Declaration A State may choose, or be required, to make a declaration concerning a treaty to which it has become a party. There are several types of declarations: • Interpretative declarations A State may make a declaration about its understanding of a matter contained in, or the interpretation of, a particular provision in a treaty. Unlike reservations, such declarations do not purport to exclude or modify the legal effects of a treaty. The purpose is merely to clarify the State’s position as to the meaning of certain provisions or of the entire treaty. • Optional and mandatory declarations Treaties may provide for States to make optional and/or mandatory declarations. These declarations are legally binding on the declarants. Thus, for example, under article 41 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, States may make an optional declaration that they accepts the Human Rights Committee’s competence to consider inter-State complaints. Similarly, State parties to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict are required, under its article 3 (2), to make a binding declaration setting out the minimum age at which they will permit voluntary recruitment into their national armed forces and a description of the safeguards that they have adopted to ensure that such recruitment is not forced or coerced. Derogation A derogation is a measure adopted by a State party to partially suspend the application of one or more provisions of a treaty, at least temporarily. Some human rights treaties allow State parties, in a public emergency which threatens the life of the nation, to derogate exceptionally and temporarily from a number of rights to the extent strictly required by the situation. The State party, however, may not derogate from certain specific rights and may not take discriminatory measures. States are generally obliged to inform other State parties of such derogations and give reasons for the derogations, and to set a date on which the derogation will expire. (See the Human Rights Committee’s general comment No. 29 (2001).) Follow-up procedures The procedures put in place to ensure that State parties act on the recommendations contained in the concluding observations of the treaty bodies or their 49