This book is the first volume in a projected series of six—though it is anticipated that the length of certain of the later volumes might dictate that they appear in separate parts. The first five volumes are intended to provide a commentary on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 and the resolutions contained in Annex I of the Final Act of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. The sixth and final volume is to contain “reference materials covering the entire Convention and other selected materials” (p. xliii), as well as a complete list of the documents, formal and informal, which were circulated by the Secretariat of the Third Conference, together with indications of where they can be found (p. lvi).

The contents of the present volume are as follows: an introduction to the series written by John Norton Moore; a foreword by Myron Nordquist, the editor-in-chief of the series; a chronology of significant events relating to the law of the sea with particular reference to the history of the 1982 Convention; a table of those states and entities which had signed, ratified or acceded to the Convention or signed the Final Act by 9 December 1984; a note on the symbols and numbers used to identify the documents produced and distributed by the UN Sea-bed Committees and by the Third Conference; statements on the work of the Conference by Constantin Stavropoulos, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the first and second sessions of the Conference, and by Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe, the President of the Conference from its first to its ninth sessions; a statement on the Convention by Tommy Koh, the Conference’s President at its 10th and 11th sessions, which is adapted from the speech which he made to the Conference at its conclusion in December 1982; an introduction to the Convention by Bernardo Zuleta, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the Conference from its third to its final sessions; a lengthy account by Tommy Koh and Shanmugan Jayakumar of the negotiating procedures employed at the Third Conference; a description by Dolliver Nelson of the method of work of the Con-