Part III General and Transitory Provisions, Ch.X Signature, Ratification, Reservations, Amendments, Protocols, and Denunciation, Article 75

Abstract

This chapter discusses Article 75 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR). The ACHR contains a provision on the faculty of States parties to formulate reservations. Its Article 75 is very brief and has no autonomous content. Article 75 of the ACHR refers to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties between States (VCLT), which was adopted a few weeks before the ACHR, on May 23, 1969. Therefore, Articles 19 to 23 of the VCLT, which deal with reservations to treaties constitute the legal framework set out in Article 75 of the ACHR. From this point of view, Article 75 of the ACHR differs from Article 57 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Indeed, the inter-American provision leaves greater room for discretion to States and respects international practice, which classically grants them an important conventional freedom.