International Treaties

A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as: (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, exchange of letters, pact. Regardless of the terminology, all of these international agreements under international law are equally treaties and the rules are the same. International organizations may also be given the capacity to make treaties, either with sovereign states or other international organizations. The name chosen generally does not affect the legal status of the agreement. As long as the parties intend the text to be binding, it is a treaty.

Treaties may incorporate rules of custom or develop new law. Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts: both are means of willing parties assuming obligations among themselves, and a party to either that fails to live up to their obligations can be held liable under international law for that breach. The central principle of treaty law is expressed in the maxim pacta sunt servanda —"pacts must be respected".

The most well known examples of international treaties are the United Nations Charter, Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty), North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), Тreaty on World Trade Organization (Marrakesh Agreement).

Under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, "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, be invoked before it or enforced in its judiciary organ, the International Court of Justice". This was done to prevent the proliferation of secret treaties that occurred in the 19th and 20th century. The Charter also states that its members' obligations under it outweigh any competing obligations under other treaties.

International treaties can be classified as bilateral and multilateral. Multilateral treaties establish rights and obligations between each party and every other party. Bilateral treaties are negotiated between a limited number of states, most commonly only two, establishing legal rights and obligations between those two states only.

The present system of international law remains largely consensual and centered on the sovereign state. It is within the discretion of each state to participate in the negotiation of, or to sign or ratify, any international treaty. Likewise, each member state of an international organization such as the UN is free to ratify any convention adopted by that organization. Treaty law thus is created by the express will of states.

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