University of Michigan Law School

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2022

International Law Rules on Treaty Interpretation

Steven R. Ratner
University of Michigan Law School, [email protected]

Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/book_chapters/279

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Part of the International Law Commons

Publication Information & Recommended Citation

Ratner, Steven R. "International Law Rules on Treaty Interpretation." In The Law and Practice of the
Northern Ireland Protocol, edited by Christopher McCrudden, 80-91. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2022.

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 7

International Law Rules on Treaty Interpretation

steven r ratner

7.1 Introduction
International law is central to the interpretation of both of the Brexit-
related treaties. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) explicitly
requires the parties and any dispute settlement body to interpret it
according to the rules of interpretation of public international law,
notably the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT).
The Withdrawal Agreement (WA), and thus the Protocol, by specifying
that any of its provisions concerning Union law or concepts must be
interpreted in accordance with EU law (including the case law of the
Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)), implies that its many
provisions not concerning EU law will need to be interpreted by the
default rules of treaty interpretation, namely those of the VCLT. This
chapter provides a brief overview of those rules and some of their
implications for these two instruments. I focus on Articles 31 and 32 of
the VCLT that concern the interpretation of treaties.

7.2 Parsing the TCA and WA Provisions on Interpretation

TCA Article 4(1) states:
The provisions of this Agreement and any supplementing agreement shall
be interpreted in good faith in accordance with their ordinary meaning in
their context and in light of the object and purpose of the agreement in
accordance with customary rules of interpretation of public international
law, including those codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties, done at Vienna on 23 May 1969.

The following two paragraphs add, ‘for greater certainty’, that parties are
not obliged to interpret the agreement in accordance with their domestic
law; and that an interpretation by the courts of either party shall not bind
the courts of the other party.

80
7 interna tiona l law rules o n tr ea ty int er p reta tion 81

The first sentence of Article 4(1) WA begins with language nearly

identical to the key sentence in Article 31 VCLT: ‘A treaty shall be
interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to
be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in light of its object
and purpose.’ But Article 4(1) then clarifies (or perhaps conditions) this
phrase by adding that such interpretation must be ‘in accordance with’
customary international law, including the VCLT. The choice of words is
odd, but not unique, as it appears in a number of EU treaties with non-
EU states.1 It refers to customary international law directly, and the
VCLT secondarily, as (a) the EU itself is not a party to the VCLT; (b)
the VCLT does not govern treaties between international organizations
and states; and (c) customary international law includes other rules of
interpretation (discussed in Sections 7.5 and 7.7) not mentioned in the
VCLT. Nevertheless, the TCA accepts – as is universally accepted – that
the VCLT’s rules of interpretation are customary international law.2
The WA, for its part, contains the following two paragraphs in
Article 4:
3. The provisions of this Agreement referring to Union law or to con-
cepts or provisions thereof shall be interpreted and applied in accord-
ance with the methods and general principles of Union law.
4. The provisions of this Agreement referring to Union law or to con-
cepts or provisions thereof shall in their implementation and applica-
tion be interpreted in conformity with the relevant case law of the
Court of Justice of the European Union handed down before the end
of the transition period.
From the language of these paragraphs, provisions of the WA that do not
refer to EU law, concepts or provisions will not be governed by EU law
and CJEU jurisprudence. What, then, will be the framework for their
interpretation? The WA cannot mean that non-EU law provisions would
be interpreted solely in accordance with the law of one or the other party.
The only alternative principles for interpreting any treaty – whether
between states or between the EU and a state – are those of public
international law. The public international law that applies is essentially

1
See, eg, Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union
and Canada, 30 October 2016, Art 29.17; Free Trade Agreement between the European
Union and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, 12 June 2020, Art 15.21.
2
The 1986 Vienna Convention between States and International Organizations or between
International Organizations is not in force, though it contains the same rules of treaty
interpretation.
82 s t e v e n r r a t n er

that set forth in the TCA, namely customary international law, including
the VCLT.

