Abstract
In modern international practice, the process of concluding a treaty usually runs through different stages, beginning with negotiations, to the adoption of the text, signing and ratification by the parties, and leading up to the entry into force in accordance with the requirements set out in the treaty. Arts 9 to 17 VCLT refer to this process by describing some of its stages and setting up rules for them. The multi-stage treaty-making process can take a considerable amount of time, sometimes years, to be concluded, in which time period the provisions of the treaty are not binding on the parties (unless, of course, a provisional application has been agreed upon in accordance with Art 25 VCLT).
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Notes
- 1.
ILC Final Draft, 202 para 1; W Morvay The Obligation of a State Not to Frustrate the Object of a Treaty Prior to its Entry into Force (1967) 27 ZaöRV 454; Villiger Art 18 MN 5; J Klabbers Strange Bedfellows: The ‘Interim Obligation’ and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention in: E Myjer (ed) Issues of Arms Control Law and the Chemical Weapons Convention: Obligations Inter Se and Supervisory Mechanisms (2001) 11, 14. Cf also Art 9 Harvard Draft 778: “under some circumstances, however, good faith may require that […]” (emphasis added).
- 2.
ECJ (CFI) Greece v Commission T-231/04 [2007] ECR II-63, paras 85–86.
- 3.
MA Rogoff The International Legal Obligations of Signatories to an Unratified Treaty (1980) 32 Maine LR 263, 272 and 288–296. Explicitly undecided PV McDade The Interim Obligation Between Signature and Ratification of a Treaty (1985) 32 NILR 5, 18 and 27.
- 4.
Sinclair 86; Villiger Art 18 MN 6.
- 5.
Sinclair 99.
- 6.
Cf Sinclair 43; L Boisson de Chazournes/A-M la Rosa/MM Mbengue in Corten/Klein Art 18 MN 1 and 7; Klabbers (n 1) 12; DP O’Connell International Law, Vol 1 (2nd edn 1970) 223–224.
- 7.
Eg, Morvay (n 1) 458; Rogoff (n 3) 284; JS Charme The Interim Obligation of Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: Making Sense of an Enigma (1992) 25 George Washington JIL & Economy 71, 76–85.
- 8.
ILC Final Draft, 202 para 1.
- 9.
Beside the authors named in n 7, Villiger Art 18 MN 20; Klabbers (n 1) 12; Reuter MN 110; McDade (n 3) 13 and 25; L Boisson de Chazournes/A-M la Rosa/MM Mbengue in Corten/Klein Art 18 MN 21.
- 10.
Aust 94. But see the examples of State practice given by McDade (n 3) 12–13, citing official statements from the 1970s of the Governments of Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States in confirmation of the interim obligation.
- 11.
Federal Constitutional Court (Germany) 108 BVerfGE 129, 140–141 (2003).
- 12.
ECtHR Öcalan v Turkey (GC) App No 46221/99, 12 March 2003, para 185.
- 13.
Case reported by Palchetti in The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (2011), 25, 33-34; the court documents in Spanish can also be found at www.haguejusticeportal.net.
- 14.
ECJ (CFI) Greece v Commission (n 2) paras 85–86.
- 15.
ECJ (CFI) Opel Austria v Council T 115/94 [1997] ECR II-39, paras 90–91.
- 16.
Cf ECJ (CFI) Greece v Commission (n 2) para 99; similarly Opel Austria v Council (n 15) para 93.
- 17.
ECJ (CJ) Greece v Commission C-203/07 P [2008] ECR I-8161, para 64.
- 18.
IACHR Mossville Environmental Action Now v United States, Report No 43/10, 17 March 2010, para 22; see also the earlier Juan Paul Garza v United States, Report No 52/01, Case 12.243, 4 April 2001, para 94 with n 48.
- 19.
Cf 1 UKTS 292 = [1972] OJ L 73/203, sub I; reported by Sinclair, 43–44.
- 20.
CTS 485, 502.
- 21.
Cited by McDade (n 3) 11, and by T Hassan Good Faith in Treaty Formation (1981) 21 VaJIL 443, 452.
- 22.
LNTS 201, 209.
- 23.
Hassan (n 21) 453.
- 24.
Supreme Court (Poland) Polish State Treasury v von Bismarck [1923/24] 2 AD 80–81 (1923).
- 25.
