Цывкунова Интернатионал Лаw Учебно-методическое пособие 2010

Famous people

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was the third president of the United States and one of the leading Founding Fathers of the United States. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), the first Secretary of State (1789-1793), the founder of one of the world's two first political parties, the Republican Party (1793). Jefferson has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest of U.S. presidents. Biographer James Parton said Thomas Jefferson could "calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin."

11

Unit I. Section 2

Historical Overview of the Development of International Law

BRUSH UP YOUR KNOWLEDGE

•Name the forerunner of the United Nations.

•What qualifications does a state as a subject of international law possess?

•Explain the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Task 1. Complete the text using the words from the box.

the League of Nations; Protestantism; an integral part; Switzerland; Roman law; 58; the Peace of Westphalia; the Renaissance; pacta sunt servanda; 1945; the Treaty of Versailles; obsolete; the sovereign state; the Permanent Court of International Justice; the exchange of diplomatic emissaries; World War I.

International law came into its own as a separate legal system or discipline with the emergency of the modern nation-state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of course, practices such as

_____________________, the conclusion of peace treaties, etc., and some of the rules, applicable to them can be traced back far into antiquity. But it was not until modern times that the rules governing relations between states came to be seen as a distinct body of law.

Many of these rules were derived either from _____________ or Canon law, which drew heavily on principles of natural law. These two sources of law also formed the basis of much of the domestic law of the nation-

12

states that came into being in Europe as the medieval period drew to a close with the dawn of ________________. Roman law and Canon law exerted great influence on the European statesmen and legal scholars of the period who created and systematized what became modern international law.

A number of events or historical milestones mark the development of modern international law. Among these are ______________________, the Congress of Vienna, the establishment of __________________ and the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations.

The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and established a treaty-based system or framework for peace and cooperation in Europe, which endured for more than a hundred years. The Peace of Westphalia established __________________ as the principal political actor in the system of states.

It provided, inter alia, for the coexistence in certain parts of Europe of Catholicism and __________________, thus planting early seeds of religious freedom in Europe. The foundations for multi-state diplomatic congresses and negotiations were laid at the conferences that produced the two basic treaties comprising the Peace of Westphalia. These agreements also proclaimed the doctrine of ____________________

(treaties are to be observed) and established a machinery for the settlement of disputes arising between the signatories.

The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna (1815) formally ended the Napoleonic Wars and fashioned a sophisticated multilateral system of political and economic cooperation in Europe. The major aspects of this system survived until the outbreak of the First World War. The Congress adopted the first comprehensive set of rules governing diplomatic protocol, it formally condemned the slave trade, and it established the principle of free and unimpeded navigation on international rivers traversing the region. The Congress laid the foundation for the recognition of the neutrality of ____________________ and its guarantee by the principal European powers.

The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of _________________ in 1919–1920. The League's primary

13

goals as stated in its Covenant included preventing war through collective security, disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. The Covenant formed

____________of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended

_______________.

Although the failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War II is a well-known historical fact, it is important to remember that this organization constituted the first serious effort by states to create a permanent inter-governmental institutional framework for the resolution of political disputes and the preservation of peace. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had _______ members.

It was the League that established ________________, the first such international tribunal open to all states. The machinery created by the League for the protection of the rights of minorities in eastern and southeastern Europe and for the supervision of certain non selfgoverning territories constituted the first international attempt to establish international institutions for the protection of human rights.

The League contributed in numerous other ways to the development and codification of international law. Moreover, the modern law of international organizations came into being with the establishment of the League of Nations.

The United Nations was founded in __________. The UN has been called everything from “the best hope of mankind” to “irrelevant” and “_____________.” Here it needs to be emphasized only that the mere existence of the UN, whatever its weaknesses, constitutes a further advance in the efforts of the international community to make international law a more effective tool, for the preservation of international peace and the improvement of the human condition throughout the world.

Task 2. Focus on Definitions. Find in the text the words that mean the following:

•a person who is sent with an official message or to do special work;

•a formal solemn agreement between two or more people or groups;

14

•to express very strong disapproval of something;

•forming a necessary part of something (adj.);

•concerning or including more than two groups or nations;

•among other things (Latin);

•no longer useful because something newer and better has been invented; out-of-date;

•to officially accept that an organization, document etc has legal or official authority;

•most important, main.

Task 3. Focus on Words. Study the definitions and translate the following sentences from English into Russian.

