![]() It is noteworthy that the International Court of Justice stated in the Judgment on the Arbitral Award of 31 July 1989 that “…rticles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties…may in many respects be considered as a codification of existing customary international law…” ( I.C.J. These are teleological elements which militate against a narrow literal construction of treaty texts. ![]() Both controversial issues are now under study by the International Law Commission under the topic “Reservations to treaties”.Īnother result of progressive development is the rule of interpretation in article 31, which establishes, inter alia, the object and purpose of a treaty and the latter’s context as guidelines of interpretation. reservations which make the implementation of treaty obligations subject to their compatibility with domestic or some religious law) without providing a conclusive answer. ![]() A related problem arises from the definition of a reservation (article 2, paragraph 1 (d)) which seems to imply that reservations must indicate the provision or provisions to which they relate (“…to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions”, emphasis added), which raises doubts about the admissibility of so-called “across-the-board-reservations” (i.e. ![]() But the provision does not clarify the status of a reservation that infringes the prohibition, which gives rise to conflicting interpretations of the effect of objections made to such reservations. 15) and prohibits reservations which are incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty to which they relate (article 19 (c)). The Convention follows the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ( I.C. In other respects, the first four parts of the Convention codify previously existing customary law with a few modifications due to progressive development.Ī conspicuous example of the latter is reservations. In respect of the potentially more controversial chapter concerning the termination of treaties, on the other hand, many States had achieved a moderate position by balancing, in view of unknown future eventualities, the wish to escape a treaty obligation against the wish to have it kept.Īrticle 1 restricts the application of the Convention to (written) treaties between States, excluding treaties concluded by international organizations. On the one hand, the customary law covering the more technical side of treaty-making was, except for minor details, practically undisputed. This achievement was helped by two circumstances. The final text of the convention was accepted by 79 votes to 1, with 19 abstentions. The United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties was the last great codification conference that successfully used voting as its working method and could adopt the draft articles by substantial majorities. Significant Points in the Negotiating History By resolution 2166 (XXI) of 5 December 1966, the General Assembly endorsed the recommendation in principle and in the following year decided to convene the first session of the conference in 1968 and the second session in 1969, in Vienna. His six reports enabled the Commission in 1966 to submit a final draft to the General Assembly and to recommend that the Assembly convene an international conference to conclude a convention on the subject. The last Special Rapporteur, Sir Humphrey Waldock, appointed in 1961, oriented the work again towards the preparation of draft articles capable of serving as a basis for an international convention. He resigned in 1952 and two of his successors, Sir Hersch Lauterpacht and Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, each of whom had started the work anew, the second moreover with a different approach, were elected to the International Court of Justice before they could finish their work. In view of that, the International Law Commission placed it at its first session, in 1949, among the topics suitable for codification and appointed James Brierly as Special Rapporteur. By the middle of the twentieth century the customary international law of treaties had grown to a fairly comprehensive body of rules.
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