Recueil des cours, Collected Courses, Tome 447

Jan Klabbers, Disagreement Reduced to Writing: Rethinking the Law of Treaties

The law of treaties, embodied in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, is in a state of disarray, with several key topics having been returned - without much success - for further study to the International Law Commission, and several other well-documented issues relating to the Convention's application. The present contribution aims to explain why the Convention is in disarray, and how state practice and judicial practice aim to overcome this, leading to a slow re-thinking of the law of treaties.

Stephan Hobe, Perspectives for Space Law in the Twenty-First Century

The legal order for human activities in outer space has been written in the 1960ies and 1970ies. However, in view of numerous new commercial space activities, so called New Space, the question is at stake whether this legal order is still sufficient. The author denies this question by criticizing that the current legal order is too liberal in character, putting too little emphasis on the limitation of freedoms, e.g. for the preservation of the environment. He designs a framework for a new international legal order which, by limiting some freedoms for the preservation of the environment of outer space and the celestial bodies for future use, still guarantees progress and autonomy.