The papers collected in this volume were given at a seminar held in Canberra in 1984 conducted by the Attorney-General’s Department in association with the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee.

Why a seminar focused on the Asian Pacific region, given that the benefits of international trade, and the problems involved, are very largely global? The Keynote Address by Mr Geoffrey Miller, Deputy Secretary at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, gives a twofold answer. First, although the problems are already being discussed in the international forums such as GATT, ECOSOC, ENCTAD, UNIDO and UNCITRAL, solutions have not in all cases emerged as quickly or as easily as might have been hoped. To approach the problems on a regional basis might increase the chances of progress by enabling countries with shared interests to focus on their priority concerns. Secondly, the Asian Pacific region is an entity within which such problems may be discussed without too heavy an encroachment of political factors to obstruct emerging solutions. The area is, of course, of considerable importance economically, and its importance is likely to increase dramatically in the foreseeable future.

As is inevitable with seminars of this kind, some of the ground covered is fairly well-trodden, though, given the need to cover the major areas, this is not a criticism. There are papers on the international conventions covering carriage by sea, international sales, foreign state immunity and other such central topics. Apart from providing an up-to-date commentary on these matters, the usefulness of this volume as a source has been greatly enhanced by the inclusion of the actual texts under discussion. This alone would make it a useful work for many people to have on their bookshelves. However, the part likely, I suspect, to be of the greatest potential interest is the collection of Workshop papers at the end. These cover “Trading with