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Abstract

The limits and the appeal of the restatement method, in general, and of the Restatement of the Law (Fourth): The Foreign Relations Law of the United States, in particular – understood as the reasons why, or not, other countries (or legal communities) would be incited to follow the same path and have the same kind of instrument regarding their own system – are in fact intertwined. Any alleged appealing aspect can give way to questions about the limits of the exercise and the other way around. The analysis will therefore proceed with questions more than with answers, in seven steps intended to increasingly show the ambivalence of the Restatement (Fourth), beginning with its scope, before considering its authors, its addressees and, therefore, the Restatement’s reach, its nature, its topic or subject matter, its context and, finally, its underlying ideology.