Tratado

Un tratado es un acuerdo debajo del derecho internacional entrados por actores que son estados soberanos y organizaciones internacionales. Un tratado puede también ser conocido como un acuerdo internacional, un protocolo, una convención, un intercambio de cartas, etc. Sin importar la terminología empleada, todos estos acuerdos internacionales debajo del derecho internacional son igualmente tratados y las reglas que siguen son las mismas.

Los tratados pueden ser comparados a los contratos: ambos son medios de partes con voluntad de asumir obligaciones, y una parte a cualquier que no cumple con sus obligaciones pueden ser considerados culpables frente al derecho internacional.

Significados relacionados

Un tratado es un documento oficial cual exprese un acuerdo en palabras; y es el objetivo de una ocasión ceremonial cual reconoce las partes y sus relaciones definidas.

El principio central de las relaciones internacionales se expresa en el dicho pacta sunt servanda ("los pactos se deben respetar); y esto se puede ilustrar por el tratado Schengen a pesar del hecho que realmente no fue firmado en Schengen, Luxemburgo, pero en el Río Moselle entre Alemania, Francia y Luxemburgo;<ref>Lungescu, Oana. "Fortress Europe," BBC World Service. July 1998.</ref> El dicho no está afectado, incluso después del Acuerdo Schengen perdió el estátus de un tratado cual podría ser enmendado únicamente según sus terminos.<ref>Decisión de Consejo del 22 de diciembre de 2004 proveendo ciertas zonas cubiertas por Título IV de Parte Tres del Tratado estableciendo una Comunidad Europea gobernada por el procedimiento explicado en Artículo 251 de ese Tratado</ref> Schengen ha sido incluido entre otros tratados de la UE más amplias.<ref>Por ejemplo: por artículo 39 subsección 1 del Código de Fronteras Schengen, Artículos 2 y 8 del Acuerdo Schengen habían sido removidos ver Regulación de la CE No 562/2006 del Parlamento Europeo y del Consejo del 15 de marzo 2006 estableciendo un Código Comunitario sobre las reglas gobernando el movimiento de las personas por las fronteras (Código de Fronteras Schengen).</ref>

Un "tratado" en un sentido abstracto también puede hacer referencia al tema del pacto o elementos del pacto mismo.<ref>Domains and Dimensions in Metonymy: A Corpus-Based Study of Schengen and Maastricht Halverson, Sandra L. Halverson et al. "Domains and Dimensions in Metonymy: A Corpus-Based Study of Schengen and Maastricht," Metaphor and Symbol, 1532-7868, Vol. 25, Issue 1, 2010, pp. 1 – 18.</ref>

En otras palabras, el termino tratado conlleva las palabras explicitas del Acuerdo Schengen impresa sobre hojas de papel, firmando el tratado de Schengen, y la implementación y consecuencias actuales consideradas por ellos quienes escribieron las palabras y ellos quiens firmaron por parte de cinco naciones Europeas.<ref>Natase, Vivi and Michael Strube. "Combining collocations, lexical and encyclopedic knowledge for metonymy resolution," Proceedings of the 2009 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Volume 2, August 06-07, 2009, at 915 citing Farkas, Richard et al. GYDER: maxent metonymy resolution," Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluations, Prague, Czech Republic, pp. 161-164, 2007; excerpt, "Schengen boosted tourism" ... [ignores] narrower distinctions, such as the fact that it wasn't the signing of the treaty at Schengen but its actual implementation (which didn't take place at Schengen) that boosted tourism."</ref>

La Convención de Viena sobre la Ley de Tratados ha codificada los significados distintos del derecho internacional de costumbre, entrando en fuerza en 1980.<ref>Organization of American States (OAS), Vienna Convention</ref> Los estados que no lo han ratificado pueden sin embargo reconocerlo con fuerza dado que está repitiendo lo entendido por derecho por costumbre.<ref>United States Department of State, Vienna Convention</ref>

Tratados bilaterales y multilaterales

Un tratado multilateral tiene varias diferencias, y establece los derechos y obligaciones entre cada parte y los demás. Los tratados multilaterales frecuentemente, pero no siempre, están abiertas a cualquier estado; otros son regionales.

