As Kaj Pineus notes in the introduction to his book, lawyers are not expected always to win their cases, though their failure may be held against them if they have missed a time bar. His book is a consequence of the C.M.I.’s endeavour to make clear the different time bars which operate throughout the world and how they operate. It presents a questionnaire sent out by the C.M.I. to National Associations, the replies received from the countries concerned, plus a summary of those replies arranged with reference to the types of claim concerned. The text is broken down into brief sections with very concise summaries of the points in question. It therefore provides a very quick and easy point of reference for clear information on time bars internationally, though without detailed consideration of the relevant national laws.

The second Pineus book, co-authored with a fellow member of the C.M.I. Executive Council, Hans Röhreke, provides similar though shorter treatment, in the collision context, of that other important form of limitation in maritime cases, limitation of liability. Given the practical importance of this admittedly fairly narrow subject, it is perhaps odd that the most commonly used source of reference for the law surrounding the statutory provisions has been the notes in Temperley’s Merchant Shipping Acts rather than a separate publication. Mr Astle’s new book, the latest of a series on shipping law, could not perhaps have been better or worse timed. The enactment of any legislation, and particularly of an international convention, to be brought into force on a day to be ascertained, casts a shadow of uncertainty. It can deprive persons working in the field of literature on the existing law with an anticipated brief life expectancy or it can rapidly render obsolete such literature which the author has been bold enough to produce. Leaving aside the fact that claims under the current law will not all be determined in the very immediate future, the latter fate is that of Mr Astle’s new work, for the 1976 Limitation Convention, which he discusses but briefly, will be in force by the end of the year. On the other hand, if no new cases on the current law emerge, he has produced perhaps the final comprehensive review of the law under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. In essence, his book is a convenient narrative of the cases on the 1894 Act and the amending legislation, the author adopting a peculiar, unconventional mode of citing the case references. He allows the law to speak through the facts of the cases and the decisions on them, rather than by attempting a critical or detailed analysis of the law. The “index” lists the cases with a brief note of the facts and problems involved. The front cover, interestingly, displays a photograph of the vessel which has provided surely the last major case on the present law, the Marion.