Given the status of the United Nations as the ne plus ultra of contemporary international organizations, it is perhaps surprising to realize that comparatively little time is spent in most law faculties discussing the history and structure of this organization. Typically, the UN Charter will be introduced to students during an undergraduate module in public international law, where it will be grouped together as part of a more general topic on international organizations. Then, depending on the syllabus and teacher, it will likely feature prominently in discussions on the use of force by States and then only nominally in discussions on international human rights law, the law of the sea and other specialized topics attached to particular UN conventions. While topics like these are frequently examined in greater depth at the graduate level, it is rare for specialized courses to be offered on the history and structure on the United Nations, even at those schools with a particular speciality in public international law.

All of this is perfectly sensible and perhaps even unavoidable given the constraints on undergraduate teaching time. It does mean, however, that, while many law students who choose to specialize in public international law will graduate with a very good understanding of particular topics in international law, such as international human rights law, only a few will develop a broad understanding of the UN as an organization. A useful response to this, I think, too-frequent omission has been made by Professor Robert Kolb of the University of Geneva, who has now published his Introduction to the Law of the United Nations in English. Originally published in French as Introduction au Droit des Nations Unies in 2007 by Helbing and Lichtenhahn, this version has been translated by Katherine Del Mar, also of the Law Faculty at the University of Geneva, and is now available from Hart Publishers.

The book is brief (the substantive text is only about 175 pages) and is largely an article by article discussion of the UN Charter supplemented by an introduction to its history, in particular its relationship to the Covenant of the League of Nations, and an overview of the modern structure and organs of the UN. Kolb has an obvious and assured mastery of the Charter and its history and, what is equally important in an introductory work of this type, a good sense of when to summarise routine or obsolete subjects and when to ‘dig in’ and explore the most interesting topics in greater detail.

Of particular note are his discussions of UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 377(V) (the so-called ‘Dean Acheson Resolution’) and the development of peacekeeping operations (what former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld referred to as ‘Chapter VI½’ of the Charter), both of which pack a huge amount of information in what are short and elegant summaries. This is so much the case that, when reviewing these sections prior to finalizing my review, I was surprised to see that neither one covers much more than three pages—their substance had caused both to expand in my recollection of them. Of course, no topic can be addressed at a level of detail that will satisfy the specialist reader in a work of this sort. However, and to take Kolb's discussion of UNGA Resolution 377(V) and the development of peace–keeping operations as my examples once again, these are sufficiently comprehensive so that I cannot imagine that many non-specialist readers will require much more.

Kolb is most interesting when discussing the relationship between the UN Charter and the Covenant of the League of Nations. He argues convincingly that the design of the Charter is very largely a response to the failures of the League. In doing so, he avoids the reductionism which seems to plague this field of legal/political history and presents a balanced and sympathetic commentary on the League that discusses the most distinctive elements of the Covenant without ignoring either the many failures of the great powers to support the League or the difficult political environment that surrounded it. I was struck by just how many elements of the Covenant find their opposite in the Charter: universality of membership; the integral role of the great powers; the permanence of the UN executive organs; expanded functional cooperation in social and economic areas. All of these can be seen as responses to the failure of the League and (particularly with respect to the institutional prominence of the great powers) may be difficult to understand without it.

All of these good things having been said there are, nevertheless, real problems with this volume. Although there are pockets of excellence throughout, the vast majority of the drafting is muddy with some of it bordering on the truly awful. Some of this is down to poor copy-editing. For example, we find on page 86 ‘… in order not to leave the United Nations in completely incapabale …’; and on page 96 ‘… the principle of a non-intervention in the interval affairs in the relations between States …’. However, there are more substantive stylistic problems as well: on page 97 we come across the following, not untypical, combination: ‘The principle was thus like a plant that never took root. Consequently, the deadbolt securing matters of domestic jurisdiction was prised open in subsequent practice of the United Nations.’ There is much of value here and, on balance, I would still recommend it for use by undergraduate public international law students and graduate students who require a general introduction to the Charter. It is particularly valuable for its discussion of the relationship between the Charter and the Covenant. Nevertheless, and Professor Kolb should take this as a mark of my own esteem for the substance of his work, I hope that it will soon be re-issued in a second, more rigorously edited, edition. If suitably edited it has the potential to become the standard introduction (in both French and English) to this important topic. In its current form it falls some way short.