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Indirect Obligations — Four questions in Respect of EEC Obligations Arising from Rights or Obligations of others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

Henry G. Schermers
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Most international treaties create legal rules applicable only between the States concerned; individuals are not involved. The few treaties which do contain rights or duties for the inhabitants of States only rarely grant such rights or impose such duties in unequivocal terms. Instead of providing that citizens have a right, for example, to freedom of trade, the treaties provide that the State must grant such freedom of trade to its citizens. In other words: the right of the citizen is drafted as an obligation of his State. In practice such an indirect way of drafting often leads to questions: are specific obligations, imposed upon States, meant to create rights which individuals can invoke in court, or are they not? The question is, whether the treaty provisions concerned have full effect not only on those to whom they are directly addressed, but also on others, whom they reach only indirectly, namely through the obligation of the addressee. Words often develop mysteriously and thus the full effect on an indirect addressee is termed “direct effect”. This expression should be understood as meaning that the effect on the indirect addressee is as full as that on the direct addressee.

Type
Articles
Information
Netherlands International Law Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1-2 , May 1977 , pp. 260 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1977

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References

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