Andrea Bianchi and Anne Peters (eds), Transparency in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 620 pp, hb, £90.00.
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12152 |
| Author | Andraž Zidar |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
somewhat speculative. However, the authors try to balance this, carefully phras-
ing their findings and avoiding precipitous conclusions.
In sum, Gavil and First’s book is a riveting read and splendid account of the
Microsoft cases. The authors elegantly balance factual, remedial and institutional
issues, joining the different narratives of the Microsoft cases into one compelling
story. The book entertainingly bridges difficult technical problems and thorny
legal issues, balancing detailed descriptions of decisions with the broader context
of the Microsoft investigations. As far as the European side is concerned, the
timing of the book could not have been better. Microsoft’s greatest challenger on
the operating system market, Google, with its Android operating system for
mobile devices, is being investigated by the European Commission for an alleged
abuse of dominance in, amongst others, the market for operating systems. There
is a wealth of information about antitrust and technology in Gavil and First’s
book. The Microsoft Antitrust Cases, it is a must read for anyone interested in
antitrust enforcement.
Sebastian Peyer*
Andrea Bianchi and Anne Peters (eds), Transparency in International Law, Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 620 pp, hb, £90.00.
It is apt to commence the discourse about transparency in international law with
Woodrow Wilson’s call in his Fourteen Points speech for ‘[o]pen covenants of
peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international
understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the
public view’. With this postulate, Wilson attempted to transform the practice of
‘old diplomacy’ that led to the tragic consequences of the First World War. It is
fair to say that Wilson succeeded with regard to public availability of interna-
tional treaties, as Article 102 of the UN Charter demonstrates. However,
testimonies from the peace negotiations in Paris reveal that even Wilson was not
able to comply with his call for open negotiations (see, Harold Nicolson,
Diplomacy (Oxford: OUP, 1969) 43). Questions of whether and to what extent
decision-making should be made public remain at the centre of contemporary
investigations on transparency in international law.
Andrea Bianchi and Anne Peters assembled an impressive group of scholars
and practitioners to confront this intellectual challenge. Altogether, they pro-
duced a lengthy volume of legal essays on various aspects of transparency in
international law. Both editors are renowned academics and, even more impor-
tantly, have been at the leading-edge of international legal scholarship for a
number of years. Bianchi, for example, published a number of influential works
on terrorism and international law, and on interpretation in the international
*University of Leicester.
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© 2015 The Author. The Modern Law Review © 2015 The Modern Law Review Limited.
904 (2015) 78(5) MLR 883–911
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