Foreign Law in English Courts: Pleading, Proof and Choice of Law (Oxford Private International Law Series)

The pleading and proof of foreign law are often treated as matters of peripheral importance. But, in reality, how foreign law is established, and whether it must be established at all, are central issues in private international law. Whether litigants are free to ignore the foreign elements in a dispute goes to the heart of the conflicts process, and without effective means to establish foreign law the very purpose of that process is subverted. Such issues give rise to particular problems in English law. It is often unclear whether the rules for choice of law are mandatory, and whether the application of foreign law is therefore required. The cost and uncertainty of establishing foreign law may also affect how cases are argued and decided, and may discourage litigants from suing at all. This book, the first to examine the topic from the perspective of English law, offers a radical reappraisal of a long-neglected subject. Richard Fentiman is Reader in Private International Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge. He previously practised full-time as a solicitor. He is responsible for the postgraduate course on International Commercial Litigation at Cambridge, and lectures regularly at universities and to practitioners in many countries. He was a co-author of the Financial Markets Law Committee's recent reports on the commercial impact of the Rome I and Brussels I Regulations, and gave evidence to the House of Lords EU Law Committee on changes to the European jurisdiction and judgments regime. He is well known for his expertise and writing on the subject of private international law, and in particular for his book Foreign Law in English Courts (OUP, 1998).