CYIL 2015

PAVEL ŠTURMA CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ Study Group and its Chairman, Mr. Donald McRae, its deep appreciation and warm congratulations. The Commission thus completed its consideration of the topic. It is a future use of the study on the MFN clause in State practice, in particular when drafting new international investment agreements, and in practice of international courts and arbitration tribunals, that will enable us to evaluate the importance of the work achieved by the ILC’s Study Group. 3. Conclusion The session of the ILC in 2015 had again a very demanding programme, this time more by the number of topics discussed than by the adopted final products. The Commission addressed not less than 8 different topics, although the consideration of some of them was relatively brief, for the above mentioned reasons. In fact, while the ILC completed only the work of the Study Group on the Most-Favoured-Nation clause, its activity was much broader than may appear from the report. The reason is that, due to the lack of time, many draft articles or conclusions or principles were discussed and, with the exception of the topic “Provisional application of treaties”, provisionally adopted by the Drafting Committee, but the Commission only took note of the report of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee. It is a peculiarity of the work of the ILC that the outcomes of topics where the debate in the Drafting Committee is completed or takes place only during the second (Summer) part of the session have little chance to be adopted in Plenary. The Commission only adopts draft articles (conclusions, etc.) together with commentaries, drafted by Special Rapporteurs once the consideration, and sometimes reformulation, of draft articles has been completed. To do justice to the Commission, its work both in Plenary and the Drafting Committee was intensive and prepared many new draft articles and conclusions for adoption in 2016. On balance, in 2015 the Commission started its work on the Crimes against humanity, which may result in draft articles concerning, in particular, a horizontal cooperation of States in criminal matters, and decided to place on its programme a new topic on Jus cogens . However, the lack of time did not allow organizing informal consultations on those extremely interesting topics during the second part of the session. That is why the proposal of the ILC was adopted to have allocated up to 12 weeks for its session in 2016. It will be the last year of this quinquennium when the Commission will seek to finalize as many topics as possible. It includes the adoption of draft articles on Protection of persons in the event of disasters (second reading) and draft conclusions on Identification of customary international law (first reading). However, important progress may also be expected in other topics, such as Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice, Protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts and Immunity of State officials from foreign criminal

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