Buffalo Law Review Volume 34 Number 2 Article 2 4-1-1985 The Dialectic of Duplicity: Treaty Conflict and oliticalP Contradiction Guyora Binder University at Buffalo School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Guyora Binder, The Dialectic of Duplicity: Treaty Conflict and oliticalP Contradiction, 34 Buff. L. Rev. 329 (1985). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol34/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BUFFALO LAW REVIEW VOLUME 34 SPRING 1985 NUMBER 2, The Dialectic of Duplicity: Treaty Conflict and Political Contradictiont GUYORA BINDER* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ............................. 332 A. The Argument ........................... 332 B. The Argument Outlined .................... 333 C. The Outline Explained ..................... 337 II. TREATY CONFLICT AND THE CAMP DAVID NEGOTIA- TIONS ..................................... 340 " A. A Definition of Treaty Conflict ............... 340 B. The Camp David Treaties................... 342 •C. Prior Egyptian Commitments ................. 345 D. Egypt's Attempted Resolution of the Conflicts ..... 352 III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TREATY CONFLICT ............. 363 A. Treaty Conflict and the Concert of Europe ...... 363 B. Treaty Conflict and International Tribunals ..... 374 f Copyright 1986 by Guyora Binder. *Associate Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo Faculty of Law and Juris- prudence, A.B. Princeton 1977, J.D. Yale 1980. This essay benefitted from the conversa- tion, comments and hard questions of Bruce Ackerman, Alan Freeman, Al Katz, Fred Konefsky, Virginia Leary, Errol Meidinger, Wade Newhouse, Judy Olin, Michael Schaef- tier, Schlegel, Virginia Seitz, Richard Simins, and Robert Steinfeld. Kathleen Dobley and Dara Silberstein provided perceptive and painstaking research assistance. Amy Hypnarow- ski, Ken Africano, Ann Baker and Stuart Mermelstein were heroically patient in preparing the manuscript for publication. 329 330 BUFFALO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 34 C. Extrajudicial Responses to Treaty Conflict in the Twentieth Century ........................ 381 IV. THE PARADOX OF TREATY CONFLICT ............... 385 A. The Illegality of Treaty Conflict .............. 386 B. The Ambiguity of Illegality .................. 394 C. Objective Right and Subjective Rights .......... 397 D. Property Entitlements and Liability Entitlements .. 402 E. The Relationship Between the Two Distinctions ... 404 F. Two Types of Illegality ..................... 407 V. TREATIES AS PROPERTY ENTITLEMENTS .............. 409 A. Natural Law Arguments .................... 410 B. Modern Arguments From Customary Law ....... 415 C. The Subordination of Sovereignty ............. 423 VI. THE EROSION OF A PROPERTY RULE ................. 425 A. Treaty Conflict Before the InternationalLaw Com- mission ................................ 425 B. Lauterpacht ............................. 426 C. Fitzmaurice ............................. 428 D. Waldock ................................ 431 E. Patterns of Interpretation in the International Law Commission Debates ....................... 441 VII. THE NATIONALIST DILEMMA: LIABILITY RULE OR LAIS- SEZ FAIRE? ................................. 446 A. Rationalizing Breach ...................... 446 B. State Autonomy: An Inalienable Entitlement ..... 447 C. The Republican Model ..................... 454 D. The Imperial Model ....................... 463 E. Hegel's Synthesis ......................... 471 F. State Autonomy and State Responsibility ........ 479 G. The Principle of Good Faith in InternationalLaw 483 H. State Autonomy and World History ............ 490 I. Progressive Development of International Law .... 496 J. Alternatives to a Property Rule Summarized ..... 499 VIII. NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM .............. 500 A. Monism in InternationalLaw ................ 501 B. Monism as an InternationalistSocial Vision ..... 502 C. Dualism in InternationalLaw ............... 505 D. Dualism as a Nationalist Social Vision ......... 508 E. The Relationship Between Monism and Dualism 509 F. The Internal Contradictionsof Internationalism 512 985] DIALECTIC OF DUPLICITY 331 G. Monism and Dualism in American Diplomacy .... 513 H. Internationalismin American Politics .......... 518 I. Nationalism in American Politics ............. 520 J. Nationalism, Internationalism and Capitalism ... 521 K. Monism and Dualism in Soviet Diplomacy ...... 523 L. Revolutionary Internationalism............... 525 M. Revolutionary Nationalism .................. 526 N. National Liberation and InternationalLaw ..... 