A 2016 study based on a random sample of 234 international agreements published in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) found that 70 per cent of the treaties surveyed contain an exit clause. However, the incidence of these clauses ‘varies by issue area: human rights agreements almost always include them, whereas only 61 percent of economic agreements do so’.58 More intriguingly, denunciation clauses impose different types and degrees of restrictions on a State’s ability to withdraw from a treaty and from the obligations it imposes. Handbooks and model treaty rules published by the UN and other international organizations on the ‘final clauses’ of treaties demonstrate wide variation in express exit provisions.59 A review of these drafting guides reveals that denunciation and withdrawal clauses cluster around five ideal types: (1) treaties that may be denounced at any time; (2) treaties that preclude denunciation for a fixed number of years, calculated either from the date the agreement enters into force or from the date of ratification by the State; (3) treaties that permit denunciation only at fixed time intervals; (4) treaties that may be denounced only on a particular occasion, identified either by a time period or upon the occurrence of a particular event; and (5) treaties whose denunciation occurs automatically upon the State’s ratification of a subsequent agreement.60 Examples of each type of clause can be found in Part VII(22) of this volume. Diversity also exists concerning the procedures for providing notice of a withdrawal, including the period of time that must elapse before a denunciation takes effect, to whom notice must be given, and whether the denouncing State’s obligations continue after the withdrawal takes effect. For some categories of treaties, such as humanitarian law conventions, the effective date of withdrawal is contingent upon external events, such as the cessation of an existing armed conflict.61 Others, most notably bilateral investment agreements 58 Koremenos (n 5) 142–​3. 59 In 1951, 1957, and 2003, the UN Office of Legal Affairs published a Final Clauses Handbook, which is a reference tool of examples from existing treaties intended to assist State representatives who draft international agreements. Final Clauses Handbook (n 8). See also Committee of Ministers, Council of Europe, Model Final Clauses for Conventions, Additional Protocols and Amending Protocols concluded within the Council of Europe (5 July 2017) Doc CM/​Del/​Dec(2017)1291/​10.1; H Blix and JH Emerson (eds), The Treaty Maker’s Handbook (Oceana Publications, New York 1973) (‘Treaty Maker’s Handbook’) (collecting examples of final clauses). 60 Helfer (n 2) 1597 (reviewing handbooks of final clauses). 61 Common Art 63 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 provides that a denunciation takes effect one year after notification. However, a notice of denunciation ‘made at a time when the denouncing Power is involved in a conflict shall not take effect until peace has been concluded, and until after operations connected with the release and repatriation of the persons protected by the present Convention have been terminated’. Eg Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (opened for signature 12 August 1949, entered into force 21 October 1950) 75 UNTS 31, Art 63.

Terminating Treaties  633 (BITs), ‘contain a continuing effects clause that provides that investments made, acquired, or approved prior to the date of the termination of the treaty will be protected by the treaty’s provisions for a further period of ten, fifteen, or twenty years’.62 The most common unilateral exit clauses require advance notice (most often of twelve or six months)63 of a decision to withdraw, sometimes with the additional condition that the treaty has been in force for a specified number of years.64 The large majority of exit provisions do not, however, require a State to justify its decision to withdraw. To the contrary, notices of denunciation and withdrawal are generally short, stylized letters of two or three paragraphs that inform the treaty depository that a State is quitting the agreement on a specified future date.65 A few treaties—​most notably arms control agreements—​require States to explain a decision to withdraw,66 although they generally allow the denouncing nation to decide whether the factual predicate for withdrawal has been satisfied.67 States sometimes provide explanations for treaty withdrawals even when not required to do so.68 For example, South Africa’s 2016 notice of withdrawal from the Rome Statute referenced the conflict between its obligation to arrest individuals indicted by the ICC and its obligation under customary international law and treaties to recognize the immunity of Sudanese President Omar al-​Bashir, who attended an African Union Summit in South Africa in 2015.69 Treaty termination clauses are also highly diverse. Negotiators can implicitly address the issue of termination by specifying a treaty’s duration. Common examples include agreements that have a fixed term of years, often with a presumption of renewal or an expectation 62 A Roberts, ‘Triangular Treaties: The Nature and Limits of Investment Treaty Rights’ (2015) 56 HILJ 353, 386–​ 7; JW Salacuse, ‘The Emerging Global Regime for Investment’ (2010) 51 HILJ 427, 471–​2; T Voon and A Mitchell, ‘Denunciation, Termination and Survival: The Interplay of Treaty Law and International Investment Law’ (2016) 31 ICSID Review 19–​24. 63 The date that a notice of denunciation, withdrawal, or termination takes effect is calculated differently depending on whether the treaty lists the notice period in days, months, or years. For further discussion, see Chapter 9, 227. 64 Eg B Koremenos and A Nau, ‘Exit, No Exit’ (2010) 21 Duke J Comp & Intl Law 81, 106–​7; G Haraszti, Some Fundamental Problems of the Law of Treaties (Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest 1973) 264. 65 Treaty Maker’s Handbook (n 59) 114–​16. 66 Eg Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force 1 March 1999) 2056 UNTS 211, Art 20 (‘Land Mines Convention’) (requiring a State to provide ‘a full explanation of the reasons motivating [its] withdrawal’). For additional analysis, see A Chayes, ‘An Inquiry into the Workings of Arms Control Agreements’ (1972) 85 Harvard L Rev 905, 957–​8. 67 Eg Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-​Ballistic Missile Systems (US-​USSR) (adopted 26 May 1972, entered into force 3 October 1972) 944 UNTS 13, Art XV (recognizing a right to withdraw if either party ‘decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests’ and requiring notice ‘of the extraordinary events the notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests’). North Korea’s purported exit from the Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Treaty, which contains a similarly worded withdrawal clause, generated extensive analysis of the ‘extraordinary events’ standard and its self-​judging character. Eg M Asada, ‘Arms Control Law in Crisis? A Study of the North Korean Nuclear Issue’ (2004) 9 J Conflict & Sec L 331; AF Perez, ‘Survival of Rights Under the Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Treaty: Withdrawal and the Continuing Right of International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards’ (1994) 34 VJIL 749. 68 For example, Bolivia justified its 2011 withdrawal from the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as protecting indigenous communities’ cultural practice of chewing coca leaf. S Pfeiffer, ‘Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Drug Control Regime: The Case of Traditional Coca Leaf Chewing’ (2013) 5 Goettingen J Int’l L 287, 297–​304. In addition, ILO Member States sometimes explain the decision to denounce international labour conventions. Widdows (n 36) 1055. 69 Declaratory Statement by the Republic of South Africa on the Decision to Withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Depository Notification, C.N.786.2016.TREATIES.XVIII.10 (16 October 2016) at 2–​3. The government later revoked the notice of withdrawal after the South African High Court held the notice unconstitutional. Depositary Notification, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—​South Africa: Withdrawal of Notification of Withdrawal, C.N.121.2017.TREATIES-​XVIII.10 (7 March 2017).

634  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments of renegotiation.70 At the other end of the spectrum are multilateral conventions that are intended to continue in force indefinitely.71 For treaties that include express termination clauses, common provisions include:  termination upon the occurrence of a particular event; the entry into force of a later treaty; prior written notice (with cessation of the agreement to take effect after a specified period of time); and the decision of a body established pursuant to the treaty.72 A treaty that does not contain an express termination clause is considered to continue indefinitely, although it may be terminated at any time by consent of all the parties.73 Examples of clauses governing treaty termination and duration are included in Part VII(24) of this volume. As with unilateral withdrawal provisions, the incidence and type of termination clauses vary by issue area and by type of agreement. Multilateral human rights and environmental protection treaties, for example, often do not include express termination clauses.74 In contrast, many bilateral agreements provide two modes of termination: (i) an initial term after which the treaty ends unless the parties have expressly or tacitly extended it, and (ii) termination upon notice. These ‘flexible provisions enable the parties to keep their options open’.75 A 2016 study based on a random sample of 234 treaties in the UNTS found that 60 per cent have a finite duration, but that the percentage of finite treaties varied across subject areas, ranging from a high of 83 per cent of economic agreements to a low of 29 per cent of human rights agreements.76 In contrast to the design of denunciation, withdrawal, and termination clauses, far less attention has been devoted to how often or in which circumstances States actually invoke these provisions.77 The conventional wisdom long held that unilateral exit is an extremely rare event. However, drawing on data collected from several international organizations, a 2005 study identified 1,546 instances of denunciation and withdrawal from 5,416 multilateral agreements registered with the UN between 1945 and 2004.78 It also found that, although older treaties are denounced more frequently than recently adopted ones, the rate of exit ‘has held relatively constant or declined only slightly over the last fifty years, even after controlling for the large increase in ratifications and the emergence of new nations in the 1960s and 1970s’.79 Based on these findings, the study concluded that ‘denunciations and 70 Eg JR Crook, ‘United States, Russia Sign New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty; Senate Begins Hearings’ (2010) 104 AJIL 514, 515 (explaining that the duration of the New START Treaty between the Russian Federation and the United States ‘will be ten years, unless superseded by a subsequent agreement’ and that the parties ‘may agree to extend the Treaty for a period of no more than five years’); B Koremenos, ‘Can Cooperation Survive Changes in Bargaining Power? The Case of Coffee’ (2002) 31 J Legal Studies 259, 274–​6 (‘Koremenos, Coffee Agreements’) (analysing International Coffee Agreements, which had durations of five to seven years with the expectation of renegotiation); B Koremenos, ‘Loosening the Ties that Bind:  A Learning Model of Agreement Flexibility’ (2001) 55 IO 289, 305 (‘Koremenos, Loosening the Ties’) (analysing the Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Treaty, which ‘entered into force in 1970 for a period of twenty-​five years’ and whose parties ‘reconvened [in 1995] and decided to extend the treaty indefinitely’). 71 Land Mines Convention (n 66) Art 20(1) (‘This Convention shall be of unlimited duration’). 72 Eg Aust (n 1) 246–​54; Final Clauses Handbook (n 8) 114–​17. 73 Art 54(b) VCLT. 74 Final Clauses Handbook (n 8) 117. 75 Aust (n 1) 251. 76 Koremenos (n 5) 103, 106. 77 This omission is especially striking with regard to treaty terminations. For two notable exceptions, see Koremenos, Coffee Agreements (n 70) (analysing International Coffee Agreements); Koremenos, Loosening the Ties (n 70) (analysing the Nuclear Non-​Proliferation Treaty). 78 Helfer (n 2) 1601–​7. Of the 5,416 multilateral agreements in the study, 191, or 3.5%, have been denounced at least once. This small percentage suggests that a few multilateral treaties have turned out badly and resulted in withdrawals by multiple States. 79 Ibid 1604–​5.

Terminating Treaties  635 withdrawals are a regularized component of modern treaty practice—​acts that are infrequent but hardly the isolated or aberrant events that the conventional wisdom suggests’.80 Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that States may be walking away from treaties and international organizations (and threatening to do so) with increasing frequency.81 The United Kingdom’s ‘Brexit’ from the EU, the United States’ intention to quit the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the withdrawals from the Rome Statute (all discussed earlier) are not isolated events. In 2017 and 2018, the United States notified its termination of the Intermediate-​Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, the Treaty of Amity with Iran, and its departure from the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.82 Other recent examples include Venezuela’s notice of denunciation of the Charter of the Organization of American States, the current status of which is clouded by the ongoing political crisis in that country;83 Japan’s withdrawal from the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling;84 and the termination of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.85 Termination and withdrawal are also regular events in the international investment regime. Bolivia (in 2007), Ecuador (in 2010), and Venezuela (in 2012) have withdrawn from the Washington Convention establishing the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and a growing number of countries—​including Ecuador, India, Indonesia, and South Africa—​have terminated numerous BITs.86 This may be the 80 Ibid 1602. 81 Eg LR Helfer, ‘Introduction to Symposium on Treaty Exit at the Interface of Domestic and International Law’ (2017) 111 AJIL Unbound 425. 82 J Borger and M Pengelly, ‘Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia’ The Guardian (20 October 2018) ; M Pompeo, ‘Remarks to the Media’, US Dept State (3 October 2018) (stating United States will terminate the Treaty of Amity with Iran); H Nauert, ‘The United States Withdraws from UNESCO’ US Dept State Press Release (12 October 2017) ; ‘U.S. withdrawing from Vienna protocol on dispute resolution—​Bolton’ Reuters (3 October 2018) . In October 2018, the Trump administration submitted a notice of withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union. J Sink and A Sebenius, ‘Trump to Withdraw U.S. From Postal Treaty, Squeezing China’ Bloomberg (17 October 2018) . It withdrew the notice in September 2019 after the States parties agreed to a US proposal to revise the formula for how postal fees are calculated. N Cumming-​ Bruce, ‘U.S. Will Remain in Postal Treaty After Emergency Talks’ NY Times (25 September 2019) . 83 On 28 April 2017, the Secretary-​General of OAS received a note from Nicolás Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the OAS Charter. Art 143 of the Charter provides a two-​year notice period before a withdrawing country ceases to be a member of the organization. However, on 7 March 2019, the Secretary-​General received a note from Juan Guaidó, as ‘President of the National Assembly and President (in charge) of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’ purporting to ‘annul the supposed denunciation . . . for Venezuela to be able to remain a member state’ of the OAS. Charter of the Organization of American States (a-​41): Signatories and Ratifications . 84 By a note verbale dated 26 December 2018, Japan informed the United States, the depository Government, of its withdrawal, effective 30 June 2019. Status of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling . 85 Yulia Ioffe, ‘Termination of the Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia—​Too Little Too Late?’ Opinio Juris Blog (1 May 2019) . 86 C Peinhardt and RL Wellhausen, ‘Withdrawing from Investment Treaties but Protecting Investment’ (2016) 7 Global Policy 571, 573–​4; ‘Mixed messages to investors as India quietly terminates bilateral investment treaties with 58 countries’ Arbitration Notes (16 March 2017) (‘Mixed Messages’) .

636  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments beginning of a broader trend. Over 1,000 BITs have reached a point where termination is possible and even more treaties will reach that point in the near future.87 A review of the foregoing studies and examples suggest that denunciations and withdrawals can be grouped into four broad categories.88 The first, most high profile, and often most controversial of these groups, involve States that quit a treaty to challenge disfavoured international legal rules, resist politically controversial tribunal rulings, or rebuke international institutions. For example, the termination of international investment agreements by States in the global South has been accompanied by the charge that these agreements and their associated dispute settlement mechanisms are ‘not transparent, . . . do[] not account for the disparity in economic situation of regime members’, and are staffed by arbitrators who ‘have an investor bias [and whose] decisions infringe on the legitimate exercise of sovereignty by host countries’.89 Similarly, several African countries have called for en masse withdrawal from the Rome Statute on the ground that ICC investigations and prosecutions have focused disproportionately on African States and political leaders.90 These and other examples91 reveal how States use unilateral exit to undermine, delegitimize, or radically reconfigure existing international institutions and treaty regimes.92 Second, withdrawing from an agreement (or threatening to withdraw) can increase a denouncing nation’s negotiating leverage with other States parties and its influence in IOs.93 The United States’ denunciation in the 1970s and 1980s of the agreements establishing the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNESCO follow this pattern. In each instance, the United States used exit and threats of exit—​and the loss of organizational support and funding these entailed—​to pressure the organizations’ members to change their behaviour, after which it rejoined the treaties. The Soviet Union and its allies pursued a similar approach in the 1950s, temporarily withdrawing from—​but later rejoining—​the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO, and the ILO. In the mid-​1990s, the United States and the European Communities used an exit strategy to close the Uruguay Round of trade talks that created the World Trade Organization 87 UNCTAD World Investment Report (2017) 127  . 88 These categories are not mutually exclusive. There may be more than one explanation for a State’s decision to exit a treaty, and multiple States that exit the same treaty may have different reasons for doing so. 89 Salacuse (n 62) 469. 90 ‘African leaders plan mass withdrawal from international criminal court’ The Guardian (31 May 2017); LR Helfer and AE Showalter, ‘Opposing International Justice: Kenya’s Integrated Backlash Strategy Against the ICC’ (2017) 17 Intl Crim L Rev 1. 91 Eg X Soley and S Steininger, ‘Parting Ways or Lashing Back? Withdrawals, Backlash and the Inter-​American Court of Human Rights’ (2018) 14 Intl J L in Context 237, 250–​2 (discussing Venezuela’s denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights, which took effect in 2013, and its 2017 notice of withdrawal from the Organization of American States); LR Helfer, ‘Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes’ (2002) 102 Colum L Rev 1832 (analysing denunciations of the American Convention on Human Rights and the First Optional Protocol to the ICCPR by Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago in response to treaty interpretations that resulted in the de facto abolition of the death penalty in those countries). 92 For example, the Caribbean States that denounced human rights treaties established a new Caribbean Court of Justice to, inter alia, review appeals in death penalty cases. Helfer (n 91) 1882–​4. In the 1990s, Iceland and other pro-​whaling States denounced the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and formed a rival institution, the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission. DD Caron, ‘The International Whaling Commission and the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission:  The Institutional Risks of Coercion in Consensual Structures’ (1995) 89 AJIL 154, 155. 93 The foundational framework for analysing the relationship between exit and voice in the domestic context is AO Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1970).

Terminating Treaties  637 (WTO). They withdrew from the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—​a treaty that gave special benefits to developing States—​and then ratified the new WTO Agreement as a ‘single undertaking’, forcing developing States to accept a broad package of obligations favourable to US and European interests.94 More recently, the United States’ announced intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and threats to withdraw from the WTO have been accompanied by proposals to renegotiate these agreements.95 Ecuador and India have also expressed an intention to renegotiate their respective BITs post-​withdrawal.96 These examples reveal how States use exit and threats of exit to increase their voice within treaty-​based negotiating forums and to reshape treaty commitments to more accurately reflect their interests. They also illustrate that termination and withdrawal sit at the intersection of law and power in international relations.97 A third circumstance concerns what might be termed ‘forced exit’, which occurs when one State or group of States requires another nation to terminate or withdraw from a treaty as a condition of joining or retaining membership in an IO. A striking example involves the European Commission’s call for the termination of BITs between EU Member States.98 The Commission claimed that these ‘intra-​EU’ BITs were incompatible with EU law. The Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, and Romania terminated their intra-​EU BITs, while Denmark and Poland have expressed an intention to follow suit.99 In 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the European Commission’s position,100 ruling that the arbitration provision of intra-​EU BITs was incompatible with EU law.101 A fourth and very different type of exit occurs when the denunciation of one treaty is linked to joining a later-​negotiated agreement relating to the same subject matter. In the ILO and the International Maritime Organization, for example, the ratification of certain revising conventions or protocols triggers the automatic or compulsory denunciation of earlier agreements. Similarly, a few Council of Europe treaties that supersede earlier agreements on the same topic require ratifying States to denounce the earlier agreements as a condition of membership. Such paired treaty actions update a State’s international obligations without diminishing its overall level of commitment. Unlike the three circumstances discussed earlier, denunciations and withdrawals of this type are also fundamentally

94 For additional discussion of these examples and supporting authorities, see Helfer (n 2) 1584. 95 MD Shear, ‘Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement’ NY Times (1 June 2017) ; ‘Trump threatens to pull US out of World Trade Organization’ BBC News (31 August 2018) . 96 ‘Ecuador notifica que quiere renogociar 17 TBI’ El Universo (6 May 2017) (author’s unofficial translation); Mixed Messages (n 86). 97 For a discussion of the distributional implications of exit costs for powerful and weaker States, see T Meyer, ‘Power, Exit Costs, and Renegotiation in International Law’ (2010) 51 HILJ 379. 98 European Commission—​Press Release, ‘Commission asks Member States to terminate their intra-​EU bilateral investment treaties’ (18 June 2015) . 99 L Ilie, ‘What is the Future of Intra-​ EU BITs?’ Kluwer Arbitration Blog (21 January 2018) . 100 Slovak Republic v Achmea [2008] BHV Case C-​284/​16, [62] . 101 Commentators have noted the possibility of similar forced exits from bilateral trade and investment agreements between the United States and the members of Mercosur, South America’s largest regional trading block. C Brummer, ‘The Ties that Bind? Regionalism, Commercial Treaties and the Future of Global Economic Integration’ (2007) 60 Vanderbilt L Rev 1349, 1389.

638  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments cooperative in nature. They often occur in groups or waves, a pattern which suggests an attempt to shift to a new equilibrium point that benefits all or most States parties.102

III.  Exit Clauses as Risk Management Tools The wide variation in the design and use of termination, denunciation, and withdrawal clauses suggests that States pay close attention to the conditions and contours of exit, both when they negotiate international agreements and when they evaluate the costs and benefits of continuing those agreements over time. To commentators anxious to demonstrate that States obey international law, the pervasiveness of these exit options is not something to be advertised.103 For risk-​averse governments, however, exit clauses are a rational response to a world plagued by uncertainty, one in which States negotiate commitments with imperfect information about the future and the preferences of other treaty parties. To see why this is so, consider the perspective of government officials negotiating a treaty. In an ideal world, the negotiators would hammer out an agreement that maximizes joint gains and induces all affected States to join the treaty and invest the material resources and political capital needed to comply with its terms. In practice, however, numerous types of uncertainty limit the ability of negotiators to achieve such a salutary result. These include uncertainty about the preferences of other States, uncertainty about their behaviour, and uncertainty about future events such as ‘unanticipated circumstances or shocks’, or ‘new demands from domestic coalitions or clusters of States wanting to change important rules or procedures’.104 Negotiators must also contend with the fact that treaties are voluntary instruments; even for States that actively participate in the drafting process, ratification is never guaranteed. The consensual nature of international agreements means that States will join a treaty only if the anticipated benefits of doing so outweigh the expected costs. In terms of benefits, denunciation, withdrawal, and termination clauses reduce the uncertainties that are pervasive in international affairs. They do so by providing what is, in effect, an insurance policy—​a low cost option for States to end treaty-​based cooperation if an agreement turns out badly. All other things being equal, an exit clause encourages ratification by a larger number of States than would join the treaty in the absence of such a clause.105 Such a clause also enables the negotiation of deeper or broader commitments than would otherwise be attainable.106 And it encourages treaty parties to address openly 102 For additional discussion, see Helfer (n 2) 1609–​10, 1645–​6. Note that even if a later treaty does not expressly provide for the denunciation of an earlier convention, the same result may be achieved by Art 59 VCLT, which creates a default rule that allows for the termination of an earlier treaty by implication if all parties conclude a later treaty relating to the same subject matter. 103 Eg CW Jenks, A New World of Law? A Study of the Creative Imagination in International Law (Longmans, Green & Co, London 1969) 180 (deploring treaty withdrawals as ‘a mask for anarchy, a practice which weakens the whole structure of treaty-​created international obligations’). 104 B Koremenos and others, ‘The Rational Design of International Institutions’ (2001) 55 IO 761, 773. 105 As Harold Tobin observed nearly ninety years ago, a State’s ability to quit a treaty after it enters into force ‘facilitates the securing of the consent of doubtful states to conventions aiming at universality, by removing the fear that changed conditions will make continued adherence inconvenient or even dangerous’. H Tobin, The Termination of Multipartite Treaties (Columbia University Press, New York 1933) 202. 106 Helfer (n 2)  1599; cf Tobin (n 105)  179–​80 (explaining that where ‘conditions are particularly liable to change’, a denunciation or termination clause ‘may materially assist those who are attempting to secure acceptance of a draft’).

Terminating Treaties  639 the consequences of changed circumstances rather than remaining as parties but committing surreptitious violations.107 Taken together, these factors counsel negotiators to include broad and permissive exit provisions in treaties. Although the ex ante benefits of exit are considerable, treaties that permit easy denunciation may also create impediments to future cooperation. One concern is that a State will invoke a denunciation or withdrawal clause (or credibly threaten to do so) whenever economic, political, or other pressures make compliance costly or inconvenient. Seen from this vantage point, an exit provision enables a State to quit a treaty and, after the withdrawal takes effect, engage in conduct that would have been a violation had it remained a member of the agreement. But the risks of exit extend beyond such opportunistic behaviour. States that prefer to cooperate but fear that their treaty partners may withdraw from the agreement also have less incentive to invest in treaty compliance. These deterrents to cooperation favour making treaties more durable and binding by eliminating or restricting exit opportunities—​ a position directly contrary to the ex ante perspective that favours broad exit rights. These competing perspectives on the benefits and costs of exit suggest that a key challenge that negotiators face is not to close exit options but rather to set optimal conditions on exit ex ante so as to deter opportunistic invocations of exit ex post. Exit clauses that are too capacious will encourage self-​serving denunciations and lead to a breakdown in cooperation. Exit provisions that are too onerous will reduce such behaviour, but may prevent the parties from reaching agreement in the first instance or trigger widespread violations if the costs of compliance rise unexpectedly. These alternative vantage points help to explain the diversity of exit clauses and the different uses of those clauses reviewed in Section II above. Such variation reflects the efforts of negotiators to calibrate the costs of exit in light of the often divergent preferences of States and the myriad transborder cooperation problems they seek to resolve.

Conclusion This chapter has analysed the different mechanisms that States invoke to end their treaty-​ based relationships, including express termination, denunciation, and withdrawal clauses and the default rules provided by the VCLT. The chapter has argued that these ‘exit’ provisions help States to mitigate the uncertainties that are endemic to international affairs. In closing, it is important to stress that treaty exit clauses do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they operate in tandem with other flexibility devices—​such as reservations, amendment rules, escape clauses, and renegotiation provisions—​that treaty-​makers use to manage risk. The relationship among these flexibility tools has long been a concern of government officials and commentators interested in improving the treaty-​making process.108 It would be useful to link these studies to recent scholarship analysing the form and substance of international agreements.109 Such research might consider how States select from among 107 Helfer (n 2) 1590 (‘A state that . . . follows the specified procedures [of an exit clause] and explains the basis for its actions projects a real (if somewhat backhanded) respect for international rules, particularly where it is possible to profess adherence in theory but fail to comply in fact’). 108 See generally Bilder (n 7); Treaty Maker’s Handbook (n 59). 109 Eg AT Guzman, ‘The Design of International Agreements’ (2005) 16 EJIL 579; O Hathaway, ‘Between Power and Principle: An Integrated Theory of International Law’ (2005) 72 U Chicago L Rev 469; LR Helfer,

640  Avoiding or Exiting Treaty Commitments a diverse array of flexibility mechanisms, and how they actually exercise the mechanisms available to them. The findings of these studies could also aid negotiators in designing treaties that more effectively address the diverse array of legal issues that are subject to international regulation.

Recommended Reading M Akehurst, ‘Withdrawal from International Organisations’ (1979) 32 Current Legal Problems 143 RB Bilder, Managing the Risks of International Agreement (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1981) N Feinberg, ‘Unilateral Withdrawal from an International Organization’ (1963) 39 BYBIL 189 LR Helfer, ‘Exiting Treaties’ (2005) 91 Virginia L R 157 LR Helfer, ‘Flexibility in International Agreements’ in J Dunoff and M Pollack (eds), International Law and International Relations: Insights from Interdisciplinary Scholarship (CUP, Cambridge 2012) LR Helfer, ‘Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes’ (2002) 102 Columbia L Rev 1832 LR Helfer, ‘Treaty Exit and Intra-​Branch Conflict at the Interface of International and Domestic Law’ in C Bradley (ed), Oxford Handbook of Comparative Foreign Relations Law (OUP, Oxford 2019) 355 MF Imber, The USA, ILO, UNESCO and IAEA:  Politicization and Withdrawal in the Specialized Agencies (Palgrave Macmillan, New York 1989) B Koremenos, The Continent of International Law: Explaining Agreement Design (CUP, Cambridge 2016) T Meyer, ‘Power, Exit Costs, and Renegotiation in International Law’ (2010) 51 Harv Intl Law J 379 J Pauwelyn and RJ Hamilton, ‘Exit from International Tribunals’ (2018) J Intl Disp. Settlement 679 V Pergantis, The Paradigm of State Consent in the Law of Treaties: Challenges and Perspectives (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2017) B Ress, ‘Ex Ante Safeguards Against Ex Post Opportunism in International Treaties:  Theory and Practice of International Public Law’ (1994) 150 J Institutional and Theoretical Economics 279 A Roberts, ‘Triangular Treaties: The Nature and Limits of Investment Treaty Rights’ (2015) 56 Harv Intl Law J 353 E Schwelb, ‘Withdrawal from the United Nations: The Indonesian Intermezzo’ (1967) 61 AJIL 661 H Tobin, The Termination of Multipartite Treaties (Columbia University Press, New York 1933) Y Tyagi, ‘The Denunciation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2008) 79 BYBIL 86 K Widdows, ‘The Unilateral Denunciation of Treaties Containing No Denunciation Clause’ (1982) 53 BYBIL 83

‘Nonconsensual International Lawmaking’ (2008) U Illinois L Rev 71; K Raustiala, ‘Form and Substance in International Agreements’ (2005) 99 AJIL 581.

PART VII

T R E AT Y C L AU SE S A ND IN ST RUM E NT S

Initial Decisions on Treaty-​Making

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Distinguishing Treaties from Political Commitments Object and Purpose Participation Conditions for States Participation Conditions for Non-​State Actors NGO Involvement

Conditions on Joining a Treaty

6. Consent to be Bound 7. Reservations 8. Declarations and Notifications

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination 9. Languages 10. Annexes 11. Entry into Force 12. The Depositary

Applying the Treaty

13. Provisional Application 14. Territorial and Extraterritorial Application 15. Federal States 16. Third Party Rights and Obligations 17. Relationships to Other Treaties 18. Derogations 19. Dispute Settlement

Amendments

20. Standard Amendment Procedures 21. Simplified Amendment Procedures

The End of Treaty Relations

22. Withdrawal or Denunciation 23. Suspension 24. Duration and Termination

645 645 647 651 656 665 669 669 677 684 690 690 693 695 702 705 705 710 716 720 724 732 736 743 743 750 762 762 767 769

642  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

Introduction The preceding chapters cover the key treaty issues of today, explaining, in narrative form, how the relevant treaty theories, rules, and practices operate. But understanding may emerge from examples as much as explanations. Thus, the current Part offers a sampling of clauses from existing treaties to supplement the explanations that precede it.1 Judge Richard Baxter once famously described the ‘infinite variety’ by which States could make normative commitments.2 His description could just as easily be limited to treaty-​ making itself. The UN has now registered more than 72,000 treaties, and, by all accounts, there are many more treaties that go unregistered. The form of these agreements varies widely. Treaties may employ an array of titles and include any number of instruments. The parties may vary by number (from bilateral relations to multilateral treaties to those with universal aspirations) and identity (including States, International Organizations (IOs), and other qualified subjects of international law). Treaty-​making may occur on virtually any subject matter of concern to treaty-​makers, and they have an equally wide spectrum of regulatory tools for embodying such commitments.3 In short, treaties have a nearly infinite variety of their own. Thus, what follows is no more (and no less) than a sampling of recent treaty clauses. To capture the full diversity of approaches treaty-​makers have employed—​if even possible—​ would exceed the bounds of this volume. Nor should the inclusion of certain clauses be read as empirical evidence in any social science sense. Certainly, in some cases, a clause is sampled because it appears to be the predominant approach (eg the ‘all States’ formula for universal multilateral treaties), just as the inclusion of a range of clauses (eg for a treaty’s relationship with other treaties) may offer a sense of a treaty-​maker’s options. But the inclusion of any particular clause is not intended as descriptive ‘proof ’ of how States or other actors behave; it is not designed to link the use of that clause to a particular treaty subject or function. Whatever utility such a project might have, it is not the present one.4 What the current set of sample clauses does offer is a different lens for understanding the earlier explanations of treaty law and practice. It is one thing to read how treaty-​makers construct their commitments and quite another to see the precise wording by which they do so. In some cases, clauses will illustrate how parties have applied the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) such as its various procedures for States to consent to be bound. Where the VCLT ‘rules’—​and by extension customary international law—​empower treaty-​makers to make decisions (such as who may participate or the permissibility of reservations), the sampled clauses indicate the choices made. And where international law provides a ‘default’ rule, clauses can reveal not just how States implement it, but also the variations they have adopted. In certain instances, such as treaty amendments, the extent of the departure from the default rule is particularly striking. 1 This sampling is limited to treaty texts. Models and examples of other treaty-​related instruments (eg full powers, Final Acts, instruments of ratification) are available elsewhere. See eg A Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (3rd edn CUP, Cambridge 2013); DB Hollis and others (eds), National Treaty Law and Practice (Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2005). The UN also provides examples in its Treaty Handbook: UN Office of Legal Affairs, Treaty Handbook (rev’d edn 2012) . 2 RR Baxter, ‘International Law in “Her Infinite Variety” ’ (1980) 29 ICLQ 549. 3 For a survey of the various functions treaty regulations perform see Chapter 1, Section II.C, 37–44. 4 For that sort of project, see B Koremenos, The Continent of International Law: Explaining Agreement Design (CUP, Cambridge 2016).

Treaty Clauses and Instruments  643 Sampling treaty clauses thus provides a richer appreciation for the relationship between the law of treaties and the actual practice of those who make them. The diversity of these clauses may also have more practical utility—​as an aid to those who work with treaties. Blix and Emerson’s Treaty Maker’s Handbook has remained relevant for four decades precisely because it gave those negotiating treaties precedents that they could adopt or adjust to new circumstances.5 As a result, in several cases a clause is included here, not because it is in any way representative of treaty practice, but precisely because it reflects a creative or innovative example that others might wish to consider using in the future. Of course, not every good example or innovative idea can fit within a sample set. And experienced readers will no doubt marvel at one or more omitted examples that they would have considered essential for inclusion. In such instances, there are other sources on which readers may rely, most notably the UN’s 2003 Handbook—​Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties.6 In the end, however, any deficiencies in the clauses assembled may be a function of the sampling approach as much as the sample set itself. The fact that the Guide to Treaties cannot mark every approach to treaty-​making should not diminish its utility with respect to the examples it does provide. Current treaty practice is, moreover, both broad and deep. Whatever value sampling examples may have, the law of treaties still leaves treaty-​makers essentially as masters of their agreements. In that role, they must recognize that cooperation and coordination can (and sometimes should) adopt new forms or approaches than those that came before. The clauses that follow are organized around the life-​cycle of a treaty, rather than the order in which they may be drafted or appear. The treaty-​drafting process is so idiosyncratic as to defy easy summary given variations in participants, timeframes, subject matters, locations, and political will. Similarly, although most (but not all) common types of treaty clauses appear at the end of the text as so-​called ‘final clauses’, they do not necessarily arise in any particular order. Moreover, it must be emphasized that not all the topics addressed here will find their way into any particular treaty. The inclusion of specific clauses is largely a function of the treaty-​makers’ specific preferences (and sometimes their attention to detail). Most of those preferences will centre on substantive provisions addressing a specific subject area or regulatory form that are less interesting to treaty law and practice generally. The current sample set does not, therefore, survey variations within specific subject areas (eg clauses to protect human rights or the environment) nor does it examine non-​obligatory forms of regulation (eg how a treaty may constitute an IO). Such important issues are better dealt with in the relevant literature for each specific subject. The treaty topics sampled focus on issues likely to arise in many and, in some cases, all treaties. This Guide includes twenty-​four types of clauses, which can be divided into six groups. For starters, there are clauses that address whether an instrument is a treaty, what its object or purpose is and who can participate in its formation or operation. Second, there are clauses dealing with the procedures for consenting to be bound by the treaty, including those for reservations, declarations, and notifications. A  third set of clauses focuses on constituting the treaty, establishing its scope, the procedures and conditions for entry into force, and any subsequent dissemination conditions. Fourth, an array of clauses deals with 5 H Blix and J Emerson, The Treaty Maker’s Handbook (Oceana, Dobbs Ferry 1973). 6 The UN Handbook is available online at (‘Final Clauses Handbook’).

644  Treaty Clauses and Instruments treaty application, whether in terms of timing, territory, disputes, third party rights, or a treaty’s relationship to other treaties or factual circumstances. A fifth group of clauses examines how treaties may be amended. Finally, the survey concludes with clauses that examine different ways treaty obligations end, whether temporarily via suspension, or permanently through a party’s withdrawal or denunciation, or the treaty’s own termination. Each sampled clause is preceded by a very brief description of its nature and purpose, including, where relevant, references to earlier chapters. Excerpts are in English and are authentic texts unless otherwise indicated. Space constraints require limiting excerpts to the relevant wording. Thus, where a particular clause is of interest, readers are advised to proceed to examine the treaty from which it is taken, including its text, context, and object and purpose (and perhaps even subsidiary materials) to illuminate why the particular wording was chosen. To facilitate such research, each excerpt is accompanied by a heading (where relevant) and a citation that identifies: (a) the relevant section, article, or paragraph from which it is taken; (b) the treaty title; (c) for bilateral and plurilateral treaties, the parties; (d) the year it was adopted, signed, or opened for signature; and (e) the relevant volume of the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), International Legal Materials (ILM) or some other location where it may be found. In the current Information Age, treaty texts (particularly multilateral ones) are available online and may regularly be found by inserting the title into an internet search engine. Such searches may actually be the easiest way to access the treaties sampled here.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-​Making 1.  Distinguishing Treaties from Political Commitments As Chapter 1 explains, States, IOs, and other qualified subjects may make treaties governed by international law, whether in writing or some other recorded form.7 Alternatively, as Chapter 2 details, international actors may conclude political commitments—​agreements having exclusively political or moral (and not legal) force. Identifying what type of agreement international actors have concluded—​namely, a treaty or a political commitment—​ is not always easy.8 At present, international law appears to accommodate two different tests: (i) an ‘intent’ test where participants’ manifestations of intent ultimately decide if an international agreement is a treaty (or not); and (ii) an ‘objective’ test where the text, context, and surrounding circumstances can identify a treaty’s existence independent of the intentions of one or more parties.9 Navigating these tests can be difficult, with a real possibility of confusion, if not conflict, among States as to the legal status and effects of particular agreements. As a result, in the last several years, several States and IOs have advocated for guidelines to assist States and other stakeholders in identifying and differentiating among their international agreements.10 In the meantime, agreement participants have developed various ways to identify an agreement’s legal status. Sometimes the forum where the agreement is adopted (such as the G7 or OSCE) or the surrounding circumstances (eg the Copenhagen Accord) suggests whether the resulting agreement is a treaty or a political commitment.11 In other cases, participants may use an explicit clause that serves simultaneously as evidence of their intentions and an objective marker. States do not normally do this in making treaties, but the practice is regularly employed to identify instruments as political commitments. Some such clauses declaim any intention that a commitment will be legally binding; others affirmatively characterize a commitment as a political one. Clauses indicating that the agreement will not be registered (which Article 102 UN Charter requires for all treaties) provide an alternative vehicle for indicating a political commitment. Given the ambiguity in international law and practice today, the ability of these clauses to deny an agreement treaty status definitively remains unresolved. Nevertheless, to the extent participants wish to make clear their non-​treaty intentions at the outset, these types of clauses offer the best available means for doing so. 7 Chapter 1, Section II.A.4, 24–30. 8 As noted in Chapter 1, a third form of inter-​State agreement is also possible, where agreements have legal force, but are governed by domestic, as opposed to international, law. Ibid Section II.B.3, 36–37. 9 Chapter 1, Section II.A.4, 24–30. 10 The editor leads one such effort at the Organization of American States (OAS), which hopes to produce OAS Guidelines on Binding and Non-​Binding Agreements. See eg DB Hollis, Binding and Non-​binding Agreements: Fifth Report, Inter-​American Juridical Committee, OEA/​Ser.Q/​CJI/​Doc.593/​19 (22 July 2019). 11 See Copenhagen Accord (18 December 2009)  in UNFCCC, ‘Report of the Conference on its Fifteenth Session’ UN Doc FCC/​CP/​2009/​11/​Add.1.

646  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

A.  Explicitly not legally binding • First Paragraph, Limitations, Memorandum of Principles and Procedures between the Republic of Moldova and the State of North Carolina (USA) Concerning their Desire to Strengthen their Good Relations (2015) : 1. This Memorandum is a declaration of goals that both Partners believe to be worth pursuing . . . This Memorandum does not create any obligations or constitute a legally binding agreement under international law . . .

• Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation and Management of Shared Polar Bear Populations (US Department of Interior-​Environment Canada) (2008) : This Memorandum of Understanding is not legally binding and creates no legally binding obligations on the Participants.

• Title, Non-​Legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests (1992) 31 ILM 882 (emphasis added).

B.  Explicitly politically binding • Title, Political Declaration, International Carbon Action Partnership (2007) (emphasis added). • First Paragraph, Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security (NATORussia) (1997) 36 ILM 1006: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its member States, on the one hand, and the Russian Federation, on the other hand, hereinafter referred to as NATO and Russia, based on an enduring political commitment undertaken at the highest political level, will build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-​Atlantic area on the principles of democracy and cooperative security.

• Paragraph 101, CSCE Document of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence-​and Security-​Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe (1986) 26 ILM 190: The measures adopted in this document are politically binding and will come into force on 1 January 1987.

C.  Not eligible for registration with the UN • Part X(39), CSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-​Military Aspects of Security (1994) DOC.FSC/​1/​95: The provisions adopted in this Code of Conduct are politically binding. Accordingly, this Code is not eligible for registration under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations. This Code will come into effect on 1 January 1995.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  647 • Title IV, European Energy Charter (1991) : The signatories request the Government of The Netherlands, President-​in-​office of the Council of the European Communities, to transmit to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations the text of the European Energy Charter which is not eligible for registration under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.

• Testimonium, Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-​operation in Europe (The Helsinki Final Act) (1975) 14 ILM 1293: The Government of the Republic of Finland is requested to transmit to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations the text of this Final Act, which is not eligible for registration under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, with a view to its circulation to all the members of the Organization as an official document of the United Nations.

2.  Object and Purpose A treaty’s ‘object and purpose’ is an amorphous, but important, concept throughout the law of treaties. As Chapter  9 discusses, parties who sign a treaty subject to ratification are obliged not to defeat a treaty’s object and purpose. Reservations are only permissible where they are compatible with the treaty’s object and purpose, a mandate examined in Chapter 12. As explained in Chapters 19 and 21, a treaty’s object and purpose is a significant component of the ‘crucible’ approach to treaty interpretation and plays an important role in reconciling different language texts as well. A multilateral treaty’s object and purpose restricts the scope of any treaty modification or suspension by only some of its parties.12 As Chapter 16 notes, moreover, a treaty’s object and purpose may limit when succession is possible.13 And Chapter 24 highlights how the concept of ‘material breach’ involves violations of treaty provisions ‘essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty’.14 There is no fixed procedure for determining what a treaty’s object and purpose ‘is’ (let alone whether it has the same meaning in each context it applies). The concept is so flexible as to risk indeterminacy on occasion.15 Indeed, as an interpretative matter, Article 31 VCLT presents a tautology where it would determine a treaty’s object and purpose in ‘light of its object and purpose’.16 On occasion, parties use treaty text to list one or more of its objects/​objectives (the desired end result), its purpose(s) (its raison d’être), or both.17 The relevant language may be

12 See eg Arts 41(1)(b), 58(1)(b) VCLT. 13 See Chapter 16, Section II.D, 405–411. 14 Art 60(3)(b) VCLT; see also Chapter 24, Section II.A, 574–85. The 1986 VCLT contains similar references to object and purpose. See Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations (1986, not yet in force) 25 ILM 543. 15 See generally J Klabbers, ‘Some Problems Regarding the Object and Purpose of Treaties’ (1997) Finnish Ybk Intl L 138. 16 WA Schabas, ‘Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: Time for Innovation and Reform’ (1994) 18 Canadian Ybk Intl L 39, 48. 17 Such decoupling of a treaty’s objectives and purposes is, however, inconsistent with the prevailing view that a treaty’s object and purpose is a ‘comprehensive blanket term’. Klabbers (n 15) 148.

648  Treaty Clauses and Instruments found in the preamble or a specific treaty clause. In certain cases, a treaty may purport to identify some overarching object or purpose not just for itself but for related agreements, such as Protocols to a Framework Convention. Caution is warranted, however, in treating any description of a treaty’s object or purpose as determinative. In most cases, the instrument as a whole must be considered. Nonetheless, these clauses are of value in such inquiries and warrant careful attention.

A.  Clauses listing a treaty’s objective(s) • Article 1, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) 2256 UNTS 119: Mindful of the precautionary approach as set forth in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the objective of this Convention is to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants.

• Article 1, Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: The objective of this Convention is to protect the human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds.

• Article 2(1), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) 1771 UNTS 107: The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

• Article 2, The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: 1. This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by: (a) Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-​industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-​industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change;

(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production; and (c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-​resilient development.

2. This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  649 • Article 3, Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1993) 1819 UNTS 359: The objective of this Convention is to ensure, through appropriate management, the conservation and optimum utilisation of southern bluefin tuna.

• Article 1, Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (1980) 1343 UNTS 89: The objects of the present Convention are: (a) to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in any Contracting State; and (b) to ensure that rights of custody and of access under the law of one Contracting State are effectively respected in the other Contracting States.

• Article 1, Agreement on Civil Aviation Safety (Canada-​European Community) (2011) CTS E105195: The objectives of this Agreement are: a. To establish, consistent with the legislation in force within each Party, principles and arrangements in order to enable the reciprocal acceptance of approvals issued by either Party’s Competent Authorities in the fields covered by this Agreement, as detailed in Article 4. b. To allow the Parties to adapt to the emerging trend toward multinational design, manufacture, maintenance, and interchange of Civil Aeronautical Products, involving the common interests of the Parties concerning civil aviation safety and environmental quality. c. To promote cooperation toward sustaining safety and environmental quality objectives. d. To promote and facilitate the continuing exchange of Civil Aeronautical Products and services.

B.  Clauses listing a treaty’s purpose(s) • Article 1, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 2515 UNTS 3: The purpose of the present Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity . . . 

• Preamble, Agreement Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (China-​Jamaica) (1994) : The Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of Jamaica  . . . Desiring to encourage, protect, and create favorable conditions for investment by investors of one Contracting Party in the territory of the other Contracting Party; Desiring to strengthen economic co-​operation between both States on the basis of the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, and mutual benefit; Have agreed as follows:  . . . 

650  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Article 2, Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America for the Sharing of Visa and Immigration Information (2014) 2014 ATS 39, : B. The purpose of this Agreement is to assist in the administration and enforcement of the respective immigration laws of the Parties by: (i) Using Information in order to enforce or administer the respective immigration laws of the Parties; and (ii) Furthering the prevention, detection, or investigation of acts that would constitute a crime rendering an individual inadmissible or removable under the laws of the Party providing the Information; and (iii) Facilitating a Party’s determination of eligibility for a visa, admission, or other immigration benefit, or of whether there are grounds for removal.

C.  Clauses indicative of a treaty’s object and purpose • Article 1, Agreement Concerning Cooperation To Suppress The Proliferation Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Their Delivery Systems, And Related Materials By Sea (Malta-​US) (2007) : 1. The object and purpose of this Agreement is to promote cooperation between the Parties to enable them to prevent the transportation by sea of items of proliferation concern.

• Chapter 1, Articles 1–​2, Agreement Establishing the Latin American Energy Organization (1973) 1000 UNTS 117: Article 1 To establish a regional body which shall be called the ‘Latin American Energy Organization’ (hereinafter referred to as the Organization or OLADE), with headquarters in the city of Quito, Ecuador. Article 2 The Organization is an instrument for cooperation, coordination, and consultation, with its own juridical identity, whose fundamental purpose is the integration, protection, conservation, rational utilization, marketing, and defense of the energy resources of the Region.

• Article 1, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: Object and Purpose The object of this Treaty is to: –​ Establish the highest possible common international standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms; – Prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion; for the purpose of: –​ Contributing to international and regional peace, security and stability; –​ Reducing human suffering; –​ Promoting cooperation, transparency and responsible action by States Parties in the inter­national trade in conventional arms, thereby building confidence among States Parties.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  651

3.  Participation Conditions for States In the bilateral context, State participation in a treaty is largely subsumed into the question of whether the two States wish to make a treaty and at what level (government-​to-​government, agency-​to-​agency, etc) to do so.18 In the multilateral context, however, negotiating States may set conditions for participation. They may opt to pursue a ‘closed’ treaty, limiting participation only to those involved in the original negotiations and those they invite in by some agreed procedure. Or, they may open the treaty up to some number of other States based on certain qualifying conditions such as geography, resources, or participation in some activity. Most protocols limit participation to parties to the original treaty, but this is not legally required. For treaties that aspire to universal membership, the so-​called ‘Vienna formula’ became popular during the Cold War because it allowed for participation beyond UN General Assembly (UNGA) Member States. Since 1973, the UNGA has had an understanding that the UN Secretary-​General, as depositary, will follow UNGA practice (or seek its opinion) on questions of which entities constitute States.19 As a result, the so-​called ‘all States’ formula now predominates for such multilateral treaties. For further discussion of treaty participation issues, see Chapters 9 and 11.

A. Closed treaties • Preamble, Article XXVII–​VIII, Amazon Cooperation Treaty (1978) 1202 UNTS 51: The Republics of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela . . . RESOLVE to sign the following Treaty . . . ARTICLE XXVII. This Treaty shall remain in force for an unlimited period of time, and shall not be open to adherence. ARTICLE XXVIII. This Treaty shall be ratified by all the Contracting Parties and the instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil . . .

B.  Participation by invitation • Article 16.1, Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environment Programme in the Russian Federation (2003) [2003] OJ L155/​37: This Agreement shall be open for accession by any State, intergovernmental organization or regional economic integration organization being subject to public international law upon invitation by the MNEPR Committee.

• Article 37, International Sugar Agreement (1992) 1703 UNTS 203: This Agreement shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters from 1 May until 31 December 1992 by any Government invited to the United Nations Sugar Conference, 1992. 18 See Chapter 1, Section II.A.2, 21–23 et seq. 19 See [1973] UNJY 79. Thus, the UN Secretary General has accepted Palestine’s participation in various treaties open to ‘all States’ or ‘any States’ following a UNGA resolution recognizing its status as such. See eg UNGA Res 67/​ 19 (29 November 2012) (according Palestine non-​member observer ‘State’ status in the UN).

652  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

1. Requiring a consensus of the parties • Articles 34–​35(1)–​(2), Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea (1992) 2099 UNTS 195: Article 34 This Convention shall be open for signature in Helsinki from 9 April 1992 until 9 October 1992 by States and by the European Economic Community participating in the Diplomatic Conference on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area held in Helsinki on 9 April 1992. Article 35 1. This Convention shall be subject to ratification or approval. 2. This Convention shall, after its entry into force, be open for accession by any other State or regional economic integration organization interested in fulfilling the aims and purposes of this Convention, provided that this State or organization is invited by all the Contracting Parties . . .

2.  Requiring a majority vote of the parties • Articles 29(1)–​(2), Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000) 2158 UNTS 3: 1. Any African State may, at any time after the entry into force of this Act, notify the Chairman of the Commission of its intention to accede to this Act and to be admitted as a member of the Union. 2. The Chairman of the Commission shall, upon receipt of such notification, transmit copies thereof to all Member States. Admission shall be decided by a simple majority of the Member States. The decision of each Member State shall be transmitted to the Chairman of the Commission who shall, upon receipt of the required number of votes, communicate the decision to the State concerned.

3. Requiring a majority of parties not to object • Articles 13–​14, Agreement Establishing the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (2001) [2004] ATS 3: Article 13 This Agreement shall be open for signature by all Member States of the International Vine and Wine Office until 31 July 2001. This Agreement shall be subject to acceptance, approval, ratification or accession. Article 14 Any state not referred to in Article 13 of this Agreement may apply to become a member. Applications for membership shall be made directly to the O.I.V, with a copy to the Government of the French Republic, which shall notify signatories of, or Parties to the Agreement of such applications. The O.I.V shall provide information to its members concerning applications for membership and any observations made. Members have six months in which to inform the O.I.V of their opinion. The application shall be accepted if at the

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  653 expiration of six months from the date of notification a majority of members has not opposed it. The depository shall notify the State of the outcome of its application. If the application is successful, the State concerned shall have twelve months within which to deposit its instrument of accession with the depository. States referred to in Article 13 that have not signed this Agreement within the given time limit may accede at any time.

4. Requiring negotiated accession with a treaty body • Article 30.4, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-​Pacific Partnership (Canada-​Australia-​Japan-​Mexico-​New Zealand-​Singapore-​Vietnam) (2019) at : 1. This Agreement is open to accession by: (a) any State or separate customs territory that is a member of APEC; and (b) any other State or separate customs territory as the Parties may agree, that is prepared to comply with the obligations in this Agreement, subject to such terms and conditions as may be agreed between the State or separate customs territory and the Parties, and following approval in accordance with the applicable legal procedures of each Party and acceding State or separate customs territory (accession candidate). 2. A State or separate customs territory may seek to accede to this Agreement by submitting a request in writing to the Depositary. 3. (a) Following receipt of a request under paragraph 2, the Commission shall, provided in the case of paragraph 1(b) that the Parties so agree, establish a working group to negotiate the terms and conditions for the accession. Membership in the working group shall be open to all interested Parties. (b) After completing its work, the working group shall provide a written report to the Commission. If the working group has reached agreement with the accession candidate on proposed terms and conditions for accession, the report shall set out the terms and conditions for the accession, a recommendation to the Commission to approve them, and a proposed Commission decision inviting the accession candidate to become a Party to this Agreement. 4. For the purposes of paragraph 3: (a) A decision of the Commission to establish a working group under paragraph 3(a) shall be deemed to have been taken only if:

(i) all Parties have agreed to the establishment of a working group; or

(ii) in the event that a Party does not indicate agreement when the Commission makes a decision to establish a working group under paragraph 3(a), that Party has not objected in writing within seven days of the date on which the Commission so decides. (b) A decision of the working group under paragraph 3(b) shall be deemed to have been taken only if: (i) all Parties that are members of the working group have indicated agreement; or (ii) in the event that a Party that is a member of the working group does not indicate agreement when the working group provides its report to the Commission, that

654  Treaty Clauses and Instruments Party has not objected to the report in writing within seven days of the date on which the working group provides its report. 5. If the Commission adopts a decision approving the terms and conditions for an accession and inviting an accession candidate to become a Party, the Commission shall specify a period, which may be subject to extension by agreement of the Parties, during which the accession candidate may deposit an instrument of accession with the Depositary indicating that it accepts the terms and conditions for the accession. . . .

