The Law of International Trade, we are told, was written to supply the demand for a student textbook on the subject. How far then does it succeed? The first point worthy of note is that the book is far from good value: of the 284 pages of text, a staggering one-third are taken up with appendices and the index. While some of the documentation supplied is defensible (The Institute Cargo Clauses and UNCTAD/ICC Rules may not be easily available), there can really be no justification for including the text of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Acts, 1971 and 1992; and the fact that, for example, the text of the Hamburg Rules is given 18 pages and only referred to on two pages might lead the cynical to suspect that the book has been deliberately padded out.

The remaining 200 pages aim to cover the law of carriage of goods by sea, land and air as well as multimodal transport. International sale contracts, insurance contracts and conflict of laws problems in international transactions are also dealt with. Needless to say, none of these topics receives the detailed treatment essential to making the study of any branch of law interesting, but the brevity of the book has also led to some regrettable omissions in the statements of the law. Can S.G.A., s. 16 really be discussed without any reference to Wait and James v. Midland Bank (1926) 31 Com. Cas. 172, Karlshamns Oljefabriker v. Eastport Navigation Corp. (The Elafi) [1982] 1 All E.R. 208, [1981] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 679 or ascertainment by exhaustion, generally (even if the Law Commission’s views on the reform of the section were not thought worthy of inclusion)? Can Comptoir d’Achat et de Vente de Boerenbond Belge S/A v. Luis de Ridder Limitada (The Julia) [1949] A.C. 293, (1949) 82 Ll.L. Rep. 270