CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

RAINER HOFMANN – CORNELIA KIRCHBACH CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ in its communiqué to return to “full and verifiable” compliance of the treaty with the USA during the next six months and to make effort to keep it valid. “If Russia does not honour its obligations under the INF treaty through verifiable destruction of all its 9M729 systems, ... the responsibility for defeating the treaty will be solely on the side of Russia.” 49 Russia considers these demands to be ultimate. Thus, on the basis of Article XV of the Treaty, the United States will probably withdraw from the INF Treaty and the treaty will cease to exist. If Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties were to apply to this case, the process would not be so simple. The alleged breach of contract by one party allows the other party to invoke within the meaning of Article 60 (1) the breach as a ground for its cessation or interruption of implementation of the treaty. The denial of the breach of the treaty by the other state may, within the meaning of Article 65 (3) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, give rise to a dispute to which the contracting parties are obliged to resolve. However, in the present case, as far as Article 65 is concerned, it is merely a contractual provision, the United States is not a party to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. “General international law does not require international disputes to be resolved” 50 . Article 65 (4) refers to special obligations relating to the settlement of disputes between the Contracting Parties. Thus, Article 65 provides further limits to any arbitrariness 51 in the conduct of a Contracting Party. Based on the INF Treaty under Article XIII, a Special Verification Commission was set up for the assessment of contentious issues in contractual performance. Russia has proposed resolving disputed issues within its framework 52 . Conclusion Most of the arms reduction and disarmament treaties contain special provisions on withdrawal in the sense of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This is a special provision (lex specialis) that should be preferably used in these cases. However, the general rules on withdrawal contained in Articles 60-62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are equally applicable to treaties that contain withdrawal provisions as to the treaties that do not contain withdrawal provisions. The general rules on withdrawal are supplemented by special withdrawal rules with the possibility of the contracting party to only suspend the implementation of the treaty. A treaty was suspended by Russia in 2007 in the case of theTreaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe of 1990. Arms and Disarmament Restrictions often (but not always) include the reason for withdrawal, consisting of exceptional events associated with the implementation of the treaty. In practice, it appears that the application of special withdrawal provisions in armament and disarmament treaties does not create any obstacles on the side of the other contracting states, although not all the conditions for withdrawal have always been met. One example is the withdrawal of the USA from the ABM Treaty in 2001, or the DPRK from the NPT Treaty, in 2003. The application of Article 60 49 CTK Czech newspaper the USA withdraws from the rocket contract, the negotiations can still take half a year. In: www.ceskenoviny.cz from 1 February 2019 (quoted 5 May 2019). 50 ŠTURMA, P., ČEPELKA, Č., BALAŠ, V. Právo mezinárodních smluv . Plzeň: Aleš Čeněk, 2011, p. 186. 51 Ibid. 52 TŮMA, M. Existuje hrozba opětovného rozmístění jaderných „Euroraket“ z doby studené války v Evropě? [It exists threat again deployment Nuclear “Eurorackets” of the Cold War era in Europe?]. Praha: Ústav mezinárodních vztahů. Centrum mezinárodního práva z 20. 12. 2018, p. 4.

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