The Status of International Treaties in the South African Domestic Legal System: Small Steps towards Harmony in Light of Glenister?

Abstract

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty as ‘an international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation’. When a treaty enters into force, it binds those who are party to it and obliges these parties to perform in terms of the treaty in good faith, without dictating how this should be done. When an international treaty enters into force, it becomes binding on the parties in the international sphere, but the status of international law obligations within a state’s domestic legal system can vary. Whether the particular rights and obligations created in the international sphere by treaties give rise to enforceable domestic rights and obligations depends on the approach adopted by a state to the incorporation of international law into domestic law.