527 IX. THE RETURN ................................ 534 A. The Dialectic Recollected .................... 534 B. A Dialectical History ...................... 537 C. Towards a Dialectical Identity ............... 546 332 BUFFALO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 34 I. INTRODUCTION "Speak, God."' "I know you're lonely for words that I ain't spoken, but tonight we'll be free, all the promises'll be broken."2 A. The Argument God promised Abraham a multitude of nations, but just one land for them to live in.3 That covenant has been kept with a ven- geance. The promised land of biblical lore is claimed by three sov- ereignties: Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian." Yet such conflicts are endemic to the world we have inherited. Every claim to sover- eignty rests upon a collective history; yet, if history is what distin- guishes communities it is also what relates them to one another. Thus the national destinies that in theory are autonomously deter- mined, in practice intertwine. In an increasingly interdependent world, every national charter is written on the back of some other people's promissory note; every promised land is mortgaged to the hilt. International law appears to offer an escape from this wilder- ness-but this vision is a mirage. The modern international legal 1. R. UNGER, KNOWLEDGE AND PoLrmcs 295 (1975). 2. Springsteen, Thunder Road, recorded on B. SPRINGSTEEN, BORN TO RUN. Courtesy and copyright. 1975 CBS Inc. Published in the U.S.A. by Columbia Records. All rights reserved. 3. Genesis 17:4-8. 4. Israel claims sovereignty over not only the territory contained within the 1949 ar- mistice lines and East Jerusalem, but over the West Bank as well. This claim is based on two factors: ancient possession, and the fact that no other nation has a better claim. On this view, the Arab Palestinian State contemplated by the U.N. Partition no longer exists, and the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank was the result of aggressive conquest. See Blum, The Missing Reversioner: Reflections on the Status of Judea and Samaria, 3 ISR. L. REV. 297 (1968); Murphy, To Bring an End to the State of War: The Egyptian Israeli Peace Treaty, 12 VAND. J. OF INT'L L. 897, 927 n.151 (1979); Schwebel, What Weight to Conquest?, 64 AM. J. INT'L L. 344 (1970); Speech by Itzchak Shamir, Israeli Foreign Minister, before the Knesset (Sept. 8, 1982), reprinted in 21 I.L.M. 1158 (1982). The P.L.O. claims sovereignty to all of the same territory pursuant to the Palestinian National Charter of 1968, reprinted in J. MOORE, THE ARAB ISRAELI CONFLiCT: READINGS AND DOCUMENTS 1085 (1977). The case for this claim, based on the self-determination of the residents, may be found in an essay by the P.L.O.'s official observer at the U.N. Cattan, Sovereignty over Palestine, reprinted in J. MOORE, supra, at 11. In 1950, Jordan annexed jhe West Bank, but with the understanding, imposed by its Arab League treaty partners, that the territory was to be held in trust for its residents. See Murphy, supra, at 920. 1985] DIALECTIC OF DUPLICITY 333 system rests on a paradox-its legitimacy derives from the sover- eignty of nations; yet, its function is the constraint of such sover- eignty. This means that precisely where international law speaks loudest it says the least. Where, as in the Middle East, conflicting claims to sovereignty converge, every doctrinal claim implies its own negation. The legal order, for example, may defend sover- eignty,' but cannot thereby infringe it;6 states should abjure the use of force,7 but may not give up the right of self-defense, Far from resolving political conflicts, international law translates them into doctrine. This essay will trace one such doctrinal conflict from its appearance in the context of a recent political conflict to its roots in the contradictory nature of international politics gen- erally. The doctrinal conflict we will consider concerns the validity and relative applicability of conflicting treaties. We will discover that authorities on international law hold two deeply opposed views on this question. The older view, that the latter of two con- flicting treaties is void, has been articulately defended and is easily grasped. The newer view, that such a treaty is valid, has been less articulately defended and remains ambiguous as to whether the earlier of two conflicting treaties is enforceable. This essay will offer an explanation for the ambiguity of this view and for its co- existence with the older view. Developing such an explanation will require us to explore the role of nationalism and internationalism in the discourse