1. This is a major comprehensive treatise on international commercial arbitration published in France. Though containing substantial information on the theory and practice of international commercial arbitration in the rest of the world from a wide variety of national and anational legal sources and in fact demonstrating, not inadvertently, that international commercial arbitration is a multicultural phenomenon transcending national frontiers, traditions or legal systems, this book initially approaches the problems and questions raised by international commercial arbitration from the perspective of French legislation and case law and the thoughts of French experts in the area. However, this latter circumstance does not detract from the broad international orientation and coverage of this work and the universal character of many of the conclusions or solutions contained in its pages. As a matter of fact, some of the ideas developed in this book emphasizing the multicultural and multinational character of international commercial arbitration, like the role played by lex mercatoria in international commercial arbitration, were forcefully advanced by one of its authors, Berthold Goldman, former Professor Emeritus and President of the School of Law of the University of Paris II and a distinguished author and practising lawyer in the field of international commercial arbitration, whose pioneering work in that respect has left a profound mark on French legislation, case law and doctrinal opinions. The other co-authors, Messrs. Fouchard and Gaillard, also distinguished professors and practitioners in the area of international commercial arbitration in their own right, may be considered in many ways as Goldman’s disciples. As the preface to this treatise indicates, it was Professor Goldman’s idea to include his younger colleagues in the task of rewriting under his directorship the section on international commercial arbitration of the prestigious Jurisclasseur de Droit International. This treatise is based to a large extent on these writings for the Jurisclasseur. For that reason, though Professor Goldman passed away some years ago and his actual contributions to this treatise are relatively few, the latter has been organized around coordinated approaches or shared ideas built by the co-authors through long years of intellectual cross-fertilization. No wonder then that Professor Goldman remains as one of the treatise's co-authors. It should also be noted that its foreword identifies the author or authors of each part of the test.