Penn State International Law Review

Over the last half-century, as UNCITRAL official, professor, arbitrator and father of the Willem C. Vis Arbitration Moot, Eric Bergsten has been at the forefront of progress in international commercial arbitration. Now, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, the international arbitration and sales law community has gathered to honour him with this substantial collection of new essays on the many facets of the field to which he continues to bring his intellect, integrity, inquisitive nature, eye for detail, precision, and commitment to public service. Celebrating the long-standing and sustained contribution Eric Bergsten has made in international commercial law, international arbitration, and legal education, more than fifty colleagues – among them quite a few of the best-known arbitrators and arbitration academics in the world – present 45 pieces that, individually both engaging and incisive, collectively present a thorough and far-reaching account of the state of the field today, with contributions covering international sales law, commercial law, commercial arbitration, and investment arbitration. In addition, nine essays on issues in legal education mirror the great importance of the renowned Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, Eric’s Vienna project which has offered a life-changing experience for so many young lawyers from all over the world.

Anyone involved in trade law knows the time-consuming nature of obtaining primary source material and consulting each of the main trade laws. Now in its fourth edition, Basic Documents in International Trade Law solves this problem by assembling, in a single, easy-to-use resource, a very comprehensive collection of the most important and frequently used documents on the law of international trade. In addition to its obvious practical value, this work reveals much about the process of harmonization in international trade law and the operation of the key international trade bodies. This makes the book a helpful reference for international business lawyers, researchers, legislators and government officials in the field. Since the successful publication of the previous editions of the book, the appearance of new conventions and model laws has considerably enriched the law of international trade, and the present edition contains a wealth of new material. The book has been substantially revised and several new instruments have been included. Among the most significantly important improvements to this new edition are new chapters added to different parts of the book, a redesigned and thoroughly revised Part 6 reflecting the expansion of intellectual property rights under the framework of treaties administered by World International Property Organization, and bibliographies and other research resources updated and enlarged to include an extraordinarily rich collection of books and articles in many trading languages besides English, including, for the first time, major Chinese works in the international trade law field. As the late Prof. Clive M. Schmitthoff commented on the first edition, the book ‘is not only of practical usefulness but has also considerable jurisprudential value’, and ‘reveals the methodology of the harmonization process in the area of international trade law’. The International Business Lawyer first commented in 1987 that the book ‘can only be described as a “vade mecum” for every international business lawyer’, an assessment that now seems more merited than ever.

Patrick Dumberry provides a comprehensive analysis of the rules of customary international law in the field of international investment law.

This book presents a developed theory of how national lawyers can approach, understand, and make use of foreign law. Its theme is pursued through a set of detailed essays which look at the courts as well as business practice and, with the help of statistics, demonstrate what type of academic work has any impact on the 'real' world. Engaging with Foreign Law thus aims to carve out a new niche for comparative law in this era of globalisation, and may also be the only book which deals in some depth with both private and public law in countries such as England, Germany, France, South Africa, and the United States.

Xiaodong Yang examines the issue of jurisdictional immunities of States and their property in foreign domestic courts.