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partly in response to a parallel development, the growth of legislative or
normative, as opposed to contractual, treaties. The Genocide Convention and
other human rights treaties are agreements between states, but the beneficiaries of
the agreements are the individuals under the jurisdiction of the contracting states.
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17
1951 ICJ Rep. at 45 (joint dissenting opinion of Guerrero, McNair, Read and Hsu Mo, J. .J.).
18
Koh, J.K., 
Reservations to Multilateral Treaties: How International Legal Doctrine
Reflects World Vision
, HarvILJ, Vol. 23, 1982, p. 85.
19
GA Res. 598 (VI) 12 January 1952.
20
More on the specific features of Human Rights Treaties in chapter 5.

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3. The Vienna Convention on
the Law of Treaties
In this chapter, an overview is given of the general rules applicable to
reservations. The relevant rules can be found in the Vienna Convention on the
Law of Treaties, hereafter the Vienna Convention or VCLT, from 1969. As the
rules on withdrawal are the same for both reservations and objections, I will
cover that topic only once, in part 3.1.4. The formality requirements are also
applicable both to reservations and to objections, and will be presented briefly in
chapter 3.1.7, about article 23 VCLT.
Before examining the relevant provisions on the reservations regime, it could be
useful to be aware of the general rule on applicability concerning the VCLT. It is
found in article 4 VCLT, which states that “the convention applies only to
conventions and treaties concluded after the entry into force of the present
convention with regard to such states”.
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This gives the impression that the
convention is not a codification of the existing rules.
22
This is a somewhat disputed
standpoint, but whatever intention the legislators had at the time, the convention is
at present most probably an important part of the international customary law.
There is a short passage on this below, in chapters 3.1.5 and 3.1.6.