The author started by pointing out a current wide-spread use of the reservations to themultilateral treaties which became inseparable part of the process of entry into force ofvast number of the treaties especially those purporting universal participation. Arguably acombination of the rather soft controlling fixable approach towards reservations securedalmost universal and speedy ratifications of universal human rights treaties. The evolutionof the legal status of the reservations performed a tricky pathway — from the strict negativeapproach reflected in so-called “unanimity rule” in the League of Nations to a liberalizedregime of the reservation envisaged initially in the Advisory Opinion of the InternationalCourt of Justice 1951 and then codified in the relevant articles of the Vienna Convention onthe Law of the Treaties 1969 and after that again towards tightening in the decisions of theregional human rights courts and UN controlling quasi-judicial bodies. Such “aggressive”approach of the human rights controlling institutions has been repeated albeit in a moresoften way in the 2011 International Law Commission Guide to Practice on Reservationsto Treaties in a form of provisions regarding severability of the reservations from act ofratification and obligation of the author of the reservation to withdraw from the treaty incase of its decision to keep the reservation in question. At the same time the ILC Guidejust clarified then modified current legal status of reservations tending to consider theobjections to the reservations as a major instrument reflecting the will of the states on issueof the validity of reservations. Such position of the ILC reflects the undisputable reality ofthe current international law in a sense that the states are more sensitive to its own right tomake reservations than its right to control the validity of reservations made by other states.The states consider reservations as a convenient tool for determination of the level of itsparticipation in the relevant treaty. The “aggressive” stance towards reservations adoptedby the human rights courts and UN quasi-judicial bodies presents interesting but notdecisive vector in the evolution of the legal status of reservations.
For citation: Ispolinov A.S. (2020) The Evolution of Legal Status of Reservations: from League of Nations Unanimity Rule to the International Law Commission 2011 Guide to Practice on Reservations to Treaties. Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki, no 3, pp. 134–161 (in Russian) DOI: 10.17323/2072-8166.2020.3.134.161