diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/AntClassLoader.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/AntClassLoader.java
index e6e648b65..44f7b2d78 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/AntClassLoader.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/AntClassLoader.java
@@ -1204,11 +1204,8 @@ public class AntClassLoader extends ClassLoader implements SubBuildListener, Clo
      *
      * @return the entry's certificates or null is the container is
      *         not a jar or it has no certificates.
-     *
-     * @exception IOException if the manifest cannot be read.
      */
-    private Certificate[] getCertificates(final File container, final String entry)
-        throws IOException {
+    private Certificate[] getCertificates(final File container, final String entry) {
         if (container.isDirectory()) {
             return null;
         }
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
index 4640e700f..2e8c37dbe 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ import java.io.FilenameFilter;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
 import java.net.MalformedURLException;
 import java.net.URL;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.text.CharacterIterator;
 import java.text.StringCharacterIterator;
 import java.util.Locale;
@@ -59,10 +60,6 @@ public final class Locator {
     private static final int SPACE = 0x20;
     private static final int DEL = 0x7F;
 
-    /**
-     * encoding used to represent URIs
-     */
-    public static final String URI_ENCODING = "UTF-8";
     // stolen from org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager#getUserDir()
     // of the Xerces-J team
     // which ASCII characters need to be escaped
@@ -315,11 +312,11 @@ public final class Locator {
             } else if (c >= 0x0000 && c < 0x0080) {
                 sb.write(c);
             } else { // #50543
-                byte[] bytes = String.valueOf(c).getBytes(URI_ENCODING);
+                byte[] bytes = String.valueOf(c).getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
                 sb.write(bytes, 0, bytes.length);
             }
         }
-        return sb.toString(URI_ENCODING);
+        return sb.toString(StandardCharsets.UTF_8.name());
     }
 
     /**
@@ -327,10 +324,9 @@ public final class Locator {
      * The URI is escaped
      * @param path String to encode.
      * @return The encoded string, according to URI norms
-     * @throws UnsupportedEncodingException if UTF-8 is not available
      * @since Ant 1.7
      */
-    public static String encodeURI(String path) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
+    public static String encodeURI(String path) {
         int i = 0;
         int len = path.length();
         int ch = 0;
@@ -362,7 +358,7 @@ public final class Locator {
             // get UTF-8 bytes for the remaining sub-string
             byte[] bytes = null;
             byte b;
-            bytes = path.substring(i).getBytes(URI_ENCODING);
+            bytes = path.substring(i).getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
             len = bytes.length;
 
             // for each byte
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Concat.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Concat.java
index 1338f2a4b..1af0143cd 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Concat.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Concat.java
@@ -383,7 +383,7 @@ public class Concat extends Task implements ResourceCollection {
         private ConcatResource(ResourceCollection c) {
             this.c = c;
         }
-        public InputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
+        public InputStream getInputStream() {
             if (binary) {
                 ConcatResourceInputStream result = new ConcatResourceInputStream(c);
                 result.setManagingComponent(this);
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Jar.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Jar.java
index bb701a3ed..5b202399f 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Jar.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Jar.java
@@ -1024,8 +1024,7 @@ public class Jar extends Zip {
      * @since Ant 1.6.2
      */
     protected final void writeIndexLikeList(List<String> dirs, List<String> files,
-                                            PrintWriter writer)
-        throws IOException {
+                                            PrintWriter writer) {
         // JarIndex is sorting the directories by ascending order.
         // it has no value but cosmetic since it will be read into a
         // hashtable by the classloader, but we'll do so anyway.
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/ManifestClassPath.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/ManifestClassPath.java
index 4a4f23121..f605bd549 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/ManifestClassPath.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/ManifestClassPath.java
@@ -115,11 +115,8 @@ public class ManifestClassPath extends Task {
             if (pathEntry.isDirectory() && !relPath.endsWith("/")) {
                 relPath = relPath + '/';
             }
-            try {
-                relPath = Locator.encodeURI(relPath);
-            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException exc) {
-                throw new BuildException(exc);
-            }
+            relPath = Locator.encodeURI(relPath);
+
             // Manifest's ClassPath: attribute always uses forward
             // slashes '/', and is space-separated. Ant will properly
             // format it on 72 columns with proper line continuation
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Zip.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Zip.java
index 718686e8b..580176f88 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Zip.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Zip.java
@@ -1026,8 +1026,7 @@ public class Zip extends MatchingTask {
      * Determine a Resource's Unix mode or return the given default
      * value if not available.
      */
-    private int getUnixMode(final Resource r, final ZipFile zf, final int defaultMode)
-        throws IOException {
+    private int getUnixMode(final Resource r, final ZipFile zf, final int defaultMode) {
 
         int unixMode = defaultMode;
         if (zf != null) {
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/unix/Symlink.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/unix/Symlink.java
index ad9aee8b1..e83c0b6b5 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/unix/Symlink.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/unix/Symlink.java
@@ -378,8 +378,6 @@ public class Symlink extends DispatchTask {
      *
      * @param path    A string containing the path of the symlink to delete.
      *
-     * @throws FileNotFoundException   When the path results in a
-     *                                   <code>File</code> that doesn't exist.
      * @throws IOException             If calls to <code>File.rename</code>
      *                                   or <code>File.delete</code> fail.
      * @deprecated use
@@ -388,7 +386,7 @@ public class Symlink extends DispatchTask {
      */
     @Deprecated
     public static void deleteSymlink(String path)
-        throws IOException, FileNotFoundException {
+        throws IOException {
         SYMLINK_UTILS.deleteSymbolicLink(new File(path), null);
     }
 
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/UUEncoder.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/UUEncoder.java
index 77e1bee1a..c42dcaba1 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/UUEncoder.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/util/UUEncoder.java
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ public class UUEncoder {
     /**
      * Encode a string to the output.
      */
-    private void encodeString(String n) throws IOException {
+    private void encodeString(String n) {
         PrintStream writer = new PrintStream(out);
         writer.print(n);
         writer.flush();