Los tratados bilaterales en contraste se negocia entre un número limitado de estados, frecuentemente entre solamente dos, estableciendo derechos y obligaciones legales entre únicamente esos dos estados. Es posible, sin embargo, para que un tratado bilateral tiene más de dos partes; considera por ejemplo los tratados bilaterales entre Suiza y la Unión Europea (UE) siguien el rechazo suizo del acuerdo del Área Económico Europeo. Cada uno de estos tratados tiene diecisiete partes. Sin embargo son tratados bilaterales, no multilaterales. Las partes están divididas entre dos grupos, los Suizos ("por una parte") y la UE y sus estados miembros ("por otra parte"). El tratado establece los derechos y las obligaciones entre los suizos y la UE y sus estados multiples;; no establece derechos y obligaciones entre la UE y sus estados miembros. Sin embargo, existen situaciones en dónde la legalidad puede interferir con el tratado, causando arrestos irrazonables.

Agregando y enmendando obligaciones de tratados

Reservas

Las reservas son esencialmente excepciones a que un estado acepta un tratado. Las reservas son expresiones unilaterales pretendiendo excluir o modificar la obligación legal y sus efectos en el estado manteniendo la reserva.<ref>Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 2 Sec. 1(d) Text of the Convention</ref> Estos tienen que ser incluidos a la hora de firmar o ratificar-una parte no puede agregar una reserva después de que ya se ha unido a un tratado.

Originalmente, el derecho internacional no aceptó las reserva a los tratados, rechazandolos menos que todas las partes al tratado aceptaron las mismas reservas. Sin embargo, en el interés de fomentar el número más grande posible unirse a tratados, una regla más permisiva con respecto a las reservas ha emergida. Mientras que algunos tratados todavía expresamente prohíben cualquier reserva, ahora están generalmente permitidas hasta donde no sean inconsistentes con los objetivos y propósitos del tratado.

Cuando un estado limite sus obligaciones de tratado a través de reservas, otros estados parte a ese tratado tienen la opción de aceptar esas reservas, objetarlas, o objetar y oponerlas. Si el estado las acepta (o no actúe), tanto el estado con reservas y aceptandola están sin necesidad de observar la obligación legal reservada con respecto a sus obligaciones legales frente a la otra parte (aceptando la reserva no cambia las obligaciones legales del estado que acepta el tratado ni otras partes del tratado). Si el estado se opone, las partes del tratado afectadas por la reserva caen por completo y ya no crean obligaciones legales a ninguna parte. Finalmente, si el estado objeta y oponga, no existen obligaciones legales debajo del tratado entre las dos partes de ninguna clase. El estado objetor y opositor esencialmente rehúse reconocer que el estado con reservas sea una parte del tratado.<ref> Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article II, Reservations.</ref>

Enmiendas

Existen tres maneras de que un tratado existente puede ser enmendado. Primero, una enmienda formal requiere que las partes Estados al tratado pueden volver a ratificar el tratado de nuevo. La re-negociación de las provisiones del tratado puede ser prolongado, y frecuentemente algunas partes del tratado original no volverán a hacer partes al tratado enmendado. Cuando determinando las obligaciones legales de los estados, una parte al tratado original y una parte al tratado enmendado, los estados únicamente estarán rigidos por los terminos en dónde ambas partes están de acuerdo. Los tratados también pueden ser enmendados informalmente por un consejo ejecutivo del tratado cuando los cambios son únicamente de procedimiento, técnicos o administrativos (no cambios de principios). Finalmente, un cambio en el derecho internacional de costumbre (comportamiento de estados) también pueden enmendar un tratado, en dónde el comportamiento de un estado causa una nueva interpretación de las obligaciones legales debajo del tratado. Correcciones menores al tratado pueden ser adoptados de manera verbal; pero un procès-verbal

is generally reserved for changes to rectify obvious errors in the text adopted, i.e. where the text adopted does not correctly reflect the intention of the parties adopting it.