C. Conditional participation 1. Open to States who engage in particular activity • Article 35(2), Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (2000) 40 ILM 277: After the entry into force of this Convention, the Contracting Parties may, by consensus, invite other States and regional economic integration organizations, whose nationals and fishing vessels wish to conduct fishing for highly migratory fish stocks in the Convention Area to accede to this Convention.

• Paragraph 21, Constitution of the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (1968) 1045 UNTS 173: The Constitution of the Association shall come into force definitely on such date as when at least four Governments of countries producing natural rubber have deposited instruments of [approval], acceptance or accession. Thereafter the Government of any country producing natural rubber which ratifies the Constitution of the Association and has deposited its instrument of approval, acceptance or accession shall become a Member of the Association.

2. Participation limited to members of a specific organization • Article 17(1), WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996) 2186 UNTS 121: Any Member State of WIPO may become Party to this Treaty.

3. Participation limited to States from within a specific region • Articles 18, 20, Inter-​American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (1985) OAS Treaty Series No 67: Article 18 This Convention is open to signature by the member states of the Organization of American States. Article 20 This Convention is open to accession by any other American state . . .

• Article 10(1), European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (2000) UN Doc ECE/​TRANS/​ADN/​CONF/​ 2000/​CRP.10:

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  655 Member States of the Economic Commission for Europe whose territory contains inland waterways, other than those forming a coastal route, which form part of the network of inland waterways of international importance as defined in the European Agreement on Main Inland Waterways of International Importance (AGN) may become Contracting Parties to this Agreement . . .

4. Open to parties to an existing treaty • Article 44, Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products is the first protocol to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) (2012) : 1. This Protocol shall be subject to ratification, acceptance, approval or accession by States and to formal confirmation or accession by regional economic integration organizations that are Party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

• Article IX(1), COE Protocol amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (2010) CETS No 208: This Protocol shall be open for signature by the Signatories to the Convention. It is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval. A signatory may not ratify, accept or approve this Protocol unless it has previously or simultaneously ratified, accepted or approved the Convention . . .

5. Participation based on acceptance of a political commitment • Article 38, Energy Charter Treaty (1994) 2080 UNTS 95: This Treaty shall be open for signature at Lisbon from 17 December 1994 to 16 June 1995 by the states and Regional Economic Integration Organizations which have signed the [European Energy] Charter.

6. Multiple bases for participation • Section XI, Article XI.1, Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region (1997) 2136 UNTS 3: This Convention shall be open for signature by: a. the member States of the Council of Europe; b. the member States of the UNESCO Europe Region; c. any other signatory, contracting State or party to the European Convention of the Council of Europe and/​or the UNESCO Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Diplomas and Degrees concerning Higher Education in the States belonging to the Europe Region, which have been invited to the Diplomatic Conference entrusted with the adoption of this Convention.

• Article 28, Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs (2015) CETS No 216: 1. This Convention shall be open for signature by the member States of the Council of Europe, the European Union and the non-​member States which enjoy observer status

656  Treaty Clauses and Instruments with the Council of Europe. It shall also be open for signature by any other non-​member State of the Council of Europe upon invitation by the Committee of Ministers. The decision to invite a non-​member State to sign the Convention shall be taken by the majority provided for in Article 20.d of the Statute of the Council of Europe, and by unanimous vote of the representatives of the Contracting States entitled to sit on the Committee of Ministers. This decision shall be taken after having obtained the unanimous agreement of the other States/​European Union having expressed their consent to be bound by this Convention.

D. Open treaties 1. ‘All States’ formula • Articles 46–​48, Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) 1577 UNTS 3: Article 46 The present Convention shall be open for signature by all States. Article 47 The present Convention is subject to ratification . . . Article 48 The present Convention shall remain open for accession by any State . . .

2. The ‘Vienna formula’ • Article 20, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) 1771 UNTS 107: This Convention shall be open for signature by States Members of the United Nations or of any of its specialized agencies or that are Parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice . . .

3. Protocol open to participation by ‘any State’ • Article 9(2), Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000) 2173 UNTS 222: 2.  The present Protocol is subject to ratification and is open to accession by any State . . .

4.  Participation Conditions for Non-​State Actors Besides States, a number of non-​State actors make treaties. Their ability to do so depends on: (a) the non-​State actor having competence over the treaty’s subject matter and the authority to make a treaty on that subject; and (b) the willingness of the other party or parties to enter into treaty relations with it. As Chapter 5 explores, the treaty-​making capacity of IOs is now well-​established and has generated its own Vienna Convention. Today, most IO treaty-​making is bilateral (such as cooperation, relationship, or headquarters agreements) where any question of IO participation is settled through the conclusion

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  657 of the treaty itself.20 In contrast, in the multilateral context, many treaties involve matters where either the IO lacks the competence to perform or States are unwilling to allow the IO to become a party.21 Thus, many multilateral treaties limit participation to States only. In some cases, however, a clause may specifically authorize IO participation, with or without conditions. Unlike IOs generally, one IO—​the EU—​does have extensive experience making both bilateral and multilateral treaties. Treaties allow (and condition) this participation in different ways. Many contain a so-​called ‘REIO clause’, allowing ‘regional economic integration organizations’ that have competence over the treaty’s subject matter and an attendant treaty-​making capacity to become parties. Some REIO clauses envision the REIO participating in lieu of its Member States. Others contemplate shared competences among the REIO and its Member States (a ‘mixed agreement’). Mixed agreements regularly include detailed provisions on the treaty’s legal effects given the division of competences between the organization and its Member States. For some time, the European Community (EC) was the primary (if not the only) example of a REIO. The Treaty of Lisbon has since supplanted the EC with the EU, whose competence is not limited to economic matters. Thus, recent multilateral treaties have restyled their participation clauses to refer to a ‘Regional Integration Organization’ (RIO). Neither RIO nor REIO clauses are exclusive to the EU; nothing precludes an IO from invoking one if it actually possesses sufficient competence and treaty-​making capacity to do so.22 At the same time, several recent treaties have moved away from the RIO/​REIO clause model, opting to simply authorize EU participation specifically. Chapter 6 covers EU treaty law and practice in much more detail. Beyond IOs and the EU, ‘other subjects of international law’ may make treaties, albeit in more exceptional circumstances. The same conditions of competence, capacity, and willingness to enter into a treaty apply. But, as Chapter 7 details, the actors involved are more diverse and include integral territorial units, external territories, insurgent groups, Special Administrative Regions (SARs), Associated States, and sui generis entities like Taiwan. As with IOs, most treaties involving ‘other subjects’ are bilateral without any specific clause(s) on participation.23 Occasionally, however, States may conclude treaties that contemplate treaty-​making by non-​State actors. More rarely, a multilateral treaty may employ various categories of entities (eg territories, fishing entities, customs unions) via which certain non-​ State actors may participate. 20 See eg Agreement on Cooperation (Europol-​Russian Federation) (2003) . For an example of an IO-​IO agreement, see the Agreement between the International Criminal Court and the EU on cooperation and assistance (2006) . 21 Some of these treaties may, however, accord IOs a non-​party role (eg as observers) to treaty meetings. The extent of such participation is usually detailed in the relevant rules of procedure rather than in the treaty itself. 22 The Organization of African Unity’s participation in the Agreement establishing the Common Fund for Commodities (1980) is one of the few non-​European examples of this occurring. See Final Clauses Handbook (n 6) 23. 23 See eg Agreement on the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investment (Costa Rica-​The Republic of China) (1999) (Costa Rica-​ Taiwan BIT); Basic Agreement on the Region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Western Sirmium (The Erdut Agreement) (1995) UN Doc A/​50/​757 (peace agreement between Croatia and a sub-​State unit involving local Serb authorities); Agreement on the Protection of the River Scheldt (France-​Netherlands-​Walloon Region-​Flemish Region-​ Brussels-​Capital Region) (1994) 34 ILM 851.

658  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

A.  Participation limited to States • Article 24(1), (3), International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) 2445 UNTS 89: 1. This Convention shall be open for signature by all States from 14 September 2005 until 31 December 2006 at United Nations Headquarters in New York . . . 3. This Convention shall be open to accession by any State. The instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

B.  Participation by IOs 1. Generally • Articles IV–​VI, Agreement on the Establishment of the International Vaccine Institute (1996) 1979 UNTS 199: ARTICLE IV SIGNATURE This Agreement shall be open for signature by all states and intergovernmental organizations at Headquarters of the United Nations, New York . . . ARTICLE V CONSENT TO BE BOUND This Agreement shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by the signatory states and intergovernmental organizations referred to in Article IV. ARTICLE VI ACCESSION After the expiration of the period specified in Article IV, the present Agreement shall remain open for accession by any state or intergovernmental organization, contingent upon approval by the Board of Trustees of the Institute by simple majority.

2. By invitation • Article 8, Agreement Establishing the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (2001) [2004] ATS 3: An international intergovernmental organisation may participate in or be a member of the O.I.V. and may help to fund the O.I.V. under conditions determined, on a case by case basis, by the General Assembly on a proposal from the Executive Committee.

3. With specific competences • Article 26(1)(ii), Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (2006) : [Eligibility] The following entities may sign and, subject to paragraphs (2) and (3) and Article 28(1) and (3), become party to this Treaty . . . (ii) any intergovernmental organization which maintains an Office in which marks may be registered with effect in the territory in which the constituting treaty of the intergovernmental organization applies, in all its Member States or in those of its Member States which are designated for such purpose in the relevant application, provided that all the Member States of the intergovernmental organization are members of the Organization . . .

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  659

C. EU participation 1. As a qualified ‘intergovernmental organisation’ • Article 17, WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996) 2186 UNTS 121: . . .  The Assembly may decide to admit any intergovernmental organisation to become Party to this Treaty which declares that it is competent in respect of, and has its own legislation binding on all its Member States on, matters covered by this Treaty and that it has been duly authorised, in accordance with its internal procedures, to become Party to this Treaty. The European Community, having made the Declaration referred to in the preceding paragraph in the Diplomatic Conference that has adopted this Treaty, may become Party to this Treaty.

• Annex IX, Articles 1–​4, UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) 1833 UNTS 3: Article 1—​Use of terms For the purposes of article 305 and of this Annex, ‘international organization’ means an intergovernmental organization constituted by States to which its member States have transferred competence over matters governed by this Convention, including the competence to enter into treaties in respect of those matters. Article 2—​Signature An international organization may sign this Convention if a majority of its member States are signatories of this Convention. At the time of signature an international organization shall make a declaration specifying the matters governed by this Convention in respect of which competence has been transferred to that organization by its member States which are signatories, and the nature and extent of that competence. Article 3—​Formal confirmation and accession 1. An international organization may deposit its instrument of formal confirmation or of accession if a majority of its member States deposit or have deposited their instruments of ratification or accession. 2. The instruments deposited by the international organization shall contain the undertakings and declarations required by articles 4 and 5 of this Annex.24

2. As a REIO • Articles 2(a)–​(b), 23–​26, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) 2256 UNTS 119: Article 2—​Definitions (a) ‘Party’ means a State or regional economic integration organization that has consented to be bound by this Convention and for which the Convention is in force; (b) ‘Regional economic integration organization’ means an organization constituted by sovereign States of a given region to which its member States have transferred competence in 24 Additional Annex IX provisions cover the extent of IO participation, rights and obligations, declarations of competence, responsibility and liability, and dispute settlement. The EU which joined UNCLOS in 1998 as the European Community is the only IO to have done so.

660  Treaty Clauses and Instruments respect of matters governed by this Convention and which has been duly authorized, in accordance with its internal procedures, to sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to this Convention . . . ARTICLE 23—​Right to vote 1. Each Party to this Convention shall have one vote, except as provided for in paragraph 2. 2. A regional economic integration organization, on matters within its competence, shall exercise its right to vote with a number of votes equal to the number of its member States that are Parties to this Convention. Such an organization shall not exercise its right to vote if any of its member States exercises its right to vote, and vice versa. ARTICLE 24—​Signature This Convention shall be open for signature at Stockholm by all States and regional economic integration organizations on 23 May 2001, and at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 24 May 2001 to 22 May 2002. ARTICLE 25—​Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession 1. This Convention shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States and by regional economic integration organizations. It shall be open for accession by States and by regional economic integration organizations from the day after the date on which the Convention is closed for signature. Instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the depositary. 2. Any regional economic integration organization that becomes a Party to this Convention without any of its member States being a Party shall be bound by all the obligations under the Convention. In the case of such organizations, one or more of whose member States is a Party to this Convention, the organization and its member States shall decide on their respective responsibilities for the performance of their obligations under the Convention. In such cases, the organization and the member States shall not be entitled to exercise rights under the Convention concurrently. 3. In its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, a regional economic integration organization shall declare the extent of its competence in respect of the matters governed by this Convention. Any such organization shall also inform the depositary, who shall in turn inform the Parties, of any relevant modification in the extent of its competence . . . ARTICLE 26—​Entry into force 1. This Convention shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. 2. For each State or regional economic integration organization that ratifies, accepts or approves this Convention or accedes thereto after the deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, the Convention shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit by such State or regional economic integration organization of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. 3. For the purpose of paragraphs 1 and 2, any instrument deposited by a regional economic integration organization shall not be counted as additional to those deposited by member States of that organization.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  661

3. As a REIO provided one Member State also participates • Article 67(3), UN Convention Against Corruption (2003) 2349 UNTS 41: 3. This Convention is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval. Instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations. A regional economic integration organization may deposit its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval if at least one of its member States has done likewise. In that instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, such organization shall declare the extent of its competence with respect to the matters governed by this Convention. Such organization shall also inform the depositary of any relevant modification in the extent of its competence.

4. As a REIO in lieu of Member States • Article XXVII 1(c), 2, Convention for the Strengthening of the Inter-​American Tropical Tuna Commission (2003) : 1. This Convention shall be open for signature at Washington from November 14, 2003, until December 31, 2004, by . . . (c) States and regional economic integration organizations which are not Parties to the 1949 Convention and whose vessels have fished for fish stocks covered by this Convention at any time during the four years preceding the adoption of this Convention and that participated in the negotiation of this Convention; and 2. In relation to the regional economic integration organizations referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, no member State of such organizations may sign this Convention unless it represents a territory which lies outside the territorial scope of the treaty establishing the organization and provided that such member State’s participation be limited to representing only the interests of that territory.

5. As a REIO provided it has concluded a relevant treaty • Articles 7(1)–​(3) and 8(1), UN Convention on Transparency in Treaty-​Based Investor-​ State Arbitration (2014) : Signature, ratification, acceptance, approval, accession Article 7 1. This Convention is open for signature in Port Louis, Mauritius, on 17 March 2015, and thereafter at United Nations Headquarters in New York by any (a) State; or (b) regional economic integration organization that is constituted by States and is a contracting party to an investment treaty. 2. This Convention is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by the signatories to this Convention. 3. This Convention is open for accession by all States or regional economic integration organizations referred to in paragraph 1 which are not signatories as from the date it is open for signature.

662  Treaty Clauses and Instruments Participation by regional economic integration organizations Article 8 1. When depositing an instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, a regional economic integration organization shall inform the depositary of a specific investment treaty to which it is a contracting party, identified by title and name of the contracting parties to that investment treaty.

6. As a RIO • Articles 42–​44, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 2515 UNTS 3: Article 42—​Signature The present Convention shall be open for signature by all States and by regional integration organizations at United Nations Headquarters in New York as of 30 March 2007. Article 43—​Consent to be bound The present Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States and to formal confirmation by signatory regional integration organizations. It shall be open for accession by any State or regional integration organization which has not signed the Convention. Article 44—​Regional integration organizations 1. ‘Regional integration organization’ shall mean an organization constituted by sovereign States of a given region, to which its member States have transferred competence in respect of matters governed by this Convention. Such organizations shall declare, in their instruments of formal confirmation or accession, the extent of their competence with respect to matters governed by this Convention. Subsequently, they shall inform the depositary of any substantial modification in the extent of their competence. 2. References to ‘States Parties’ in the present Convention shall apply to such organizations within the limits of their competence. 3. For the purposes of article 45, paragraph 1 [on entry into force], and article 47, paragraphs 2 and 3 [on Amendments], any instrument deposited by a regional integration organization shall not be counted. 4. Regional integration organizations, in matters within their competence, may exercise their right to vote in the Conference of States Parties, with a number of votes equal to the number of their member States that are Parties to this Convention. Such an organization shall not exercise its right to vote if any of its member States exercises its right, and vice versa.

7. As the EU specifically • Article 75, COE Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (2011) CETS No 210: 1. This Convention shall be open for signature by the member States of the Council of Europe, the non-​member States which have participated in its elaboration and the European Union.

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  663 2. This Convention is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval. Instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. 3. This Convention shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date on which 10 signatories, including at least eight member States of the Council of Europe, have expressed their consent to be bound by the Convention in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 2. 4. In respect of any State referred to in paragraph 1 or the European Union, which subsequently expresses its consent to be bound by it, the Convention shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval.

• Food Assistance Convention (2012) 2884 UNTS 3: Article 12 Signature and Ratification, Acceptance, or Approval This Convention shall be open for signature by . . . the European Union . . . at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 11 June 2012 until 31 December 2012. This Convention shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each Signatory. Instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Depositary. Article 13 Accession 1. Any State listed in Article 12 that has not signed this Convention by the end of the signature period, or the European Union if it has not signed by that time, may accede to it at any time after that period . . .

• Article 59(2), Protocol No 14 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom (2004) CETS No 194: The European Union may accede to this Convention.

D.  Participation by ‘other subjects of international law’ 1. By associated States and certain other territories • Article 305(c)–​(e), UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) 1833 UNTS 3:25 This Convention shall be open for signature by . . . (c) all self-​governing associated States which have chosen that status in an act of self-​ determination supervised and approved by the United Nations in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) and which have competence over the matters governed by this Convention, including the competence to enter into treaties in respect of those matters; (d) all self-​governing associated States which, in accordance with their respective instruments of association, have competence over the matters governed by this Convention, including the competence to enter into treaties in respect of those matters;



25

Two self-​governing Associated States—​the Cook Islands and Niue—​joined UNCLOS pursuant to Art 305.

664  Treaty Clauses and Instruments (e) all territories which enjoy full internal self-​government, recognized as such by the United Nations, but have not attained full independence in accordance with General Assembly resolution 1514(XV) and which have competence over the matters governed by this Convention, including the competence to enter into treaties in respect of those matters . . .

2. By a ‘fishing entity’ • Article XXVIII(1), Convention for the Strengthening of the Inter-​American Tropical Tuna Commission (2003) :26 1. Any fishing entity whose vessels have fished for fish stocks covered by this Convention at any time during the four years preceding the adoption of this Convention may express its firm commitment to abide by the terms of this Convention and comply with any conservation and management measures adopted pursuant thereto, by: (a) signing, during the period referred to in Article XXVII(1) of this Convention, an instrument drafted to this effect in accordance with a resolution to be adopted by the Commission under the 1949 Convention; and/​or (b) during or after the above-​mentioned period, providing a written communication to the Depositary in accordance with a resolution to be adopted by the Commission under the 1949 Convention . . .

3. By a ‘separate customs territory’ • Article XII(1)–​(2), Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154:27 1. Any State or separate customs territory possessing full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations and of the other matters provided for in this Agreement and the Multilateral Trade Agreements may accede to this Agreement, on terms to be agreed between it and the WTO. Such accession shall apply to this Agreement and the Multilateral Trade Agreements annexed thereto. 2. Decisions on accession shall be taken by the Ministerial Conference. The Ministerial Conference shall approve the agreement on the terms of accession by a two-​thirds majority of the Members of the WTO.

4. Participation authorized by separate treaty • Article XX, Agreement with respect to Social Security (US-​C anada) (1981) 35 UST 3403: The Competent Authority of the United States and the authorities of the provinces of Canada may conclude understandings concerning any social security legislation within the 26 On 17 August 2010, Chinese Taipei filed a written communication of commitment pursuant to Art XXVIII. See . 27 Chinese Taipei acceded to the WTO Agreement under Art XII on 1 January 2002. Hong Kong and Macau are original WTO members by virtue of earlier accession to the 1947 GATT pursuant to a similar clause (Art XXXIII).

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  665 provincial jurisdiction insofar as those understandings are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement.28

5. Participation authorized by the responsible State • Preamble, Agreement for the Exchange of Information for the Purpose of the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion and the Allocation of Rights of Taxation With Respect to Income of Individuals (Japan-​Bermuda) (2010) : The Government of Japan and the Government of Bermuda, the Government of Bermuda having been duly authorised by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . . . . Have agreed as follows . . .

5. NGO Involvement Non-​governmental organizations (NGOs) do not have the capacity to conclude treaties in their own name. Nevertheless, NGOs have played an increasing role in the formation, implementation, and enforcement of certain multilateral treaties. Chapter 8 discusses these roles and assesses the NGO’s significance to international law and international relations. In terms of formation, NGOs frequently push for treaty negotiations and informally lobby States on their substance. IO procedural rules may give NGOs a more formal role as observers with a right to speak (but not vote).29 Such participation is only occasionally reflected in the treaty text itself. Treaties will more often provide for NGO participation after the agreement is in force; the ILO even (uniquely) goes so far as to incorporate them among member representatives. Other clauses provide for parties to cooperate with NGOs or use the information or services they provide. In a few cases, an NGO may be given standing to complain about potential treaty violations.

A.  NGO participation in treaty meetings 1. As representatives of members • Article 3(1), (5), ILO Constitution, as amended (1972) : 1. The meetings of the General Conference of representatives of the Members shall be held from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once in every year. It shall be composed of four representatives of each of the Members, of whom two shall be Government delegates and the two others shall be delegates representing respectively the employers and the workpeople of each of the Members.

28 The Understanding and Administrative Arrangement (US-​Quebec) (1983) TIAS 10,863 was concluded pursuant to this clause. 29 See eg Rule 31(1)–​(4), Rules of Procedure, Conference of the Parties, WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2006) (rules on NGOs as observers).

666  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 5. The Members undertake to nominate non-​Government delegates and advisers chosen in agreement with the industrial organizations, if such organizations exist, which are most representative of employers or workpeople, as the case may be, in their respective countries.

2. As observers • Article 11(1), (4), Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (1997) 2056 UNTS 211: 1. The States Parties shall meet regularly in order to consider any matter with regard to the application or implementation of this Convention . . . 4. States not parties to this Convention, as well as the United Nations, other relevant international organizations or institutions, regional organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and relevant non-​governmental organizations may be invited to attend these meetings as observers in accordance with the agreed Rules of Procedure.

• Article 16(8), Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: . . . Any body or agency, whether national or international, governmental or non-​governmental, which is qualified in matters covered by this Agreement and which has informed the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Agreement as an observer, may be so admitted unless at least one third of the Parties present object. The admission and participation of observers shall be subject to the rules of procedure . . .

B.  NGO participation in implementing treaty obligations • Article 23(5)(g), WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) 2302 UNTS 166: 5. The Conference of the Parties shall keep under regular review the implementation of the Convention and take the decisions necessary to promote its effective implementation and may adopt protocols, annexes and amendments to the Convention, in accordance with Articles 28, 29 and 33. Towards this end, it shall . . . (g) request, where appropriate, the services and cooperation of, and information provided by, competent and relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system and other international and regional intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations and bodies as a means of strengthening the implementation of the Convention . . .

• Article 15(2), 44(4), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: Article 15. Prosecutor 2. The Prosecutor shall analyse the seriousness of the information received. For this purpose, he or she may seek additional information from States, organs of the United Nations, intergovernmental or non-​governmental organizations, or other reliable

Initial Decisions on Treaty-Making  667 sources that he or she deems appropriate, and may receive written or oral testimony at the seat of the Court. Article 44. Staff 4. The Court may, in exceptional circumstances, employ the expertise of gratis personnel offered by States Parties, intergovernmental organizations or non-​governmental organizations to assist with the work of any of the organs of the Court. The Prosecutor may accept any such offer on behalf of the Office of the Prosecutor. Such gratis personnel shall be employed in accordance with guidelines to be established by the Assembly of States Parties.

• Article 5(2), Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: The General Council may make appropriate arrangements for consultation and cooperation with non-​governmental organizations concerned with matters related to those of the WTO.

• Article XII(1), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (1973) 993 UNTS 243: . . . To the extent and in the manner [the Secretariat] considers appropriate, he may be assisted by suitable inter-​governmental or non-​governmental international or national agencies and bodies technically qualified in protection, conservation and management of wild fauna and flora.

• Article 16, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 1. In implementing this Treaty, each State Party may seek assistance including legal or legislative assistance, institutional capacity-​building, and technical, material or financial assistance. Such assistance may include stockpile management, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, model legislation, and effective practices for implementation. Each State Party in a position to do so shall provide such assistance, upon request. 2. Each State Party may request, offer or receive assistance through, inter alia, the United Nations, international, regional, subregional or national organizations, non-​governmental organizations, or on a bilateral basis.

C.  NGO rights and standing • Article 34, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended (2010) CETS No 194: The Court may receive applications from any person, non-​governmental organisation or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation by one of the High Contracting Parties of the rights set forth in the Convention or the Protocols thereto. The High Contracting Parties undertake not to hinder in any way the effective exercise of this right.

• Article 14(1), North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (Canada-​ Mexico-​US) (1993) 32 ILM 1480:

668  Treaty Clauses and Instruments The Secretariat may consider a submission from any non-​governmental organization or person asserting that a Party is failing to effectively enforce its environmental law, if the Secretariat finds that the submission: (a) is in writing in a language designated by that Party in a notification to the Secretariat; (b) clearly identifies the person or organization making the submission; (c) provides sufficient information to allow the Secretariat to review the submission, including any documentary evidence on which the submission may be based; (d) appears to be aimed at promoting enforcement rather than at harassing industry; (e) indicates that the matter has been communicated in writing to the relevant authorities of the Party and indicates the Party's response, if any; and (f) is filed by a person or organization residing or established in the territory of a Party.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty 6.  Consent to be Bound To become a party to a treaty, States, IOs, and other qualified subjects of international law must first express their consent to be bound by it. Generally, they do so through a concrete act that manifests a willingness to accept the international legal commitment embodied in the agreement. Article 12 VCLT identifies five vehicles for expressing consent: (i) definitive signature; (ii) an exchange of instruments constituting a treaty; (iii) ratification; (iv) acceptance or approval; and (v) accession. To that list, the 1986 VCLT adds (vi) an ‘act of formal confirmation’ for IO consent.30 Each of these methods is explained and explored in detail in Chapter 9. Most treaties will contain one or more clauses designating which method(s) of consent are acceptable. Bilateral treaties may contain clauses providing for consent via an exchange of notes, letters, or instruments of ratification. Or, they may contain clauses where the exchange brings the treaty into force, in which case the exchange also impliedly (and simultaneously) constitutes consent. In these cases, consent occurs by the act of the exchange itself, such that if the exchange is not simultaneous, it is effective on the date the later instrument is received. As for definitive signature, it may be contemplated expressly or be inferred whenever a treaty provides that signature brings the agreement into force. Multilateral treaties may contain a clause providing for just one method of consent, but more often list an array of ways by which States or others may consent to be bound. Where ratification is a listed option—​whether alone, or alongside options for acceptance or approval31—​the treaty will usually include an additional clause on (simple) signature.32 Signature clauses indicate who may sign the treaty, and now regularly include details on where signature may occur, at what point the treaty will be ‘open for signature’ and for how long. Accession clauses may be included where a treaty was not open for signature or to permit consent by States that did not (or could not) sign the treaty. Clauses on IO consent by formal confirmation are less frequent, and IOs like the EU frequently express their consent by signature followed by acceptance or approval instead. In cases of ratification, acceptance, approval, accession, or formal confirmation, consent to be bound will generally be effective from the date the relevant instrument is deposited or exchanged. A State only becomes a ‘party’ to a treaty when it has consented to be bound by the treaty and that treaty is in force. When a State consents to a treaty that is not yet in force, it is referred to as a ‘contracting State’. The label ‘signatory’ applies to States during the period following their simple signature but prior to the expression of consent by ratification, acceptance, or 30 Art 11(2) of the 1986 VCLT. 31 As Chapter 9 explains, acceptance or approval are generally interchangeable terms that follow the same rules (and have the same legal effects) as ratification unless the treaty otherwise provides. Acceptance or approval clauses are often paired with ratification clauses to accommodate those States who prefer to avoid using ratification for domestic reasons. See Chapter 9, Section III, 223 et seq. 32 For further discussion of simple signature and its legal effects, see Chapter 9, Section III, 224 et seq.

670  Treaty Clauses and Instruments approval. Finally, it must be emphasized, as both VCLTs acknowledge, that consent may also occur ‘by any other means if so agreed’.33 This leaves room for an array of additional (and often creative) methods for expressing consent to bound, just a few of which are included below.34

A.  Consent by definitive signature 1. Expressly • Article 36(1)–​(2)(a), International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) [2007] OJ L262/​8: 1. This Agreement shall be open for signature, at United Nations Headquarters from 3 April 2006 until one month after the date of its entry into force, by Governments invited to the United Nations Conference for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994. 2. Any Government referred to in paragraph 1 of this article may: (a) At the time of signing this Agreement, declare that by such signature it expresses its consent to be bound by this Agreement (definitive signature) . . .

• Article 9, Agreement concerning the Establishing of Global Technical Regulations for Wheeled Vehicles, Equipment and Parts which can be fitted and/​or be used on Wheeled Vehicles (1998) 2119 UNTS 129: 9.1 Countries and regional economic integration organizations specified in Article 2 may become Contracting Parties to this Agreement by . . . 9.1.1.  signature without reservation as to ratification, acceptance or approval;

2. By implication • Article 18, Air Transport Agreement (Belize-​US) 2018 TIAS 18-​1016: This Agreement shall enter into force on the date of signature.

• Article 15, Agreement on Audio-​visual Relations (Canada-​Germany) (2004) CTS E104998: This Agreement shall enter into force on the date of its signature.

B.  Consent by exchange of instruments 1. By exchange of notes • Article 20(1), Agreement for the Exchange of Information for the Purpose of the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion and the Allocation of Rights of Taxation With Respect to Income of Individuals (Japan-​Bermuda) (2010) : This Agreement shall be approved in accordance with the legal procedures of each of the Contracting Parties and shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date of exchange of diplomatic notes indicating such approval.

33 34

Art 11 VCLT; Art 11of the 1986 VCLT. For examples of clauses dealing with consent to treaty amendments, see Headings 20–​21 of this Part.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  671

2. By exchange of notifications • Article XI, Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Fusion Energy Research (European Atomic Energy Community-​India) (2009) [2010] OJ L242/​26: This Agreement shall enter into force on the date on which the Parties have notified each other in writing that their respective internal procedures necessary for its entry into force have been completed, and shall remain in force for five (5) years.

• Article 24, Air Services Agreement (Angola-​The Netherlands) (2018) 2019 Trb 199: This Agreement shall enter into force on the first day of the second month following the date of receipt of the last written notification through diplomatic channels by which the Contracting Parties have informed each other that the formalities and constitutional requirements in their respective countries have been complied with.

3. By exchange of notes (or letters) constituting the treaty35 • Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement of June 25 and July 6, 2004 on Mutual Airlift Support (2019) (Republic of Korea-​United States) TIAS 19-​711: Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Korea OZT-​2551 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea presents its compliments to the Embassy of the United States of America and has the honor to refer to the Embassy’s Note No.172, dated July 10, 2019, which reads as follows: ‘The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and has the honor to refer to the Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Korea Concerning Mutual Airlift Support Utilizing Aircraft Operated by/​for the Military Forces of the Parties in Case of Military Hostilities in the Republic of Korea, signed at Daejeon on June 25, 2004 and at Scott Air Force Base on July 6, 2004, which entered into force on August 18, 2004 (hereinafter referred to as the “Agreement”), extended by Exchange of Notes on August 18, 2009, and extended and amended by Exchange of Notes on August 18, 2010. Recognizing that the Agreement, as amended and extended, provides bilateral airlift capability for our respective military forces in the event of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, the Embassy has the honor to propose the Agreement, as amended and extended, pursuant to its Article 12.1, be extended and remain in force until August 17, 2024, or until terminated by the mutual agreement of the Parties, or upon 6 months written notice of termination from one Party to the other. If the foregoing proposal is acceptable to the Government of the Republic of Korea, the Embassy further proposes that this Note and the Ministry’s affirmative reply hereto shall constitute an agreement between the two Governments to extend the Agreement, which shall enter into force on the date of the Ministry’s reply Note. 35 Diplomatic Notes are usually reserved for communications among Embassies and Foreign Ministries; letters are commonly used in communications involving another State agency.

672  Treaty Clauses and Instruments The Embassy of the United States avails itself of this occasion to renew to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea the assurances of its highest consideration.’ The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea also has the honor to confirm that the foregoing proposal is acceptable to the Government of the Republic of Korea and that this reply Note, together with the Embassy’s Note, shall constitute an agreement between the two Governments to extend the Agreement as mentioned above, which shall into force on July 11, 2019, the date of this reply Note. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea avails itself of this opportunity to renew to the Embassy the assurances of its highest consideration. Seoul, July 11, 2019 [Sealed] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea

4. By exchange of instruments of ratification • Article 23(1), Agreement on Social Security (Australia-​Italy) (1993) [2000] ATS 29: This Agreement shall be ratified by both Parties in accordance with their respective procedures and shall enter into force on the first day of the month following that in which there has been an exchange of instruments of ratification.

C.  Consent by ratification 1. By ratification exclusively • Article 6(1), Treaty of Lisbon Amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (2007) [2007] OJ C306/​1: This Treaty shall be ratified by the High Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Government of the Italian Republic.

• Article 29(1), Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with respect to Taxes on Income and on Capital (Canada-​Gabon) (2002) Canadian Treaty Series E104949: This Convention shall be ratified and the instruments of ratification shall be exchanged as soon as possible.

2. By ratification where the treaty is open for signature indefinitely • Article 25(1), (3), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) 1249 UNTS 13: 1 . The present Convention shall be open for signature by all States. . . . 3. The present Convention is subject to ratification. Instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

3. By ratification requiring signature prior to treaty’s entry into force • Articles 15–​16, Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (1997) 2056 UNTS 211:

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  673 Article 15 This Convention, done at Oslo, Norway, on 18 September 1997, shall be open for signature at Ottawa, Canada, by all States from 3 December 1997 until 4 December 1997, and at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 5 December 1997 until its entry into force. Article 16 This Convention is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval of the Signatories . . .

4. By ratification requiring treaty signature within a defined period • Articles 24–​25(1), Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (1998) 2244 UNTS 337: Article 24 Signature This Convention shall be open for signature at Rotterdam by all States and regional economic integration organizations on the 11th day of September 1998, and at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 12 September 1998 to 10 September 1999. Article 25 Ratification, acceptance, approval or accession 1. This Convention shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States and by regional economic integration organizations . . .

• Article 20, Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: This Agreement shall be open for signature and subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States and regional economic integration organizations that are Parties to the Convention. It shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 22 April 2016 to 21 April 2017. Thereafter, this Agreement shall be open for accession from the day following the date on which it is closed for signature . . . 

D.  By acceptance or approval 1. By acceptance only • Article XIII(1)–​(2), Agreement for the Establishment of the Regional Commission for Fisheries (1999) : 1. In accordance with Article I.2, this Agreement shall be open to acceptance by Members and Associate Members of the Organization as well as by non-​member States of the Organization that are coastal States or Associate Members whose territories are situated wholly or partly within the Area defined in Article IV. 2. Acceptance of this Agreement by any Member or Associate Member of the Organization that is a coastal State or Associate member whose territories are situated wholly or partly within the Area defined in Article IV, shall be effected by the deposit of an instrument of acceptance with the Director-​General of the Organization, the depositary of this Agreement, and shall take effect on receipt of such instrument by the Director-​General . . .

2. By acceptance or approval • Articles 38–​39, Energy Charter Treaty (1994) 2080 UNTS 95:

674  Treaty Clauses and Instruments ARTICLE 38 SIGNATURE This Treaty shall be open for signature at Lisbon from 17 December 1994 to 16 June 1995 by the states and Regional Economic Integration Organizations which have signed the Charter. ARTICLE 39 RATIFICATION, ACCEPTANCE OR APPROVAL This Treaty shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by signatories. Instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Depository.

E. By accession 1. Accession at any time • Article 25(1)–​(3), International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) 2178 UNTS 197: 1. This Convention shall be open for signature by all States from 10 January 2000 to 31 December 2001 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. 2. This Convention is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval . . . 3. This Convention shall be open to accession by any State. The instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

2. Accession once treaty no longer open to signature • Article 30(1), Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: 1. This Convention shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States and by regional economic integration organizations. It shall be open for accession by States and by regional economic integration organizations from the day after the date on which the Convention is closed for signature.

3. Accession once treaty is in force • Article 21(1)–​(3), The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 1. This Treaty shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by all States from 3 June 2013 until its entry into force. 2. This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory State. 3. Following its entry into force, this Treaty shall be open for accession by any State that has not signed the Treaty.

4. By accession to make a bilateral agreement into a multilateral one • Article 23.1, Free Trade Agreement (Australia-​US) (2004) [2005] ATS 1: 1. Any country or group of countries may accede to this Agreement subject to such terms and conditions as may be agreed between such country or countries and the Parties and following approval in accordance with the applicable legal procedures of each country.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  675 2. This Agreement shall not apply as between any Party and any acceding country or group of countries if, at the time of the accession, either Party does not consent to such application.

5. By accession only • Article 43(1), Revised General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (1949) 71 UNTS 101: The present General Act shall be open to accession by the members of the United Nations, by the non-​member States which shall have become parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice or to which the General Assembly of the United Nations shall have communicated a copy for this purpose.

F.  By formal confirmation • Article 43, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 2515 UNTS 3: The present Convention shall be subject to ratification by signatory States and to formal confirmation by signatory regional integration organizations . . .

G.  Consent by a combination of methods 1. By ratification or accession • Articles 25(1)–​(2), 26, Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) 1465 UNTS 85: Article 25 1. This Convention is open for signature by all States. 2. This Convention is subject to ratification. Instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations. Article 26 This Convention is open to accession by all States. Accession shall be effected by the deposit of an instrument of accession with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

2. By ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession • Articles 13–​14, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017, not yet in force) [2018] 57 ILM 347: Article 13 Signature This Treaty shall be open for signature to all States at United Nations Headquarters in New York as from 20 September 2017. Article 14 Ratification, acceptance, approval or accession This Treaty shall be subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by signatory States. The Treaty shall be open for accession.

676  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

3. By signature, ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession • Article 12(1)–​(2), International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999) UN Doc A/​CONF.188.6: 1. This Convention shall be open for signature by any State at the Headquarters of the United Nations, New York, from 1 September 1999 to 31 August 2000 and shall thereafter remain open for accession. 2. States may express their consent to be bound by this Convention by: (a) signature without reservation as to ratification, acceptance or approval; or (b) signature subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, followed by ratification, acceptance or approval; or (c) accession.

H.  Consent by ‘any other means so agreed’ 1. Initialling pursuant to separate agreement • Articles I–​II, Agreement on Initialling the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Dayton Agreement) (1995) :36 Article I. The negotiation of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Annexes has been completed. The Parties, and the Entities that they represent, commit themselves to signature of these Agreements in Paris in their present form, in accordance with Article III, thus establishing their entry into force and the date from which the Agreements shall have operative effect. Article II. The initialling of each signature block of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its Annexes today hereby expresses the consent of the Parties, and the Entities that they represent, to be bound by such Agreements.

2. By adoption of a ‘Resolution of Approval’ • Text on the Establishment of a Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test-​ Ban Organization (1996) [1999] UKTS 46: The States Signatories of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-​Ban Treaty, adopted by the General Assembly at New York on 10 September 1996, Having decided to take all necessary measures to ensure the rapid and effective establishment of the future Comprehensive Nuclear Test-​Ban Treaty Organization, Having decided to this end to establish a Preparatory Commission, 1. Approve the Text on the Establishment of a Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-​Ban Treaty Organization, as annexed to the present resolution; 2. Request the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 50/​245, of 10 September 1996, on the Comprehensive Nuclear



36

The text of the referenced Dayton Agreement is available at [1996] 35 ILM 75.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  677 Test-​Ban Treaty, to provide the services required to initiate the work of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-​Ban Treaty Organization, including the Meeting of States Signatories and the First Session of the Preparatory Commission.

3. Consent subject to additional conditions • Article XII(1), Marrakesh Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: Any State or separate customs territory possessing full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations and of the other matters provided for in this Agreement and the Multilateral Trade Agreements may accede to this Agreement, on terms to be agreed between it and the WTO. Such accession shall apply to this Agreement and the Multilateral Agreements annexed thereto.

• Article 41, International Sugar Agreement (1992) 1703 UNTS 203: This Agreement shall be open to accession by the Governments of all states upon conditions established by the Council. Upon accession, the State concerned shall be deemed to be listed in the annex to this Agreement, together with its votes as laid down in the conditions of accession. Accession shall be effected by the deposit of an instrument of accession with the depositary. Instruments of accession shall state that the Government accepts all the conditions established by the Council.

• Article 4(3)–​(5), Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (1980) 1342 UNTS 137: 3. Expressions of consent to be bound by any of the Protocols annexed to this Convention shall be optional for each State, provided that at the time of the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of this Convention or accession thereto, that State shall notify the Depositary of its consent to be bound by any two or more of these Protocols. 4. At any time after the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of this Convention or accession thereto, a State may notify the Depositary of its consent to be bound by any annexed Protocol by which it is not already bound. 5. Any Protocol by which a High Contracting Party is bound shall for that Party form an integral part of this Convention.

7.  Reservations Reservations are unilateral statements by a State (or an IO such as the EU) in signing or consenting to be bound by a multilateral treaty that purport ‘to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application’ to that State or IO.37 37 Art 2(d) VCLT; Art 2(d) of the 1986 VCLT. Reservations formulated in signing a treaty subject to ratification, acceptance, approval, or act of formal confirmation require confirmation at the time the State or IO consents to be bound. Art 23(2) VCLT; Art 23(2) of the 1986 VCLT.

678  Treaty Clauses and Instruments A reservation is generally permitted except where: (a) the treaty explicitly prohibits reservations; (b) the treaty permits some reservations but not the one made; or (c) the reservation is otherwise ‘incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty’.38 Chapter 12 deals with the extraordinarily complicated law and practice currently surrounding reservations. There are a host of outstanding issues—​What statements constitute a reservation? When and how is a reservation incompatible with a treaty’s object and purpose? What legal effects flow from a reservation? And just who has authority to decide the answers to these questions? The ILC revisited the topic in 2011, although it still may be too soon to tell how much impact its efforts at progressive development will have.39 In the current environment, treaty clauses offer a way to mitigate some (but certainly not all) of the issues reservations raise. Whether because of a failure to agree, political objections, or general inattention, a treaty may not contain any provision on reservations. But, as the VCLT envisions, negotiators can use clauses to regulate whether and how reservations may be made. A treaty can, of course, expressly prohibit all reservations. Or, it might authorize all reservations not incompatible with the treaty’s object and purpose. In between these poles, treaty clauses can specify provisions, parts, subjects, or factual circumstances in relation to which reservations will (or will not) be permitted. As a general rule, ‘unless the treaty otherwise provides, a reservation may be withdrawn at any time’40 by the State or IO that made it; the consent of other parties is not required. In practice, treaties tend not to alter this default rule, but rather reiterate it. In contrast, the issue of modifying existing reservations tends not to be addressed by treaties at all.

A.  Clauses prohibiting treaty reservations entirely • Article 32, Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: No reservations may be made to this Convention.

• Article 25, Convention on Contact concerning Children (2003) CETS No 192: No reservation may be made in respect of any provision of this Convention.

• Article VIII, Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will (1973) [1973] 12 ILM 1298: No reservation shall be admitted to this Convention or to its Annex.

• Article 30, Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (2002) 2375 UNTS 237: No reservations shall be made to the present Protocol.

• Article 120, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: No reservations may be made to this Statute. 38 Art 19 VCLT; Art 19 of the 1986 VCLT. Reservations may also be prohibited implicitly. For example, even though ILO treaties do not expressly prohibit reservations, it is generally accepted that the nature of the ILO regime precludes them. 39 See ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(2) 23 et seq. 40 Art 22(1) VCLT.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  679 • Article XVI(5), Marrakesh Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: No reservations may be made in respect of any provision of this Agreement. Reservations in respect of any of the provisions of the Multilateral Trade Agreements may only be made to the extent provided for in those Agreements. Reservations in respect of a provision of a Plurilateral Trade Agreement shall be governed by the provisions of that Agreement.

B.  Reservations expressly permitted 1. Generally • Article 14(1), Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations (1998) 2296 UNTS 5: When definitively signing, ratifying or acceding to this Convention or any amendment hereto, a State Party may make reservations.

2. Except those incompatible with the treaty’s object and purpose • Article 51(2), Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) 1577 UNTS 3: A reservation incompatible with the object and purpose of the present Convention shall not be permitted.

• Article 25, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 1. At the time of signature, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, each State may formulate reservations, unless the reservations are incompatible with the object and purpose of this Treaty.

• Article 21, African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) (2009) : States Parties shall not make or enter reservations to this Convention that are incompatible with the object and purpose of this Convention.

3. Only where authorized by the treaty • Article 98, Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) 1489 UNTS 3: No reservations are permitted except those expressly authorized in this Convention.

4. For all provisions except certain articles • Article 42(1), Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) 189 UNTS 137: At the time of signature, ratification or accession, any State may make reservations to articles of the Convention other than to articles 1, 3, 4, 16(1), 33, 36–​46 inclusive.

680  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

5. For certain provisions or parts of the treaty only • Article 42, Convention on Cybercrime (2001) 2296 UNTS 167: By a written notification addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, any State may, at the time of signature or when depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it avails itself of the reservation(s) provided for in Article 4, paragraph 2, Article 6, paragraph 3, Article 9, paragraph 4, Article 10, paragraph 3, Article 11, paragraph 3, Article 14, paragraph 3, Article 22, paragraph 2, Article 29, paragraph 4, and Article 41, paragraph 1. No other reservation may be made.

• Article 24(2), International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) 2178 UNTS 197: Each State may at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance or approval of this Convention or accession thereto declare that it does not consider itself bound by paragraph 1 [on binding dispute resolution by arbitration or the ICJ]. The other States Parties shall not be bound by paragraph 1 with respect to any State Party which has made such a reservation.

• Article 21(1)–​(4), Trademark Law Treaty (1994) 2037 UNTS 35: (1)  [Special Kinds of Marks] Any State or intergovernmental organization may declare through a reservation that, notwithstanding Article 2(1)(a) and (2)(a), any of the provisions of Articles 3(1) and (2), 5, 7, 11 and 13 shall not apply to associated marks, defensive marks or derivative marks. Such reservation shall specify those of the aforementioned provisions to which the reservation relates. (2)  [Modalities] Any reservation under paragraph (1) shall be made in a declaration accompanying the instrument of ratification of, or accession to, this Treaty of the State or intergovernmental organization making the reservation. (3)  [Withdrawal] Any reservation under paragraph (1) may be withdrawn at any time. (4)  [Prohibition of Other Reservations] No reservation to this Treaty other than the reservation allowed under paragraph (1) shall be permitted.

• Article XXIII(1)–​(2), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (1973) 993 UNTS 243: 1. The provisions of the present Convention shall not be subject to general reservations. Specific reservations may be entered in accordance with the provisions of this Article and Articles XV and XVI. 2. Any State may, on depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, enter a specific reservation with regard to: (a) any species included in Appendix I, II or III; or (b) any parts or derivatives specified in relation to a species included in Appendix III.

6. For parts other than the main treaty text • Article XXII, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (1992) 1974 UNTS 45: The Articles of this Convention shall not be subject to reservations. The Annexes of this Convention shall not be subject to reservations incompatible with its object and purpose.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  681

7. With respect to excluding certain subjects • Article 10(1), International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999) UN Doc A/​Conf. 188/​6: 1. Any State may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession, or at any time thereafter, reserve the right to exclude the application of this Convention to any or all of the following: (a) ships which are not seagoing; (b) ships not flying the flag of a State Party; (c) claims under article 1, paragraph 1(s).

8. Dependent on the existence of certain factual conditions • Article 2(1)–​(3), Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1989) 1642 UNTS 414: 1. No reservation is admissible to the present Protocol, except for a reservation made at the time of ratification or accession that provides for the application of the death penalty in time of war pursuant to a conviction for a most serious crime of a military nature committed during wartime. 2. The State Party making such a reservation shall at the time of ratification or accession communicate to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations the relevant provisions of its national legislation applicable during wartime. 3. The State Party having made such a reservation shall notify the Secretary-​General of the United Nations of any beginning or ending of a state of war applicable to its territory.

• Article 32(4), Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) 1019 UNTS 175: A State on whose territory there are plants growing wild which contain psychotropic substances from among those in Schedule I and which are traditionally used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites, may, at the time of signature, ratification or accession, make reservations concerning these plants, in respect of the provisions of article 7, except for the provisions relating to international trade.

9. So long as it relates to one or more specific provisions • Article 13, Inter-​American Convention on Personality and Capacity of Juridical Persons in Private International Law (1984) 1752 UNTS 237: Each State may, at the time of signature, ratification or accession, make reservations to this Convention, provided that each reservation concerns one or more specific provisions.

C.  Admissibility of reservations 1. Admissible on unanimous acceptance or in the absence of objections • Article XII, Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (1993) 2221 UNTS 91: Acceptance of this Agreement may be made subject to reservations which shall become effective only upon unanimous acceptance by all Parties to this Agreement. The

682  Treaty Clauses and Instruments Director-​General shall notify forthwith all Parties of any reservation. Parties not having replied within three months from the date of the notification shall be deemed to have accepted the reservation. Failing such acceptance, the State or regional economic integration organization making the reservation shall not become a Party to this Agreement.

2. Incompatible or inhibitive if two-​thirds of the parties object • Article 20(1)–​(2), International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1966) 660 UNTS 195: 1. The Secretary-​General of the United Nations shall receive and circulate to all States which are or may become Parties to this Convention reservations made by States at the time of ratification or accession. Any State which objects to the reservation shall, within a period of ninety days from the date of the said communication, notify the Secretary-​General that it does not accept it. 2. A reservation incompatible with the object and purpose of this Convention shall not be permitted, nor shall a reservation the effect of which would inhibit the operation of any of the bodies established by this Convention be allowed. A reservation shall be considered incompatible or inhibitive if at least two thirds of the States Parties to this Convention object to it.

3. Permitted absent objection by one-​third of parties • Article 32(3), Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) 1019 UNTS 175: A State which desires to become a Party but wishes to be authorized to make reservations other than those made in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 4 may inform the Secretary-​ General of such intention. Unless by the end of twelve months after the date of the Secretary-​ General’s communication of the reservation concerned, this reservation has been objected to by one third of the States that have signed without reservation of ratification, ratified or acceded to this Convention before the end of that period, it shall be deemed to be permitted, it being understood however that States which have objected to the reservation need not assume towards the reserving State any legal obligation under this Convention which is affected by the reservation.

4.  Permitted after entry into force of the treaty for a Party • Article 8(3), UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2019, not yet in force) : 3. Reservations may be made by a Party to the Convention at any time. Reservations made at the time of signature shall be subject to confirmation upon ratification, acceptance or approval. Such reservations shall take effect simultaneously with the entry into force of this Convention in respect of the Party to the Convention concerned. Reservations made at the time of ratification, acceptance or approval of this Convention or accession thereto, or at the time of making a declaration under article 13 shall take effect

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  683 simultaneously with the entry into force of this Convention in respect of the Party to the Convention concerned. Reservations deposited after the entry into force of the Convention for that Party to the Convention shall take effect six months after the date of the deposit.

D. Withdrawing reservations 1. Withdrawal at any time • Article 46(2), Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) 2515 UNTS 3: Reservations may be withdrawn at any time.

2. Effective on notice • Article 28(3), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) 1249 UNTC 13: Reservations may be withdrawn at any time by notification to this effect addressed to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, who shall then inform all States thereof. Such notification shall take effect on the date on which it is received.

• Article 25(2), The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 2. A State Party may withdraw its reservation at any time by notification to this effect addressed to the Depositary.

3. Withdrawal of individual reservations • Article 3(3) and 4(6), UN Convention on Transparency in Treaty-​Based Investor-​State Arbitration (2014) :

3.

Reservations Article 3 Parties may make multiple reservations in a single instrument. In such an instrument, each declaration made: (a) In respect of a specific investment treaty under paragraph (l)(a); (b) In respect of a specific set of arbitration rules or procedures under paragraph (1)(6); (c) Under paragraph (l)(c); or (d) Under paragraph (2); shall constitute a separate reservation capable of separate withdrawal under article 4(6) . . .

Formulation of Reservations Article 4 6. Any Party that makes a reservation under this Convention may withdraw it at any time. Such withdrawals are to be deposited with the depositary, and shall take effect upon deposit.

684  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

4. Partial withdrawal permitted • Article 15, Convention on Customs Treatment of Pool Containers Used in International Transport (1994) 2000 UNTS 289: . . . Any Contracting Party which has entered reservations may withdraw them, in whole or in part, at any time, by notification to the depositary specifying the date on which such withdrawal takes effect.

• Article 30(2), COE Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property (2017) CETS 221 2. Each Party which has made a reservation may, at any time, withdraw it entirely or partially by a notification addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. The withdrawal shall take effect from the date of the receipt of such notification by the Secretary General.

