CYIL vol. 9 (2018)

CYIL 9 ȍ2018Ȏ CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW, INTERPRETATION OF TREATIES … CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW, INTERPRETATION OF TREATIES AND OTHER TOPICS AT THE 70 TH SESSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION Pavel Šturma * The International Law Commission (ILC) is the United Nations body whose object is the promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification. The ILC consists of 34 members who shall be persons of recognized competence in international law, elected by the General Assembly for a term of five years. This contribution aims at presenting the results of its work completed in 2018, as well as the on-going work and some new topics, including events related to the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of the Commission. The sessions of the Commission usually take part in Geneva and are split in two parts. This year however, the session was organized differently which also reflected the seventieth anniversary of the ILC. Its first part took place in New York (from 30 April until 1 June 2018) and was followed by a month break. Then the Commission resumed its session in Geneva on 2 July, the second part lasted until 10 August 2018. It means that this session was longer than usual; in total it lasted 11 weeks, which was justified by the very busy substantive programme as well as the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary. At its first meeting on 2 May 2018, the Commission elected the Chairperson of the ILC and other officers of the Bureau of the sixty-sixth session. 1 On some occasions, they also meet in the Enlarged Bureau, including in particular the Special Rapporteurs and chairpersons of Working Groups. The Commission also set up a Planning Group under the chairmanship of the First Vice-Chair. The ILC also established a Drafting Committee which met this year for all the topics to which draft articles or conclusions were sent: (a) Peremptory norms of general international law ( jus cogens ); (b) Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice in relation to the interpretation of treaties; (c) Identification of customary international law; (d) Provisional application of treaties; (e) Protection of the atmosphere; (f ) Protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts; and (g) Succession of States in respect of State responsibility. However, the Commission adopted the draft articles or conclusions with commentaries only with respect to two of the above-mentioned topics under (b) and (c), where it completed the second reading, and under (d), (e), and (f ). Some of the newly proposed draft conclusions on Jus cogens, as well as two draft articles and one new paragraph on Succession of States in respect of State responsibility were provisionally adopted only * Prof. JUDr. Pavel Šturma, DrSc. , is Head of the Department of International Law, Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Law of the Czech Academy of Sciences, President of the Czech Society of International Law, and member of the UN International Law Commission. He is a co- author of the textbook Public International Law and the author of many publications on the codification of international law, international criminal law, human rights, and international investment law. 1 Chairperson: Mr. Eduardo Valencia-Ospina (Colombia), First Vice-Chairperson: Mr. Pavel Šturma (Czech Republic), Second Vice-Chairperson: Mr. Hong Thao Nguyen (Viet Nam), Chairperson of the Drafting Committee: Mr. Charles Chernor Jalloh (Sierra Leone), Rapporteur: Ms. Patrícia Galvão Teles (Portugal). 1. Introduction and the organization of the seventieth session of the ILC

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