For over 20 years the growth of container transport has effected a revolution in much of the carriage of goods by individual modes of transport and promoted the development of multi-modal operations and contracts. This is the first book to address legal aspects of containerization as a subject in its own right rather than as an adjunct to texts on individual modes. The author’s approach to this complex subject is straightforward. Volume I contains the text and is essentially a review of such legislation, international transport Conventions, codes of practice and trading conditions as are relevant to container operations in surface carriage (as opposed to carriage by air) and with some emphasis on full container load movements. Volume II reproduces most of those materials which have been given detailed treatment in the text, in their order of discussion and is, in effect, a somewhat inconveniently placed appendix.

There is a general division into six sections, dealing with safety, carriage (further separated into domestic, international combined and international unimodal transport), insurance, leasing, dangerous goods and customs. Within these the text provides detailed reviews of material directly concerned with container operations and carriage, such as the International Convention on Safe Containers, Freightliner and Intercontainer Conditions, ICC Rules, OCL and FIATA bills of lading, the Institute Container Clauses, etc., and other material relevant to carriage by container. The latter includes trading conditions of the IFF and RHA and the principal international transport Conventions, namely CMR, COTIF and the Hague-Visby Rules.

While this latter material has a wider application than just to container movements, the author strives for a succinct review and wherever possible to draw out points of particular interest in the operation of container transport. As well as purely legal and contractual material, there is practical material, such as guidance on container stowage, and the text contains advice, hints, checklists and other useful bits of information, including lists of useful addresses at the end of each section.

Although generally an interesting and practical review, the book does have some shortcomings, in part related to the author’s approach to the material. The reader is launched, for instance, straight into the safety Convention with little background introduction to the development and types of containers. There seems generally to be an assumption of knowledge on the part of the reader: he is assumed, for example, to know what an ISO type container is, or to appreciate the meaning of such niceties as a “Himalaya” type benefit without explanation. The faithfulness of the text to the contents of legislation and conditions often requires the reader to wade through a mass of detail which could at times have been marshalled more effectively, especially to enable important points to be reached efficiently. It is unclear, for instance, why the Safety Convention and its implementation in Great Britain required separate chapters and could not have been integrated into a more readable analysis.

Generally, one is left feeling the need for more overall analysis of or introduction to the