This is the third edition of a book based on the author's, one of the most eminent senior scholars in international economic law, lecture at the Hague Academy,  of 1986. It probably should be seen together with the "Collected Essays on International Investments and on International Organizations" (Kluwer 1998) and the "Liber Amicorum for Iganz Seidl-Hohenveldern in honour of his 80th birday" (Ed. G. Hafner et.al, 1998).  These three volumes are works by, and for, a scholar who has worked in theory and especially in practice as adviser, arbitrator and conference delegate, on almost all matters pertaining to the economic dimension of public international law.

This work is about the application of public international law to economic matters, primarily between states as they have led to cases and debates from the end of World War II - when the author's career and his life-long interest in property protection started - to 1998.  It is not a systematic and comprehensive treatise on international economic law such as by Carreau/Juillard/Flory (Droit Economíque International) or the short study book by Matthias Herdegen (Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht)..  It is also not an analysis of both public and private (including lex mercatoria) issues such as Detlev Vagts' Transnational Legal Problems and  Transnational Business Problems. Nor is it, as seems to be the mainly US notion of "international economic law" a book primarily on GATT/WTO/NAFTA "international public trade law" (such as Jackson/Davey, Legal Problems of International Economic Relations). It is evident that international economic law means many things to many scholars: For Qureshi (International Economic Law, 1999) it is mainly trade, monetary and "law of development".   WTO-law seems also be the focus of the new Journal of International Economic Law.  For Seidl-Hohenveldern, international economic law is in essence traditional public international law as challenged by new developments - the emergence of multinational companies, limitations on sovereignty by treaties, the boundaries of national regulatory jurisdiction and the tension between economic regulatory sovereignty on one hand and property rights of aliens on the other. These are also the main chapters of the book which also contains a chapter on state responsibility (including the issue of home state responsibility for misconduct of its companies abroad) and economic warfare.  Trade law - in the WTO (and not in the commercial contracts sense - is conspicuously left out so that the great multilateral economic treaties of today - GATT/WTO, NAFTA, the ECT - have no role or only with respect to their investment protection elements. Similarly, the issue of extraterritorial sanctions which has so much agitated discussions on international economic law between states, has no role here as doe the complicated relationship between environmental/ human rights treaties on one hand and economic treaties on the other.

It is best to see the book as a well organized history of economic problems that have arisen over the last  50 years in public international law.  Post-WW II claims, the debates around the role of multinational companies, legal force of UN resolutions, alien property and absolutist claims for regulatory sovereignty under the banner of the "New International Economic Order" play an important role as they have captured much of the author's interest and vigorous contribution for two decades. A re-writing of the book would have to focus on the new forms of investment arbitration "without privity" under modern multilateral and bilateral treaties where the proper conduct and content of economic regulation by governments is now under scrutiny. Issues that were - and still are - relevant such as the renegotiability or stabilization of long-term state contracts, act of state immunities from judicial scrutiny and in particular the role of international economic organizations (their immunity, the possibility of "piercing" the corporate veil to trigger the responsibility of the members of such organizations are discussed extensively with references to key cases - such as the collapse of the International Tin Agreement.

This book does not substitute in teaching or introductory research for a systematic book in international economic law - and a authoritative, up-to-date textbook taking in the development of the "global economy" and relying less on the conceptual machinery of the 1970s pervading most books on the subject is still missing. But it provides a running commentary over most of the significant cases and debates of the last 50 years; it often demonstrates how general legal pretension and ideology breaks down when the specific circumstances of a case just do not fit into a general conceptual framework, an analysis that clearly delights this author (and the reviewer).  It should be seen as a necessary companion to provide historical continuity, a sense of the richness of cases and situations and very much a contribution to international economic law from the Germanic and Francophone international law culture.  Most modern literature on international economic law that is known outside its country is in English; most of the writers regrettably ignore, probably for reasons of limited linguistic competence, what is not available in terms of literature and case history outside mainstream English publications. The Seidl-Hohenveldern book is an excellent way to bring additional levels of understanding and references to an otherwise quite flat Anglo-Saxon only view of international economic law. It should be required reading for all younger international law scholars from the Anglo-Saxon societies who lack the in-depth understanding, interest, familiarity and civilization which for example the international law scholars before and after WW II still possessed.