Description
It is some 20 years since the subject of transnational commercial law was first introduced into the Oxford University BCL/MJur programme. It proved popular with postgraduate students and since that time law schools around the world have taken the subject into their curricula, with variations reflecting local interests and conditions.
This book is designed for teachers of transnational commercial law and their students as well as for others interested in the subject. The first edition was experimental but rapidly became adopted by those law schools teaching the subject. Further impetus for other law schools to include transnational commercial law in their curricula was provided by the establishment of what has now become an annual conference for transnational commercial law teachers, with students of the host institution also participating. The first in the series was held at Oxford University in 2009, followed by conferences at the University of Heidelberg, the International Hellenic University and the Universities of Washington, Kyushu, and Eötvös Loránd. The seventh annual conference will take place at the University of Western Australia in November 2015.
In the eight years since the first edition of this book was published there have been a great many developments. The International Chamber of Commerce has published new revisions of the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP 600), the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG 758), Incoterms (2010), and the ICC Rules of Arbitration. UNIDROIT has also been very active during the past eight years. Under the auspices of UNIDROIT and the Organisation Intergouvernmentale Pour Les Transports Internationaux Ferroviaires (OTIF) the Luxembourg Protocol to the Cape Town Convention on international interests in mobile equipment was adopted in 2007, while the Space Protocol to the Convention was approved in 2012. Also adopted were the UNIDROIT Convention on substantive rules for intermediated securities, the UNIDROIT Model Law on leasing, the UNIDROIT Principles on the operation of netting provisions, and a revised edition of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. At regional level an EC regulation on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents was adopted, as
well as other instruments in the area of procedure, while this year there have been major revisions of the European Insolvency Regulation. All of these developments have been reflected in this new edition.