This book is a reprint of a monograph which first appeared in the International Handbook on Commercial Arbitration, a fact which explains certain peculiarities of form. Thus, there is, for example, no Index, although the text of the Model Law is reprinted in an Appendix at the end. This lack of Index might be supposed to be not too serious a flaw since the book simply discusses each of the 36 Articles of the Model Law in turn, so that the reader should be in no doubt as to where discussion of a particular issue might be found. Yet this presumes some basic familiarity with and understanding of the Model Law, while there are certain ideas which might be implicit in the Model Law but which are not immediately obvious from a casual scrutiny of its bare provisions. Thus, an Index would benefit someone who, for example, is interested to learn the extent to which the concept of natural justice underpins the Model Law. The book is essentially an examination of the individual provisions of the Model Law, considering the background to the Model Law only very briefly in the introduction. It does not consider the relationship of the Model Law to any particular legal system, so that in those countries where the Model Law has been adopted one would imagine that it would have less utility than an account which sets the Model Law in that particular national context, especially given that the Model Law is far from being a comprehensive arbitration code, so that domestic arbitration rules will continue to be of considerable significance. It may also be observed that for the most part the book does not consider issues in international commercial arbitration which lie outside the scope of the Model Law, even such issues as might have been included in the Model Law but ultimately were not.

However, it is entirely unfair to concentrate on matters which the book does not and was never intended to cover. The reviewer’s intention is not to strike a negative note but merely to sketch the parameters of the work. There is no doubt that the book performs an immense service by offering an exhaustive analysis of the provisions of the Model Law and its associated travaux préparatoires. It is, of course, in the nature of the Model Law that the true significance of its provisions can only be gleaned from an examination of the accompanying travaux préparatoires detailing the history of how each provision was drafted. The travaux préparatoires of the Model Law are extraordinarily extensive, and it is one of the book’s most striking features that it can provide such a complete account of the development of each provision without running to enormous length. That it achieves this feat is due in no small measure to the author’s ability to distil the essence of the protracted debates and discussions that accompanied the drafting of each of the provisions of the Model Law. Occasionally, the technique of following the development of each provision through to its final form can make the task of the reader in coming to grips with the full meaning of that provision quite difficult. For example, having ploughed through an account of the debates as to the proper interpretation of Art. 28(1), the reader will find that the view which is finally reached is then reversed during the discussion of Art. 28(2)—though it must be said that the author makes this abundantly clear. Discussion of individual provisions is often illuminated by telling references to similar provisions in national statutes (including certain national ver-