8.  Declarations and Notifications Reservations are not the only statements that may accompany treaty signature or consent. The most important alternatives are:  (i) interpretative declarations; (ii) optional declarations; (iii) mandatory declarations; and (iv) notifications.41 As Chapter 12 explains, States frequently issue ‘interpretative declarations’. Unlike reservations, interpretative declarations do not purport to modify or exclude the treaty’s provisions; rather, they clarify how the State understands the treaty’s scope or meaning.42 Thus, whatever interpretative significance they have, such declarations do not alter the treaty commitments assumed. In contrast, optional declarations do allow States or IOs to assume additional or different commitments on joining the treaty than those they would have absent a declaration. Mandatory declarations are also legally binding on their authors. These are issued on joining the treaty (or soon thereafter) in response to requirements for information on how the declaration’s author will perform the treaty, whether by giving content to a particular provision, delimiting competences, or choosing to opt in (or out) of some specific obligation or procedure. Notifications may perform similar functions, or may simply pass along relevant information concerning the treaty and its implementation. Treaties only occasionally contain provisions for interpretative declarations. In contrast, optional and mandatory declarations are almost always responsive to particular treaty clauses. Those clauses are often quite specific in terms of the declaration’s required timing, scope, or format. The same holds true for clauses involving notifications. Moreover, unlike reservations clauses, provisions on declarations and notifications may be found throughout the treaty text, not just in its final clauses. 41 There is also a fifth option, where States make ‘political’ statements in signing, ratifying, or acceding that are not intended to have legal effects with respect to the treaty itself. See Chapter 12, Section I, n 12 and accompanying text. 42 The ILC has suggested, however, that ‘conditional interpretative declarations’ (those that condition consent on the specific interpretation proposed) should be treated like reservations. See ILC, ‘Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties’ [2011] YBILC, vol II(3), 23 et seq Guideline 1.4.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  685

A.  Provision for interpretative declarations • Articles 42–​43, Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (1995) 2167 UNTS 3: Article 42 No reservations or exceptions may be made to this agreement. Article 43 Article 42 does not preclude a State or entity, when signing, ratifying or acceding to this Agreement, from making declarations or statements, however phrased or named, with a view, inter alia, to the harmonization of its laws and regulations with the provisions of this Agreement, provided that such declarations or statements do not purport to exclude or to modify the legal effect of the provisions of this Agreement in their application to that State or entity.

B.  Provisions for optional declarations 1. That modify the commitment otherwise assumed • Article 10(2), International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999) UN Doc A/​ CONF.188.6: A State may, when it is also a State Party to a specified treaty on navigation on inland waterways, declare when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to this Convention, that rules on jurisdiction, recognition and execution of court decisions provided for in such treaties shall prevail over the rules contained in article 7 of this Convention.

• Article 124, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: Notwithstanding article 12, paragraphs 1 and 2, a State, on becoming a party to this Statute, may declare that, for a period of seven years after the entry into force of this Statute for the State concerned, it does not accept the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to the category of crimes referred to in article 8 when a crime is alleged to have been committed by its nationals or on its territory. A declaration under this article may be withdrawn at any time. The provisions of this article shall be reviewed at the Review Conference convened in accordance with article 123, paragraph 1.

• Article 26(1)–​(3), UNIDROIT Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods (1983) : (1) Two or more Contracting States which have the same or closely related legal rules on matters governed by this Convention may at any time declare that the Convention is not to apply where the principal and the third party or, in the case referred to in Article 2, paragraph 2, the agent and the third party have their places of business in those States. Such declarations may be made jointly or by reciprocal unilateral declarations. (2) A Contracting State which has the same or closely related legal rules on matters governed by this Convention as one or more non-​Contracting States may at any time declare that the Convention is not to apply where the principal and the third party

686  Treaty Clauses and Instruments or, in the case referred to in Article 2, paragraph 2, the agent and the third party have their places of business in those States. (3) If a State which is the object of a declaration under the preceding paragraph subsequently becomes a Contracting State, the declaration made will, as from the date on which the Convention enters into force in respect of the new Contracting State, have the effect of a declaration made under paragraph 1, provided that the new Contracting State joins in such declaration or makes a reciprocal unilateral declaration.

2.  That add to the commitment otherwise assumed • Article 25(2)–​(3), Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: 2. When ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to this Convention, or at any time thereafter, a Party that is not a regional economic integration organization may declare in a written instrument submitted to the Depositary that, with regard to any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention, it recognizes one or both of the following means of dispute settlement as compulsory in relation to any Party accepting the same obligation: (a) Arbitration in accordance with the procedure set out in Part I of Annex E; (b) Submission of the dispute to the International Court of Justice. 3. A Party that is a regional economic integration organization may make a declaration with like effect in relation to arbitration in accordance with paragraph 2.

• Article 22(1), (8), Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) 1465 UNTS 85: 1. A State Party to this Convention may at any time declare under this article that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from or on behalf of individuals subject to its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party of the provisions of the Convention. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party which has not made such a declaration . . . 8. The provisions of this article shall come into force when five States Parties to this Convention have made declarations under paragraph 1 of this article. Such declarations shall be deposited by the States Parties with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, who shall transmit copies thereof to the other States Parties. A declaration may be withdrawn at any time by notification to the Secretary-​General. Such a withdrawal shall not prejudice the consideration of any matter which is the subject of a communication already transmitted under this article; no further communication by or on behalf of an individual shall be received under this article after the notification of withdrawal of the declaration has been received by the Secretary-​General, unless the State Party has made a new declaration.

C.  Provisions for mandatory declarations 1. That clarify or elaborate on the content of the obligations assumed • Article 3(2), Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000) 2173 UNTS 222: Each State Party shall deposit a binding declaration upon ratification of or accession to this Protocol that sets forth the minimum age at which it will permit voluntary recruitment into

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  687 its national armed forces and a description of the safeguards that it has adopted to ensure that such recruitment is not forced or coerced.

• Article III(1)(a)(i), (ii), (v), Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (1992) 1974 UNTS 45: Each State Party shall submit to the Organization, not later than 30 days after this Convention enters into force for it, the following declarations, in which it shall: (a) With respect to chemical weapons: (i) Declare whether it owns or possesses any chemical weapons, or whether there are any chemical weapons located in any place under its jurisdiction or control; (ii) Specify the precise location, aggregate quantity and detailed inventory of chemical weapons it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control . . . (v) Provide its general plan for destruction of chemical weapons that it owns or possesses, or that are located in any place under its jurisdiction or control . . .

• Article 2, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017, not yet in force) [2018] 57 ILM 347: 1. Each State Party shall submit to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, not later than 30 days after this Treaty enters into force for that State Party, a declaration in which it shall: (a) Declare whether it owned, possessed or controlled nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices and eliminated its nuclear-​weapon programme, including the elimination or irreversible conversion of all nuclear-​weapons-​related facilities, prior to the entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party; (b) Notwithstanding Article 1 (a), declare whether it owns, possesses or controls any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; (c) Notwithstanding Article 1 (g), declare whether there are any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or in any place under its jurisdiction or control that are owned, possessed or controlled by another State . . .  2. The Secretary-​General of the United Nations shall transmit all such declarations received to the States Parties.

2. That declare the extent of competence • Article 25(3), Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) 2256 UNTS 119: In its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, a regional economic integration organization shall declare the extent of its competence in respect of the matters governed by this Convention. Any such organization shall also inform the depositary, who shall in turn inform the Parties, of any relevant modification in the extent of its competence.

• Article 47(2)(a), Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea of 10 December 1982 Relating to the

688  Treaty Clauses and Instruments Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks (1995) 2167 UNTS 3: In cases where an international organization referred to in Annex IX, article 1, of the Convention has competence over all the matters governed by this Agreement, the following provisions shall apply to participation by such international organization in this Agreement: (a) at the time of signature or accession, such international organization shall make a declaration stating: (i) that it has competence over all the matters governed by this Agreement; (ii) that, for this reason, its member States shall not become States Parties, except in respect of their territories for which the international organization has no responsibility; and (iii) that it accepts the rights and obligations of States under this Agreement . . . 

3. That require a selection among alternatives • Article 1(B)(1), Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) 189 UNTS 137: For the purposes of this Convention, the words ‘events occurring before 1 January 1951’ in article 1, section A, shall be understood to mean either (a) ‘events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951’; or (b) ‘events occurring in Europe or elsewhere before 1 January 1951’ and each Contracting State shall make a declaration at the time of signature, ratification or accession, specifying which of these meanings it applies for the purpose of its obligations under this Convention.

D.  Conditions on the formation and withdrawal of declarations • Article 97, Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) 1489 UNTS 3: 1. Declarations made under this Convention at the time of signature are subject to confirmation upon ratification, acceptance or approval. 2. Declarations and confirmations of declarations are to be in writing and be formally notified to the depositary. 3. A declaration takes effect simultaneously with the entry into force of this Convention in respect of the State concerned. However, a declaration of which the depositary receives formal notification after such entry into force takes effect on the first day of the month following the expiration of six months after the date of its receipt by the depositary. Reciprocal unilateral declarations under article 94 take effect on the first day of the month following the expiration of six months after the receipt of the latest declaration by the depositary. 4. Any State which makes a declaration under this Convention may withdraw it at any time by a formal notification in writing addressed to the depositary. Such withdrawal is to take effect on the first day of the month following the expiration of six months after the date of the receipt of the notification by the depositary. 5. A withdrawal of a declaration made under article 94 renders inoperative, as from the date on which the withdrawal takes effect, any reciprocal declaration made by another State under that article.

Conditions on Joining a Treaty  689 • Article 25(4)–​(5), The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 4. A declaration made pursuant to paragraph 2 or 3 shall remain in force until it expires in accordance with its terms or until three months after written notice of its revocation has been deposited with the Depositary. 5. The expiry of a declaration, a notice of revocation or a new declaration shall in no way affect proceedings pending before an arbitral tribunal or the International Court of Justice, unless the parties to the dispute otherwise agree.

E.  Notifications • Article 7(3), International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) 2178 UNTS 197: Upon ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to this Convention, each State Party shall notify the Secretary-​General of the United Nations of the jurisdiction it has established in accordance with paragraph 2. Should any change take place, the State Party concerned shall immediately notify the Secretary-​General.

• Article 45(4), Convention on Road Traffic (1968) 1042 UNTS 17: On signing this Convention or on depositing its instrument of ratification or accession, each State shall notify the Secretary-​General of the distinguishing sign it has selected for display in international traffic on vehicles registered by it, in accordance with Annex 3 to this Convention. By a further notification addressed to the Secretary-​General, any State may change a distinguishing sign it has previously selected.

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination 9.  Languages Most treaties as part of their final clauses or testimonium will address the language(s) in which the treaty is ‘Done . . . in’ or concluded. Treaties may be negotiated and concluded in a single language, which may or may not be the native language of the negotiating parties. More often, however, the treaty text will be finalized or ‘authenticated’ in multiple languages (and sometimes irrespective of what language(s) the negotiations themselves employ).43 In such cases, it is important to recall that there is only a single ‘treaty’, consisting of all the different languages in which it is finalized.44 Article 33(1) VCLT makes clear that ‘when a treaty has been authenticated in two or more languages, the text is equally authoritative in each language, unless the treaty provides or the parties agree that, in case of divergence, a particular text shall prevail’. Where a treaty is authenticated in multiple languages, it may simply confirm the general rule. In the UN context, for example, treaties are generally equally authentic in the UN’s six official languages—​Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. In other cases, a clause or testimonium may provide that one or more of a treaty’s authenticated texts should prevail in cases of divergence. It is also possible that a treaty will be translated into languages other than the authenticated ones. Article 33(2) VCLT indicates that in such circumstances, another ‘version’ may be considered ‘an authentic text only if the treaty so provides or if the parties so agree’. Thus, a treaty may contain a clause contemplating future authentication in additional languages. Or, additional authenticated languages may be added by separate agreement.

A.  Original authentic texts 1. A single authentic text • Testimonium, Air Transport Agreement (Belize-​US) 2018 TIAS 18-​1016: IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, being duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this Agreement. DONE at Belmopan this 16 day of October 2018, in two originals, in the English language.

• Testimonium, Central European Free Trade Agreement (Czech Republic-​Hungary-​ Poland-​Slovakia) (1992) 34 ILM 8: Done at Krakow this 21st day of December 1992 in a single authentic copy in the English language which shall be deposited with the Government of Poland. 43 Although many multilateral negotiating conferences conduct formal negotiations in multiple ‘working’ or ‘official’ languages, informal negotiations often occur in a single language, which today is mostly English but still occasionally French. Thus, a treaty is regularly drawn up in a single language, and translated into other texts. A process known as, of all things, the toilette finale, is then employed prior to authentication to ensure that all language texts are consistent. 44 The issues of authentication and multiple language texts are discussed in Chapter 11, Section I.A, 263 et seq, while Chapter 19, Section II.C, 475 et seq, discusses how different languages impact treaty interpretation.

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  691

2. Two or more equally authentic texts • Article 33, UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property (2004) UN Doc A/​59/​508: The Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts of the present Convention are equally authentic.

• Testimonium, Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region (1997) 2136 UNTS 3: Done at Lisbon on 11 April 1997, in the English, French, Russian and Spanish languages, the four texts being equally authoritative.45

• Testimonium, Agreement on the Settlement of Certain Outstanding Claims (US-​Albania) (1995) 34 ILM 597: Done at Tirana, in duplicate in the English and Albanian languages, both languages being equally authentic, this 10th day of March, 1995.

• Article 29, The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: The original of this Agreement, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

• Testimonium, Agreement on the short-​stay visa waiver (European Union-​Republic of Trinidad and Tobago) (2015) OJ L173, 66: Done in duplicate in the Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish languages, each text being equally authentic.

3. Two or more equally authentic texts subject to verification • Testimonium, Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (2001) 2307 UNTS 285: DONE at Cape Town, this sixteenth day of November, two thousand and one, in a single original in the English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish languages, all texts being equally authentic, such authenticity to take effect upon verification by the Joint Secretariat of the Conference under the authority of the President of the Conference within ninety days hereof as to the conformity of the texts with one another.

4. Two or more equally authentic texts, with a prevailing language in the case of divergence • Testimonium, Agreement on the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments (Qatar-​Italy) (2003) 2296 UNTS 239: Done at Rome on 22-​03-​00 in two originals, in the Arabic, Italian and English languages, all texts being equally authentic. In case of any divergence, the English text shall prevail.

45

For a discussion of what ‘authoritative’ means see Chapter 19, Section II.C, 475 et seq.

692  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Testimonium, Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes Relating to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, to the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union and to the Administrative Regulations (1992) 1825 UNTS 3: IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed this Protocol in each of the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish languages, in a single copy within which, in case of discrepancy, the French text shall prevail . . .

B.  Authentication of other language versions 1. Pursuant to the original treaty • Testimonium, Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (EU-​Japan) (2009) [2010] OJ L39/​20: DONE in duplicate, in the English and Japanese languages, both texts being equally authentic, and signed at Brussels on the thirtieth day of November 2009, and at Tokyo on the [fifteenth] day of December 2009. This Agreement shall also be drawn up in the Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish languages, and the Contracting Parties shall authenticate those language versions by an exchange of diplomatic notes.

• Testimonium, International Tropical Timber Agreement (1983) 1393 UNTS 671: DONE at Geneva on the eighteenth day of November, one thousand nine hundred and eighty-​three, the texts of this Agreement in the Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish languages being equally authentic. The authentic Chinese text of this Agreement shall be established by the depositary and submitted for adoption to all signatories and States and intergovernmental organizations which have acceded to this Agreement.

2. By subsequent amendment • Articles I–​II, Protocol 1 on the Authentic Trilingual Text of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago, 1944) (1968) 740 UNTS 21: Article I The text of the Convention in the French and Spanish languages annexed to this Protocol, together with the text of the Convention in the English language, constitutes the text equally authentic in the three languages as specifically referred to in the last paragraph of the Convention. Article II If a State party to this Protocol has ratified or in the future ratifies any amendment made to the Convention in accordance with Article 94(a) thereof, then the text of such amendment in the English, French and Spanish languages shall be deemed to refer to the text, equally authentic in the three languages, which results from this Protocol.

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  693

10.  Annexes Annexes are important instruments attached to a treaty’s text. Together with that text (and the preamble) annexes form part of the treaty’s ‘context’ for interpretative purposes under Article 31 VCLT. Annexes thus must be differentiated from other instruments (eg declarations, final acts, agreed minutes) accompanying a treaty’s conclusion. Although they usually do not contain the treaty’s core commitments, Annexes perform important functions, including (but not limited to) dividing parties into groups, listing individual party commitments, designating materials subject to regulation, providing technical standards, or offering understandings of the treaty’s main provisions. Annexes may have other titles, including schedule, appendix, or protocol (although a protocol may also be a separate treaty so care should be taken in using that term). Where annexes are present, a clause will frequently clarify that they are an ‘integral’ part of the treaty, although sometimes their status is left to inference. In other cases, a clause may qualify more precisely the annexes’ relationship to the rest of the treaty, by limiting it to interpretative purposes or making its application voluntary.46 Finally, some treaties are concluded without annexes but contain a provision for their future adoption.

A.  Annexes as integral parts of the treaty • Article XIV(1), Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (US-​Russian Federation) (New START Agreement) (2010) 50 ILM 340: This Treaty, including its Protocol, which is an integral part thereof, shall be subject to ratification in accordance with the constitutional procedures of each Party . . .

• Article 17, Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network (2003) 2323 UNTS 37: Annexes I, II and III to the Agreement shall form an integral part of this Agreement.

• Article XX(1), (3), WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (1994) 33 ILM 1167: 1. Each Member shall set out in a schedule the specific commitments it undertakes under Part III of this Agreement . . . 3. Schedules of specific commitments shall be annexed to this Agreement and shall form an integral part thereof.

B.  Differently titled attachments • Article 30.1, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-​Pacific Partnership (Canada-​Australia-​Japan-​Mexico-​New Zealand-​Singapore-​Vietnam) (2019) at : The Annexes, Appendices and footnotes to this Agreement shall constitute an integral part of this Agreement.

46

For a discussion of annex amendments and related clauses, see Heading 20 of this Part.

694  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Article 15, Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EU-​Solomon Islands) (2010) [2010] OJ L190/​3: The Protocol and the Annex shall form an integral part of this Agreement.

C.  Qualifications on annex’s relationship to the treaty or its contents • Technical Annex, Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (Protocol V) (2003) 2399 UNTS 100: This Technical Annex contains suggested best practice for achieving the objectives contained in Articles 4, 5 and 9 of this Protocol. This Technical Annex will be implemented by High Contracting Parties on a voluntary basis.

• Article 23(2), The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: 2. Annexes to this Agreement shall form an integral part thereof and, unless otherwise expressly provided for, a reference to this Agreement constitutes at the same time a reference to any annexes thereto. Such annexes shall be restricted to lists, forms and any other material of a descriptive nature that is of a scientific, technical, procedural or administrative character.

• Article 29(2)–(3), WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) 2302 UNTS 166: 2. Annexes to the Convention shall form an integral part thereof and, unless otherwise expressly provided, a reference to the Convention constitutes at the same time a reference to any annexes thereto. 3. Annexes shall be restricted to lists, forms and any other descriptive material relating to procedural, scientific, technical or administrative matters.

D.  Provision for additional annexes • Article 27(2)–​(3), (5), Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: 2. Any additional annexes adopted after the entry into force of this Convention shall be restricted to procedural, scientific, technical or administrative matters. 3. The following procedure shall apply to the proposal, adoption and entry into force of additional annexes to this Convention: (a) Additional annexes shall be proposed and adopted according to the procedure laid down in paragraphs 1-​3 of Article 26; (b) Any Party that is unable to accept an additional annex shall so notify the Depositary, in writing, within one year from the date of communication by the Depositary of the adoption of such annex. The Depositary shall without delay notify all Parties of any such notification received. A Party may at any time notify the Depositary, in writing, that it withdraws a previous notification of non-​acceptance in respect of an additional annex, and the annex shall thereupon enter into force for that Party subject to subparagraph (c); and

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  695 (c) On the expiry of one year from the date of the communication by the Depositary of the adoption of an additional annex, the annex shall enter into force for all Parties that have not submitted a notification of nonacceptance in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph (b) . . .  5. If an additional annex or an amendment to an annex is related to an amendment to this Convention, the additional annex or amendment shall not enter into force until such time as the amendment to the Convention enters into force.

11.  Entry into Force A treaty becomes legally binding when it enters into force. It does so, however, only for those who have consented to it. Absent provisions giving rise to third party rights or obligations of the sort discussed under Heading 16 below, treaties are binding on States, IOs, or other qualified subjects of international law only if (and when) they individually consent to be bound.47 Where a treaty is open to additional participants, they may consent after the treaty has initially entered into force, in which case the treaty will enter into force for them individually on the date of that consent or some specified date thereafter. Chapter 9 reviews the relevant law and practice relating to entry into force. Like other areas of treaty law, the primary rule defers to treaty-​makers; Article 24 VCLT provides that a treaty enters into force ‘in such manner and upon such date as it may provide or as the negotiating States may agree’.48 The manner of that agreement varies depending on whether a treaty is bilateral or multilateral. Bilateral treaties regularly provide for entry into force on the occurrence of a specific act (eg signature) or date (eg a certain number of days after an exchange of instruments). A multilateral treaty’s entry into force will require the consent of at least two States (or other qualified actors) and its final clauses may require larger numbers of States or the consent of specific ones. The treaty may also provide for entry into force on a specific date or the satisfaction of certain conditions that can range widely in terms of their complexity. Responsibility for determining whether (and when exactly) the conditions necessary for entry into force are fulfilled usually lies with any designated depositary and, in the absence of one, the parties themselves. It is important, moreover, to distinguish a treaty’s entry into force from its legal effects. Certain treaty provisions (such as an entry into force clause) must necessarily have legal effect before a treaty enters into force.49 And after it enters into force, a treaty may apply its provisions retroactively or leave their effectiveness to some later date.

47 Where a treaty provision codifies (or comes to codify) customary international law, it may bind non-​parties, but it does so by virtue of the provision’s status as custom, not by virtue of pacta sunt servanda. 48 Where a treaty is silent on its entry into force—​which is very rare today—​it is presumed to enter into force on signature or whenever the negotiating States have otherwise indicated their consent to be bound. 49 See Art 24(4) VCLT (‘The provisions of a treaty regulating the authentication of its text, the establishment of the consent of States to be bound by the treaty, the manner or date of its entry into force, reservations, the functions of the depositary and other matters arising necessarily before the entry into force of the treaty apply from the time of the adoption of its text’).

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A.  Bilateral agreements: entry into force 1. On signature • Article 11, Agreement on British Armed Forces’ Training in Canada (Canada-​UK) (2006) CTS 2006/​17: This Agreement shall enter into force upon signature . . .

• Article IV, Acquisition Agreement (Afghanistan-​US) (2012) 12 TIAS 1230: This agreement shall enter into force on the date of the last signature . . .

• Article 7, Agreement on intensifying and broadening the Agreement of 28 May 1997 on customs co-​operation and mutual assistance in customs matters to include co-​operation on Container Security and related matters (EC-​US) (2004) [2004] OJ L304/​34: This Agreement shall enter into force upon signature by the Parties which shall have the effect of expressing their consent to be bound. If the Agreement is not signed the same day on behalf of both Parties, the Agreement shall enter into force on the day on which the second signature is affixed.

2. On exchange of instruments of ratification • Article XIV, Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (US-​Russian Federation) (New START Agreement) (2010) 50 ILM 340: This Treaty, including its Protocol, which is an integral part thereof, shall be subject to ratification in accordance with the constitutional procedures of each Party. This Treaty shall enter into force on the date of the exchange of instruments of ratification.

• Article 12(2), Agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Principality of Andorra on the exchange of information relating to tax returns (2010) 2810 UNTS 49301: This agreement shall enter into force on the date of exchange of the instruments of ratification and its provisions shall have effect:  . . . 

3. On a date following exchange of notifications concerning the completion of procedures necessary for entry into force • Article 14, Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leona on the establishment of a Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (2010) 2871 UNTS 50115: The present Agreement shall enter into force on the day after both Parties have notified each other in writing that the legal requirements for entry into fore have been complied with . . . 

• Article 15, Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region-​United Arab Emirates) (2019, not in force)

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  697 : This Agreement shall enter into force thirty days after the date on which the Contracting Parties have notified each other in writing that their respective requirements for the entry into force of this Agreement have been complied with.

• Article 22, Agreement on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Customs Matters (The Netherlands-​Philippines) (2011) 2011 Trb 67: This Agreement shall enter into force on the first day of the second month after the Contracting Parties have notified each other in writing through diplomatic channels that the constitutional or internal requirements for the entry into force of this Agreement have been complied with.

• Article XV, Agreement between the Slovak Republic and Canada for the promotion and protection of investments (2010) 2817 UNTS 49389: Each Contracting Party shall notify the other in writing of the completion of the procedure required in its territory for the entry into force of this agreement. This Agreement shall enter into force three months after the latter of the two notifications . . . 

4. On satisfaction of multiple conditions • Article 6, Agreement on Trade in Bananas (EU-​US) (2010) [2010] OJ L141/​6: The United States and the EU shall notify each other in writing of the completion of the internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of this Agreement. This Agreement shall enter into force on the later of: (a) the date of the last notification referred to in the previous sentence; and (b) the date of entry into force of the [General Agreement on Trade in Bananas] . . .

B.  Multilateral treaties: entry into force 1. On signature • Article XII, Agreement concerning the replacement of highly enriched uranium by low enriched uranium (International Atomic Energy Agency-​Mexico-​US) (2011) 2803 UNTS 49286: This Agreement shall enter into force upon signature by or for the Director General of the Agency and by the authorized representatives of Mexico and the United States.

2. On a set date with exchange of notifications • Article 2203, North American Free Trade Agreement (1992) 32 ILM 612: This Agreement shall enter into force on January 1, 1994, on an exchange of written notifications certifying the completion of necessary legal procedures.

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3. On a date following deposit of ratification instruments by all negotiating parties • Article 6, Treaty of Lisbon Amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty Establishing the European Community (2007) [2007] OJ C306/​1: 1. This Treaty shall be ratified by the High Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements . . . 2. This Treaty shall enter into force on 1 January 2009, provided that all the instruments of ratification have been deposited, or, failing that, on the first day of the month following the deposit of the instrument of ratification by the last signatory State to take this step.

4. On a date following deposit of a specific number of instruments50 • Article 126(1), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: This Statute shall enter into force on the first day of the month after the 60th day following the date of the deposit of the 60th instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

• Article 58, Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949) 75 UNTS 31: The present Convention shall come into force six months after not less than two instruments of ratification have been deposited.

5. On a date following deposit of a specific number of instruments, including those of certain States or percentages of States • Article 42(1), International Coffee Agreement (2007) [2008] OJ L186/​13: This Agreement shall enter into force definitively when signatory Governments holding at least two-​thirds of the votes of the exporting Members and signatory Governments holding at least two-​thirds of the votes of the importing Members, calculated as at 28 September 2007, without reference to possible suspension under the terms of Article 21, have deposited instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval. Alternatively, it shall enter into force definitively at any time if it is provisionally in force in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 2 of this Article and these percentage requirements are satisfied by the deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval.

• Article 21(1), The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: This Agreement shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 per cent of the total

50 In cases where a regional economic integration organization (REIO) or regional integration organization (RIO) joins a treaty in addition to its Member States, the treaty will normally not count their instruments of acceptance or approval for purposes of determining when it enters into force. A sample of such a clause is included under this heading at B.7, but these clauses are not otherwise repeated here.

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  699 global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.

• Article 28.1, International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2001) 2400 UNTS 303: Subject to the provisions of Article 29.2, this Treaty shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the deposit of the fortieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, provided that at least twenty instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession have been deposited by Members of FAO.

• Article 10(2), Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2015) OJ L159/​17: This Protocol shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the expiration of a period of three months after the deposit of the sixth instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, including at least four member States of the Council of Europe.

• Article 25(3)(a)–​(b), International Space Station Agreement (1998) TIAS 12927: (a) This Agreement shall enter into force on the date on which the last instrument of ratification, acceptance, or approval of Japan, Russia and the United States has been deposited . . . (b) This Agreement shall not enter into force for a European Partner State before it enters into force for the European Partner. It shall enter into force for the European Partner after the Depositary receives instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession from at least four European signatory or acceding States, and, in addition, a formal notification by the Chairman of the ESA Council.

6. On a date following deposit of a specific number of instruments, including an IO’s • Article 25(1), Agreement establishing the EU-​LAC International Foundation (2016) OJ L288/​3: This Agreement shall enter into force thirty days after eight Parties of each region, including the Federal Republic of Germany and the EU, have deposited their respective instruments of ratification or accession with the depositary. For the other Latin American and Caribbean States and EU Member States that deposit their instruments of ratification or accession after the date of the entry into force, this Agreement shall enter into force thirty days after the deposit by those Latin American and Caribbean States and EU Member States of their instruments of ratification or accession.

7. On a date following deposit of a specific number of instruments not including those of an IO • Article 38(1), United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) 2225 UNTS 209: This Convention shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the fortieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession. For the purpose of

700  Treaty Clauses and Instruments this paragraph, any instrument deposited by a regional economic integration organization shall not be counted as additional to those deposited by member States of such organization.

8. Following deposit of a specific number of instruments and entry into force of the underlying treaty • Article 22(1), Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) 2241 UNTS 507: This Protocol shall enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of the fortieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, except that it shall not enter into force before the entry into force of the Convention.

9. On a set date or later date following satisfaction of conditions • Article 16(1), Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) 1522 UNTS 3: This Protocol shall enter into force on 1 January 1989, provided that at least eleven instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval of the Protocol or accession thereto have been deposited by States or regional economic integration organizations representing at least two thirds of 1986 estimated global consumption of the controlled substances, and the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 17 of the Convention have been fulfilled. In the event that these conditions have not been fulfilled by this date, the Protocol shall enter into force on the ninetieth day following the date on which the conditions have been fulfilled.

10. By mutual agreement of certain parties • Article 42(4), International Coffee Agreement (2007) [2008] OJ L186/​13: If this Agreement has not entered into force definitively or provisionally by 25 September 2009 under the provisions of paragraph 1 or 2 of this Article, those signatory Governments which have deposited instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval, in accordance with their laws and regulations, may, by mutual consent, decide that it shall enter into force definitively among themselves.

C.  Joining a treaty after conditions for its entry into force are satisfied • Article 15(2), Food Assistance Convention (2012) 2884 UNTS 50320: For any State or Separate Customs Territory, or the European Union, that ratifies, accepts, approves, or accedes to the Convention after the Convention enters into force, this Convention shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification, approval, acceptance, or accession.

• Article 31(1), The Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: For each State or regional economic integration organization that ratifies, accepts or approves this Convention or accedes thereto after the deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, the Convention shall enter into force on the ninetieth day

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  701 after the date of deposit by such State or regional economic integration organization of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.

• Article 22(2), Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) 2241 UNTS 507: For each State or regional economic integration organization ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to this Protocol after the deposit of the fortieth instrument of such action, this Protocol shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date of deposit by such State or organization of the relevant instrument or on the date this Protocol enters into force pursuant to paragraph 1 of this article, whichever is later.

• Article 21(2)–​(3), ILO Convention (No. 189)  concerning decent work for domestic workers (2011) 2955 UNTS 51379: 2. [This Convention] shall come into force twelve months after the date on which the ratifications of two Members have been registered with the Director-​General. 3. Thereafter, this Convention shall come into force for any Member twelve months after the date on which its ratification is registered.

D.  Entry into force differentiated from effect 1. Retroactive effect • Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement to further amend and extend the Agreement concerning Space Vehicle Tracking and Communications Facilities of 29 May 1980, as amended (Australia-​US) (2000) [2000] ATS 32: . . . The Agreement shall enter into force with retroactive effect from 26 February 2000, when the Government of Australia advises, via the diplomatic channel, that it has completed the domestic processes necessary to give effect to this Agreement.

• Article 5, Agreement (Austria-​United Nations-​IAEA-​UNIDO-​Prepatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-​Test-​Ban Treaty Organization) (entered into force 9 Sept 2016) I-​54256 : The provisions of this Agreement shall take effect retroactively as of 1 August 2014.

• Article 8, Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Bank Taxes (The Netherlands-​United Kingdom) (entered into force 30 April 2015) I-​52761 : Each of the Contracting States shall notify to the other, through diplomatic channels, the completion of the procedures required by its law for bringing into force this Convention. This Convention shall enter into force on the last day of the month following the month in which the later of these notifications has been received and shall have effect from 1 January 2011. Notice of completion shall be regarded as having been given by a Contracting State on the date of receipt of such notice by the other Contracting State.

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2. Delayed effect following entry into force • Article 29(2), Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income and Capital (Canada-​Gabon) (2002) CTS 2008/​5: The Convention shall enter into force upon the exchange of instruments of ratification and its provisions shall have effect: (a) in respect of taxes withheld at the source on amounts paid or credited to nonresidents, on or after the first day of January in the calendar year immediately following that in which the exchange of instruments of ratification takes place; and (b) in respect of other taxes, for taxation years beginning on or after the first day of January in the calendar year immediately following that in which the exchange of instruments of ratification takes place.

12. The Depositary The depositary plays a critical role as the treaty’s custodian. Of course, not every treaty will have a depositary (bilateral treaties generally do not), but many large multilateral treaties require one given the complications of treaty-​related acts and communications among dozens of actors over long periods of time. The depositary may be the State hosting the negotiations, but more often will be an IO or the IO’s chief administrative officer. Chapter 11 discusses when and how the most prominent depositary—​the Secretary-​General of the United Nations—​performs depositary functions.51 It is now standard practice for a treaty to designate its own depositary either in a stand-​ alone clause or more indirectly. Rarely, more than one depositary may be designated for political or symbolic reasons, but that practice is generally discouraged because of how it complicates depositary functions. As for those functions, some depositary duties—​such as facilitating signature or receipt of instruments of ratification—​necessarily commence on the treaty text’s adoption. That text does not, however, need to detail all depositary functions since the VCLT is now widely recognized as having already done so.52 Nonetheless, treaties will often direct performance in ways that allow the depositary to perform its duties.

A.  Designating the depositary directly 1. A State • Article 58(2), Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (2007) 47 ILM 257: [The Convention] shall be ratified, accepted or approved and the instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval shall be deposited with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, depositary of the Convention. 51 Chapter 11 also assesses the UN Secretary-​General’s central role in registering and publishing treaties in accordance with Art 102 UN Charter. 52 See Art 77 VCLT.

Constituting the Treaty and its Dissemination  703

2. An IO • Article 53(5), Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air (1999) 2242 UNTS 309: Instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the International Civil Aviation Organization, which is hereby designated the Depositary.

3. An IO’s Chief Administrative Officer • Article 26, The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: The Secretary-​General of the United Nations shall be the Depositary of this Agreement.

4. A joint depositary • Article XI.9(1), Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region (1997) 2136 UNTS 3: The Secretary General of the Council of Europe and the Director-​General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization shall be the depositories of this Convention.

B.  Designating the depositary indirectly • Article 128, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: The original of this Statute, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, who shall send certified copies thereof to all States.

• Article XVI, Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the Form of an International Will (1973) [1973] 12 ILM 1298: The original of the present Convention, in the English, French, Russian and Spanish languages, each version being equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Government of the United States of America, which shall transmit certified copies thereof to each of the signatory and acceding States and to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law.

C.  Provisions specifying depositary functions • Article 48, UNIDROIT Convention on Substantive Rules for Intermediated Securities (2009) : 1. Instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with UNIDROIT, which is hereby designated the Depositary. 2. The Depositary shall: (a) inform all Contracting States of: (i) each new signature or deposit of an instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, together with the date thereof;

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(ii) the date of entry into force of this Convention; (iii) each declaration made in accordance with this Convention, together with the date thereof; (iv) the withdrawal or amendment of any declaration, together with the date thereof; and (v) the notification of any denunciation of this Convention together with the date thereof and the date on which it takes effect; (b) transmit certified true copies of this Convention to all Contracting States; and (c) perform such other functions customary for depositaries.

• Article 22(2), Convention on Customs Treatment of Pool Containers used in Inter­ national Transport (1994) 2000 UNTS 289: The functions of the Secretary-​General of the United Nations as depositary shall be as set out in Part VII of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, concluded at Vienna on 23 May 1969.

Applying the Treaty 13. Provisional Application Provisional application is the agreement of some or all negotiating participants to apply one or more of a treaty’s substantive provisions in advance of the treaty’s initial entry into force (or pending its individual entry into force for those agreeing to provisional application).53 That agreement may come in the text of the treaty to be provisionally applied or in some ‘other manner so agreed’, such as a protocol, exchange of notes, or IO resolution.54 When or how provisional application begins may vary, just as its scope may be unqualified or subject to a signatory’s constitution, laws, or regulations. Chapter 10 surveys the complex history of provisional application, its legal effects, and recent attention the concept has received in international arbitral circles and from the ILC. In practice, provisional application clauses may limit their duration (i) to a specific timeframe, which may or may not be extended, or (ii) until such time as the treaty enters into force. Article 25(2) VCLT provides that a party may terminate provisional application on notice ‘[u]‌nless the treaty otherwise provides or the negotiating States have otherwise agreed’. Thus, any right to withdraw or terminate provisional application may be conditioned on the expiration of an agreed notice period. Finally, it is important not to confuse provisional application clauses with those for provisional entry into force, which are still employed in certain contexts (eg multilateral commodity agreements) to avoid gaps in coverage among successive short-​term treaties.55

A.  The timing of provisional application 1. On signature • Article 18(7), Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (2003) 2265 UNTS 5: This agreement shall be applied on a provisional basis from the date of its signature.

• Paragraph 8(b), Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas (2010) [2010] OJ L141/​3: Notwithstanding subparagraph (a), the signatories agree to provisionally apply paragraphs 3, 6 and 7 from the day of signature of this Agreement.

2. On signature, absent a declaration to the contrary • Article 45(1)–​(2), Energy Charter Treaty (1994) 2080 UNTS 95: (1) Each signatory agrees to apply this Treaty provisionally pending its entry into force for such signatory in accordance with Article 44, to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its constitution, laws or regulations. 53 Certain non-​substantive treaty provisions may have legal effect from the treaty’s adoption. See Art 24(4) VCLT. For a detailed discussion of entry into force, see Chapter 9, Section IV, 225 et seq. 54 See Art 25(1) VCLT; Art 25(1) of the 1986 VCLT. 55 See eg International Cocoa Agreement (concluded 25 June 2010, entered into force provisionally 1 October 2012) [2011] 50 ILM 673, Art 57(2)–​(3).

706  Treaty Clauses and Instruments (2) (a) Notwithstanding paragraph (1)  any signatory may, when signing, deliver to the Depository a declaration that it is not able to accept provisional application. The obligation contained in paragraph (1) shall not apply to a signatory making such a declaration. Any such signatory may at any time withdraw that declaration by written notification to the Depository. (b) Neither a signatory which makes a declaration in accordance with subparagraph (a) nor Investors of that signatory may claim the benefits of provisional application under paragraph (1). (c) Notwithstanding subparagraph (a), any signatory making a declaration referred to in subparagraph (a) shall apply Party VII provisionally pending the entry into force of the Treaty for such signatory in accordance with Article 44, to the extent that such provisional application is not inconsistent with its laws or regulations.

3. By declaration or notification • Article 23, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: Any State may at the time of signature or the deposit of instrument of its of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it will apply provisionally Article 6 and Article 7 pending the entry into force of this Treaty for that State.

• Article 15, Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (1986) 1457 UNTS 133: A State may, upon signature or at any later date before this Convention enters into force for it, declare that it will apply this Convention provisionally.

• Article 30, International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives (2015) I-​54201 : 1. A signatory Government which intends to ratify, accept or approve this Agreement, or any Government for which the Council of Members has established conditions for accession but which has not yet been able to deposit its instrument may, at any time, notify the depositary that it will apply this Agreement provisionally when it enters into force in accordance with article 31, or, if it is already in force, at a specified date. 2. A Government which has submitted a notification of provisional application under paragraph 1 of this article will apply this Agreement when it enters into force, or, if it is already in force, at a specified date and shall, from that time, be a Contracting Party. It shall remain a Contracting Party until the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.

4. By declaration or notification subject to domestic law and regulations • Article 38, International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) [2007] OJ L262/​8: A signatory Government which intends to ratify, accept or approve this Agreement, or a Government for which the Council has established conditions for accession but which has not yet been able to deposit its instrument may, at any time, notify the depositary that

Applying the Treaty  707 it will apply this Agreement provisionally in accordance with its laws and regulations, either when it enters into force in accordance with Article 39 or, if it is already in force, at a specified date.

5. From a specified date • Article 25, Air Transport Agreement (US/​EU Open Skies Agreement) (2007) 46 ILM 470: Provisional Application Pending entry into force pursuant to Article 26: (1) The Parties agree to apply this Agreement from 30 March 2008  . . . 

• Article 7(2), Agreement on Certain Aspects of Air Services (EC-​Australia) (2008) [2008] OJ L149/​65: Notwithstanding paragraph 1, the Contracting Parties agree to provisionally apply this Agreement from the first day of the month following the date on which the Contracting Parties have notified each other of the completion of the procedures necessary for this purpose.

6. After consent to be bound, pending entry into force • Article 18, Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (1997) 2056 UNTS 211: Any State may at the time of its ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it will apply provisionally paragraph 1 of Article 1 of this Convention pending its entry into force.

7. By other means • Article 7(1)–​(2), Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (1994) 1836 UNTS 3: 1. If on 16 November 1994 this Agreement has not entered into force, it shall be applied provisionally pending its entry into force by: (a) States which have consented to its adoption in the General Assembly of the United Nations, except any such State which before 16 November 1994 notifies the depositary in writing either that it will not so apply this Agreement or that it will consent to such application only upon subsequent signature or notification in writing; (b) States and entities which sign this Agreement, except any such State or entity which notifies the depositary in writing at the time of signature that it will not so apply this Agreement; (c) States and entities which consent to its provisional application by so notifying the depositary in writing; (d) States which accede to this Agreement. 2. All such States and entities shall apply this Agreement provisionally in accordance with their national or internal laws and regulations, with effect from 16 November 1994 or the date of signature, notification of consent or accession, if later . . .

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B.  Provisional application agreements beyond the treaty text 1. By exchange of notes • Agreement on the Arbitration relating to the Reactivation and Modernization of the Iron Rhine (Belgium-​Netherlands) (2003) 2332 UNTS 481 (PCA translation from Dutch): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the honour to confirm that the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands can agree with the above-​mentioned proposals and that the Note of the Embassy of Belgium and this affirmative Note together constitute an agreement between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium which shall be applied provisionally from the day on which this affirmative Note is received . . .

2. By separate agreement or protocol • Agreement on the provisional application of certain provisions of Protocol 14 [to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms] pending its entry into force (2009) CETS No 194: The Conference of High Contracting Parties agreed by consensus that the provisions regarding the new single-​judge formation and the new competence of the Committees of three judges contained in Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights are to be applied on a provisional basis with respect to those states that express their consent, according to the modalities set out in document CM(2009)71 rev2.

• Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Agreement Establishing an International Science and Technology Center (1993) [1994] OJ L64/​2: The United States of America, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the European Atomic Energy Community and the European Community, acting as one party, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Signatory Parties’, Recognizing the importance of the Agreement Establishing an International Science and Technology Center, signed in Moscow on November 27, 1992, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Agreement’, HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS: Article I 1. The Agreement shall be provisionally applied in accordance with its terms by the Signatory Parties from the date of the last notification of the Signatory Parties of the completion of internal procedures necessary for entry into force of this Protocol. 2. The Agreement shall be applied provisionally until its entry into force in accordance with Article XVIII thereof . . . Article III Any of the Parties may withdraw from this Protocol six months from the date on which written notification is provided to the other parties. Article IV 1. Any state desiring to become a Party to the Agreement in accordance with Article XIII thereof, after fulfilling the conditions set forth in that Article, and after completing its

Applying the Treaty  709 internal procedures that will be necessary for accession to the Agreement, shall notify the Signatory Parties of its intention to provisionally apply the Agreement in accordance with this Protocol. 2. The provisional application by that State shall begin from the date of notification referred to in Paragraph (1) of this Article . . .

3. By IO resolution • ITU Resolution, ‘Provisional application of certain provisions of the Radio Regulations as revised by the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference and abrogation of certain Resolutions and Recommendations’ (2015) ITU Resolution 99 (WRC-​15): The World Radiocommunication Conference (Geneva, 2015), considering a) that this conference has, in accordance with its terms of reference, adopted a partial revision to the Radio Regulations (RR), which will enter into force on 1 January 2017; b) that some of the provisions, as amended by this conference, need to apply provisionally before that date; c) that, as a general rule, new and revised Resolutions and Recommendations enter into force at the time of the signing of the Final Acts of a conference; d) that, as a general rule, Resolutions and Recommendations which a world radiocommuni­ cation conference has decided to suppress are abrogated at the time of the signing of the Final Acts of a conference; resolves that, as of 28 November 2015, the following provisions of the RR, as revised or established by this conference, shall provisionally apply [list omitted] . . .

C.  Duration and termination of provisional application 1. Duration for a specified period of time • Article XVIII(2), Treaty on Open Skies (1992) CTS 2002/​3: This provisional application shall be effective for a period of 12 months from the date when this Treaty is opened for signature. In the event that this Treaty does not enter into force before the period of provisional application expires, that period may be extended if all the signatory States so decide. The period of provisional application shall in any event terminate when this Treaty enters into force. However, the States Parties may then decide to extend the period of provisional application in respect of signatory States that have not ratified this Treaty.

2. Termination effective on the treaty’s entry into force or a date certain • Article 7(3), Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (1994) 1836 UNTS 3: Provisional application shall terminate upon the date of entry into force of this Agreement. In any event, provisional application shall terminate on 16 November 1998 if at that date the

710  Treaty Clauses and Instruments requirement in article 6, paragraph 1, of consent to be bound by this Agreement by at least seven of the States (of which at least five must be developed States) referred to in paragraph 1(a) of resolution II has not been fulfilled.

3. Limitations on duration combined with options for termination • Article 8(4), Agreement Concerning the Participation of the Government of the Kingdom of Norway in the Work of the Agency (IAEA-​Norway) (1975) 14 ILM 641: 4.  Provisional application of this Agreement shall continue until: –​ this Agreement enters into force, or –​ 60 days after the Agency receives notification that the Government will not consent to be bound by this Agreement, or –​ the time limit for notification of consent by the Government, referred to in paragraph 1 above, expires.

4. Withdrawal effective on notice • Article 5, Arrangement on Provisional Application of the Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER [International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor] International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (2006) [2006] OJ L358/​62: A Party may withdraw from this Arrangement upon 120 days' written notice to the other Parties.

• Article 45(3), Energy Charter Treaty (1994) 2080 UNTS 95: (a) Any signatory may terminate its provisional application of this Treaty by written notification to the Depository of its intention not to become a Contracting Party to the Treaty. Termination of provisional application for any signatory shall take effect upon the expiration of 60 days from the date on which such signatory’s written notification is received by the Depository. (b) In the event that a signatory terminates provisional application under subparagraph (a), the obligation of the signatory under paragraph (1) to apply Parts III and V with respect to any Investments made in its Area during such provisional application by Investors of other signatories shall nevertheless remain in effect with respect to those Investments for twenty years following the effective date of termination, except as otherwise provided in subparagraph (c). (c) Subparagraph (b) shall not apply to any signatory listed in Annex PA. A signatory shall be removed from the list in Annex PA effective upon delivery to the Depository of its request therefor.

14.  Territorial and Extraterritorial Application Chapter 13 addresses the territorial application of treaties, including Article 29 VCLT’s relatively short treatment: ‘unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, a treaty is binding upon each party in respect of its entire territory’.

Applying the Treaty  711 Territorial application clauses address the geographic space within which a party is responsible for treaty compliance. These clauses may reinforce the VCLT’s integral territorial application principle. Alternatively, they may express a ‘different intention’, whether by specifying the applicable territory or allowing a State, on notice, to extend (or exclude) the treaty’s application to some or all of its non-​metropolitan territory. A ‘territorial clause’ allows a State comprised of two or more territorial units to indicate to which unit(s) a treaty applies, either at the time it joins the treaty or, in some cases, at any time subsequently. Finally, some clauses may extend (directly or indirectly) a treaty’s application extraterritorially.

A.  Application to all territories 1. Mandatory application • Article IX, Convention on the International Right of Correction (1953) 435 UNTS 191: The provisions of the present Convention shall extend to or be applicable equally to a contracting metropolitan State and to all the territories, be they Non-​Self-​Governing, Trust or Colonial Territories, which are being administered or governed by such metropolitan State.

2. Mandatory application except where consent of territorial unit required • Article 27, Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) 1019 UNTS 175: The Convention shall apply to all non-​metropolitan territories for the international relations of which any Party is responsible except where the previous consent of such a territory is required by the Constitution of the Party or of the territory concerned, or required by custom. In such a case the Party shall endeavor to secure the needed consent of the territory within the shortest period possible, and when the consent is obtained the Party shall notify the Secretary-​General. The Convention shall apply to the territory or territories named in such a notification from the date of its receipt by the Secretary-​General. In those cases where the previous consent of the non-​metropolitan territory is not required, the Party concerned shall, at the time of signature, ratification or accession, declare the non-​metropolitan territory or territories to which this Convention applies.

B.  Application to specified territories • Article 355(1)–​(5), Consolidated Version of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [2010] OJ C83/​47: 1. The provisions of the [EU] Treaties shall apply to Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion, Saint-​Barthélemy, Saint-​Martin, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands in accordance with Article 349. 2. The special arrangements for association set out in Part Four shall apply to the overseas countries and territories listed in Annex II.   The Treaties shall not apply to those overseas countries and territories having special relations with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which are not included in the aforementioned list.

712  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 3. The provisions of the Treaties shall apply to the European territories for whose external relations a Member State is responsible. 4. The provisions of the Treaties shall apply to the Åland Islands in accordance with the provisions set out in Protocol 2 to the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden. 5. Notwithstanding Article 52 of the Treaty on European Union and paragraphs 1 to 4 of this Article: (a) the Treaties shall not apply to the Faeroe Islands; (b) the Treaties shall not apply to the United Kingdom Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia in Cyprus except to the extent necessary to ensure the implementation of the arrangements set out in the Protocol on the Sovereign Base Areas of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Cyprus annexed to the Act concerning the conditions of accession of the [certain listed States] to the European Union and in accordance with the terms of that Protocol; (c) the Treaties shall apply to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man only to the extent necessary to ensure the implementation of the arrangements for those islands set out in the Treaty concerning the accession of new Member States to the European Economic Community and to the European Atomic Energy Community signed on 22 January 1972.

• Article 1, Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Taxes (US-​UK) (2001) : . . . The territorial scope of this agreement, in respect of the United Kingdom, is the territory of the Cayman Islands.

• Article 1, Protocol 1 to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (1986) 1971 UNTS 470: Each Party undertakes to apply, in respect of the territories for which it is internationally responsible situated within the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, the prohibitions contained in Articles 3, 5 and 6 . . . and the safeguards specified in Article 8(2)(c) and Annex 2 of the Treaty.

C.  Exclusion of non-​metropolitan territory 1. Treaty limited to metropolitan territory • Article 15, Agreement on the Export and Enforcement of Social Security Benefits (The Netherlands-​Belize) (2005) 2387 UNTS 319: In relation to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this Agreement shall apply only to the territory of the Kingdom in Europe.

• Article 19, Agreement Providing for the Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (UK-​Ireland) (1974) 990 UNTS 69: This Agreement shall not apply to the non-​metropolitan territories for the international relations of which the United Kingdom is responsible.

Applying the Treaty  713

2. Exclusion of non-​metropolitan territory on notice • Article 15, Agreement Concerning the Establishing of Global Technical Regulations For Wheeled Vehicles, Equipment and Parts which Can Be Fitted and/​or Be Used on Wheeled Vehicles (1998) 2119 UNTS 129: 15.1 This Agreement shall extend to the territory or territories of a Contracting Party for whose international relations such Contracting Party is responsible, unless the Contracting Party otherwise specifies, prior to entry into force of the agreement for that Contracting Party. 15.2 Any Contracting Party may denounce this Agreement separately for any such territory or territories in accordance with Article 12.

• Article 66, Convention establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (1985) 1508 UNTS 99: This Convention shall apply to all territories under the jurisdiction of a member including the territories for whose international relations a member is responsible, except those which are excluded by such member by written notice to the depository of this Convention either at the time of ratification, acceptance or approval or subsequently.

D.  Extension to non-​metropolitan territory 1. On notice • Article 9, European Agreement relating to Persons Participating in Proceedings of the European Court of Human Rights (1996) 2135 UNTS 181: 1. Any Contracting State may, when depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval or at any later date, by declaration addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, extend this Agreement to any territory or territories specified in the declaration and for whose international relations it is responsible or on whose behalf it is authorized to give undertakings. 2. This Agreement shall enter into force for any territory or territories specified in a declaration made pursuant to paragraph 1 on the first day of the month following the expiration of one month after the date of receipt of the declaration by the Secretary General. 3. Any declaration made pursuant to paragraph 1 may, in respect of any territory mentioned in such declaration, be withdrawn according to the procedure laid down for denunciation in Article 10 of this Agreement.

• Article XII, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) 78 UNTS 277: Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-​ General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible.

714  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

2. On agreement of the parties • Article 14, Agreement concerning Mutual Assistance in the Investigation, Restraint and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime other than Drug Trafficking (UK-​Mexico) (1996) 1945 UNTS 317: This Agreement shall apply: (a) in relation to the United Kingdom: (i) to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; and (ii) to any territory for the international relations of which the United Kingdom is responsible and to which this Agreement shall have been extended, subject to any modifications agreed, by agreement between the Parties. Such extension may be terminated by either Party by giving six months’ written notice to the other through the diplomatic channel; and (b) in relation to the United Mexican States, to the territory of the United Mexican States.

• Article 16, Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (1988) (New Zealand-​China) 1787 UNTS 185: This Agreement shall not apply to the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau unless the Contracting Parties have exchanged notes agreeing the terms on which this Agreement shall so apply.

E. Territorial clauses • Article 20(1)–​(3), Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary (2006) 46 ILM 649: 1. A Multi-​unit State may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, make a declaration that this Convention shall extend to all its territorial units or only to one or more of them. 2. Any such declaration shall state expressly the territorial units to which this Convention applies. 3. If a State makes no declaration under paragraph (1), this Convention extends to all territorial units of that State.

• Article 24, Article 26(1)–​(3), UNIDROIT Convention on Agency in the International Sale of Goods (1983) : If a Contracting State has two or more territorial units in which different systems of law are applicable in relation to the matters dealt with in this Convention, it may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that this Convention is to extend to all its territorial units or only to one or more of them, and may amend its declaration by submitting another declaration at any time.

• Article 35(1)–​(5), United Nations Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade (2001) 41 ILM 776: (1) If a State has two or more territorial units in which different systems of law are applicable in relation to the matters dealt with in this Convention, it may at any time declare that this Convention is to extend to all its territorial units or only one or more of them, and may at any time substitute another declaration for its earlier declaration.

