Breaking with the Past 233will of the two parties, in the sense that each party is placed under precisely
the same obligation as the other. A contract- treaty, in contrast, is a compro-
mise arrangement, in which the two parties undertake to perform diff erent
tasks in order to achieve the immediate goal sought. For example, one party
agrees to lend money, while the other agrees to borrow and repay. Only in
cases in which the two parties bind themselves to the same rules can there
be said to be a truly common will at work. In a contract- treaty, there is merely
a juxtaposition of individual wills, with each party willing something dif-
ferent from the other.
A law- treaty could therefore be regarded as, in eff ect, an act of interna-
tional legislation on the part of the contracting parties— though with the
important proviso that this “legislation” must have the actual consent of
each party that is to be obligated by it. As Triepel explained, a law- treaty
(or Ve re i n b a r u n g) is an “objective law.” An illustration that he gave of the
diff erence between the two types of treaty was in the area of extradition. An
ad hoc arrangement between two states for the extradition of a specifi ed in-
dividual from the one state to the other would be a contract- treaty. One state
agrees to dispatch the accused person, while the other state agrees to receive
him. But a treaty that provides for extradition of persons generally, accord-
ing to specifi ed criteria, and intended to be in force indefi nitely, would be a
law- treaty. Th e reason is that, over the long run, both parties would send
and both would receive, pursuant to the same set of rules.
Th is seemingly arcane distinction did carry some practical implications.
Perhaps the most important was with regard to the termination of treaties.
A contract- treaty could (at least arguably) be terminated freely at the will of
either party to it. Since a contract- treaty is only a conjunction of individual
wills, without an overarching common will above, a change of mind by ei-
ther party destroys the very basis of the arrangement. Th at is not so for a
law- treaty. Once the law is in place, the parties are inescapably bound by it,
just as individual citizens are bound by statutes of their national legislatures.
Th e only way that a law- treaty can be terminated is by the adoption of a later
law- treaty that supersedes it— precisely in the manner of legislation in domes-
tic law, which remains in force until and unless it is superseded by later legisla-
tion. Th is means that all parties to the law- treaty must consent to the change.
Th ere is an analogous diff erence, too, regarding breaches of a treaty. If
a contract- treaty is breached by one of the parties, then the other one has