The Hague Academy Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations devoted its Session of 1996 to the Succession of States, including for the second time this topic in its programme, but in a context very different from that in which the 1962 Session had been held.
Following the great wave of decolonizations, the studies conducted in the Centre in 1962 had constituted a kind of prologue to the lengthy deliberations by the International Law Commission that led to the 1978 Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties and the 1983 Convention on Succession of States in Respect of State Property, Archives and Debts. The less than enthusiastic reception that these Conventions had received from the international community seemed to condemn them into oblivion.
The extraordinary political developments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, however, suddenly focused interest in these questions anew. As the theme of the Session indicates, it became possible to examine the question of `codification tested against these facts'.
Twenty-four participants from a French and an English section conducted this task with passion and talent. The present volume reproduces some of the best reports in an updated and technically harmonized form.

Originally published as Colloques / Workshops – Law Books of the Academy, Volume 20.