SECRETARY-GENERAL TO ADDRESS INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION AS IT MARKS FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
Press Release
L/2833
SECRETARY-GENERAL TO ADDRESS INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMISSION AS IT MARKS FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
19970701 (Reissued as received.)GENEVA, 1 July (UN Information Service) -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan will address the International Law Commission, which this year marks its fiftieth anniversary, on Friday, 4 July.
The Commission is at the root of basic standards on diplomatic and consular relations, international criminal law, law on treaties, and the law of the sea. The past and future work of the Commission will be the subject of a press conference by current Chairman Alain Pellet France on Tuesday, 8 July, at 3 p.m. in room III. Several of the Commission's 34 other members also are expected to attend.
In addition, the President of the International Court of Justice, Stephen M. Schwebel, will address the anniversary session of the Commission on Wednesday, 2 July.
The Commission's Chairman has stated that, "it is no exaggeration to say that the Commission has laid the foundations for a true constitutional law of the international community, of which the draft declaration on the rights and duties of States, and, above all, the draft articles on the law of treaties which led to the 'treaty of treaties', the 1969 Vienna Convention, are the most significant aspects".
Mr. Pellet also admits of the Commission that, "it is fashionable, in some circles, to deride its slow pace". Its draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, for example, completed last year and now before the General Assembly, was first taken up at the Commission's initial meeting in 1949, worked on until 1954, taken up again in 1981 and then negotiated for fifteen years, through 1996.
Currently the group is engaged in preparing draft articles on State responsibility and on liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law.
The Commission was established on 21 November 1947 by United Nations General Assembly resolution 174 (II); its first members were elected on 3 November 1948; and its first session was convened on 12 April 1949. It has since published final reports on some 24 topics and has produced over 20 sets of draft articles containing basic rules on a host of areas fundamental to international law.
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A new collection of essays by the Commission's members, International Law on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century*, notes that "many of these sets of draft articles have, in turn, been transformed into major global treaties within the fields to which they relate. Second, a number of these sets, through the medium of the conventions which have been elaborated on their basis, have assumed a structural or foundational position within the domains to which they relate. Indeed, certain such sets have become fundamental to the very conduct of relations between States. Third, the Commission has succeeded in integrating itself into the process of custom-formation, including, most strikingly of all, the process for the creation of new rules of customary international law".
Among the Commission's major achievements are draft articles which formed the basis, respectively, for the Convention on the Law of Treaties adopted at vienna in May 1996; the Convention on Diplomatic Relations (Vienna, 1961); the Convention on Consular Relations (Vienna, 1963); and the International Organizations of a Universal Character (Vienna, 1975).
"At the same time as certain of the Commission's draft articles have become fundamental to the very conduct of international relations," the introduction notes, "certain other sets have played a role which is structural to an entire field of domain of international law, setting forth principles and rules which define the basic lineaments of the law... This is certainly so in the case of draft articles concerning the law of the sea, adopted by the Commission in 1956. The four 1958 Geneva Conventions which were elaborated on the basis of those draft articles laid down a body of rules which, in large part and for a number of years at least, constituted the prevailing law of the sea.... They went on, moreover, to serve as models for significant parts of the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea, done at Montego Bay on 10 December 1982, in particular the parts of that Convention which relate to the regimes of the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf and the high seas".
The Commission's role in "custom formation" is illustrated by law-of-the-sea provisions relating to the continental shelf before it began work on the law of the sea in the 1950s, the continental shelf had no positive status in custom.
In the field of international criminal law, the Commission has produced three influential sets of draft articles: the principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal; a draft statute for an International Court; and the recently completed draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind.
The Commission meets each year in Geneva in May, June and July, for sessions lasting from 10 to 12 weeks.
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* International Law on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, United Nations Publication Sales No. E/F 97.V4, ISBN 92-1-133512-4