Bücken and de Groot 51 5. Conclusion The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness remains the most important instrument in international law to combat global statelessness (Section 1). The effect of the Convention’s provisions is to some extent limited by the exceptions invoked by some State Parties by means of a declaration under Article 8(3). While the use of the Article 8(3) has increased in absolute terms, especially in the past ten years, it has declined in proportion to the number of State Parties to the Convention (Section 2). The legal analysis of the declarations submitted under Article 8(3) demonstrates that a majority of the declarations do not raise any compliance or legality issues. In particular, the declarations of The United Kingdom, Tunisia, and Belgium, however, unjustifiably exceed the limited scope of Article 8(3) and should be considered incompatible with the object and purpose of the 1961 Convention (Section 3)47 It is rather striking that the declaration of Tunisia gave raise to several objections and the very similar Belgian declaration received no objections at all. 47. See on the effects of invalid reservations: A. Pellet, in S. Sheeran and N. Rodley (eds.), Routledge Handbook of International Human Rights Law, p. 328-332.