Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T16:24:55.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Evidence of U.S. Treaty Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2016

Salo Engel
Get access

Extract

According to Article 24 of its Statute, the International Law Commission “shall consider ways and means for making the evidence of customary international law more readily available”. The existence of such law is indeed difficult to prove even at the national level; how much more so in the international sphere. This, however, should not mislead one to think that there are no problems with regard to treaty law. On the international level it may not be too difficult to determine whether a treaty exists on a particular question, but information about the exact status of the treaty (its entry into force, the parties thereto, the amendments thereof, etc.) in most cases is not easily available. Wherefore, I proposed many years ago the creation of an International Legislation Register which would contain up-to-date information at least about the status of multi-partite treaties of general interest.

Type
Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1972 , pp. 361 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Engel, , “On the Status of International Legislation” (1950) 44 Am.J.I.L. 737 at 739.Google Scholar

2 (1959) 53 Am.J.I.L. 889 at 892.

3 U.S. Treaty Developments, see infra p. 363.

4 Treaties and other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776–1949, ed. by Bevans, Ch., vol. I, p. III, Dept. of State Publ. 8407 (Washington, 1968).Google Scholar

5 88th Congress, 1st Sess. Senate Doc. 39.

6 61st Congress, 2nd Sess. Senate Doc. 357; 67th Congress 4th Sess. Senate Doc. 348; 75th Congress 3rd Sess. Senate Doc. 134.

7 187 (42%) out of the 449 multilateral treaties published in the multilateral part of the Bevans edition referred to in the following footnote, were no longer in force at the time of their publication while 262 (58%) treaties were still in force then.

8 Multilateral Treaties: vol. I: 1776–1917; vol. 2: 1918–1930; vol. 3: 1931–1945; vol. 4: 1946–1949; Dept. of State Publications 8407, 8441, 8484, and 8521 (Washington, 1968–1970. For an evaluation of this publication see my book review in (March, 1971) 65 American Political Science Review 234–6.

9 The first volume of the bilateral treaties which is vol. 5 of the entire Bevans series has also been published; see ibid. vol. 5: Afghanistan-Burma, Dept. of State Publ. 8543 (Washington, 1970).

10 For the status on January 1, 1971, see Dept. of State Publ. 8567 (Washington, 1971).

11 See the Preface to this publication.

12 See the letter of the Department of State mentioned infra p. 365.

13 91st Congress, 2nd Sess. S. 3308 and H.R. 15744. Prior to his premature death Senator Estes Kefauver had introduced the same bill in the Senate (S. 3002, 86th Congress; S. 625, 87th Congress).

14 See Queen's University Treaty Project, Cumulative Progress Report to the Canadian International Development Agency (for the period ending March 15, 1970)Google Scholar, Working Paper No. 8, pp. 1, 2, 9, 14.