Problems of implementation of the principles of compliance with international obligations. The role of the principle of conscientious fulfillment of international obligations in the process of monitoring their compliance

§ 3. The principle of justice (individualization) and the principle of economic criminal reprisal

The development of statehood and the conclusion of agreements between them led to the formation of legal customs. With the improvement in this area, the principle of conscientious fulfillment of international obligations was developed.

General concepts

The foundations of interaction between countries began to take shape at the stage of formation of state systems. Serious progress in the issue of relations in the field of legal international agreements occurred in the twentieth century. This is due primarily to world wars and, as a result, changes in the international political arena.

But the first significant breakthrough was made as early as 1871 during the London Conference. It was then that the participating countries consolidated the principle of the impossibility to unilaterally release themselves from their obligations to implement the international treaty that they signed. This can be done only with the consent of the parties in the course of a friendly agreement.

If earlier such a principle was related to customary legal norms, now it is to contractual ones. In accordance with it, states voluntarily undertake obligations to fulfill in good faith the clauses of international agreements in which they participate. If they have a need to establish domestic laws and regulations, then these must be consistent with state obligations in the field of international law. That is, the principle plays the role of a kind of guarantor of legal stability within a number of countries.

The foundations of the principle are enshrined in the preamble of the UN Charter, which spells out the obligation of all members of the Organization to take a responsible approach to fulfilling the obligations assumed under the Charter. If countries participate in other international agreements, the terms of which conflict with the main document of the UN, then the primacy is assigned to the Charter.

The effectiveness of the introduction of the principle is expressed in the following:

• The involved entities receive an individual legal basis to require other participants to comply with the norms prescribed in international agreements.
• Activities within legal frameworks receive protection from illegal acts.
• Legislative guidelines different countries woven into unified norms of an imperative nature.

International obligations must be fulfilled in good faith, otherwise it will entail negative consequences

In case of violation of these obligations, liability is assumed. And this means that punishment will follow not only for a specific offense, but also for a departure from the above norms.

Legal basis

In addition to the UN Charter, the main provisions relating to good faith performance have been recorded in the following documents:

• Vienna Convention, which was concluded in May 1969 (Article 26). According to this act, all existing international treaties are binding on the participants.
• Declaration on the Fundamental Principles of Law, adopted in September 1970 at the plenary session of the UN General Assembly.

If we talk, for example, about Russia, then the norms for the implementation of international agreements are enshrined in Federal Law No. 101, adopted in 1995. And their implementation is controlled by the Russian Federal authorities, personally by the President of the country and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

General international control is expressed in the fact that it must be ensured by all member states through the creation of special control bodies.

Parties to obligations

The subjects of international legal relations are entities that have an independent status and are endowed with rights and obligations in this area. These parties include:

• State formations.
• Interstate structures.
• Peoples and nations that are in the process of becoming independent and creating their own state.

The need for conscientious fulfillment of obligations is interpreted by law

To become a complete party international legal personality must have the following features:

• The party must be a collective entity.
• The subject necessarily has the rights and obligations that are a consequence of the existence of international legal norms.
• He is directly involved in the creation of international legal acts.

If at least one of the above signs is absent, this means that one cannot speak of full international legal personality.

Subject Responsibilities

Analyzing the main principles presented above for the conscientious fulfillment of obligations under international law, we can single out the most obvious obligations of the participating parties:

• Implementation of the norms of adopted international agreements accurately and without delay.
• Control over the comprehensive fulfillment of obligations by other entities.
• Direct participation in the adoption of legislative acts in the international sphere.

The principle of conscientious fulfillment of international obligations arose in the form of international legal custom pacta sunt servanda on early stages development of statehood, and is currently reflected in numerous bilateral and multilateral international agreements.

As a universally recognized norm of behavior of subjects, this principle is enshrined in the UN Charter, the preamble of which emphasizes the determination of UN members "to create conditions under which justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be observed." According to paragraph 2 of Art. 2 of the Charter, "All Members of the United Nations shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed under this Charter, in order to secure to them in their entirety the rights and benefits arising from membership in the membership of the Organization."

The development of international law clearly confirms the universal nature of the principle in question. According to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, "every treaty in force is binding on the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith." Moreover, "a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as an excuse for its non-performance of a treaty".

The scope of the principle under consideration has been noticeably expanded in last years which was reflected in the wording of the relevant international legal documents. Thus, according to the Declaration on the Principles of International Law of 1970, each state is obliged to fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by it in accordance with the UN Charter, obligations arising from generally recognized norms and principles of international law, as well as obligations arising from international treaties valid in accordance with generally recognized principles. and norms of international law.

The authors of the declaration sought to emphasize the need for faithful observance, first of all, of those obligations that are covered by the notion of "generally recognized principles and norms of international law" or follow from them.

In the Declaration of Principles of the 1975 CSCE Final Act, the participating States agreed "to fulfill in good faith their obligations under international law, both those obligations arising from generally recognized principles and norms of international law, and those obligations arising from treaties or other agreements consistent with international law. of which they are members."

Obligations "under international law" are certainly broader than obligations "following from the universally recognized principles and norms of international law." Moreover, in recent years States have adopted, in particular at the regional level, important instruments which, strictly speaking, do not represent their obligations "under international law", but which they nonetheless intend to comply with strictly.

For Europe, these are documents adopted within the framework of the Helsinki process. The Final Document of the Vienna Meeting of Representatives of the CSCE Participating States states that they "reaffirmed their determination to fully implement, unilaterally, bilaterally and multilaterally, all the provisions of the Final Act and other documents of the CSCE."

