What are reservations, declarations and denunciations of human rights treaties?

A reservation is a declaration made by a state by which it purports to exclude or alter the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that state. A reservation enables a state to accept a multilateral treaty as a whole by giving it the possibility not to apply certain provisions with which it does not want to comply. Reservations can be made when the treaty is signed, ratified, accepted, approved or acceded to. Reservations must not be incompatible with the object and the purpose of the treaty. Furthermore, a treaty might prohibit reservations or only allow for certain reservations to be made.

Denunciations, if a treaty explicitly permits it, as does for example article 52 of the International Convention on Children Rights. However, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), its Second Optional Protocol, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and the International Convention Disappearance do not permit a denunciation of the treaty. Regarding the ICCPR, this was confirmed by the Human Rights Committee in its General Comment No. 26 on the continuity of obligations from 1997. Before, the committee had already declined North Korea’s denunciation and Jamaica’s denunciation from the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR.