Challenges and Flaws of the 2006 Guidelines on Unilateral Acts of States in International Law

One of the issues incorporated in the International Law Commission agenda is “Unilateral Acts of States”. In recent decades, states have had many unilateral acts in the international level. Absence of rules for identification of unilateral acts of states and their components according to international law, on the one hand, and importance of codification for such acts, on the other hand, have led to a prolonged analysis of them in the International Law Commission for one decade. Questions such as whether unilateral acts of states only have legal aspects or also incorporate political acts; or what the elements of independent unilateral act in international law are; or what is the relationship between unilateral acts and other rules of international law such as the Law of Treaties; were discussed in the Commission; and eventually, after ten years of study and analysis, the Commission succeeded in codification of guidelines for this issue, which includes some challenging points.