Public International Law: Interpretation of Treaties and Article 31(3) (c) of VCLT

Public International Law 1
Public International Law
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Public International Law 2
Public International Law
Introduction
Public international law has not been inactive in the last few decades. There are many
developments, specifically in the law of treaties, in which improved concern in Article 31(3) (c)
of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties (VCLT) OF 1969 of May 29, 1969 has
increased. Any investigation of the VCLT should start by recalling the apparent truism that the
convention is never used in isolation; however, the Convention is always in combination with
another treaty where it can provide residual rules1. The application of the VCLT will normally
bring into play some elements of what may be called for expediency the relativity of treaties2.
The relativity can be one of substance such when, particularly Article 31(3) (c) of VLCT
concerns the obligations along with rights of parties to diverse treaties that relates to similar
subject matter or there can be other relativities, governed by the legal plus logic standards3. The
propagation of international courts along with tribunals integrated with the growth of the fields,
as well as solidity of guideline of the international law has led to the increase in the deliberation
on the matter of disintegration of international law. In this situation, as well as as a probable
reaction to this anxiety of disintegration, the subject of interpretation with particular position to
Article 31(3) (c) of the Vienna Convention has elicited a great debate4.
1 French, D. “Treaty Interpretation and the Incorporation of Extraneous Legal Rules”, 55 Intl. & Com. L.
Quart. 2, p. 302 (2006).
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3 Jonas, D.S. & Saunders, T.N. “The Object and Purpose of a Treaty: Three Interpretive Methods”,
43,Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, 3. P. 565-609 (2010).
4 Rosentreter, D. Article 31(3)(C) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Principle of
Systemic Integration in International Investment Law and Arbitration. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015).

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The sudden interest concerning the provisions of the article may be connected to the build
up of several elements. Thus, the current expansion of the international tribunals along with
courts resulted in a growing fear of fragmentation was evident during the 6th Committee
discussion that was delegated to the International Law Commission (ILC) concerning
fragmentation at both the institutional and a normative level. The paper will examine the
effectiveness and the relevancy of the provisions of the VCLT, especially Article 31 on
interpretation of treaties after 50 years of its existence5.
Setting the Scene
During the 1950s, the international community made the decision to focus its attention to
the concern of interpretation along with call upon all its accessible assets to deal with complexity
intrinsic to it. The International Law Commission discussed regardless of whether interpretation
must consider a broader collection of values along with principles of the international legal
orders plus not be only limited to the minute, as well as hazardously indistinct class of universal
principles6. Article 31 of the Convention is believed to embody the code of “systemic
integration”, where it is thought to have come to be called “master key” the community of
international law7. Therefore, taking into consideration the rejuvenated comprehending of the
5 Smith, C.E. The Rhetoric of Justification, in The Rhetoric of Sincerity: Cultural Memory in the Present (E.T.
Alphen, M.G. van Bal & C.E. Smith eds., Stanford U. Press 2009).
6 Koskenniemi, M. “The Fate of Public International Law: Between Technique and Politics”, 70 Mod. L. Rev.
1 (2007).
7 Guzman, A.T. “Saving Customary International Law”, 27 Mich. J. Int’l L. 115, 124–28, (2005).

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article, this stipulation can be the technique for evolution on the construal by allusion to
resources without powerful link with specific treaty8.
Obviously, the majority of tax academicians taken the effect of the Article 31 to be
restricted in line with the discussion of the status of OECD commentary since the discussion
occurred prior to the publication of the “Fragmentation Report” (2006) along with “Oil
Platforms”. 9 The primary concept of the Fragmentation Report was that the different treaties are
not applied along with interpreted in a vacuum10. They believed that a treaty contain a normative
setting that cannot be disregarded, but should be taken into consideration. Certainly, all
international law subsists in a universal association with other regulation plus thus, no treaty
relevance may happen devoid of putting the appropriate tool in its normative setting. For this
reason, the instrument should normally be interpreted besides used in the background of its
normative setting11.
The Operation of Article 31(3) (c) of Vienna Convention
There is no legal text drafted by human being may perhaps be ideal in a manner, which it
never give rise to any uncertainty to its capacity or real implication. The legal text both in the
international and on the nationwide scale requires to be interpreted by the individuals.
8 Engelen, F. A. Interpretation of Tax Treaties under International Law. A Study of Articles 31, 32 and 33
of Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and Their Application to Tax Treaties (Amsterdam: International
Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, 2004) .
9 Rosentreter, D. Article 31(3)(C)
10 Rietiker, D. “The Principle of “Effectiveness”in the Recent Jurisprudence of the European Court of
Human Rights: Its Different Dimensions and Its Consistency with Public International Law No Need for the Concept
of Treaty Sui Generis”, 79 Nordic J. Intl. L. 2, pp. 271-275 (2010).
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