The course unit will provide students with the tools for the comprehension of the structural limits of public international law as a legal order able to influence the behaviour of States and to pursue values of general interest, even for the future generations. In the same time, the course will highlight: 1) the importance of a legal approach to international relations (too often undervalued, especially in the political sciences’ environment), in the light of the deep evolutions undergone by international law after the second world war; 2) the effects of international cooperation (even the institutionalised one) on the national and European decision making processes.