In the preface to the second edition I said that the conflict of laws had undergone very substantial changes in the six years since the book first appeared in 1987. More changes have meant that the chapters on tort, jurisdiction and staying of actions have been almost entirely rewritten and that on the Brussels and Lugano Conventions has again been recast and expanded. The influence of the European Union on our private international law is now considerable and looks likely to increase.

I am grateful once more to my colleagues and the students in the Cambridge Law Faculty for discussions with them. I am particularly indebted to Dr Pippa Rogerson for dealing with chapter 8 for me; much of that chapter is really hers. Once more I am very glad to thank Mrs Carol Dowling, who has, with the utmost efficiency, typed and retyped everything I have written for this edition, as she did last time.

I have tried to state the law as it stood on 1 March 2001.