WHY STATES SHOULD RATIFY THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON JURISDICTIONAL IMMUNITY

Abstract

In 2004 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property. Before the adoption of this Convention, there was no global treaty or convention in force regulating the subject of State immunity and as such reliance was largely placed on case laws for finding what the rules of customary international law was on the subject. The adoption of the Convention was therefore primarily borne out of the need to codify the existing rules of customary international law on State immunity with the overall aim of providing a uniform global platform on the subject of State immunity. The problem however was that since its adoption in 2004, the Convention was yet to garner up to thirty ratifications of members States of the United Nations to have the Convention come into force. The aim of this work was to examine the features of the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property. The objectives of work were to assess the level of acceptance of this Convention by States as a codification of rules of customary international law on State immunity and the extent the Convention had made inroad into national legislations. This research adopted doctrinal method by consulting the Convention itself, case laws and some domestic legislations on State immunity. The work also consulted secondary sources like relevant law text books, journal articles and online materials. It was found that a number of States had accepted the Convention as a codification of the rules of customary international law on State immunity. The researcher also found that some States had been applying the provisions of the Convention when confronted with the issue of State immunity. It was recommended that more States should make efforts to ratify the Convention so it could come into force. It was also recommended that States that were yet to have a domestic legislation on State immunity should do so on the terms of the provisions of the Convention