From a public international law perspective, the domestic process ideally
does not affect treaty obligations. Already in normal times, however, there
are innumerable options to retreat from treaties. The exceptional case of
constitutional replacement hardly extends these. Could the ‘eternity clause’
of 2019 (Art. 135 IV of the Chilean Constitution), which states that the
contents of international treaties are to be respected, subject the Constitutional
Convention to stronger ties than international treaty law itself? This
article rejects readings that tried to perpetuate the substantive content of the
treaties or to forbid changes that would make termination of treaties necessary.
The lack of justiciability and the principle of truthfulness of norms
speak against them. The clause only warned to proceed in a manner that is
gentle on international law. Based on this, the third part shows Chile’s wide
margin to cancel or alter existing treaty regimes and sees opportunities for
respect of treaties by practical concordance and the activation of secondary
legal protection in accordance with international law in the event of contradictions
that cannot be resolved in accordance with treaties.
