This title was first published in 2001. After languishing for decades in the domains of rigid doctrinalism and confusing theory, the conflict of laws is increasingly being recognized as an important area of law to a global community. To demonstrate its importance, Michael Whincop and Mary Keyes transcend the divide between the English pragmatic tradition and the circularity of American policy-based theory. They argue that the law governing multistage conflicts can minimize the social costs of litigation, increase the extent of co-ordination, facilitate private ordering and limit regulatory monopolies and cross-border spillovers. Pragmatic in outlook and economic in methodology, they pursue these themes across a broad range of doctrinal issues and offer valuable links to parallel analyses in domestic contexts.

'...the first book that takes an economic approach to the important legal field of conflict of laws...goes far beyond previous economic analyses of issues of law...will be valuable in reorienting thinking...about the conflict of laws...It will be the first place that judges, lawyers and law professionals interested in a fresh, pragmatic approach to conflict of laws and in the utility of economics as a tool for reforming the doctrines of conflict of laws, will turn for guidance.' Judge Richard A. Posner, University of Chicago, USA 'Policy and Pragmatism in the Conflict of Laws marks a significant and happy advance in the analysis of territorially complex private law disputes in the common law world...it should challenge all those who would persist in discussing issues of conflict of laws in the unhelpful language of the 19th century.' Professor Vaughan Black, Dalhousie University, Canada