What is the meaning of Treaty ?

"Provided, however, that Her Majesty reserves the right to deal with any settlers within the bounds of any lands reserved for any Band as She shall deem fit, and also that the aforesaid reserves of land, or any interest therein, may be sold or otherwise disposed of by Her Majesty's Government for the use and benefit of the said Indians entitled thereto, with their consent first had and obtained

When news of the British defeat at Yorktown reached England, support for the war in America faded in both the British Parliament and the public. England agreed to begin peace negotiations with the Americans to end the Revolutionary War.

After Yorktown, the Continental Congress appointed a small group of statesmen to travel to Europe and negotiate a peace treaty with the British: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson and Henry Laurens.

Jefferson, however, was not able to leave the United States for the negotiations, and Laurens had been captured by a British warship and held captive in the Tower of London until the end of the war, so the principal American negotiators were Franklin, Adams and Jay.

Franklin, who served as America’s first ambassador to France, had been in Paris since the start of the Revolution and was instrumental in securing French assistance during the war. Peace negotiations between British and American diplomats began there in the spring of 1782 and continued into the fall.

The British wanted to end the costly war, but peace negotiations stalled when England wouldn’t recognize United States independence – a point on which the American delegation refused to budge. After the election of a new, more pro-American Parliament, Great Britain soon gave in and accepted terms of American independence.

In 1782, the newly elected British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne saw American independence as an opportunity to build a lucrative trade alliance with the new nation – without the administrative and military costs of running and defending the colonies.

As a result, Treaty of Paris terms were very favorable to the United States with Great Britain making major concessions.

The treaty, signed by Franklin, Adams and Jay at the Hotel d’York in Paris, was finalized on September 3, 1783, and ratified by the Continental Congress in early 1784.

Secured fishing rights to the Grand Banks and other waters off the British-Canadian coastline for American boats
Opened up the Mississippi River to navigation by citizens of both the United States and Great Britain
Resolved issues with American debts owed to British creditors
Provided for fair treatment of American citizens who had remained loyal to Great Britain during the war

Perhaps as important as U.S. independence, the Treaty of Paris also established generous boundaries for the new nation. As part of the agreement, the British ceded a vast area known as the Northwest Territory to the United States.

The Northwest Territory – which included the present-day states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota – doubled the land area of the United States and helped set the stage for the westward expansion that was to come over the next century.

In addition to the American colonists, other nations including France, Spain and the Netherlands fought against the British during the American Revolution. Alongside the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain signed separate peace treaties with each these nations in September 1783.

In the treaties, known collectively as the Peace of Paris, Great Britain returned to Spain parts of Florida that it had won in the last Treaty of Paris. (Spain had ceded Spanish Florida to the British Empire in 1763 at the culmination of the French and Indian War.)

Though the Treaty of Paris, 1783 formally ended the war for independence between America and Great Britain, tensions continued to rise between the two nations over issues that remained unresolved by the treaty.

The British, for instance, refused to relinquish several of its forts in the former Northwest Territory, while the Americans, for their part, continued to confiscate property from citizens that had remained loyal to the British Crown during the war.

In 1795, John Jay returned to Europe to resolve these issues with Great Britain. The resulting agreement, known as Jay’s Treaty, helped to delay another costly war between the two countries.

A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms. Regardless of terminology, all of these forms of agreements are, under international law, equally considered treaties and the rules are the same.

Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts: both are examples of willing parties assuming obligations among themselves, and any party that fails to live up to their obligations can be held liable under international law.

A treaty is an official, express written agreement that states use to legally bind themselves.

A treaty is the official document which expresses that agreement in words; and it is also the objective outcome of a ceremonial occasion which acknowledges the parties and their defined relationships.

Since the late 19th century, most treaties have followed a fairly consistent format. A treaty typically begins with a preamble describing the High Contracting Parties and their shared objectives in executing the treaty, as well as summarizing any underlying events .

The end of the preamble and the start of the actual agreement is often signaled by the words "have agreed as follows".

After the preamble comes numbered articles, which contain the substance of the parties' actual agreement. Each article heading usually encompasses a paragraph. A long treaty may further group articles under chapter headings.

The signatures of the parties' representatives follow at the very end. When the text of a treaty is later reprinted, such as in a collection of treaties currently in effect, an editor will often append the dates on which the respective parties ratified the treaty and on which it came into effect for each party.

Reservations are essentially caveats to a state's acceptance of a treaty. Reservations are unilateral statements purporting to exclude or to modify the legal obligation and its effects on the reserving state.