Different legal and socio-cultural systems have their own understanding of good faith, which directly affects the observance by states of their obligations. The concept of good faith has been enshrined in a large number of international treaties, resolutions of the UN General Assembly, in declarations of states, etc. However, it should be recognized that determining the exact legal content of the concept of good faith in real situations can be difficult.

It appears that legal content good faith should be derived from the text of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, mainly the sections "Application of Treaties" (Article 2830) and "Interpretation of Treaties" (Article 3133). The application of the provisions of the treaty is largely determined by its interpretation. From this point of view, it is logical to assume that the application of the treaty, which is construed in good faith (in accordance with the usual meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context, and also in the light of the object and purpose of the treaty), will be in good faith.

The principle of conscientious fulfillment of international obligations applies only to valid agreements. This means that the principle in question applies only to international treaties concluded voluntarily and on the basis of equality.

Any unequal international treaty first of all violates the sovereignty of the state and as such violates the UN Charter, since the United Nations is "founded on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members", which, in turn, have undertaken to "develop friendly relations among nations on the basis of respect principle of equality and self-determination of peoples".

It should be considered generally accepted that any treaty that is contrary to the UN Charter is null and void, and no state can invoke such a treaty or enjoy its benefits. This provision is in line with Art. 103 of the Charter. In addition, any treaty cannot be contrary to a peremptory norm of international law, as defined in Art. 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

Recent legal and political-legal documents increasingly point to the link between the duty of conscientious observance of international treaties and the internal rule-making of states. In particular, the participants in the Vienna Meeting agreed in the 1989 Outcome Document to "ensure that their laws, regulations, practices and policies are consistent with their obligations under international law and are harmonized with the provisions of the Declaration of Principles and other CSCE commitments."

Formulas of this kind testify to the expansion of the scope of application of the principle of conscientious observance of international obligations.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Established in 1945 at the London Conference. Its Charter came into force on November 4, 1946. Since December 1946, UNESCO has been a specialized agency of the United Nations. The headquarters is located in Paris (France). sovereign equality inviolability border

UNESCO aims to promote peace and security through the development international cooperation in the field of education, science and culture, the use of funds mass media, further development public education and dissemination of science and culture.

The supreme body is the General Conference, consisting of representatives of all member states and convened in regular sessions once every two years. It sets the policy and general direction activities of the organization, approves its programs and budget, elects members of the Executive Board and other bodies, appoints the General Director, resolves other issues.

The Executive Board is the main governing body of UNESCO between sessions of the General Conference. It consists of representatives of 51 states, elected for four years on the basis of an equitable geographical distribution(10 places countries of Western Europe, North America and Israel; 4 places countries of Eastern Europe; 9 places of the country Latin America and the Caribbean; 8 places countries of Asia and the basin Pacific Ocean; 20 places African countries and Arab states). UNESCO's constitution requires that representatives be appointed persons competent in the arts, literature, science, education and dissemination of knowledge, and possessing the necessary experience and authority.

Administrative and technical functions are performed by the Secretariat, headed by the Director General, appointed for six years.

Principle pacta sunt servanda(“treaties must be observed”), which is the result of the agreement of states, for many centuries remained a customary legal norm. It was first formulated in a multilateral London Protocol of the European Powers, signed on March 19 (March 31), 1877 by representatives of Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and France, who were trying to peacefully resolve the long-standing "Eastern question" and problems in the Ottoman Empire. The said Protocol emphasized that no power could release itself from treaty obligations or change them otherwise, "other than with the consent of the contracting parties, reached by means of a friendly agreement." Anchoring this principle did not place it in immediate breach. On March 29 (April 10), 1877, the Ottoman Empire rejected the Protocol, assessing its provisions as interference in its internal affairs. The refusal of the Porte to accept the Protocol was the reason for the start of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878.

In a similar way, the agreements of the member states of the League of Nations were violated, which proclaimed in its Statute that no power can exempt itself from treaty obligations or change them otherwise, "except with the consent of the contracting parties, reached by friendly agreement."

AT preamble to the Statute of the League of Nations of 1919 it was established that the member states of the League would "strictly observe the prescriptions of international law, recognized from now on as the valid rule of conduct for states."

In contemporary international law principle of conscientious implementation of international treaties was enshrined in UN Charter, which obliges all UN members to fulfill in good faith the international obligations assumed under the Charter (clause 2, article 2). Although the Charter speaks only of those international obligations assumed by States in relation to the rules contained therein, it has been taken as binding on other international agreements as well. Principle pacta sunt servanda was subsequently fixed:

• – in the Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties of 1969 and 1986;
• – Declaration on the Principles of International Law of 1970;
• – final act Conferences on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1975;
• – other international legal documents.

According to Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969"Each treaty in force is binding on its parties and must be carried out by them in good faith." Moreover, "a party may not invoke the provisions of his internal morality as an excuse for his non-performance of the contract."

Declaration on Principles of International Law 1970, reaffirming the obligation of each UN member state to fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by it in accordance with the UN Charter, as well as those arising from the generally recognized norms and principles of international law, emphasized the obligation of the state to also fulfill the obligations arising from international treaties that are valid in accordance with the generally recognized principles and norms of international law .

AT the final act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The participating States agreed "to fulfill in good faith their obligations under international law, both those obligations arising from generally recognized principles and norms of international law, and those obligations arising from treaties or other agreements consistent with international law to which they are parties".

In a large number of international treaties and resolutions of the UN General Assembly, the conscientiousness concept, according to which good faith means that the corresponding contractual obligation is performed honestly, on time, accurately, in accordance with the meaning provided for in it. According to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, it is in good faith to perform a treaty that is interpreted in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of the object and purpose of the treaty. The principle of conscientious fulfillment of international obligations applies only to agreements concluded in accordance with international law.