Page 290 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

228 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES
for ratification which was to take place on 31 October I9I4.1 But that
Article lost its legal force later, on the expiration of the final date
prescribed for the ratification of the 1913 Agreement (i.c., 31 October
1914).2 It cannot be argued that Article 11 was alone ratified by the
1914 Convention, because this would have amounted to ‘a partial
ratification’ of the 1913 Agreement which is illegal. According to
Oppenheim, ‘a treaty cannot be ratified in part’. Nor arc ‘alterations
of the treaty ... possible through the act of ratification’.3
(b) The question of succession by Saudi Arabia to'the above Conventions
Quite apart from the lack of the formal validity of the Conventions
of 1913 and 1914, as explained above, the question to be considered
is whether these conventions are perfectly valid vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia.
In other words, the question arises whether Saudi Arabia, which was
not originally a party to these conventions has, as a successor to the
Turkish possessions in Arabia, become bound by the conventions?
The general principles of law regarding state succession to treaties
are that treaties are not, in principle, subject to state succession; the
successor State is not bound by treaties of its predecessor. However,
it is agreec that, as an exception to this rule, certain treaties that are
of strictly local character (in other words, treaties creating ‘real
rights’) can be made subject to state succession.1 According to Da

1 It is to be noted that on the date of the ratification of the 1914 Convention
(i.e., 3 June) the date prescribed for the ratification of the 1913 Convention was
26 June 1914. But this date was again extended to 31 October 1914. See Gooch
and Tcmpcrley, op. cit., pp. 241, 282.
2The Saudi Government’s argument on this point runs as follows: *. . . It is
wholly implausible that the parties intended to take the Blue Line out of its context,
where it was intimately tied to the question of Kuwait and Bahrain, and bring it
alone into effect by means of a brief reference in the 1914 Convention. It is much
more consonant with reason to view its mention in 1914 merely as a convenient
method of defining a terminus ad quern for the Violet Line—a terminus which
would match, without further revision, the anticipated boundary coming down
from the north.’ See Saudi Memorial, I, p. 397.
3 Oppenheim, p. 904. And sec footnote (4) ibid., where the author questions
the legality of Ecuador’s action in 1934, when in order to become an original
member of the League of Nations, she ratified the Covenant of the League alone
without ratifying the Treaty of Versailles itself. He treats this case as ‘excep­
tional’, since Ecuador’s ratification of the Covenant did not, in law, amount to an
implied ratification of the Treaty of Versailles.
4 For international practice regarding the discontinuance of treaties on annexa­
tion or cession of territory, see Keith, A. B., The Theory of State Succession, with
Special Reference to English and Colonial Law (1907), pp. 17, 19-20; O’Connell,
D P The Law of State Succession (1956), p. 15; Jones, J. M., ‘State Succession in
the Matter of Treaties’, B.Y.l.L., 24 (1947), p. 362; McNair, Treaties, pp. 389-90.
For the practice regarding treaties creating ‘real rights’ which thus pass to the
acouiring the territory, see McNair, Treaties, p. 470, and sec Jenks, C. W.,
‘State Succession in Respect of Law-Making Treaties’, B. Y.I.L., 29 (1952), pp. 104
et seq.