Do human rights treaties call for special treatment under the law relating to reservations laid down in the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties 1969?

Where reservations to human rights treaties are concerned, two conflicting views exist. One view is that, as consent remains the governing principle of the reservation regime, the discretionary power to determine the permissibility and validity of reservations should be left to the individual states who are party to the treaty. On the other hand, it is argued that because of the special features of human rights treaties, a different kind of regime should apply to …

…be to request the reserving state to modify its reservation so as to bring it in line with the object and purpose of the treaty, where they will then be given the choice of withdrawing or modifying the incompatible reservation, or withdrawing from the treaty as a whole. These approaches would respect the consent and sovereignty of states on the one hand, whilst maintaining the enforcement and effectiveness of human rights treaties on the other.