The present work on the international administration of specific territories deals not only with the latest examples of UN operations launched by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, but endeavours to confront the reader with the wider panorama of all regimes of internationalisation since the time of the League of Nations. It is on this broad basis that the author succeeds in establishing a balance sheet which shows all of the achievements, but also all of the failures that have occurred in processes of internationalisation implemented since the end of World War I. Notwithstanding the wealth of information displayed, the reader of the book does not lose the requisite orientation. It is indeed not the aim of the book does not lose the requisite orientation. It is indeed not the aim of the author to give primarily an historical account. He intends instead to define the legal premises upon which, under the conditions of an emerging world of common values, any international territorial regime must be founded.

From the inter-war period, Danzig and the Saar are the most prominent examples of internationalised territories. The UN Charter does not provide for a mandate of the world organisation to assume governmental functions in a given country, either permanently or for a limited period of time. Nonetheless, as from its beginning, the world organisation was faced with territorial disputes as heated as those surrounding Jerusalem and Trieste, attempting to reduce national and religious tensions by sophisticated regimes of internationalisation - vainly, as we know with hindsight.