Put together as a festschrift for Sir Peter North, one of the world's leading private international lawyers, this book is also a valuable contribution in its own right to the field of reform and development of private international law. The contributors, who are drawn from around the world, are all acknowledged experts of international standing and reputation. Many have been involved in recent attempts to reform this area of the law and provide a unique insight into this process.

This book is a revised updated version of the General Course of Lectures on Private International Law delivered at the Hague Academy of International Law in 1990. The overall purpose is to examine the development and reform of choice of law rules in a number of common law jurisdictions. Much has been written about the Revolution' in conflict of laws in the U.S.A.; rather less account, however, has been taken of the major changes elsewhere in the common law world. This work serves to provide a critical account of those developments over the past few decades. Some changes are more recent and of...