Article 34 – Depositary
The Director-General of FAO shall be the Depositary of this Treaty.
The Depositary of the Treaty has important formal functions. In particular, the Depositary serves as the repository and source of information on the Treaty. This includes:
information with respect to the choice of dispute settlement, as between arbitration and/or submission to the ICJ (Article 22.3);
instruments of ratification, acceptance, or approval (Article 26);
instruments of accession (Article 27); and
withdrawal notices (Article 32).
In addition, it is the task of the Depositary to inform Parties:
of withdrawals (Article 32); and
if the number of Parties has dropped to forty (Article 33).
The functions of depositary of the Treaty are assigned to the Director-General of FAO, as is normal for treaties concluded within the framework of the FAO Constitution.