This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the law of treaties based on the interplay between the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and customary international law. Written by a team of renowned international lawyers, it offers new insight into the basic concepts and methodology of the law of treaties and its problems.

These commentaries are based almost entirely on the formal and informal documentation of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III, 1973-1982), coupled, where necessary, with the personal knowledge of editors, contributors, or reviewers, many of whom were principal negotiators or UN personnel who participated in the Conference.

This publication considers the interpretation of tax treaties primarily from the standpoint of public international law. The principal purpose of this study is to analyse and discuss the rules and principles of international law relevant to the interpretation of treaties in general, and their application to tax treaties in particular. The rules of international law enshrined in articles 31, 32 and 33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties are therefore central to this study. Where appropriate, reference is made to the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, and to the law and procedure of other international court and tribunals. Considers also the extent to which the relevant rules and principles of international law are binding on domestic court and taxpayers. The importance of international law for the purpose of the interpretation of tax treaties is illustrated by a number of leading cases decided by the Dutch Supreme Court (Hoge Raad).

The United Nations is no more than a very modest element in the whole complex body of institutions which form the structure of international relations. It may thus appear surprising that this organization should have been, and can still be, the object of such enthusiasm and such hate - of such admiration and such derision - and that the most contradictory opinions should daily be expressed on what it does, on its operation and its effectiveness, and on the steps which should be taken for its reform. It is impossible to understand this paradoxical situation without analyzing the interrelationships between ideas about peace - which were false since the beginning of the League of Nations, the manner in which these ideas have come to be embodied in a structure which prevented the institution from becoming a useful instrument of negotiation, and the accelerating rate of political change in the world, all of which make some suggest that the UN is becoming more and more irrelevant. Today, the UN touches on everything, but does not in any way give a response to the dream of peace which it was supposed to realize. Through a thorough analysis of the role of the League of Nations and of the UN in the field of security, an evaluation of their rare successes and their numerous failures, and a complete review of the activities of the organisation in the economic and social fields, Maurice Bertrand shows that there is a need today for a radical reform of the whole complex of global organizations. This work is a translated and updated edition of L'ONU, published by Editions la Découverte.

This book explores international law as a social construct by analysing its social foundations and by re-conceptualizing the way in which it is commonly understood. It asks what law is and how it works in society, and shows why it is worth to struggle for new and better-working rules in the international legal order.

This thoroughly revised and updated edition is the most comprehensive and detailed reference ever published on United Nations. The book demystifies the complex workings of the world's most important and influential international body.