Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2009
The case study that follows appears to demonstrate the commonly-noted features of international law: a decentralized and imperfect legal system, one lacking real functional and jural equivalents to the institutions found in domestic law, and one with the dédoublement fonctionnel problem. Illustrated another way, the problem is that during major disputes or crises political considerations tend to be primary while legal ones are secondary. This appears to have been particularly true in the relations between the superpowers during the cold War.