Succession of States in Treaties (A Case Study of the Inherited Treaties Relating to the Nile River) رسالة ماجستير

Abstract

Succession of states is defined as the process of one state replacing another state in responsibility for the region‘s international relations. This process has several problems, the most important of which is the extent of the binding of the treaties to which the previous state was a party to the new state. This same problem led to a legal dispute between the Nile Basin countries over the extent of the binding of the treaties that it was concluded by colonial countries during their colonization of the Nile Basin countries. To find an answer to this question, custom and jurisprudential theories must be considered, in addition to the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in Treaties of 1978, which was established by the International Law Commission in an attempt to codify previous international customs. after researching the jurisprudential theories applied by countries, and in the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in respect of Treaties, it became clear that the International Law Commission documented some previous international customs and practices in the 1978 Convention, where the convention stipulated in its articles the application of the continuity theory to the case of new states arising from situations of separation or union. Also, the clean slate principle was applied to the case of newly independent states. Accordingly, the Nile Basin countries are newly independent states to which the clean slate principle applies, meaning they do not inherit the treaties in which the former colonial state was a party. However, the inherited agreements related to the Nile River are agreements establishing regional systems and fall within the scope of Article 12 of the convention, which states that agreements establishing regional systems are not affected by the succession of states and remain V binding on successor states. This was applied by the International Court of Justice in its ruling on the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros case However, the Nile Basin countries are considered independent from colonialism, and the application of this rule to them is contrary to the right of newly independent states to start a new international life free from the effects of colonialism. It also contradicts the right of peoples to self-determination and the principle of sovereignty of peoples over their wealth and natural resources, as well as the right of peoples to development.