The Multilateral Treaty Reservation Revisited

Lamm, Vanda (2006) The Multilateral Treaty Reservation Revisited. Acta Juridica Hungarica, 47 (4). pp. 331-349. ISSN 1216-2574

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Abstract

In the State practice regarding the declarations of acceptance of the International Court's compulsory jurisdiction one can trace some disputed reservations containing proviso which under­mine the obligation assumed regarding the Court's compulsory jurisdiction. One of the limita­tions is called reservation concerning multilateral treaty, otherwise known as the Vanden­berg reservation or multilateral treaty reservation. The article treats these reservations by examining their origin, contents and Court's juris­prudence on the matter. According to the author the multilateral treaty reservations have destructive effect on the com­pulsory jurisdiction system, chiefly because the broad conception of interpretation of the “affected” States bars proceedings before the Court over disputes as to multilateral treaties concluded by a larger group of States, if not all the States party to the treaty are also parties in the proceedings before the Court. As for the other part of the reservation, that stipulation virtually invalidates the obligations assumed in declarations of acceptances, since it hampers the Court to deal with a dispute submitted to it unless the State making such a reservation in its decla­ration or, on the basis of reciprocity, the adverse party has agreed to the Court's jurisdiction. The adverse effect of the reservation is all the more so since the multilateral treaty reservations expressly concern disputes with regard to treaty interpretation, and considerable part of the cases brought before the Court concern precisely such disputes.

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