The audiences of the Hague Academy are, by definition, among those inhabitants of the planet least in need of a general introduction to international law, and there is a fine tradition of shifting the focus of the Hague General Courses from the generality on to some particular aspect of, or approach to, the fundamentals of international law. The volumes of the Hague Recueil containing the General Courses are keenly awaited by the cognoscenti, if only to see how far the eminenti who deliver the courses will bow to the fashions of the day. This volume consists largely (pp. 9—336) of Professor Karl Zemanek’s general course on public international law. It is a robust, conservative course, as one might expect from a distinguished lawyer whose experience spans both academia and government service.

As its title, “The Legal Foundations of the International System”, suggests, the concern of this course is with the basic building blocks of international law. Professor Zemanek concentrates upon a number of topics: jurisdiction, and in particular the perennial problem of the US extraterritorial claims (here in the Helms-Burton/D’ Amato incarnation); State continuity and succession, primarily in eastern Europe; and the law of treaties (and in particular the question of reservations, disturbed by the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the Belilos case and currently under review by the International Law Commission). In each case he subjects the frequently muddled thinking behind recent practice to his clear, pragmatic scrutiny. That is not to say that his views always persuade. Sometimes he passes over contrary arguments or indications in silence, and readers will wish that he had expanded his analysis a little. One example is his treatment of unilateral declarations. What, for instance, does Professor Zemanek make of the passage in the Burkina Faso/Mali Frontier Dispute judgment, where the International Court appears (to this reviewer, at least) to distinguish into oblivion the absurd handling of the issue in the Nuclear Tests cases? But this is carping. This General Course is not the most innovative of recent years, and is not likely to be the most influential; but it is one of the most readable and, in its calm common sense, one of the most satisfying.

Though squeezed up into the last 90 pages of this volume, Professor Trevor Hartley’s private international law course on “Mandatory Rules in International Contracts: The Common Law Approach” also has much merit. This is another topic played with a straight bat. Professor Hartley concentrates on explaining what the law on mandatory rules is—or at least, what the various common law approaches to the law are—and he does so with remarkable clarity and economy. The reader is taken through the Rome Convention and the American Restatement, and through the application of the principles concerning mandatory rules in contracts in general and in specific contexts such as consumer contracts, employment contracts and foreign exchange contracts. Again, one is sometimes left wishing for more. Professor Hartley states, for example, that, “If the moral considerations are sufficiently strong … [forum rules based on general considerations of morality