Protocols

In international law and international relations, a protocol is generally a treaty or international agreement that supplements a previous treaty or international agreement. A protocol can amend the previous treaty, or add additional provisions. Parties to the earlier agreement are not required to adopt the protocol; sometimes this is made clearer by calling it an "optional protocol", especially where many parties to the first agreement do not support the protocol.

Some examples: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established a framework for the development of binding greenhouse gas emission limits, while the Kyoto Protocol contained the specific provisions and regulations later agreed upon.

Execution and implementation

Treaties may be seen as 'self-executing', in that merely becoming a party puts the treaty and all of its obligations in action. Other treaties may be non-self-executing and require 'implementing legislation'—a change in the domestic law of a state party that will direct or enable it to fulfill treaty obligations. An example of a treaty requiring such legislation would be one mandating local prosecution by a party for particular crimes.

The division between the two is often not clear and is often politicized in disagreements within a government over a treaty, since a non-self-executing treaty cannot be acted on without the proper change in domestic law. If a treaty requires implementing legislation, a state may be in default of its obligations by the failure of its legislature to pass the necessary domestic laws.

Interpretation

The language of treaties, like that of any law or contract, must be interpreted when the wording does not seem clear or it is not immediately apparent how it should be applied in a perhaps unforeseen circumstance. The Vienna Convention states that treaties are to be interpreted “in good faith” according to the “ordinary meaning given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.” International legal experts also often invoke the 'principle of maximum effectiveness,' which interprets treaty language as having the fullest force and effect possible to establish obligations between the parties.

No one party to a treaty can impose its particular interpretation of the treaty upon the other parties. Consent may be implied, however, if the other parties fail to explicitly disavow that initially unilateral interpretation, particularly if that state has acted upon its view of the treaty without complaint. Consent by all parties to the treaty to a particular interpretation has the legal effect of adding an additional clause to the treaty - this is commonly called an 'authentic interpretation'.

International tribunals and arbiters are often called upon to resolve substantial disputes over treaty interpretations. To establish the meaning in context, these judicial bodies may review the preparatory work from the negotiation and drafting of the treaty as well as the final, signed treaty itself.

Consequences of terminology

One significant part of treaty making is that signing a treaty implies recognition that the other side is a sovereign state and that the agreement being considered is enforceable under international law. Hence, nations can be very careful about terming an agreement to be a treaty. For example, within the United States agreements between states are compacts and agreements between states and the federal government or between agencies of the government are memoranda of understanding.

Another situation can occur when one party wishes to create an obligation under international law, but the other party does not. This factor has been at work with respect to discussions between North Korea and the United States over security guarantees and nuclear proliferation.

The terminology can also be confusing because a treaty may and usually is named something other than a treaty, such as a convention, protocol, or simply agreement. Conversely some legal documents such as the Treaty of Waitangi are internationally considered to be documents under domestic law.

Ending treaty obligations

See also: Denunciation

Withdrawal

Treaties are not necessarily permanently binding upon the signatory parties. As obligations in international law are traditionally viewed as arising only from the consent of states, many treaties expressly allow a state to withdraw as long as it follows certain procedures of notification. Many treaties expressly forbid withdrawal. Other treaties are silent on the issue, and so if a state attempts withdrawal through its own unilateral denunciation of the treaty, a determination must be made regarding whether permitting withdrawal is contrary to the original intent of the parties or to the nature of the treaty. Human rights treaties, for example, are generally interpreted to exclude the possibility of withdrawal, because of the importance and permanence of the obligations.Plantilla:Citation needed

If a state party's withdrawal is successful, its obligations under that treaty are considered terminated, and withdrawal by one party from a bilateral treaty of course terminates the treaty. When a state withdraws from a multi-lateral treaty, that treaty will still otherwise remain in force between the other parties, unless, of course, otherwise should or could be interpreted as agreed upon between the remaining states parties to the treaty.Plantilla:Citation needed

Suspension and termination

If a party has materially violated or breached its treaty obligations, the other parties may invoke this breach as grounds for temporarily suspending their obligations to that party under the treaty. A material breach may also be invoked as grounds for permanently terminating the treaty itself.Plantilla:Citation needed

