‘Nyerere doctrine of State succession'. Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, considered that international agreements dating from colonial times should be renegotiated when a State becomes independent, as the nation should not be bound by something that the nation was not in a sovereign position to agree to at that time. According to this doctrine, a newly independent State can – upon independence – review the international treaties that it stands to inherit and decide which of the agreements it will accept and which it will repudiate. Although such an "optional" approach to events of State succession was not new and was already recognized by customary international law, Nyerere is recognized for the modern formulation of the optional doctrine of the law of State succession. It is worth mentioning that this doctrine came to existence after Nyerere (the Prime Minister of newly independent Tanganyika) made a unilateral declaration to the Acting general Secretary of the UN in 1961.
Further, with regards to multilateral treaties, the new government would review them and indicate to the depositary concerned what steps would be taken in relation to each such instrument, whether by way of confirmation of termination, confirmation of succession or accession. Nyerere doctrine is advantageous in several ways;
a) It allows states to fill the void created by the lapse of predecessor's treaties while maintaining the right to examine each treaty individually before deciding whether to maintain such legal obligations.
b) With the above advantage, Nyerere doctrine is also important as it rectifies the aforementioned shortcomings with regards to negative succession or clean-slate doctrine.
c) Unlike the clean-slate doctrine under which a new State starts without any of the obligations of the predecessor State, Nyerere doctrine of succession however, does not rule out or prejudice the possibility or desirability of renewal (after a legal interruption during the succession) of commitments or agreements of mutual interest to the parties concerned.
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