Uppsatsmall doc

6. Is There Any Point in
Making Objections?
In this chapter, I want to summarise what has been said, and come to some sort
of conclusion regarding the state practice in the field of international treaty law,
especially concerning the reservations and objections to reservations. If the
objections made have had no significant legal effect, why do states keep
objecting? What makes it worthwhile? I will touch upon some conceivable
reasons, such as the purpose of hindering something from becoming accepted in
international law, and the fact that the international community explicitly or tacit
expresses the wish to get as many signatories as possible, and therefore are
willing to “sacrifice” the integrity of the treaty text to gain that aim. In the authors
mind, these are all political actions, as the international community is a political
experiment and not a legal cooperation in the sense that states take account only
of the legal aspects of their rights and obligations on the international arena.
So, is there any point in making objections to the reservations? Are there any
differences in the legal consequences between accepting and objecting to a
reservation made by another state party? According to many authors, the
distinction between acceptance and objection disappears as far as the legal
effects are concerned.
191
The same authors have even said that objections that do
not preclude entry into force are an atypical form of acceptance. From a practical
point of view this seems to be true, so why make objections, if they have no legal
effect or rather the same effect as an acceptance?
States may use the objections to express their disagreement with the reservation,
without precluding the establishment of treaty relations. They are used as political
instruments, but are also very important as legal tools, to avoid establishment of
new international customary law. On the other hand, there can be a variety of
reasons for states not to make objections to reservations that seem to be
inadmissible. For instance, there is usually a shortage of time, especially when the
reservations are vague and their legal effects has to be thoroughly examined, but
also political and economic considerations can cause states to withhold their
objections.
It could be interesting to examine the reasons states have for reserving to certain
provisions, but perhaps even more interesting to look into the reasons for
objecting to certain reservations. There seem to be a hand full of countries that
keep objecting to what they perceive as inadmissible or invalid reservations. One
of these countries is Sweden, along with the other Nordic states. Other states in
191
Lijnzaad, p.48.

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this group are the Netherlands, Germany and Mexico. In the process of the
present work, I have learned that whilst reservations lodged by certain states have
been objected to, reservations of the same character lodged by other countries
have “escaped” and have not met any objections. It would probably be wrong of
me to point out for instance the Muslim states as “victims” of the scrutinising
objecting states, but the facts do make one think. There are evidently more
aspects than the mere reservation to consider when the decision on whether to
react or not is to be taken.
192
The political, economic and other extralegal
considerations seem to be just as important.
I will in the following give some examples of how other considerations play an
important part in the decision-making. The first example concerns a reservation to
the Women’s Convention, CEDAW, made by Brazil. The very active objecting
states, as mentioned above; Germany and Sweden objected to it, but Mexico did
not. Nor did Mexico object to the reservations lodged by Tunisia, although
Mexico did object to similar ones entered by Mauritius, Jamaica, Cyprus,
Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh and the Republic of Korea. Similarly, Sweden and
Mexico objected to the New Zealand reservation on behalf of the Cook Islands
involving conflicts between the provisions of the Convention (CEDAW) and the
islander’s customs pertaining to the inheritance of chiefly titles.
193
Yet, neither
Sweden nor Mexico objected to reservations entered by Belgium, Luxembourg,
The United Kingdom and Spain, concerning royal succession and privileges. A
distinction in the reaction between those reservations and the one made by New
Zealand can have no logical basis. The only explanation the present writer can
come up with is that at least Sweden has more in common with the latter group of
states, both culturally and economically, and therefore finds it harder to object to
their reservations. Objections can be, or rather are, perceived as not the
friendliest of acts, and perhaps the peace and quiet in the neighbourhood is rated
higher than the need to object.
The named states are by no means alone in the practice of not being totally
consistent in their state practice. It was not my intention to point out a “bad guy”,
or particularly badly behaving states. On the contrary, as I have understood it, this
is a fact for most, if not all states. International law is to a far extent dependent on
extralegal consideration, and what I have highlighted is no exception. It has
become clear to the present author that political and economical considerations
play an important, if not a decisive role in the deliberations the states do before
acting upon another state’s reservation. These political and economical factors
referred to, might be for instance, that the reserving state is a neighbour state with
whom the other state has significant connections