Enacting and developing international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 56

into force'. This is an important point to understand. Newspapers and journals
sometimes refer to the parties of a treaty as its signatories, which is actually an
incorrect term. Signing a treaty is not synonymous to becoming a party, although
states do sometimes agree that an agreement becomes valid by virtue of signature
alone. (In practice, this is never the case with environmental treaties.) Usually, a
procedure is followed by which an agreement is fi rst signed by states to indicate
their goodwill and intention to become a party in the near future.
After signature, the agreement enters the national legislative process of each
state according to its domestic constitutional law. When the state is ready to
be bound by the treaty, it is deposited with the body defi ned in the agreement
(for example, the Secretary-General of the United Nations).
However, even ratifi cation of an environmental treaty may not necessarily
result in a state or states being immediately bound. A treaty must also enter
into force internationally. Most treaties will specify a minimum number of
states that must become party to the agreement before it can enter into force.
For example, to date, 29 states 14 have ratifi ed the UN 1997 Convention on
the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, but the
Convention will not enter into force until 90 days after the 35th party accepts
and deposits it with the UN Secretary-General.
A multilateral environmental treaty generally proceeds as follows:

1 At the negotiation stage : besides drafting the substantive obligations,
states also discuss how the fi nal text in the treaty will be adopted, how the
will to become a party is expressed, when the treaty becomes binding on a
state, and the conditions under which it will enter into force internation-
ally. There is often a specifi c article defi ning how states become full party
to a treaty. If a state signs a treaty, even before it comes into force, it must
abstain from actions that would defeat the object and purpose of that agree-
ment. Since a state does not become a party to a treaty simply by signing it,
the treaty does not fully become legally binding on that state as yet.

2 After signature : many states must submit the treaty to their own domes-

tic parliament for approval. Thereafter, the state signals its consent to
be bound by the treaty depositing the ratifi cation instrument with the
depositary defi ned in the treaty (under the terms of the treaty). The treaty
often specifi es a short period of time between deposit of the instrument
of ratifi cation and recognition of the state as a party. In the case of global
environmental treaties especially, it is possible for states to become parties
directly, bypassing both the negotiating stage and the act of signature. This
process is usually referred to as accession.

3 Coming into force : many treaties also specify a minimum number of

ratifying states required for the treaty to enter into force internationally.
This is mainly because it is futile to implement the treaty before a suffi cient
number of states have engaged to combat the international environmental
problem in question.

15