As demonstrated by its title, International Commercial Arbitration: An Asia-Pacific Perspective, co-authored by Simon Greenberg, Christopher Kee, and J. Romesh Weeramantry, is a recent publication that focuses on the development of this private regime of dispute resolution in this vast and rapidly developing area, and examines it against a backdrop of the legal and cultural diversities of the Asia-Pacific nations.

Beginning with an introduction to international arbitration and its place in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes a brief but interesting description of the history and cultures related to arbitration in this region, the book also consists of the following chapters: “Law Governing the Arbitration and Role of the Seat”; “Applicable Substantive Law”; “Arbitration Agreement”; “Arbitral Jurisdiction”; “The Arbitral Tribunal”; “Procedure and Evidence”; “The Award: Content and Form”; “The Award: Challenge and Enforcement”; and “Investment Treaty Arbitration”. As one can see, the structure shows that the content of the book is wide-ranging and rather complete in its coverage of all the main issues of the subject that the title of the book indicates.

Different from other kinds of binding adjudication, domestic or international, international commercial arbitration provides a unique platform on which different legal systems may well exert an impact on its procedure, and practitioners from around the globe with distinctive legal backgrounds must follow the game rules which the parties, the counsels, and the arbitrator(s) in a particular case are able to shape themselves and have finally agreed to. Because of this uniqueness, one of the key problems encountered by the practitioners in international arbitration is how to balance common law and civil law procedures in a given case. The book in this respect furnishes a comparative table that parallels practices of civil law, common law, and international arbitration on issues of written submissions, witness statements, documentary evidence, document request, hearings, post-hearing procedure, and expert witnesses. The table neatly summarizes the differences on these issues and demonstrates how current international arbitration has been affected by the practices of the two legal families. The comparison naturally ushers the common practice represented by the rules and guidelines of the International Bar Association to complete the picture.

The national legal and cultural traditions in the Asia-Pacific are so diverse that it is virtually impossible to identify, in the practice of international commercial arbitration, common issues representative of the entire region. However, the book takes the best practice enshrined in UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (“the Model Law”) as the benchmark to measure the practice and development of the countries in the region in order to justify its conclusions. The authors find that a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific which have adopted the Model Law or blueprinted it for their national legislations are consistent with or closer to prevailing international practice. According to the analysis of the book, in the field of international arbitration it makes less difference whether an Asia-Pacific country follows the common-law approach or the civil-law approach. It is the level of economic and social development that appears to play a more significant role for a nation in this area to follow the generally accepted practice in international arbitration. This position has been strengthened when it comes to court decisions and interpretations of arbitration legislation and the 1958 New York Convention.

The three authors are experienced legal professionals in the area of arbitration. They combine their joint expertise and their research as well as their personal experience on international arbitration bodies (Simon Greenberg has served for a couple of years as the Deputy Secretary General of the ICC International Court of Arbitration) to bring to the readers insights and updates on international arbitration. The discussion on issues of the impartiality and independence of arbitrators, confidentiality and privacy in arbitration, and the request to produce are, among others, impressive with their persuasive analyses and conclusions.

A recent trend tends to sever investment treaty arbitration from traditional international commercial arbitration; this type of arbitration, though hard to classify as non-commercial, bears special features in terms of the parties to the arbitral proceedings, the substantive law applicable to the merits, the confidentiality of the proceedings, and the award. The book, while pointing out the distinctive features of the former, warrants the inclusion of a last chapter on investment treaty arbitration on the grounds that it supplies a wealth of comparable material for the latter. This approach is practical and shared by many other books on international arbitration, since the two of them overlap in their proceedings, and many international arbitrators and counsels actively practise in both fields.

The book, by systematically introducing each issue of arbitration and explaining the prevailing rules thereof, makes it in the first place a practical guide for practitioners in the field of international arbitration. It also serves as a good reference book, as it has cited statutes and court decisions on various issues of international arbitration in many Asia-Pacific countries and legal districts including, without limitation, Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, China and its Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as the European and North American states. Cases from the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the ICC International Court of Arbitration have also been supplied, in addition to numerous academic works and statistics of institutional practice. The book is a product of comprehensive research combined with the authors’ practical experience, rare in the field, which provides a valuable source for further study of the subject. Limited by the availability of translated materials, more court decisions are referred to in the book from countries in which English is at least one of the official languages.

Using a format of summarizing the black-letter law and prevailing practice upfront on each issue of international arbitration, followed by vigorous comparison and discussion of the laws and practices in the Asia-Pacific, which reinforces the prevailing practice either from a positive or a negative perspective, it can also be used as a textbook for law students, because it describes the rules correctly and with precision, covers the topics of international arbitration systematically, and few major issues in this field escape its scrutiny.

To conclude, the effort made by the book to explore Asia-Pacific practice in international arbitration definitely renders it one of the authorities on the subject.