REVIEWS
| Date | 01 July 1947 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1947.tb00056.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1947 |
REV
I
E
W
S
FULL
POWERS
AND
RATIFICATION:
A
STUDY
IN
THE
DEVELOP-
MENT
OF
TREATY-MAKING
PROCEDURE.
By
J.
MERVYN
JONES,
M.A.,
LL.B.
(Cambridge University Press.
1946.
xv and
182
pp.
MR.
JONES
traces the historical development of Full Powers
and Ratification, and the fundamental thesis of his little book
appears from the following extract
:
‘
In the seventeenth
century Full Powers gave authority to make
a
binding
agreement subject to a confirmation which was obligatory.
Today authority is given by Full Powers to discuss, to
negotiate, and to sign a
projet
which may or may not become
an international treaty by the formal acceptance of
it
by
States. Ratification
is
now regarded
as
being this formal
acceptance.
It
means the ratification of the treaty itself.
Formerly, it meant the ratification of an agent in signing it
(and) could not be refused unless the envoy had exceeded his
authority.
.
. .
The general view today is that such ratifica-
tion is discretionary,
. . .
The purpose of ratification is to
indicate the final willingness of the State to be bound by the
Treaty
’.
Few will argue with this description of the respective
functions of Full Powers and Ratification, but many may
justifiably inquire whether it was necessary to devote
a
whole
monograph to the proof of this thesis, for
it
had already been
amply dealt with by, among others, Dana’s Wheaton
(s.
269),
Lorimer
(Institutes,
1888,
Vol.
I,
p. 263),
Twiss
(Law
of
Nations,
1884,
Vol.
I,
pp. 362-3), Walker
(Manual,
1899,
pp. 84-5),
F.
E.
Smith
(International Law,
1900,
p.
86),
Taylor
(International Public Law,
1901, p. 387), and Fauchille
(Droit International Public,
1926,
s.
824)
;
while Craddock
deals with the matter in the following way: ‘By the early
writers on international law, living at
a
time when the theory
of
personal sovereignty generally obtained, and the negotiator
was the immediate agent of the sovereign, the rule
of
the
Roman law, that the principal is bound by the agent acting
within his powers, was applied to treaty negotiations. The
advantage
of
entrusting full and general powers to negotiators,
and the importance
of
the trust, have led recent writers quite
generally to admit the right of ratification, even if no express
reservation be made in the treaty
or
full powers.
A
reservation
of this right is now, by the practice of nations, to be read into
the full powers of the negotiator
’
(Treaties, Their Making
and Enforcement,
1916,
s.
3).
The only innovation made by
the author of
Full Powers and Ratification
is to recite examples
331
12s. 6d.)
To continue reading
Request your trial