Book Reviews Holbein, James R., and Donald J. Musch, NAFTA. Final Text, Summary, Legislative History & Implementation Directory, New York: Oceana Publications, Inc. (1994) iv + 1044 pages. $69.95. Available with Raworth, Philip, WTO, and Trade Law Links: WTO & NAFTA Disk. $155. Raworth, Philip, and Linda C. Reif, The Law of the WTO. New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., (1995) viii + 932 pages. $69.95. Available with Holbein, James, NAFTA, and Trade Law Links: WTO & NAFTA Disk. $155. Norton, Joseph J., Thomas L. Bloodworth, and Terry K. Pennington, NAFTA and Beyond, Dordrecht, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (1995) xvi + 648 pages + Index. Dfl. 375; $247.50; LSG154. Abbott, Frederick M., Law and Policy of Regional Integration: The NAFTA and Western Hemispheric Integration in the World Trade Organization System, Dordrecht, Boston, London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (1995) xi + 201 pages + Index. Dfl. 175; $112; LSG72. The first two volumes are Classic Oceana Practitioner's Deskbooks. The first contains the final text of NAFTA and Supplemental Agreements authoritatively edited by Richard Holbein of the NAFTA Secretariat and Donald Musch. The text is supplemented by a concise summary of the Legislative History with useful citations to the principal sources of that history, by an even more useful summary of the Agreement - a veritable primer in its own right - written by Jonston, Edelman and Ward and by a so-called Resource Guide to the Implementation of NAFTA (A How To Find Out list of addresses, phones, faxes and documents). The Dos Diskette Version allows full text interrogation but does not seem to have been 'hyper-texted.' The second title, covers, in much the same format, the WTO. It gives a history of the tortuous Uruguay Round and then a terse but detailed commentary on the major components of the Agreement followed by official texts. The beloved old GATT is reproduced for good order. The analytical part in both volumes can not be, and does not pretend to be, a substitute for in-depth analyses of the content of these agreements. The utility of the books, and it is great, is having the official texts with readily accessible, no-nonsense initial comments and pointers to other sources and resources. Abbot is the book you must read in order to relate NAFTA to the WTO. It is hugely informative, written with lucidity and remarkable erudition and displays subtlety and insight. There is, first, the best analysis with which I am familiar on the very compatibility of Regional Integration regimes with GATT and the WTO. The centrepiece of the book is the analysis of NAFTA provisions on goods and Services in relation to the more global WTO regime. The book also has a useful (comparative trade law) chapter on NAFTA and the European Union, an interesting chapter on Japanese perspectives on NAFTA and rounds off with reflections on more global approaches to Western Hemisphere integration beyond NAFTA. The audience here is both policy makers, academe and practitioner. The Norton & Bloodworth has as its audience the Bar and the business community. It is a far more ambitious book than the Oceana volumes. It is not quite a treatise, but with the collaboration of a remarkable team of practitioners and practitioner/academics it attempts to position NAFTA in its commercial context and to cover the legal and commercial regime in some depth. In many of its section, (e. g. on Secured Credit Transactions in Mexico) the book goes beyond the Agreement. NAFTA is understood in this book to be the actual Free Trade Area and not the Agreement establishing it. Thus, in addition to Secured Credit you will find chapters on Export Finance possibilities, Franchising and Intellectual Property (which of course also occupy an important part of the Agreement) and, naturally the more classic issues such as trade in goods, the environment and labour law issues. The book clearly looks South; Canada, though not omitted is left in the cold. Useful. JHHW
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