Unilateral Denunciation of Treaties: The Vienna Convention and the International Court of Justice

Abstract

The final preambular paragraph of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties affirms “that the rules of customary internationallaw will continue to govern questions not regulated by the provisions of the present Convention;” and Article 4 of the Convention, establishing the nonretroactivity of the Convention by providing that it “applies only totreaties which are concluded by States, after the entry into force of the present Convention with regard to such States,” stipulates that this nonretroactivity is “ [w]ithout prejudice to the application of any rules set forth in the present Convention to which treaties would be subject under international law independently of the Convention.”