It is now 13 years since Professors Treitel and Reynolds resurrected Carver’s Carriage of Goods by Sea, the last edition of which was the 13th, written by Raoul Colinvaux and published in 1982. Of that first edition of Carver on Bills of Lading, published in 2001, Jonathan Chambers wrote, reviewing the book in this journal ([2002] LMCLQ 568): “The work is clearly not intended to be an everyday handbook for the shipping practitioner or lawyer. The work is clearly more academic in nature and theoretical than some of its competitors. However, in particular areas the text is likely to become authoritative.” It is also a completely different book from the original Carver, covering bills of lading alone, and not the remainder of carriage of goods by sea.

It is now two years since even the latest (third) edition was published in 2012. An update was due by 2012 in any event but, as the authors comment, the most important development was the Rotterdam Rules, which they also observe “have not been given the force of law in the United Kingdom or (as far as we know) anywhere else”. Today that seems unlikely to change, though some jurisdictions (such as China) have taken selected parts of the Rules into their domestic law. The Rotterdam Rules get a chapter to themselves, and are fully set out in the Appendices. But, though the Rotterdam Rules no doubt had to be included in a 2012 book on bills of lading, the core of this book is English law, and mostly common law at that. The authors are concerned not to reproduce the extensive material on Rotterdam, but to examine the relationship between the Rotterdam Rules and common law concepts, for example between Rotterdam’s right of control and the (rather obscure) common law right of the shipper to redirect goods (discussed in the first chapter of the book). The interrelationship between Rotterdam and the common law will, of course, be of considerable importance, in the improbable event that Rotterdam ever becomes part of English law.

Many readers, who will have consulted Carver over the 13 years since its current incarnation as a book on bills of lading, will probably agree with Jonathan Chambers’ assessment of the first edition. It remains academic and theoretical, compared with other books in the British Shipping Laws Series, but in many of the recent cases on bills of lading the arguments and reasoning are, in reality, academic and theoretical. One might cite as examples Primetrade AG v Ythan Ltd (The Ythan) [2006] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 457, on (among other things) lawful holders under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992, or Borealis AB v Stargas Ltd (The Berge Sisar) [2002] 2 AC 205, on (among other things) a seller’s taking a bill of lading as agent for the buyer. Bills of lading can only be properly understood in an academic and theoretical context. Perhaps Carver is not “an everyday handbook for the shipping practitioner or lawyer”, but a good argument can be made that it should be. (The Ythan and The Berge Sisar each receive extensive treatment in Chapter 5 of Carver, the chapter on the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992.)

Carver is a work of reference and, like most such works, it assumes considerable pre-existing knowledge. From the first page, there is scarcely a word that is in any sense introductory; it would not be a good teaching book, other than at the highest of levels. It is a comprehensive work, where all conceivable angles are discussed, whether or not they are likely to give rise to difficulties in practice,