THE MODERN LAW OF MARINE INSURANCE. Edited by D. Rhidian Thomas, M.A., LL.B., A.C.A. Arb., Professor of Law at the University of East Anglia. LLP, London (1996) xlvi and 521 pp. Hardback £75.

This volume contains a collection of 10 essays on topical issues in the law of marine insurance written by an impressive array of contributors. And a fine collection it is, worthy of the memory of the late Professor F.J.J. Cadwallader to which it is dedicated. A wide selection of topics are covered and lawyers involved with or interested in marine insurance will discover in it numerous enlightening and stimulating expositions of familiar principles.

D. Rhidian Thomas, who must be congratulated on a volume well edited, contributes what I found to be one of the most interesting chapters. He provides some perspectives on the contract of marine insurance and considers matters such as the definition, creation, requirements and formal legal characteristics of that contract. These are matters not always addressed in English textbooks and this is not only a suitable introductory chapter to the volume under review but an important addition to the existing literature on the English law of marine insurance. The other contributions are no less informative and may all be mentioned very briefly.

Aleka Mandaraka-Sheppard provides perspectives on the marine perils and (despite the title of her chapter) on many other aspects of the law of marine insurance as provided for in the new Institute Hull Clauses. Robert Grime’s contribution is a “textual and contextual analysis” (see at 98) of the Institute Cargo Clauses and contains much informative detail on the background to and the meaning of these clauses, including an important consideration of those matters not in fact addressed by them. Steven J. Hazelwood tackles the often tricky practical matter of marine perils (notably perils of the seas and barratry) and the burden of proof, while Howard N. Bennett’s contribution is concerned with the related topic of causation in the law of marine insurance, more specifically the evolution and codification of the proximate cause doctrine in the Marine Insurance Act of 1906. Gotthard Gauchi writes about that uniquely English concept of a constructive total loss as well as on the correlated notion of abandonment and the need for a clarification of numerous aspects of the law in this regard.