7.3 The VCLT’s Rules of Interpretation: General Themes

Article 31 is a sort of bible when it comes to treaty interpretation. Global,
regional and domestic courts routinely cite it as providing the framework
for the treaties they interpret. Before delving into the key provisions and
their implications for the Brexit agreements, a few key points should be
made:
(i) The goal of treaty interpretation under the VCLT is to determine
the meaning of the treaty viewed from the perspective of the
contemporary shared understanding of the parties to the treaties.
As James Crawford has pointed out, from the perspective of
international law, ‘the parties . . . own the treaty’,3 even if it is
certainly the case that their citizens, animals and plants (and those
of other states) may well be affected by how that treaty is inter-
preted. As a result, the key evidence for interpretation will be the
interactions of the parties insofar as it demonstrates that shared
understanding.
(ii) Treaty interpretation is not just a task for tribunals. Parties to
treaties are constantly interpreting them, making claims against
the other party in diplomatic settings, bilaterally and multilaterally,
confidentially and publicly. Only a small handful of these disputes
will make it to tribunals due to jurisdictional obstacles and incen-
tives that states have to avoid formal dispute settlement. Yet the
provisions remain relevant nonetheless.
(iii) Although the VCLT’s rules of interpretation are laid out in two
articles, treaty interpretation is not a formulaic exercise, where
boxes are checked and then a decision reached. Moreover, although
various indicia of the meaning of the text appear in Articles 31 and
32, the VCLT does not offer a ranking of evidence, insofar as
a meaning flowing from one set of evidence will simply override
that flowing from recourse to other evidence – with the one obvious
exception that the text obviously ‘counts’ more than anything else.
At the same time, there is a general understanding among tribunals
3
James Crawford, ‘A Consensualist Interpretation of Article 31(3) of the Vienna
Convention on the Law of Treaties’ in Georg Nolte et al (eds), Treaties and Subsequent
Practice (Oxford University Press 2013) 29, 31.
7 in te r n a tio na l l a w r u l es o n tr e a t y i n t e r p r e t a t i o n 83

that some evidence will be more probative of the parties’ contem-

porary understanding than others.4
(iv) Treaty interpretation, like statutory interpretation, can easily
yield more than one convincing interpretation of a treaty.
Just as the states parties to a treaty may have bona fide differ-
ences of opinion regarding its meaning, so may judges. At the
same time, the tools of treaty interpretation generally succeed
in narrowing the range of plausible interpretations, sometimes
to one.
(v) The VCLT’s rules for treaty interpretation are default rules. The
parties to a treaty are free to include clauses in the treaty, or in
subsequent instruments, that offer (a) a particular interpretation of
a clause, (b) a particular set of indicia to consider or exclude in
future interpretations and (c) a specific process for interpretation
that may differ from that in the VCLT.
(vi) Relatedly, different tribunals have developed interpretive method-
ologies that are distinct from those in the VCLT, or at least put
a particular emphasis on one factor more than others. Notably,
both the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the CJEU
have endorsed a broadly teleological approach to treaty interpret-
ation that emphasizes the overall purposes of the European human
rights regime or the EU, respectively. In addition, the ECtHR has
developed at least one doctrine, the margin of appreciation, that is
certainly not part of the VCLT (though it is not precluded by the
VCLT either).
(vii) While the VCLT does not include an explicit obligation on domes-
tic courts to employ it to interpret treaties, it is, of course, a treaty
itself, binding on the states parties (which include the UK). So,
depending on each state party’s approach to the direct application
of treaties (eg, monist versus dualist), domestic courts will have
a domestic law obligation to interpret the treaty in accordance with
the VCLT.5

4
See Jean-Marc Sorel and Valérie Boré Eveno, ‘Article 31: General Rule of Interpretation’ in
Olivier Corten and Pierre Klein (eds), The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties:
A Commentary, Vol. 1 (Oxford University Press 2011) 804, 829.
5
The Agreements clearly foresee a role for Northern Ireland courts, in WA Arts 4, 158, 159
and 162; and the TCA’s general provision barring direct actions by individuals to enforce it
excludes provisions on law enforcement co-operation (Art 5(1)). See generally
David Sloss, ‘Domestic Application of Treaties’ in Duncan Hollis (ed), The Oxford
Guide to Treaties (Oxford University Press 2012) 367.
84 s t e v e n r r a t ne r