A treaty breach does not automatically suspend or terminate treaty relations, however. The issue must be presented to an international tribunal or arbiter (usually specified in the treaty itself) to legally establish that a sufficiently serious breach has in fact occurred. Otherwise, a party that prematurely and perhaps wrongfully suspends or terminates its own obligations due to an alleged breach itself runs the risk of being held liable for breach. Additionally, parties may choose to overlook treaty breaches while still maintaining their own obligations towards the party in breach.Plantilla:Citation needed

Treaties sometimes include provisions for self-termination, meaning that the treaty is automatically terminated if certain defined conditions are met. Some treaties are intended by the parties to be only temporarily binding and are set to expire on a given date. Other treaties may self-terminate if the treaty is meant to exist only under certain conditions.Plantilla:Citation needed

A party may claim that a treaty should be terminated, even absent an express provision, if there has been a fundamental change in circumstances. Such a change is sufficient if unforeseen, if it undermined the “essential basis” of consent by a party, if it radically transforms the extent of obligations between the parties, and if the obligations are still to be performed. A party cannot base this claim on change brought about by its own breach of the treaty. This claim also cannot be used to invalidate treaties that established or redrew political boundaries.Plantilla:Citation needed

Invalid treaties

There are several reasons an otherwise valid and agreed upon treaty may be rejected as a binding international agreement, most of which involve problems created at the formation of the treaty.Plantilla:Citation needed

Ultra vires treaties

A party's consent to a treaty is invalid if it had been given by an agent or body without power to do so under that state's domestic law. States are reluctant to inquire into the internal affairs and processes of other states, and so a “manifest” violation is required such that it would be “objectively evident to any State dealing with the matter". A strong presumption exists internationally that a head of state has acted within his proper authority. It seems that no treaty has ever actually been invalidated on this provision.Plantilla:Citation needed

Consent is also invalid if it is given by a representative who ignored restrictions he is subject to by his sovereign during the negotiations, if the other parties to the treaty were notified of those restrictions prior to his signing.Plantilla:Citation needed

According to the preamble in The Law of treaties, treaties are a source of international law. If an act or lack thereof is condemned under international law, the act will not assume international legality even if approved by internal law.<ref>Article 3, Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts Adopted by ILC 53 session 2001.

</ref>  This means that in case of a conflict with domestic law, international law will always prevail.<ref> Article 27, Vienna Convention on the Law of treaties, Vienna 23 May 1969 jfr. P 2, World T.R. 2007, 6(1), 45-87

</ref>

Misunderstanding, fraud, corruption, coercion

Articles 46-53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties set out the only ways that treaties can be invalidated—considered unenforceable and void under international law. A treaty will be invalidated due to either the circumstances by which a state party joined the treaty, or due to the content of the treaty itself. Invalidation is separate from withdrawal, suspension, or termination (addressed above), which all involve an alteration in the consent of the parties of a previously valid treaty rather than the invalidation of that consent in the first place.

A state's consent may be invalidated if there was an erroneous understanding of a fact or situation at the time of conclusion, which formed the "essential basis" of the state's consent. Consent will not be invalidated if the misunderstanding was due to the state's own conduct, or if the truth should have been evident.

Consent will also be invalidated if it was induced by the fraudulent conduct of another party, or by the direct or indirect "corruption" of its representative by another party to the treaty. Coercion of either a representative, or the state itself through the threat or use of force, if used to obtain the consent of that state to a treaty, will invalidate that consent.

Peremptory norms

A treaty is null and void if it is in violation of a peremptory norm. These norms, unlike other principles of customary law, are recognized as permitting no violations and so cannot be altered through treaty obligations. These are limited to such universally accepted prohibitions as those against genocide, slavery, torture, and piracy, meaning that no state can legally assume an obligation to commit or permit such acts.Plantilla:Citation needed

Role of the United Nations

The United Nations Charter states that treaties must be registered with the UN to be invoked before it or enforced in its judiciary organ, the International Court of Justice. This was done to prevent the proliferation of secret treaties that occurred in the 19th and 20th century. The Charter also states that its members' obligations under it outweigh any competing obligations under other treaties.

After their adoption, treaties as well as their amendments have to follow the official legal procedures of the United Nations, as applied by the Office of Legal Affairs, including signature, ratification and entry into force.

