The Economy of Catalonia

The main source of International Law that regulates this matter is the
Vienna Convention of 1983 (hereafter called VC83).
VC83 has not been ratified by all the States, nor will it probably ever be,
since it establishes a system which is favourable to the States attaining independence
and which harms the interests of the powers in respect of the decolonisation
process. VC83 is not a treaty that obliges some parties to conduct
themselves in any specific way, but rather it is a general codification
treaty providing rules of customary character based on international custom,
which are of obligatory compliance and which assert the predominance of
the will of the parties, the proportional and equitable distribution of property
and debts, territoriality and the allocation of property, among other aspects.
Despite the fact that VC83 is not in force since it has not been ratified by all the
States, it is the only legal instrument that provides all the rules of International
Law on the distribution of property, archives and debts of the State. This Convention
has gone through a very long regulation process that includes the studies
of the United Nations International Law Commission as well as the observations
of each of the States. It also includes the thinking of the internationalist
doctrine. Accordingly, it may be used by the International Court of Justice to
ground judicial decisions.
On the part of the Spanish State, some voices have questioned the effectiveness
of VC83 36 due to the fact that it has not been ratified by all the States. As
Albert Pont states, however, «... the fact that it is not in force on a point of
form does not mean that some of its provisions do not have legal effects per
se. All its provisions which are of customary character have legal effects by
the mere fact of their being rules accepted by all the States with international
practice, regardless of whether they have been codified in a text or not».
«The circumstance of its not being in force does not mean that two States
cannot mutually agree to apply it in a particular case for want of any other
specific regulation on the matter «. «Nothing prevents the States from agreeing
on something else because their will comes first». «In any case, we have
to consider it positively. VC83 is not in force for either Spain or Catalonia.
Neither of the two can demand its compliance by the other party without
36. It is interesting to consider the various opinions of professors of constitutional law
on this matter in the article «Una Cataluña independiente se quedaría con los bienes
que el Estado tiene en su territorio» (An independent Catalonia would keep all the property
that the Spanish State has in its territory). El Confidencial. 1 October 2012.
http://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2012/10/01/una-cataluna-independientese-quedaria-
con-los-bienes-que-el-estado-tiene-en-su-territorio---106459.
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