7.4 The Starting Point: Text, Object and Purpose, and Context
The VCLT’s first command to a treaty interpreter appears in Article 31(1)
and (2):
1. A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the
ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context
and in the light of its object and purpose.
2. The context for the purpose of the interpretation of a treaty shall
comprise, in addition to the text, including its preamble and annexes:
(a) any agreement relating to the treaty which was made between all
the parties in connexion with the conclusion of the treaty; (b) any
instrument which was made by one or more parties in connexion with
the conclusion of the treaty and accepted by the other parties as an
instrument related to the treaty.
These two articles provide a text-based starting point for treaty interpret-
ation. In the case of the TCA, the text includes all its protocols, annexes,
appendices and footnotes.6 In the case of the WA, the three Protocols and
the nine Annexes are all part of the text.7 While the VCLT refers only to the
‘ordinary meaning [of] the terms of the treaty’, tribunals have relied on
additional doctrines, which can be said to constitute customary inter-
national law, to engage more meaningfully with the text. Various prin-
ciples from domestic law, such as ejusdem generis and expressio unius est
exclusio alterius, are frequently borrowed. The principle of effectiveness, or
effet utile, is particularly worth mentioning. This principle requires that
a treaty is to be interpreted to give it, as a whole, and the individual
provisions within it meaningful effect. The approaches of international
courts reveal that the principle of effet utile means that treaty clauses must
be interpreted to avoid either rendering them superfluous or depriving
them of significance for the relationship between the parties.8
As for the ‘object and purpose’, tribunals have significant discretion in
their mode of determining it, as well as its impact on the meaning of the
text. Often the text will specify the agreement’s purpose, either in the
preamble or in an early article. The TCA does so in its very lengthy
preamble as well as its rather anodyne Article 1; the WA also has

6
TCA Art 778.
7
WA Art 182.
8
Case Concerning Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (Georgia v Russia), Preliminary Objections, 2011 ICJ Rep.
70, para 134; Sorel and Eveno (n 4) 830–32.
7 in te r n a tio na l l a w r u l es o n tr e a t y i n t e r p r e t a t i o n 85

a lengthy preamble and similar Article 1. However, the Protocol has not
only a lengthy preamble but a much more specific Article 1: it clarifies
that the Protocol is ‘without prejudice’ to the 1998 Agreement; that it
respects UK ‘essential State functions and territorial integrity’; and that
its arrangements address ‘unique circumstances on the island of Ireland’,
‘maintain the necessary conditions for continued North–South cooper-
ation’, ‘avoid a hard border’ and ‘protect the 1998 Agreement in all its
dimensions’. These clauses clearly inform the interpretation of the
Protocol and the WA generally.9
The ‘context’ of the treaty is, in a sense, more concrete, as it consists of
other written instruments concluded in connection with the treaty. They
must be written, agreed upon, ‘relating to the treaty’ and ‘in connection
with the conclusion of the treaty’. Typical examples include exchanges of
notes between the parties that define terms or include additional com-
mitments. For the TCA and the WA, no simultaneous agreements or
exchanges of notes were agreed at the time of their conclusion. At the
same time, the term ‘in connection’ does not have a fixed time-limited
meaning, so even though more than a year separated the conclusion of
the TCA and that of the WA, courts may need to decide whether the WA
is part of the context of the TCA as well as whether the TCA is part of the
context of the WA. The ‘Political Declaration’ agreed in November 2018
might also be such an instrument10 (though it might also be part of the
negotiating history for purposes of Article 32 of the VCLT).

7.5 Role of Subsequent Agreements, Practice and Other Rules of

International Law
Article 31(3) of the VCLT begins an additional list of indicia for inter-
preters beyond the immediate context of the conclusion of the treaty (a
list that continues in Article 32, discussed in Section 7.6 of this chapter):
There shall be taken into account, together with the context: (a) any
subsequent agreement between the parties regarding the interpretation

9
As one small example of the difficulties in determining object and purpose, in Australia’s
ICJ case against Japan over whaling, Australia claimed that the purpose of the treaty was to
protect whales, while Japan argued that it was to regulate whaling and preserve the whaling
industry. In the end, the Court found both to be purposes of the treaty, though neither
purpose did much work in its ultimate interpretation of the text. Whaling in the Antarctic
(Australia v Japan, NZ Intervening), 2014 ICJ Rep. 224 (14 March 2014), paras 55–58.
10
‘Outline of the Political Declaration Setting Out the Framework for the Future
Relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom’, 14 November 2018.
86 s t e v e n r r a t ne r
of the treaty or the application of its provisions; (b) any subsequent
practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement
of the parties regarding its interpretation; (c) any relevant rules of inter-
national law applicable in the relations between the parties.

