Preface

• Author: Stephen G.A. Pitel/Nicholas S. Rafferty
• Profession: Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario/Faculty of Law, University of Calgary
• Pages: 21-22

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PR EFAC E

Our aim in writing this text is to explain, clearly and concisely, the

rules of the conf‌lict of laws in force in common law Ca nada. We wanted

to produce a book that is both readable and thoughtful and that will

appeal to both legal practitioners and law students. In our view, a new

text on this topic is highly timely. This area of law takes on greater

importance with each passing year. Globalization is eroding borders

in commercial transactions and family relationships, yet much law re-

mains highly ter ritorial. Understanding the conf‌lict of laws allows law-

yers, judges, scholars, and students to better addre ss any legal situation

that crosses borders, whether international or interprovincial.

It has been our privilege to collaborate on this text. However, writ-

ing by committee is diff‌icult in the best of circumstances and we have

been at a distance of some 3,000 kilometres throughout the process.

We accordingly each took responsibility for specif‌ic chapters. In the

interests of full disclosure we can advise that Professor Rafferty wrote

chapters 5, 7, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, and 23 and that Professor Pitel wrote

the others. We have set out the law as it stood on 1 September 2009, al-

though in some areas we have been able to make the text more current

during the page proof process.

We have been fortunate indeed to have had the support of Irwin

Law for this project, especially in its willingness to publish new texts

on traditional subjects. It has been a pleasure to work with Irwin Law

as we went from manuscr ipt to publication.

We thank our home institutions, the Faculties of Law at the Uni-

versity of Western Ontario and the University of Calgary. The former