The 1948 declaration of Israeli statehood cited the Palestine mandate document as an affirmation of Jewish legal rights. Moshe Sharett, who would become prime minister of Israel, called the mandate document “an open covenant, openly agreed to by the League of Nations.” “With the Balfour Declaration,” Sharett said, the Palestine mandate document was “an international instrument guaranteeing to the Jewish people special facilities for immigration and settlement throughout Palestine.”

Yoram Dinstein put Sharett's statement into legal terms. “The Mandate for Palestine,” wrote Dinstein, “was an international agreement concluded between the League of Nations, on the one hand, and the Mandatory Power (Britain), on the other. It was not only Britain that was bound by the instrument, but also the League of Nations (the international organization in which most of the then-existing states of the world were members).” “International agreement” is another way of saying “treaty.”

We have just seen, of course, that the mandate document was never finalized. Since Britain never gained sovereignty in Palestine, it could not hold a mandate. Even if one overlooks that defect, however, the Palestine mandate document would not qualify as a treaty.

Dinstein did not elaborate to explain his characterization of the mandate document. On its face, the document does not bear the appearance of a treaty. Its full text can be found in the Documents Annex. It begins with the phrase “The Council of the League of Nations” and then recites terms. It reads like a document that, as is stated in it a few lines later, “confirms” what has been submitted to it. A treaty, at least one that is memorialized in a single document, would bear the names of the parties as having come to an agreement. Britain's name does not appear as a party to the document.

A treaty is normally signed on behalf of the parties. The Palestine mandate document bore no signatures. Signatures attest that a treaty was negotiated by persons with the authority to do so on behalf of the parties. Treaties on significant matters are normally signed subject to ratification. No ratification was contemplated for the Palestine mandate document.