We begin with the canonical status of the reals: this extends up to uniqueness to within isomorphism as a complete Archimedean ordered field, but not up to cardinality aspects. We discuss four ‘elephants in the room’ here (an elephant in the room is something obviously there but which no one wants to mention). The first elephant (from Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and the Continuum Hypothesis, CH): one cannot properly speak of the real line, but rather which real line one chooses to work with. The second is ‘which sets of reals can one use?’ (it depends on what axioms of set theory one assumes – in particular, the role of the Axiom of Choice, AC). The third is that there are sentences that are neither provable nor disprovable, and that no non-trivial axiom system is capable of proving its own consistency. Thus, we do not – cannot – know that mathematics itself is consistent. The fourth elephant is that even to define cardinals, the concept of cardinality needs AC.

Although judicial bureaucracies are the backbone of international courts and tribunals, their presence remains largely unacknowledged in official discourse and scholarly analysis. This chapter takes collective silence as an object of interest and explores its socio-political dimensions. The role of judicial bureaucrats is an open secret. Courts, government representatives, counsel, and academics are all aware of it, and yet conspire to keep it invisible to the public. The chapter reflects on the reasons behind the conspiracy of silence. Could it be due to the confidential nature of judicial proceedings? To the need to preserve the legitimacy of judicial institutions in the eyes of their audiences? Or, perhaps, to the instinctive desire of international lawyers to maintain an aura of mystery and sanctity around their profession?