The close relations that have been forged over the years between ICC and UNIDROIT owe much to the nature of their respective activities, for both organizations are involved in the development of international law by offering new legal instruments to governments and business. Those links are, of course, also due to the collaboration that has taken place between individual members of the two organizations. These go back a long way. It may be recalled, for instance, that the Chairman of the ICC International Court of Arbitration from 1939 to 1947-Algot Bagge, a judge of the Supreme Court of Sweden-was a member of UNIDROIT and he played a key role in ICC's work on trade terms. More recently, the ICC Court, through its successive Secretary Generals Horacio Grigera Naón and Anne Marie Whitesell, has participated in the sessions of the Working Group on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts.

The importance of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts has long been understood by ICC. It was ICC's Institute of International Business Law and Practice, as it was then known, that hosted the seminar at which the Principles were launched in 1994, and in 2001 the ICC Court organized, in association with UNIDROIT, a seminar at which several distinguished practitioners discussed the use of the Principles in international arbitration. It was therefore only natural that ICC should again join hands with UNIDROIT in December 2004 to mark the launch of the new version of the Principles. The present publication contains contributions by the speakers at that event, plus extracts from a number of hitherto unpublished ICC awards in which reference is made to the UNIDROIT Principles. The comment and analyses to be found in the following pages are an enlightening accompaniment to the 2004 version of the Principles and on behalf of both organizations I would like to express our gratitude to the authors for their contributions. I am sure that through their discussions and the illustrations provided by the ICC awards, this publication will further knowledge and use of the UNIDROIT Principles in international business transactions.

Robert Briner

Chairman

ICC International Court of Arbitration