It has never been doubted that when a new, independent state emerges into existence, as did Iraq in 1932, and Israel in 1948, it is bound by the general obligations of international law including, among others, the rules that give binding force to treaties. Here the attempt to rest the new state’s international obligations on a ‘tacit’ or ‘inferred’ consent seems wholly threadbare.

H. L. A Hart, The Concept of Law, loc. 528