Eastern Provincial Court (Denmark) Schwerdtfeger v Danish Government [1923/24] 2 AD 81–83 (1923).
- 26.
PCIJ Certain German Interests in Polish Upper Silesia (Merits) PCIJ Ser A No 7, 39 (1926).
- 27.
Megalidis v The State of Turkey 8 TAM 390, 395 (1928); summary reprinted in (1927-1928) 4 AD 395; French quotation also at McDade (n 3) 14.
- 28.
Harvard Draft 778.
- 29.
Ibid 780–781.
- 30.
Cf Lauterpacht I 91 and 110.
- 31.
Cf Fitzmaurice I 113 and 122
- 32.
Waldock I 39–53.
- 33.
[1962-I] YbILC 179 para 3.
- 34.
[1962-II] YbILC 175.
- 35.
Cf eg the comments by the governments of Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden, [1966-II] YbILC 279, 284, 292, 315, 323 and 338.
- 36.
UNCLOT I 97 et seq.
- 37.
Waldock IV 42 et seq.
- 38.
ILC Final Draft, 172. Art 15 lit a ran: “A State is obliged to refrain from acts tending to frustrate the object of a proposed treaty when (a) it has agreed to enter into negotiations for the conclusion of the treaty, while these negotiations are in progress.”
- 39.
The ILC Drafting Committee claimed that the change was only made in the interest of clarity and did not widen the interim obligation, cf UNCLOT I 361.
- 40.
UNCLOT III, 131 para 167.
- 41.
UN Doc A/CONF.39/L.16, UNCLOT III.
- 42.
Cf ICJ Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [1951] ICJ Rep 15, 28.
- 43.
Fitzmaurice I 122 para 58; L Boisson de Chazournes/A-M la Rosa/MM Mbengue in Corten/Klein Art 18 MN 42.
- 44.
R Bernhardt Völkerrechtliche Bindungen in der Vorstadien des Vertragsschlusses (1957/58) 18 ZaöRV 652, 659–660; JP Cot La bonne foi et la conclusion des traites (1968) 4 RBDI 140, 150; PD O’Connell International Law, Vol 1 (2nd edn 1970) 222; Rogoff (n 3) 267; McDade (n 3) 10 in n 20; J Verhoeven Droit International Public (2002) 385. A proposal to include a duty to submit a signed treaty to ratification was rejected early in the ILC’s work on the law of treaties, cf [1951-I] YbILC 37–39 and 156–157.
- 45.
Harvard Draft 769.
- 46.
Cf 2009 Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General, UN Doc ST/LEG/SER.E/21 Vol II 192 note 8 (ch XVIII.10).
- 47.
Aust 117; ET Swaine Unsigning (2003) 55 Stanford LR 2061 et seq.
- 48.
McDade (n 3) 24; Klabbers (n 1) 17; Swaine (n 46) 2082. The point had been raised by the French delegate at the Vienna Conference, cf UNCLOT I 100 para 45.
- 49.
ME Villiger Customary International Law and Treaties (1985) MN 472.
- 50.
Cf n 45.
- 51.
A Michie The Provisional Application of Arms Control Treaties (2005) 10 Journal of Conflict and Security Law 345, 369–370.
- 52.
Cf Villiger Art 18 MN 15–16; Hassan (n 21) 456–457, both referring to the fact that, at the Vienna Conference, a Malaysian proposal to change the words to “expressed its intention in the clearest terms” had been refused (UNCLOT I 131).
- 53.
Point raised by Swaine (n 47) 2082–2083 in n 96.
- 54.
Morvay (n 1) 461.
- 55.
SR Waldock had proposed to adopt a time limit of ten years (Waldock IV 45), which did not find much support in the Commission, cf [1965-I] YbILC 88 et seq.
- 56.
Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay had introduced a time limit of 12 months into the debate, cf UNCLOT III 131, para 164.
- 57.
Cf Klabbers (n 1) 17 with regard to 1993 Chemical Weapon Convention.
- 58.
Aust 120.
- 59.
Both instances reported in 1999 Summary of Practice of the Secretary-General as Depositary of Multilateral Treaties, UN Doc ST/LEG/7/Rev. 1, para 158.
- 60.
Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General (n 46) Vol III 504 note 1 for Italy and note 2 Luxembourg (ch XXI.7).
- 61.
Summary of Practice (n 59) para 157.
- 62.