The first two additional elements concern the way that the parties under-
stand the meaning of the treaty since its entry into force. Subsequent
agreements (a) refer to new treaties or other agreements (eg, oral agree-
ments) where the parties clarify how they wish to interpret or apply the
treaty. Such agreements are given significant, even dispositive, weight
because they clearly demonstrate the parties’ contemporaneous under-
standing of the meaning of a treaty. In the case of the TCA and the WA,
such agreements are certainly possible. Indeed, the TCA itself presumes
that such agreements will be ‘supplementing agreements’ that will be an
‘integral part of the overall bilateral relations . . . and shall form part of the
overall framework’.11 The TCA does not quite call these supplementary
agreements an integral part of the TCA text itself, but it suggests that future
interpreters using VCLT Article 31(3)(a) should give them heavy weight.
The second interpretive aid, subsequent practice (b), is also very
important but much more difficult to identify because it is typically not
reduced to a single document. Interpreters have to verify that the two (or
more) parties are truly agreed on what a particular provision of the treaty
means, as opposed to simply agreeing on something else.12 In recent
years, the UN’s International Law Commission (ILC) has offered detailed
guidance to states and courts about the meaning of subsequent practice.
That guidance clarifies that the range of acts that might constitute
subsequent practice includes executive, legislative, judicial or other acts
of the parties (but not of non-state actors), as a well as a conference, or
joint institution, of the parties.13 So if, for instance, the highest domestic
11
Art 2 TCA.
12
One classic example of states giving great weight to subsequent practice concerns Art
27(3) of the UN Charter: ‘Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be
made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the
permanent members . . . .’ When the UN’s members began treating an abstention by
a member of the permanent five as equivalent to a ‘concurring vote’ – which they did the
first time it was used in 1946 – the meaning of that term was no longer in doubt; textual or
other arguments that ‘concurring’ meant ‘affirmative’ simply did not matter (including to
the ICJ). Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in
Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970),
1971 ICJ Rep. 16 (Advisory Opinion of 21 June), para 22.
13
ILC, Draft conclusions on subsequent agreement and subsequent practice in relation to
the interpretation of treaties, conclusion 5–6, 11(3), 12(2), in Report of the International
Law Commission, Seventieth Session, UN Doc A/73/10, at 12 (2018).
7 i n t er n a t i o n a l l a w r u l es o n t r e a t y i nt e r p r e t a t i o n 87

courts of the two parties to a treaty explicitly shared an understanding of

a term in the treaty, and that understanding was not contradicted by
other organs of the state, those court judgments would constitute the sort
of state practice that is to be taken into account under sub-paragraph (b).
If one of the many bilateral institutions established under the WA and the
TCA, from the highest political level to the expert/technical level, were to
agree on an interpretation of the treaties, that too would be important
subsequent practice.14
The third interpretive aid, other relevant rules of international law
applicable in the relations of the parties (c), on its face opens the door to
courts interpreting either the WA or the TCA to bring in completely
extraneous treaties – whether human rights, environmental law, the law
of the sea, international trade law (including intellectual property) – as
well as rules of customary international law. Much of this process is not
controversial. For example, international courts routinely rely on the
customary law rules of state responsibility to determine when an action
in violation of a treaty is imputable to one of the parties.15 So, too, may
international courts sometimes rely on an obviously relevant treaty for
the purpose of interpreting another treaty, such as interpreting the term
‘territorial sea’ by reference to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
But hard cases abound, where the parties or judges may have to
interpret whether a particular norm is a ‘rule’, whether it is ‘relevant’
and whether it is ‘applicable in the relations between the parties’.16 If one
party to a dispute believes that a treaty should be interpreted in light of
another treaty to which only one of the states is party, it would be hard to
view that second treaty as ‘applicable’ (unless the rule in it has become
one of customary law). In the case of the Protocol, two obviously delicate
questions will concern whether the 1998 Agreement and the ECHR fit
within Article 31(3)(c). The former is mentioned numerous times in the
Protocol, with an emphasis on the need to preserve its operation;17 but
the EU is not a party to it. Nor is the EU a party to the ECHR, although all
members of the EU are party to that treaty. Courts might nonetheless

