PROVISIONAL APPLICATION OF TREATIES – ARTICLE 25 OF THE VIENNA CONVENTION ON THE LAW OF TREATIES

Article 25 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) confirms that a treaty may be applied provisionally pending its entry into force if negotiating states have agreed on it. This means that a treaty, which needs the completion of internal law procedures to enter into force, can be applied before its entry into force. This provision is accepted as the codification of international customary law. Yet Article 25 and provisional application clauses in multilateral treaties may give rise to international disputes. Behind such disputes is generally a desire of the states, having first agreed to apply the treaty provisionally, to subsequently avoid their treaty obligations under provisional application. The aim of this article is to examine a topic which has attracted little or no interests in the Turkish doctrine, thereby turning its attention to the international literature for a primarily descriptive study. In so doing, it will also briefly analyse pertinent international disputes predicated upon wider academic discussions on provisional application of treaties as well as the ongoing work of the International Law Commission