It is with great pleasure that as Chairman of the Section on Business Law of the International Bar Association I write this foreword to a series of handbooks on maritime law which have been prepared by the Committee on Maritime and Transport Law of our Section. The first of these handbooks deals with 'Arrest of Vessels', the second with 'Enforced Sales of Vessels', the third with 'Registration of Vessels' and the fourth with 'Mortgages on Vessels'. I feel sure that they will all be valuable aids to international lawyers practising in the field of maritime law. These handbooks owe their conception to Mr. Lennart Hagberg of Gothenburg, Sweden, the Chairman of the Maritime and Transport Law Committee. Both he and the contributors to the series have put an enormous amount of work into the handbooks and devoted long hours to their preparation, hours which I feel sure they have borrowed with difficulty from their heavy commitments as busy practising lawyers. I am happy to think that our Section, which was formed only six years ago, is as its first ventures in the publishing field producing at the same time both these handbooks on maritime law and another on 'Contracts of Employment', which has been prepared by our Com­ mittee on Labour Law, under the chairmanship of Mr. Willard Z. Carr. Jr. of Los Angeles, California. May they be the forerunners of many more.