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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2021
Article 24: Duration and Withdrawal
1. This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration.
2. Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty. It shall give notification of such withdrawal to the Depositary, which shall notify all other States Parties. The notification of withdrawal may include an explanation of the reasons for its withdrawal. The notice of withdrawal shall take effect ninety days after the receipt of the notification of withdrawal by the Depositary, unless the notification of withdrawal specifies a later date.
3. A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Treaty while it was a Party to this Treaty, including any financial obligations that it may have accrued.
INTRODUCTION
As is evident from the title, Article 24 focuses on the duration of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and the withdrawal of States Parties from the Treaty. It defines that the ATT is for an unlimited duration. It also provides that each State Party has the right to withdraw from the ATT and sets out the procedures for doing so.
Provisions that regulate the duration of a treaty and the possibility of a State’s withdrawal are ubiquitous features of international treaties. Their presence reminds us of the contractual nature of international treaties, whereby upon entering into a treaty a State nevertheless retains a level of discretion with respect both to the renegotiation of its commitments and ultimately its potential withdrawal from the treaty itself.
Ensuring that the ATT is for an unlimited duration while providing the relatively straightforward withdrawal provision contained in Article 24, seems appropriate. On the one hand, the unlimited duration of the Treaty reflects the important advances that the ATT provides to the international agenda on arms control, particularly the obligations contained in Articles 6 and 7. On the other hand, the flexible withdrawal clause in Article 24(2) provides a level of reassurance to those States Parties who may decide in future that they are unable or unwilling to comply with their obligations under the Treaty.
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