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In, Out or at the Gate? The Predicament on Eritrea's Membership and Participation Status in IGAD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2015

Senai W Andemariam
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Abstract

On 27 April 2007 Eritrea notified the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) of its decision to “temporarily suspend its membership” and “freeze its activities” in IGAD followed on 25 July 2011 by its decision to “reactivate its membership.” On 24 August 2011 Eritrea's representative to the IGAD Council of Ministers meeting in Addis Ababa was informed that he could not sit in the meeting and was escorted out. Eritrea's representatives have not attended IGAD meetings since. The incident raises the important question of what should be done in the absence of an IGAD rule regulating unilateral temporary suspension and reactivation of membership. The answer should be based on a clear understanding of the laws and practices of withdrawal, suspension, expulsion, membership reactivation and rejoining international / regional organizations. This article discusses how the stalemate regarding Eritrea's status in IGAD should be handled by reference to such laws and practices, and the rules in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties governing the interpretation of treaties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of African Law , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , October 2015 , pp. 355 - 379
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Copyright
Copyright © SOAS, University of London 2015 

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References

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3 Id, art 9(2).

4 Id, art 10(2).

5 Id, art 10(4) and (5). In practice, however, the CoM votes if no consensus can be reached.

6 Id, art 11(1).

7 Id, art 11(2).

8 Id, arts 12 and 13.

9 Id, art 18A(b).

10 LR Helfer “Exiting treaties” (2005) 91/7 Virginia Law Review 1579 at 1582, note 4. A handbook prepared by the UN in 2003 provides: “The words denunciation and withdrawal express the same legal concept. Denunciation (or withdrawal) is a procedure initiated unilaterally by a State to terminate its legal engagements under a treaty”: UN Office of Legal Affairs Final Clauses of Multilateral Treaties Handbook UN Sales no E.04.V.3 (2003) at 109.

11 Helfer, ibid.

12 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, opened for signature 23 May 1969, 1155 UNTS 331 (entered into force 27 January 1980), art 70(1).

13 Helfer “Exiting treaties”, above at note 10 at 1585.

14 Helfer briefly narrates: “In the decade leading up to the Second World War, Germany, Italy, Japan, and several other League members exercised their right to withdraw from the organization, thereby avoiding even the mild sanctions that the global body had attempted to impose … The widespread withdrawals from the League explain in part why the United Nations Charter does not contain an express denunciation clause.” Id at 1585, note 15.

15 Helfer (id at 1592, note 30) uses the following as examples from luminaries of international law scholarship. Brownlie, Ian in his Principles of Public International Law (6th ed, 2003, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar devoted only a single page (592) in his 715 page treatise to unilateral denunciation; in the three volume treatise Lauterpacht, H (ed) L Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise (8th ed, 1955, Longman)Google Scholar, only one paragraph (at 938, para 538) is dedicated to unilateral denunciation; Rosenne, Shabtai, in his Developments in the Law of Treaties, 1945–1986 (1989, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar did not discuss unilateral withdrawal or denunciation at all.

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57 Id at 2–3.

58 Id at 3–4.

59 Id at 4.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

63 IGAD press release “Visit of IGAD ministers and ES to Eritrea” (emphasis added) (16 August 2008), available at: <http://igad.int/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:press-release-visit-of-igad-ministers-and-es-to-eritrea&catid=47:communique&Itemid=149> (last accessed 4 August 2012).

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65 More detailed information on the project, which is part of the world hydrological cycle observing system developed by the World Meteorological Organization, is available at: <http://www.whycos.org/whycos/documents/igad-hycos-rev-project_documents_2012.pdf> (last accessed 11 May 2015).

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69 Ibid.

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71 Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

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