Aims to provide a useful analytical tool and practical guidance on good treaty practice. It will be of interest to those working with treaties and treaty procedures in governments, international organisations, and legal practice, as well as legal academics and students wishing to gain insight into the realities of treaty practice.

The global landscape has changed profoundly over the past decades. As a result, the making of international law and the way we think about it has become more and more diversified. This Research Handbook offers a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of international lawmaking today. It takes stock at both the conceptual and the empirical levels of the instruments, processes, and actors involved in the making of international law. The editors have taken an approach which carefully combines theory and practice in order to provide both an overview and a critical reflection of international lawmaking. Comprehensive and well-structured, the book contains essays by leading scholars on key aspects of international lawmaking and on lawmaking in the main issue areas. Attention is paid to classic processes as well as new developments and shades of normativity. This timely and authoritative Handbook will be a valuable resource for academics, students, legal practitioners, diplomats, government and international organization officials as well as civil society representatives.

This book brings together world experts on the United Nations and international law, to examine not only the content of that legal regime but how it has been transformed since the second half of the twentieth century.

This guide is an authoritative reference point for anyone interested in the creation or interpretation of treaties and other forms of international agreement. It covers the rules and practices surrounding their making, interpretation, and operation, and uses hundreds of real examples to illustrate different approaches treaty-makers can take.

On the publication of its first edition, this textbook was welcomed as the definitive study of treaty law written from the viewpoint of an experienced practitioner. As with the first, this edition aims to provide the student and practitioner with a full understanding of the law and updates existing information and refines previous arguments. New to its scope of examination is the study of the use of memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in litigation, the treaty-making capacity of entities such as the Vatican, Taiwan and Palestine, and the effect of hostilities on treaties. Given their increasing importance, there is also a new chapter on international organisations, including an attempt to explain the sometimes baffling roles in treaty-making played by the European Community and European Union. Students and practitioners alike will find this an invaluable guide to this increasingly important subject.

The rules of treaty interpretation codified in the 'Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties' now apply to virtually all treaties, in an international context as well as within national legal systems, where treaties have an impact on a large and growing range of matters. The rules of treaty interpretation differ somewhat from typical rules for interpreting legal instruments and legislation within national legal systems. Lawyers, administrators, diplomats, and officials at international organisations are increasingly likely to encounter issues of treaty interpretation which require not only knowledge of the relevant rules of interpretation, but also how these rules have been, and are to be, applied in practice. Since the codified rules of treaty interpretation came into decree, there is a considerable body of case-law on their application. This case-law, combined with the history and analysis of the rules of treaty interpretation, provides a basis for understanding this most important task in the application of treaties internationally and within national systems of law. Any lawyer who ever has to consider international matters, and increasingly any lawyer whose work involves domestic legislation with any international connection, is at risk nowadays of encountering a treaty provision which requires interpretation, whether the treaty provision is explicitly in issue or is the source of the relevant domestic legislation. This fully updated new edition features case law from a broader range of jurisdictions, and an account of the work of the International Law Commission in its relation to interpretative declarations. This book provides a guide to interpreting treaties properly in accordance with the modern rules.

Many applicants use the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system as a first step to obtain patent protection for their inventions in a large number of countries. This practice-oriented book on the PCT – the only such book available – provides expert guidance on how to carry out the treaty’s procedures, from filing a single international patent application to starting prosecution before a plurality of national Offices. Building from an authoritative overview of the PCT’s sources and how they link to form the legal basis for a complete procedure, the contributors elucidate such invaluable practical details as the following: complete details on filing under the PCT, including the means of filing, fee payments, and priority, both in general and in specific national patent Offices; strategy points for making decisions on options in procedures and for drawing attention to important issues; citations from the Practical Advices published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); differences between several regional and national Offices, such as the EPO and the USPTO; extensive treatment of remedies available in each procedure; guidance through the PCT – Patent Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH); and extensive linking to international and national resources for the PCT. The authors include legal experts from WIPO and the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as well-known patent law practitioners. With its wealth of guidance ranging from a broad introduction to specific details of procedural strategy, this book will be of immeasurable value in the day-to-day practice of patent attorneys, corporate counsel, and paralegals worldwide. It will be of great use to candidates preparing for exams where a profound knowledge of the PCT is required.