14
See, eg, Whaling in the Antarctic, para 83.
15
See, eg, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide (Bosnia v Serbia), 2007 ICJ Rep. 43 (26 February), paras 385, 398.
16
For one useful study, see Bruno Simma and Theodore Kill, ‘Harmonizing Investment
Protection and International Human Rights: First Steps towards a Methodology’ in
C Binder et al (eds), International Investment Law for the 21st Century: Essays in
Honour of Christoph Schreuer (Oxford University Press 2009) 678.
17
Eg, Protocol Preamble paras 4–5, Arts 1(3), 2.
88 s t e v e n r r a t n er

look past these distinctions and determine that both are indeed ‘relevant’
and ‘applicable’. Regarding the TCA, Part 3 on criminal law enforcement
co-operation states that the co-operation is ‘based on’ the ECHR and the
importance of giving it domestic effect, and that nothing in the TCA
modifies the duty to respect the rights in the ECHR.18 So clearly the
ECHR constitutes a relevant rule for purposes of interpreting Part 3.

7.6 Supplementary Means

The VCLT’s other article on interpretation invites tribunals to consider
what are deemed ‘supplementary’ indicia:
Recourse may be had to supplementary means of interpretation, including
the preparatory work of the treaty and the circumstances of its conclusion,
in order to confirm the meaning resulting from the application of article
31, or to determine the meaning when the interpretation according to
article 31: (a) Leaves the meaning ambiguous or obscure; or (b) Leads to
a result which is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.

Although Article 32 begins with the word ‘may’, its drafters fully expected
tribunals to refer to these materials, and many tribunals routinely have
recourse to supplementary materials, in particular the negotiating history
of a treaty (travaux préparatoires).19 As the text makes clear, tribunals are
not constrained in when they may turn to these supplementary means, as
they can be used to either confirm or rebut what has been found from the
deployment of Article 31. Yet the travaux, especially of a particular article
in a treaty, may be obscure. The deal on the language may have been
reached over drinks or coffee at a bar, or just in a conversation off the
record, so that those taking notes of the negotiation never wrote down
what the parties meant to agree on – or to avoid agreeing on. The
negotiating history could be confidential, requiring an interpreting
body to request it from the parties. This uncertainty over the availability
and reliability of the travaux préeparatoires, combined with a view that
these materials should matter less than those showing the contemporan-
eous understanding of the parties, may render them ultimately of little
use for interpreting some treaties, though tribunals take them into
account when they can find them.

18
TCA Art 524.
19
Richard Gardiner, ‘The Vienna Convention Rules on Treaty Interpretation’ in
Duncan Hollis (ed), The Oxford Guide to Treaties (Oxford University Press 2012) 475,
479–80, 487–89.
7 in t er n a t i o n a l l a w r u l e s o n t r e a t y i n te r p r et a t i o n 89

Article 32 is not limited to the preparatory work of the treaty. It

includes any other material related to the conclusion of the treaty not
covered in Article 31(2), including statements by the negotiators to their
legislature during debates over the latter’s approval of the treaty. In
addition, as the ILC has recently made clear, it includes the conduct of
one or all parties to the treaty when that practice does not demonstrate
the agreement of the parties required for that practice to be considered
under Article 31(3)(b).20 So courts might look at the interpretation of the
treaties by the parties to demonstrate that a particular understanding is
not shared.
In the case of the WA, some of the negotiating record is easily
available – notably the first EU Commission proposed draft, as well
as the EU–UK agreed draft rejected by Parliament; other documents
are public. The statements of the negotiators to their legislatures are
well documented; and both treaties have been the subject of disagree-
ments already. Notably, the EU accused the UK of breaching the WA,
including its duty of good faith,21 in including a particular clause (later
withdrawn) in a bill introduced in Parliament, and in delaying certain
customs regulations on goods destined for Northern Ireland.22

