Iwan Davies (ed.), Security Interests in Mobile Equipment, Ashgate, Dartmouth 2002, 548 pp, ISBN 1 84014 792 X

Abstract

In 1999 Iwan Davies published a book on retention of title clauses. I warmly welcomed the book since books in English on property law in a comparative context are needed, by academia and practice, yet these are scarce. This scarcity is slowly disappearing; Davies and his Centre for Installment Credit Law at the University of Wales, Swansea, is partially responsible for this positive tendency, since he has once more published a volume on an enormously important subject, the law of proprietary security in personal property in cross-border transactions, entitled: Security Interests in Mobile Equipment. And once again, retention of title reappears. A book is necessarily divided in three parts. The first part deals with domestic law, the second with private international law, and the third with uniform law. I have read the contributions with great pleasure, yet I do have an overall reservation. The last part deals with the most challenging subject: how on earth is it possible to create a uniform law on the basis of the immensely diverging bodies of national mandatory law of proprietary security? The unification has taken shape in a fairly specific area. The economic need for unification or harmonization in the case of security interests in expensive equipment which by its nature continually crosses borders of national jurisdictions is evident. It has led to the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment concluded in Cape Town, in December 2001. This convention and the protocol on Aircraft equipment have been ratified by three and acceded to by one jurisdiction, and have in the meantime (1 April 2004) entered into force. There are unmistakable signs that the United States, Canada, Singapore, Vietnam and Kenya will soon follow.