Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.The precarious status of contested states both reflects and begets conflict. From Taiwan to Western Sahara and from Nagorno-Karabakh to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, contested states call into question the standard categories of international law that divide inside and outside, state and non-state, war and rebellion. They inevitably fall in-between them, while alternatively disputing and negotiating their applicabili...

The 1969 and 1986 Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties are essential components of the contemporary international legal order. Codifying to a significant extent the customary rules that pre-existed in the field, they aim at regulating what has become the main source of public international law and a crucial tool in inter-state relations. This fully updated second edition provides both international and national lawyers with an in-depth analysis of each provision of both Conventions, t...