Applying the Treaty  715 (2) Such declarations are to state expressly the territorial units to which this Convention extends. (3) If, by virtue of a declaration under this article, this Convention does not extend to all territorial units of a State and the assignor or the debtor is located in a territorial unit to which this Convention does not extend, this location is considered not to be in a Contracting State. (4) If, by virtue of a declaration under this article, this Convention does not extend to all territorial units of a State and the law governing the original contract is the law in force in a territorial unit to which this Convention does not extend, the law governing the original contract is considered not to be the law of a Contracting State. (5) If a State makes no declaration under paragraph 1 of this article, the Convention is to extend to all territorial units of that State.

• Article 35, COE Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (2014) CETS No 215: (1) Any State or the European Union may, at the time of signature or when depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, specify the territory or territories to which this convention shall apply.

F.  Exceptions to integral territorial application • Article 27(1), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) 1833 UNTS 3:



The criminal jurisdiction of the coastal State should not be exercised on board a foreign ship passing through the territorial sea to arrest any person or to conduct any investigation in connection with any crime committed on board the ship during its passage, save only in the following cases: (a) if the consequences of the crime extend to the coastal State; (b) if the crime is of a kind to disturb the peace of the country or the good order of the territorial sea; (c) if the assistance of the local authorities has been requested by the master of the ship or by a diplomatic agent or consular officer of the flag State; or (d) if such measures are necessary for the suppression of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances

G. Extraterritorial applications 1. Application irrespective of territory • Article IV, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons, and on Their Destruction (1972) 1015 UNTS 163: Each State Party to this Convention shall, in accordance with its constitutional processes, take any necessary measures to prohibit and prevent the development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or retention of the agents, toxins, weapons, equipment and means of delivery specified in Article I of the Convention, within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction or under its control anywhere.

716  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

2. Application to areas outside of a State’s territory • Article 1(4), Agreement on Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (Spain-​China) (1992) 1746 UNTS 167: The term ‘territory’ designates the land territory and territorial waters of each of the Contracting Parties. This Agreement shall also apply to investments made by investors of either Contracting Party in the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf that extends outside the limits of the territorial waters of the other Contracting Party, over which they have or may have sovereign rights and jurisdiction for the purpose of prospecting, exploration and conservation of natural resources, pursuant to international law.

• Article VI, The Antarctic Treaty (1959) 402 UNTS 71: The provisions of the present Treaty shall apply to the area south of 60˚ South latitude, including all ice shelves, but nothing in the present Treaty shall prejudice or in any way affect the rights, or the exercise of the rights, of any State under international law with regard to the high seas within that area.

3. Application to vessels and aircraft • Article IV(1), Treaty Relating to Extradition (Thailand-​Philippines) (1981) 1394 UNTS 3: A reference in this Treaty to the territory of a Party is a reference to all the territory under the jurisdiction of that Party and to vessels and aircraft registered in that Party if any such aircraft is in flight or if any such vessel is on the high seas when the crime is committed.

4. Application where State has jurisdiction • Article 2(1), Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) 1577 UNTS 3: States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

• Article 1(1), American Convention on Human Rights (1969) 1144 UNTS 123: The States Parties to this Convention undertake to respect the rights and freedoms recognized herein and to ensure to all persons subject to their jurisdiction the free and full exercise of those rights and freedoms, without any discrimination for reasons of race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, economic status, birth, or any other social condition.

15. Federal States Federal States may encounter difficulties in applying treaties on matters constitutionally committed to their sub-​federal units. In such cases, a federal State may not be able to join the treaty without some accommodation either by its sub-​federal territorial units or other parties to the treaty. As Chapter 13 explains, one solution is to include a ‘territorial clause’

Applying the Treaty  717 where the treaty may apply to some of a State’s sub-​federal territorial units but not others.56 In addition, some treaties may include a ‘federal State clause’ that limits the scope of the treaty’s obligations to those that the federal State’s government has constitutional authority to assume.57 Unitary States tend to resist such clauses because they lead to unequal treaty rights and obligations. As a result, the traditional federal State clause is not widely used today. Instead, modern treaties may contain clauses that: (a) authorize limited exceptions to a treaty’s obligations for federal States; (b) differentiate implementation among federal and non-​federal States; (c) limit treaty obligations to the ‘national’ level; or (d) reject any accommodation for federal States. Moreover, although not sampled here, it is important to recognize that where a treaty neither prohibits nor permits federalism accommodations, several federal States have made reservations to limit their obligations to those areas of legislative jurisdiction that the federal government has assumed.58 On occasion, other States have objected to such reservations.59 Alternatively, a federal State may issue an interpretative declaration to explain how federalism affects its implementation of the treaty.60 For further discussion of reservations, objections to reservations, and interpretative declarations, see Chapter 12.

A.  Clauses excepting federal States from certain treaty obligations 1. Federal State clauses • Article 35, Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 2368 UNTS 3: The following provisions shall apply to States Parties which have a federal or non-​unitary constitutional system: (a) with regard to the provisions of this Convention, the implementation of which comes under the legal jurisdiction of the federal or central legislative power, the obligations of the federal or central government shall be the same as for those States Parties which are not federal States; (b) with regard to the provisions of this Convention, the implementation of which comes under the jurisdiction of individual constituent States, countries, provinces or cantons which are not obliged by the constitutional system of the federation to take legislative measures, the federal government shall inform the competent authorities of such States, 56 See Heading 14.E above for examples of territorial clauses. 57 See Chapter 13, Section I.B.ii, 317–18 et seq. 58 For example, the United States deposited a ‘federalism’ reservation to criminalization obligations that fell within areas traditionally reserved to its States under the 2000 UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention. See Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General (MTDSG), Ch XVIII.12 . It was not clear, however, that the US Constitution prohibited federal implementation of those obligations. See DB Hollis, ‘Executive Federalism: Forging New Constraints on the Treaty Power’ (2005) 79 So Cal L Rev 1327. 59 Canada reserved out of obligations falling ‘outside of federal legislative jurisdiction’ under the 1991 Espoo Convention on Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment, prompting Spain and Sweden to object that the reservation was too imprecise and incompatible with the treaty’s object and purpose. See MTDSG, Ch XXVII.4 . 60 Australia, for example, issued an understanding on how federalism meant its implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights would be distributed among the Commonwealth and its constituent states and territories. See MTDSG, Ch IV.4  .

718  Treaty Clauses and Instruments countries, provinces or cantons of the said provisions, with its recommendation for their adoption.

• Article XI, Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) (1958) 330 UNTS 3: In the case of a federal or non-​unitary State, the following provisions shall apply: (a) With respect to those articles of this Convention that come within the legislative jurisdiction of the federal authority, the obligations of the federal Government shall to this extent be the same as those of Contracting States which are not federal States; (b) With respect to those articles of this Convention that come within the legislative jurisdiction of constituent states or provinces which are not, under the constitutional system of the federation, bound to take legislative action, the federal Government shall bring such articles with a favourable recommendation to the notice of the appropriate authorities of constituent states or provinces at the earliest possible moment; (c) A federal State Party to this Convention shall, at the request of any other Contracting State transmitted through the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, supply a statement of the law and practice of the federation and its constituent units in regard to any particular provision of this Convention, showing the extent to which effect has been given to that provision by legislative or other action.

• Article 19(7)(a)–​(b)(i)–​(iv), Constitution of the International Labour Organization, as amended (1972) : In the case of a federal State, the following provisions shall apply: (a) in respect of Conventions and Recommendations which the federal government regards as appropriate under its constitutional system for federal action, the obligations of the federal State shall be the same as those of Members which are not federal States; (b) in respect of Conventions and Recommendations which the federal government regards as appropriate under its constitutional system, in whole or in part, for action by the constituent states, provinces, or cantons rather than for federal action, the federal government shall: (i) make, in accordance with its Constitution and the Constitution of the states, provinces or cantons concerned, effective arrangements for the reference of such Conventions and Recommendations not later than eighteen months from the closing of the session of the Conference to the appropriate federal, state, provincial or cantonal authorities for the enactment of legislation or other action; (ii) arrange, subject to the concurrence of the state, provincial or cantonal Governments concerned, for periodical consultations between the federal and the state, provincial or cantonal authorities with a view to promoting within the federal State co-​ordinated action to give effect to the provisions of such Conventions and Recommendations; (iii) inform the Director-​General of the International Labour Office of the measures taken in accordance with this article to bring such Conventions and Recommendations before the appropriate federal, state, provincial or cantonal authorities regarded as appropriate and of the action taken by them;

Applying the Treaty  719

(iv) in respect of each such Convention which it has not ratified, report to the Director-​ General of the International Labour Office, at appropriate intervals as requested by the Governing Body, the position of the law and practice of the federation and its constituent States, provinces or cantons in regard to the Convention, showing the extent to which effect has been given, or is proposed to be given, to any of the provisions of the Convention by legislation, administrative action, collective agreement, or otherwise; . . .

2. Clauses that authorize limited exceptions for federal States • Article 41(1)–​(3), Convention on Cybercrime (2001) 2296 UNTS 167: 1. A  federal State may reserve the right to assume obligations under Chapter II of this Convention consistent with its fundamental principles governing the relationship between its central government and constituent States or other similar territorial entities provided that it is still able to co-​operate under Chapter III. 2. When making a reservation under paragraph 1, a federal State may not apply the terms of such reservation to exclude or substantially diminish its obligations to provide for measures set forth in Chapter II. Overall, it shall provide for a broad and effective law enforcement capability with respect to those measures. 3. With regard to the provisions of this Convention, the application of which comes under the jurisdiction of constituent States or other similar territorial entities, that are not obliged by the constitutional system of the federation to take legislative measures, the federal government shall inform the competent authorities of such States of the said provisions with its favourable opinion, encouraging them to take appropriate action to give them effect.

B.  Differentiating federal versus non-​federal State implementation 1. Explicitly • Article 6(1)–​(2), Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption (1993) 1870 UNTS 167: 1. A Contracting State shall designate a Central Authority to discharge the duties which are imposed by the Convention upon such authorities. 2. Federal States, States with more than one system of law or States having autonomous territorial units shall be free to appoint more than one Central Authority and to specify the territorial or personal extent of their functions. Where a State has appointed more than one Central Authority, it shall designate the Central Authority to which any communication may be addressed for transmission to the appropriate Central Authority within that State.

2. Implicitly • Paragraph 27, Explanatory Report, COE Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (1999) CETS No 173: . . .  [I]‌t should be noted that it was the intention of the drafters of the Convention that Contracting parties assume obligations under this Convention only to the extent consistent

720  Treaty Clauses and Instruments with their Constitution and the fundamental principles of their legal system, including, where appropriate, the principles of federalism.

C.  Obligations imposed only at the ‘national’ level • Article 8(2), WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) 2302 UNTS 166: Each Party shall adopt and implement in areas of existing national jurisdiction as determined by national law and actively promote at other jurisdictional levels the adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive, administrative and/​or other measures, providing for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport, indoor public places and, as appropriate, other public places.

D.  Clauses that deny any accommodation to federal States • Article 41, International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2007) 14 IHHR 582: The provisions of this Convention shall apply to all parts of federal States without any limitations or exceptions.

• Article 9, Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1989) 1642 UNTS 414: The provisions of the present Protocol shall extend to all parts of federal States without any limitations or exceptions.

16.  Third Party Rights and Obligations61 Pacta sunt servanda establishes a treaty’s binding force for those States and other subjects of international law party to it. For non-​parties (referred to in the VCLT as ‘third States’62) a different Latin maxim governs—​pacta tertii alieni nec nocere, nec prodissi potest (or ‘pacta tertii’)—​treaty rights and obligations have no effect on third parties.63 The VCLT codifies this principle in Article 34: ‘A treaty does not create either obligations or rights for a third State without its consent.’64 Articles 35 and 36 VCLT lay out how third States may consent to treaty obligations and rights respectively; the chief difference being that a third State must accept a treaty obligation ‘expressly’ and ‘in writing’ while its assent to treaty rights ‘shall be presumed so long as the contrary is not indicated, unless the treaty provides otherwise’.65 At the same time, Article 38 VCLT recognizes that these rules do nothing to 61 This heading refers to a subject dealt with in-​depth in the first edition of this volume. See D Bederman, ‘Third Party Rights and Obligations in Treaties’ in DB Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (1st edn OUP, Oxford 2012) Ch 13. 62 Art 2(1)(h) VCLT. Thus, even States that negotiated or simply signed a treaty may be third States, as the definition includes all except States parties to treaties that are in force. 63 The pacta tertii principle is an international law analogue to the contract law principle of res inter alios acta. 64 See also Art 34 of the 1986 VCLT (‘A treaty does not create either obligations or rights for a third State or a third organization without the consent of that State or that organization’). 65 See Arts 35–​36 VCLT. Art 37 VCLT elaborates how a third State treaty obligation or right may be revoked or modified, although examples of this in practice are hard to find, if any exist.

Applying the Treaty  721 preclude a treaty’s terms from binding States (or other subjects) as a matter of customary international law, although in such cases, custom provides the basis of the third State’s rights or obligations, not the treaty itself.66 The pacti tertii rule of Article 34 VCLT is mostly observed tacitly, although express indications of the principle are possible. In contrast, treaties rarely take advantage of the frameworks for third States laid out in Articles 35 and 36 VCLT. There are few, if any, modern examples of treaty clauses that attempt to impose direct obligations on third States stricto sensu.67 In some cases, a treaty may attempt to obligate third States indirectly, providing, for example, behavioural expectations for Parties not only inter se but also vis-​à-​vis third States. As a category, however, the idea of treaties creating ‘objective regimes’ remains controversial and one can argue that these treaties do no more than create obligations for the States parties themselves (or the IO they create). Despite such controversies, a few examples are sampled below to indicate the scope of such attempts. In other cases, a treaty clause may provide rights for third States, albeit with additional conditions beyond the third State’s presumed assent. Taken together, the practice suggests that—​much like the principle of jus cogens examined in Chapter 23—​third party rights and obligations may be more important to the intellectual architecture of the law of treaties than to its day-​to-​day implementation.

A. Acknowledging pacta tertii • Article 11(2)–​(3), Amended Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Western Indian Ocean (2010) TRE-​157165: 2. The Contracting Parties shall, in areas under their jurisdiction, establish protected areas, such as parks and reserves, and shall regulate and, where required and subject to the rules of international law, prohibit any activity likely to have adverse effects on the species, ecosystems or biological processes that such areas are established to protect. 3. The establishment of such areas shall not affect the rights of other Contracting Parties and third States and in particular other legitimate uses of the sea.

B.  Indirect attempts to obligate third States • Article 2(2)–​(6), Charter of the United Nations (1945) TS No 993: The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles. 2) All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter. 3) All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

66 For a discussion of how the 1986 VCLT accommodates these rules in the IO context, see A Proelss, ‘Section 4: Treaties and Third States’ in O Dörr and K Schmalenbach (eds) Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:  A Commentary (2nd edn Springer, Berlin 2018). 67 Accord ibid 664.

722  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 4) All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. 5) All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action. 6) The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

• Article 26(1)(a), Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (2000) (States of the Benelux Economic Union-​France-​Germany) OJ L239/​19: 1. The Contracting Parties undertake, subject to the obligations resulting from their accession to the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 28 July 1951, as amended by the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967, to incorporate the following rules into their national law: a. If aliens are refused entry into the territory of one of the Contracting Parties, the carrier which brought them to the external border by air, sea or land shall be obliged immediately to assume responsibility for them again. At the request of the border surveillance authorities the carrier shall be obliged to return the aliens to the third State from which they were transported or to the third State which issued the travel document on which they travelled or to any other third State to which they are certain to be admitted.

• Article 5(4), MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (1973) 1340 UNTS 61: With respect to the ship of non-​Parties to the Convention, Parties shall apply the requirements of the present Convention as may be necessary to ensure that no more favourable treatment is given to such ships.

• Article X, Antarctica Treaty (1959) 402 UNTS 71: Each of the Contracting Parties undertakes to exert appropriate efforts, consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, to the end that no one engages in any activity in Antarctica contrary to the principles or purposes of the present treaty.

C.  Rights for third States 1. Provided for directly • Article 35(2), 50, Charter of the United Nations (1945) TS No 993: Article 35 2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may bring to the attention of the Security Council or of the General Assembly any dispute to which it is a party if it accepts in advance, for the purposes of the dispute, the obligations of pacific settlement provided in the present Charter.

Applying the Treaty  723 Article 50 If preventive or enforcement measures against any state are taken by the Security Council, any other state, whether a Member of the United Nations or not, which finds itself confronted with special economic problems arising from the carrying out of those measures shall have the right to consult the Security Council with regard to a solution of those problems.

2. Provided for directly and subject to additional conditions • Article 93, Charter of the United Nations (1945) TS No 993: 1. All Members of the United Nations are ipso facto parties to the Statute of the International Court of Justice. 2. A state which is not a Member of the United Nations may become a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice on conditions to be determined in each case by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

• Article 8, Agreement relating to Community patents (1989) OJ L401/​1: The Council of the European Communities may, acting by a unanimous decision, invite a State party to the European Patent Convention which forms a customs union or a free trade area with the European Economic Community to enter into negotiations with a view to enabling that third State to participate in this Agreement on the basis of a special agreement, to be concluded between the Contracting States to this Agreement and the third State concerned, determining the conditions and details for applying this Agreement to that State.

• Article 2, Protocol Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (1977) [1977] 16 ILM 1022: The Republic of Panama declares the neutrality of the Canal in order that both in time of peace and in time of war it shall remain secure and open to peaceful transit by the vessels of all nations on terms of entire equality, so that there will be no discrimination against any nation, or its citizens or subjects, concerning the conditions or charges of transit, or for any other reason, and so that the Canal, and therefore the Isthmus of Panama, shall not be the target of reprisals in any armed conflict between other nations of the world. The foregoing shall be subject to the following requirements . . . [list omitted].

3. Provided for indirectly or implicitly • Article 13(b), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime referred to in article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this Statute if . . . (b) A situation in which one or more of such crimes appears to have been committed is referred to the Prosecutor by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations . . . 

• Article 98, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: 1. The Court may not proceed with a request for surrender or assistance which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international

724  Treaty Clauses and Instruments law with respect to the State or diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third State, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of that third State for the waiver of the immunity. 2. The Court may not proceed with a request for surrender which would require the requested State to act inconsistently with its obligations under international agreements pursuant to which the consent of a sending State is required to surrender a person of that State to the Court, unless the Court can first obtain the cooperation of the sending State for the giving of consent for the surrender.

17.  Relationships to Other Treaties The proliferation of treaties across—​and within—​subject areas raises important questions about what to do when treaties conflict. As Chapter 18 explains, the VCLT default rules provide a complicated, and yet, incomplete response. Those rules do, however, allow parties to draft clauses that may avoid (or mitigate) treaty conflicts in at least five ways. First, where there is a unity of parties, Article 59 VCLT allows a later treaty to terminate or suspend an earlier one on the ‘same subject matter’ if the later treaty so provides or the parties intention to do so is ‘otherwise established’.68 Thus, a clause may indicate that a treaty supersedes, replaces, or suspends a prior treaty. Second, a clause may indicate that the treaty takes priority over some or all other treaties without purporting to terminate or suspend them. Third, as Article 30(2) VCLT directs, where a treaty indicates that it is subject to another ‘earlier or later treaty’, the other treaty’s provisions will prevail in case of incompatibility. Fourth, Article 41 VCLT allows treaty clauses providing for modifications—​ subsequent agreements to modify a multilateral treaty by some, but not all, of its parties.69 Such modification clauses are not a regular feature of treaty-​making, but they do appear occasionally. When they do, authorization often comes with a caveat; any modifications must be consistent with, or improve upon, the original treaty’s commitments. Notice requirements may also be imposed, which either reiterate or adjust those found in the VCLT itself.70 Fifth, a treaty may simply commit parties to consult on its relationship to future treaties, without privileging the present treaty (or the future one). Finally, it is important to recognize that the various ways of dealing with relationships among treaties are not mutually 68 Termination or suspension may also occur by implication for other successive treaties on the ‘same subject matter’. See Art 59(1)(b) VCLT. When a treaty is not terminated or suspended under Art 59, lex posterior applies among common parties—​‘the earlier treaty applies only to the extent its provision are compatible with those of the later treaty’. Art 30(3) VCLT. Unfortunately, the VCLT leaves ambiguous what constitutes the ‘same subject matter’ and has no clear rule for treaty conflicts where party unity is absent. For more discussion of the VCLT default rules, see Chapter 18, Section III.C, 445 et seq. 69 Art 41(1)(b) VCLT also indicates that modifications are acceptable in the absence of textual authorization where they: (i) are not prohibited by the treaty; (ii) do not negatively impact other parties’ rights or their performance obligations; and (iii) do not derogate from the original treaty in a way incompatible with ‘the effective execution of the object and purpose of the treaty as a whole’. Where grounds for a modification are satisfied, they override the VCLT’s default rules on applying successive treaties relating to the same subject matter. See Art 30(5) VCLT. 70 Unless a treaty otherwise provides, Art 41(2) VCLT requires parties making a modification to notify other parties ‘of their intention to conclude the agreement and of the modification to the treaty for which it provides’.

Applying the Treaty  725 exclusive. A treaty may use a combination of them to afford a comprehensive picture of its relations to other treaties.

A. Supersession clauses • Article XIV(4), Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (US-​Russian Federation) (New START Agreement) (2010) 50 ILM 340: As of the date of its entry into force, this Treaty shall supersede the Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions of May 24, 2002, which shall terminate as of that date.

• Paragraph 1, Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA) (2018, not yet in force) : Upon entry into force of this Protocol, the USMCA, attached as an Annex to this Protocol, shall supersede the NAFTA, without prejudice to those provisions set forth in the USMCA that refer to provisions of the NAFTA.

• Article XXVI, Food Aid Convention (1999) 2073 UNTS 135: This Convention shall replace the Food Aid Convention, 1995, as extended, and shall be one of the constituent instruments of the International Grains Agreement, 1995.

• Article 22(2), Air Transport Agreement (US-​EU Open Skies Agreement) (2007) [2007] 46 ILM 470: Upon entry into force pursuant to Article 26 of this Agreement, this Agreement shall supersede the bilateral agreements listed in section 1 of Annex 1, except to the extent provided in section 2 of Annex 1.

B.  Clauses providing for the priority of the present treaty 1. Present treaty prevails over all treaties • Article 103, Charter of the United Nations (1945) TS No 993: In the event of a conflict between the obligations of the Members of the United Nations under the present Charter and their obligations under any other international agreement, their obligation under the present Charter shall prevail.

2. Present treaty prevails over past and future treaties • Article 21, African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003) 43 ILM 5: Subject to the provisions of Article 4 paragraph 2, this Convention shall in respect to those State Parties to which it applies, supersede the provisions of any treaty or bilateral agreement governing corruption and related offences between any two or more State Parties.

726  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Article 11(5), International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) 2178 UNTS 197: The provisions of all extradition treaties and arrangements between States Parties with regard to offences set forth in article 2 shall be deemed to be modified as between States Parties to the extent that they are incompatible with this Convention.

3. Present treaty prevails over earlier treaties for parties to both • Article 27, Singapore Treaty on Trademarks (2006) : (1) [Relations Between Contracting Parties to Both This Treaty and the TLT 1994] This Treaty alone shall be applicable as regards the mutual relations of Contracting Parties to both this Treaty and the TLT 1994. (2) [Relations Between Contracting Parties to This Treaty and Contracting Parties to the TLT 1994 That Are Not Party to This Treaty] Any Contracting Party to both this Treaty and the TLT 1994 shall continue to apply the TLT 1994 in its relations with Contracting Parties to the TLT 1994 that are not party to this Treaty.

• Article 9, Free Trade Agreement (Ukraine-​Tajikistan) (2001) : The provisions of the present Agreement shall prevail over the provisions of bilateral agreements concluded earlier between the Parties to the extent when the latter are either not compatible with the first or identical to them, except for the provisions of bilateral and multilateral agreements in the area of transports, which set out the procedure and terms of carriage.

4. Present treaty prevails over IO member’s constituent instrument • Annex IX, Article 4(6), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) 1833 UNTS 3: In the event of a conflict between the obligations of an international organization under this Convention and its obligations under the agreement establishing the organization or any acts relating to it, the obligations under this Convention shall prevail.

5. Obligation to eliminate incompatibilities with respect to existing treaties with third parties • Article 351, Consolidated Version of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [2010] OJ C83/​47: The rights and obligations arising from agreements concluded before 1 January 1958 or, for acceding States, before the date of their accession, between one or more Member States on the one hand, and one or more third countries on the other, shall not be affected by the provisions of the Treaties. To the extent that such agreements are not compatible with the Treaties, the Member State or States concerned shall take all appropriate steps to eliminate the incompatibilities established. Member States shall, where necessary, assist each other to this end and shall, where appropriate, adopt a common attitude.

Applying the Treaty  727 In applying the agreements referred to in the first paragraph, Member States shall take into account the fact that the advantages accorded under the Treaties by each Member State form an integral part of the establishment of the Union and are thereby inseparably linked with the creation of common institutions, the conferring of powers upon them and the granting of the same advantages by all the other Member States.

6. Existing treaties must be compatible with the present treaty • Article 18, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) [2018] 57 ILM 347: The implementation of this Treaty shall not prejudice obligations undertaken by States Parties with regard to existing international agreements, to which they are party, where those obligations are consistent with the Treaty.

7. Future treaties must be compatible with the present treaty • Article XVIII, Treaty for Amazonian Cooperation (1978) 1202 UNTS 51: Nothing contained in this Treaty shall in any way limit the rights of the Contracting Parties to conclude bilateral or multilateral agreements on specific or generic matters, provided that these are not contrary to the achievement of the common aims for cooperation in the Amazonian region stated in this instrument.

8. Existing and future treaties must be compatible with the present treaty • Article 8, North Atlantic Treaty (NATO Treaty) (1949) 34 UNTS 243: Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this treaty.

• Article 26, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 1. The implementation of this Treaty shall not prejudice obligations undertaken by States Parties with regard to existing or future international agreements, to which they are parties, where those obligations are consistent with this Treaty. 2. This Treaty shall not be cited as grounds for voiding defence cooperation agreements concluded between States Parties to this Treaty.

C.  Clauses providing for the priority of another treaty 1. No effect on one or more other agreements • Preamble, Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: Emphasizing that nothing in this Convention is intended to affect the rights and obligations of any Party deriving from any existing international agreement . . .

• Article 22(1), Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) 1760 UNTS 79: The provisions of this Convention shall not affect the rights and obligations of any Contracting Party deriving from any existing international agreement, except where the exercise of those rights and obligations would cause a serious damage or threat to biological diversity.

728  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Article 2, Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Internal Security and the Fight against Crime (France-​Russian Federation) (2003) 2476 UNTS 145: . . . This Agreement shall not affect the rights and obligations of the Parties under other international agreements, including those dealing with mutual legal assistance in criminal and extradition matters.

• Article VII, Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (UK-​ Russian Federation) (1996) 1945 UNTS 351: The provisions of this Agreement shall not affect the rights and obligations of the Parties arising under their international agreements with third Parties.

• Article 12, Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (1986) 1457 UNTS 133: This Convention shall not affect the reciprocal rights and obligations of States Parties under existing international agreements which relate to the matters covered by this Convention, or under future international agreements concluded in accordance with the object and purpose of this Convention.

• Article 11(3), WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (1994) 1867 UNTS 493: Nothing in this Agreement shall impair the rights of Members under other international agreements, including the right to resort to the good offices or dispute settlement mechanisms of other international organizations or established under any international agreement.

2. Existing treaties prevail • Article 6(2), Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (2001) 2307 UNTS 285: To the extent of any inconsistency between this Convention and the Protocol, the Protocol shall prevail.

• Article 5(1)–​(2), Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991) 30 ILM 1455: 1. This Protocol shall supplement the Antarctic Treaty and shall neither modify nor amend that Treaty. 2. Nothing in this Protocol shall derogate from the rights and obligations of the Parties to this Protocol under the other international instruments in force within the Antarctic Treaty system.

• Article XV, Agreement on Air Quality (Canada-​US) (1991) 1852 UNTS 79: Nothing in this Agreement shall be deemed to diminish the rights and obligations of the Parties in other international agreements between them, including those contained in the Boundary Waters Treaty and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1978, as amended.

Applying the Treaty  729 • Article 50, Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (2007) 47 ILM 257: This Convention does not affect the Hague Convention of 1 March 1954 on civil procedure, the Hague Convention of 15 November 1965 on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters and the Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters.

3. Future treaties prevail • Article V, Agreement regarding Cooperation to Facilitate the Provision of Assistance (US-​Russian Federation) (1992) 2264 UNTS 11: The Parties recognise that further arrangements or agreements may be necessary or desirable with respect to particular United States assistance activities. In case of any inconsistency between this Agreement and any such further written agreement, the provisions of such further written agreements shall prevail.

• Article 90, Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) 1489 UNTS 3: This Convention does not prevail over any international agreement which has already been or may be entered into and which contains provisions concerning the matters governed by this Convention, provided that the parties have their places of business in States parties, to such agreement.

4. Existing or future treaties giving greater benefits prevail • Article 40(1), Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) 45 ILM 12: This Convention shall not affect the rights and obligations derived from other international instruments to which Parties to the present Convention are Parties or shall become Parties and which contain provisions on matters governed by this Convention and which ensure greater protection and assistance for victims of trafficking . . .

• Article 20, Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 9 September 1886, as revised (1967) 828 UNTS 221: The Governments of the countries of the Union reserve the right to enter into special agreements among themselves, in so far as such agreements grant to authors more extensive rights than those granted by the Convention, or contain other provisions not contrary to this Convention. The provisions of existing agreements which satisfy these conditions shall remain applicable.

• Article 53, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as amended (2010) CETS No 194: Nothing in this Convention shall be construed as limiting or derogating from any of the human rights and fundamental freedoms which may be ensured under . . . any other agreement to which it is a party.

730  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

D.  Modifications and supplementary agreements 1. Permitted if compatible with the present treaty • Article 2(2), WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) 2302 UNTS 166: The provisions of the Convention and its protocols shall in no way affect the right of Parties to enter into bilateral or multilateral agreements, including regional or subregional agreements, on issues relevant or additional to the Convention and its protocols, provided that such agreements are compatible with their obligations under the Convention and its protocols . . . 

• Article 8, Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (1991) 1989 UNTS 309: The Parties may continue existing or enter into new bilateral or multilateral agreements or other arrangements in order to implement their obligations under this Convention. Such agreements or other arrangements may be based on the elements listed in Appendix VI.

• Article 11(1)–​(2), Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (1989) 1673 UNTS 57: 1. Notwithstanding the provisions of Article 4 paragraph 5, Parties may enter into bilateral, multilateral, or regional agreements or arrangements regarding transboundary movement of hazardous wastes or other wastes with Parties or non-​Parties provided that such agreements or arrangements do not derogate from the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes and other wastes as required by this Convention. These agreements or arrangements shall stipulate provisions which are not less environmentally sound than those provided for by this Convention in particular taking into account the interests of developing countries. 2. Parties shall notify the Secretariat of any bilateral, multilateral or regional agreements or arrangements referred to in paragraph 1 and those which they have entered into prior to the entry into force of this Convention for them, for the purpose of controlling transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and other wastes which take place entirely among the Parties to such agreements. The provisions of this Convention shall not affect transboundary movements which take place pursuant to such agreements provided that such agreements are compatible with the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes and other wastes as required by this Convention.

• Article 73(2), Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963) 596 UNTS 261: Nothing in the present Convention shall preclude States from concluding international agreements confirming or supplementing or extending or amplifying the provisions thereof.

2. Permitted without conditions on consistency with the present treaty • Article 9, Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (1986) 1439 UNTS 275: In furtherance of their mutual interests, States Parties may consider, where deemed appropriate, the conclusion of bilateral or multilateral arrangements relating to the subject matter of this Convention.

Applying the Treaty  731

3. Supplementary agreements permitted with IO’s Member States • Article 18, Agreement on Extradition (EU-​US) (2003) 43 ILM 749: This Agreement shall not preclude the conclusion, after its entry into force, of bilateral Agreements between a Member State and the United States of America consistent with this Agreement.

E.  Obligation to consult on present treaty’s relationship to future treaty • Article 26, Agreement on Air Transport (Canada-​EC) (2009) Canada TS 2019/​9: If the Parties become parties to a multilateral agreement . . . that addresses matters covered by this Agreement, they shall consult in the Joint Committee to determine the extent to which this Agreement is affected by the provisions of the multilateral agreement . . . and whether this Agreement should be revised to take into account such developments.

F.  Comprehensive treatment of relations with other treaties • Article 311(1)–​(6), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) 1833 UNTS 3: 1. This Convention shall prevail, as between States Parties, over the Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea of 29 April 1958. 2. This Convention shall not alter the rights and obligations of States Parties which arise from other agreements compatible with this Convention and which do not affect the enjoyment by other States Parties of their rights or the performance of their obligations under this Convention. 3. Two or more States Parties may conclude agreements modifying or suspending the operation of provisions of this Convention, applicable solely to the relations between them, provided that such agreements do not relate to a provision derogation from which is incompatible with the effective execution of the object and purpose of this Convention, and provided further that such agreements shall not affect the application of the basic principles embodied herein, and that the provisions of such agreements do not affect the enjoyment by other States parties of their rights or the performance of their obligations under this Convention. 4. States Parties intending to conclude an agreement referred to in paragraph 3 shall notify the other States Parties through the depositary of this Convention of their intention to conclude the agreement and of the modification or suspension for which it provides. 5. This article does not affect international agreements expressly permitted or preserved by other articles of this Convention. 6. States Parties agree that there shall be no amendments to the basic principle relating to the common heritage of mankind set forth in article 136 and that they shall not be party to any agreement in derogation thereof.

• Article 23, Hague Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (2019, not yet in force) : 1. This Convention shall be interpreted so far as possible to be compatible with other treaties in force for Contracting States, whether concluded before or after this Convention.

732  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 2. This Convention shall not affect the application by a Contracting State of a treaty that was concluded before this Convention. 3. This Convention shall not affect the application by a Contracting State of a treaty concluded after this Convention as concerns the recognition or enforcement of a judgment given by a court of a Contracting State that is also a Party to that treaty. Nothing in the other treaty shall affect the obligations under Article 6 towards Contracting States that are not Parties to that treaty. 4. This Convention shall not affect the application of the rules of a Regional Economic Integration Organisation that is a Party to this Convention as concerns the recognition or enforcement of a judgment given by a court of a Contracting State that is also a Member State of the Regional Economic Integration Organisation where —​ (a) the rules were adopted before this Convention was concluded; or (b) the rules were adopted after this Convention was concluded, to the extent that they do not affect the obligations under Article 6 towards Contracting States that are not Member States of the Regional Economic Integration Organisation.

18.  Derogations For all the stability of the treaty commitment, its application can be quite flexible. As the foregoing has shown, treaties may fluctuate as to when application begins, where they apply, and how they deal with conflicts. A treaty’s application may also turn on whether any of its obligations are subject to derogation. A derogation clause refers to a treaty provision that authorizes a party to exclude the application of some or all of the treaty’s other provisions whether due to the occurrence of specific factual circumstance (such as a public emergency) or on the basis of a stated purpose (such as protection of essential security interests).71 Some treaties may disavow the possibility of any derogations. Other treaties include them to allow parties to accept a treaty’s commitments while managing the risks it imposes by preserving party autonomy in specific core areas or exceptional circumstances. Where a treaty contains a derogation provision, the scope of the party’s commitment to perform is adjusted to permit otherwise non-​compliant behaviour. Thus, derogations modify the original scope of the obligation assumed, in contrast to doctrines like impossibility or necessity, which excuse behaviour in breach of pre-​existing obligations.72 The law surrounding derogations is complex and underdeveloped. There are conflicting views, for example, on how self-​judging the invocation of a derogation may be.73 Similarly, it may be difficult to differentiate derogations from provisions that simply outline the contours of the obligation itself. That distinction may not matter much, since determining an 71 International investment law sometimes refers to these as clauses on ‘non-​precluded measures’. 72 For more on these concepts see Chapter 25. 73 The current weight of judicial authority appears to deny them this character. See eg Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran v United States) [2003] ICJ Rep 161; WTO Panel Report, Russia—​Measures Concerning Traffic in Transit (5 April 2019) WT/​DS512/​R; see also CMS Gas Transmission Company v Argentine Republic (Award) (2005) ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​8; LG&E Energy Corp v Argentine Republic (Decision on Liability) (2006) ICSID Case No ARB/​02/​1; Enron Corporation Ponderosa Asset v Argentine Republic (Decision on Liability) (2006) ICSID Case No ARB/​01/​3.

Applying the Treaty  733 obligation’s original scope and the availability of any exceptions to it are both interpretative exercises that will be governed by the same (VCLT) rules on treaty interpretation. In any case, derogation clauses are now a regular feature of treaty-​making, most often visible in the human rights, trade, and investment contexts. Like the diversity of treaty regulations themselves, derogations are diverse in both form and content. The following examples thus illustrate only a few of the more frequent formulations a derogation clause may adopt.

A.  No derogations allowed • Article 2(2), Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984) 1465 UNTS 85: No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

B.  Derogations based on factual conditions • Article 4, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) 999 UNTS 171: (1) In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin. (2) No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18 may be made under this provision. (3) Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of derogation shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant, through the intermediary of the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, of the provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermediary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.

C.  Derogations based on the purpose(s) of the behaviour 1. Based on non-​precluded measures • Article 15, Free Trade Agreement (Israel-​Slovakia) (1996) 1995 UNTS 3: This Agreement shall not preclude prohibitions or restrictions on imports, exports or goods in transit justified on grounds of public morality, public policy or public security; of the protection of health and life of humans, animals or plants, including environmental measures necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health; of the protection of national treasures possessing artistic, historic or archaeological value; of the protection of intellectual property, or of the rules relating to gold or silver or to the conservation of exhaustible natural

734  Treaty Clauses and Instruments resources. Such prohibitions or restrictions shall not, however, constitute means of arbitrary discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade between the Parties.

• Article XX, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1947, as amended 1955) (GATT 194774) 278 UNTS 200: Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where the same conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on international trade, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any contracting party of measures:







(a) necessary to protect public morals; (b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health; (c) relating to the importations or exportations of gold or silver; (d) necessary to secure compliance with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement, including those relating to customs enforcement, the enforcement of monopolies operated under paragraph 4 of Article II and Article XVII, the protection of patents, trademarks and copyrights, and the prevention of deceptive practices; (e) relating to the products of prison labour; (f) imposed for the protection of national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value; (g) relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption; (h) undertaken in pursuance of obligations under any intergovernmental commodity agreement which conforms to criteria submitted to the contracting parties and not disapproved by them or which is itself so submitted and not so disapproved; (i) involving restrictions on exports of domestic materials necessary to ensure essential quantities of such materials to a domestic processing industry during periods when the domestic price of such materials is held below the world price as part of a governmental stabilization plan; Provided that such restrictions shall not operate to increase the exports of or the protection afforded to such domestic industry, and shall not depart from the provisions of this Agreement relating to non-​discrimination; (j) essential to the acquisition or distribution of products in general or local short supply; Provided that any such measures shall be consistent with the principle that all contracting parties are entitled to an equitable share of the international supply of such products, and that any such measures, which are inconsistent with the other provisions of the Agreement shall be discontinued as soon as the conditions giving rise to them have ceased to exist. The contracting parties shall review the need for this sub-​paragraph not later than 30 June 1960.

2. Regarding acts in furtherance of essential security interests • Article 15, Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Finland-​ Tanzania) (2001) 2201 UNTS 61:

74 The WTO Agreement incorporates GATT 1947 into a new GATT 1994. See Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (adopted 15 April 1994, entered into force 1 January 1995) 1867 UNTS 154, Annex 1.

Applying the Treaty  735 1. Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as preventing a Contracting Party from taking any action necessary for the protection of its essential security interests in time of war or armed conflict, or other emergency in international relations. 2. Provided that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination by a Contracting Party, or a disguised investment restriction, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as preventing the Contracting Parties from taking any measure necessary for the maintenance of public order. 3. The provisions of this Article shall not apply to Article 5, Article 6 or paragraph 1(e) of Article 7 of this Agreement.

• Article 73, Agreement on Trade-​Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement), Marrakesh Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed: (a) to require a Member to furnish any information the disclosure of which it considers contrary to its essential security interests; or (b) to prevent a Member from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests; (i) relating to fissionable materials or the materials from which they are derived; (ii) relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war and to such traffic in other goods and materials as is carried on directly or indirectly for the purpose of supplying a military establishment; (iii) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations; or (c) to prevent a Member from taking any action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security.

3. Avoiding acts impairing essential interests • Article 3(1)(a), Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (UK-​US) (1994) 1967 UNTS 101: (1) The Central Authority of the Requested Party may refuse assistance if: (a) the Requested Party is of the opinion that the request, if granted, would impair its sovereignty, security, or other essential interests or would be contrary to important public policy . . .

• Article 13, Agreement on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters (Poland-​Uzbekistan) (2003) 2369 UNTS 171: 1. If the Customs authority considers that the assistance requested might be prejudicial to the sovereignty, security, public order or other essential interests of its State, or would cause violation of a secret that is protected by the law, it may refuse providing the assistance or may provide it only if certain conditions are met. 2. If assistance is refused the decision and the reasons for the refusal shall be immediately notified in writing to the requesting authority. 3. If one of the Customs authorities requests assistance that it would not be able to give if requested it should draw attention to that fact in the request. Compliance with such a request will be within the discretion of the requested authority.

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4. Regarding the environment • Article XVII(2)–​(3), Agreement for the promotion and protection of investments (Latvia-​Canada) (1995) 2012 UNTS 13: (2) Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent a Contracting Party from adopting, maintaining or enforcing any measure otherwise consistent with this Agreement that it considers appropriate to ensure that investment activity in its territory is undertaken in a manner sensitive to environmental concerns. (3) Provided that such measures are not applied in an arbitrary or unjustifiable manner, or do not constitute a disguised restriction on international trade or investment, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent a Contracting Party from adopting or maintaining measures, including environmental measures: (a) necessary to ensure compliance with laws and regulations that are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement; (b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health; or (c) relating to the conservation of living or non-​living exhaustible natural resources.

5. Based on the availability of resources or application of local law • Article III(4), Agreement concerning Defense Communications Services (New Zealand-​ US) (1992) 1937 UNTS 283: The parties recognize that the implementation of this Agreement is subject to the laws of NZ and the US and the authorization and appropriation of funds.

• Article XIV(1), Agreement on Air Quality (Canada-​US) (1991) 1852 UNTS 79: The obligations undertaken under this Agreement shall be subject to the availability of appropriated funds in accordance with the respective constitutional procedures of the Parties.

6. Based on an agreement in writing • Article IV(3), Protocol to the UNIDROIT Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment (2001) 2367 UNTS 517: The parties may, by agreement in writing, exclude the application of Article XI and, in their relations with each other, derogate from or vary the effect of any of the provisions of this Protocol except Article IX (2)–​(4).

19. Dispute Settlement Disputes are an inevitable feature of international relations, and treaty relations are no exception. Frequently, States end up disagreeing over what a treaty requires, privileges, or permits (not to mention how it applies in specific situations). Somewhat surprisingly, international law does not actually require States to settle all such disputes. As the UN Charter articulates, only those ‘likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security’—​require

Applying the Treaty  737 resolution.75 And many treaties do little to change this situation, including no provisions on dispute settlement. Other treaties, however, actually do bind parties to settle disputes. In some cases, a treaty’s whole objective is establishing a dispute settlement mechanism, such as the ICJ Statute, or more recently, the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (WTO DSU).76 In other cases, a treaty combines substantive regulations with procedural requirements on issues of implementation or compliance. In terms of dispute settlement, the options range from simply calling for negotiations to binding judicial proceedings, with a host of options in between.77 Thus, when it comes to dispute resolution clauses, the options are manifold. Generally, they tend to take one (or more) of three forms: (i) voluntary procedures involving the parties themselves; (ii) voluntary procedures involving a third party mediator; or (iii) compulsory binding dispute settlement. Binding dispute settlement may come at the election of one or all disputing parties and in recent years has extended to some individual complainants. Treaties often elaborate—​in great detail—​specific dispute settlement procedures. The results in some cases, such as UNCLOS78 or the WTO DSU are simply too lengthy for sampling purposes. The dispute resolution clauses that follow thus focus on demonstrating the range of choices, without necessarily conveying all the details that accompany each selection.

A.  Procedures involving parties themselves 1. Through consultations only • Article 18, Treaty Concerning Defense Trade Cooperation (US-​UK) (2007) Senate Treaty Doc No 110-​7: Any disputes between the Parties arising out of or in connection with this Treaty shall be resolved through consultations between the Parties and shall not be referred to any court, tribunal, or third party.

2. Through negotiations • Article 3, Framework Agreement on the Reciprocal Recognition of Driver’s Licenses for Exchange Purposes (Canada-​Italy) (2017) CTS E105275: The Parties shall negotiate to resolve any dispute that arises from the interpretation or application of this Agreement. 75 Art 33 UN Charter. The Charter famously insists on the peaceful resolution of these disputes through ‘negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice’. 76 Dispute Settlement Understanding, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994), Annex 2, 1869 UNTS 401. 77 Nor is dispute settlement the only vehicle for ensuring treaty performance. Alternatives include: multilateral environmental agreement ‘non-​compliance procedures’; human rights treaty body supervision; arms control inspection and verification regimes; and exclusion clauses authorizing termination or suspension of breaching parties’ treaty rights. Although not sampled here, these are tools treaty-​makers should consider. See generally G Ulfstein and others (eds), Making Treaties Work—​Human Rights, Environment, and Arms Control (CUP, Cambridge 2007). 78 See UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3, Arts 186–​191, 264–​265, 279–​299, Annexes V–​VIII.

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3. Through any agreed-​upon means • Article XXV, Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (1992) 1764 UNTS 3: In case of a dispute between Contracting Parties concerning the interpretation and implementation of this Convention, they shall seek a settlement of the dispute through negotiations or any other peaceful means of their own choice.

• Article 19, The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 1. States Parties shall consult and, by mutual consent, cooperate to pursue settlement of any dispute that may arise between them with regard to the interpretation or application of this Treaty including through negotiations, mediation, conciliation, judicial settlement or other peaceful means. 2. States Parties may pursue, by mutual consent, arbitration to settle any dispute between them, regarding issues concerning the interpretation or application of this Treaty.

B.  Procedures involving third parties 1. Referral to a treaty body • Article 50, International Cocoa Agreement (2010) [2011] OJ L259/​8: 1. Any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Agreement which is not settled by the parties to the dispute shall, at the request of either party to the dispute, be referred to the [International Cocoa] Council for decision. 2. When a dispute has been referred to the Council under paragraph 1 of this article and has been discussed, Members holding not less than one third of the total votes, or any five Members, may require the Council, before giving its decision, to seek the opinion on the issues in dispute of an ad hoc advisory panel to be constituted as described in paragraph 3 of this article. 3. (a) Unless the Council decides otherwise, the ad hoc advisory panel shall consist of: (i) Two persons, one having wide experience in matters of the kind in dispute and the other having legal standing and experience, nominated by the exporting Members; (ii) Two persons, one having wide experience in matters of the kind in dispute and the other having legal standing and experience, nominated by the importing Members; and (iii) A chairman selected unanimously by the four persons nominated under (i) and (ii)  above or, if they fail to agree, by the Chairman of the Council. (b) Nationals of Members shall not be ineligible to serve on the ad hoc advisory panel. (c) Persons appointed to the ad hoc advisory panel shall act in their personal capacities and without instructions from any Government. (d) The costs of the ad hoc advisory panel shall be paid by the Organization. 4. The opinion of the ad hoc advisory panel and the reasons therefore shall be submitted to the Council, which, after considering all the relevant information, shall decide the dispute.

• Article XVI, Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1990) 2443 UNTS 3: 1. To promote the objectives and implementation of the provisions of this Treaty, the States Parties hereby establish a Joint Consultative Group.

Applying the Treaty  739 2. Within the framework of the Joint Consultative Group, the States Parties shall: (A) address questions relating to compliance with or possible circumvention of the provisions of this Treaty; (B) seek to resolve ambiguities and differences of interpretation that may become apparent in the way this Treaty is implemented . . . (I) consider matters of dispute arising out of the implementation of this Treaty. 3. Each State Party shall have the right to raise before the Joint Consultative Group, and have placed on its agenda, any issue relating to this Treaty. 4. The Joint Consultative Group shall take decisions or make recommendations by consensus. Consensus shall be understood to mean the absence of any objection by any representative of a State Party to the taking of a decision or the making of a recommendation . . . 6. Nothing in this Article shall be deemed to prohibit or restrict any State Party from requesting information from or undertaking consultations with other States Parties on matters relating to this Treaty and its implementation in channels or fora other than the Joint Consultative Group.

C.  Binding dispute settlement 1. Through a treaty-​specific court • Articles 32, 55, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Funda­ mental Freedoms, as amended (2010) CETS No 194: ARTICLE 32—​Jurisdiction of the Court 1. The jurisdiction of the Court shall extend to all matters concerning the interpretation and application of the Convention and the Protocols thereto which are referred to it as provided in Articles 33, 34, 46 and 47. 2. In the event of dispute as to whether the Court has jurisdiction, the Court shall decide. ARTICLE 55—​Exclusion of other means of dispute settlement The High Contracting Parties agree that, except by special agreement, they will not avail themselves of treaties, conventions or declarations in force between them for the purpose of submitting, by way of petition, a dispute arising out of the interpretation or application of this Convention to a means of settlement other than those provided for in this Convention.

2. Through arbitration at the election of one party • Article 8(2), Agreement on the participation of the Russian Federation in the European Union military operation in the Republic of Chad and in the Central African Republic (EU-​Russian Federation) (2008) [2008] OJ L307/​16: Any financial claims or disputes, that have not been resolved in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article, may be submitted to a mutually agreed conciliator or mediator. Any claims or disputes which have failed to be settled by such conciliation or mediation may be submitted by either Party to an arbitration tribunal . . .

740  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

3. Through arbitration by mutual agreement • Article XVIII, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (1973) 993 UNTS 243: 1. Any dispute which may arise between two or more Parties with respect to the interpretation or application of the provisions of the present Convention shall be subject to negotiation between the Parties involved in the dispute. 2. If the dispute cannot be resolved in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article, the Parties may, by mutual consent, submit the dispute to arbitration, in particular that of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and the Parties submitting the dispute shall be bound by the arbitral decision.

4. Unilateral ICJ referral • Article IX, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) 78 UNTS 277: Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

5. ICJ referral on mutual agreement of disputing parties • Article 24, Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (1967) 634 UNTS 281: Unless the Parties concerned agree on another mode of peaceful settlement, any question or dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Treaty which is not settled shall be referred to the International Court of Justice with the prior consent of the Parties to the controversy.

6. Referral to arbitration or the ICJ • Article 35(2)–​(4), UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention (2000) 2225 UNTS 209: 2. Any dispute between two or more States Parties concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention that cannot be settled through negotiation within a reasonable time shall, at the request of one of those States Parties, be submitted to arbitration. If, six months after the date of the request for arbitration, those States Parties are unable to agree on the organization of the arbitration, any one of those States Parties may refer the dispute to the International Court of Justice by request in accordance with the Statute of the Court. 3. Each State Party may, at the time of signature, ratification, acceptance or approval of or accession to this Convention, declare that it does not consider itself bound by paragraph 2 of this article. The other States Parties shall not be bound by paragraph 2 of this article with respect to any State Party that has made such a reservation.

Applying the Treaty  741 4. Any State Party that has made a reservation in accordance with paragraph 3 of this article may at any time withdraw that reservation by notification to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations.

7. Referral to the ICJ, arbitration, or conciliation • Article 18(1)–​(3), (6), Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) 2256 UNTS 119: 1. Parties shall settle any dispute between them concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention through negotiation or other peaceful means of their own choice. 2. When ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to the Convention, or at any time thereafter, a Party that is not a regional economic integration organization may declare in a written instrument submitted to the depositary that, with respect to any dispute concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, it recognizes one or both of the following means of dispute settlement as compulsory in relation to any Party accepting the same obligation: (a) Arbitration in accordance with procedures to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties in an annex as soon as practicable; (b) Submission of the dispute to the International Court of Justice. 3. A  Party that is a regional economic integration organization may make a declaration with like effect in relation to arbitration in accordance with the procedure referred to in paragraph 2 (a). 6. If the parties to a dispute have not accepted the same or any procedure pursuant to paragraph 2, and if they have not been able to settle their dispute within twelve months following notification by one party to another that a dispute exists between them, the dispute shall be submitted to a conciliation commission at the request of any party to the dispute. The conciliation commission shall render a report with recommendations . . . 

D.  Individual right to dispute settlement procedures • Article 23(1)–​(3), Double Taxation Agreement and Protocol (Hong Kong-​UK) (2010) : 1. Where a person considers that the actions of one or both of the Contracting Parties result or will result for him in taxation not in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement, he may, irrespective of the remedies provided by the domestic laws of those Parties, present his case to the competent authority of the Contracting Party of which he is a resident . . . The case must be presented within three years from the first notification of the action resulting in taxation not in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement. 2. The competent authority shall endeavour, if the objection appears to it to be justified and if it is not itself able to arrive at a satisfactory solution, to resolve the case by mutual agreement with the competent authority of the other Contracting Party, with a view to the avoidance of taxation which is not in accordance with this Agreement. Any agreement reached shall be implemented notwithstanding any time limits in the domestic laws of the Contracting Parties.

742  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 3. The competent authorities of the Contracting Parties shall endeavour to resolve by mutual agreement any difficulties or doubts arising as to the interpretation or application of this Agreement. They may also consult together for the elimination of double taxation in cases not provided for in this Agreement.

