British influence on the Law of Treaties

The law of treaties is a cornerstone of international law. No matter which field of international law is being examined, the creation, interpretation, application, and dissolution of international agreements are governed by the law of treaties. The rules governing treaty law are laid out in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (Vienna Convention). The Vienna Convention is widely regarded as the consolidation of the customary international rules on the law of treaties. This contribution considers the path leading to the creation of the rules that are now broadly accepted as constituting the corpus of the Law of Treaties and examines the British influence on their development. From the initial surveys and efforts by the successive British Special Rapporteurs on the Law of Treaties to codify the rules governing treaties to the creation of a modern ‘field guide’ to treaties by Anthony Aust, no other nation of jurists has consistently shaped the development and understanding of this indispensable field of international law.