Now in its 12th year, the NILOS Documentary Yearbook provides the reader with an excellent collection of documents related to ocean affairs and the law of the sea, issued each year by organizations, organs and bodies of the United Nations system. Documents of the UN General Assembly, Meeting of State Parties to the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention, ISBA, ITLOS, Follow-Up to the UN Straddling Fish Stocks and Small Island States Conferences, Panama Canal, ECOSOC, UNEP and UNCTAD are included first, followed by the documents of FAO, IAEA, IMO, UNESCO/IOC. As in the previous volumes, documents which were issued in the course of 1996 are reproduced, while other relevant documents are listed. The NILOS Documentary Yearbook has proved to be of invaluable assistance in facilitating access by the community of scholars and practitioners in ocean affairs and the law of the sea to essential documentation. The entry of the 1992 UN Law of the Sea Convention into force on 16th November 1994 and of the Part XI Agreement - on 28 July 1996, and progress in the implementation of Chapter 17 of Agenda 21, make continuation of this assistance of particular significance in the years to come. The members of the Yearbook's Advisory Board are: Judges Abdul Koroma and Shigeru Oda of the ICJ, Judges Thomas Mensah, Dolliver Nelson and Tullio Treves of the ITLOS, as well as Rosalie Balkin, Edward Brown, Lee Kimball, Bernard Oxman and Shabtai Rosenne.