•to impede – to make it difficult for someone or something to move forward or make progress

1)Progress has been impeded by a number of economic factors.

2)War is one of the greatest impediments to human progress.

3)Shortage of money was not the only impediment to higher education.

4)We observed that you were movingly slowly on a wide road, unimpeded by any other traffic.

5)In May the Soviet Union proposed the abolition of 75 percent of the existing stocks of weapons and offered unimpeded inspection.

•outbreak - if there is an outbreak of fighting or disease in an area, it suddenly starts to happen

1)The day I arrived in Texas, the war broke out.

2)Late last night, fighting broke out between gangs of rival football fans.

3)The only effective means of controlling outbreaks of this disease are mass vaccination campaign.

4)The recent outbreak of street violence and protests reflect the frustration of young people unable to find jobs.

•multilateral - involving several different countries or groups

15

Unit I. Section 3

The International Law of Treaties

Task 1. Read the text and write down Russian equivalents for the word combinations in bold type.

The law of treaties is the name given to that body of international law which deals with the procedural and substantive rules governing the use of treaties as a source of international law.

The term "treaty", as used on the international plane, describes international agreements in general, whether they are denominated conventions, pacts, covenants, charters or protocols, etc. These different names have no legal significance; the same legal rules apply to one as to the other. The choice of this or that name may at times be prompted by the belief that a given designation implies greater or lesser solemnity or importance. But as a matter of international law, a treaty by whatever name is still a treaty, it is an instrument governed by international law and, once it enters into force, the parties thereto have legally binding obligations in international law.

Treaties perform a variety of functions on the international plane that in domestic law are performed by many different types of legal acts and instruments, including constitutions, laws of general applicability, contracts, corporate charters, etc. Treaties, by contrast, serve as the constitutions of international organizations, they can be a source of general international law, they are used to transfer territory, to regulate commercial relations, to settle disputes, to protect human rights, to guarantee investments, and so on.

The international law of treaties has been codified to a large extent in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969). The Convention entered into force in 1985 and has been ratified by many countries. The Convention defines a treaty as "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" (Article 2). The

17

scope of the Convention is limited. It applies only to treaties concluded between states (Article 1), excluding treaties between states and international organizations or between international organizations themselves. These are governed by the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of

Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations. Additionally, the Convention only applies to written agreements, but does not limit the application of oral agreements (Article 3).

Task 2. Answer the following questions:

1)What does the term “treaty” mean? What functions do treaties perform?

2)When was the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties adopted?

3)Why is the scope of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties limited?

Task 3. What are the Russian equivalents for the following international agreements?

•the Warsaw Pact

•the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations

•the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

•the Covenant of the League of Nations

•the Treaty of Lisbon

•the 1966 UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

•the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

•the Kyoto Protocol

•the Helsinki Act of 1975

•START

18

Task 4. Translate the following articles of the VCLT into Russian.

•(the Preamble to the VCLT) The States Parties to the present

Convention,

Noting that the principles of free consent and of good faith and pacta sunt servanda rule are universally recognized,

Affirming that the rules of customary international law will continue to govern questions not regulated by the provisions of the present Convention

Have agreed as follows…

•Article 6. Capacity of States to conclude treaties

Every State possesses capacity to conclude treaties.

•Article 19. Formulation of reservations

A State may, when signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a treaty, formulate a reservation unless:

(a) the reservation is prohibited by the treaty…

•Article 26. Pacta sunt servanda

Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.

• Article 53. Treaties conflicting with a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens)

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.

• Article 54. Termination of or withdrawal from a treaty under its provisions or by consent of the parties

The termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may take place:

(a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or

19

(b)at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States

•Article 57. Suspension of the operation of a treaty under its provisions or by consent of the parties

The operation of a treaty in regard to all the parties or to a particular party may be suspended:

(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.

•Article 63. Severance of diplomatic or consular relations

The severance of diplomatic or consular relations between parties to a treaty does not affect the legal relations established between them by the treaty except in so far as the existence of diplomatic or consular relations is indispensable for the application of the treaty.

•Article 82. Ratification

The present Convention is subject to ratification. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary General of the United Nations.

•Article 84. Entry into force

1.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.

2.For each State ratifying or acceding to the Convention after the deposit of the thirty-fifth instrument of ratification or accession, the Convention shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after deposit by such State of its instrument of ratification or accession.

•Article 85 Authentic texts

The original of the present Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary General of the United Nations.

In witness whereof the undersigned Plenipotentiaries, being duly author-

20