• Article VII(2)–​(3), Treaty Concerning the Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investment (US-​Argentina) (1991) 31 ILM 124: 2. In the event of an investment dispute, the parties to the dispute should initially seek a resolution through consultation and negotiation. If the dispute cannot be settled amicably, the national or company concerned may choose to submit the dispute for resolution: (a) to the courts or administrative tribunals of the Party that is a party to the dispute; or (b) in accordance with any applicable, previously agreed dispute-​settlement procedures; or (c) in accordance with the terms of paragraph 3. 3. (a) Provided that the national or company concerned has not submitted the dispute for resolution under paragraph 2 (a) or (b) and that six months have elapsed from the date on which the dispute arose, the national or company concerned may choose to consent in writing to the submission of the dispute for settlement by binding arbitration: (i) to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (“Centre”) . . . provided that the Party is a party to such convention; or (ii) to the Additional Facility of the Centre, if the Centre is not available; or (iii) in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNICTRAL); or (iv) to any other arbitration institution, or in accordance with any other arbitration rules, as may be mutually agreed between the parties to the dispute. (b) Once the national or company concerned has so consented, either party to the dispute may initiate arbitration in accordance with the choice so specified in the consent . . . 

Amendments 20.  Standard Amendment Procedures A defining feature of the treaty is its stability; treaties are serious commitments meant to last over time. Nevertheless, treaties may require adjustment for various reasons. The primary, although not exclusive,79 means of doing so is through an amendment. Amendments formally make changes to a treaty’s text, whether its main provisions or any annexes. Today, a treaty usually specifies its own procedures for amendment.80 This is not, however, universally true, and the VCLT provides a default framework where treaties are silent on the subject.81 Sometimes, a treaty will contain provisions for a general review of the whole treaty. Although these ‘revision’ clauses were once distinguished from amendment procedures, that is no longer the case. Revision clauses now either set the stage for applying the treaty’s amendment procedures, or where the treaty is silent, those of the VCLT. In terms of amendment procedures themselves, treaties may adopt one of two standard formulations.82 First, bilateral treaties (and occasionally multilateral ones) operate on the basis of unanimity; an amendment requires the agreement and consent of all parties to enter into force, and when it does, all parties are equally bound. A second, different formulation is frequently employed in treaty texts anticipating a large number of parties, where an amendment only binds those parties that consent to it. The singularity of this result is masked by a complicated set of procedures for: (i) proposing amendments; (ii) the parties’ adoption of an amendment; and (iii) its entry into force. Although unanimity is not required for entry into force, the scope of approval required may vary at these other two stages. These clauses thus differ widely in their details even as they structurally end in the same place, stipulating individual consent for any treaty amendment that enters into force. Both standard formulations leave individual parties in control of decisions as to whether to consent to an amendment.83 As Chapter 14 explains, this may not always 79 Other alternatives include: (i) a stand-​alone treaty (a ‘protocol’) that supplements the original treaty; (ii) a new treaty that supersedes the earlier one; (iii) decisions of an authorized treaty body; or (iv) (more controversially) treaty interpretation. On superseding treaties, see Chapter 18; treaty bodies, Chapter 17; and interpretation, Chapter 19. 80 Occasionally, a Framework Convention will specify procedures not only for its own amendment, but also for Protocols concluded under its auspices. See eg Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (adopted 22 March 1985, entered into force 22 September 1988) 1513 UNTS 293, Art 9. A protocol may, however, delineate its own amendment procedures. See eg Final Clauses Handbook (n 6) 102–​4. 81 Arts 39–​40 VCLT. 82 These procedures may be available on the treaty’s entry into force or the treaty may require some period of time to elapse before amendments may be proposed. Amendments are not, however, possible until after a treaty enters into force. Revising a treaty’s terms beforehand generally requires a separate agreement or protocol. See eg Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 (adopted 28 July 1994, entered into force 28 July 1996) 1836 UNTS 3. 83 When a State joins an amended treaty, it normally consents to that treaty as amended, although the VCLT acknowledges that it can express a ‘different intention’. Art 40(5) VCLT.

744  Treaty Clauses and Instruments be a good thing; it may delay or obstruct necessary changes to a treaty. Or, it may create layers of complicated relations among parties to treaties in their original formulation and those that consent to one (or more) amended versions of it. As a result of these difficulties, alternative or ‘simplified’ amendment procedures have emerged that are sampled under the next heading. For now, it is enough to emphasize that these simplified processes are not just substitutes for standard amendment procedures; they may operate in concert with them as well. A robust amendment clause may differentiate treaty provisions for which simplified amendment procedures are appropriate from others provisions to which more standard procedures apply.

A.  Procedures for revision or review • Article 15(1), International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999) UN Doc A/​CONF.188.6: A conference of States Parties for the purpose of revising or amending this Convention shall be convened by the Secretary-​General of the United Nations at the request of one third of the States Parties.

• Article 123(1)–​(3), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: 1. Seven years after the entry into force of this Statute the Secretary-​General of the United Nations shall convene a Review Conference to consider any amendments to this Statute. Such review may include, but is not limited to, the list of crimes contained in article 5. The Conference shall be open to those participating in the Assembly of States Parties and on the same conditions. 2. At any time thereafter, at the request of a State Party and for the purposes set out in paragraph 1, the Secretary-​General of the United Nations shall, upon approval by a majority of States Parties, convene a Review Conference. 3. The provisions of article 121, paragraphs 3 to 7 [on amendments], shall apply to the adoption and entry into force of any amendment to the Statute considered at a Review Conference.

B.  Amendments binding by unanimity 1. Bilateral treaties • Articles XIII, XIV(1), Agreement for Co-​operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (Canada-​Jordan) (2009) CTS E105181: ARTICLE XIII This Agreement may be amended at any time with the written consent of the Parties. Any amendment to this Agreement shall enter into force in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article XIV. ARTICLE XIV 1. This Agreement shall enter into force on the date of the last note of an exchange of diplomatic notes in which the Parties notify each other of the completion of their internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of this Agreement.

Amendments  745 • Article 9, Agreement on the Framework for Security Cooperation (Australia-​Indonesia) (2006) [2008] ATS 3: This Agreement may be amended in writing by mutual consent by both Parties. Any amendment to this Agreement shall come into force on the date of later notification by either Party of the completion of its ratification procedure for the amendment.

• Article 22(3), Treaty on Extradition (Canada-​South Africa) (2001) Canada Treaty Series 2001/​20: This Treaty may be amended by mutual consent.

2. Multilateral treaties • Article 28, Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (2006) [2006] OJ L358/​62: 1 . Any Party may propose an amendment to this Agreement. 2. Proposed amendments shall be considered by the Council, for recommendation to the Parties by unanimity. 3. Amendments are subject to ratification, acceptance or approval in accordance with the procedures of each Party and shall enter into force 30 days after the deposit of the instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval by all Parties.

• Article 21, Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1993) 1819 UNTS 359: 1 . Any Party may at any time propose an amendment to this Convention. 2. If one-​third of the Parties request a meeting to discuss a proposed amendment the Depositary shall call such a meeting. 3. An amendment shall enter into force when the Depositary has received instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval thereof from all the Parties.

• Article X(2), Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: Amendments to the provisions of this Article and to the provisions of the following Articles shall take effect only upon acceptance by all Members: Article IX of this Agreement; Articles I and II of GATT 1994; Article II:1 of GATS; Article 4 of the Agreement on TRIPS.

• Article 27, Agreement Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station (1998) TIAS 12927: This Agreement, including its Annex, may be amended by written agreement of the Governments of the Partner States for which this Agreement has entered into force. Amendments to this Agreement, except for those made exclusively to the Annex, shall be subject to ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession by those States in accordance with their respective constitutional processes. Amendments made exclusively to the Annex shall

746  Treaty Clauses and Instruments require only a written agreement of the Governments of the Partner States for which this Agreement has entered into force.

C.  Amendments binding those parties that consent to them84 1. Requiring consent to be bound from three-​fourths of the parties • Article 21, Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (1998) 2244 UNTS 337: 1 . Amendments to this Convention may be proposed by any Party. 2. Amendments to this Convention shall be adopted at a meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to the Parties by the Secretariat at least six months before the meeting at which it is proposed for adoption. The Secretariat shall also communicate the proposed amendment to the signatories to this Convention and, for information, to the Depositary. 3. The Parties shall make every effort to reach agreement on any proposed amendment to this Convention by consensus. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted, and no agreement reached, the amendment shall as a last resort be adopted by a three-​fourths majority vote of the Parties present and voting at the meeting. 4. The amendment shall be communicated by the Depositary to all Parties for ratification, acceptance or approval. 5. Ratification, acceptance or approval of an amendment shall be notified to the Depositary in writing. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 3 shall enter into force for the Parties having accepted it on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval by at least three fourths of the Parties. Thereafter, the amendment shall enter into force for any other Party on the ninetieth day after the date on which that Party deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of the amendment.

2. Requiring consent from three-​fourths of the parties that were parties at the time of the adoption of the amendment • Article 26, Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) [2016] 55 ILM 582: 1 . Amendments to this Convention may be proposed by any Party. 2. Amendments to this Convention shall be adopted at a meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to the Parties by the Secretariat at least six months before the meeting at which it is proposed for adoption. The Secretariat shall also communicate the proposed amendment to the signatories to this Convention and, for information, to the Depositary. 3. The Parties shall make every effort to reach agreement on any proposed amendment to this Convention by consensus. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted, and no 84 As noted, clauses may differ by how (i) amendment proposals are made, (ii) amendments are adopted, and (iii) amendments enter into force. Although these examples are organized around the entry into force threshold, each amendment provision should be read in toto. Requirements for proposing or adopting amendments may impact the threshold chosen for entry into force. For example, amendments under the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean enter into force following the consent of only a majority of the parties, but that amendment must first be adopted by consensus.

Amendments  747 agreement reached, the amendment shall as a last resort be adopted by a three-​fourths majority vote of the Parties present and voting at the meeting. 4. An adopted amendment shall be communicated by the Depositary to all Parties for ratification, acceptance or approval. 5. Ratification, acceptance or approval of an amendment shall be notified to the Depositary in writing. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 3 shall enter into force for the Parties having consented to be bound by it on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval by at least three-​fourths of the Parties that were Parties at the time at which the amendment was adopted. Thereafter, the amendment shall enter into force for any other Party on the ninetieth day after the date on which that Party deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of the amendment.

3. Requiring consent from two-​thirds of the parties • Article 26, International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) 2445 UNTS 89: 1. A State Party may propose an amendment to this Convention. The proposed amendment shall be submitted to the depositary, who circulates it immediately to all States Parties. 2. If the majority of the States Parties request the depositary to convene a conference to consider the proposed amendments, the depositary shall invite all States Parties to attend such a conference to begin no sooner than three months after the invitations are issued. 3. The conference shall make every effort to ensure amendments are adopted by consensus. Should this not be possible, amendments shall be adopted by a two-​thirds majority of all States Parties. Any amendment adopted at the conference shall be promptly circulated by the depositary to all States Parties. 4. The amendment adopted pursuant to paragraph 3 of the present article shall enter into force for each State Party that deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance, accession or approval of the amendment on the thirtieth day after the date on which two thirds of the States Parties have deposited their relevant instrument. Thereafter, the amendment shall enter into force for any State Party on the thirtieth day after the date on which that State deposits its relevant instrument.

4. Requiring consent from two-​thirds of the parties and UNGA approval • Article 12, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000) 2173 UNTS 222: 1. Any State Party may propose an amendment and file it with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations. The Secretary General shall thereupon communicate the proposed amendment to States Parties, with a request that they indicate whether they favour a conference of States Parties for the purpose of considering and voting upon the proposals. In the event that, within four months from the date of such communication, at least one third of the States Parties favour such a conference, the Secretary-​General shall convene the conference under the auspices of the United Nations. Any amendment adopted by a majority of States Parties present and voting at the conference shall be submitted to the General Assembly for approval.

748  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 2. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 1 of the present article shall enter into force when it has been approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations and accepted by a two-​thirds majority of States Parties. 3. When an amendment enters into force, it shall be binding on those States Parties that have accepted it, other States Parties still being bound by the provisions of the present Protocol and any earlier amendments that they have accepted.

5. Requiring consent from a majority of the parties • Article 40, Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (2000) 2275 UNTS 43: 1. Any member of the Commission may propose amendments to this Convention to be considered by the Commission. Any such proposal shall be made by written communication addressed to the Executive Director at least 60 days before the meeting of the Commission at which it is to be considered. The Executive Director shall promptly circulate such communication to all members of the Commission. 2. Amendments to this Convention shall be considered at the annual meeting of the Commission unless a majority of the members request a special meeting to consider the proposed amendment. A special meeting may be convened on not less than 60 days’ notice. Amendments to this Convention shall be adopted by consensus. The text of any amendment adopted by the Commission shall be transmitted promptly by the Executive Director to all members of the Commission. 3. Amendments to this Convention shall enter into force for the Contracting Parties ratifying or acceding to them on the thirtieth day following the deposit of instruments of ratification or accession by a majority of Contracting Parties. Thereafter, for each Contracting Party ratifying or acceding to an amendment after the deposit of the required number of such instruments, the amendment shall enter into force on the thirtieth day following the deposit of its instrument of ratification or accession.

6. Requiring consent from a specific number of parties • Article 8(3), UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2019, not yet in force) : 1. Any Party to the Convention may propose an amendment to the present Convention by submitting it to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations. The Secretary-​General shall thereupon communicate the proposed amendment to the Parties to the Convention with a request that they indicate whether they favour a conference of Parties to the Convention for the purpose of considering and voting upon the proposal. In the event that within four months from the date of such communication at least one third of the Parties to the Convention favour such a conference, the Secretary-​General shall convene the conference under the auspices of the United Nations. 2. The conference of Parties to the Convention shall make every effort to achieve consensus on each amendment. If all efforts at consensus are exhausted and no consensus

Amendments  749 is reached, the amendment shall, as a last resort, require for its adoption a two-​thirds majority vote of the Parties to the Convention present and voting at the conference. 3. An adopted amendment shall be submitted by the depositary to all the Parties to the Convention for ratification, acceptance or approval. 4. An adopted amendment shall enter into force six months after the date of deposit of the third instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval. When an amendment enters into force, it shall be binding on those Parties to the Convention that have expressed consent to be bound by it. 5. When a Party to the Convention ratifies, accepts or approves an amendment following the deposit of the third instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval, the amendment shall enter into force in respect of that Party to the Convention six months after the date of the deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval.

7. On a date set by a Plenipotentiary Conference • Article 55(3)–​(4), (6), Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, as amended (2010) : 3. The quorum required at any Plenary Meeting of the Plenipotentiary Conference for consideration of any proposal for amending this Constitution or modification thereto shall consist of more than one half of the delegations accredited to the Plenipotentiary Conference. 4. To be adopted, any proposed modification to a proposed amendment as well as the proposal as a whole, whether or not modified, shall be approved, at a Plenary Meeting, by at least two-​thirds of the delegations accredited to the Plenipotentiary Conference which have the right to vote. 6. Any amendments to this Constitution adopted by a plenipotentiary conference shall, as a whole and in the form of one single amending instrument, enter into force at a date fixed by the conference between Member States having deposited before that date their instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of, or accession to, both this Constitution and the amending instrument. Ratification, acceptance or approval of, or accession to, only a part of such an amending instrument shall be excluded.

8. Without specifying a threshold for entry into force • Article 39, UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention (2000) 2225 UNTS 209: 1. After the expiry of five years from the entry into force of this Convention, a State Party may propose an amendment and file it with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, who shall thereupon communicate the proposed amendment to the States Parties and to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention for the purpose of considering and deciding on the proposal. The Conference of the Parties shall make every effort to achieve consensus on each amendment. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted and no agreement has been reached, the amendment shall, as a last resort, require for its adoption a two-​thirds majority vote of the States Parties present and voting at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties.

750  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 2. Regional economic integration organizations, in matters within their competence, shall exercise their right to vote under this article with a number of votes equal to the number of their member States that are Parties to this Convention. Such organizations shall not exercise their right to vote if their member States exercise theirs and vice versa. 3. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by States Parties. 4. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 1 of this article shall enter into force in respect of a State Party ninety days after the date of the deposit with the Secretary-​ General of the United Nations of an instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of such amendment. 5. When an amendment enters into force, it shall be binding on those States Parties which have expressed their consent to be bound by it. Other States Parties shall still be bound by the provisions of this Convention and any earlier amendments that they have ratified, accepted or approved.

21.  Simplified Amendment Procedures The default rule for amending treaties involves the proposal and adoption of amendments that individual parties may then decide to consent to be bound by (or not). But these are default rules; they apply ‘except in so far as the treaty may otherwise provide’.85 As Chapter 14 surveys, many modern multilateral treaties have adopted different—​or ‘simplified’—​amendment procedures. Despite the label, these provisions are among the most complex in treaty practice. They reflect the treaty-​makers’ accommodations of various interests—​for example, the need for party consent, the consistency of commitments parties assume, and the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances—​in light of the different functions a treaty may be asked to perform. First, where a treaty addresses technical, scientific, or administrative matters, amendments regularly assume the tacit consent of all parties for purposes of their entry into force, subject to an ‘opt-​out’ for parties that do not wish to be bound by specific amendments (or on occasion the tacit amendment process itself). Such matters are often addressed in an annex (or a treaty body decision). In the bilateral context, a similar procedure even allows one side with technical expertise to amend certain parts of the treaty for both parties. Second, where it is important for policy or logistical reasons that parties operate with the same set of commitments—​as in the case of treaty provisions governing IO operations—​a clause may provide for amendment by some specified majority, who bring the amendment into force for all parties including those that did not consent to be bound. Alternatively, the clause may stipulate that once a certain majority threshold is passed, non-​consenting parties may (or must) withdraw from the treaty itself. A third (more infrequent) type of simplified amendment procedure combines the process of adopting and bringing an amendment into force, empowering a vote of the treaty’s plenary body to bind all parties. To the extent this process minimizes opportunities for 85 Art 39 VCLT. The 1986 VCLT reiterates this rule and adds that IO consent to an amendment ‘shall be governed by the rules of that organization’. Art 39 of the 1986 VCLT.

Amendments  751 domestic review of treaty amendments, it is often limited to institutional matters, topics that do not involve ‘new’ obligations, timing questions, or (like tacit consent) technical subjects. In many cases, a single treaty will have multiple functions. As a result, a treaty may contain elaborate amendment clauses that provide different sets of procedures for different types of commitments the treaty and its annexes contain.

A.  Amendment for all parties by tacit consent with an opt-​out 1. Where parties may opt-​out of individual amendments • Article 22(2)–​(4), Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (1998) 2244 UNTS 337: 2 . Annexes shall be restricted to procedural, scientific, technical or administrative matters. 3. The following procedure shall apply to the proposal, adoption and entry into force of additional annexes to this Convention: (a) Additional annexes shall be proposed and adopted according to the procedure laid down in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Article 21;86 (b) Any Party that is unable to accept an additional annex shall so notify the Depositary, in writing, within one year from the date of communication of the adoption of the additional annex by the Depositary. The Depositary shall without delay notify all Parties of any such notification received. A Party may at any time withdraw a previous notification of non-​acceptance in respect of an additional annex and the annex shall thereupon enter into force for that Party subject to subparagraph (c) below; and (c) On the expiry of one year from the date of the communication by the Depositary of the adoption of an additional annex, the annex shall enter into force for all Parties that have not submitted a notification in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph (b) above. 4. Except in the case of Annex III, the proposal, adoption and entry into force of amendments to annexes to this Convention shall be subject to the same procedures as for the proposal, adoption and entry into force of additional annexes to the Convention.

• Articles 15(2)–​(3), 16(2)–​(5), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) 1771 UNTS 107: Article 15 Amendments to the Convention . . . 2. Amendments to the Convention shall be adopted at an ordinary session of the Conference of the Parties. The text of any proposed amendment to the Convention shall be communicated to the Parties by the secretariat at least six months before the meeting at which it is proposed for adoption. The secretariat shall also communicate proposed amendments to the signatories to the Convention and, for information, to the Depositary.

86

Article 21 is excerpted under Heading 20(C)(1) above.

752  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 3. The Parties shall make every effort to reach agreement on any proposed amendment to the Convention by consensus. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted, and no agreement reached, the amendment shall as a last resort be adopted by a three-​fourths majority vote of the Parties present and voting at the meeting. The adopted amendment shall be communicated by the secretariat to the Depositary, who shall circulate it to all Parties for their acceptance.

2. 3.

4.

5.

Article 16 Adoption and Amendment of Annexes to the Convention . . . Annexes to the Convention shall be proposed and adopted in accordance with the procedure set forth in Article 15, paragraphs 2, 3 and 4. An annex that has been adopted in accordance with paragraph 2 above shall enter into force for all Parties to the Convention six months after the date of the communication by the Depositary to such Parties of the adoption of the annex, except for those Parties that have notified the Depositary, in writing, within that period of their non-​acceptance of the annex. The annex shall enter into force for Parties which withdraw their notification of non-​acceptance on the ninetieth day after the date on which withdrawal of such notification has been received by the Depositary. The proposal, adoption and entry into force of amendments to annexes to the Convention shall be subject to the same procedure as that for the proposal, adoption and entry into force of annexes to the Convention in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3 above. If the adoption of an annex or an amendment to an annex involves an amendment to the Convention, that annex or amendment to an annex shall not enter into force until such time as the amendment to the Convention enters into force.

2. Where parties may opt-​out of the tacit consent process on joining the treaty • Article 16(2)(e)(ii), (f)(ii), International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-​ Fouling Systems on Ships (2001) IMO Doc AFS/​CONF/​26: (e) An amendment shall be deemed to have been accepted in the following circumstances . . . (ii) An amendment to an Annex shall be deemed to have been accepted at the end of twelve months after the date of adoption or such other date as determined by the Committee. However, if by that date more than one-​third of the Parties notify the Secretary-​General that they object to the amendment, it shall be deemed not to have been accepted. (f) An amendment shall enter into force under the following conditions . . . (ii) An amendment to Annex 1 shall enter into force with respect to all Parties six months after the date on which it is deemed to have been accepted, except for any Party that has: (1) notified its objection to the amendment in accordance with subparagraph (e) (ii) and that has not withdrawn such objection; (2) notified the Secretary-​General, prior to the entry into force of such amendment, that the amendment shall enter into force for it only after a subsequent notification of its acceptance; or (3) made a declaration at the time it deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of, or accession to, this Convention that amendments to Annex 1 shall enter into force for it only after the notification to the Secretary-​General of its acceptance with respect to such amendments. . . .

Amendments  753

B.  Amendment for all parties by majority consent 1. By ratification of seven-​eighths of the parties (with an option for non-​consenting parties to withdraw) • Article 121(3)–​(6), Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: 3. The adoption of an amendment at a meeting of the Assembly of States Parties or at a Review Conference on which consensus cannot be reached shall require a two-​thirds majority of States Parties. 4. Except as provided in paragraph 5, an amendment shall enter into force for all States Parties one year after instruments of ratification or acceptance have been deposited with the Secretary-​General of the United Nations by seven-​eighths of them. 5. Any amendment to articles 5, 6, 7 and 8 of this Statute shall enter into force for those States Parties which have accepted the amendment one year after the deposit of their instruments of ratification or acceptance. In respect of a State Party which has not accepted the amendment, the Court shall not exercise its jurisdiction regarding a crime covered by the amendment when committed by that State Party's nationals or on its territory. 6. If an amendment has been accepted by seven-​eighths of States Parties in accordance with paragraph 4, any State Party which has not accepted the amendment may withdraw from this Statute with immediate effect, notwithstanding article 127, paragraph 1, but subject to article 127, paragraph 2, by giving notice no later than one year after the entry into force of such amendment.

2. By three-​fourths of the parties • Article 17(3), Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (1967) 828 UNTS 3: (3) Any amendment shall enter into force one month after written notifications of acceptance, effected in accordance with their respective constitutional processes, have been received by the Director General from three–​fourths of the States Members of the Organization, entitled to vote on the proposal for amendment pursuant to paragraph (2), at the time the Conference adopted the amendment. Any amendment thus accepted shall bind all the States which are Members of the Organization at the time the amendment enters into force or which become Members at a subsequent date, provided that any amendment increasing the financial obligations of Member States shall bind only those States which have notified their acceptance of such amendment . . .

3. By three-​fourths of the parties (with non-​consenting parties free to withdraw or remain if IO consents) • Article X(3), Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: Amendments to provisions of this Agreement, or of the Multilateral Trade Agreements in Annexes 1A and 1C, other than those listed in paragraphs 2 and 6, of a nature that would

754  Treaty Clauses and Instruments alter the rights and obligations of the Members, shall take effect for the Members that have accepted them upon acceptance by two thirds of the Members and thereafter for each other Member upon acceptance by it. The Ministerial Conference may decide by a three-​fourths majority of the Members that any amendment made effective under this paragraph is of such a nature that any Member which has not accepted it within a period specified by the Ministerial Conference in each case shall be free to withdraw from the WTO or to remain a Member with the consent of the Ministerial Conference.

4. By two-​thirds of the parties • Article X(4), Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (1994) 1867 UNTS 154: Amendments to provisions of this Agreement or of the Multilateral Trade Agreements in Annexes 1A and 1C, other than those listed in paragraphs 2 and 6, of a nature that would not alter the rights and obligations of the Members, shall take effect for all Members upon acceptance by two thirds of the Members.

5. By at least two-​thirds of the contracting parties (with the possibility that non-​ consenting parties will cease to be parties to the treaty) • Article 94, Convention on International Civil Aviation (1944) 15 UNTS 295: (a) Any proposed amendment to this Convention must be approved by a two-​thirds vote of the Assembly and shall then come into force in respect of States which have ratified such amendment when ratified by the number of contracting States specified by the Assembly. The number so specified shall not be less than two-​thirds of the total number of contracting States. (b) If in its opinion the amendment is of such a nature as to justify this course, the Assembly in its resolution recommending adoption may provide that any State which has not ratified within a specified period after the amendment has come into force shall thereupon cease to be a member of the Organization and a party to the Convention.

6. By a ‘positive majority’ (with no negative votes) • Article XV(1)–​(3), Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (1992) 1974 UNTS 45: 1 . Any State Party may propose amendments to this Convention . . . 2. The text of a proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Director-​General for circulation to all States Parties and to the Depositary. The proposed amendment shall be considered only by an Amendment Conference. Such an Amendment Conference shall be convened if one third or more of the States Parties notify the Director-​General not later than 30 days after its circulation that they support further consideration of the proposal. The Amendment Conference shall be held immediately following a regular session of the Conference unless the requesting States Parties ask for an earlier meeting. In no case shall an Amendment Conference be held less than 60 days after the circulation of the proposed amendment.

Amendments  755 3. Amendments shall enter into force for all States Parties 30  days after deposit of the instruments of ratification or acceptance by all the States Parties referred to under subparagraph (b) below: (a) When adopted by the Amendment Conference by a positive vote of a majority of all States Parties with no State Party casting a negative vote; and (b) Ratified or accepted by all those States Parties casting a positive vote at the Amendment Conference . . .

7. Tacit consent by provisional application • Article 54(217D (3penter)), (218(4)), (221A(5bis)), Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as amended (2010) : 217D(3penter) Any revision of the Administrative Regulations shall apply provisionally, as from the date of entry into force of the revision, in respect of any Member State that has signed the revision and has not notified the Secretary-​General of its consent to be bound . . . Such provisional application only takes effect if the Member State in question did not oppose it at the time of signature of the revision. 218(4) Such provisional application shall continue for a Member State until it notifies the Secretary-​General of its decision concerning its consent to be bound by any such revision. 221A(5bis) If a Member State fails to notify the Secretary-​General of its decision concerning its consent to be bound under No. 218 above within thirty-​six months following the date or dates of entry into force of the revision, that Member State shall be deemed to have consented to be bound by that revision.

C.  Amendment by adoption 1. By adoption • Article 122, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: 1. Amendments to provisions of this Statute which are of an exclusively institutional nature, namely, article 35, article 36, paragraphs 8 and 9, article 37, article 38, article 39, paragraphs 1 (first two sentences), 2 and 4, article 42, paragraphs 4 to 9, article 43, paragraphs 2 and 3, and articles 44, 46, 47 and 49, may be proposed at any time, notwithstanding article 121, paragraph 1, by any State Party . . . 2. Amendments under this article on which consensus cannot be reached shall be adopted by the Assembly of States Parties or by a Review Conference, by a two-​thirds majority of States Parties. Such amendments shall enter into force for all States Parties six months after their adoption by the Assembly or, as the case may be, by the Conference.

• Article XX(2), Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (with Annexes) (1945) [1991] OJ C/​238: An amendment not involving new obligations for Member Nations or Associate Members shall take effect forthwith, unless the resolution by which it is adopted provides otherwise . . .

756  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

2. By adoption in the absence of objection from the contracting parties • Articles 25(2), (9), 27, Convention on International Customs Transit Procedures for the Carriage of Goods by Rail Under Cover of SMGS Consignment Notes (2006) : ARTICLE 25 Administrative Committee 2. The members of the Committee shall be the Contracting Parties . . . 9. Proposals shall be put to the vote. Each Contracting Party represented at the meeting shall have one vote . . . Proposed amendments shall be adopted by a two-​thirds majority of those present and voting. ARTICLE 27 Amendment Procedure 1. In accordance with article 25 of this Convention, the Committee may recommend amendments to this Convention. 2. The text of any amendment so recommended shall be communicated by the depositary to all Contracting Parties to this Convention and to the other signatories. 3. Except as provided for under article 28, any recommended amendment communicated in accordance with paragraph 2 of this article shall enter into force with respect to all Contracting Parties 3 months after the expiry of a period of 18 months following the date of communication of the recommended amendment if no objection to the recommended amendment has been notified during that period to the depositary by a Contracting Party. 4. If any objection to the recommended amendment has been notified to the depositary by a Contracting Party before the expiry of the period of 18 months specified in paragraph 3 of this article, the amendment shall be deemed not to have been accepted and shall have no effect.

• Article 16, European Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (1991) 1746 UNTS 3: 1. Annexes III and IV to this Agreement may be amended in accordance with the procedure specified in this article. 2. At the request of a Contracting Party, any amendment proposed by it to annexes III and IV shall be considered by the Working Party on Combined Transport of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. 3. If the amendment is adopted by a two-​thirds majority of the Contracting Parties present and voting, the amendment shall be communicated by the Secretary-​General of the United Nations to all Contracting Parties for acceptance. 4. Any proposed amendment communicated in accordance with paragraph 3 of this article shall be deemed accepted unless, within a period of six months following the date of its communication, one fifth or more of the Contracting Parties have notified the Secretary-​ General of the United Nations of their objection to the proposed amendment. 5. Any amendment accepted in accordance with paragraph 4 of this article shall be communicated by the Secretary-​General to all Contracting Parties and shall enter into force three months after the date of its communication with respect to all Contracting Parties except

Amendments  757 those which, prior to the date of its entry into force, have notified the Secretary-​General that they did not accept the proposed amendment 6. If one fifth or more of the Contracting Parties have notified an objection to the proposed amendment in accordance with paragraph 4 above, the amendment shall be deemed not to have been accepted and shall have no effect whatsoever.

3. Authority to make ‘changes’ under different procedures than amendments • Article XV(4)–​(5), Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (1992) 1974 UNTS 45: 4. In order to ensure the viability and the effectiveness of this Convention, provisions in the Annexes shall be subject to changes in accordance with paragraph 5, if proposed changes are related only to matters of an administrative or technical nature. All changes to the Annex on Chemicals shall be made in accordance with paragraph 5. Sections A and C of the Confidentiality Annex, Part X of the Verification Annex, and those definitions in Part I of the Verification Annex which relate exclusively to challenge inspections, shall not be subject to changes in accordance with paragraph 5. 5. Proposed changes referred to in paragraph 4 shall be made in accordance with the following procedures: (a) The text of the proposed changes shall be transmitted together with the necessary information to the Director-​General. Additional information for the evaluation of the proposal may be provided by any State Party and the Director-​General. The Director-​General shall promptly communicate any such proposals and information to all States Parties, the Executive Council and the Depositary; (b) Not later than 60 days after its receipt, the Director-​General shall evaluate the proposal to determine all its possible consequences for the provisions of this Convention and its implementation and shall communicate any such information to all States Parties and the Executive Council; (c) The Executive Council shall examine the proposal in the light of all information available to it, including whether the proposal fulfils the requirements of paragraph 4. Not later than 90 days after its receipt, the Executive Council shall notify its recommendation, with appropriate explanations, to all States Parties for consideration. States Parties shall acknowledge receipt within 10 days; (d) If the Executive Council recommends to all States Parties that the proposal be adopted, it shall be considered approved if no State Party objects to it within 90 days after receipt of the recommendation. If the Executive Council recommends that the proposal be rejected, it shall be considered rejected if no State Party objects to the rejection within 90 days after receipt of the recommendation; (e) If a recommendation of the Executive Council does not meet with the acceptance required under subparagraph (d), a decision on the proposal, including whether it fulfils the requirements of paragraph 4, shall be taken as a matter of substance by the Conference at its next session; (f) The Director-​General shall notify all States Parties and the Depositary of any decision under this paragraph;

758  Treaty Clauses and Instruments (g) Changes approved under this procedure shall enter into force for all States Parties 180 days after the date of notification by the Director-​General of their approval unless another time period is recommended by the Executive Council or decided by the Conference.

4. Procedure for ‘adjustments’ • Article 2(9), Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) 1522 UNTS 3: (a) Based on the assessments made pursuant to Article 6, the Parties may decide whether: (i) Adjustments to the ozone depleting potentials specified in Annex A should be made and, if so, what the adjustments should be; and (ii) Further adjustments and reductions of production or consumption of the controlled substances from 1986 levels should be undertaken and, if so, what the scope, amount and timing of any such adjustments and reductions should be; (b) Proposals for such adjustments shall be communicated to the Parties by the Secretariat at least six months before the meeting of the Parties at which they are proposed for adoption; (c) In taking such decisions, the Parties shall make every effort to reach agreement by consensus. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted, and no agreement reached, such decisions shall, as a last resort, be adopted by a two-​thirds majority vote of the Parties present and voting representing at least fifty per cent of the total consumption of the controlled substances of the Parties; (d) The decisions, which shall be binding on all Parties, shall forthwith be communicated to the Parties by the Depositary. Unless otherwise provided in the decisions, they shall enter into force on the expiry of six months from the date of the circulation of the communication by the Depositary.

5. Amendments by adoption of one party only • Article 16, Protocol Additional to the Agreements for the Application of Safeguards (Congo-​IAEA) (2011) IAEA INFCIRC/​831/​Add.1: b. The list of activities specified in Annex I, and the list of equipment and material specified in Annex II, may be amended by the [IAEA] Board [of Governors] upon the advice of an open-​ended working group of experts established by the Board. Any such amendment shall take effect four months after its adoption by the Board.

6. Amendments by reference to amendment procedures in another treaty • Article 23(1), The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: 1. The provisions of Article 16 of the [UNFCC] Convention87 on the adoption and amendment of annexes to the Convention shall apply mutatis mutandis to this Agreement.



87

Article 16 is reproduced in Pt A of this Heading above.

Amendments  759

D.  Combining standard and simplified amendment procedures • Articles 21–​22, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) 2256 UNTS 119: Article 21 Amendments to the Convention 1. Amendments to this Convention may be proposed by any Party. 2. Amendments to this Convention shall be adopted at a meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to the Parties by the Secretariat at least six months before the meeting at which it is proposed for adoption. The Secretariat shall also communicate proposed amendments to the signatories to this Convention and, for information, to the depositary. 3. The Parties shall make every effort to reach agreement on any proposed amendment to this Convention by consensus. If all efforts at consensus have been exhausted, and no agreement reached, the amendment shall as a last resort be adopted by a three-​fourths majority vote of the Parties present and voting. 4. The amendment shall be communicated by the depositary to all Parties for ratification, acceptance or approval. 5. Ratification, acceptance or approval of an amendment shall be notified to the depositary in writing. An amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 3 shall enter into force for the Parties having accepted it on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval by at least three-​fourths of the Parties. Thereafter, the amendment shall enter into force for any other Party on the ninetieth day after the date on which that Party deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval of the amendment.

1.

2. 3.



Article 22 Adoption and amendment of annexes Annexes to this Convention shall form an integral part thereof and, unless expressly provided otherwise, a reference to this Convention constitutes at the same time a reference to any annexes thereto. Any additional annexes shall be restricted to procedural, scientific, technical or administrative matters. The following procedure shall apply to the proposal, adoption and entry into force of additional annexes to this Convention: (a) Additional annexes shall be proposed and adopted according to the procedure laid down in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Article 21; (b) Any Party that is unable to accept an additional annex shall so notify the depositary, in writing, within one year from the date of communication by the depositary of the adoption of the additional annex. The depositary shall without delay notify all Parties of any such notification received. A Party may at any time withdraw a previous notification of non-​acceptance in respect of any additional annex, and the annex shall thereupon enter into force for that Party subject to subparagraph (c); and (c) On the expiry of one year from the date of the communication by the depositary of the adoption of an additional annex, the annex shall enter into force for all Parties that have not submitted a notification in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph (b).

760  Treaty Clauses and Instruments 4. The proposal, adoption and entry into force of amendments to Annex A, B or C shall be subject to the same procedures as for the proposal, adoption and entry into force of additional annexes to this Convention, except that an amendment to Annex A, B or C shall not enter into force with respect to any Party that has made a declaration with respect to amendment to those Annexes in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 25, in which case any such amendment shall enter into force for such a Party on the ninetieth day after the date of deposit with the depositary of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with respect to such amendment. 5. The following procedure shall apply to the proposal, adoption and entry into force of an amendment to Annex D, E or F: (a) Amendments shall be proposed according to the procedure in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 21; (b) The Parties shall take decisions on an amendment to Annex D, E or F by consensus; and (c) A decision to amend Annex D, E or F shall forthwith be communicated to the Parties by the depositary. The amendment shall enter into force for all Parties on a date to be specified in the decision. 6. If an additional annex or an amendment to an annex is related to an amendment to this Convention, the additional annex or amendment shall not enter into force until such time as the amendment to the Convention enters into force.

• Article 48, The Treaty on European Union [2010] OJ C83/​13: 1. The Treaties may be amended in accordance with an ordinary revision procedure. They may also be amended in accordance with simplified revision procedures. Ordinary revision procedure 2. The Government of any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the Council proposals for the amendment of the Treaties. These proposals may, inter alia, serve either to increase or to reduce the competences conferred on the Union in the Treaties. These proposals shall be submitted to the European Council by the Council and the national Parliaments shall be notified. 3. If the European Council, after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, adopts by a simple majority a decision in favour of examining the proposed amendments, the President of the European Council shall convene a Convention composed of representatives of the national Parliaments, of the Heads of State or Government of the Member States, of the European Parliament and of the Commission. The European Central Bank shall also be consulted in the case of institutional changes in the monetary area. The Convention shall examine the proposals for amendments and shall adopt by consensus a recommendation to a conference of representatives of the governments of the Member States as provided for in paragraph 4.   The European Council may decide by a simple majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, not to convene a Convention should this not be justified by the extent of the proposed amendments. In the latter case, the European Council shall define the terms of reference for a conference of representatives of the governments of the Member States.

Amendments  761 4. A conference of representatives of the governments of the Member States shall be convened by the President of the Council for the purpose of determining by common accord the amendments to be made to the Treaties.   The amendments shall enter into force after being ratified by all the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. 5. If, two years after the signature of a treaty amending the Treaties, four fifths of the Member States have ratified it and one or more Member States have encountered difficulties in proceeding with ratification, the matter shall be referred to the European Council. Simplified revision procedures 6. The Government of any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the European Council proposals for revising all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union relating to the internal policies and action of the Union.   The European Council may adopt a decision amending all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Council shall act by unanimity after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, and the European Central Bank in the case of institutional changes in the monetary area. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.   The decision referred to in the second subparagraph shall not increase the competences conferred on the Union in the Treaties. 7. Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or Title V of this Treaty provides for the Council to act by unanimity in a given area or case, the European Council may adopt a decision authorising the Council to act by a qualified majority in that area or in that case. This subparagraph shall not apply to decisions with military implications or those in the area of defence.   Where the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides for legislative acts to be adopted by the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure, the European Council may adopt a decision allowing for the adoption of such acts in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.   Any initiative taken by the European Council on the basis of the first or the second subparagraph shall be notified to the national Parliaments. If a national Parliament makes known its opposition within six months of the date of such notification, the decision referred to in the first or the second subparagraph shall not be adopted. In the absence of opposition, the European Council may adopt the decision.   For the adoption of the decisions referred to in the first and second subparagraphs, the European Council shall act by unanimity after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, which shall be given by a majority of its component members.

The End of Treaty Relations 22.  Withdrawal or Denunciation The terms ‘withdrawal’ and ‘denunciation’ may be used interchangeably to refer to the unilateral act by which a party to a treaty seeks to terminate its party status.88 Withdrawal or denunciation may be authorized by the treaty’s own terms. Where the treaty is silent, the default rule disfavours withdrawal absent a showing that the parties intended to allow it or if such a right may be implied from the nature of the treaty.89 Where available, withdrawal or denunciation has significant legal effects. In the bilateral context, treaty relations end on the effective date of one side’s withdrawal or denunciation. In the multilateral context, the withdrawing party becomes free of its performance obligations vis-​à-​vis other parties, even as it remains on the hook for ‘any right, obligation, or legal situation’ that arose by virtue of the treaty’s execution before the effective date of the party’s withdrawal.90 The treaty remains in force, however, for other parties inter se. As Chapter  26 explains, treaty provisions on withdrawal or denunciation allow parties to manage the risks of entering into the treaty commitment in the first place. Today, treaties regularly include provisions on withdrawal or denunciation. The key question in such clauses pertains to when a party may withdraw, whether at any time, at some fixed interval(s), or based on certain conditions. Other important variations involve the required notification period and whether there is a need to cite some extraordinary circumstances.91 In some situations, moreover, a party’s actions with respect to one treaty may lead to the constructive withdrawal or denunciation of another one.

A.  Withdrawal or denunciation at any time 1. Effective immediately • Article XV(1), Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (1945) 2 UNTS 39: Any member may withdraw from the Fund at any time by transmitting a notice in writing to the Fund at its principal office. Withdrawal shall become effective on the date such notice is received.

88 These acts should be distinguished from cases of ‘exclusion’, where treaties provide procedures for bringing a breaching party’s treaty membership to an end. Eg International Coffee Agreement (2007) [2008] OJ L186/​13, Art 46. 89 Art 56(1) VCLT; Art 56(1) of the1986 VCLT. Where a right to withdraw or denounce can be implied, Art 56(2) VCLT requires twelve months’ notice to exercise it. Another default rule limits withdrawal or denunciation to the whole treaty unless the particular provision(s) are separable. See Art 44 VCLT. 90 Art 70(2) VCLT; Art 70(2) of the 1986 VCLT. Pursuant to Art 43 VCLT, withdrawal or denunciation also does nothing to impair the requirements of customary international law, a point occasionally reiterated in withdrawal and denunciation clauses specifically. 91 The self-​judging character of these conditions is a matter of some debate. See Chapter 25, Section II.B.5, 609 et seq.

The End of Treaty Relations  763

2. On notice • Article VIII(4), Agreement for Cooperation on a Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (US Dept of Energy-​Republic of India Planning Commission) (2010) TIAS 10-​1104.1: This Agreement may be terminated by mutual written agreement, or by either Party in writing at any time upon ninety days' written notice to the other Party . . .

• Article 70(1), UN Convention Against Corruption (2003) 2349 UNTS 41: A State Party may denounce this Convention by written notification to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations. Such denunciation shall become effective one year after the date of receipt of the notification by the Secretary-​General.

3. On notice, with continuing legal effects • Article 18, Agreement on the Security and Exchange of Classified Information (ESA-​ EU) (2007) [2008] OJ L219/​59: This Agreement may be denounced by one Party by giving written notice of denunciation to the other Party. Such denunciation shall take effect six months after receipt of notification by the other Party, but shall not affect obligations already contracted under the provisions of this Agreement. In particular, all classified information provided or exchanged pursuant to this Agreement shall continue to be protected in accordance with the provisions set forth herein.

• Article 127, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 2187 UNTS 3: 1. A  State Party may, by written notification addressed to the Secretary-​General of the United Nations, withdraw from this Statute. The withdrawal shall take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification, unless the notification specifies a later date. 2. A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Statute while it was a Party to the Statute, including any financial obligations which may have accrued. Its withdrawal shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.

• Article 24(2)–​(3), The Arms Trade Treaty (2013) [2013] 52 ILM 985: 2. Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty. It shall give notification of such withdrawal to the Depositary, which shall notify all other States Parties. The notification of withdrawal may include an explanation of the reasons for its withdrawal. The notice of withdrawal shall take effect ninety days after the receipt of the notification of withdrawal by the Depositary, unless the notification of withdrawal specifies a later date. 3. A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Treaty while it was a Party to this Treaty, including any financial obligations that it may have accrued.

764  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

B.  Conditional right of withdrawal or denunciation 1. At any time after a specific period of time has passed • Article XXI(1), Agreement for the Establishment of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (1993) [1996] ATS 20: Any Member of the Commission may withdraw from this Agreement at any time after the expiry of two years from the date upon which the Agreement entered into force with respect to that Member, by giving written notice of such withdrawal to the Director-​General . . .

2. Only at fixed intervals • Article 17(1), Food Assistance Convention (2012) 2884 UNTS 50320: 1. Any Party may withdraw from this Convention at the end of any year by giving written notice of withdrawal to the Depositary and the Committee at least ninety days prior to the end of that year . . . 

• Article 22, ILO Convention No 189, Domestic Workers Convention (2011) C189: 1. A Member which has ratified this Convention may denounce it after the expiration of ten years from the date on which the Convention first comes into force, by an act communicated to the Director-​General of the International Labour Office for registration. Such denunciation shall not take effect until one year after the date on which it is registered. 2. Each Member which has ratified this Convention and which does not, within the year following the expiration of the period of ten years mentioned in the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of denunciation provided for in this Article, will be bound for another period of ten years and, thereafter, may denounce this Convention within the first year of each new period of ten years under the terms provided for in this Article.

3. On notice after a specific period of time has passed • Article 28, The Paris Agreement (2016) [2016] 55 ILM 740: 1. At any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary. 2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.

• Article 17(3), Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Egypt-​ Finland) (2004) 2309 UNTS 261: This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of twenty (20) years and shall thereafter remain in force on the same terms until either Contracting party notifies the other in writing of its intention to terminate the Agreement in twelve (12) months.

The End of Treaty Relations  765 • Article 35(2)–​(4), Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, as amended (1971) 1161 UNTS 3: (2) Any country may denounce this Act by notification addressed to the Director General. Such denunciation shall constitute also denunciation of all earlier Acts and shall affect only the country making it, the Convention remaining in full force and effect as regards the other countries of the Union. (3) Denunciation shall take effect one year after the day on which the Director General has received the notification. (4) The right of denunciation provided by this Article shall not be exercised by any country before the expiration of five years from the date upon which it becomes a member of the Union.

4. On notice after a specific period of time has passed with continuing legal effects • Article 12(2)–​ (3), Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Panama-​South Korea) (2001) : (2) This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of ten (10) years and shall remain in force thereafter indefinitely unless either Contracting Party notifies the other Contracting Party, in writing, one (1) year in advance of its intention to terminate this Agreement. (3) In respect of investments made prior to the termination of this Agreement, the provisions of Article 1 to 11 of this Agreement shall remain in force for a further period of ten (10) years from the date of termination.

• Article 78, American Convention on Human Rights (1969) 1144 UNTS 123: 1. The States Parties may denounce this Convention at the expiration of a five-​year period from the date of its entry into force and by means of giving notice one year in advance. Notice of the denunciation shall be addressed to the Secretary General of the Organization, who shall inform the other States Parties. 2. Denunciation shall not have the effect of releasing the State Party concerned from the obligations contained in this Convention with respect to any act that may constitute a violation of those obligations and that has been taken by that state prior to the effective date of denunciation.

5. On notice with an explanation • Article X(1), Treaty on the Non-​Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968) 729 UNTS 161: Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.

766  Treaty Clauses and Instruments • Article 20(2), Treaty Concerning Defense Trade Cooperation (US-​UK) (2007) : 2. The Parties shall have the right to withdraw from this Treaty in accordance with this Article. If a Party decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its national interests it shall give notice of its intention to withdraw from this Treaty to the other Party. Such notice of intention to withdraw shall include a statement of the extraordinary events the notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its national interests. The Parties shall commence consultation within 30 days of the provision of the notice of intention to withdraw with the aim of allowing the continuation of this Treaty. If, after such consultation, the notifying Party does not agree to the continuation of this Treaty, the withdrawal of the notifying Party shall take effect upon the expiry of 6 months from the provision of the notice of intention to withdraw.

6. When another party has given notice of withdrawal or denunciation • Article XXXI(1)–​(2), Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980) 1329 UNTS 47: 1. Any Contracting Party may withdraw from this Convention on 30 June of any year, by giving written notice not later than 1 January of the same year to the Depositary, which, upon receipt of such a notice, shall communicate it forthwith to the other Contracting Parties. 2. Any other Contracting Party may, within sixty days of the receipt of a copy of such a notice from the Depositary, give written notice of withdrawal to the Depositary in which case the Convention shall cease to be in force on 30 June of the same year with respect to the Contracting Party giving such notice.

7. Effective only under certain conditions • Article 20(3), Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-​Personnel Mines and on their Destruction (1997) 2056 UNTS 211: 3. . . . withdrawal shall only take effect six months after the receipt of the instrument of withdrawal by the Depositary. If, however, on the expiry of that six-​month period, the withdrawing State Party is engaged in an armed conflict, the withdrawal shall not take effect before the end of the armed conflict.

8. On notice subject to a negotiated withdrawal agreement • Article 50, The Treaty on European Union [2010] OJ C83/​13: 1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. 2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its

The End of Treaty Relations  767 withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. 3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period. 4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.   A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

C. Constructive withdrawal • Article XII(1)(a)–​(b), The Antarctic Treaty (1959) 402 UNTS 71: (a) The present Treaty may be modified or amended at any time by unanimous agreement of the Contracting Parties whose representatives are entitled to participate in the meetings provided for under Article IX. Any such modification or amendment shall enter into force when the depositary Government has received notice from all such Contracting Parties that they have ratified it. (b) Such modification or amendment shall thereafter enter into force as to any other Contracting Party when notice of ratification by it has been received by the depositary Government. Any such Contracting Party from which no notice of ratification is received within a period of two years from the date of entry into force of the modification or amendment in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph 1(a) of this Article shall be deemed to have withdrawn from the present Treaty on the date of the expiration of such period.

• Article 27(3), Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1997) 2303 UNTS 148: Any Party that withdraws from the [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] shall be considered as also having withdrawn from this Protocol.

23.  Suspension Suspension is a pause button for the law of treaties; it puts a treaty’s application on hold. It may occur among all the parties, or only some of them, just as it may apply to the treaty as a whole or only some of its provisions. When all parties are involved, suspension works like withdrawal and termination; it can occur pursuant to the treaty’s terms or where all

768  Treaty Clauses and Instruments parties consent.92 Where only some parties seek suspension inter se, it functions like a treaty modification.93 Individual parties may seek suspension due to breach, impossibility, or a fundamental change of circumstances.94 But implying a unilateral right to suspend a treaty where it only provides for withdrawal or denunciation is harder; that view appears inconsistent with the VCLT’s own differentiation between the two concepts.95 Whatever its availability, suspension ceases performance obligations for its duration, leaving other treaty relations intact. Suspension presumes a limited duration, however, one where parties may resume their prior relationship at the expiration of the suspension period or via some later agreement.96 Treaties only occasionally include provisions for suspension, primarily in bilateral relations. Where they occur, suspension clauses authorize suspension generally, or limit its application to certain circumstances (eg breach) or conditions.

A.  Suspension generally authorized • Article 25, Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade in Timber Products into the Community (EC-​Ghana) (2009) [2010] OJ L70/​3: 1. Either Party may suspend the application of this Agreement. The decision on suspension and the reasons for that decision shall be notified to the other Party in writing. 2. The conditions of this Agreement will cease to apply 30 calendar days after such notice is given.

• Section 5, Memorandum of Understanding Concerning a Working Holiday Program (Denmark-​Canada) (2005) 2374 UNTS 283: Either of the Governments may suspend the foregoing provisions in whole or in part temporarily through an exchange of notes.

B.  Suspension for non-​compliance • Article 21, Agreement on the Processing and Transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for the Purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (EU-​US) (2010) [2010] OJ L195/​5: Either Party may suspend the application of this Agreement with immediate effect, in the event of breach of the other Party’s obligations under this Agreement, by notification through diplomatic channels. 92 Like withdrawal or denunciation, any contracting States must be consulted if the parties are otherwise prepared to agree to suspension outside the treaty’s terms. Art 57 VCLT; Art 57 of the 1986 VCLT. 93 Suspension inter se requires a provision authorizing it. Alternatively, it may occur if there is: (i) no provision prohibiting it; (ii) the suspension does not affect the other parties’ enjoyment of treaty rights or their performance of its obligations; (iii) it is compatible with the treaty’s object and purpose; and (iv) other parties are given appropriate notice. Art 58 VCLT; Art 58 of the 1986 VCLT. 94 On breach, see Chapter 24; on impossibility and fundamental change of circumstances, see Chapter 25. 95 But Russia asserted such a right in suspending its performance of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. See K Reif, ‘Russia Completes CFE Treaty Suspension’ (April 2015) Arms Control Today; DB Hollis ‘Russia Suspends CFE Treaty Participation’ (July 2007) 11 ASIL Insight. 96 See Art 72(1) VCLT. During a treaty’s suspension, the VCLT also obligates parties to refrain from acts that would interfere with the resumption of treaty operations, although the content of this obligation—​like the one following signature—​is ambiguous. Hollis (n 95); Art 72(2) VCLT.

The End of Treaty Relations  769 • Article 13, Exchange of Letters relating to the Provisional Application of the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EC-​Denmark/​Greenland) (2006) [2007] OJ L27/​17: 1. Application of this Agreement may be suspended at the initiative of one of the Parties if the undertakings in this Agreement, in the opinion of this Party, has been seriously infringed by the other Party. Such suspension shall require the Party concerned to notify its intention in writing at least six months before the date on which suspension is due to take effect. On receipt of this notification, the Parties shall enter into consultations with a view to resolving their differences amicably. 2. Payment of the financial contribution referred to in Article 7 and the fishing possibilities referred to in Article 5 shall be reduced proportionately, according to the duration of the suspension.

