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.