Book VII Treaties and Treaty-Making, 30 International Conferences

Subject(s):

Diplomatic relations — Sovereignty — Peace treaties — Specific treaties — Governments

This chapter discusses international conferences in the more formal sense of high-level meetings of state representatives for the discussion or settlement of questions of international concern. Many of the functions served by international conferences are nowadays equally capable of being performed either by a separate conference convened for a specific purpose or alternatively through the medium of a plenary gathering of the principal organ of an international organization. A common solution is for a conference to be convened by decision of an international organization, but to take place separately from the meetings of the organization itself. One increasingly common modern format is for multilateral treaty arrangements to provide for periodic ‘Conferences of the Parties’. These may be simply for reviewing the operation of the treaty, or they may have specific functions conferred on them by the parent treaty for the modification, amendment, or supplementation of the treaty arrangements themselves.