We are reminded the Chartered Institute’s website – www.arbitrators.org – includes, in the limited-access members’ section, a directory of Institute members. Headquarters still wants to encourage more members to use it. If you have not yet registered your details on the website, please do so! The website also provides a good way to keep abreast of events at the Chartered Institute and more widely in arbitration and ADR. Take a look for yourselves!

One facility recently added to the website is ‘Val’s bookshop’. This is an electronic bookstore of over 20,000 titles from such publishers as Sweet & Maxwell, Butterworths, Informa, Blackwell Science, Oxford University Press, and Kluwer Publishing. And CIArb members get discounts of 10%! Why not pay the electronic bookshop an electronic visit?

And – talking of books – our library correspondent informs us that Neil Caplan QC (who visited the Branch in 1999 near the start of his chairmanship of the Chartered Institute) has donated to the Chartered Institute library a copy of an extremely useful new book he has co-authored with Henri C Alvarez and David W Rivkin: Model Law decisions – cases applying the UNCITRAL Model Law on international commercial arbitration (1985-2001) (published by Kluwer Law International, ISBN 9041119256). According to the back of the book, ‘This book, written by distinguished arbitration practitioners, is a must for every international arbitration practitioner. The authors have compiled decisions applying the Model Law from most Model Law jurisdictions, and they have organized them in order to provide easy reference....’

This month we focus on Nigeria, which has a fast-growing CIArb Branch of over 200 members. The Branch aims to promote arbitration in Nigeria through membership drives and the creation of public awareness. To boost membership the Branch organises several entry courses a year and one ‘special member’ course. At present a high percentage of members are lawyers, and they want to attract more non-lawyers.

The Branch publishes a professional and attractive newsletter several times a year. The issue for January–March 2003 ran to eight A4-size pages of news and articles, enlivened with colour photographs of Branch events and with the Chartered Institute’s coat of arms also in colour. The highlight of the Branch’s social calendar last year was a ‘Gala Nite and Membership Induction Ceremony’ in November, which attracted the crème de la crème of Nigerian arbitration and was a huge success. A similar occasion is planned for this November.

We salute this thriving and enthusiastic Branch and wish them a great future.