One of the most striking developments in the field of commercial law in recent years has been the rapid increase in the use of commercial arbitration as a means of resolving disputes without recourse to the courts. Statistics are hard to come by, and such as are available for the United Kingdom extend back for only a few years. But the growth has been apparent to anyone familiar with arbitration in those fields where London has traditionally been preeminent, such as shipping and the commodity trades, where the number and size of arbitrations has grown dramatically over the last 15 or 20 years. A similar growth in the number and scale of arbitrations has been observed in fields outside London’s traditional sphere of influence, so that the point has now been reached where almost every region of the world can claim to have its own centre of arbitration.

Many factors have contributed to this rapid growth in commercial arbitration. Chief among them has undoubtedly been the growth in world trade, particularly to countries where lingering doubts exist as to the independence of the local courts, coupled with the growing size and complexity of capital projects. Another factor which must also have exerted an influence is the growing public awareness of the facilities which exist for arbitration around the world, and a developing confidence in the reliability of arbitral procedures. In part this has been due to the energies and skills of those engaged in the day-to-day practice of arbitration and those who have an interest in its continuing prosperity. But it has also been due in considerable measure to the growing number of books and journals by which knowledge of arbitration around the world is made available to its commercial users.

Among these must be numbered Messrs Craig, Park and Paulsson’s valuable study of arbitration under the ICC Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration. There is probably no other arbitral institution in the world which has achieved the pre-eminence of the ICC Court of Arbitration, and it is difficult to imagine any other set of arbitral rules which would merit a work of this size and elaboration. International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration is a book of between five and six hundred pages (eccentrically, if logically, numbered), available either in bound or in looseleaf form, the latter format being intended to enable the text to be kept up to date by periodical reissues of individual parts. It sets out to be a comprehensive study of every aspect of ICC arbitration. It deals, as one would expect, with every stage of an arbitration under the ICC Rules, from the drafting of the agreement to arbitrate and the constitution of the arbitral tribunal, thence by way of the hearing and ancillary proceedings to the final award and its enforcement. All this is described with an eye for practical problems and their solution which one would expect from three such experienced practitioners. Their practical approach is exemplified by the extended discussion of how to draft the arbitration agreement while avoiding the many pitfalls along the road (a subject well deserving of the