Is North Korea, or Ciskei, a state? Can it sue or be sued in an English court? Is the South African administration for Namibia competent to enter into contracts for the disposition of Namibia’s mineral wealth? Is East Jerusalem a part of Israeli territory? Such questions of recognition remain of practical importance. The international law of recognition has been neglected for many years and, to the extent that recognition has been considered at all, it has been widely assumed that the traditional view of recognition, as something which each state unilaterally chooses to extend or withhold from newly-emerged candidates for statehood, remains good. This excellent study is likely to bury that misconception for good. Professor Dugard ably demonstrates that the earlier view never adequately reflected practice in the League of Nations or, indeed, of the world beyond the Anglo-American horizons. In a series of chapters, first delivered as the Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures, he analyses that practice, and practice within the United Nations, relating to the recognition of states and of territorial acquisitions. His main thesis is that, far from being isolated, unilateral acts for