C.  Suspension for specified reasons • Article 6, Agreement on the use of Two Tracks of the Slovenian State Territory in the area of the ‘Dreilendereck’ Skiing Region (Austria-​Slovenia) (1995) 2404 UNTS 307: Each Contracting Party may temporarily suspend the validity of this Agreement for reasons of public order and security as well as on account of contagious diseases or epidemics in neighbouring regions of the other Contracting Party. The other Contracting Party must be informed thereof without delay through diplomatic channels.

• Paragraph 6, Exchange of Notes Constituting an Agreement in regard to the Mutual Abolition of Visas (Ireland-​Poland) (1992) 1745 UNTS 77: The Government of the Republic of Poland or the Government of Ireland may temporarily suspend the foregoing provisions in whole or in part for reasons of public policy. In any such case the suspension and the lifting of that suspension shall be notified to the other Government through the diplomatic channel and shall have effect immediately upon such notification.

24.  Duration and Termination How long do treaty relations last? As with so many earlier issues, treaty-​makers largely control their agreement’s final fate. A treaty terminates—​meaning that it ceases to exist for all parties—​in conformity with its provisions. Where there are no termination provisions (and even if there are), the parties may always agree collectively to terminate their treaty at any time.97 In terms of legal effects, termination ‘releases the parties from any obligation further to perform the treaty’ unless it provides otherwise or the parties otherwise agree.98 That said, as with withdrawal or denunciation, any rights, obligations, or legal situations produced while the treaty was in force remain.99 Chapter 26 details the relevant law and practice surrounding questions of treaty duration and termination. 97 Art 54 VCLT; Art 54 of the 1986 VCLT. Where parties intend to terminate a treaty, the VCLT requires them to first consult with any ‘contracting States’—​those who consented to the treaty but for whom it has yet to enter into force. Art 54(b) VCLT. 98 Art 70(1)(a) VCLT; Art 70(1)(a) of the 1986 VCLT. 99 Art 70(1)(b) VCLT; Art 70(1)(b) of the 1986 VCLT.

770  Treaty Clauses and Instruments In practice, most treaties contain provisions on duration or termination. Some expressly cabin the length of the commitment upfront, giving a treaty a set end date. Other clauses anticipate a repeating term, either at the election of the parties or automatically absent a contrary decision. But when a treaty’s term expires, so too does the treaty. In contrast, a treaty may have no fixed duration, adopting an indefinite term, which runs unless and until the parties trigger the termination provisions, if any. Termination provisions, therefore, offer an alternative exit option to parties. Instead of—​ and often in addition to—​a specific duration for a treaty’s existence, a treaty can specify the procedures or conditions for ending it. In the bilateral context, provisions for withdrawal or denunciation serve this function, where one party’s withdrawal notice effects a termination of the treaty, usually after the passage of some set notice period. In other contexts, termination may follow the occurrence of a specific event or condition. Depending on the nature of the treaty, a termination provision may also include ‘transitional’ provisions to deal with any remaining treaty rights or obligations. Finally, in some cases, a treaty may have no provision on duration or termination as happens quite frequently in both the human rights and multilateral environmental treaty contexts.

A. Treaty duration 1. A fixed term • Article VI(3), Agreement on Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Development (Canada-​Israel) (2006) CTS 2006/​9: This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of five years, unless terminated by either Party.

2. A fixed term extending an earlier agreement • Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation of June 25, 2003 as Extended (Pakistan-​US) (2019) TIAS 03 1016-​1: EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA No. 2960/​18/​ECON The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and refers it to the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan signed June 25, 2003, as extended on October 23, 2013 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Agreement’). On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, the Embassy proposes to extend the Agreement for a period of five years until October 23, 2023. If the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan considers this proposal acceptable, the Embassy further proposes that this note and the Ministry's reply note constitute an Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to extend the Agreement, which shall enter into force on the date of the Ministry's reply note and shall be effective from October 23, 2018. . . .

***

The End of Treaty Relations  771 MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ISLAMABAD No.USA-​91/​1/​2018-​19 22 January 2019 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan presents its compliments to the Embassy of the United States of America in Islamabad and with reference to the Embassy's Note Verbal No. 2960/​18/​ECON, dated 23rd October, 2018 has the honour to state that Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan concurs with the proposal to extend the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation between Pakistan and USA for a period of another five (5) years up to October 23, 2023 . . . 

3. A fixed term with limited extension options • Article 44(1)–​(3), International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) [2007] OJ L262/​8: 1. This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of 10 years after its entry into force unless the Council, by special vote in accordance with article 12, decides to extend, renegotiate or terminate it in accordance with the provisions of this article. 2. The Council may, by special vote in accordance with article 12, decide to extend this Agreement for two periods, an initial period of five years and an additional one of three years. 3. If, before the expiry of the 10-​year period referred to in paragraph 1 of this article, or before the expiry of an extension period referred to in paragraph 2 of this article, as the case may be, the new Agreement to replace this Agreement has been negotiated but has not yet entered into force either definitively or provisionally, the Council may, by special vote in accordance with article 12, extend this Agreement until the provisional or definitive entry into force of the new Agreement.

4. A fixed term that renews automatically unless terminated • Article VI(3) Agreement on Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Develop­ ment (Canada-​Israel) (2011) CTS E105299: This Agreement shall remain in force for a period of five years, unless denounced by either Party, and it shall be automatically renewable for periods of five years. A Party that does not wish to renew this Agreement shall notify the other Party by giving six months' written notification, through diplomatic channels.

5. A fixed term followed by a separate period of automatic renewal • Article 21(6), Agreement concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Information (Australia-​US) (2002) [2002] ATS 25: Unless terminated in accordance with paragraph 4, this Agreement shall remain in force for a period of twenty-​five years and shall be automatically extended in five-​year increments thereafter.

6. A fixed term that parties may agree to extend affirmatively • Article VII(19), Agreement Concerning Cooperating Communications Networks (Australia-​US) (1990) [1990] ATS 5: This Agreement shall come into force on signature and shall remain in force for a period of five years. The term may be extended only by the specific written concurrence of both Parties.

772  Treaty Clauses and Instruments

7. A fixed term subject to extensions and conditions • Article XXV, Food Aid Convention (1999) 2073 UNTS 135: (a) This Convention shall remain in force until and including 30 June 2002, unless extended under paragraph (b) of this Article or terminated earlier under paragraph (f) of this Article, provided that the Grains Trade Convention, 1995, or a new Grains Trade Convention replacing it, remains in force until and including that date. (b) The Committee may extend this Convention beyond 30 June 2002 for successive periods not exceeding two years on each occasion, provided that the Grains Trade Convention, 1995, or a new Grains Trade Convention replacing it, remains in force during the period of the extension.

8. Unlimited duration but with a right of withdrawal or denunciation • Article 17(1)–​(3), Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017, not yet in force) [2018] 57 ILM 347: 1. This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration. 2. Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of the Treaty have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to the Depositary. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events that it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests. 3. Such withdrawal shall only take effect 12 months after the date of the receipt of the notification of withdrawal by the Depositary . . . 

• Article 8, Agreement on ‘Working Holiday’ Arrangements (Australia-​Belgium) (2002) [2004] ATS 13: This Agreement is concluded for an indeterminate period. It can be terminated by either of the Parties with three months written notice to the other Party via diplomatic channels.

B.  Treaty termination100 1. On the completion of a specific operation or activity • Article 19(1), Agreement on the status of the European Union-​led Forces in the Central African Republic (2008) (Central African Republic-​EU) [2008] OJ L136/​46 (trans): This Agreement shall enter into force on the day on which it is signed and shall remain in force until the date of departure of the last EUFOR element and of the last EUFOR personnel, as notified by EUFOR.

• Article 27(2), Headquarters Agreement Between the Government of Australia and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1998) [1999] ATS 6: This Agreement may be terminated by a joint decision of the Government and the Commission. In the event of the Headquarters of the Commission being moved from 100 For examples of treaty termination in the bilateral context, see Heading 22, ‘Withdrawal or Denunciation’. For examples of termination by supersession, see Heading 17, ‘Relationships to Other Agreements’.

The End of Treaty Relations  773 Australia, this Agreement shall, after a period reasonably required for such transfer and the disposal of the property of the Commission in Australia, cease to be in force. In either event, the date on which the Agreement terminates shall be confirmed by an exchange of notes between the Government and the Commission.

2. Termination on the withdrawal of certain parties • Article XVII, Convention for a North Pacific Marine Science Organization (1990) : 1. This Convention shall be terminated upon the withdrawal of three of the signatory states listed in Article XIII. 2. The effective date of termination shall be one year after the deposit with the Depositary of the number of withdrawals required to terminate the Convention in accordance with paragraph 1 above.

3. Termination when the number of parties is reduced below a minimum threshold101 • Article 27, Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Passengers and Luggage by Road (1973) 1774 UNTS 109: If, after the entry into force of this Convention, the number of Contracting Parties is reduced, as a result of denunciations, to less than five, the Convention shall cease to be in force from the date on which the last of such denunciations takes effect.

4. Termination by decision of a treaty body • Article 62(5), International Cocoa Agreement (2010) [2011] OJ L259/​8: The Council may at any time decide to terminate this Agreement. Such termination shall take effect on such date as the Council shall decide, provided that the obligations of Members under Article 25 shall continue until the financial liabilities relating to the operation of this Agreement have been discharged. The Council shall notify the Depositary of any such decision.

5. Termination on entry into force of a later treaty • Article 44(4), International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) [2007] OJ L262/​8: If the new Agreement is negotiated and enters into force during any period of extension of this Agreement under paragraph 2 or paragraph 3 of this article, this Agreement, as extended, shall terminate upon the entry into force of the new Agreement.

6. Post-​termination transitional provisions • Article 62(6), International Cocoa Agreement (2010) [2011] OJ L259/​8: Notwithstanding the termination of this Agreement by any means whatsoever, the Council shall remain in being for as long as necessary to carry out the liquidation of the Organization,

101 But see Art 55 VCLT (‘Unless the treaty otherwise provides, a multilateral treaty does not terminate by reason only of the fact that the number of the parties falls below the number necessary for its entry into force’).

774  Treaty Clauses and Instruments settlement of its accounts and disposal of its assets. The Council shall have during that period the necessary powers for the conclusion of all administrative and financial matters.

• Article 44(6), International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) [2007] OJ L262/​8: Notwithstanding the termination of this Agreement, the Council shall continue in being for a period not exceeding 18 months to carry out the liquidation of the Organization, including the settlement of accounts, and, subject to relevant decisions to be taken by special vote in accordance with article 12, shall have during that period such powers and functions as may be necessary for these purposes.

Index Note: For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters 1998 425 acceptance bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  167–68 consent to be bound by  31, 34, 222–24, 673–74 combined with other methods  675–76 EU participation as the EU specifically  663 as a REIO  660 of a political commitment  655 of competence to make treaties  112–13, 119–20, 130–31, 156, 160 of VCLT provisions as customary international law 2 accession consent to be bound by  222–24 at any time  674 bilateral agreement changing to multilateral 674–75 combined with other methods  675–76 once treaty is in force  674 once treaty no longer open to signature  674 only 675 EU participation as the EU specifically  663 as a qualified ‘intergovernmental organization’  659 as a REIO  660 of the EU to the ECHR  112, 126–27, 129 international organizations (IOs)  658 of Member States to the EU  139–40 mixed agreements  139–40 negotiated, with a treaty body  653–54 of UN to Geneva Conventions  111 to the WTO  156 accountability defining 75–76 informal lawmaking  75–77 types 75–76 Acquisition Agreement (Afghanistan-US), 2012 696 act of formal confirmation  101, 669 adjustment to treaties  351–52, 758 Administrative Tribunal case 419 Admissions II case 549–50 adoption of treaties  203, 217–19, 534, 755–58 in the absence of objections  756–57 adjustments procedure  758 Administrative Committee  756

legal effects of  22, 225, 234, 695, 705 making changes under different procedures  757–58 of an interpretative agreement  481 of treaty amendments  272, 341, 342–44, 350–51 one party only  758 procedure 756–57 by reference to other treaties  758 see also amendments Aegean Sea case  21, 26, 27, 51 Africa African Charter on Human and People’s Rights 182–83 African Commission on Human and People’s Rights  512–13, 517–18 African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) (2009)  679 Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003)  725 human rights issues  206–7 Agreement on the Participation of the Russian Federation in the EU military operation in Chad and in the Central African Republic (EU-Russia) 739 Agreement on the Status of the EU-led Forces in the Central African Republic  772 Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons  262–63 Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) 262–63 indigenous peoples  157 see also Central African Republic; South Africa; Western Sahara case aggression, crime of amendments  217, 343–44 breaches, responding to  568–69 State succession  387 Ago, Roberto  26, 239, 599 and treaty-making capacity  153, 159, 170 ‘Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters’ between Iraq and Kuwait 282 Agreement (Austria-United Nations-IAEAUNIDO-Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization), 2016 701

776 Index Agreement on Air Quality (Canada-US), 1991 728, 736 Agreement on Audio-Visual Relations (CanadaGermany), 2004 670 Agreement on the Arbitration regarding the Iron Rhine (Belgium-the Netherlands), 2003 708 Agreement on Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Development (Canada-Israel), 2006  770, 771 Agreement on British Armed Forces’ Training in Canada (Canada-UK), 2006 696 Agreement on Certain Aspects of Air Services (Australia-EC), 2008 707 Agreement on Civil Aviation Safety (CanadaEuropean Community), 2011 649 Agreement Establishing the Common Fund for Commodities (1980) 657 Agreement relating to Community Patents (1989) 723 Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters (Poland-Uzbekistan), 2003 735 Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Internal Security (France-Russia), 2003 727 Agreement Concerning Cooperating Communications Networks (Australia-US), 1990 771 Agreement Concerning Cooperation to Suppress Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Malta-US), 2007 650 Agreement for Cooperation in the Field of Fusion Energy Research (2009) 671 Agreement Concerning Cooperation on the Civil International Space Station (1988) 745–46 Agreement regarding Cooperation to Facilitate the Provision of Assistance (Russia-US), 1992 728–29 Agreement Concerning Defense Communications Services (New Zealand-US), 1992 736 Agreement Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (ChinaJamaica), 1994 649 Agreement for the Establishment of the Caribbean Organization 160–61 Agreement Concerning the Establishing of Global Technical Regulations for Wheeled Vehicles (1998)  670, 712 Agreement on Cooperation (Europol-Russia), 2003 656–57 Agreement for Cooperation on a Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (US DOEIndia Planning Commission), 2010 763 Agreement on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (Canada-Jordan) 744 Agreement for the Establishment of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (1996) 764 Agreement on the Establishment of the International Vaccine Institute (1996) 658

Agreement on the Establishment of the ITER International Fusion Energy Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (2006) 745 Agreement for the Establishment of the Regional Commission for Fisheries (1999) 673 Agreement for the Exchange of Information for the Purpose of the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion and the Allocation of Rights of Taxation (Japan-Bermuda), 2010  665, 670 Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Taxes (UK-UK), 2001 712 Agreement on the Export and Enforcement of Social Security Benefits (the Netherlands-Belize), 2005 712 Agreement Establishing the EU-LAC International Foundation (2016) 699 Agreement on Extradition (EU-US), 2003 730 Agreement on the exchange of information relating to tax returns (Andorra-Germany), 2010 696 Agreement on the Framework for Security Cooperation (Australia-Indonesia), 2006 745 Agreement for the Sharing of Visa and Immigration Information (Australia-US), 2014 650 Agreement for the Implementation of the Straddling Fish Stocks Agreement (1995)  209–10, 684, 687 Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (AGTC) (1991) 272 Agreement on Initialling the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina see Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dayton Agreement Agreement on Intensifying and Broadening the 1997 Agreement on Customs Co-Operation to include Container Security (EC-US), 2004 696 Agreement between the International Criminal Court and the EU (2006)  130, 656–57 Agreement Establishing the International Organization of Vine and Wine  652–53, 658 Agreement Establishing an International Science and Technology Centre (1992) 708–9 Agreement Establishing the Latin American Energy Organization (1973) 650 Agreement on Mutual Administrative Assistance (the Netherlands-Philippines), 2011 697 Agreement Concerning Mutual Assistance in the Investigation, Restraint and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime other than Drug Trafficking (UK-Mexico), 1996 713–14 Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance (EU-Japan), 2010 692 Agreement on the Mutual Abolition of Visas (Kosovo-Turkey), 2009 162 Agreement Concerning the Participation of Norway in the Work of the IAEA (IAEA-Norway), 1975 709–10

Index  777 Agreement on the Participation of the Russian Federation in the EU military operation in Chad and in the Central African Republic (EU-Russia), 2008 739 Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe (1949) 109 Agreement on the Processing and Transfer of Financial Messaging Data (EU-US), 2010 768 Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas (1993) 681–82 Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Canada-Latvia), 2012 735–36 Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Egypt-Finland), 2004 764 Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Finland-Tanzania), 2001 734 Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region-United Arab Emirates), 2019 696–97 Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Panama-South Korea), 2001 765 Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (New ZealandChina), 1988 714 Agreement on Provisional Application of the Agreement on the Establishment of the Organization for the Joint Implementation of the ITER Project (2006)  250, 710, 745 Agreement on the Provisional Application of Certain Provisions of Protocol 14 [to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms] (2009) 708–9 Agreement Providing for the Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (UK-Ireland), 1974 712 Agreement on Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (Spain-China), 1992 715 Agreement on the Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Investments (Italy-Qatar), 2003 691–92 Agreement Concerning the Replacement of Highly Enriched Uranium by Low Enriched Uranium (International Atomic Energy Agency-Mexico-US), 2011 697 Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (UK-Russia), 1996 727–28 Agreement Concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Information (Australia-US), 2002 771 Agreement on Social Security (Australia-Italy), 2000 672 Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (US-Pakistan), 2003  770, 771

Agreement on the Security and Exchange of Classified Information (ESA-EU), 2007 763 Agreement on the Settlement of Certain Outstanding Claims (Albania-US), 1995 691 Agreement on the Short-stay Visa Waiver (European Union-Republic of Trinidad and Tobago), 2015 691 Agreement for the promotion and protection of investments (Canada-Slovak Republic), 2010 697 Agreement with respect to Social Security (Canada-US), 1981 664–65 Agreement on the Status of the EU-led Forces in the Central African Republic 772–73 Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) 479–80 Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application (2015) 236–37 Agreement on the establishment of a Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (US-Sierra Leone), 2010 696 Agreement on the Use of the Two Tracks of the Slovenian State Territory (Austria-Slovenia), 1995 769 Agreement with a View to the Administrative and Technical Re- organization of the Southern Railway Company’s System (1923) 166–67 Agreement on ‘Working Holiday’ Arrangements (Australia-Belgium), 2004 772 agreements (non-treaty), applicability of treaty law to 168–69 aircraft Air Transport Agreement (US-EU Open Skies), 2007  707, 725 Air Transport Agreement (Canada-EC), 2009 730–31 Air Transport Agreement (Belize-US), 2018  670, 690 Agreement on Certain Aspects of Air Services (Australia-EC), 2008  707 Air Services Agreement (Angola-The Netherlands), 2018 671 Air Services case  138–39, 587–88, 589 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation 1944  345– 46, 349, 540, 692, 754 Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement of June 25 and July 6, 2004 on Mutual Airlift Support (2019) (Republic of Korea-United States) 671–72 extraterritorial application to  716 Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air (1999)  339–40, 366, 703 Warsaw Convention on International Carriage by Air (1929)  340, 349, 362–63, 376 Airey case 513 Al Barakaat case  436, 519, 535 Al-Adsani case  516–17, 519–20, 564, 566 Åland Islands case  316, 711 Alaska 391–92

778 Index Albania Agreement on the Settlement of Certain Outstanding Claims (Albania-US), 1995  691 domestic application of treaties  360–62, 366 rank of treaties  362 transnational treaty provisions  366 Algeria  31, 315, 323, 326–27 Algiers Accords  31, 326–27 Aliens Act 2000 (Netherlands) 379 ‘All States’ formula  271, 276, 642, 651, 656 Alma Ata Declaration (1991) 401 Alsace and Lorraine, cessation to Germany 391–92 Al-Skeini v UK  332–33, 334, 518 Alter, Karen 42–43 alternatives to treaty-making see contracts, informal lawmaking; memoranda of understanding; political commitments Amazon Cooperation Treaty (1978)  651, 727 amendments  5, 336–54, 743–61 annexes 348–49 by adjustment and changes  351–52, 758 by adoption  272, 341, 342–44, 350–51, 755–58 in the absence of objections  756–57 making changes under different procedures 757–58 one party only  758 procedure 756–57 by reference to other treaties  758 bilateral treaties  339, 743, 744–45 binding by unanimity  744–45 binding those parties that consent to them  743, 746–50 from majority of the parties  748 on a set date by a Plenipotentiary Conference 749 from a seven-eighths majority  350, 753 from a specific number of parties  748–49 from a three-fourths majority  746 from a three-fourths majority of parties that were parties at time of adoption  746–47 from a two-thirds majority  747 from a two-thirds majority and UNGA approval 747–48 without specifying a threshold for entry into force 749–50 combining standard and simplified procedures 759–61 by consensus or majority plenary decision  350–52 default rules  337, 339, 340–41, 750 depositaries 272–73 before entry into force  352–53 EU treaty-making  147 explicit consent  341–45 general rule  338 language versions  692 majority consent, for all parties  350–52, 753–55 by at least two-thirds of the contracting parties 754 option for non-consenting parties to withdraw  753

option for non-consenting parties to withdraw or remain if IO consents  753–54 by a positive majority (no negative votes)  754–55 possibility that non-consenting parties will cease to be parties  754 seven-eighths majority  753 by three-fourths of the parties  753–54 by two-thirds of the parties  349–50, 351, 754 with majority ratification  349–50 making changes under different procedures  757–58 modification of treaties between certain parties only with majority ratification  352 multilateral treaties  338–53 multilateral treaties  338, 743 binding by unanimity  745–46 between certain parties only  338–53 simplified amendment procedures  750 opting-out procedure  345–49 procedures for revision or review  743, 744 simplified procedures  345–52, 750–55 standard procedure  341–45, 743–50 tacit consent  74, 345–49 all parties, with an opt-out  751–52 developing countries  346–47 individual amendments, opting-out of  751–52 opt-out on joining the treaty  752 by provisional application  755 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 751–52 Treaty of Lisbon  123 treaty silence  743 see also bilateral treaties; modifications; revision American Bar Association 188–89 American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), 1969 termination of treaties  765 territorial application  320–21, 716 Amsterdam Treaty (1997) 118–19 Andean Community 139–40 Annan, Kofi (UN Secretary-General)  180, 183 annexation  387, 396–97 annexes 693–95 additional, provision for  694–95 adoption and amendment (UNFCCC)  752 amendments 348–49 differently titled attachments  693–94 functions 693 importance 693 integral parts of the treaty  693 qualification on relationship to the treaty or contexts 694 treaty interpretation  465–66, 506 Antarctic Treaty (1959)  715–16, 722, 767 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991)  728 Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM)  418–19, 421 Antarctica  42, 322, 415 see also Antarctic Treaty (1959)

Index  779 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty 1972 (US-USSR) fundamental change of circumstances  609–11 NGO participation  184 Anti-Personnel Land Mines Convention (1997) 181, 262–63, 633, 672–73 amendments  754–55, 757–58 denunciation/withdrawal 766 NGO participation  181, 666 provisional application  707 treaty bodies  416, 418 anti-slavery movement  174, 175 application see domestic application of treaties; extraterritorial application; provisional application; territorial application approval Colombia 15 consent to be bound by  222–24, 673–74 combined with other methods  675 entry into force, prior to  361 EU participation as the EU specifically  663 as a REIO  660, 661 international agreements  127–28 parliamentary 15–16 Arab Charter for Human Rights  327–28, 509 arbitration bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  167–68 Convention on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration (2014)  661, 683 at election of one party  739 by mutual agreement  739 Rainbow Warrior Arbitration  619–20 referral to arbitration or the ICJ  740 Slovenia and Croatia  574–75 Argentina 741–42 constitutional interpretation  372–73 rank of treaties  362 Supreme Court  369–70 transnational treaty provisions  366 Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo case  33–34, 291, 294, 563, 584 Armenia 332 arms control 43 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty 1972 (US-USSR)  184, 609–11 Arms Trade Treaty (2013) see Arms Trade Treaty (2013) Arms Trade Treaty Monitor  190 Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons  262–63 Chemical Weapons Convention (1993)  85–86 Control Arms Coalition  185 Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008)  262–63 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (1980)  181, 677 disarmament and arms control treaties  354, 410–11 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 185

Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict case  104–5, 193–94, 195, 428, 450, 527–28, 530–31, 549–50, 563, 577–78 NGO participation  177, 181, 184 Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Organization (1996)  676–77 1986 VCLT  101 Protocol 1 to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (1986)  712 Protocol Additional to the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (2015)  329, 699 Protocol on Explosive Remnants of War to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects (Protocol V) (2003) 2399  694 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) 38–39 consent to be bound  675 declarations 686–87 denunciation/withdrawal 772 NGO participation  185 priority issues  726 see also Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons 1980 Arms Trade Treaty (2013)  39–40, 185, 190, 207, 210, 215–16, 218 consent to be bound  674 corrections to  274 declarations  685, 688 denunciation/withdrawal 763 depositaries 274 dispute settlement under  737–38 EU treaty-making  667 Final UN Conference  215–16, 218 ‘object and purpose’  650 priority issues  727 provisional application, timing  706 reservations  679, 683 treaty-making 207 Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund see IMF Articles of Agreement Articles of State Responsibility  170–71, 451, 501–2, 572–73, 585–93, 595, 613–21 International Law Commission (ILC) and  203–4 see also International Law Commission (ILC) assignment of treaty-making competence 151–53 Associated States participation clauses  657, 663–64 treaty-making capacities  159, 161, 164 association agreements  120, 128, 139–40, 141–42 Association Council 134–35 Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) 103–4 Rules of Procedure for the Conclusion of International Agreements  106, 107–8

780 Index Atlanto-Scandian Herring dispute 159 Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA)  359, 362 Austria conclusion of treaties  22 federal rules  153–54 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 22, 36 Austro-Hungarian Empire  166–67, 384 authentication (of treaties)  219–21, 475, 690, 692 Authorities of Guernsey, Jersey and the Government of the Isle of Man 160 automatic treaty succession Geneva Conventions  409 human rights  407, 408 South Sudan  401–2 Azerbaijan  158, 332   Bahrain informal lawmaking  66 registration disputes  283 ‘treaty’ definition  21, 27, 29 Banković case  332–33, 499, 511–12 Barcelona Traction case  438–39, 583, 591 Basel Accords  64–65, 68 Basel Committee on Banking Supervision  62, 77 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes  103–4, 348, 422, 730 Bay of Bengal case 28 Belarus  400–1, 410–11 Belgium  20, 250, 708 Constitution 153–54 federal rules on treaty-making  153–54 rank of treaties  362 regional governments  153–54 Belize  225, 690, 712 Ben El Mahi and Others v Denmark 333 Bermuda 160 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works  729, 765 Biblical references to treaty-making 1 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) acceptance of offer  167–68 arbitration clauses  167–68 conflicts and fragmentation  434 intra-EU BITs  637 private parties  167 Taiwan 156 termination 637 territories under international administration  162 see also individual BITs bilateral treaties amendments binding by unanimity  339, 743, 744–45 changing to multilateral  674–75 competences of the EU  138–39 consent to be bound  221–23, 224, 669 direct effect  134–35 double taxation  138–39 entry into force  225, 695, 696–97

on date following exchange of notifications 696–97 on exchange of instruments of ratification  696 necessary procedures, completion  696–97 satisfaction of multiple conditions  697 on signature  696 EU participation  117, 119 international organizations (IOs)  111 IO treaty-making  111, 656–57 Mixed (EU)  128, 131–32, 141–42 negotiations 174–75 NGO participation  174–75 Non-Self-Governing Territories  161 obligation 39–40 reservations 286–87 sectoral 141–42 standing to suspend or terminate  580 State succession  399–400, 401–4 suspension  580, 768 termination  580, 770 territories under international administration  162 ‘treaty’ definition  37–38, 39–40, 41–42 withdrawal 632–33 see also bilateral investment treaties (BITs) binary artefact, treaty as 47–51 bindingness of treaties amendments binding all parties on consent  743 from majority of the parties  748 on a set date by a Plenipotentiary Conference 749 from a seven-eighths majority  350, 753 from a specific number of parties  748–49 from a three-fourths majority  746 from a three-fourths majority of parties that were parties at time of adoption  746–47 from a two-thirds majority  747 from a two-thirds majority and UNGA approval 747–48 without specifying a threshold for entry into force 749–50 amendments binding by unanimity bilateral treaties  744–45 multilateral treaties  745–46 binding dispute settlement see disputes/dispute settlement commitments 18 distinguishing treaties from political commitments  35–36, 645–47 explicitly not legally binding  646 explicitly politically binding  646 entry into force  225, 695 EU treaty-making  132–33 intent to be bound  24–30 Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC) Second Report on Binding and Non-Binding Agreements 151 survey on binding/non-binding agreements  169 IOs as parties  107–11 Legality and  60–61, 64–65, 75, 78–79, 80

Index  781 Member States, EU treaties binding on  117, 132–33, 346, 527 non-territorial treaties binding on non-State actors 323–27 pacta sunt servanda principle  1–2, 13–14, 49, 107, 720 semi-judicial interpretation  539–40 and validity issues  547 see also consent to be bound; informal lawmaking Biodiversity Convention (1992)  348, 417–18, 727 see also Nagoya Protocol BIT (Afghanistan-Germany) 42–43 BIT (Argentina-US)  41–42, 617, 741–42 BIT (Canada-Latvia) 735–36 BIT (China-Jamaica) 649 BIT (China-New Zealand) 714 BIT (Costa Rica-Taiwan) 657 BIT (Egypt-Finland) 764 BIT (Finland-Tanzania) 734 BIT (Italy-Qatar) 691–92 BIT (Panama-South Korea) 765 BIT (Spain-China) 715 BIT (Switzerland-Kosovo) 162 Blix, Hans 6 Bolivia  272, 423–24, 633 Bosnia and Herzegovina breaches, responding to  568–69 Dayton Agreement (1995)  676 federal rules on treaty-making  155 territorial integrity  155 boundary treaties  37–38, 42, 396–97, 405–398 Brazil  26, 242–43, 281–82, 320–21 participation clauses  651 breaches, responding to  5–6, 568–93 bilateral treaties  580 of contract  36 countermeasures  573–74, 585–92 commensurate with the injury suffered  588–89 compliance, focusing/inducing  587 not affecting jus cogens obligations or dispute settlement procedures  589–90 not limited to treaty breaches  587–88 prior breaches  586 procedural conditions governing exercise of right to 592 proportionality principle  588–89 right to respond, scope of  586–90 standing to take  590–91 versus treaty law responses  572–74 global reciprocity  582–83 humanitarian law treaties  37–38 of international obligation  13–14 international organizations (IOs)  110–11 interrelated treaties  577 intrinsically lawful responses versus responses presupposing title to respond  571–72 IO treaty obligations  110–11 material see material breaches, responding to non-State treaty  169–71 pacta sunt servanda principle  568–69

procedural conditions governing right of response 583–84 reduced penalties in informal lawmaking  67–69 remedies 5–6 responses versus countermeasures  572–74 intrinsically lawful  571–72 presupposing title to respond  571–72 procedural conditions governing right  583–84 scope of right to respond  586–90 ‘in their infinite variety’  569–70 solidarity approach  580, 583, 591 specific and general rules  569–74 standing to suspend/terminate treaties  579–83 liberal exceptions  581–83 restrictive rule  580–81 termination or suspension in whole or in part  577–78 treaty-specific rules and general legal concepts 570–71 VCLT 1969 (Art 60)  574–85 interim conclusions  585 material breaches requirement  574–76 procedural conditions governing right of response 583–84 scope of right restricting the suspension/ termination of a treaty  576–79 standing to suspend/terminate treaties  579–83 see also countermeasures; suspension; termination of treaties; violations Brierly, JL  2, 23, 25 and IOs  106 theorizations about treaty in international law  50 and treaty-making capacity  150 and validity issues  551–52 British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society  174, 175 British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)  162–63, 164 British Virgin Islands 160 ‘broken windows’ theory of international lawmaking 66–67 Burma 392 Burundi  300–1, 599, 631 Bush, George W.  70, 609   calibrating interpretation 54 Cameroon  12, 247–48, 554–56 Canada Agreement on Bilateral Cooperation in Industrial Research and Development (Canada-Israel), 2006 771 Agreement with respect to Social Security (Canada-US), 1981  664–65 Agreement on Air Quality (Canada-US), 1991  728, 736 Agreement on Audio-Visual Relations (CanadaGermany), 2004  670 Agreement on British Armed Forces’ Training in Canada (Canada-UK), 2006  696 Agreement on Civil Aviation Safety (CanadaEuropean Community), 2011  649

782 Index Canada (cont.) Agreement on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (Canada-Jordan), 2009  744 Charter of Rights and Freedoms  157–58 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement 186 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act  379–80 indigenous peoples  157–58 memoranda of understanding (MOUs)  61–62 Memorandum of Understanding Concerning a Working Holiday Program (CanadaDenmark), 2005  768 Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation and Management of Shared Polar Bear Populations (US Department of Interior- Environment Canada) (2008)  646 obligations under ICCPR  377–78 Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty  181 Supreme Court  359–60, 368–69 treaty-making capacities of non-State actors  155, 157–58 see also Quebec Cancun Agreements 423–24 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (2001)  691, 728 Caribbean Court of Justice 636 Caribbean Organization 160–61 Catholic Church 175 Central African Convention for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons 262–63 Central African Republic Agreement on the Participation of the Russian Federation in the EU military operation in Chad and in the Central African Republic (EU-Russia) 2008  739 Agreement on the Status of the EU-led Forces in the Central African Republic (Central African Republic-EU), 2008  772–73 Central European Free Trade Agreement (1992) 690 Certain Expenses of the UN case  103–4, 532, 536 certified true copies  219–20, 264, 704 and original treaty  263–64 cessation of territory State succession  391–92, 396–97 States other than newly independent  396–97 Chad 739 Chagos Advisory Opinion  162–65, 171–72 Chagos Marine Protected Area Arbitration 164–65 Channel Islands 160 ‘Charming Betsy’ canon 368 Charter of the United Nations amendments 349–50 breaches, responding to  568–69, 570 compliance 89 depositaries 259

dispute settlement under  736 EU capacity to join  119–20 functions of  40–41 indirect attempts to obligate third States  721 interpretation of treaties  525 interpretation of treaties beyond  533–36 and IOs  99 NGO participation  176, 178, 179 Non-Self-Governing Territories  160, 161 ‘other subjects’  161, 162–63, 169 priority issues  725 registration in accordance with  276–84 and specialized interpretation rules  533–36 third States, rights for  722–23 treaties and international agreements  279–80 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) 1993 see Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC) (1992) Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation (1944) 345–46, 540, 754 Protocol 1 on the Authentic Trilingual Text of the Convention 692 Chile domestic application of treaties  362 legal system  12 legislative approval prior to entry into force  361 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 25 China Agreement Concerning the Encouragement and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (ChinaJamaica), 1994  649 Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (New ZealandChina), 1988  714 Agreement on Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investments (Spain-China), 1992 715 bilateral treaties BIT (China-Jamaica)  649 BIT (Laos-China)  396–97 BIT (New Zealand-China)  714 BIT (Spain-China)  715 cessation of territory  391–92, 396–97 conclusion of treaties  22 and definition of treaties  22 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 182–83 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 legal system  156 memoranda of understanding  61–62 rank of treaties  362 South China Seas case  26, 28, 29, 315 special administrative regions  156 Taiwan, independence from  156 trade negotiations with US  59

Index  783 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 22 WTO accession (2001)  156 Chinkin, Christine 27 choice-of-law clauses 79 Circular Notifications (CNs)  263–64, 274–75 circumstances precluding wrongfulness 613, 618–20, 621 climate change Framework Convention see UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) greenhouse gas emissions  64–65, 226 Greenhouse Gas Protocol  63 hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)  205–6 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  188 Kyoto Protocol see Kyoto Protocol (1997) Montreal Protocol see Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation 184 Paris Agreement see Paris Agreement on Climate Change Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991)  728 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 191–92 see also environmental treaties Clinton, Bill 70 closed treaties 651 Coalition for an International Criminal Court 183, 190 coastal States 673 codification conferences 176 COE Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (1999) 719 COE Protocol Amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (2010) 655 coercion, validity concerns 559–62 Cold War  433, 651 conflicts and fragmentation  432, 435 end of  59–60, 367, 384–85, 407, 432, 435, 609–10 exceptional circumstances  609–10 State succession  384–85, 407 Colombia amendments 239 and dissolution  393 international agreements  166 legal system  361 legislative approval prior to entry into force  361 non-binding agreements  71 provisional application  239 reply to OAS Questionnaire  28–29 trade agreement with EU  139–40 treaty approval/ratification  15–16 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 treaty-making 22 colonial clauses 314–17

Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf  414, 418, 421 commitment avoidance/exit from  5–6 bindingness 18 credibility 16–17 element of international agreement  19–20 unilateral declarations as  33 see also breaches, responding to; political commitments Committee against All Forms of Discrimination against Women 512–13 Committee Against Torture 418 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)  318, 342–43 and ICCPR  537 Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises 65 Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) 428–29 Committee to Protect Journalists 179–80 common foreign and security policy (CFSP) of the EU 126–28 common law communications 19–20 nationalist versus transnationalist provisions  367 principles 359–60 Commonwealth States 358 communications Circular Notifications (CNs)  263–64 depositaries 275 filed by NGOs  182–83 objections as  295, 305 and Torture Convention  685–86 and ‘treaty’ definition  21 and treaty formation  258 Community of Independent States (CIS) 400–1 competences assignment of  151–53 complementary 137 credentials and full powers  211–13 declarations 687 EU treaty-making  120, 144–45, 148 division between EU and Member States  129 exclusive and shared  136–43 existence of competence versus exclusivity  124 Lugano Convention  121 trade agreements  117 international organizations (IOs)  103–4, 111 excess of competence  104–5 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 112–13 participation conditions, IOs  658 pre-independence governments  162–65 sources of treaty body competence over substance 422–24 sub-national territorial units  153–54 treaty bodies  418–29 see also exclusivity doctrine, EU treaty-making

784 Index compliance  4, 82–88 accountability 41–42 Charter of the United Nations  89 compared with implementation  83 conceptualizing and measuring  82–88 constituencies 90–91 contrasting with effectiveness  42, 88–91 countermeasures as inducement to  587 deep 89–90 defining 83 domestic application of treaties  375–80 and enforcement  42–44 generalized 85 horizontal treaty provisions  375–76 indicator of institutional effects, misleading  84 informal lawmaking and non-compliance  69 key to effectiveness  84–85 legal concept  82 legal effects  64 managerialist school  43, 84, 92–93, 424 by ‘other subjects’  42 primary  84, 86, 88–89 procedures  85, 422, 736 rare cases of noncompliance  84 regime complexes  87–88 secondary  84, 85 State responsibility  42 supervening impossibility of performance  43 technical 82 third-party bodies  42–43 transnational treaty provisions  376–77 vertical treaty provisions  377–80 World Trade Organization (WTO)  42–43 see also effectiveness; non-compliance; non-compliance procedures; principle of effectiveness Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Canada and EU 134–35 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1996) 416, 625, 676–77, 701 conclusion of treaties  21–23, 466–67 capacity of IOs to conclude  102–4 determining what constitutes  21–22 Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership of the UN case  150, 529 Conference for the Codification of International Law 176 Conference of the Parties (COP) amendments 342–43 informal lawmaking  64–65, 72 NGO participation  184 treaty bodies  417–18, 421–22 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 209 see also Meetings of the Parties (MOPs); treaty bodies Conference on Landmines 181

conferral principle EU treaty-making  119, 120–26 conflict clauses  442–44, 723–29 providing for the priority of another treaty  443–44 providing for the priority of the present treaty  442–43 conflicts and fragmentation  5, 432–55 another source of law, conflicts with  438–41 canons of construction, customary  447–52 interrelations 451–52 clash of obligations, canons of construction  434 and complete unity of parties  440 conflict clauses see conflict clauses conflict of laws  452–53 customary canons of construction  447–52 customary international law  439 domestic action and mitigation  453 drivers 435–37 interpretation to avoid  444–45 jus cogens 438 treaty conflicting with  438–39 lex posterior principle  5, 447–48 lex prior principle  5, 448–49 lex specialis principle  449–51 and no commonality of parties  441 normative conflicts ILC typology  438 resolving 441–53 pacta sunt servanda principle  448–49 and partial commonality of parties  441 regionalization 435–36 self-contained regimes  449–51 specialization 436–61 State practice  437 strategy or mistake  437 between treaties  439–324 universality versus uniformity  436 validity concerns  551 Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation  445–47 see also conflicts clauses; lex posterior principle; lex prior principle; lex specialis principle; pacta sunt servanda principle; priority issues conflicts clauses see conflicts and fragmentation conflicts of laws 434 conformity, presumption of 368 consensus amendments by  350–52 participation clauses requiring  652 consensus ad idem  550–51, 560–61 consent explicit, for amendments  341–45 international organizations (IOs)  108 tacit, for amendments  74, 345–49 consent to be bound  221–25, 265–68 by acceptance only  673 by acceptance or approval  673–74 by accession at any time  674 bilateral agreement changing to multilateral  674–75 combined with other methods  675–76

Index  785 once treaty is in force  674 once treaty no longer open to signature  674 only 675 adoption of a ‘Resolution of Approval’  676–77 by ‘any means so agreed’  676–77 bilateral treaties  669 by a combination of methods  675–76 customary international law  247–48, 268 by definitive signature expressly 670 by implication  670 depositaries  265–66, 268–69 and entry into force  265–68 EU participation as a REO  662 by exchange of instruments notes 670 notes or letters constituting the treaty  671–72 notifications 671 of ratification  672 by formal confirmation  675 initialling pursuant to a separate agreement  676 instruments expressing  268–69 international organizations  658, 669 invalidation by provisional application agreement 247–49 multilateral treaties  669 provisional application following consent  707 invalidation by provisional application agreement 247–49 by ratification combined with other methods  675–76 exclusively 672 requiring signature prior to entry into force  672–73 requiring signature within a defined period  673 treaty open for signature indefinitely  672 subject to additional conditions  677 treaty-making process  221–25 see also acceptance; accession; act of formal confirmation; amendments; approval; exchange of instruments; full powers; ratification; signature; simple signature, consent to be bound; simplified agreements Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) 113–14 Constitution of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (1968) 654 Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 130–31, 342–43, 755 Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union  342–43, 749, 755 constitutional interpretation 372–73 Constitutive Act of the African Union (2000) 652 constitutive treaties interpretation 526 of IOs  40, 410 constitutive approach to defining treaties  32, 37–38, 44

as a separate category  526–28 constructivism 16–17 contemporaneity principle 491–94 continental shelf  311, 327, 421, 490, 715 Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf  414, 418, 421 continuing effects clauses 632–33 continuity theory 393–94 contracts compared with pledges  67–68 domestic law, governed by  67–68 employment 107 role of intent  27, 36–37 transnational sale of goods  364–65 ‘treaty’ definition  12, 37, 44 see also Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) (CISG), UNIDROIT Control Arms Coalition 185 Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) 729 Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident  706, 728 Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (Canada-Gabon), 2002  672, 702 Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (Netherlands and the UK), 2015 701 Convention on Biological Diversity see Biodiversity Convention (1992) Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (1980) see Hague Convention on Child Abduction (1980) Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008) 262–63 Convention on Contact concerning Children (2003) 678 Convention on Customs Treatment of Pool Containers (1994)  683, 704 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980)  416, 766 Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (2000) amendments 748 conditional participation  654 declarations  684, 687 non-State actors  156, 161 Convention for the Conservation of the Southern Bluefin Tuna  649, 745 Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Passengers and Luggage by Road (1973) 773 Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) (CISG), UNIDROIT amendments  714, 729 declarations  685, 688 horizontal, vertical or transnational treaty provisions 364–65 Protocol 736 reservations 679 territorial application  319

786 Index Convention Against Corruption (2003)  661, 763 Convention on Cybercrime (2001)  319, 718–19 Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (1986) 730 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979  182–83, 339–40 consent to be bound  672 reservations 683 Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context see Espoo Convention Convention on the Harmonization of Frontier Controls of Goods 227 Convention on International Customs Transit Procedures for the Carriage of Goods by Rail Under Cover of SMGS Consignment Notes 756–57 Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (2019) 682–83, 748–49 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), 1973 compliance 85 dispute settlement under  739 EU treaty-making  130–31, 667 non-State actors  160 reservations 680 Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States 213 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and Further Reduction of Sulphur Emissions (1979) 351–52 Convention for a North Pacific Marine Science Organization (1990) 772–73 Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support (2007)  702, 728 Convention on the International Right of Correction (1953) 710 Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities Held with an Intermediary (2006) 714 Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (2014) 715 Convention Establishing the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (1985) 713 Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property (2017)  97, 683 Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women (2011) 662–63 Convention Relative to the Preservation of Flora and Fauna in their Natural State 183 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)  713, 740 reservations  289–90, 291 territorial application  315 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN (1946) 109

Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction (CWC) (1992) 1974  43, 85–86, 181, 237 1986 VCLT  101 amendments  754–55, 757–58 mandatory declarations  686 Palestine’s withdrawal of consent  268 provisional application  237 reservations 680 treaty bodies  416 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction see AntiPersonnel Land Mines Convention; AntiPersonnel Land Mines Convention (1997) Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions of the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (1980)  112–13, 677 Protocol II  181 Review Conference (1995)  181 Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution (1992) 737 Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of Intercountry Adoption see Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption 1993 Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea (1992) 652 Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) 681, 682, 710–11 Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region (1997) depositaries 703 original authentic texts  691 participation clauses  655 Convention for the Regulation of Whaling see International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling 1946 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities see UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) 39, 359–60 extraterritorial application  716 Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict  656, 686, 747–48 participation clauses  656 reservations 679 Convention on Road Traffic (1968) 688 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 716–17 Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea see SOLAS Convention (1960); SOLAS Convention (1974) Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (2000) 722

Index  787 Convention for the Strengthening of the InterAmerican Tropical Tuna Commission (2003)  661, 664 Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2005) 658 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1950) 315 Convention Against Torture (1984) 39 amendments 732–33 communications 685–86 compliance 86 consent to be bound  675 declarations 685–86 human rights  510 Optional Protocol (2002)  416–17, 678 reservations 675 territorial application  330 treaty bodies  424–25 Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs (2015) 655–56 Convention on Transparency in Treaty-Based Investor-State Arbitration (2014)  661, 683 Convention Providing a Uniform Law on the form of an International Will (1973)  678, 703 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (1982) 336–37 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 753 Cook Islands  159, 269–70, 663, 714 cooperation, international 4 accountability 77 cooperation agreements  141–42 defining treaties for the purpose of  16–18 interpretation of treaties  531 NGO participation  187 presumption in favour of non-bindingness  80 treaty bodies  424 treaty-making 204–5 corruption African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003)  725 COE Criminal Law Convention on Corruption (1999) 719 Convention Against Corruption (2003)  661, 763 versus error  559 versus fraud  559 validity concerns  559 Costa Rica v Nicaragua  231, 232, 448, 481–82, 495, 500–1 Costa v ENEL case 120–21 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) 130 Council of Europe 6 Agreement on Privileges and Immunities  109 disconnection clause  132 human rights issues  206–7 Meeting of Legal Advisers  403–4

Secretary General  315 treaty-making 206 Council of Ministers (EU) 126–27 Council of the United Nations for Namibia 325–26 see also Namibia case countermeasures 585–92 commensurate with the injury suffered  588–89 compliance, focusing/inducing  587 flexibility 586–87 not affecting jus cogens obligations or dispute settlement procedures  589–90 not limited to treaty breaches, responding to 587–88 post-countermeasures 592 prior breaches, responding to requirement  586 procedural conditions governing exercise of right to 592 proportionality principle  588–89 reciprocal 587–88 right to respond, scope of  586–90 standing to take  590–91 versus treaty law responses  572–74 Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) conferred powers principle  117–18 enforcement actions  132–33, 134–35 federal rules on treaty-making  153–54 interpretation of EU agreements  135 interpretation of treaties  525 IOs, adherence to human rights treaties  112 judicial control of EU agreements  128–29, 130 jurisdiction 135–36 legal basis  125 mixed agreements  135–36 monist states, self-execution in  374–75 review of EU powers  119, 124 territorial application  317 see also individual CJEU/ECJ cases by name and in the Table of Cases Covenant to Form a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America (10 March 1975) 164 Crimea  385, 387 Croatia accession to the EU  139–40 arbitration  574–75, 576 dismemberment 404 independence 403 unilateral declarations  403–4 Croatia-Serbian Genocide case  408, 527–289, 574–75 ‘crucible’ approach to interpretation human rights  507–8, 511, 522 initial decisions  647 and VCLT  464, 465, 474, 478 CSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security (1994) 646 CSCE Document of the Stockholm Conference on Confidence- and Security- Building Measures and Disarmament in Europe (1986) 646

788 Index Cuba 33 customary international law acceptance of VCLT provisions as  2 automatic treaty succession  407 breaches, responding to  583, 584 cessation of territory  396–97 codifying 410–11 coercion 560 Cold War  433 conflicts and fragmentation  438, 439 consent to be bound  247–48, 268 depositaries 262 disarmament and arms control treaties  354 dualist legal systems  48, 357, 368 entry into force  695 fundamental change of circumstances  606, 607, 608, 611, 617 indigenous risks  165 intent 439 interpretation of treaties  460, 476–77, 491, 493, 494, 531–32 monist legal systems  368 ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty  70 pacta sunt servanda principle  49 provisional application  230 reservations  288, 289–90, 301–2, 305 rules of international law  482–83 South Africa  373–74 State succession and VCSST  385–86, 388–89, 393–96, 398, 402, 407, 411–12 territorial application  324, 330 theorizations about treaty in  13 third parties  720 of treaties  13 ‘treaty’ definition  12, 13–14, 15–16, 19, 23, 24, 37–38 treaty-making authority  15–16 unilateral declarations  394 validity concerns  551, 553–54, 556–57, 560 VCLT  2, 337–38 violations 246 Cybercrime Convention (2001) see Convention on Cybercrime Cyprus  241, 332–33 Czech Republic bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  637 emergence of  404, 600 French treatment of Roma immigrants  89–90 human rights  407 treaty succession  404, 407 ‘Velvet Revolution’  600 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations 1986 (1986 VCLT)  101 Czechoslovak Federative Republic (CSFR) 384–85 Czechoslovakia Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project case see GabcikovoNagymaros Project case

Hitler’s control over  552, 558–59 and Hungary  614 name change  383, 384–85 peaceful dissolution and dismemberment  384–85 provisional application  232 termination of BITs  637

  Dayton Agreement (1995) 676 death penalty Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1989)  681, 720 declarations 683–88 Algiers Accords  31 conditions on the formation and withdrawal of  688 federal States  716 “Ihlen” declaration  24, 31 interpretative  287, 683, 684 mandatory 683 clarifying/elaborating on content of obligations assumed 686–87 declaring the extent of competence  687 requiring a selection among alternatives  687–88 notification 688 of competence (EU)  145, 148 optional adding to commitment otherwise assumed 685–86 modifying commitment otherwise assumed 684–85 provisional application  236–38, 706 subject to domestic law and regulations  706–7 see also interpretation; interpretative declarations; mandatory declarations; notifications; unilateral declarations decolonization 315 definitions of treaties  4, 11–44 agreements as part of  13 concluded among States  21–23 constitutive approach  12, 19–32 limitations  32, 37–38, 44 contexts 12–18 conventional approach  11 customary international law  12, 13–14, 15–16, 19, 23, 24, 37–38 differential approach  11, 12, 32–37 in domestic law  338 functional approach  11, 12, 37–44 governed by international law  24–30 by ingredients  19–32, 44 non-essential ingredients  30–32 intent, role of  27 in international agreements  19–21 in international law  13–14 language 28 number of instruments  30–31 pacta sunt servanda principle  13–14 for purposes of international cooperation  16–18

Index  789 sources of international law  14 as traités contrat 39–40 as traités loi 39–40 written form  23–24 definitive signature see signature delayed effect, entry into force 702 Denmark Faroe (Faeroe) Islands  159 international disputes  24 oral settlement of disputes  24 sovereignty over Eastern Greenland  558 WTO membership  159 denunciation at any time  762–63 at any time after specific period of time passed  764 conditional rights  764–67 design/invocation of clauses  631–38 effective only under certain conditions  766 at fixed intervals  764 ideal types of clauses  632 international law  625–31 on notice  763 after a specific period of time has passed  764–65 after a specific period of time has passed with continuing legal effects  765 with continuing legal effects  763 with an explanation  765–66 subject to a negotiated withdrawal agreement 766–67 terminology 762 treaties with no provision for  627–30 treaties with unlimited duration  772 when another party has given notice of withdrawal or denunciation  766 see also duration; exit clauses; termination of treaties; withdrawal depositaries 258–76 amendments to treaties  272–73 authorities competent to issue full powers  268 communications 275 conclusions as to role  275–76 consent to be bound  265–66, 268–69 customary international law  262 designation of  260, 702 designating directly  702–3 designating indirectly  703 an IO  703 State 702 determining who can act as  702 entities that may become parties  269–72 entry into force  266–67 error correction  273–74 functions 260–62 instruments expressing consent to be bound 268–69 joint 703 multilateral context  263, 702 multilateral treaties  258 original treaty and certified true copies  263–64

provisions specifying functions  703–4 reservations  274–75, 295, 300–1 revocation of instrument of consent  267–68 role  258, 260–49, 702 signature 264–65 withdrawal of the deposit of instruments  267 derogations 732–36 acts in furtherance of essential security interests 734–35 agreement in writing  736 application of local law  736 avoiding acts impairing essential interests  735 based on factual conditions  733 based on the purposes of the behaviour  733–36 environment, regarding  735–36 non-precluded measures  733–34 not permitted, where  732–33 resource availability  736 developing countries Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes  730 Multilateral Agreement for the Establishment of an International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries  206–7 Nyerere formula  396 sovereignty over natural resources  406 tabula rasa theory  393 tacit consent process  346–47 UNCLOS, reluctance to ratify  352–53 devolution agreements State succession  394–95 Diallo case  426, 428–29 diplomatic immunity  587–88, 590, 723 disconnection clause 132 dispositive treaties 405–6 Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU), WTO  42–43, 525, 736 disputes/dispute settlement arbitration, through at election of one party  739 by mutual agreement  739 referral to arbitration or the ICJ  740 referral to arbitration, the ICJ or conciliation 740–41 binding settlement  739–41 breaches, responding to  570 conciliation 740–41 countermeasures not to affect obligations under dispute settlement  589–90 Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), WTO  33, 72 dispute settlement clauses  576 dispute settlement system (DSS), WTO  89 EU treaty-making  125, 134 Faroe (Faeroe) Islands  159 individual right to dispute settlement procedures 741–42 legal basis  125 maritime 283 NGO participation  186

