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15 Int'l Bus. Law. 371 (1987)
Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration

handle is hein.journals/ibl15 and id is 429 raw text is: BOOKS Contract Law in the USSR and the United States: History and General Concept E Allan Farnsworth and Viktor P Mozolin International Law Institute. £35.00 European Insurance Law by Belmont European Community Law Office Financial Times Business Information Ltd. £124.00 UK, £134.00/US$203 Overseas European Banking Law by Belmont European Community Law Office Financial Times Business Information Ltd. £124.00 UK, £134.0O/US$203 Overseas Competition Law of the EEC Ivo Van Bael and Jean-Francois Bellis CCH Editions Ltd. £30.00 Technology Transfer in the People's Republic of China: Law and Practice Richard J Goossen Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Dfll30.00 US$62.50, UK£47.50 Merchandising Intellectural Property John Adams Butterworths. £55.00 Commercial Law of Iran Sayed Hassan Amin Vahid Publications Marine Pollution in International & Middle East Law Sayed Hassan Amin Royston Ltd. £30.00 Parallel Imports Simon Homer Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd. £25.00 Doing Business in Ireland Patrick Ussher and Brian J O'Connor Matthew Bender. US$85.00. Available from Matthew Bender, 17 Clifton Road, London N3 2AS; 15 per cent discount if payment is made with order f~ ~'~-'K C v V Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration Alan Redfern and Martin Hunter Sweet & Maxwell. £64.00 Among the books on international commercial arbitration, quite a few of which have been appearing lately, Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration by Alan Redfern and Martin Hunter is outstanding. Drawing from their vast personal experience in this field, the authors, both practising solicitors in London, have managed to produce a book which can be used as a reference by lawyers researching a particular problem and also by those interested in becoming familiar with the subject or refreshing their knowledge. The detailed table of contents at the outset (backed up where necessary by an index at the end of the book) follows a logical and easy-to-read sequence, thus enabling the reader with little time to spare (one of the curses of modern times, unfortunately), to go through the table of contents and select those items which he or she finds of interest. The chapters themselves follow the same approach: they are very well written; the style is crisp and simple and it appears that the writers took great care to provide the reader with all the information they had, whilst avoiding any boring or interminable explanations which few of today's practitioners would have the time to study in depth. The introduction (Chapter I) lays out the general issues, without of course pretending to settle them once and for all. At times, one wishes the authors had devoted more space to certain issues (Alternative Dispute Resolution, for instance, is dealt with in five paragraphs), yet this was obviously a 'parti pris' as the authors chose to briefly point out a number of questions which the reader may pursue elsewhere if he wished to do so. In this respect, your reviewer found the concise and accurate footnotes very helpful: the materials to which they refer are relevant and the authors wisely avoided burying the information in some excessively long, computer researched, footnotes which at times can be bewildering to the reader. Chapter II deals with the law applicable to the arbitration, first from a procedural point of view (the delocalisation theory, the 'seat' theory, etc) and then as to the substance. Conflict rules and the search for applicable law are briefly covered at the end of the chapter and the book then proceeds to analyse arbitration clauses and submission agreements (Chapter III). The introductory comments, setting forth some generally recognised international standards for arbitration clauses, are followed by some very practical considerations as to what one should put into an arbitration clause. Here again, the reader is somewhat frustrated to see how briefly some of the issues are dealt with (the different types of arbitration are covered in less than three pages ... and the whole issue of defective arbitration clauses in less than two pages.. .). Yet the indications given are relevant and interesting. Chapters IV, V and VI cover the establishment and the organisation of the arbitral tribunal, its powers, duties and jurisdiction and the conduct of the arbitration proceedings. What Redfem and Hunter achieved in these three chapters can only be described as remarkable: obviously drawing from their considerable personal experience, they present a well-written, at times even witty ('. . . it is important that arbitrators should be selected from outside the charmed circle of the industrialised nations') guide of the various pitfalls confronting those about to enter international arbitration. Yet their comments - whilst totally accurate and not biased in favour of international arbitration - are decidedly more optimistic than Dante's recommendation to forgo any hope upon entering the inferno1 ... This review is admittedly biased against theoretical overkill, of which German and Swiss legal thinking seems to be quite fond at times. Accordingly, Redfern and Hunter's typically Anglo- Saxon and pragmatic approach to the issues they cover in Chapters IV, V and VI comes as a delight: of course, one may agree or disagree with some of their contentions. Yet they managed to present the issues in convincing, albeit short, paragraphs, useful to both the seasoned practitioner and the newcomer in this field. Much the same can be said about Chapters VII (the Award), which among other things includes some interesting comments on the psychology of a three member arbitration panel. Chapter VIII (Challenge, recognition and enforcement of awards) presents a bird's eye view of the sometimes INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS LAWYER September 1987

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