Treaty Reservation

Reservations in the Convention on Law Applicable to Products Liability

Article 16 (of the Convention on Law Applicable to Products Liability) states the two, and the only two, reservations which a Contracting State may make to the Convention.

The article permits a Contracting State to reserve the right not to apply the provisions of the Convention (a) to issues of prescription and limitation, as covered in article 8, sub-paragraph 9 and (b) to raw agricultural products. A Contracting State would, of course, be free to limit its reservation to apply only to certain issues of prescription and limitation and to certain kinds
of raw agricultural products.

The article further provides that when notifying an extension of the Convention pursuant to article 19 to one or more of these reservations with its effect limited relations it is responsible, a Contracting State may make one of more of these reservations with its effect limited to all or to some of the territories mentioned in the extension.

Finally, the article provides that a Contracting State may withdraw at any time a reservation it has made and that in such an event the reservation shall cease to have effect on the first day of the third calendar month after notification of the withdrawal. [1]

Reservation and the Treaties of the European Union

Description of Reservation provided by the European Union Commission: 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. [2]

Resources

Notes and References

1. Arts. 2 (1) (d) and 19-23, Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties 1969
2. Explanatory Report by W.L.M. Reese, Actes et Documents, Douzième session (1972) Tome I, Institute of International Law

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