1. PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LAW
Dr. Indre Isokaite
Law Faculty of Vilnius University
Institute of International and EU Law
Public Law Department
2016

2. Law of International Treaties
System of rules governing conclusion, validity, termination, interpretation of International treaties, settlement of disputes arising therefrom, etc.
Main sources:
1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties
1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or Between International Organizations

3. Main Principles of International Treaty Law
Pacta sund servanda (implementation)
Bona fides (good will)
Non retroactivity
Ratione loci (application in whole territory)
No effect on third States
Peaceful settlement of International disputes
Other (e.g. non violation of ius cogens rules)

4. International treaty: definition
Under 1969 Convention '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. Classification: law-making, unilateral, bilateral, universal, etc. International treaty shall be separated from (1) contracts of Private International Law and (2) arrangements between governmental institutions of two States, however, not creating any International obligations for States.

5. “Gentelmen’s agreement“
Unwritten agreements between State representatives (usually Heads of State) may also constitute an International treaty provided that they create a international obligations binding on States. However, they usually imply moral but not legal obligations/responsibility.
Article 3. 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: <...> the legal force of such agreements.

6. Cases
Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v. Turkey): press release may in principle form an agreement (however, not in this particular case)
Maritime Delimitation and Territorial Questions between Qatar and Bahrain (Qatar v. Bahrain): minutes may be recognized as an International agreement (exchange of documents signed by Ministers of Foreign Affairs constitutes international treaty)
Legal Status of Eastern Greenland (issue of authorization: Minister Ihlen’s declaration is binding on Norway)

7. Aegean Sea Continental Shelf (Greece v. Turkey)
Brussels Joint Communiqué of 3 1 May 1975 was issued directly to the press by the Prime Ministers of Greece and Turkey following a meeting between them on that date. It contained the following passage: "They [the two Prime Ministers] decided that those problems [between the two countries] should be resolved peacefully by means of negotiations and as regards the continental shelf of the Aegean Sea by the International Court at The Hague." Greece maintained that this passage directly conferred jurisdiction on the Court, committed the parties to concluding an implementing agreement needed and, in the event of re usual by one of them to conclude such an agreement, permitted the other to refer the dispute unilaterally to the Court. Turkey, for its part, maintained that the communiqué did not "amount to an agreement under international law", and that in any event it did not comprise any undertaking to resort to the Court without a special agreement (compromis) or amount to an agreement by one State to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court upon the unilateral application of the other. The Court In view of these divergent interpretations finds confirmation that the two Prime Ministers did not undertake an unconditional commitment to refer their continental shelf dispute to the Court (territorial disputes exempted...)

8. Conclusion of International Treaty
Stage I: Adoption and authentication of the text: signing, signing ad referendum, initialling, voting at the conference, etc. (Articles 9-10) Stage II: Expressing consent to be bound by a treaty signing, exchange of instruments constituting a treaty, ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, or by any other means if so agreed, e.g. exchange of depository documents (Article 11) Sometimes both stages coincide, mostly for simple treaties that are concluded by signature.

9. Authorised persons
Heads of State, Heads of Government and Ministers for Foreign Affairs, for the purpose of performing all acts relating to the conclusion of a treaty are considered representing the State without any additional authorization. Other representatives need a authorisation (“full powers”) issued by a competent State body, e.g. President. Representatives may also receive instructions regarding the position to be followed during the negotiations, etc.

10. Ratification, deposition, publication
Ratification is a most popular form of expressing State’s consent to be bound by a treaty. It may be an act of Parliament (national level) or exchange/deposition of ratification instruments (international level). Publication is also managed at national and international levels (e.g. UN treaty series, etc.). Registration. UN Charter, Article 102 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. 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. Depositaries. Articles

11. Entry into force
Prior to entry into force – obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty (Article 18). Article 24. Entry into force 1. A treaty enters into force in such manner and upon such date as it may provide or as the negotiating States may agree. 2. Failing any such provision or agreement, a treaty enters into force as soon as consent to be bound by the treaty has been established for all the negotiating States. 3. When the consent of a State to be bound by a treaty is established on a date after the treaty has come into force, the treaty enters into force for that State on that date, unless the treaty otherwise provides. <...>

12. Reservations and declarations
Reservation means 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. Reservations are not allowed: (a) when 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; or (c) the reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty. Declaration is a position, unilateral act of State, usually explanation of certain treaty provision that is not excluded from the scope of operation.

