ABSTRACT
The basic duty of all states is to live together in peace with one another as good neighbors and to avoid creating any situation that may lead to a dispute, conflict or crisis. If nevertheless a dispute, conflict, or crisis arises, two other interrelated duties come into effect—to refrain from using or threatening force to impose a solution on an adversary, and to try instead to find a settlement by peaceful means. Several general and regional international agreements contain the obligation not to aggravate or extend a dispute. For instance, the Geneva General Act of 1928, revised in 1949, provides in Article 33(3) as follows: “The parties undertake… to abstain from any sort of action whatsoever which may aggravate or extend the dispute.” The duty to negotiate appears not only in Article 33 of the UN Charter, but is also a preliminary condition for submitting a dispute to other methods of dispute resolution.
