The Unilateral Declarations Of Treaty Law

As the most primary source of international law, treaty plays a huge role in modern international relations. Unilateral declarations have been made by states or international organizations frequently in treaty practice. "Unilateral declaration" means a statement, however phrased or named, regardless of its intention, made by a state or an international organization which is about certain topic of the treaty. The specific subject, unilateral act and not fixed name are three features of unilateral declaration. Some common statements, such as reservations and interpretative declarations, are unilateral declarations.States and International organizations made various types of unilateral declarations to the treaties whereby the state or the organization purports to exclude or to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to itself or to achieve other intentions. However, while the unilateral declaration has been used frequently, the theory is lagging behind. Except the reservation system, which is more completed, the theory of interpretative declaration and political declaration can not meet the requirements to guide the practice. International custom and the international dispute settlement mechanism are relied onto adjust the relationship in the practice.This Thesis discusses the unilateral declaration in detail with the international practice, strives to fill our blankness of its concept research and provides some constructive suggestions for China's treaty practice. There also some innovative ideas of the author in this Thesis, such as: the standards and methods to classify various types of unilateral declarations, the concept of unilateral declaration under right clause, the objection of a unilateral declarations shall be comfirmed and so on.This Thesis is composed of four chapters with more than 30,000 words. Chapter 1 analyzes the concept and features of unilateral declaration briefly and classifies them into reservation, interpretative declaration and political declaration. This chapter also analyzes the standards and methods to classify the declarations, describes its current research and its crucial role in treaty law.Chapter 2 not only compares and analyzes the links and differences of the procedures which applied to three kinds of declaration, but also provides legal basis to formulate declaration through the description of the subject and time to formulation, the depositary, the communication, objection, withdrawal and modification of unilateral declaration.Chapter 3 analyzes the effect to the treaty and the contracting parties through the research of the effects of reservation, interpretative declaration and political declaration. The effect of reservation and the interpretative declaration has no legal effect are included.Chapter 4 summaries China's treaty practice after the founding of new China and classifies the declarations made by China. This chapter also provides some relative suggestions with theoretical research through the analysis of China's practice in order to improve the development of unilateral declaration practice, research and system of China.