The new private international law of contract, contained in the Rome Convention, is not at all easy to assimilate. But Dr Kaye has written a good, if rather difficult, book on it: was reviewed at [1994] LMCLQ 293. On no account should the present offering be confused with that work. in the 172 small pages which make up the text presumably under review there are to be found in six parts: (I) a brief summary of the Convention, (II) a brief summary of the Convention as contrasted with the common law, (III) a longer summary of the Convention, (IV) an index, (V) the annotated text of the Convention, and (VI) an unannotated text of the Convention. Plus another index.

The book claims to be written for the non-specialist: but a non-specialist must look elsewhere for his review. It may well be that 12 pages of unfractured prose would have a better chance of hitting its target than a series of notes. It is, indeed, impossible to be enthusiastic about the idiosyncratic and distinctly repetitive organizational approach adopted in the present book, even though (and this is indisputable) the quality of Dr Kaye’s advice to the reader, when one comes across it, is high. That apart, the leading-question-and-answer approach of part I (“Can Laws Otherwise Applicable Under the Convention be Displaced by Mandatory Contract Rules or Other Legal Systems, or by the Forum’s Own Doctrine of Public Policy? Yes on both counts … “) appears unusually contrived. The rendering of τα. ανώτατα Δικαστήρλα as “ra avorara Aikaoripia” (p. 148) is also rather unexpected. Given that Dr Kaye’s larger work on this topic is also available, the intending buyer should, in this reviewer’s opinion, opt for that instead.