International Agreements

Abstract

The Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States deals explicitly with the law on international agreements in its Part III, comprising 39 sections. This Part focuses primarily on the international law governing the nature, making, effect, interpretation, invalidity and termination of international agreements. These sections and the comments and reporters' notes thereto, however, do not cover all aspects of the law of the United States relating to international agreements, but leave important pertinent issues to other parts of the Restatement. Thus the complex and controversial problems relating to the executory or self-executing character of provisions found in international agreements are dealt with in the text of, and in the comments and reporters' notes to, section 111, entitled "International Law and Agreements as Law of the United States," and sections 703, 713 and 906-907, relating to the protection of individuals by international law and their remedies for violation of such protection. This arrangement is due in part to the conception of the Restators that "[w]hether a treaty is self-executing is a question distinct from whether the treaty creates private rights or remedies."