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The Attorney General Invokes Rebus Sic Stantibus

1942; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2192195

2161-7953

Herbert W. Briggs,

International Law and Human Rights

On August 9, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that the International Load Lines Convention of 1930 was no longer binding on the United States "for the duration of the present emergency." He based this unilateral suspension of the treaty on "changed conditions" which, he said, had conferred on the United States "an unquestioned right and privilege under approved principles of international law" to declare the treaty inoperative. The President's proclamation was made on the advice of Acting Attorney General Francis Biddle who had informed the President that: "It is a well-established principle of international law, rebus sic stantibus, that a treaty ceases to be binding when the basic conditions upon which it was founded have essentially changed. Suspension of the convention in such circumstances is the unquestioned right of a state adversely affected by such essential change."