The authors have excellent credentials. John W Hinchey is a partner in the US firm of King & Spalding, LLP, based in Atlanta, Georgia, but with offices in many other places and countries. Mr Hinchey is the current President of the American College of Construction Lawyers and has been the Chairman of the American Bar Association Forum of the Construction Industry and has received its highest “Cornerstone Award”. Mr Harris is counsel with King & Spalding’s litigation group. The authors place their subject firmly in the context of international commercial arbitration, albeit viewed, it must be said, largely from an American perspective. That does not at all detract from its value to others. Indeed for most practitioners it provides a very good reason for buying this work. With growing “Americanisation” of international commercial arbitration, it is essential to be well informed.

The book has 12 chapters. The authors’ style is commendably terse and clear, but interspersed with dry wit and felicitous quotations from all sorts of sources, from eminent politicians to the Rumpoles of yesteryear. The concision of treatment, coupled with some intriguing footnote references has produced a work that is a pleasure to read and one that repays re-reading. It begins by introducing the reader to the place of construction and construction arbitration in the world and then moves on to consider the arbitration agreement and the legal framework within which international construction arbitration will take place (“Chapter 3: Legal Framework Arbitration and Threshold Issues”). There then follows a chapter on judicial proceedings to aid and assist international construction arbitration. The work then turns to practicalities: Chapter 5 is about initiating international construction arbitrations; Chapter 6 is about developing the case in an international construction arbitration; Chapters 7, 8 and 9 concern

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