CYIL 2015

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PAVEL ŠTURMA

CYIL 6 ȍ2015Ȏ

Study Group and its Chairman, Mr. Donald McRae, its deep appreciation and warm

congratulations. The Commission thus completed its consideration of the topic. It

is a future use of the study on the MFN clause in State practice, in particular when

drafting new international investment agreements, and in practice of international

courts and arbitration tribunals, that will enable us to evaluate the importance of the

work achieved by the ILC’s Study Group.

3. Conclusion

The session of the ILC in 2015 had again a very demanding programme, this

time more by the number of topics discussed than by the adopted final products. The

Commission addressed not less than 8 different topics, although the consideration

of some of them was relatively brief, for the above mentioned reasons. In fact, while

the ILC completed only the work of the Study Group on the Most-Favoured-Nation

clause, its activity was much broader than may appear from the report.

The reason is that, due to the lack of time, many draft articles or conclusions or

principles were discussed and, with the exception of the topic “Provisional application

of treaties”, provisionally adopted by the Drafting Committee, but the Commission

only took note of the report of the Chairman of the Drafting Committee. It is a

peculiarity of the work of the ILC that the outcomes of topics where the debate in the

Drafting Committee is completed or takes place only during the second (Summer)

part of the session have little chance to be adopted in Plenary. The Commission

only adopts draft articles (conclusions, etc.) together with commentaries, drafted

by Special Rapporteurs once the consideration, and sometimes reformulation, of

draft articles has been completed. To do justice to the Commission, its work both

in Plenary and the Drafting Committee was intensive and prepared many new draft

articles and conclusions for adoption in 2016.

On balance, in 2015 the Commission started its work on the Crimes against

humanity, which may result in draft articles concerning, in particular, a horizontal

cooperation of States in criminal matters, and decided to place on its programme

a new topic on

Jus cogens

. However, the lack of time did not allow organizing

informal consultations on those extremely interesting topics during the second

part of the session.

That is why the proposal of the ILC was adopted to have allocated up to

12 weeks for its session in 2016. It will be the last year of this quinquennium when

the Commission will seek to finalize as many topics as possible. It includes the

adoption of draft articles on Protection of persons in the event of disasters (second

reading) and draft conclusions on Identification of customary international law (first

reading). However, important progress may also be expected in other topics, such as

Subsequent agreements and subsequent practice, Protection of the environment in

relation to armed conflicts and Immunity of State officials from foreign criminal