7.7 Conflicts: Peremptory Norms and Other Treaties

While international law gives states virtually unlimited discretion to
define, refine, alter and terminate their treaty relations, this discretion
is not completely unlimited. Article 53 treats as void ab initio any
treaty conflicts with a norm of jus cogens. Certainly, civil society actors
like to make claims that various parts of treaties so conflict, rendering
the treaties void. Yet the scope of jus cogens norms is extremely
limited – the ban on the use of force, a few core human rights norms
(the ban on genocide, torture or crimes against humanity), the
supremacy of the UN Charter, and perhaps a few others. It seems
highly unlikely that any provision of the WA or the TCA would violate
jus cogens.
A separate question is whether an obligation under either treaty
might conflict with another treaty or rule of customary international
law, insofar as carrying it out would breach those other rules. In this

20
ILC Draft Conclusions, conclusion 4–5.
21
Art 5 WA.
22
See Chapter 5.
90 st ev en r ra tn e r

scenario, there are various possible responses: the states will amend the
treaty to avoid the conflict; one or both will interpret it through
recourse to Article 31(c)(3) to avoid the conflict (although conceivably
the parties could interpret it differently); or the parties will need to
assume the consequences of a breach of the other rule. The VCLT does
not set any priorities for treaties nor require that one treaty be inter-
preted to be consistent with another (although the text of a particular
treaty can so provide). So, international law does not require that the
WA or the TCA be interpreted to be consistent with something as old as
the Act of Union of 1800 unifying Ireland and Great Britain (eg, its
provisions on commerce), or something as recent as the WTO
Agreements. In addition, Article 30 of the VCLT provides that if the
parties to one treaty later conclude another treaty on the same subject
matter without terminating the first, the earlier treaty applies only to the
extent that it is ‘compatible’ with the later treaty, unless the parties
specify otherwise.23

7.8 Conclusion
Articles 31 and 32 VCLT are central to the interpretation of all treaties
and are routinely applied by international, regional and domestic
courts and arbitral bodies – and of course by treaty parties themselves
in their interactions regarding the implementation of treaties. They are
the subject of enormous case law and scholarship; the aim of this
chapter has been only to highlight their key features when it comes
to the Brexit agreements.24 What remains to be seen is how the
different courts and tribunals that engage with the Brexit agreements
(domestic courts, the CJEU, the arbitration panels) may use the VCLT,
perhaps, in different ways. The CJEU has significant experience using

23
See, in this context, In the matter of an Application by Allister, et al [2021] NIQB 64 (per
Colton, J), paras 63–114 (finding that Withdrawal Acts implementing the Brexit agree-
ments override the Act of Union); see also ibid, paras 64–66 (rejecting the claim of
invalidity of the WA under the VCLT).
24
Beyond the VCLT’s rules on treaty interpretation, several other provisions may at
some stage prove relevant to the interpretation and application of the WA and the
TCA: Art 26 (all parties to carry out their treaty obligations in ‘good faith’) – see
Chapter 8; Art 60 allowing treaty suspension or termination following a ‘material
breach’ by the other party – see Chapter 25; and Art 62 permitting treaty suspension
or termination in the event of a ‘fundamental change in circumstances’ (rebus sic
stantibus) – see Chapter 25.
7 interna tiona l law rules on tr eaty int e rp reta tio n 91

the interpretive methodology of the VCLT in interpreting treaties

between the EU and other states (while adopting a sui generis frame-
work for interpreting the EU’s constitutive instruments). Yet, as
numerous commentators have noted, even as it applies the VCLT
framework, its approach is often quite idiosyncratic.25

25
For example, it has an expansive notion of the idea of the object and purpose of a treaty,
extending the teleological approach it uses to interpret the EU’s constitutive acts to other
treaties. Jed Odermatt, ‘The Use of International Treaty Law by the Court of Justice of the
European Union’ (2015) 17 Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 121.