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Analysis of an administration’s legal work rarely takes into account its influence on the definition of norms. Officials from the ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs participated, at the Dublin Conference in May 2008, in drafting the treaty banning cluster munitions. The “bureaucratic writings,” produced by these officials during the course of this process, offer particularly rich empirical material. Not only do the officials participate actively in the shaping of these texts, but the legal dimension of their work provides useful safeguards to bypass or to “make arrangements” with the political preoccupations that control the state’s action.