In function and effectiveness, the UN has been compared to the pre-Constitutional United States Federal government by some, giving a comparison between modern treaty law and the historical Articles of Confederation.

Relation between national law and treaties by country

Brazilian law

Article 84 of the Brazilian federal constitution of 1988 sets out, in its clause VIII, that the president is the only one capable of signing international treaties; its internal implementation, however, demands the approval of the Congress (Chamber of Deputies, together with the Senate), according to Article 49, paragraph I of the constitution.

United States law

Plantilla:Main In the United States, the term "treaty" has a different, more restricted legal sense than exists in international law. U.S. law distinguishes what it calls treaties from treaty executive agreements, congressional-executive agreements, and sole executive agreements. All four classes are equally treaties under international law; they are distinct only from the perspective of internal American law. The distinctions are primarily concerning their method of ratification. Whereas treaties require advice and consent by two-thirds of the Senate, sole executive agreements may be executed by the President acting alone. Some treaties grant the President the authority to fill in the gaps with executive agreements, rather than additional treaties or protocols. And finally, congressional-executive agreements require majority approval by both the House and the Senate, either before or after the treaty is signed by the President.

Currently, international agreements are executed by executive agreement rather than treaties at a rate of 10:1. Despite the relative ease of executive agreements, the President still often chooses to pursue the formal treaty process over an executive agreement in order to gain congressional support on matters that require the Congress to pass implementing legislation or appropriate funds, and those agreements that impose long-term, complex legal obligations on the U.S.

See the article on the Bricker Amendment for history of the relationship between treaty powers and Constitutional provisions.

Treaties and indigenous peoples

Treaties formed an important part of European colonization and, in many parts of the world, Europeans attempted to legitimize their sovereignty by signing treaties with indigenous peoples. In most cases these treaties were in extremely disadvantageous terms to the native people, who often did not appreciate the implications of what they were signing.

In some rare cases, such as with Ethiopia and Qing Dynasty China, the local governments were able to use the treaties to at least mitigate the impact of European colonization. This involved learning the intricacies of European diplomatic customs and then using the treaties to prevent a power from overstepping their agreement or by playing different powers against each other.

In other cases, such as New Zealand and Canada, treaties allowed native peoples to maintain a minimum amount of autonomy. In the case of indigenous Australians, unlike with the Māori of New Zealand, no treaty was ever entered into with the indigenous peoples entitling the Europeans to land ownership, under the doctrine of terra nullius (later overturned by Mabo v Queensland, establishing the concept of native title well after colonization was already a fait accompli). Such treaties between colonizers and indigenous peoples are an important part of political discourse in the late 20th and early 21st century, the treaties being discussed have international standing as has been stated in a treaty study by the UN.

United States

Prior to 1871 the government of the United States regularly entered into treaties with Native Americans of the United States but the Indian Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871 (ch. 120, 16 Stat. 566) had a rider (Plantilla:UnitedStatesCode) attached that effectively ended the President’s treaty making by providing that no Indian nation or tribe shall be acknowledged as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty. The federal government continued to provide similar contractual relations with the Indian tribes after 1871 by agreements, statutes, and executive orders.<ref>Page 12 of the introduction to Forest Service National Resource Guide to American Indian and Alaska Native Relations Author: Joe Mitchell, Publish date: 12/5/97 US Forest Service - Caring for the land and serving people.</ref>

See also

• List of intergovernmental organizations
• List of special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement
• List of treaties
• Manrent (feudal Scottish Clan treaty)
• Treaty ratification
• Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

Notes

<references group=""></references>

External links

• United Nations Treaty Collection
  • UN Treaty Collection - Treaty Guide
• TreatyLaw.org is a dedicated web site featuring academic papers and resources
• UN Cyberschoolbus - UN Core Treaties
• The International Law of Treaties
• ISEA International Energy Treaties
• Treaties from UCB Libraries GovPubs
• Resource Guide on Treaties from the American Society of International Law
• Treaty Affairs at the United States Department of State
• Treaties Office at the European Union
• Treaties Section of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Ecuadorian Treaties