Several years ago I participated in a number of international business transactions. Some concerned the drafting and negotiating of interna- tional commercial agreements. Some had to do with disputes that arose between the contracting parties after the contract was signed. One case required commencing a proceeding in a federal court in the United States to confirm a Swiss arbitral award rendered on behalf of a Greek company against a mid-eastern petroleum company that was a wholly owned subsidiary of a U.S. corporation. These cases taught me about the incredible complexity of the typical international com- mercial transaction and how different an international transaction is from a domestic transaction. As I tried to educate myself on all the issues that arise in either drafting or disputing an international con- tract, I found that the bulk of the literature in this area was either concentrated in multivolume treatises or scattered among law journal articles. Most of this literature was written by experts for experts. Legal jargon in a domestic setting is troublesome, but the assump- tions of expertise and the jargon used in the literature of internation- al commercial transactions can be overwhelming. These experiences revealed a need for a one-volume text that lawyers could turn to for fundamental information and analysis.