PCIJ Certain German Interests (n 26) 39.
- 63.
Villiger Art 18 MN 8.
- 64.
Villiger (n 49) MN 469.
- 65.
Villiger Art 18 MN 10. For a detailed analysis of the term eg I Buffard/K Zemanek The ‘Object and Purpose’ of a Treaty: An Enigma? (1998) 3 ARIEL 311–343.
- 66.
→ Art 31 MN 54; Villiger Art 18 MN 10.
- 67.
Concurring Villiger Art 18 MN 10; for the similar problem in treaty interpretation => Art 31 MN 55.
- 68.
J Klabbers ‘Some Problems Regarding the Object and Propose of Treaties’ (1997) 8 FinnYIL 138, 155.
- 69.
Federal Constitutional Court (Germany) (n 11) 141.
- 70.
Klabbers (n 1) 18.
- 71.
Thus Waldock, as expert consultant at the Vienna Conference, UNCLOT I 104 para 26.
- 72.
Villiger Art 18 MN 11.
- 73.
See Waldock (n 70) and the debate in UNCLOT I 97–106.
- 74.
Rogoff (n 2) 297.
- 75.
Aust 119.
- 76.
Contra Klabbers (n 1) 26.
- 77.
Thus, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Resolution 1300 (25 September 2002), sub 10, and Resolution 1336 (25 June 2003), sub 9, to be found at http://assembly.coe.int (last visited 10 January 2011).
- 78.
ECtHR Öcalan v Turkey (GC) (n 12) para 185.
- 79.
Villiger (n 48) MN 470.
- 80.
Rogoff (n 2) 297.
- 81.
Villiger Art 18 MN 14; Aust 119.
- 82.
Thus eg Rogoff (n 2) 297; L Boisson de Chazournes/A-M la Rosa/MM Mbengue in Corten/Klein Art 18 MN 62.
- 83.
Example given by Villiger Art 18 MN 13.
- 84.
Concurring L Boisson de Chazournes/A-M la Rosa/MM Mbengue in Corten/Klein Art 18 MN 66–67.
Selected Bibliography
R Bernhardt Völkerrechtliche Bindungen in der Vorstadien des Vertragsschlusses (1957/58) 18 ZaöRV 652–690.
CA Bradley Unratified Treaties, Domestic Politics, and the U.S. Constitution (2007) 48 Harvard ILJ 307–336.
P Cahier L’obligation de ne pas priver un traité de son objet et de son but avant son entrée en vigueur, in P-H Teitgen (ed), Mélauges Dehousse, Vol I (1979) 31–37.
JS Charme The Interim Obligation of Article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: Making Sense of an Enigma (1992) 25 George Washington JIL & Economy 71–114.
JP Cot La bonne foi et la conclusion des traites (1968) 4 RBDI 140–159.
T Hassan Good Faith in Treaty Formation (1981) 21 VaJIL 443–481.
J Klabbers How to Defeat a Treaty’s Object and Purpose Pending Entry into Force: Toward Manifest Intent (2001) 34 Vanderbilt JTL 283–331.
Id Strange Bedfellows: The ‘Interim Obligation’ and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention in: E Myjer (ed) Issues of Arms Control Law and the Chemical Weapons Convention: Obligations Inter Se and Supervisory Mechanisms (2001) 11–29.
PV McDade The Interim Obligation Between Signature and Ratification of a Treaty (1985) 32 NILR 5–47.
W Morvay The Obligation of a State Not to Frustrate the Object of a Treaty Prior to its Entry into Force (1967) 27 ZaöRV 451–462.
P Palchetti Article 18 of the 1969 Vienna Convention: A Vague and Ineffective Obligation or a Useful Means of Strengthening Legal Cooperation?, In E Cannizzaro (ed) The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention (2011) 25.
WM Reisman/MH Arsanjani What is the Current Value of Signing a Treaty? in: S Breitenmoser et al. (eds.), Festschrift Wildhaber (2007) 1491–1511.
MA Rogoff The International Legal Obligations of Signatories to an Unratified Treaty (1980) 32 Maine LR 263–299.
ET Swaine Unsigning (2003) 55 Stanford LR 2061–2089.
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Dörr, O., Schmalenbach, K. (2012). Article 18. Obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty prior to its entry into force. In: Dörr, O., Schmalenbach, K. (eds) Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19291-3_20
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