The law of state succession

Abstract

The law of state succession is the product of the termination of temporary validity of the states as international law subjects. states are born and become extinct, and the succession of states deals with the effects of such extinction. two elements make up the succession: the territorial element and the succession phenomenon, and five are the assumptions international law acknowledges as having successional effect: transfer of a part of a territory (assignment), de-colonization, unification, separation (secession), and dissolution. Convention International law deals with the succession by means of two instruments, one regulating the succession in connection to treatises (Vienna, 1978) and one dealing with succession in connection to a state’s commodities, archives, and debts (Vienna, 1983). the 1978 Convention applies the tabula rasa rule (the predecessor state’s treatises are not binding on the successor state) in the assignment and de-colonization assumptions, whereas the other three assumptions are regulated by the continuity principle (automatic transfer of the predecessor state’s conventional rights and obligations to the successor). as to the 1983 Convention, this has not been put into effect yet, because of the alleged preferential treatment given to recently independent states (de-colonization). aside from those affairs regulated by the 1978 and 1983 conventions, state succession affects not only the nationality and juridical condition of the inhabitants of the succeeded territories but also the judicial system of the predecessor state, which can be maintained or modified by the successor state.