13. Validity and operation of International treaties
Validity means that the treaty has been concluded under International Law, by a free will of both parties and is in force.
Operation means practical implementation of treaties.
Article 42. Validity and continuance in force of treaties
1. The validity of a treaty or of the consent of a State to be bound by a treaty may be impeached only through the application of the present Convention.
2. 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. The same rule applies to suspension of the operation of a treaty.

14. Grounds for invalidity: conditional
Conditional: parties may contest the validity on the following grounds:
Provisions of internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties (Art. 46)
Specific restrictions on authority to express the consent of a State (Art. 47)
Error (Art. 48)
Fraud (Art. 49)
Corruption of a representative of a State (Art. 50)

15. Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), 1962

16. Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), 1962
Proceedings in the case concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear, between Cambodia and Thailand, were instituted on 6 October 1959 by an Application of the Government of Cambodia. In its Judgment on the merits the Court found that the Temple of Preah Vihear was situated in territory under the sovereignty of Cambodia and, in consequence, that Thailand was under an obligation to withdraw any military or police forces, or other guards or keepers, stationed by her at the Temple, or in its vicinity on Cambodian territory. The Court found that Thailand was under an obligation to restore to Cambodia any sculptures, fragments of monuments, sandstone model and ancient pottery which might, since the date of the occupation of the Temple by Thailand in 1954, have been removed from the Temple or the Temple area by the Thai authorities.

17. Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand), 1962
The Annex I map was never formally approved by the Mixed Commission, which had ceased to function some months before its production. While there could be no reasonable doubt that it was based on the work of the surveying officers in the Dangrek sector, the Court nevertheless concluded that, in its inception, it had no binding character. It was clear from the record, however, that the maps were communicated to the Siamese Government as purporting to represent the outcome of the work of delimitation; since there was no reaction on the part of the Siamese authorities, either then or for many years, they must be held to have acquiesced. The maps were moreover communicated to the Siamese members of the Mixed Commission, who said nothing and to the Siamese Minister of the Interior, Prince Damrong, who thanked the French Minister in Bangkok for them. Thus the Siamese authorities accepted the Annex I map without investigation and now after so many years they could not plead any error vitiating the reality of their consent.
2013 judgment upon the request for clarification of 1962 judgment:
Cambodia had sovereignty over the whole territory of the promontory of Preah Vihear, as defined in paragraph 98 of the present Judgment, and that, in consequence, Thailand was under an obligation to withdraw from that territory the Thai military or police forces, or other guards or keepers, that were stationed there.

18. Grounds for invalidity: absolute
Treaty shall be void in the following cases: 1. Coercion of a representative of a State (Art. 51) 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. 2. Coercion of a State by the threat or use of force (Art. 52) 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. 3. Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens) (Art. 53) A treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm ius cogens

19. Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty
Article 60 - Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty as a consequence of its breach
Article 61 - Supervening impossibility of performance
Article 62 - Fundamental change of circumstances
Article 59 - Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty implied by conclusion of a later treaty
Article 63 - Severance of diplomatic or consular relations
Article 64 - Emergence of a new peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens)
Other cases
The treaty may be terminated on the grounds of 1969 Vienna Convention or denounced if the treaty allows a withdrawal.

20. Interpretation of International treaties
1969 Vienna Convention. Section 3 Different positions suggest that the priority shall be given to the text/wording or the intentions of the parties or the aim of the treaty. In any case the treaty is one set of negotiated rights and obligations. Basic rule: 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. 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 the said rule or to determine the meaning when the interpretation according to the said rule leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure; or leads to a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.

21. Procedure Section 4. Articles 65 – 67
Procedure to be followed with respect to invalidity, termination, withdrawal from or suspension of the operation of a treaty:
Notification / 3 months/
If no objections – treaty is terminated or suspended
If any objections/disagreement – peaceful means under Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations shall be applicable
If no agreement is reached within 12 months the dispute goes before
International Court of Justice or arbitration or
Dispute Settlement procedure under Annex to the 1969 Vienna Convention
Annex. Resolution of disputes
1969 Vienna Convention and Annex:

22. Thank you!