ABSTRACT
The codified law of treaties contains many references to the object and purpose of treaties. Signatory and ratifying states are obliged not to defeat a treaty's object and purpose pending ratification or entry into force. Treaties must be interpreted in light of their object and purpose in the absence of any specific provisions, only permissible to the extent that they are not incompatible with a treaty's object and purpose. A material breach of a treaty is a breach that consists in "the violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty". The notion of object and purpose of a treaty is also referred to in the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in Respect of Treaties. The heart of the matter is, as the joint dissenting opinion to the Reservations to the Genocide Convention case demonstrates, the identification of a particular treaty's object and purpose.
