Clean slate rule

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The clean slate rule ( English slate = slate) is an international law principle according to which the international responsibility of a successor states by way of newly created subject of international law with respect to the succession in international treaties starts at zero. In the older German-language international law literature, the tabula rasa principle is also used. The states that emerged from the decolonization after the Second World War justified their need for sovereignty with this approach, which, however, entails considerable legal uncertainty.

According to the older principle of universal succession , each successor state automatically enters into all treaties of the predecessor. The idea of universal succession was borrowed from private inheritance law and was based on the natural law understanding of state territory as the private property of the absolutist sovereign . Representatives of this theory of continuity were mainly Hugo Grotius , Samuel von Pufendorf , Emer de Vattel and Henry Wheaton .

The doctrine and a problem outline

The fate of treaties with third countries

For the creation of a responsibility under international law (e.g. as a result of a violation of applicable international law) or an obligation, the subjectivity of international law (e.g. states or international organizations ) is required, which is tied to certain conditions. If a new state emerges as a result of state succession , it cannot have incurred any obligations or responsibilities under international law for acts contrary to international law due to the lack of existence or the lack of the international legal subjectivity required to participate in international legal transactions.

This in itself logical conclusion would not need to be legitimized as a principle of international law if there were not significant conflicting interests that made it necessary to relativize this principle. For example, if this legal principle were to be unrestrictedly valid, the neighboring states of such a new state could not invoke a border treaty concluded with the predecessor state. Contracts on the use of border waters, rights to exploit natural resources or transit regulations could no longer be claimed by other subjects of international law. The same would be the case with foreign debts, obligations under international law or other liabilities of a state.

Tabula rasa doctrine

The tabula rasa principle was formulated in Art. 16 of the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in treaties of 1978, but was supplemented by an option right in favor of the continuation of multilateral treaties in Art. 17 (1). In this respect, the term free choice doctrine is more appropriate.

In the case of dismembration , rooted , i.e. area- related contracts such as border treaties (Art. 11 and 12 of the Vienna Convention ) and treaties for the protection of human rights , universal succession is to be assumed, but not for membership in international organizations .

Recent developments

The collapse of the Soviet Union , the collapse of the SFR Yugoslavia and the reunification of Germany and Yemen at the beginning of the 1990s revived the discussions about the doctrine of state succession and underlined its practical relevance. Oriented on the general legal principle res transit cum suo onere (the matter passes with its burdens) as well as the burden and benefit theory developed in common law , the current conception of state succession is based on the proportionality of the takeover of state assets and state debt .

According to the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in Assets, Archives and Debt of States of 1983, in the event of assignment, secession and dismembration, in the absence of an agreement in this regard, the national debts should be transferred to the successor state in an appropriate ratio.

An example is the agreement of July 6, 1992 on the distribution of all property of the former USSR abroad.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eberhard Menzel , Knut Ipsen , Volker Epping et al .: Völkerrecht. A study book. Munich, 6th edition 2014, pp. 143 ff., Margin no. 191 ff., ISBN 978-3-406-57294-4 ( PDF ).
  2. ^ Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties. Vienna, 23 August 1978 (PDF), see Art. 16 f.
  3. ↑ Hans D. Treviranus: The United Nations Convention on State Succession in Contracts. Results of the conference in Vienna 1977 and 1978 , 1979, pp. 267/268 ( PDF ).
  4. ↑ Nele Matz-Lück : Allgemeine Staatlehre (PDF), University of Kiel , 2011.
  5. ^ High Court , Halsall v Brizell [1957] Ch 169; see. Positively liable: Benefits and Burdens , New Law Journal, January 24, 2014.
  6. ↑ Eberhard Menzel, Knut Ipsen, Volker Epping et al .: Völkerrecht , 2014, margin no. 191 ff., 194.
  7. ↑ RBDI 1993, 628