Chapter XVI of theUnited Nations Charter contains miscellaneous provisions prohibitingsecret treaties, establishing the UN Charter as supreme over any othertreaties, and providing for privileges and immunities ofUN officials and representatives.
Article 102 banssecret treaties. Under this article, all international treaties must be registered with, and published by, theUN Secretariat. The article also states that secret treaties concluded in violation of this provision are unenforceable before UN bodies. Secret treaties were believed to have played a role in the events leading toWorld War I. Accordingly, U.S. PresidentWoodrow Wilson had proposed banning them in the 1910s, and theLeague of Nations had created a special bureau of treaty registration under theLeague of Nations Secretary-General and had set aside a section of theLeague of Nations Journal for treaty publication.[1] Article 18 of theCovenant of the League of Nations held that "Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any Member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered," so Article 102 is basically a continuation of this policy.
Article 103 states that members' obligations under the UN Charter override their obligations under any other treaty. Thus, countries cannot use other treaties (such as theNorth Atlantic Treaty) to override their UN Charter obligations, a fact that has been used to question the legality of military actions conducted under regional treaty organization auspices, such as the1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[2] Similarly, theGreek Cypriot andGreek governments claimed thatTurkish military intervention, although authorized under the 1960Treaty of Guarantee to maintain the status quo inCyprus (seeCyprus dispute), was banned by UN Charter's prohibitions against the use of force, which were supreme under Article 103.[3] Article 103 was also used by theUN Security Council, in passingResolution 1696, to trumpIran's right touranium enrichment under theNuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.[4]
Article 103 is analogous to the League of Nations Covenant Article 20, which held that "The Members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandingsinter se which are inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that they will not hereafter enter into any engagements inconsistent with the terms thereof." The intent of both articles was to establish a "super-treaty" in much the same way that thesupremacy clause of theUnited States Constitution establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. This interpretation has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice.[5]
Articles 104 and 105 provide for privileges and immunities of the UN and its officials and representatives. The use of this immunity has been the subject of some contention, as UN diplomats racked up $18 million in unpaidparking tickets between 1997 and 2002.[6]
| Text | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Organs created | |||||||
| History |
| ||||||
