8.3 Succession of State and Government

The distinction (the examination's recurring trap): state succession changes the international person in territory; government succession changes only the government — the state continues, bound by all its obligations (continuity of identity: Napoleon's fall did not free France of its treaties). The practice's cases: The continuator: the Russian Federation succeeded the USSR as a continuing state (not a new one — retaining the Security Council seat); the German unification's single-state continuation; The agreed dissolution: Czechoslovakia (1993) — both successors "new," applying anew; The contested identity: Yugoslavia — the FRY's claim to continuation rejected by the Badinter Opinions; UN practice treating it as a new state requiring application (admitted 2000); Revolution's completeness: Iran (1979) — continuity held; and Nepal's own line — governments succeed one another seamlessly in international law (Rana, royal, democratic, republican, federal — one state, all obligations continuing — the state/government distinction's living illustration). Succession to treaties (the VCSST 1978 / VCSSP 1983 architecture): boundary and territorial regimes survive (uti possidetis's cousin — the localizable obligations' rule); multilateral codifying conventions continue; political/dispositive treaties lapse; newly independent states get the clean-slate option; notification of succession as the mechanism. Succession to property, archives and debts: the territory's equitable share; archives' unity principles (returned as the state's memory); debts apportioned — local debts follow the territory; odious debts resisted (the successor's…