The Legal Nature of Treaties

In: American journal of international law: AJIL, Band 10, Heft 4, S. 706-736

Abstract

The celebrated scrap of paper incident is perhaps thought so effective a commentary on the "legal nature" of treaties that it needs no addition. "Treaties won't stand before policy and there's an end on't." The student of history is likely to take a more cautious view. He knows that treaties have been one-sidedly abrogated before. He knows that the ambiguous phrase rebus sic stantibus has generally been an implied accompaniment of treaties, and yet he knows that treaties have continued to be concluded and in general observed.