In recent centuries, State practice has developed a variety of terms for international instruments by which States define rights and obligations among themselves. The most commonly used terms are the subject of this overview. However, a whole series of additional terms were used, such as „statutes“, „alliances“, „agreements“ and others. Despite this diversity of terminology, there is no exact nomenclature. In fact, the meaning of the terms used varies and changes from one State to another, from one region to another and from one instrument to another. Some terms can be easily exchanged: an instrument called an „agreement“ can also be called a „treaty“. Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations provides that „any treaty or international agreement concluded by a State Member of the United Nations after the entry into force of the present Charter shall be registered with and published by the Secretariat as soon as possible“. All treaties and international agreements registered or submitted and registered with the Secretariat since 1946 are published in the UNTS. The terms „treaty“ and „international agreement“ referred to in Article 102 of the Charter cover the widest range of instruments. Although the United Nations General Assembly has never established a precise definition of the two terms and has never clarified their mutual relations, art. 1 of the provisions of the General Assembly implementing Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, according to which the obligation to register applies to any treaty or international agreement, „regardless of its form and descriptive name“.
In the practice of the Secretariat under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations, the terms „treaty“ and „international agreement“ include a variety of instruments, including unilateral obligations, such as declarations by new States Members of the United Nations accepting the obligations of the Charter of the United Nations, declarations on the acceptance of the mandatory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice under Article 36(2) of its Statute, and certain unilateral declarations, binding obligations between the reporting nation and other nations. The specific designation of an international instrument is therefore not decisive for the obligation of Member States to register it. Rijken 2003: 54 considers the 1904 International Convention to Combat the White Slave Trade as the first international effort to combat trafficking in women and notes that this agreement applied only to trafficking in human beings for the purpose of prostitution; see also 2.3.1 of Chapter 5 below. In international law, a treaty is any legally binding agreement between states (countries). A treaty can be called a convention, protocol, pact, agreement, etc.; it is the content of the agreement, not its name, that makes it a treaty. Thus, both the Geneva Protocol and the Biological Weapons Convention are treaties, although neither of them has the word „treaty“ in its name. Under U.S. law, a treaty is specifically a legally binding agreement between countries that requires ratification and „advice and consent“ from the Senate. All other agreements (treaties in the international sense) are called executive agreements, but are nevertheless legally binding on the United States under international law. Treaties and other international agreements are written agreements between sovereign States (or between States and international organizations) that are subject to international law. The United States concludes more than 200 treaties and other international agreements each year.
The term „Protocol“ is used for agreements that are less formal than those entitled „Treaty“ or „Convention“. The term could be used to cover the following types of instruments: This introductory note aims to provide a basic – but not exhaustive – overview of the key terms used in the UNITED Nations Treaty Series to refer to internationally binding agreements: treaties, conventions, conventions, charters, protocols, declarations, declarations of intent, modus vivendi and exchange of notes. The aim is to facilitate a general understanding of their scope and function. The subjects of the treaties cover the entire spectrum of international relations: peace, trade, defence, territorial borders, human rights, law enforcement, environmental issues and many others. As times change, so do treaties. In 1796, the United States signed the treaty with Tripoli to protect American citizens from kidnapping and ransom by pirates in the Mediterranean. In 2001, the United States approved a treaty on cybercrime. If a contract does not contain any provisions for other agreements or actions, only the text of the contract is legally binding. In general, an amendment to a treaty is binding only on those States that have ratified it, and agreements reached at review conferences, summits or meetings of States parties are politically binding, but not legally. An example of a treaty that contains provisions for other binding agreements is the Charter of the United Nations. By signing and ratifying the Charter, countries have agreed to be legally bound by the resolutions of United Nations bodies such as the General Assembly and the Security Council.
Therefore, UN resolutions are legally binding on UN member states and no signature or ratification is required. Although these instruments differ from each other in title, they all have common characteristics, and international law has applied essentially the same rules to all these instruments. These rules are the result of a long practice among States that have accepted them as binding norms in their mutual relations. Therefore, they are considered customary international law. As there was a general desire to codify these usual rules, two international conventions were negotiated. The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties („1969 Vienna Convention“), which entered into force on 27 January 1980, contains rules for treaties between States. The 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations („1986 Vienna Convention“), which has not yet entered into force, added rules for treaties concluded with international organizations as Contracting Parties […].
