Although the issue may have become obscured at some point after the drafting of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, it is increasingly acknowledged in international law that the goal of treaty interpretation is, as the International Law Commission’s first Special Rapporteur on the law of treaties JL Brierly put it, ‘to give effect to…

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, provides a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Palestine refugees. Their dependency on UNRWA — and consequently the importance of the Agency’s work — is greater than ever before. In spite of this situation, or perhaps…

Resolution 2728 (2024) has legally binding effect. Eran Sthoeger makes the claim that the Security Council’s resolution 2728, which demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, is “not legally binding”. This conclusion, he asseverates, follows from “a sound understanding of the practice of the Security Council under the Charter”. The true position is that the…