CHAPTER II TREATIES
I CHARACTER AND FUNCTION OF TREATIES
Vattel, II. §§ 152, 153, 157, 163—Hall, § 107—Phillimore, II. § 44—Twiss, I. §§ 224-233—Taylor, §§ 341-342—Bluntschli, § 402—Heffter, § 81—Despagnet, Nos. 435-436—Pradier-Fodéré, II. Nos. 888-919—Rivier, II. pp. 33-40—Nys, III. pp. 18-20 and 43-48—Calvo, III. §§ 1567-1584—Fiore, II. Nos. 976-982—Martens, I. § 103—Bergbohm, "Staatsverträge und Gesetze als Quellen des Völkerrechts" (1877)—Jellinek, "Die rechtliche Natur der Staatenverträge" (1880)—Laghi, "Teoria dei trattati internazionali" (1882)—Buonamici, "Dei trattati internazionali" (1888)—Nippold, "Der völkerrechtliche Vertrag" (1894)—Triepel, "Völkerrecht und Landesrecht" (1899), pp. 27-90.
Conception of Treaties.
§ 491. International treaties are conventions or contracts between two or more States concerning various matters of interest. Even before a Law of Nations in the modern sense of the term was in existence, treaties used to be concluded between States. And although in those times treaties were neither based on nor were themselves a cause of an International Law, they were nevertheless considered sacred and binding on account of religious and moral sentiment. However, since the manifold intercourse of modern times did not then exist between the different States, treaties did not discharge such all-important functions in the life of humanity as they do now.
Different kinds of Treaties.
§ 492. These important functions are manifest if attention is given to the variety of international treaties which exist nowadays and are day by day concluded for innumerable purposes. In regard to State property, treaties are concluded of cession, of boundary, and many others. Alliances, treaties of protection, of guarantee, of neutrality, and of peace are concluded for political purposes. Various purposes are served by consular treaties, commercial[849] treaties, treaties in regard to the post, telegraphs, and railways, treaties of copyright and the like, of jurisdiction, of extradition, monetary treaties, treaties in regard to measures and weights, to rates, taxes, and custom-house duties, treaties on the matter of sanitation with respect to epidemics, treaties in the interest of industrial labourers, and treaties with regard to agriculture and industry. Again, various purposes are served by treaties concerning warfare, mediation, arbitration, and so on.
[849] See below, §§ [578]-[580].
I do not intend to discuss the question of classification of the different kinds of treaties, for hitherto all attempts[850] at such classification have failed. But there is one distinction to be made which is of the greatest importance and according to which the whole body of treaties is to be divided into two classes. For treaties may, on the one hand, be concluded for the purpose of confirming, defining, or abolishing existing customary rules, and of establishing new rules for the Law of Nations. Treaties of this kind ought to be termed law-making treaties. On the other hand, treaties may be concluded for all kinds of other purposes. Law-making treaties as a source of rules of International Law have been discussed above (§ [18]); the most important of these treaties will be considered below (§§ [556]-568b).