International Treaties and their Interpretation:
A short Examination with a small excurse on the Aegis Accords
Written by Drecq
Edited by Lloenflys and UPC
To understand what treaties are, we should begin by saying what international law is. International law is the system of rules and standards by which nations bind themselves and each other. Those rules and standards can come from a variety of different places. In real life, Article 38 of the Statute of the Court of Justice is considered a codification of what sources of international law exist. Treaties are the most obvious and easily identifiable source of international law in real life, as in NS, as well as the easiest to interpret and as such we will be focusing on them here. Article 38 (1)(a) reads thusly:
That is what treaties are, IRL and in NS. International (meaning between two or more nations IRL or regions in NS) conventions (meaning an agreement covering particular matters) which establish expressly recognized rules.
So, now that we know what treaties are, how do we interpret them? Well, NationStates international law is fairly primitive and because of that has no true codified, or even customary, universal rules on treaty interpretation. IRL, we have the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which codified pre-existing unwritten rules regarding how treaties work. Aside from a lot about how to enter into and exit treaties and a lot of very specific things you can do with treaties that have no real equivalent in NationStates, it also includes, as Section 3 Part 3 of the Convention, the following:
So, a good faith interpretation of the ordinary meaning of the text and in light of the object and purpose of the treaty and in the context of other relevant treaties.
Let us break that down a bit:
1. Good faith interpretation,
2. Ordinary meaning of the text,
3. Informed by the object and purpose of the treaty, and
4. Within the context of other relevant treaties.
To be clear, there is a lot of nuance that I can not and will not go into in this essay simply because books can and have been written about each of these, including the many and varied ongoing discussions about them in the relevant legal communities.
Let us first look at the absolute basis of all written law: Nr. 2, aka the ordinary meaning of the text. There is an ongoing debate about whether that means the ordinary meaning as defined objectively by the current rules of the operative language or the ordinary meaning as defined by the parties of the treaty. Interpreting "The couch should be red" to mean "The couch should be green" would be an example of not using the objective rules of the operative language as objectively green and red are different colors. If both parties agreed beforehand that “The couch should be red” actually means “The couch should be green”, then you have an instance of ordinary meaning as defined by the parties. Practically speaking, this is a largely unnecessary distinction because parties very rarely agree to use language that objectively, outside of this one treaty, means something different than in common parlance. And when parties do wish to use words but change the specific meaning for this one specific treaty, they generally make sure to define the alternate meaning in the treaty itself, if only for ease of future use. Though it does give a nod to specialized vocabulary that is ordinary in the context of international law but which has a different meaning in daily life. Long story short, words mean what they mean and nothing else unless you specifically agreed to it ahead of time.
Which segues us perfectly into Nr. 1: Good faith interpretation. All this means is that you should not interpret treaties in ways in which they obviously were not meant to be interpreted even if technically the text would also allow for that interpretation, as long as there is a valid interpretation of the text which aligns more closely with what was meant. For example, the word “to sanction” has two possible and opposing meanings. It can mean “to give permission or approval” but it can also mean “to impose penalty on”. If the treaty says "The parties agree to sanction anyone who puts pineapple on their pizza." and the parties wished to use this section to penalize anyone who puts pineapple on their pizza, then using the alternate definition of the word that means to give permission or approval would not be a good faith interpretation of the text.
3 and 4 provide context for that interpretation and what is good faith. They provide us with objective evidence of what the parties were probably thinking when they wrote and signed the treaty. If the treaty only says "The parties agree to sanction anyone who puts pineapple on their pizza.", then we have to rely on context to tell us which meaning of the word "sanction" is the good faith interpretation of it and which is the bad faith interpretation. If the treaties were signed by two regions with multiple other pro-pineapple treaties and specifically initiated and publicly handled it as a pro-pineapple treaty, then context would tell us the good faith interpretation of the treaty would be to say "sanction" means approve of.
So, as you can hopefully see, the interpretation of treaties requires a holistic approach. The basis and absolute limit is the text but areas where the pure text can be interpreted in more than one way have to be interpreted in good faith, meaning in the way which is most consistent with the context of the treaty as illustrated by the stated intention of the treaty and the other treaties the signatories may have previously signed. While NS international law has never codified any such approach, it makes sense to use it here as well. If we were to decide that the basis of our interpretation were no longer to be the text and that instead treaties could be interpreted in ways which the text does not provide for, or even in ways that are contrary to the text, then treaties would be worse than useless. If the interpretation is no longer bound to the text, then anyone can pretend a treaty means anything. At that point international law would break down. And if we decide that areas where the text is unclear can be interpreted in ways that are not consistent with good faith, then treaties would have to be absolutely perfectly written to be practical. That is not realistic in real life, where the majority of authors are professionals, never mind in NationStates where the majority of authors are amateurs with little to no training in law. The only thing we could change and keep treaties as a practical tool of international law is how we provide the context for the good faith interpretation. Stated intent and referring to other treaties makes sense as a way to establish context, but they are not necessarily the only ways one could establish that context. However, for my purposes, I will be cleaving to these basics, as they continue to make the most sense to me.
Now that we know what treaties are and how to interpret them, let us look at the Aegis Accords, which are why I decided to write this article to begin with. Specifically, let us look at Article 4 (1):
Outside of this section, the treaty is a fairly standard mutual defense organization. It provides for mutual recognition of legitimate governments, non-aggression and mutual defense in the face of aggression against those legitimate governments, intelligence sharing, military and cultural cooperation, a mechanism of admitting new members, expelling current members, or withdrawing, and a means to amend the treaty. All fairly basic and mostly things you would find in other, even RL, mutual defense treaties as well, including the most famous one NATO. It is 4(1) that is different. At first glance, it consists of two things:
1. Declaring that the parties share a goal of protecting sovereignty,
2. Self-identifying as Defender regions.
Now what do these two things actually require of us? The first is fairly simple: A declaration of a specific goal, that goal being protecting sovereignty. Declarations are a formal announcement, not themselves rules or laws. It does not say we actually have to have that goal or that we have to act in accordance with that goal. It simply says we declare that we have that goal. An important distinction in the context of the treaty, because it means we have no legal obligation to actually protect the sovereignty of NS regions which are not party to the treaty. It does provide us with context for good faith interpretations of possible textual unclearness elsewhere in the treaty, if there is any, but that is the extent of it. Politically, acting outside of our stated goal would be problematic, but it would not be a legal violation. The second requirement follows the same pattern. We have to self-identify, meaning we have to describe ourselves, as a Defender region. It does not mean we have to act in accordance with our identification. Again, it creates a political reason for acting a certain way, not a legal one. Legally, we could raid non-signatory regions while loudly saying "We are Defenders" and stating “Our goal is to protect your sovereignty” and the provisions of this treaty would be fulfilled. The treaty does not make us Defenders, nor would a different treaty saying we have to self-identify as Raiders make us Raiders, it simply forces us to identify ourselves to third parties in a particular manner. Does that mean we aren't Defenders? No. It is certainly possible that we are. I simply do not know enough about the opinions of our current citizenship and our current government to say whether we are or not. All I can say is that the Aegis Accords do not legally require us to actually be Defenders.
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