‘조약의 대상 및 목적과의 양립성’의 의의와 그 평가

The compatibility with the object and purpose of a treaty may be the most important and intricate criterion for the interpretation and application of the treaty. This compatibility has been required throughout the law of treaties as a whole as a fundamental condition for the maintenance of the stability of treaties and for the efficient operation thereof. In the system of the 1969 Convention on the Law of Treaties, the compatibility with the object and purpose of a treaty is required as the minimum standard for the behavior of the Contracting Parties and signatory States before the entry into force of a treaty, as a core condition for the permissibility of a reservation, as a criterion for the interpretation of a treaty, and as a condition for the suspension of the operation or the modification of a multilateral treaty between treaty parties. Although the compatibility with the object and purpose of a treaty has been emphasized by jurisprudence, doctrine and State practice, the concept itself of the 'object and purpose' remained uncertain and the basis of the decision of the 'compatibility' and the legal nature of this compatibility could not be clarified. It is fortunate that recently the concept of the 'object and purpose of a treaty' and the criterion of the decision of the compatibility have become clear and precise to some extent, in the course of the research of the condition of the permissibility of a reservation to a treaty. The concept of the object and purpose of a treaty and the criterion of the compatibility with them, clarified on those occasion, would be applicable not only to in the area of reservation but also in those of interpretation of a treaty, suspension of the operation or the modification of multilateral treaties, and other issues concerned. Nevertheless, the criterion of this compatibility still remains difficult to apply to practical questions, due to the inherent obscurity of the concept of the 'object and purpose of a treaty' and the abstract character of the basis of the decision of that compatibility. In this present study, the author, above all, points out the items which require the compatibility with the object and purpose of a treaty in the system of the 1969 Vienna Convention, in order to draw attention to the question of that compatibility. Secondly, this study concerns the definition of the 'object and purpose of a treaty' and brings relief into the process in which those terms have been established as a formal expression after longs years' confusion about words used to indicate them. Subsequently, this study deals with the question of how to inquire out the 'object and purpose' of a treaty. Lastly, this study concerns the basis upon which one could evaluate the compatibility with the object and purpose of a treaty.