ABSTRACT
Curiously there are probably few subjects in classical general international law which ignite such impassioned debates as the apparently extremely technical subject of reservations to treaties. One is ‘pro’ or ‘contra’ reservations for reasons which clearly come closer to a ‘religious war’ than to rational considerations: for some, reservations are an absolute evil because they cause injury to the integrity of the treaty; for others, to the contrary, they facilitate a broader adhesion and, thus, universality. While not exclusively unfolding in the field of human rights, these are at the very heart of the classic dialectic according to which, on the one hand, reservations, in a way, ‘bilateralise’ the relations between the parties to multilateral treaties and therefore ‘fragment’ the treaty regime, while, at the same time, they facilitate a wider acceptance of the core elements of the treaties in question and, therefore serve the global community interest.
