 In every state, there are rules, most often constitutional rules, rules governing the treaty-making power of the state. Usually the government is the executive, is entitled to negotiate and to sign treaties, sometimes the government is also entitled to conclude and rectify certain treaties, and in some states the executive is not entitled to rectify any treaty on its own and treaties must be ratified by the legislature. In other states the executive is entitled to ratify treaties, but those treaties must be approved by an act of parliament in order to have legal effect in the domestic legal order of the state. International law, as you know, does not govern those issues, they are entirely left to the sovereign choices of states. And those choices reflect fundamental conceptions about the relations and separations between the various powers within the states. Choices that are based on political philosophy, on history, and on constitutional traditions. Furthermore, and as we have seen in the previous video, each state remains free to decide if international law produces legal effects within its own municipal legal order. And to what extent those effects exist in case of conflict between domestic law provisions and international law provisions. The state is free to accept that international law prevails over its laws or even over its constitution, which is extremely rare but exists. Other states may prefer that in case of conflict its own rules prevail. Those choices, again, are left to states knowing of course that the more the state refuses that international law produces effects in its domestic legal order, the more likely it is that it will be found in breach of its international law obligations on the international level. After a treaty has been duly ratified by state and that all the constitutional requirements have been met, the state is called to implement the treaty and that may require enacting a domestic statute. Implementing the treaty may require resorting to a national act but it does not always require that. And this is because certain treaties or even certain provisions in certain treaties are said to be self-executing or to put it differently they have direct effect or are directly applicable. Self-executing, direct effect or directly applicable being used here and for the sake of convenience as being overall synonymous. And let me explain this by referring to the very first case decided by a prominent international court on the matter. After the First World War, the German city of Danzig today, Gdansk in Poland, the city of Danzig and the nearby villages were established as the free city of Danzig by the Treaty of Versailles. The free city had a very special status. It was separated from Germany but it was not incorporated into the newly independent Polish state. The free city was not an independent state as such but was put under the protection of the League of Nations. It formed a customs union with Poland and Poland received the right to use the port facilities and organize the railways. Some railway officials of Danzig who had passed into the Polish service had pecuniary claims against the Polish Railways Administration. On the basis of what was called in German the Beamtenabkommen, that is an agreement about those officials that had been concluded between the free city of Danzig and Poland. The jurisdiction of the Danzig courts to hear the case depended on the possibility for those officials to benefit from the agreement. Poland argued that the Danzig officials had no right under the agreement because the agreement only created rights and obligations between the contracting parties, that is the free city and the Polish state. Poland argued that in the absence of any Polish implementing legislation the agreement could not be applied to the benefit of individuals and that Poland's possible failure to implement the agreement and to legislate for that purpose could only trigger the responsibility of Poland vis-à-vis the free city of Danzig. So Poland did not contest that it had to respect the agreement but it argued that the relations between the former Danzig Railway officials who had passed to the service of the Polish Railways was exclusively governed by Polish law and that they could not rely on the agreement to claim benefits in Danzig courts. The High Commissioner of the League of Nations at Danzig agreed with Poland. The Council of the League of Nations requested an advisory opinion of the Permanent Court of International Justice on the matter. And in 1928 the court overturned the decision of the High Commissioner and it ruled that the former Danzig officials were entitled to rely on the agreement and to benefit from it even in the absence of any Polish implementing act. According to the court the question to be asked was as follows and I quote does the Burhamton Upcommon as it stands form a part of the series of provisions governing the legal relationship between the Polish Railway administration and the Danzig officials who have passed into its service end of quote and the court answered. The answer to this question depends upon the intention of the contracting parties. The court said that indeed in general treaties only create rights and obligations between the contracting parties however in light of the very object of the treaty the court stressed that the parties may very well establish definite rules creating individual rights and obligations. To know whether such was the intention of the parties the court said that one had to look at the terms of the agreement at its content and the court concluded that I quote again the provisions of the agreement are directly applicable as between the Danzig officials and the Polish Railways administration and of quote in other words treaties may create rights and obligations to the direct benefit of individuals in order to know whether a treaty has such an effect one needs to look at two things first the object of the treaty does the treaty concern individuals is it about individuals two if that is the case one needs to determine whether it was the intention of the parties to create rights or obligations to the direct benefit of individuals rights and obligations that do not need to be implemented through domestic legislation in order to discover such intention one needs to look at the terms of the treaty in other words deciding whether a treaty provision is directly applicable or not is an issue of treaty interpretation if the terms of the treaty are sufficiently clear precise and unconditional courts will most likely consider that the treaty does not need an implementing act in order for individuals to directly benefit from it the treaty provision will be considered as self-sufficient has having direct effect effect for instance it is not the same thing to write in a treaty the death penalty is abolished or to write the high contracting parties will take the necessary measures to abolish the death penalty in their respective criminal legislation under the first and concise draft one could consider that the provision is self-executing the death penalty is abolished and it does not require implementing legislation and this is not the case of the second draft it calls for implementing legislation if direct effect is a matter of international law such effect can however only take place in the domestic legal order of the state if that order has opened its door to the treaty as it were that is if the internal effectiveness of the treaty has been granted because the treaty has been duly approved by the constitutional organs competent in that regard and this being said it is important to keep in mind that direct effect of treaties is not a matter of domestic law the issue of pertaining to domestic law is whether the treaty has duly entered into the domestic legal order but the treaty accessing the domestic legal order its normative status in that order is not to be confused with the issue of the direct effect of the treaty which is an issue of international law as it depends ultimately on the intention of the contracting parties as expressed in the terms of the treaty direct effect of treaties is now a well-established issue in human rights treaties and in many other treaties and it is a central feature of the law of the European Union it is a daily issue and hundreds of cases of international or domestic courts could be quoted to illustrate the concept and its application direct effect plays an important role in the relationship between municipal law and international law because in some legal orders the primacy of international law over domestic law which is a domestic law issue in some legal orders that primacy is conditioned upon the direct effect of the treaty provision that direct effect is as I just said an international law issue