A/HRC/10/48 page 7 to modify the legal effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application to that State”. Article 46 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities allows parties to lodge reservations provided that such reservations are not “incompatible with the object and purpose of the present Convention”. 19. So far, El Salvador, Malta, Mauritius and Poland have entered reservations to the Convention and several States have lodged “declarations” to the Convention. It should be noted that the taxonomy chosen by States as to the qualification of their statements as “reservations” or “declarations” exerts no legal effect, and the nature of the exception is solely determined by its content in accordance with article 2 of the Vienna Convention. At the time of writing, only the reservation lodged by El Salvador had attracted a formal objection from the Government of Austria for its “general and vague wording”.15 20. States considering lodging reservations or declarations to the Convention should consider that the treaty-monitoring bodies have consistently expressed the view that reservations diminish the scope of protection afforded by treaties.16 Accordingly, treaty bodies have consistently sought, through their respective mechanisms, to restrict the scope of existing reservations and encouraged their removal by States parties.17 It is expected that the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will also address reservations and declarations lodged by States parties to the Convention during the periodic review of State party reports established by article 35 of the Convention. II. LEGAL MEASURES FOR IMPLEMENTATION 21. By ratifying the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, States take an obligation under international law to implement it. Implementation is the process whereby States parties take action to ensure the realization of all rights contained in a given treaty within their jurisdiction. A. The incorporation of the Convention in the legal system of States parties 22. It should not be assumed that once the Convention has entered into force for a State, it has automatically become part of its national law. There exist two main approaches to the status of treaties within the domestic legal system, on the basis of which States are referred to as “monist” and “dualist” countries. These two approaches are defined by the prevalence of respectively monist or dualist theories on the relationship between international and national law.18 15 See footnote 2 above. 16 HRI/MC/2005/5, para. 7. 17 Ibid., para. 45. 18 See A. Aust, Modern Treaty Law and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 146 and 150.

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