The Problem of Reservations to Human Rights Treaties: A New Challenge to the Traditional Concept of International Law

Abstract

This article aims at analyzing the evolution of the debate regarding the issues that arise when States make reservations to human rights treaties, whose ultimate goal is inevitably compromised by any form of limitation to their content. This kind of treaties are in fact meant to protect individuals, while traditional international treaties (as envisaged by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) simply regulate the relationships among sovereign States. Through the analysis of the different approaches of several scholars, and in particular in the light of the Human Rights Committee's General Comment No. 24, the article tries to compare the criteria that could be put in place in order to answer to the question of whether reservations should be deemed admissible in the first place, which should be the limitations, and who are the subjects best suited to carry on such evaluations and establish the consequences of invalid reservations.