Although the significance of the Shatt-Al-Arab in relation to the determination of the boundary between the states of Iran and Iraq has been the subject of a number of earlier studies, many of these, as the author of the present work rightly points out, fail to satisfy contemporary needs, either on the grounds that their appearance pre-dated recent developments or that they suffer from such deficiencies as lack of thoroughness or objectivity. The publication of Dr Kaikobad’s reappraisal will therefore be most welcome to public international lawyers, political scientists and others whose work touches upon the law or pathogeny of boundary disputes. It may also interest a wider readership who wish to understand more about some of the grievances underlying a military conflict which proved so disruptive of normal political, social and commercial activities throughout the Gulf region.

The book is composed of two main chapters—the first containing a detailed consideration of the geographical and historical background to the dispute and the second devoted to the legal analysis of the boundary issue. Some brief conclusions follow. The remainder of the volume comprises a bibliography and seven annexes incorporating the texts of a sequence of relevant agreements from the Second Treaty of Erzeroum in 1847 to the 1975 Baghdad Treaty and River Frontier Protocol.

Central to any evaluation of the legal aspects of the boundary question must be a consideration of the significance of such competing concepts as the medium filum aquae and the centre of the navigable channel (or thalweg) in the determination of river frontiers, the interaction between international rules governing the use of force and the acquisition of territory, and the application of the doctrine of rebus sic stantibus and other principles of treaty law to that particular category of international agreements which deal with boundary questions. All of these matters are duly considered in an analysis which constitutes a model of clarity and succeeds in exposing the shallow or partisan nature of certain earlier studies. Nevertheless, there remain certain questions which might profitably have been explored more fully. Per-