The first version of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules was endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1976. Now considered one of UNCITRAL's greatest successes, the rules have had an extraordinary impact on international arbitration as both instruments in their own right and as guides for others. The Iran-US Claims Tribunal, for example, employs a barely modified version of the rules for all claims, and many multilateral and bilateral foreign investment treaties adopt the UNCITRAL Rules as an arbitral procedure. The Rules are so pervasive and the consequences of the new version potentially so significant that they cannot be ignored. This commentary on the Rules brings the official documents together in one volume and includes the insights and experiences of the Working Group that are not included in the official reports.

Clyde Croft is the judge in charge of the Arbitration List for the Commercial Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Christopher Kee is the Director of the Graduate School for the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Aberdeen and is a Senior Lecturer within the Law School. Prior to joining Aberdeen in the middle of 2011, he was a co-author and senior researcher on the Global Sales Law Project at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He holds an appointment as an Honorary Fellow of Deakin Law School, Australia, and has been an Adjunct Professor at the City University of Hong Kong. He is a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Courts of Victoria and New South Wales, and specialises in international arbitration and international commercial law. His doctoral thesis involved a comparative analysis of validity in contract. Christopher has published widely, particularly in the field of arbitration. As a representative of APRAG (the Asia Pacific Regional Arbitration Group) Christopher participated in the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules revision process from 2007 to their completion in 2010. He currently serves on the ACICA (Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration) Rules Drafting committee, and is a past Co-Chair of AFIA (the Australasian Forum for International Arbitration). Christopher was recently appointed Co-Director of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot. Jeff Waincymer is Professor of International Trade Law at the Faculty of Law, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.