On 1 January 1998, the new Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce come into effect. The new text embodies the most substantive revision of the ICC arbitration rules since 1975. For this reason, this issue of the Bulletin mainly deals with the 1998 ICC rules.

An opening article by Robert Briner, Chairman of the ICC International Court of Arbitration, addresses matters concerning the implementation of the new rules. It is followed by articles presenting the general purposes and method of the revision, putting the changes to the rules in a comparative perspective, and explaining the new text of the three Appendixes to the ICC arbitration rules, respectively by Yves Derains, Chairman of the Working Party of the ICC Commission on International Arbitration in charge of the drafting of the 1998 rules, by Marc Blessing, also a member of the Working Party, and by the Secretary General of the ICC International Court of Arbitration.

It should be pointed out that different aspects of the new rules are dealt with in a Special Supplement <SUPP_0001> to the Bulletin which just came out with contributions by Marc Blessing, Matthieu de Boisséson, Stephen R. Bond, Robert Briner, Michael Bühler, Bernardo Cremades, Yves Derains, Antonias Dimolitsa, Paul-A. Gélinas, Horacio Grigera Naón, Dominique Hascher, Sigvard Jarvin, Robert Knutson, René van Rooij, Michael Schneider and Eric A. Schwartz. Users, arbitrators as well as students of ICC arbitration will thus find in this issue and the Supplement an overview of the 1998 ICC Rules which should facilitate their understanding of the new text.

In addition to providing news from the Court and its Secretariat and publishing a new selection of extracts from ICC arbitral awards on the application of the 1988 ICC arbitration rules, this issue offers a presentation of the new ICC Rules for Documentary Credit Dispute Resolution Expertise (DOCDEX). The full text of these Rules is reproduced in this issue.

This issue also warmly welcomes to our Editorial Board Fabien Gélinas, who is now Editor of the Bulletin.

Horacio Grigera Naón

Secretary General

ICC International Court of Arbitration