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POLITIC Al. DEVELOPMENT IN KUWAIT 335 :
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customarily accepted as valid agreements from the date of their I
signature by the parties concerned who were authorised to conclude
them. Ratification does not seem to be necessary in such type of
agreements. According to Oppenheim:

“The practice of dispensing with ratification and expressly providing that
the treaty shall enter into force upon signature has, in fact, become a
prominent feature in the procedure of conclusion of treaties. This applies in
particular to exchanges of notes, which constitute about one-third of
international agreements”.1

Whether an agreement requires ratification “depends upon the
contents of the compact’', Oppenheim says. Thus, he continues that
“a protocol or declaration, or an exchange of notes, insofar as they
merely add some minor point or record agreement on the interpretation of a
clause in a ^treaty, do not require ratification unless this is especially
stipulated”. *

This principle also applies to the Agreed Minutes of 1963, which
merely confirmed the agreement of the governments of Kuwait and
Iraq on the status of their boundaries, as defined formerly, by virtue .
of the 1932 Exchange of Letters.
;
According to Oppenheim:
“In the Ambatielos case. Judge McNair was prepared to hold, if :
necessary, that a Declaration which referred to the settlement of disputes, :
and which in his view did not form part of the ratified treaty, was binding,
without ratification, upon the United Kingdom having regard to the practice
of that country in this matter”.3
.
Notwithstanding its title, the Agreed Minutes of 1963, has the
character of a declaration, or a communique, which, as an
“international compact”, is binding upon the parties to it, from the
date of its signature.

The merits of the Iraqi claim to the islands
It appears from the above discussion that the Iraqi claim to the
islands of Bubiyan and Warbah is based on political rather than legal
grounds, since these islands have been recognised, for a long time,
as Kuwaiti owned islands.4 This is clear from the Iraqi Foreign
1. Oppenheim, p. 907.
2. Ibid.,p. 907-8.
3. Ibid., p. 907, note (4). For the Ambatielos case, see I.C.J., Reports, 1952.
4. See this book, p. 256, above, for reference to the Exchange of Letters of 1923
between the then Ruler of Kuwait and Sir Percy Cox, the then High
Commissioner for Iraq. Those Letters, which were basically similar to the 1932
Exchange of Letters, also recognised Kuwait’s ownership of the said islands.