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Law and Diplomacy in Commodity Economics: A Study of Techniques, Co-operation and Conflict in International Public Policy Issues. By Emiko Atimomo. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981. Pp. xix, 384. Index. $55. Distributed by Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.

Ever since the inauguration of UNCTAD's Integrated Programme for Commodities in 1976, interest in international commodity agreements has greatly increased, as has the intensity of the negotiating process itself. Thus, an additional work in this field is certainly welcome. Atimomo's book is divided into two parts: "General Characteristics of International Economic Law and Diplomacy" and "Conflict and Co-operation in Commodity Diplomacy." The former is of greater interest to the student of international law; it is also a more significant contribution to the relatively slim literature on international commodity agreements. In that part, Atimomo seeks to provide a legal analysis of commodity agreements and procedures of ratification and acceptance, as well as legal processes. Throughout, he tries to elucidate the concept of international economic law, taken to be a more flexible law needed to accommodate to an era of economic interdependence in which the interests of producers and consumers are not always coincident. He exemplifies this concept by pointing to the seemingly binding nature of provisional acceptance of such commodity accords as the International Coffee Agreement of 1968. More generally, he tries to identify the commonalities and differences between and among recent commodity agreements. The focus is on tin and coffee, but he uses numerous other examples. The decision to carefully and laboriously work through two particularly important accords has its merits, but these are diminished somewhat when one recognizes the atypicality of some of the provisions of these agreements as well as the fact that a full understanding of even these two accords would require that one work through sections not discussed here at all. Moreover, there are clear limitations to going carefully through commodity agreements that are constantly being altered. Still, this section does provide the reader with some unique materials, crucial to anyone contemplating international commodity negotiations. These insights are magnified in those too infrequent instances where the author provides his own personal observations as to how an accord might have been improved or why a particular provision was accepted.