DePaul Law Review Volume 5 Issue 1 Fall-Winter 1955 Article 4 International Law: Reservations to Multilateral Agreements Marcellus R. Meek Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review Recommended Citation Marcellus R. Meek, International Law: Reservations to Multilateral Agreements, 5 DePaul L. Rev. 40 (1955) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol5/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Law Review by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. INTERNATIONAL LAW: RESERVATIONS TO MULTILATERAL AGREEMENTS MARCELLUS R. MEEK NE of the means by which States as subjects of international law acquire rights from, and undertake obligations toward, other subjects of international law is the formal conclusion of treaties.' A treaty is a source of international law, and, as such, governs to a substantial degree the relations existing between the inde- pendent States of the world. Although treaties have from time to time2 been referred to as con- tracts or compacts between States, it was early agreed that interna- tional transactions, whatever their descriptive designation, were of a higher order and distinguishable in principle from private contracts., But, it has been said, in solving the problems to which the practice of attaching reservations to the signature or ratification of treaties gives rise, the analogy between international treaties and the contracts of 4 private law has been found useful. In an effort to make this statement more readily comprehensible, it might be well at this point to digress for a moment to consider by way of preliminary examination what is meant by the term "reservation." The authorities are not in accord, but, in recent times, the most wide- 1 Schwarzenberger, A Manual of International Law 62 (3d ed., 1952).