ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that reservations to human rights treaties should be presumed to be severable unless for a specific treaty there is evidence of a ratifying state’s intent to the contrary. It discusses the consent of other state parties: allowing a state to remain a party to a treaty with exemptions that are incompatible with its object and purpose would infringe other state parties’ interests. As for the normative foundation of the unanimity rule—its concern for the consent of other state parties—the modern law of reservations largely incorporated, rather than abandoned, it. The chapter describes the consent of the reserving state: a state’s consent to be bound involves a complex balancing of concerns such that denying severance as a remedy in certain circumstances will actually abrogate the reserving state’s overriding interests. The normative appeal of a severability regime can be grounded in its protection of state consent.