790 Index disputes/dispute settlement (cont.) procedures involving parties themselves through any agreed-upon means  737–38 through consultations only  736–37 through negotiations  737 procedures involving third parties  738–39 referral to a treaty body  738–39 referral to the ICJ on mutual agreement of disputing parties  740 referral to arbitration or the ICJ  740 referral to arbitration, the ICJ or conciliation  740–41 unilateral referral  740 through a treaty-specific court  739 through arbitration at election of one party  739 unilateral ICJ referral  740 dissolution of States  393, 402–4 domestic application of treaties 355–81 compliance 375–80 contracts 36–37 direct application of treaties as law  363 dualist legal systems  356–60, 365 horizontal treaty provisions  364 compliance 375–76 legal authorization, non-State actors  155 monist legal systems  360–64, 365, 373–75 nationalist versus transnationalist provisions 366–75 constitutional interpretation  372–73 self-execution in monist states  373–75 statutory interpretation  368–69 treaty interpretation  369–72 transnational treaty provisions  364–65, 366–75 compliance 376–77 vertical treaty provisions  364, 365, 366 compliance 377–80 domestic law agreements governed by  36–37 treaty application under  5, 18 ‘treaty’ definition  338 see also domestic application of treaties; dualism/ dualist legal systems; monism/monist legal systems Domestic Workers Convention (2011) 701 Dominican Republic ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 Double Taxation Agreement and Protocol (Hong Kong-UK) 741 dualism/dualist legal systems courts 359–60 customary international law  48, 357, 368 definitions  48, 55–56, 356–57 domestic application of treaties  356–60, 365 Dualist States  357, 358–60 list of relevant States  357–58 and dualist thinking in international law  47–51, 55–56 implementing legislation  357, 358, 378 incorporated and unincorporated treaties  358 international organizations (IOs)  100

dubio mitius principle 529 duration 765–72 fixed term  709, 770 automatic renewal unless terminated  771 extending an earlier agreement  770–71 followed by a separate period of automatic renewal 771 with limited extension options  771 parties agreeing to extend affirmatively  771 subject to extensions and conditions  772 limitations on combined with termination options 709–10 right of withdrawal or denunciation  772 treaty provisions  770 unlimited 772 withdrawal effective on notice  710 see also duration; exit clauses; termination of treaties; withdrawal Dutch Seamen’s Welfare case  534, 537–38 Duterte, Rodrigo 626   East Timor  150, 161–62, 325–26 EC-Israel Association Agreement 168–69 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Committee on NGOs  179–80 NGO participation  178–80 Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) 262–63 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)  40, 103–4 EC-PLO Agreement 168–69 ECtHR see European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) Ecuador termination of treaties  635–36, 637 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 36 effectiveness  4, 64, 78, 83, 87–91, 93 common but differentiated responsibilities concept 93 compliance key to effectiveness  84–85 differentiating from compliance  42, 82, 88–89 drafting treaties for  91–93 potential screening effect  91–92 see also compliance effectiveness principle see principle of effectiveness effet utile 121–22 see also principle of effectiveness Egypt Declaration on the Suez Canal (1957)  33 Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 between the WHO and Egypt (Advisory Opinion) 103–4 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 treaty with Hittites (1259 bce) 1 El Salvador  166, 170–71 Emerson, Jirina 6 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) (1994) amendments  705–6, 710

Index  791 case law  244 consent to be bound  673–74 participation clauses  655 provisional application  233, 239–40, 243–46 enforcement actions 42–44 and compliance  43–44 EU treaty-making  133–35 plenary bodies  43 self-enforcement 42 State responsibility  43–44 entry into force  225–27, 695–702 amendments prior to  352–53 amendments without specifying a threshold for 749–50 bilateral treaties  695, 696–97 on date following exchange of notifications 696–97 on exchange of instruments of ratification  696 necessary procedures, completion  696–97 satisfaction of multiple conditions  697 on signature  696 bindingness of treaties  27, 28, 695 and conclusion of treaty  21–22 and consent to be bound  265–68 customary international law  695 differentiated from effect delayed effect  702 retroactive effect  701 joining a treaty after conditions for satisfied  700–1 legislative approval prior to  361 Lisbon Treaty  118–19, 698 Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013)  348, 700–1 multilateral treaties  227, 697–700 including those of an IO  699 including those of certain States  698–99 mutual agreement of certain parties  700–699 not including those of an IO  699–700 on date following deposit of a specific number of instruments 698–99 on date following deposit of all ratification instruments  698 on set date with exchange of notifications  697 on signature  697 set date/later date following satisfaction of conditions 700 underlying treaty  700 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  70–71, 697 Paris Agreement on Climate Change  698–99 provisional application  229–30 publication requirements  361–62 reservations permitted following  682–83 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) 698 on signature  696 signature required prior to  672–73 standard amendment process  341–42 termination effective on  709

treaty-making process  225–27 see also amendments; consent to be bound; bilateral treaties; consent to be bound; multilateral treaties; provisional application; registration environmental treaties 43 global  417–18, 540 history 183 multilateral  295–96, 540 multilateral environmental organizations (MEAs)  351, 418, 421–22 treaty-making  226, 227–28 erga omnes principle  563, 583, 591 Eritrea Ethiopia-Eritrea Border case  401, 489, 490, 492 independence 384–85 Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission  408, 409 errors correction of  273–74 versus fraud  559 procès verbal of rectification  273 validity concerns  557–59 ERTA case 120–22 Escher v Brazil case 320–21 Escrow Agreement 31 Espoo Convention on Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment (1991) 729–30 Ethiopia-Eritrea Border case  401, 489, 490, 492 EU treaties capacity to make  119–32 conflict with obligations  140 current 120 defining 117–18 external and internal objectives  121–22 judicial control  128–29 legal basis  119, 124, 125 mixed agreements  128 scope of application  140–42 see also EU treaty-making; European Union/ Community EU treaty-making 117–48 amendments 147 association agreements  120, 128, 141–42 binding on Member States  18, 117, 132–33, 346, 527 capacity to make treaties  119–32 choice of legal basis  125 competence  120, 144–45, 148 division between EU and Member States  129 exclusive and shared  136–43, 148 existence of competence versus exclusivity  124 Lugano Convention  121 trade agreements  117 conferral principle  119, 120–26 criminal justice cooperation  118–19 decision-making rules  126–27 disconnection clause  132 enforcement actions  133–35 EU legal order and international agreements 132–36

792 Index EU treaty-making (cont.) exercise of powers  130–32 express powers  119–22, 123–24 extension of scope  120, 122–24 foreign and security policy  118–19 impact on Member States  117, 136–43 implied powers  117–18, 119–22 incorrect legal basis  126 and international responsibility  143–47 interpretation 132–33 judicial control  128–30 legal basis  119, 120–21, 123, 125–26 legal effects  132–47 mixed agreements  119–20, 135–36 multiple legal bases  125 ‘object and purpose’  122 Opinions  121, 122–24, 128–29, 138, 147–48 participation as the EU specifically  662–63 as a qualified ‘intergovernmental organization’ 659 as a REIO  659–62 as a REO  662 powers 120–30 ‘predominant purpose’ test  125 priority issues  133 procedures  119, 126–28 trade powers  117, 122 unique characteristics  119, 147–48 see also EU treaties; European Union/Community; Member States; Regional Economic Integration Organization; Regional Integration Organization EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement 186 European Agreement Concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Inland Waterways (2000) 654–55 European Agreement on Important International Combined Transport Lines and Related Installations (1991) 756–57 European Agreement relating to Persons Participating in Proceedings of the ECtHR (1996) 713 European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) 118– 19, 139–40, 708, 712 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 118– 19, 131–32, 398 European Commission as ‘guardian of the Treaties’  133–34 ‘other subjects’  169 termination of treaties  637 treaty-making procedures  126–27 European Commission of Human Rights 313–14, 330–31, 514 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) accession of the EU to  112, 126–27, 129 dispute settlement  739

life, right to  509, 513–14, 519–20 NGO participation  667 priority issues  729 Protocol No 7  332 Protocol No 14  663 European Council 141–42 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) 42–43, 301, 437, 487, 539, 564 Grand Chamber  497 specialized rules  507 VCLT Rules on Treaty Interpretation  483–84, 487 See also individual ECtHR cases by name and in the Table of Cases European Court of Justice (ECJ) see Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) European Economic Community  118–19, 120, 141–42 see also European Union/Community European Energy Charter (1991) 647 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) 141–42 European Parliament 127–28 European Union/Community accession of Member States to  139–40 accession to ECHR  102–3, 126–27, 129 autonomy of legal system  117–18, 120–21, 134 competence  120, 144–45, 148 division between EU and Member States  129 exclusive and shared  136–43 existence of competence versus exclusivity  124 Lugano Convention  121 trade agreements  117 conferral of powers  120–26 cooperation obligations  136 creation 118–19 defining 131 establishment, rights of  138–39 EU law obligations  117 evolution of architecture  118–19 evolution of external powers  120 extension of scope  120, 122–24 federalism  117–18, 145–46 grant of treaty-making powers to  119–20, 130 institutions 119 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 legal basis for acts of  125 legal framework  119 legal personality  118–19, 120–21, 147 non-discrimination principle  138–39 participation clauses  657 Passenger Name Records Agreement with the US 147–48 primacy of Union law  132 primary law  133 relationship with Member States  117–18 supranational integration  117–18 treaties party to  117 treaty partners  119 treaty-making capacities  118–19, 120

Index  793 treaty-making organizations  118–19 treaty of Maastrich  118–19 ‘Union interest’  134 unique characteristics  117 withdrawal from  140–43 see also EU treaties; EU treaty-making; Member States Evian Accords (1962) 326–27 ex ante/ex post judicial control EU treaty-making  128–29, 130 federal rules on treaty-making  154–55 ex nunc provisional application provisions  248–49, 499 succession 399–400 ex tunc provisional application provisions  248–49, 399–400, 499 exceptional circumstances  5–6, 595–622 distinguishing supervening impossibility of performance, fundamental change of circumstances and state of necessity  618–21 fundamental change of circumstances  602–13 comparative analysis  618–21 ILC on  602–4 relevant case law  604–12 necessity, state of comparative analysis  618–21 relevant case law  614–17 treaty obligations  613–17 supervening impossibility of performance  596–601 comparative analysis  618–21 ILC on  597–99 relevant case law  599–601 State practice  601 see also derogations; force majeure; fundamental change of circumstances;; rebus sic stantibus doctrine; supervening impossibility of performance; termination of treaties exchange of instruments consent to be bound  221, 222 notes  670, 708 notes or letters constituting the treaty  671–72 notifications 671 of ratification  672 entry into force  696 Exchange of Letters relating to the Provisional Application of the Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EC-Denmark/Greenland), 2006 769 Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement in regard to the Mutual Abolition of Visas (Ireland-Poland) 1992 769 Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement to further amend and extend the Agreement concerning Space Vehicle Tracking and Communications Facilities of 29 May 1980, as amended (Australia- US) (2000) 701 Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement of June 25 and July 6, 2004 on Mutual Airlift Support (Republic of Korea-United States), 2019 671–72

Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (Pakistan-US), 2003 770 exclusive economic zone (EEZ)  11, 161, 499, 617, 715 and contiguous zone  311 exclusivity doctrine, EU treaty-making 119 common foreign and security policy (CFSP) 127–28 exclusive and shared competence  136–43 and pre-emption doctrine  137–38 a priori or constitutional exclusivity  137 rationale 136–37 see also competences exit see denunciation, withdrawal, termination of treaties; treaty exit exit clauses, as risk management tools 638–39 Expert Review Teams (ERTs) 424–25 external territories Associated States  159, 161, 164 distinguished from integral territories  159, 160, 161 international administration, under  161–62 Non-Self-Governing Territories  157, 159, 160–72 pre-independence agreements  162–65 range of judicial relations  159–60 treaty-making capacities  151, 159–65 extraterritorial application  5, 321–34, 715–16 in areas outside of a State’s territory  715 binding on non-State actors  323–27 irrespective of territory  321–23, 715 jurisdiction versus territoriality  327–29 of some treaties  327–34 territorial scope between States and IOs or between IOs 324–26 territorial scope concluded by other international law subjects  326–27 unsettled criteria  329–34 vessels and aircraft  716 where State has jurisdiction  716   FAO see Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Faroe (Faeroe) Islands 159 federal clauses 317–21 authorizing limited exceptions for federal States 716–19 denying any accommodation to federal States 719–20 excepting federal States from certain treaty obligations 716–19 purpose 716 territorial application  317–21 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)  390, 392, 397–98, 696 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)/former Yugoslavia  403, 408, 562 bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  162 dissolution 607 international agreements  403–4, 562 NATO bombing  364 new signature pages  263

794 Index Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)/former Yugoslavia (cont.) provisional application  232 pacta sunt servanda principle  239 Rome Agreement 1923  166–67 Tadic case  333, 538 treaty-making 166–67 UN membership  270 see also Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) federal States clauses denying any accommodation to  320, 719–20 declarations 716 differentiating federal versus non-federal implementation 719 explicitly 719 implicitly 719 obligations imposed only at the ‘national’ level 719 excepted from certain treaty obligations  317–21, 716–19 limited exceptions authorized for  718–19 non-State actors  170–71 reservations 716 territorial application  716–20 units of see federal units (integral territories) federal units (integral territories)  5, 151–58 assignment of treaty-making competence  151–53 Australia 152 authority from the State  152 distinguished from external territories  159, 160, 161 federal rules on treaty-making  153–55 indigenous peoples  157–58 lacking authorization  152 political commitments  152 special administrative regions  156 sub-federal treaty-making  153–54, 171 treaty-making capacities  151–59 federalism European Union/Community  117–18, 145–46 Federal Council  153 sub-federal treaty-making  155 see also federal clauses; federal States; federal units (integral territories) Ferrini case 566 Final Act (of conferences)  239–40, 561–62, 647 treaty-making  209, 219, 220 final clauses (of treaties) 217 Financial Action Task Force 92 Finland international agreements/disputes  24 oral settlement of disputes  24 Fisheries Jurisdiction cases  605–6, 607, 611 Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EC-Denmark/ Greenland) (2006) 769 Fisheries Partnership Agreement (EU-Solomon Islands), 2010 694 Fitzmaurice, Sir Gerald  2, 13–14, 25, 26, 39–40 and breaches, responding to  582–83

on contemporaneity principle  492–93 and drawing up treaty  202 and exceptional circumstances  597–98 fundamental change of circumstances  602–3 lex specialis principle  450 as Special Rapporteur  99–100 and State responsibility  170 and termination of treaties  627–28 and territorial application  312–13, 315, 318–19, 322, 323 and treaty-making capacity  202 Food Aid Convention (1999)  442, 725, 772 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 113–14, 342–43 Constitution  130–31, 342–43, 351, 755 treaty-making 206 Food Assistance Convention (2012)  663, 700, 764 force majeure  596–97, 598–99, 618–20 see also supervening impossibility of performance Forest Europe 206 Founding Act on Mutual Relations (NATO-Russia) 646 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 182–83 fragmentation 7 by competing interpretations  432–33 by conflicting obligations  432–33 ILC Study Group  432, 434, 435, 436, 438 overlapping phenomena  432–33 questioning existence of  433–34 treaty regimes  428–29 vast array of phenomena  432 see also conflicts and fragmentation Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (2003)  651, 705 Framework Agreement on the Reciprocal Recognition of Driver’s Licenses for Exchange Purposes (Canada- Italy), 2017 737 Framework Convention Alliance  182, 192 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003) annexes 694 federal States  719 modifications 729 NGO participation  181–82, 192, 666 France Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Internal Security (France-Russia), 2003  727 arrangements administratifs, non-recognition as binding agreements  62, 70 Caribbean Organization  160–61 Conseil d’État 314 and Germany  548–49 informal lawmaking  62 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 Madagascar, incorporation of  392 Nuclear Tests case  33 rank of treaties  362

Index  795 treatment of Roma immigrants in Czech Republic 89–90 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 22 France v Commission 556–57 fraud 558–59 versus error  559 Free Trade Agreement (Australia-US), 2005 674–75 Free Trade Agreement (Israel-Slovakia), 1996 733 Free Trade Agreement (Ukraine-Tajikistan) 726 free trade agreements 186 Free Zones case 604–5 Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberación (FMLN) 166 Friendship, Commerce and Navigation (FCN) Treaty  439–40, 576, 588–89, 635 functions of treaties 37–44 area of regulation  41–42 constitutive 40 duties imposed  39–40 facilitative 40 multiplicity  38, 43–44 normativity 38–39 precision 39 regulatory variations  38–41 secondary rules  40 fundamental change of circumstances 602–13 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty 1972 (US-USSR) 609–11 conclusion 612 customary international law  606, 607, 608, 611, 617 ILC on  602–4 and pacta sunt servanda principle  602–3 procedural requirements  611–12 relevant case law  604–12 Fisheries Jurisdiction  605–6, 607, 611 Free Zones 604–5 Gabčikovo-Nagymaros  599–600, 601, 606–7 Racke v Hauptzollamt Mainz 607–9 and State practice  609–11 supervening impossibility of performance  598 tradition of  603 validity 553 see also rebus sic statibus doctrine   Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project case  405–6, 599–600, 601, 606–7 necessity, state of  614–17 Gabon  672, 702 Gambia, withdrawal from Rome Statute 267 Garrido and Baigorria v Argentina case 320–21 GATT see General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947  156, 185–86, 636–37, 733–34 General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) see UN General Assembly (UNGA) Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas (2010)  697, 705 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949) 698

Geneva Conventions (1949) 40 Additional Protocols I and II  220–21, 326–27 Common Article 3  165–66, 326–27 insurgents not parties to  165–66 international organizations (IOs)  111 ratification 225 Geneva High Seas Convention (1958) 322 Genocide case see Croatia-Serbian Genocide case Genocide Convention see Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) Georgia v Russian Federation case 428–29 German Democratic Republic (GDR) 384–85, 397–98 Germany Agreement on Audio-Visual Relations (CanadaGermany), 2004  670 Agreement on the exchange of information relating to tax returns (Germany-Andorra), 2010  696 Basic Law  153–54 BIT (Afghanistan-Germany)  42–43 breaches, responding to, responsibility for  170 conclusion of treaties  22 consent to be bound  268 creation of Empire (1871)  391–92 Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)  390, 392, 397–98, 696 federal rules on treaty-making  153–54 Federation of German Industry  188–89 and France  548–49 human rights and territoriality  331 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 languages 485–86 Munich Agreement (1938)  552 Nazi Germany  559–60, 564 rank of treaties  362 transnational treaty provisions  374–75 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 22 treaty-making capacity of Länder  15–16, 22, 153–54, 170, 318 unification 384 and Vienna rules on treaty interpretation  479 see also Versailles Treaty (1919) Gex, District of see Free Zones case Ghana 556 Gibeonites (Biblical people) 1 Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria 174–75 global governance movement 175 globalization 77 Golder case  507, 511–12 good faith  34, 42, 310, 469, 492–93, 513 Government Procurement Agreement 141 Greece 21 greenhouse gas emissions  64–65, 226 Greenhouse Gas Protocol 63 Greenpeace 177–78 Grisbadarna case 493–94

796 Index Grotius, Hugo 560–61 Guantanamo Bay 556 Guatemala 225 Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises 65 see also Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) gun regulation  177, 181   Hague Conference on Private International Law (1893) 130–31 Hague Convention on Child Abduction (1980)  364–65, 649 Hague Convention on Civil Procedure (1954) 728 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (1993)  355, 719 Hague Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (2019) 731–32 Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (1965) 728 Hague Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters (1970) 728 Hague Conventions 1899/1907 41–42 Hague Peace Conference (1899) 176 Harvard Draft Convention on the Law of Treaties (1935)  30–31, 50, 480 Hawaii, US incorporation of 392 Headquarters Agreement between Australia and the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (1998) 772–73 Helsinki Final Act (1975) 647 Henkin, Louis 42 High Commissioner for Human Rights 428–29 high seas, application of treaties on  322, 330 Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas 681–82 Hitler, Adolf  552, 558–59 Hittite Empire 1 Hollis, Duncan  54–55, 70 Hong Kong devolution agreements  395 as SAR  156 transfer from UK to China  391–92 WTO membership  156, 664 horizontal (inter-State) provisions compliance 375–76 domestic application of treaties  364, 375–76 human rights  5, 41–42 defining human rights  166 disability rights  182 EU and Inter-American systems  182–83 High Commissioner for Human Rights  428–29 humanitarian law/treaties  407–9 international treaty interpretation  505–11 by specialized or general international bodies or domestic courts  520–21

IOs, adherence to  112 life, right to  509, 513–14, 519–20 NGO participation  182–83 principle of effectiveness  42, 512–20 and role of general international law  516–20 and reservations  286 specialized treaty interpretation rules  511–20 standards  368–69, 549 State responsibility  511–12 State succession  407–9 sui generis interpretation  506 treaty law  511–20 World Court of Human Rights (proposed)  429 see also American Convention on Human Rights 1969; automatic treaty succession; European Commission of Human Rights; European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; European Court of Human Rights (ECHR); Human Rights Act 1998 (UK); Human Rights Committee (HRC); Human Rights Council; Human Rights Watch; humanitarian law/treaties; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1966; principle of effectiveness; Universal Declaration on Human Rights Human Rights Committee (HRC)  72–73, 85, 301, 328–29, 513–14, 537, 629–30 treaty bodies  418, 425–26 Human Rights Council 158 Human Rights Watch  177–78, 189 Hungary and Czechoslovakia  614 provisional application  250 Rome Agreement 1923  166–67 See also Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project case   IAJC see Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC) Iceland and North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAAMCO) 69 and whaling  69 ICJ see International Court of Justice icon, treaty as  47, 52–53 ICTY see International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Ihlen Declaration  24, 31, 34 see also declarations; unilateral declarations Ilaşcu and Others v Moldova and Russia 331 ILO Convention No 189 see Domestic Workers Convention (2011) IMCO Maritime Safety Committee case 529 IMF Articles of Agreement 762 immunity Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe (1949)  109 consular 639 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN (1946)  109

Index  797 diplomatic  587–88, 590, 723 employees 364 forced labour  564–65 human rights  510 international organizations  109 regulation of law  564–65 sovereign 564–65 of States  564, 691 for violations  564–65 waiver 723 implementing legislation dualist legal systems  357, 358, 378 legal force  357 monist legal systems  362–63 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958)  362–63, 717–18 State succession  389–90 vertical treaty provisions  377–78 Warsaw Convention on International Carriage by Air (1929)  362–63 impossibility see also supervening impossibility of performance incompatibility amendments 352 international agreements  128–29, 132–33, 140 of treaty obligations  441, 442, 446, 449 reservations  285, 291–92, 297, 301 if two-third of parties object  682 with ‘object and purpose’  390, 398, 399–400, 406–7, 677–78, 679 termination 595 third parties, existing treaties with  726 see also priority issues incorporation Dualist States  358–59 ‘quasi-incorporation’ 359 State succession  392, 397–98 States other than newly independent  397–98 India conclusion of treaties  22 constitutional interpretation  372–73 Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines  69 provisional application  239 registration disputes  283–84 termination of treaties  637 treaty concluded ‘among States’  22 ‘treaty’ definition  22 indigenous peoples colonizing powers  157 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopting 158 treaty-making by  157–58 informal lawmaking 59–80 accountability issues  75–77 binding and non-binding agreements  61 breadth-depth trade-off, international agreements 71–72 challenges 73–81

choice-of-law clauses  79 defining 60–66 efficacy concerns  73–75 flexibility rationale  67, 68 Guidelines 78–80 and hard law  69, 72 identification 66 international agreements  35 legal effects  64–65 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) see memoranda of understanding (MOUs) motives for States  66–73 negotiations 61–63 and non-lawmaking  64 presumption in favour of bindingness  29–30 presumption in favour of non-bindingness  80 procedural flexibility  70–73 reduced penalties for violation  67–69 ‘soft’ law  60–61, 64–65 State responsibility  65, 66, 67 uses of  59–60 see also memoranda of understanding (MOUs); political commitments inherent treaty obligations 39–40 initial decisions on treaty-making see participation clauses Institute of International Law (IDI) 388 institutionalism 16–17 insurgents  151, 165–66, 170–71 integral territories see federal units (integral territories) intent ambiguous 628–29 to be bound  64 compliance versus effectiveness  88–89 conflicts  441, 447–48 and contracts  27, 36–37 to create legal rights and obligations  50 customary international law  439 disregarding 522 evidence of  271 evolving 516 identification 66 lex posterior principle  447–48 modifications 352 original  478–79, 482, 513–14 particular States  302, 303, 454 and political commitments  35, 36, 64–65, 645 standards 75 statement of  79 subjective test based on  78–79 tacit agreement  478–79, 482 test for identifying treaties  26, 27, 28–29, 645 treaty-ascertaining criterion  55–56 validity 545–46 to withdraw  627 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 166 Inter-American Convention on Personality and Capacity of Juridical Persons in Private International Law (1984) 681

798 Index Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (1985) 654 Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR)  42–43, 320–21, 429, 478 interpretation of treaties  514, 519, 520 see also individual IACtHR cases by name and in the Table of Cases Inter-American Juridical Committee (IAJC) draft OAS Guidelines for Binding and Non-Binding Agreements  78–79, 504 informal lawmaking  60, 66, 77 questionnaire 170 Reports Fifth Report on Binding and Non-Binding Agreements 27 Second Report on Binding and Non-Binding Agreements  12, 151 survey on binding/non-binding agreements  169 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network (2013) 693 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 188 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (US-Russia) 635 international administration, territories under 161–62 International Agreement on Olive Oil and Table Olives (1956)  233, 706 international agreements approval 127–28 breadth-depth trade-off  71–72 direct effect to provisions binding the EU  134–35 envisaged 129 incompatibility  128–29, 132–33, 140 informality 35 international law, governed by  29–30 judicial control of EU agreements  128–30 lack of definition  19–21 legal basis for acts of  125 multilateral trade agreements  156 negotiations 129 parliamentary consent  127 priority issues  133 range of designations  30 registration 279–82 Rules of Procedure for the Conclusion of International Agreements  107–8 shallow agreements  64 and State behaviour  64 third parties  108 treaties defined as  19–21 see also agreements (non-treaty), applicability of treaty law to; incompatibility; definitions of treaties International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)  101, 259 1986 VCLT  101 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) 167 International Bar Association Rules of Evidence and Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest 64–65

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 185 International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) 181 International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) 167–68 withdrawal from  635–36 International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development 190 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)  345–47, 534–35, 540, 703 Assembly 349 1986 VCLT  101 International Cocoa Agreement (2010) denunciation/withdrawal 773–74 dispute settlement  738 International Coffee Agreement (2007)  698, 700 International Committee of the Red Cross 181 International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999) amendments 744 consent to be bound  676 declarations 676 reservations 681 International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships 752 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2007) 719–20 International Convention on Maritime Liens and Mortgages 205 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (2018)  23, 183, 189, 303–4, 635, 636 International Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other State (1965) 315 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism 2005 747 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (1999) amendments 725 consent to be bound  674 declarations 688 reservations 680 International Court of Justice (ICJ) on customary international law  12 interpretation of doctrines  432–33 pre-independence agreements  163 referral for dispute settlement on mutual agreement of disputing parties  740 referral to arbitration or the ICJ  740 referral to arbitration, the ICJ or conciliation 740–41 unilateral 740 reservations  289–90, 291 ‘treaty’ definition  14 validity concerns  549–50 see individual ICJ cases by name and in the Table of Cases

Index  799 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (1966) amendments 342–43 ‘anti-federal’ clause  320 and CESCR  537 compliance 85 constitutional interpretation  372 derogations 733 evolutionary principle  497–98 First Optional Protocol  41–42, 295–96, 416–17, 556, 629–30 Human Rights Committee (HRC)  72–73, 85 human rights law  508 international disputes  629–30 interpretation of treaties  537 lex specialis principle  450 ‘object and purpose’  328–29 ratification 377–78 Second Optional Protocol  681, 683 and silent incorporation process  377–78 vertical treaty provisions  365, 377–78 see Human Rights Committee (HRC) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (1966) 112–13, 318, 320, 367, 374, 510, 537, 538 International Criminal Court (ICC) Assembly of States Parties  417, 421 Coalition for  183, 190 compliance with  86–87 creation 183 informal lawmaking  59–60 Pre-Trial Chamber  631 withdrawal from  120 see also individual ICC cases by name and in the Table of Cases; Rome Statute International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  333, 432–33, 531–32, 538, 564 Čelebići case  407–8 International Dalit Solidarity Network 179–80 International Federation of the League of Nations Societies 175 International Grain Agreement (1995) 442 International Institute for Sustainable Development 190 International Labour Organization (ILO)  534, 538 1986 VCLT  101 Constitution  319, 665–66, 718 depositary 259 Director-General 259 and EU treaty-making  130–31, 138 federal clause  319 founding of  180–81 Governing Body  180–81 and NGO participation  180–81, 665 non-compliance procedures  424 reporting requirements  84–85 reservations 677–78 treaty-making  216, 219, 223–24

withdrawal from  637–38 by US  636 international law ‘other subjects’  21–23 see also non-State actors treaties governed by  24–30 see also bilateral treaties; breaches; compliance; conflicts and fragmentation; consent; countermeasures; customary international law; disputes/dispute settlement; domestic law; effectiveness; exceptional circumstances; fragmentation of international law; human rights; international organizations; jus cogens; law of treaties; multilateral treaties; non-compliance; non-State actors; sources of international law; sovereignty; State responsibility; States; theorization about treaty in international law; third parties; unilateral declarations; validity; violations; International Law Association (ILA) 388 International Law Commission (ILC) Articles on State Responsibility (ASR)  13–14, 110–11, 587, 590–91, 592, 595, 613, 618 breaches, responding to  170, 575–76 Committee of the Whole  232, 238–39, 250 Conclusions on Subsequent Agreements in Relation to Interpretation of Treaties  531–32, 540, 541 countermeasures, standing to take  590–91 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts see Articles on State Responsibility Draft Articles on the Law of Treaties (1966)  231 Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (DARIO)  143, 144 Draft Guidelines on Provisional Application of Treaties  230–31, 235, 236–37, 238, 254–55 drafting of 1969 VCLT  2, 19–20, 25 drafting of 1986 VCLT  98, 99–100, 101 fundamental change of circumstances  602–4 Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties 2–3, 275, 293–94, 298–99, 301–3, 304–5 Guiding Principles on Unilateral Declarations  33, 34 on international agreements  19–20 and IOs  97, 99–100 intertemporal rule  469 non-governmental organizations (NGOs)  176 normative conflicts, typology  438 ‘other subjects’  150 provisional application  241 reservations  286, 678 Special Rapporteur  23, 25 Study Group on Fragmentation  432, 435, 436, 438 supervening impossibility of performance  597–99 on termination  627–28 territorial application  324 ‘treaty’ definition  22–23 VCLR Rules on Treaty Interpretation  460–61 international legal theory see theorizations about the treaty in international law

800 Index International Maritime Organization (IMO) 130–31, 205, 346–47, 417–18, 637–38 1986 VCLT  101 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 130–31 international organizations (IOs)  97–116, 524–41 Administrative Officer, designation of a depositary by 703 agreements with other IOs  114 ambiguities of legal position  114–15 bilateral treaties  111, 656–57 breaches, responding to  110–11 competence to make treaties  103–4, 111 conditional participation  654 consent to amendment  753–54 consent to be bound  221, 658, 669 constituting 41 decision-making rules  114–15 defining 97 depositaries  258–59, 260, 261–62, 703 designation of depositary  703 determining who is bound by  107–11 entities bound by treaty obligations  110–11 entry into force following deposit of instruments 699 excess of competence  104–7 functions 97 intergovernmental 113 interpretation of treaties by conferences or meetings of the parties  540 function of IO as an interpretative tool  529–33 interpretation by  536–38 interpreters, IOs as  536–37 by the IO  536–38 judicial 539–40 secondary law  534–36 treaty-making capacities  97 joint and several liability with Member States 110–11 jus cogens 536 legal consequences of treaty relations  108–9 legal personality  99, 102, 110–11, 113 manifest violation of an IO rule  105 Member States  105, 106, 107–8, 109–11, 113–14 mixed agreements  109–11 multilateral environmental organizations (MEAs) 418 new members  113 NGO participation, IO provisions for  178–81 obligations on members  105 ‘other subjects’ of internaitonal law  168–69 pacta sunt servanda principle  107 participation conditions  101–4, 113, 658 accession 658 consent to be bound  221, 658 generally 658 in negotiations  209–10, 216 by invitation  658 signature 658 specific competences, with  658

plenary bodies  43, 106 priority issues  726 privileges and immunities  109 provisional application  229–30, 709 responsibility for treaties of  107–11 representing  106–7, 213 rules of the organization  100, 102–4 secondary 525 violations 105 territorial scope between States and IOs or between IOs 324–26 treaty obligations  13–14 treaty-making capacities  23, 97–99 conclusion of treaties  102–4 customary law, derived from  99 derived from individual circumstances of each IO 102–3 direct role in treaty-making  98 and EU treaty-making  117–18 following World War II  99 internal distribution  106 purpose for which IO established  114–15 recognizing 99–100 roles in treaty process  97 types of treaties concluded by  99–100, 111–14 and the UN  176–77 see also constitutive treaties, of IOs; EU treaty-making; individual IOs (by name); interpretation; nongovernmental organizations; United Nations international relations 17–18 International Seabed Authority 352–53 International Space Station Agreement (1998) 699 International Sugar Agreement (1992)  651, 677 International Telecommunications Union (ITU)  342–43, 346, 755 International Trade (INTA) Committee, European Parliament 127–28 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2001) 699 International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ‘treaty’ definition  21, 42–43 see also individual ITLOS cases by name and in the Table of Cases International Tropical Timber Agreement (1983) 692 International Tropical Timber Agreement (2006) amendments 706–7 consent to be bound  670 denunciation/withdrawal  771, 773, 774 International Whaling Commission (IWC) 69 see also International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling International Women’s Rights Action Watch 182–83 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 174–75 Interpretation (existential) 54–55 interpretation (of treaties)  5, 459–87, 489–503, 504–22, 524–41

Index  801 calibrating 54 by CJEU  136 constitutive treaties  526 as a separate category  526–28 contemporaneity principle  491–94 ‘crucible’ approach to human rights  507–8, 511, 522 initial decisions  647 and Vienna Rules  464, 465, 474, 478 customary international law  460, 476–77, 491, 493, 494, 531–32 domestic application  369–72 evolutionary principle  494–502 and international organizations  524–41 conferences or meetings of the parties  540 function as an interpretative tool  529–33 interpretation by  536–38 as interpreters  536–37 judicial 539–40 secondary law  534–36 treaty-making capacities  97 intertemporal rule  469 layered exercise  540–41 mixed agreements  135 operational 54 over time  489–94 practice of organization as tool  531–33 pro-person principle  514–15 retroactive application  499–502 specialized regimes  5, 504–22 specialized rules  528–33 teleological approach to  514, 528–29, 530 telos of treaty  529–31 travaux préparatoires, reference to  506, 530, 533–34, 540 UN Charter, beyond  533–36 VCLT and domestic law  369–70 IOs 531 over time  489, 491, 493, 494, 501–3 VCLT Rules on Treaty Interpretation  460 see also conclusion of treaties; constitutional interpretation; interpretive agreements; interpretive declarations; statutory interpretation; Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), 1969; Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation interpretative declarations  287, 683, 684 see also declarations; mandatory declarations; notifications; optional declarations invalidity, grounds for  5–6, 554 constitutional concerns  554–57 coercion 559–62 corruption 557–59 error  557–58 fraud 557–59 jus cogens 562–66 see also jus cogens IOs see international organizations (IOs)

Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015  29, 48–49, 65 nuclear program  3, 61–62, 76, 77 Iran Nuclear Review Act 77 Iraq 282 Iron Rhine railway international agreements  17–18 Island of Palmas case 494 Israel  1, 15–16, 326–27, 359–60 Italy Rome Agreement 1923  166–67 unification 384   Japan Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15 Jersey 160 joining a treaty, conditions on 669–88 consent to be bound  669–77 see also consent to be bound; participation clauses Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015  3, 29, 48–49 binding or non-binding  29, 48–49, 61–62, 65, 76, 79 informal lawmaking  61–62, 65, 77 verification under  65 Jordan 33 judicial review, procedures for 744 judiciary EU agreements, control of  128–30 ex ante/ex post judicial control  128–29, 130 external territories  159–60 interpretation of treaties  539–40 Non-Self-Governing Territories  159 provisional application  239–40 jurisdiction(s) Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) 135–36 exclusive 134 extraterritorial application  322, 327–29, 330–34, 716 federal 320–21 maritime 311 versus territoriality  327–29 see also Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU); extraterritorial application; International Court of Justice (ICJ) jus cogens conflicts and fragmentation  438–39 countermeasures, responding to not affecting obligations under rules  589–90 human rights  517–18, 519, 520 international organizations (IOs)  536 norms 563

802 Index jus cogens (cont.) pacta sunt servanda principle  49 priority issues  519, 520 prohibition 563 reservations 261 South Africa  443 theorizations about treaty in international law  49 treaty conflicting with  438–39 unilateral declarations  33 validity concerns  548, 550–51, 554, 559, 562–66 see also pacta sunt servanda principle   Kadesh, Battle of (1272 bc) 52 Kadi case  519, 549 Kampala amendments (Rome Statute), crime of aggression 217 Kardassopoulos v Georgia 239–40 Kasikili/Sedudu Island case  2, 21, 479 Kearney, Richard 558 Kelsen, Hans  159, 389 on validity issues  546, 547, 548–49, 551, 553 Kenya 31–32 Kerry, John (US Secretary of State) 61–62 Khmers Kampuchea- Krom Federation 179–80 Kimberley Process 77 Klabbers, J  12, 29–30 Knowledge Ecology International 182 Korean Patent Attorneys Association 188–89 Koskenniemi, M  14, 27 Kosovo Constitution 162 Declaration of Independence 162 international administration  161–62 State succession  385, 403–4 Supreme Court  161–62 treaty-making capacities  150 UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) 161–62 Kupferberg case 133 Kuwait 282 Kyoto Protocol (1997) amendments 336–37 compliance considerations  93 denunciation/withdrawal 767 Doha Amendment  341–42, 348–49, 351–52 Expert Review Teams (ERTs)  424–25 informal lawmaking  59–60, 70, 72 and Montreal Protocol  423 negotiation  203, 205 NGO participation  173 reservations 295–96 standard amendment process  341–42 treaty bodies  426–27 see also UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)   LaGrand case  485, 500–1 Land and Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria case  247–48, 493, 554–56

languages 690–92 authentication of other versions  692 pursuant to original treaty  692 by subsequent amendment  692 corrections 273–74 object and purpose  475 multiple-language versions  460 official 690 original authentic texts  690–92 prevailing, in the case of divergence  691–92 preparing text in authentic  263 prevailing, in case of divergence  691–92 single authentic text  690 ‘treaty’ definition  28 two or more equally authentic texts  691 prevailing language in case of divergence  691–92 subject to verification  691 Vienna Conference  475 Latvia 735–36 Lauterpacht, Sir Hersch (ILC Special Rapporteur) 2, 24, 25, 26 and conflicts  440, 449 and non-State actors  152, 155, 170 and reservations  285 theorizations about treaty in international law 50–51 and validity issues  551 law of treaties bindingness of treaties  61, 66 codification  202, 203–4, 211, 221 and IOs  5, 110–11 non-State actors  150, 151, 167–68, 171, 172 ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty  224, 291–94, 390, 465, 480, 506–8, 583–84, 647 and State responsibility  13–14, 65, 66, 569, 585 exceptional circumstances  595, 598–99, 600, 601, 613, 614, 617, 619–20, 621, 622 suspension of treaties  767–68 and third parties  720 ‘treaty’ definition  13–14, 17, 37–38, 41, 43–44 treaty-making 201 VCLT 1969  2–3 see also adoption of treaties; amendments; annexes; bilateral investment treaties (BITs); bindingness of treaties; breaches, responding to; conclusion of treaties; conflicts and fragmentation; consent to be bound; constitutive treaties, of IOs; declarations; definitions of treaties; denunciation; depositaries; derogation; domestic application of treaties; entry into force; EU treaty-making; exit clauses; extraterritorial application; federal clauses; final clauses (of treaties); full powers; functions of treaties; human rights; intent; international agreements; International Law Commission (ILC); international organizations (IOs); interpretation (of treaties); incompatibility; invalidity, grounds for; languages; multilateral

Index  803 treaties; negotiations; object and purpose; pacta sunt servanda principle; participation clauses; provisional application; ratification; registration; reservations; secret treaties/ secrecy of negotiations; signature; simple signature, consent to be bound; State Responsibility; suspension of treaties; termination of treaties; territorial application; third parties; treaty-making League of Nations codification conferences  176 Council 99 Covenant  31, 259, 276, 349, 524 International Federation of the League of Nations Societies 175 legal personality  99 non-governmental organizations (NGOs)  175, 176 registration issues  277–78, 280 Secretariat 276 treaty and international agreement treaty series  278 Legal Consequences for States of the Presence of South Africa in Namibia see Namibia case Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago 163 legal personality European Union/Community  118–19, 120–21, 147 international organizations (IOs)  99, 102, 110–11, 113 League of Nations  99 non-State actors  150, 159, 160, 166–67 Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict case  104–5, 193–94, 195, 525, 530, 531 legalization  17–18, 59–60 legitimate expectations doctrine 359–60 lex posterior principle  5, 447–48, 519 lex prior principle  5, 448–49, 452 see also pacta sunt servanda principle lex specialis principle  5, 147, 248–49, 253, 449–52, 519–20, 527, 568–69 treaty conflicts  449–51 liberal theory 16–17 liberation movements  323, 548 Libya, compliance with the ICC 86–87 Libyan Arab Foreign Investment Company case 599 life, right to  509, 513–14, 519–20 Lighthizer, Robert (US Ambassador)  59, 61–62 Lindau Agreement (1957) 318 Lisbon Treaty (2007) amendments 123 consent to be bound  672 entry into force  118–19, 698 exclusive and shared competence  136, 137 extension of scope of EU powers  123 IOs, treaties concluded by  112 judicial control of EU agreements  130 parliamentary consent, international agreements 127 withdrawal from the EU  140

Liu He (Chinese Vice Premier) 61–62 Load Line Convention (1971)  342, 609 lobbying see non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Lockerbie case 439–40 Loizidou v Turkey  332, 333, 334 Lugano Convention 121   Macau bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  385 as SAR  156 transfer from UK to China  391–92 WTO membership  156, 664 McDougal, MS  462–64, 466, 472, 473, 475–76, 479, 485 Macedonia  263, 266, 403 McNair, Lord Arnold  37, 44, 524–25, 551 on human rights  506, 507–8, 511 and VCLT Rules on treaty interpretation  461–62 Madagascar 392 magic descendance/genitor theory 55–56 Magyar Helsinki Bizottsag v Hungary 497–98 Malaysia  25, 268, 392 mandatory declarations 683 see also declarations Maritime Delimitation case  27, 51 maritime law Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (1980)  416, 766 fundamental change of circumstances  604 see also coastal States; extraterritorial application; high seas, application of treaties on; Load Line Convention (1971); ships; SOLAS Convention (1960); SOLAS Convention (1974); UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Maritime Traffic Convention (1965) 346–47 MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (1973) 722 Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization see WTO Agreement (Marrakesh Agreement) Marrakesh Treaty (2013) 182 Marshall Islands 164 material breaches  5–6, 37–38, 585 concept  574–75, 576 diverse effects  576–77 ILC commentary  575–76 ‘object and purpose’  575, 647 prior breaches  585 requirement of  574–76 see also breaches, responding to; countermeasures; violations Mauritius 163–65 independence and pre-independence agreements 162–63 Transparency Convention (2014)  226 see also Chagos Advisory Opinion Mavrommatis Concession cases 448 Max Plant case 146

804 Index Meetings of the Parties (MOPs)  416, 540 see also Conference of the Parties (COPs); treaty bodies Member States accession to the EU  139–40 EU cooperation obligations  136 EU enforcement actions against  133–35 EU mixed agreements  109–10, 136 EU participation as a REIO in lieu of Member States  661 provided one Member State also participates  661 EU treaties binding on  117, 132–33, 346, 527 grant of treaty-making powers to the EU  119–20, 130 impact of EU treaty-making on  117, 136–43 international organizations (IOs)  105, 106, 107–8, 109–11, 113–14 ‘Masters of the Treaty’  526 ratification of EU bilateral mixed agreements  128 registration 277–78 relationship with EU  117–18 Representatives of the Governments in EU  128 State responsibility  146 treaty-making powers  117 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and ‘treaty’ definition  31–32 international agreements  17–18 legal status  61–62 non-binding agreements  17–18, 59 Trump on  59 see also informal law; political commitments Memorandum of Principles and Procedures between the Republic of Moldova and the State of North Carolina (USA) Concerning their Desire to Strengthen their Good Relations (2015) 646 Memorandum of Understanding Concerning a Working Holiday Program (CanadaDenmark), 2005 768 Memorandum of Understanding for the Conservation and Management of Shared Polar Bear Populations (US Department of Interior- Environment Canada) (2008) 646 merger of States State succession  392, 398–99 States other than newly independent  398–99 Mexico agency-level agreements  22, 170 agreements governed by international law  25 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 informal lawmaking  71 legislative approval prior to entry into force  361 non-binding agreements  71 rank of treaties  362 sub-federal agreements  153–54, 170 ‘treaty’ definition  36 Migrant Workers’ Convention 509

Minamata Convention on Mercury (2013) amendments  348, 746–47 annexes 694–95 consent to be bound  674 entry into force  227, 700–1 informal lawmaking  70–71 ‘object and purpose’  648 priority issues  727 reservations 678 Mine Ban Treaty (1997) 181 see also Anti-Personnel Land Mines Convention 1997 Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe 206 Minsk Agreement, Protocol (1991) 400–1 mixed agreements (EU) accession to the EU  139–40 bilateral  128, 131–32, 141–42 cooperation obligations  136 EU treaty-making  119–20, 135–36 exclusive jurisdiction  134 exclusive or shared competence  138–39 incomplete 109–10 international organizations (IOs)  109–11 Member States  109–10, 136 multilateral 119–20 responsibility for  147 modifications 352 comprehensive treatment of relations with other treaties 731–32 intent 352 obligation to consult on present treaty’s relationship to future  730–31 permitted if compatible with present treaty  729–30 permitted without conditions on consistency with the present treaty  730 see also amendments; supplementary agreements Moldova 331 monism/monist legal systems customary international law  368 definitions 356–57 domestic application of treaties  360–64, 365, 373–75 hierarchical rank of treaties within domestic order 362 implementing legislation  362–63 list of relevant States  357–58 self-execution in  373–75 Montenegro 392 Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to International Carriage by Air (1999)  339–40, 703 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (1987) Adjustments 351, amendments  351, 758 entry into force  700 Executive Body  417 Kigali Amendment (2016)  226–27 Meeting of the Parties  205–6, 416, 421–22, 423

Index  805 NGO participation  183–84 treaty bodies  416, 421–22 MOUs see memoranda of understanding (MOUs) Multilateral Agreement for the Establishment of an International Think Tank for Landlocked Developing Countries 206–7 multilateral environmental agreements/ organizations (MEAs)  351, 418, 421–22 multilateral treaties 37 1986 VCLT  102 amendments 338–53 agreements to modify, between certain parties only 338–53 binding by unanimity  743, 745–46 simplified amendment procedures  750 changing from bilateral  674–75 consent to be bound  669 depositaries 258 entry into force  227, 697–700 on date following deposit of a specific number of instruments 698–99 on date following deposit of ratification agreements 698 on date following satisfaction of conditions  700 mutual agreement of certain parties  700 on set date with exchange of notifications  697 on signature  697 EU treaty-making  117, 119, 148 mixed agreements (EU)  119–20 NGO participation  174–75, 177, 183–84, 185–86 ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty  647 open 223–24 standards 580 standing 579–80 standing to suspend/terminate  580 State succession  404, 410 treaty-making  201, 209, 222–23 see also amendemnts; consent to be bound; constitutive treaties, of IOs; entry into force; law of treaties; object and purpose; treaty-making Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the SecretaryGeneral (MTDSG)  264, 265, 266–67, 272–73 multiple-language versions, VCLT Rules on treaty interpretation 460 foreign languages  485–86 Multisource Equivalent Norms (MSENs)  440, 443 Münster Treaty (1648) see Westphalia, Peace of (1648)   NAFTA see North American Free Trade Agreement Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Western Indian Ocean (2010) (Amended) 720–21 Namibia case  491–92, 530, 574–75, 578–79, 581–82 National Liberation Movements (NLMs)  323, 326–27 National Rifle Association, US 177 nationalist judicial application 366–75 Native American treaties 157

natural resources, permanent sovereignty over 406 Navigational and Related Rights case  491–92, 494–95 necessity, state of comparative analysis  618–21 Gabčikovo-Nagymaros 614–17 treaty obligations  613–17 see also exceptional circumstances; fundamental change of circumstances; supervening impossibility of performance negotiations bilateral treaties  174–75 informal lawmaking  61–63 international agreements  129 Kyoto Protocol 1997  205 NGO participation  174–75 ongoing reporting  190 treaty formation and implementation  186, 187 treaty-making  177, 178, 189–90 participation conditions requiring negotiated accession with treaty body  653–54 see also EU treaty-making; international organizations (IOs); treaty-making Netherlands, the Caribbean Organization  160–61 Council of State  534 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 36 depositaries  259, 276 domestic application of treaties  357–58, 360–61, 362–63, 364, 366, 368, 374–75, 379, 380 Dutch Seamen’s Welfare case  534, 537–38 Greenpeace legally incorporated in  177–78 legislative approval prior to entry into force  361 MOU 20 Netherlands v Ned Lloyd (District Court of Rotterdam) (1977)  496 Non-Self-Governing Territories  160–61 objections to reservations  300–1 provisional application  708 rank of treaties  362 registration 276 support for NATO bombing of Yugoslavia  364 ‘territory,’ concept of  311 transnational treaty provisions  366, 374–75 treaty-making  153–54, 555 New Caledonia  161, 314, 315–16 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (1958)  319, 717–18 domestic application of treaties  362–63, 364–65, 376–77 New Zealand Agreement Concerning Defense Communications Services (New Zealand-US), 1992  736 Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (New Zealand-China), 1988  714 BIT (New Zealand-China)  714 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693

806 Index New Zealand (cont.) indigenous peoples  157 judicial relations  159 Rainbow Warrior Arbitration  619–20 State responsibility  619–20 Treaty of Cession between Great Britain and New Zealand 157 newly independent States State succession  391, 395–96 tabula rasa (’clean slate’) theory  388–89, 393, 401 NGOs see non-governmental organizations Nicaragua case  33–34, 283, 576 Nigeria domestic application of treaties  247–48 dualist legal systems  357–58 treaty-making 555–56 Nile River Treaty (1959) 401–2 Niue 159 non-binding agreements see informal lawmaking; memoranda of understanding (MOUs); political commitments non-compliance Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters 1998  425 breaches, responding to  582–83 countermeasures justifying  587 effects on other parties  582–83 justifying  587, 620–21 measuring 82 procedures  424, 736 risks 379 as a sanction  426 State responsibility  619–20 suspension for  768–69 VCLT Rules on Treaty Interpretation  620 see also compliance; effectiveness non-discrimination principle 138–39 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 173–96 codification conferences  176 communications filed by  182–83 creation of the UN  174, 176 democratic States, postwar growth  177 and ECOSOC  178–80 ECOSOC accredited NGOs  185 excess of competence, allegations of  194, 195 expansion of  177–78 global interests  177–78 history 174 Informal NGO Advisory Body (WTO)  186 information provision role  188–90 IO provisions for NGO participation  178–81 and IOs  176–77 lobbying 174–75 legitimacy of participation  194, 195 treaty formation and implementation  181–82, 183, 184, 185, 187 treaty-making  176, 177, 188, 192 multilateral treaties  174–75, 177, 183–84, 185–86

negotiations 174–75 ongoing reporting  190 treaty formation and implementation  186, 187 treaty-making  177, 178, 189–90 NGO-State relationship  187–92 overview 175–78 partiality, accusations of  194 participation by  178–404 Arms Trade Treaty (2013)  667 clauses 665–68 in implementing treaty obligations  666–67 legitimacy of  192–95 as observers  666 reasons for growth of  176–77, 196 as representatives of members  665–66 rights and standing  667–68 structure of participation  188 treaty meetings  665–66 representativeness of  194 role in treaty-making  174–75 overview 175–78 and States  187–92 technological advances, effect on  176 termination of treaties  187 and traditional domestic law  177 transnational 177–78 treaty formation and implementation  181–87 treaty processes, involvement in  174, 175, 195, 196 influencing of domestic law or policy  195 legitimacy of participation  193 treaty formation and implementation  181–87 treaty-making  187–88, 190–91, 192 UN, access within  180 non-legally binding agreements see informal lawmaking; memoranda of understanding (MOUs); political commitments non-metropolitan territory extension of treaty application to  713–14 on agreement of the parties  713–14 on notice  713 not applicable to  712–13 exclusion on notice  712–13 treaty limited to  712 non-performance, not justifiable 243 non-registered treaties see unregistered treaties non-self-governing territories 160–72 distinguished from old protectorates  160 indigenous peoples  157 pre-independence agreements  162, 164–65 range of judicial relations  159 treaty-making capacities  160–61 lack of  160 non-State actors  22–23, 35, 150–72 Associated States  159, 161, 164 breaches of treaty, responsibility for  169–71 federal units  151–59 indigenous peoples  151, 157–58 informal lawmaking  63 insurgent groups  151, 165–66

