Reservations to Human Rights Treaties and the Vienna Convention Regime

There has always been some discomfort about reservations in relation to international obligations of States applicable to individuals. This apprehension was once again brought to the forefront of the international normative process with General Comment No. 24 of the Human Rights Committee and the work of the International Law Commission on reservations to treaties.
This book is a contribution to the debate on reservations to human rights treaties. Several key questions are addressed. Can the reservations' regime, as codified in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, adequately address human rights relationships? Is there a danger of further fragmentation of international law if human rights treaties were to be treated differently as concerns the reservations'regime applicable to these treaties? Should the distinction be made between the validity of a reservation and the effects of a reservation found to be invalid? These and other questions continue to generate a variety of answers.

'Excellent contributions by well-known experts provide a detailed overview of the legal situation regarding reservations in respect of each of the most relevant present day human rights treaties. .. It is a timely contribution to the on-going debate on harmony between human rights treaties and international law.'
Luzius Wildhaber, President of the European Court of Human Rights.