Determining Defeat: The PRC, the ICCPR, and the Interim Obligation

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties codifies in Article 18 the duty not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty after signature but before ratification. This duty has become known as the interim obligation and has undergone substantial scholarship evaluating its scope and extent. In fact several tests have been developed to identify the enigmatic nature of this obligation, which in the forthcoming paper are addressed. More specifically however, this paper evaluates the actions of the PRC since signature of the ICCPR to determine defeat of the interim obligation.