Index  807 integral territories  5, 151–58 international investment protection  151 law of treaties  168–69 legal personality  150, 159, 160, 166–67 non-territorial treaties binding on  323–27 territorial scope between States and IOs or between IOs  324–26 territorial scope concluded by other international law subjects  326–27 pacta sunt servanda principle  167–69 participation clauses  663–68 private parties  151, 166–68 sui generis entities  150, 657 taxonomy 151 treaty-making capacities  151–68 see also external territories; federal units (integral territories); indigenous peoples; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); nonself-governing territories; pre-independence agreements normative treaties 5 normativity 38–39 North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (Canada-Mexico-US), 1993  184, 667–68 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 31 amendments 339 entry into force  70–71, 697 North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAAMCO) 69 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 111, 112–13, 364, 375–76, 562, 646 North Atlantic Treaty (NATO Treaty), 1949  442, 727 North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) 347–48 North Korea 629–30 Norway and IAEA  709 and North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAAMCO) 69 see also Ihlen Declaration notifications entry into force bilateral treaties  696–97 multilateral treaties  697 exchange of instruments  671 intention to become a party  252–53 multilateral treaties, entry into force  697 provisional application  706 subject to domestic law and regulations  706–7 nuclear weapons Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 1968 (NPT)  38–39, 69, 765 Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines  69 Nuclear Tests case  33 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons  39–40, 185, 686–87 Provisional rules  185 see also arms control

Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion see Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict case Nyerere, Julius/Nyerere formula 395–96   Obama, Barack  73, 77 ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty 647–50 clauses indicative of  650 clauses listing a treaty’s objectives  648–49 clauses listing a treaty’s purpose(s)  649–50 customary international law  70 EU treaty-making  122 human rights  510, 521 incompatibility with  390, 398, 399–400, 406–7, 677–78, 679 languages 475 invalidity, grounds for  554 material breaches, responding to  575, 647 multilateral treaties  647 reservations  293, 295, 679 signatory obligation not to defeat  242 and specialized interpretation rules  528 objections as communications  295, 305 participation conditions  652–53 to registration  282 reservations  274–75, 296 absence of  681–82 incompatible if two-thirds of parties object  682 permitted after entry into force for a party 682–83 permitted by one-third of parties  682 objective regimes  14, 524, 528, 720 Office of Legal Affairs, UN  111–12, 113 Oil Platforms case 483 Open Skies cases  138–39, 707 Treaty on Open Skies (1992)  709 open treaties  223–24, 656 ‘All States’ formula  651, 656 participation by any State  656 ‘Vienna formula’  656 operational interpretation 54 Opinio Juris  255, 409 optional declarations adding to commitment otherwise assumed  685–86 modifying commitment otherwise assumed 684–85 see also declarations Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes Relating to the Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union, to the Convention of the International Telecommunication Union and to the Administrative Regulations (1992) 691–92 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict  656, 686, 747–48

808 Index ‘opt-out’ provisions, simplified amendment procedures  750, 751–52 all parties by tacit consent  751–52 individual amendments  751–52 on joining the treaty  752 see also amendments; tacit consent, amendments oral agreements 24 see also written form ordre public 566 Organization for Economic Co-operation (OECD) 422 Guidelines for Multilateral Enterprises  65 see also Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) 540 Organization of American States (OAS) Charter 635 human rights issues  166, 206–7 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Charter 581–82 Oscar Chinn case 551 Oslo Accords (1993) 326–27 Osnabrück Treaty (1648) see Westphalia, Peace of (1648) ‘other subjects’ of international law see non-State actors other treaties relationships to  723–32 supersession clauses  724–25 see also priority issues Ottoman Empire, dissolution 384 Outer Space Treaty 322 Oxfam 177–78   pacta sunt servanda principle 1–2 and treaties’ binding quality  1–2, 13–14, 49, 107, 720 breaches, responding to  568–69 codification in VCLT  449 conclusion of treaties  21–22 customary international law  53 ‘treaty’ definition  12–14, 16, 21–22, 34, 35, 40 informal lawmaking  80 international organizations (IOs)  107 IOs as parties  107 jus cogens 49 and lex prior principle  5, 448–49, 452 ‘other subjects’ of international law  168–69 private parties  167–68 provisional application  232, 238–39, 240, 241, 243 regulation 40 rule of recognition  49 scope of application  21–22 supervening impossibility of performance  596–97 theorizations about treaty in international law  49 third party rights and obligations  720 unilateral declarations  34 universality of  622 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations 1986 (1986 VCLT)  107

See also definitions of treaties; law of treaties; treaty-making pacta tertii principle 720 acknowledging 720–21 see also third parties Pakistan Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (US-Pakistan), 2003  770, 771 Exchange of Notes Extending the Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation (Pakistan-US), 2003  770 registration disputes  283–84 Palestine and Israel  326–27 non-member observer State status at UN  271, 651 non-metropolitan territory  271 registration 276 UNESCO member  276 withdrawal of consent to CWC  268 re-accession 268 Panama Agreement for the Promotion and Protection of Investments (Panama-South Korea)  765 BIT (Panama-South Korea)  765 informal lawmaking  71 Protocol Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (1977)  723 Panama Canal 723 Panama Canal Treaty (1977) 556 Paris Agreement on Climate Change (2016) 35, 48–49 amendments 758 annexes 694 Conference of the Parties (COP)  220 consent to be bound  673 entry into force  698–99 and EU treaty-making  141 informal lawmaking  64–65, 70–71 NGO participation  173–74, 666 ‘object and purpose’  648 original authentic texts  691 reservations 295–96 treaty bodies  416 withdrawal from, by US  626, 635, 636–37 see also climate change; Kyoto Protocol (1997); UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace 63 participation clauses ‘All States’  271, 276, 642, 651, 656 Associated States  663–64 authorization by a separate treaty  664–65 authorization by the responsible State  665 closed treaties  651 conditional participation  654–56 based on acceptance of a political commitment 655 limited to members of a specific organization 654

Index  809 limited to States from within a specific region 654–55 multiple bases  655–56 open to parties to an existing treaty  655 open to States engaging in particular activity  654 EU participation as a qualified ‘intergovernmental organization’ 659 formal confirmation and accession  659 signature 659 use of terms  659 EU participation as a REIO  659–60 definitions 659–60 entry into force  660 in lieu of Member States  661 provided it has concluded a relevant treaty 661–62 provided one Member State also participates  661 ratification, acceptance, approval or accession  660, 661 right to vote  660 signature  660, 661 EU participation as a RIO  662 consent to be bound  662 definitions 662 signature 662 EU participation as the EU specifically  662–63 by ‘fishing entity’  664 international organizations  113, 658 accession 658 consent to be bound  658 generally 658 by invitation  658 signature 658 by invitation international organizations  658 States 651–54 NGO participation  665–68 Arms Trade Treaty (2013)  667 clauses 665–68 in implementing treaty obligations  666–67 as observers  666 as representatives of members  665–66 rights and standing  667–68 treaty meetings  665–66 non-State actors  656–65 international organizations  658 limited to States, where  658 open treaties  656 ‘other subjects’ of international law  663–68 requiring a consensus of the parties  652 requiring a majority of parties not to object  652–53 requiring a majority vote of the parties  652 requiring negotiated accession with a treaty body 653–54 by a ‘separate customs territory’  664 States 651–56 closed treaties  651 conditional participation  654–56 limited to  658

open treaties  656 participation by invitation  651–54 ‘Vienna formula’  209, 269, 651, 656 see also EU treaty-making; international organizations (IOs); Regional Integration Organizations (RIOs); treaty-making parties animus contrahendi 55–56 bindingness of treaties  234–36 ‘contracting party’  131–32 defining ‘the Parties’  55–56 dispute settlement procedures any agreed-upon means  737–38 consultations only  736–37 negotiations 737 entities that may become  269–72 interpretation agreed by  481–82 legal effects on relationships  241 majority vote, participation conditions requiring 652 modification of treaties between certain parties only with majority ratification  352 multilateral treaties  338–53 number reduced below a minimum threshold  773 participation conditions conditional participation  655 requiring a consensus  652 requiring a majority not to object  652–53 requiring a majority vote of  652 private  151, 166–709 bilateral investment treaties (BITs)  167 travaux préparatoires, reference to  167–68 provisional application legal effects on relationships  241 and negotiating States  234–36 notification of intention to become a party 252–53 withdrawal 772–73 see also consent to be bound; denunciation; entry into force; termination of treaties; withdrawal partnership agreements 141–42 Patent Law Treaty 188–89 peremptory norms see jus cogens performance, impossibility of see supervening impossibility of performance Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ)  448, 524, 549, 558, 599, 604–5 see also individual PCIJ cases by name and in the Table of Cases personal treaties 405–6 Peru  71, 139–40 pledges 67–68 plenary bodies 43 Poland Agreement on Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters (Poland-Uzbekistan), 2003  735 Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement in regard to the Mutual Abolition of Visas (Ireland-Poland), 1992  769

810 Index Poland (cont.) provisional application  250 rank of treaties  362 Witold Litwa v Poland 484 political commitments conditional participation based on acceptance of 655 and contracts  36 and ‘treaty’ definition  35–36 distinguishing treaties from  645–47 explicitly not legally binding  646 explicitly politically binding  646 ineligible for registration with the UN  646–47 ‘intent’ test  645 ‘objective’ test  645 federal units  152 informal lawmaking  60–61 and intent  35, 36, 64–65, 645 mutuality 35 see also definitions of treaties; informal law; memoranda of understanding (MOUs) ‘political’ treaties 409 Political Declaration, International Carbon Action Partnership 646 pre-emption doctrine  119, 121–22, 137–38 pre-independence agreements 162–65 Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Organization (1996) 676–77 present treaty see priority issues Prespa Agreement (2018) 225 principle of effectiveness 5 ‘effective interpretation’  514 human rights  513–15, 522 and human rights treaty interpretation  42 Princz case 566 priority issues compatibility requirements existing and future treaties with the present  727 existing treaties with the present  726 future treaties with the present  727 modification permitted, where  729–30 third parties, existing treaties with  726 dualist or monist status  362 EU treaty-making and international agreements 133 existing treaties compatible with present  726 and future treaties, compatible with the present 727 prevailing over others  728 with third parties, obligation to eliminate incompatibilities 726 future treaties compatible with present  727 existing and future treaties compatible with the present 727 present treaty’s relationship with, obligation to consult 730–31 prevailing over others  728–29

other treaties conflict clauses providing for priority of  443–44, 727–29 existing or future treaties giving greater benefit prevail 729 existing treaties prevail  728 future treaties prevail  728–29 no effect on one or more other agreements 727–28 present treaty conflict clauses providing for priority of  442–43 existing treaties to be compatible with  726 modifications permitted if compatible with 729–30 modifications permitted without conditions on consistency with  730 obligation to consult on relationship with future treaty 730–31 prevailing over IO members’ constituent instrument 726 prevailing over other treaties for parties to both 725–26 prevailing over others  725 prevailing over past and future treaties  725 see also conflicts and fragmentation Prisoner’s Dilemma-type structure 90 private parties treaty-making capacities  166–68 privileges and immunities  103–4, 109 see also immunity progeny, treaty as  47, 55–57 proportionality principle application of proportionality  588–89 breaches, responding to  577–78, 588–89 qualitative proportionality  577–78 quantitative proportionality  588 and State succession  589 Protocol Additional to the Agreements for the Application of Safeguards (Congo-IAEA), 2011 758 Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants  700, 701 Protocol Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (1977) 723 Protocol of 1999 to Amend the 1949 Convention on the Establishment of an Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission 112–13 Protocol on the Provisional Application of the Agreement Establishing an International Science and Technology Center (1993) 708 Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA), 2018 724–25 Protocol to the UNIDROIT Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment (2001) 736 protocols provisional application by  708–9

Index  811 provisional application  4–5, 229–56, 705–10 agreement to apply a treaty provisionally  233 agreements beyond treaty text  708–9 by exchange of notes  708 by IO Resolution  709 by separate agreement or protocol  708–9 Article 25 VCLT and preparatory works  238–39 binding effect, formal source  232–37 case law interim conclusions  246–47 Russia v Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum 245–46 Yukos v Russia 244–45 consent to be bound following 707 invalidation by provisional application agreement 247–49 consequences of termination  251 consistency with internal law  243–47 customary international law  230 by declaration  706 subject to domestic law and regulations  706–7 distinguishing from other ‘institutions’  242 and domestic law  242–49 entry into force  229–30 establishing obligation to ‘apply the treaty provisionally’ 238–41 form of agreement  233–34 government responses in UNGA Sixth Committee to ILC’s work on  241 grounds for termination  253–54 internal law  243–47 judicial decisions and State practice  239–40 legal effects  238–42 non-performance not justifiable  243 by notification of intention to become a party  252–53 subject to domestic law and regulations  706–7 timing 706 and obligation not to defeat ‘object and purpose’ 242 by other means  707 pacta sunt servanda principle  232, 238–39, 240, 241, 243 parties legal effects on relationships  241 and negotiating States  234–36 notification of intention to become  252–53 preparatory works legal effects  238–39 and termination of provisional application  250–51 ‘provisional entry into force’  231–32 and retrospective application  242 on signature  705 on signature, absent a declaration to the contrary 705–6 from a specified date  707 sunset clauses  251–52, 254–55 suspension of operation of agreement  253–54

tacit consent, amendments  755 termination 249–54 terminology shift  231–32 timing 705–7 unilateral declarations not per se a formal source 236–37 publication requirements 361–62 Pulp Mills case  17–18, 27, 29, 66, 75 Putnam, Robert 191   Qatar informal lawmaking  66 registration disputes  283 ‘treaty’ definition  27, 29 quasi-colonial clauses 314–17 quasi-federal clauses 317–21 Quebec ententes adopted without federal consent  155 treaty-making capacity  155   Racial Discrimination Convention (1966) 682 Racke case  584, 607–9, 611 rank of treaties see priority issues ratification  221–24, 265–67 amendments 349–50 consent to be bound by combined with other methods  675–76 exchange of instruments  672, 696 exclusively 672 requiring signature prior to entry into force 672–73 requiring signature within a defined period  673 treaty open for signature indefinitely  672 entry into force  225–26 bilateral treaties  696 multilateral treaties  698 EU participation bilateral mixed agreements  128 as the EU specifically  663 as a REIO  660, 661 of seven-eighths of parties, amendments  753 treaties signed subject to see simple signature, consent to be bound ratione loci (spatial application)  309, 314, 321, 324 ratione materiae 321 ratione persona (personal application)  309, 321 ratione temporis (temporal application) 309 Reaching Critical Will (NGO) 190 realism 16–17 rebus sic stantibus doctrine see fundamental change of circumstances Refugee Convention (1951)  319, 378 conditions on joining  679, 687–88 Refugee Protocol  365, 378 regime complexes 87–88 Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO) definition 662 EU participation as  659–60 definition 659–60

812 Index Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO) (cont.) entry into force  660 in lieu of Member States  661 provided it has concluded a relevant treaty 661–62 provided one Member State also participates  661 ratification, acceptance, approval or accession  660, 661 right to vote  660 signature  660, 661 EU treaty-making  119–20, 131–32, 145, 148 REIO clauses  131–32, 657 Regional Integration Organization (RIO) 112–13 consent to be bound  662 definitions 662 EU participation as  662 participation clauses  657 signature 662 regionalization 437–36 Regione Siciliana 169 regions 435 registration  31–32, 259, 276–84 in accordance with UN Charter  276–84 amended UN Regulations  279 certificates 281–82 conclusions on  284 ex officio  278–79, 280–81 ineligibility for registration with the UN  646–47 objections to  282 obligation to register  276, 277–79 reliance on non-registered treaties  283–84 scope and practice  277–82 ‘treaty’ definition  31 and international agreement  279–82 see also unregistered treaties REIO see Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO) relationship between treaties and territory 309–35 see also extraterritorial application; territorial application; territory, concept of Reparations for Injuries case  98, 99, 419, 427, 530 res judicata 424 reservations  4–5, 285–305, 677–83 acceptance of  286–87, 292–94, 297–98 admissibility  292, 321, 681–83 absence of objections  681–82 unanimous acceptance  681–82 alternatives to  683 bilateral treaties  286–87 clauses prohibiting entirely  678–79 ‘communications’ versus objections  275 customary international law  288, 289–90, 301–2, 305 defining 285 expressly permitted  679–81 for all provisions except certain articles  679 for certain provisions/parts of treaty only  680 dependent upon the existence of certain factual conditions 681

except those incompatible with object and purpose  293, 295, 679 excluding certain subjects  681 generally 679 only where authorized by treaty  679 for parts other than the main treaty text  680 relating to one/more specific provision  681 federal States  716 and human rights  286 individual 683 initial status  291–97 jus cogens 293 late  274, 275, 295 legal background  288–91 Nordic approach  304 ‘object and purpose’  293, 295, 679 objections to  274–75, 296 absence of  681–82 effects 297–303 incompatible if two-thirds of parties object  682 permitted after entry into force for a party  682–83 permitted by one-third of parties  682 Pan American practice  289 participants in evaluating  303–5 proposing 286–88 VCLT  285, 286–87, 288–89 withdrawal 683 at any time  683 effective on notice  683 individual reservations  683 partial permitted  683 see also declarations; interpretative declarations; unilateral statements responsibility, law of 13–14 see also State responsibility retorsion  42, 571 retroactive effects  500, 501–2 and entry into force  701 interpretation  500, 501–2 retroactive application  499–502, 695 differentiated from provisional application  242, 254 Reuter, Paul  36–37, 100, 108, 231, 324 Revised General Act for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes (1949) 675 revision clauses 743 ordinary revision procedure  760–61 procedures for  744 simplified revision procedure  761 revocation  267–68, 688 Rhine Chlorides 490 Rights of the Child Convention see Convention on the Rights of the Child Rio Declaration on Environment and Development 648 Rome Agreement 1923 166–67 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998)  41–42, 539 amendments  272, 350

Index  813 Assemblies of States Parties to  190 declarations 684–85 denunciation/withdrawal 763 depositary, designating indirectly  703 entry into force  698 NGO participation  183, 666–67 parties 344 and procedural flexibility  70 procedures for revision or review  744 reservations  295–96, 678 Review Conference (2010)  343–45 simplified amendment procedures  753, 755 third States, rights for  723 treaty bodies  428 Rome Treaty 1958  120, 123 see also Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) Root, Elihu 174 Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (1998) amendments  351–52, 746, 751 consent to be bound  672–73 Ruiz, Arangio 592 rules default on amendments  340–41, 750 and the law of treaties  5, 17, 44 on relationships to other treaties  627, 723 on reservations  286 on treaty termination  627 federal, on treaty-making  153–55 and normativity  39 State responsibility  622 see also Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation Russia conclusion of treaties  22 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 21, 22, 36 Soviet Union and State succession  400, 401 see also Soviet Union   sample clauses  6, 641–761 San Francisco conference (1945)  178, 539 Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community v Paraguay 519 Schachter, Oscar 27 Schengen acquis 118–19 Second World War initial proposals for the UN  178 secret treaties/secrecy of negotiations 31–32, 173–74, 259 Secretary-General of UN and insurgent groups  165 and IOs  99 Security Council (UNSC) see UN Security Council (UNSC)

self-defence 40–41 self-determination principle 393 self-executing treaties  363–64, 373–75 separation, formation of new States by  393, 399–402 States other than newly independent  399–402 ships International Convention on Arrest of Ships (1999)  676, 681, 744 International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships  752 MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (1973)  722 no longer viewed as ‘floating territory’  330 Siderman de Blake case 566 signature consent to be bound  221–24 expressly 670 by implication  670 by ratification  672–73 signature required prior to entry into force 672–73 signature required within a defined period  673 treaty open for signature indefinitely  672 “definitive” signature  221–22, 669, 670 depositary, role of  264–65 entry into force bilateral treaties  696 EU participation as the EU specifically  663 as a qualified ‘intergovernmental organization’ 659 as a REIO  660 as a RIO  662 full powers  212 IO participation  658 provisional application on  705 absent a declaration to the contrary  705–6 required prior to entry into force  672–73 required within a defined period  672–73 treaty open for indefinitely  672 see consent to be bound; simple signature, consent to be bound simple signature, consent to be bound 669 entry into force  517–18 legal effects  224 multilateral treaties  669 obligation not to defeat object and purpose  224 ‘signatories’ 669–70 treaty-making  221–22, 223 see also consent to be bound; ‘object and purpose’ of a treaty; signature Singapore Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 Malaysia’s incorporation of  392 Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks (2006)  658, 725–26

814 Index Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) 272 Slovak Republic  384–85, 404 See also Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project case Slovenia arbitration  574–75, 576 dismemberment 404 independence 403 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) 162, 384–85, 395, 402 collapse  384–85, 403 soft law defining 61 differentiated from treaties  18 and hard law  69, 72 informal lawmaking  60–61, 64–65, 69 treaty bodies  421 SOLAS Convention (1960)  342, 346–47 SOLAS Convention (1974) 346–47 sources of international law  14, 46–47, 201, 370, 438 see international law South Africa breaches, responding to  574–75 Constitution  362–63, 368, 372, 373–74 constitutional interpretation  372–73 courts  363, 373–74 Constitutional  368–69, 372, 373–74 High Court  633 customary international law  373–74 jus cogens 443 legal system  15–16 legislative approval prior to treaty’s entry into force 361 legislature 378 and newly independent States  391 rank of treaties  362 South-West Africa cases  99 termination of treaties  629–30 transnational treaty provisions  366, 374–75 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 Treaty on Extradition (Canada-South Africa), 2001 745 vertical treaty provisions  380 Warsaw Convention on International Carriage by Air 1929  362–63 withdrawal from Rome Statute  267, 633 South China Seas case  26, 28, 29, 66, 75 South Korea Korean Patent Attorneys Association  188–89 South Sudan automatic treaty succession  401–2 independence  385, 393, 401–2 sovereignty and amendments  337, 339–40, 341–42 extraterritorial application  330–31 non-State actors  150 permanent sovereignty over natural resources  406 sovereign immunity  564–65 States  150, 330–31 Soviet Union see Russia

Spain proposed amendments to VCLT  19 rank of treaties  362 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 Treaties and Other International Agreements Act 15 Special Administrative Regions (SARs)  156, 657 Special Agreement between Belize and Guatemala (2008) 225 specialization conflicts and fragmentation  436–61 international human rights treaty interpretation 505–11 effectiveness principle  512–16 role of general international law and effectiveness 516–20 treaty law  511–20 treaty interpretation  504–22 by specialized/general international bodies or domestic courts  520–21 Sri Lanka 556 standards accountability 86 accounting 63 banking 64–65 conflicting 92 coordinated 87–88 environmental  346–47, 585–86 human rights  368–69, 549 intent 75 international 650 legal 64–65 Loizidou 334 minimum 320 multilateral treaties  580 normative  39, 495 technical  339–40, 693 standing bilateral treaties  580 complexity 579–80 countermeasures, resort to  590–91 locus standi requirement  579–80 multilateral treaties  579–80 NGO participation  667–68 suspension or termination of treaties  579–83 liberal exceptions  581–83 restrictive rule  580–81 State responsibility attribution of  171 breaches, responding to  569, 579, 583, 591 commentaries 170 compared with laws of treaties  598–99 countermeasures  572–73, 585–86, 590–91 domestic judicial application of treaty provisions 377 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts see Articles on State Responsibility enforcement actions  43–44

Index  815 evolutionary principle  501–2 extraterritorial application  330–31 fundamental change of circumstances  598, 620–21 informal lawmaking  65, 66, 67 and law of treaties  13–14, 65, 66, 569, 585, 593 exceptional circumstances  595, 598–99, 600, 601, 613, 614, 617, 619–20, 621, 622 limits 22 Member States  146 non-compliance 619–20 non-State actors  169–71, 432–33 participation clauses  665 rules 622 and State succession  387 supervening impossibility of performance  589 treaty bodies  424 ‘treaty’ definition  13–14, 22, 43–44 see also Articles on State Responsibility; International Law Commission (ILC) State succession  5, 383–412 automatic see automatic treaty succession boundaries 405 cessation of territory  391–92, 396–97 constitutive treaties, of IOs  410 customary international law  385–86, 388–89, 393–96, 398, 402, 407, 411–12 definitions 386–87 disarmament and arms control treaties  410–11 dissolution  393, 402–4 general framework  386–93 human rights  407–9, 511–12 implementing legislation  389–90 incorporation  392, 397–98 international and domestic legal effects  389–90 legal regimes unaffected by  405–11 merger  392, 398–99 miscellaneous aspects  411–12 ‘moving treaty boundaries’ rule  396–97 multilateral treaties  404, 410 newly independent States  391, 395–96 options, spectrum of  388–89 other special treaty categories  406–11 permanent sovereignty over natural resources  406 ‘political’ treaties  409 and proportionality  589 separation  393, 399–402 States other than newly independent  396–404 substance of law  393–411 taxonomy 390–93 territorial regimes  405–6 unilateral declarations and devolution agreements 394–95 VCLT  383, 386–87 see also annexation; automatic treaty succession; cession; decolonization; devolution agreements; dissolution of States; merger of States; newly independent States; reservations; separation, formation of new States by

States ‘All States’ formula  271, 276, 642, 651, 656 assignment of treaty-making competence  151–53 bindingness of treaties  234–36 breaches by  586 democratic, postwar growth  177 depositaries 702 designation of depositary  702 Dualist 357 enforcement of treaty obligations  42–44 fundamental change of circumstances  609–11 immunity  564, 691 intent  302, 303, 454 judicial decisions and State practice  239–40 Monist 357 NGO-State relationship  188 parliamentary approval of treaties  15–16 participation conditions  651–56 closed treaties  651 conditional participation  654–56 limited to States, where  658 open treaties  656 participation by invitation  651–54 procedural conditions on treaty consent  17 regulation by treaties  41 self-enforcement 42 sovereignty  150, 330–31 ‘specially affected’ by breach  580–81 territorial scope between States and IOs  324–26 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16 treaty-making 21–23 and NGO participation  187–92 see also coastal States; domestic law; federal units; provisional application; State succession; territorial application State Practice amendments  339, 342 compliance and effectiveness  83, 86 conflicts and fragmentation  437, 453 exceptional circumstances  601 fundamental change of circumstances  612, 622 informal law  61 interpretation  506, 515–16 language indicating a treaty  28 pacta sunt servanda principle  1–2 provisional application  231, 238 reservations  286–87, 302 succession  388, 393–94, 396–97, 399–400, 411–12 supervening impossibility of performance  601 termination  628, 629 territorial application  310, 326 validity  557, 562, 566 and VCLT  20, 34, 217 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) amendments 759–60 annexes, adoption and amendment  759–60 declarations 687 dispute settlement under  740–41

816 Index Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (2001) (cont.) EU treaty-making  131–32 ‘object and purpose’  648 participation clauses  659–60 Strategic Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 164 sub-national territorial units  152, 153–54 Sun Tzu 1 succession see State Succession sunset clauses  251–52, 254–55 supersession clauses 724–25 supervening impossibility of performance 596–601 conclusions on  601 factual and legal impossibility  601 fundamental change of circumstances  598 ILC on  597–99 pacta sunt servanda principle  596–97 relevant case law  599–601 State practice  601 supplementary agreements permitted with IO’s Member States  730 see also amendments; modifications suspension of treaties  42, 767–69 breaches, responding to  577 defining 767–68 generally authorized  768 non-compliance 768–69 specified reasons  769 standing to suspend  579–83 in whole or in part  577–78 see also termination of treaties; withdrawal Switzerland agreement governed by international law  25 Constitution of Confederation  153 depositary 259 legal system  15–16 legislative approval prior to treaty’s entry into force  361 registration 276 Schengen acquis agreement with  118–19 transnational treaty provisions  374–75   tabula rasa (’clean slate’) theory  388–89, 393, 401 tacit consent, amendments  74, 345–49 all parties, with an opt-out  751–52 developing countries  346–47 individual amendments, opting-out of  751–52 opt-out on joining the treaty  752 provisional application  755 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 751–52 Taiwan independence from China  156 sui generis entity  150, 657 treaty-making capacities  150, 156 Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation (1998) 679

Tax Information Exchange Agreements  160, 161 taxation Agreement for the Exchange of Information for the Purpose of the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion and the Allocation of Rights of Taxation (Japan-Bermuda), 2010  665, 670 Agreement for the Exchange of Information Relating to Taxes (UK-US), 2001  712 COE Protocol Amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (2010)  655 Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (Canada-Gabon), 2002  672, 702 Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation (Netherlands and the UK), 2015  701 double taxation  138–39 Double Taxation Agreement and Protocol (Hong Kong-UK) 741 Tax Information Exchange Agreements  160, 161 telos of treaty 529–31 Temple of Preah Vihear case  405, 557–58 termination of provisional application 249–54 consequences 251 grounds 253–54 notification of intention to become a party  252–53 preparatory works  250–51 sunset clauses  251–52, 254–55 suspension of operation of agreement  253–54 see also provisional application termination of treaties  37–38, 42, 624–40, 769, 770, 772–74 bilateral treaties  770 breaches, responding to  577 on completion of a specific operation or activity  772–73 by decision of a treaty body  773 default rules  627 design/invocation of clauses  631–38 effective on entry into force or date certain  709 on entry into force of a later treaty  773 ex ante conditions on exit, benefits  639 exit, legal effects  630–31 exit invocations ex post 639 incidence and type of clauses  634 international law  625–31 legal effects  769 limitation on duration combined with options for 709–10 NGO participation  187 post-termination transitional provisions  770, 773–74 standing for  579–83 structure and operation of exit provisions  624–25 treaties with no provision for  627–30 treaty provisions  770 when number of parties reduced below a minimum threshold 773 in whole or in part  577–78 on withdrawal of certain parties  773

Index  817 see also breaches, responding to; denunciation; exit clauses; fundamental change of circumstances; rebus sic stantibus doctrine; supervening impossibility of performance; suspension of treaties; withdrawal territorial application  5, 310–21, 710–16 application to all territories  710–11 application to specified territories  711–12 appurtenant 310–11 certain treaties, fictitious character of territoriality for 322–23 clauses  319, 714–15 colonial clauses  314–17 customary international law  324, 330 decolonization 315 exceptions to integral application  715 exclusions 712–13 of non-metropolitan territory, on notice  712–13 treaty limited to metropolitan territory  712 integral  5, 151–58 mandatory 710 mandatory except where consent of unit required 710–11 non-metropolitan territory  712–13 principle and derogation relationship  312–14 quasi-colonial clauses  314–17 ratione loci  309, 321 ratione materiae 321 ratione persona  309, 321 ratione temporis 309 territorial waters  310–11 VCLT 309–10 ‘institutionalized’ derogations under  314–21 integral territorial application principle  710 meaning of territory under  310–11 see also extraterritorial application; ‘territory,’ concept of territorial clauses 319 Territorial Dispute (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/Chad) case  405, 440–41, 480–81 territorial exclusions 712–13 of non-metropolitan territory, on notice  712–13 treaty limited to metropolitan territory  712 ‘territory,’ concept of fictitious character of territoriality for certain treaties 322–23 VCLT 310–11 see also extraterritorial application text of treaty 47 adoption of  218–19 calibrating interpretation  54 incorporation into national law  358–59 operational interpretation  54 original authentic  690–92 reservations 680 single authentic text  690 teleological approach to interpreting  514, 528–29, 530 theorizations relating to  47, 53–55

total interpretation  54–55 treaty as text  53–55 two or more equally authentic texts  691–92 prevailing language in case of divergence  691–92 subject to verification  691 see also adoption of treaties; authentication of treaties; interpretation (of treaties); languages TFEU see Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) Thailand legal system  15–16 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 36 theorizations about treaty in international law 11–21 as conceptual anachronism  52–53 content-determination genitor  56 dualist thinking  47–51 jus cogens 49 lack of research  46–47 law-ascertainment genitor  55–56 treaty as a binary artefact  47–51 treaty as an instrumentum (container) and negotium (content)  47–51, 53 treaty as icon  47, 52–53 treaty as progeny of a magic genitor  47, 55–57 treaty as text  47, 53–55 third parties customary international law  720 dispute settlement procedures  738–39 existing treaties with, obligation to eliminate incompatibilities 726 indirect attempts to obligate  721–22 pacta tertii principle  720–21 rights for provided directly  722 provided directly and subject to additional conditions 722–23 provided for indirectly or implicitly  723 third parties, rights/obligations 720–23 international organizations (IOs)  108 see also objective regimes Timor Leste  384–85, 401 see also East Timor torture, prohibition on see Convention Against Torture (1984) total interpretation 54–55 translation see languages; multiple-language versions Trademark Law Treaty (1994) 680 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership 186 transnational treaty provisions  364–65, 366 compliance 376–77 versus nationalist provisions  366–75 Trans-Pacific Partnership 186 travaux préparatoires, reference to interpretation of treaties  506, 530, 533–34, 540 material breaches, responding to  575–76

818 Index travaux préparatoires, reference to (cont.) private parties  167–68 ‘treaty’ definition  29 Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation  473 treaties passim see adoption of treaties; amendments; annexes; bilateral investment treaties (BITs); bindingness of treaties; breaches, responding to; conclusion of treaties; conflicts and fragmentation; consent to be bound; constitutive treaties, of IOs; declarations; definitions of treaties; denunciation; depositaries; derogation; domestic application of treaties; entry into force; EU treaty-making; exit clauses; extraterritorial application; federal clauses; final clauses (of treaties); full powers; functions of treaties; human rights; intent; international agreements; International Law Commission (ILC); international organizations (IOs); interpretation (of treaties); incompatibility; invalidity, grounds for; languages; multilateral treaties; negotiations; object and purpose; pacta sunt servanda principle; participation clauses; provisional application; ratification; registration; reservations; secret treaties/ secrecy of negotiations; signature; simple signature, consent to be bound; State Responsibility; suspension of treaties; termination of treaties; territorial application; third parties; treaty-making Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe 191 Treaty on European Union (2010) amendments 760–61 international organizations (IOs)  112 ordinary revision procedure  760–61 simplified revision procedure  761 territorial application  325 treaty-making  117, 118–19 withdrawal from the EU  141–42, 627, 766–67 Treaty on Extradition (Canada-South Africa), 2001 745 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) Consolidated Version  711–12, 726 dispute settlement  134 enforcement actions  132–33 exclusive competence  138 exclusivity doctrine  137–38 extension of scope of EU powers  122–23, 124 interpretation of treaties  535 IOs as parties  107–8 judicial control of EU agreements  130 territorial application  316 treaty-making powers  120 treaty-making procedures  126 withdrawal from the EU  140 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (UK-US) (1994) 735

Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons see Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) (1968) Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) consent to be bound  675 declarations 686–87 denunciation/withdrawal 772 NGO participation  185 priority issues  726 treaty-making 208 Treaty of Amity, Iran 635 treaty bodies  5, 414–30 fragmentation of treaty regimes  428–29 functions and competences  418–29 at the external level  427–29 at the internal level  418–20 substantive decision-making  420–24 ‘naming and shaming’  43 participation conditions requiring negotiated accession with  653–54 reasons for establishing  415–16 referral to, for dispute settlement  738–39 structure 416–18 substantive decision-making  420–24 sources of competence over substance  422–24 vehicles 420–22 supervisory 424–27 termination decisions  773 treaty-making 427–28 treaty breaches see breaches, responding to Treaty of Cession between Great Britain and New Zealand 157 Treaty Concerning Defense Trade Cooperation (UK-US), 2007  736–37, 766 Treaty Concerning the Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investment (Argentina-US) 741–42 treaty conflicts see conflicts and fragmentation Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (1990) 738–39 Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (1957) 315 treaty exit 624–40 see also denunciation, termination of treaties; withdrawal Treaty relating to Extradition (ThailandPhilippines), 1981 716 treaty formation and implementation 258–84 depositary, role of see depositaries NGO participation  181–87 registration of treaties see registration see also consent to be bound; entry into force; treaty-making Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership (Ukraine-Russia), 2019 635 treaty interpretation see interpretation of treaties Treaty of Lisbon see Lisbon Treaty (2007) Treaty Maker’s Handbook  6, 643 treaty making see treaty-making

Index  819 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (US- Russian Federation) (New START Treaty), 2010 184 annexes 693 entry into force  696 priority issues  724 Treaty on Open Skies (1992) 709 ‘treaty organs’ 537 treaty processes international organizations (IOs)  97 NGO participation  174, 175, 195, 196 influencing of domestic law or policy  195 legitimacy of participation  193 treaty formation and implementation  181 treaty-making  187–88, 190–91, 192 treaty bodies  423–24 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (1967) 740 Treaty of Trianon 166–67 Treaty of Westphalia see Westphalia, Peace of (1648) treaty-making 201–28 adoption of text  218–19 assignment of competence  151–53 authentication 219–21 basis of obligation  2 and the Catholic Church/Holy See  30, 559 consenting to be bound  221–25 credentials and full powers  211–13 decision as to whether to conclude  203–5 decision on negotiations forum  205–7 drafting for effectiveness  91–93 drawing up  202–17 entry into force  225–27 and external territories  159–65 federal rules  153–55 formation process see treaty formation and implementation IGC-BBNJ  208, 209–10, 216, 218 by indigenous peoples  157–58 initial decisions see participation clauses initial draft, preparation  207–8 initiative 203–8 international and national lawmaking  175 limits of  93 multilateral treaties  201, 209, 222–23 negotiating techniques  216–17 NGO participation  174–75 overview 175–78 with States  187–92 by non-State actors  151–68 organization of work  213–16 participation 208–11 process 201–28 rules of procedure  208–11 by special administrative regions  156 by States  1–2, 21–23, 187–92 treaty bodies  427–28 ‘treaty’ definition  22–23

voluntarist nature  48–49 see also acceptance; act of formal confirmation, adoption of treaties; authentication of treaties; conclusion of treaties; consent to be bound; depositary; entry into force; EU treaty-making; international organizations (IOs); negotiations; non-State actors; participation clauses; provisional application; ratification; Regional Economic Integration Organization (REIO); reservations; signature; simple signature; treaty formation and implementation; treaty processes tribunals 73 see also International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY); International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) TRIPS Agreement see WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Trump, Donald  59, 61–62, 69, 626 Turkey Aegean Sea case  21, 26 Agreement on the Mutual Abolition of Visas between Kosovo and Turkey (2009)  162 Loizidou v Turkey  332, 333, 334 Varnava and Others v Turkey 519–20 ‘treaty’ definition  21 Tyrer v UK case  315, 497 Ukraine  128, 396–97, 400–1, 410–11, 635, 726 UN Charter see Charter of the United Nations UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) 207–8 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) 191–92 UN Conference on Trade and Development Intergovernmental Group of Experts  205 UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons 211 UN Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade (2001) 714–15 UN Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa 348–49 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property 691 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI  709 Annex VII  162–63, 164 Annex IX  110–11, 145, 147 developing countries, reluctance to ratify  352–53 dispute settlement under  736 and EU treaty-making  132–33, 141, 145, 146, 147, 663–64 exceptions to integral territorial application  715 external territories  159, 161, 162–63 informal lawmaking  70 interpretation of treaties  646

820 Index UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (cont.) and IOs  110–11 Meeting of State Parties (SPLOS)  418 Part XI  352–53 participation clauses  659 priority issues  726, 731 provisional application, timing  707 reservations  287–88, 289–90, 295–96 territorial application  311, 323 treaty bodies  414 ‘treaty’ definition  11, 40 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child see Convention on the Rights of the Child UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) consent to be bound  675 international organizations  112–13 NGO participation  182 ‘object and purpose’  649 participation clauses  662 reservations 683 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000) amendments 749–50 dispute settlement under  740 entry into force  699–700 Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants  700, 701 UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)  206, 272, 417–18 UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Constitution  349–50, 539–40 depositary  12, 276 Palestine  271, 276 rules of procedure  216 withdrawal, US  635, 636 UN Environment Programme (UNEP) 206 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adoption and amendment of annexes  752 amendments 348 Conference of the Parties (COP)  209, 214, 215 Draft Rules of Procedure  209 informal lawmaking  64–65, 75 NGO participation  183–84 participation clauses  656 simplified amendment procedures  751–52 treaty-making  205–6, 212–13 see also Kyoto Protocol (1997); Paris Agreement UN General Assembly (UNGA) Ad Hoc Committee on disability rights  182 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopting 158 High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS (2016) 179–80 interpretation of treaties  538 and IOs  100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs)  176

Non-Self-Governing Territories  160 participation clauses  651 pre-independence agreements  164 provisional application  238 Resolution 67/19 (on Palestine)  271 Sixth Committee  238, 241 Working Group  203 territorial application  312 treaty-making 202–5 validity concerns  546, 548 UN Human Rights Committee see Human Rights Committee UN Human Rights Council see Human Rights Council UN Human Rights Verification Mission 166 UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) 161–62 UN Security Council (UNSC) anti-terrorist activity  92 interpretation of treaties  538, 541 and IOs  99 validity concerns  548 UN Trusteeship Council 164 Understanding and Administrative Arrangement (US-Quebec) 155 UNESCO see UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) UNFCCC see UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) UNIDROIT Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), 1983 see Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) (CISG) UNIDROIT Convention on Substantive Rules for Intermediated Securities (2009) 703–4 unilateral declarations and contracts  36 customary international law  394 examples 33 ILC Guiding Principles  33, 34 jus cogens 33 as legal commitments  33 mutuality 34 pacta sunt servanda principle  34 provisional application, not a source for  236–37 State succession  394–95 treaties distinguished from  31, 33–34, 44 treaty status  33–34 unincorporated treaties  358, 360, 379–80 United Arab Emirates Supreme Council of the Union  155 treaty-making capacities  155 United Kingdom Al-Skeini and others v UK 332–33 as ECT Party  241 British Indian Ocean Territory  162–64 domestic law and treaties  358–59, 373, 380 entrustment authorizing overseas territory agreements 160–61

Index  821 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 legal system  15–16 memoranda of understanding (MOUs)  61–62 viewed as non-binding  61–62 no parliamentary involvement in treaty-making 16–17 non-self-governing territories  160, 161 pre-independence agreements  162–63 provisional application  234–35 treaty application to overseas territories  313–14 validity concerns  555 withdrawal from the EU (Brexit)  140, 141–42, 143, 373, 380, 613, 614–15, 635 United Nations accession to Geneva Conventions, unavailable  111 Commission on Human Rights  158 Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) 97 creation  174, 176 defining human rights  166 First Committee (arms control)  185 General Assembly (UNGA) see UN General Assembly (UNGA) ineligibility for registration with  646–47 initial proposals for  178 mega-conferences 179 Office of Legal Affairs  111–12, 113 official languages  690 Secretariat  181, 258, 259–60, 262–63, 277–78 Secretary-General  259, 269, 270, 271, 275, 276 Security Council (UNSC) see UN Security Council (UNSC) Specialized Agencies  534–35 see also Charter of the United Nations; SecretaryGeneral of UN United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) 632 United States Compact Clause  154–55 compliance considerations  93 Constitution  70, 154–55, 378 depositaries 259 on disarmament treaties  85–86 domestic application of treaties  371–72 emergence of  384 indigenous peoples  157 informal lawmaking  69, 77 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) 2015 48–49 National Rifle Association  177 non-self-governing territories  160, 161 objection to Pakistan declaration  287–88 Nuclear Suppliers Group Guidelines  69 Passenger Name Records Agreement with the EU 147–48 pre-independence agreements  164 prohibition of US states from treaty-making 154–55 ratification of the ICCPR  377–78

Supreme Court  154–55 Tax Information Exchange Agreements  160, 161 ‘treaty’ definition  15–16, 36 transnational treaty provisions  376 withdrawal from the ILO  636 withdrawal from the Paris Agreement  626, 635, 637 Universal Declaration on Human Rights 182 Universal Postal Union  161, 635 1986 VCLT  101 unregistered treaties 283–84 Upper Savoy see Free Zones case Uruguay 33 Uruguay Round 636–37 USSR see Soviet Union uti possidetis principle  385–86, 405   validity 545–66 and bindingness of treaties  547 coercion 559–62 concept 545–50 and conflict  551 constitutional concerns  554–57 corruption 559 criteria 547 customary international law  551, 553–54, 556–57, 560 errors 557–59 fraud 558–59 fundamental change of circumstances  553 grounds for concern  554 international organizations  109–10 jus cogens  548, 550–51, 554, 559, 562–66 Kadi case  519, 549 and treaties  550–54 VCLT 1969  545 see also invalidity; jus cogens Varnava and Others v Turkey 519–20 Venezuela 635–36 Verdross, Alfred 562–63 Versailles Treaty (1919)  70, 191, 349, 391–92, 561 vertical (State-private actor) provisions 364 compliance 377–80 domestic application of treaties  364, 365, 366 vessels, extraterritorial application 716 see also maritime law; ships Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (1963)  568–69, 730 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1963) Optional Protocol  635 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties (VCSST), 1978  2–3, 5, 13, 383, 384, 385–86 constitutive treaties  410 definitions 386–87 dispositive treaties  405–6 dissolution 402 human rights  407 merger 398 multilateral treaties  410

822 Index Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties (VCSST), 1978 (cont.) newly independent States  395–96 permanent sovereignty over natural resources  406 reservations 411 scope of application  411–12 separation, formation of new States by  399–400 spectrum of opinions  388–89 States other than newly independent  396–97, 398, 399 taxonomy of State succession  391 unilateral declarations and devolution agreements 394–95 see also Table of Instruments for references to individual articles Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations 1986 (1986 VCLT) 2–3 adoption 100 compared with 1969 VCLT  101–2, 105, 106, 114–15 compromise in  106 conclusion 114–15 consent to be bound  669–70 draft articles of the ILC  99–100, 101 commentary 102–3 on IOs’ treaty-making capacities  98, 101–7 not yet into force  115 pacta sunt servanda principle  107 preamble 102–3 provisional application  230, 231, 234, 241 ratification 101 registration 271 validity concerns  554–55 work of ILC leading up to  98 see also Table of Instruments for references to individual articles Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), 1969 acceptance as customary international law  2 acquis on standing  591 adoption  217, 218 amendments 337–39 breaches, responding to  572–75 compared with 1986 VCLT  101–2, 105, 106, 114–15 conclusion of treaties  21–23 consent to be bound  221–23, 224, 669–70 customary international law  2, 337–38 on denunciation/withdrawal  625–26, 627, 629–30, 767–68 as default rules  5, 17, 44 depositaries 260–61 derogations 732 draft articles of the ILC  99–100 entry into force  225, 695 EU treaty-making  135 exceptional circumstances  595 fragmentation 434 fundamental change of circumstances  603, 604

integral territorial application principle  309, 310–11, 312–13, 710 interpretation  504–5, 531 and domestic law  369–70 over time  489, 491, 493, 494, 501–3 VCLT Rules on Treaty Interpretation  460, 461, 485–86 see also Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation and IOs  99–100, 105 languages  475–76, 690 law of treaties and breaches, responding to  574–85 non-binding agreements, not applicable to  67 and non-State actors  150 ‘object and purpose’  224, 291–94, 464–65, 506–8, 583–84, 647 ‘other subjects’  168–69 and procedural flexibility  70 provisional application  230, 231, 234, 241, 249–50 VCLT preparatory works  238–39, 255 relationships to other treaties  723–24 reservations  285, 286–87, 288–89, 290, 291–92, 678 seminal document  2 separability, rules on  577–78 simple signature  224, 264 State succession  383, 385–87 structure 21–22 supervening impossibility of performance  596 on termination  42, 624, 625–26, 627 territorial application  309–10, 313, 314, 322, 324–25 ‘treaty’ definition  12–13, 14, 15, 44 treaty ‘governed by international law’  24–30 ‘treaty on treaties’  40 treaty-making  201, 211–13, 222–23 treaty-making capacity of ‘other subjects’  151 validity concerns  551–54 Vienna Conference  18, 26, 202, 209, 249, 250, 251 Drafting Committee  238–39 see also Table of Instruments for references to individual articles ‘Vienna formula’  269, 651 open treaties  656 participation clauses  651 treaty-making 209 Vienna Rules on Treaty Interpretation  459–87, 525 agreements and practice  466–69 brevity 460 common intention of the parties  489–90, 493 conflicts and fragmentation  445–47 context 479–81 contrasted with circumstances of conclusion 465–66 crucible approach  464, 465, 474, 478 foreign languages  485–86 general application  477–79 general rule of interpretation  459, 464–70 historic controversy  462–64 human rights  505–7, 511 international law rules  469–70 international organizations  525, 526–27, 528, 529, 531

Index  823 interpretation agreed by the parties  481–82 languages  460, 475–76, 485–86 authenticated in two or more languages  460 limitations 460–61 literal approach  464, 465, 470–71 looking beyond the VCLT  486–87 ordinary meaning  464–65, 475–76, 493 other relevant rules of international law  469–70, 482–83, 516–18 practice 476–86 preliminary considerations  461–62 questions 460 relevant rules of international law  482–83 reservations 288 scaffolding image  461 structure 461 subsequent agreements  466–68 subsequent practice  468 supplementary means of interpretation  459, 470–74, 483–85 treaty-making process  228 whether ‘Rules’  464–76 see also interpretation Vietnam Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Canada-AustraliaJapan-Mexico-New Zealand-SingaporeVietnam) (2019)  653–54, 693 Khmer-Krom peoples  179–80 violations acts of aggression  568–69 breaches, responding to  568–70 customary international law  246 deep 89–90 immunity for  564–65 international organizations (IOs)  105 ‘normal’ versus ‘material’  576 substantial 575 see also breaches, responding to; material breaches Voluntary Partnership Agreement on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade in Timber Products (EC-Ghana) 768 von Gierke, Otto 526 voting rights, EU participation as a REIO 660   Waitangi Treaty 1840 157 Waldock, Sir Humphrey  2, 25, 558, 577–78 and conflicts  440 and drawing up treaty  202 and exceptional circumstances/fundamental change of circumstances  598–99, 602–3 principal architect of Vienna Rules  460–61 and provisional application  231, 233–34, 249, 250 role 471 and termination of treaties  628–29 and territorial application  311, 312–13, 314, 315, 322, 327 ‘treaty’ definition  150 and treaty succession  399–400 and treaty-making capacity  152, 202

VCLT Rules on Treaty Interpretation  461–62, 464, 465, 469, 471, 473–74 Warsaw Convention on International Carriage by Air (1929)  340, 349, 362–63 Waterfowl Habitat Protocol (1982) 336–37 weapons regulation  177, 181 Western Sahara case 157 Westphalia, Peace of (1648)  1–2, 4, 41–42, 202, 330, 758 WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control see Framework Convention on Tobacco Control WHO Legality case see Nuclear Weapons Opinion Wiggins v UK case 313–14 Wilson, Woodrow 173–74 WIPO Copyright Treaty (1996)  654, 659 withdrawal after a specific period of time  764 at any time  762–63 bilateral treaties  632–33 of certain parties  772–73 clauses as risk management tool  638–39 climate change agreements  626 constructive  762, 767 of declarations  688 design/invocation of clauses  631–38 effective immediately  762 effective only under certain conditions  766 at fixed intervals  764 from a treaty to rejoin with reservation  295–96 ideal types of clauses  632 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 1966  629–30 International Criminal Court (ICC)  628–29, 631, 633, 636 international law  625–31 legal consequences  762 on notice  683, 763 after a specific period of time has passed  764–65 after a specific period of time has passed with continuing legal effects  765 with continuing legal effects  763 effective on  710 with an explanation  765–66 subject to a negotiated withdrawal agreement 766–67 reservations 683 at any time  683 effective on notice  683 individual reservations  683 partial permitted  683 synonymous with denunciation  762 termination of treaties  770 terminology 762 treaties not subject to  627–30 treaty provisions  770 treaties with unlimited duration  772 unilateral provisions  634 when another party has given notice of withdrawal or denunciation  766 see also denunciation; exit clauses; termination of treaties

824 Index Witold Litwa v Poland 484 women’s rights Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1979  182–83, 339–40, 672, 683 Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women (2011) 662–63 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, 182–83 International Women’s Rights Action Watch  182–83 World Association for Small and Medium Enterprises 188–89 World Bank Group 113–14 International Development Association  105 World Blind Union 182 World Business Council for Sustainable Development 63 World Court of Human Rights (proposed) 429 World Environmental Organization 429 World Federation of United Nations Associations 175 World Food Programme 113–14 World Health Organization (WHO) 1986 VCLT  101 Constitution  346, 349–50 and NGO participation  180, 181–82 withdrawal 636 See also Legality of the Use by a State of Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict case World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 1986 VCLT  101 amendments 342 assemblies 180 constitutive convention  180 establishment 753 NGOs 180 Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights 182 Standing Committee on the Law of Patents  188–89 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) 346–47 World Radiocommunication Conference (2015) 709 World Trade Organization (WTO) accession to Hong Kong  156 Macau 156 Taiwan 156 Agreements see WTO Agreement (Marrakesh Agreement); WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; WTO Agreement on Trade in Services; WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)

Appellate Body  73, 479–80 conflicts and fragmentation  434 Denmark 159 dispute settlement under Dispute Settlement Body (DSB)  33, 72 dispute settlement system (DSS)  89 Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU)  42– 43, 525, 736 EU treaty-making  132–33, 145–46 General Council  185–86 informal lawmaking  59–60 Informal NGO Advisory Body  186 Ministerial Conferences  186, 190 relationship with EU  132–33 World War One, aftermath see Versailles Treaty (1919) written form 23–24 wrongfulness, precluded by State responsibility see Articles of State Responsibility; circumstances precluding wrongfulness; State responsibility WTO Agreement (Marrakesh Agreement) amendments  745, 753–54 Chinese Taipei  664 consent to be bound  677 derogations 735 EU treaty-making  664 Hong Kong  664 informal lawmaking  70–71 Macao 664 NGO participation  185–86, 667 reservations 679 special administrative regions (Article XII)  156 see also World Trade Organization (WTO) WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (1994) 728 WTO Agreement on Trade in Services (1994) 693 WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)  735, 745   Yemen agreement between North and South (1990) 398–99 detainees 556 merger of Yemen Arab Republic and State of the People’s Democratic Republic (1990)  392, 394, 398–99 State succession  390, 392, 394, 398–99 Yugoslavia, former see Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)/former Yugoslavia Yukos cases Russia v Yukos, Hulley, and Veteran Petroleum 240, 241, 245–46 Yukos v Russia  240, 244–45, 255