As from 1st April 1991, English courts, along with those of the rest of the United Kingdom and member states of the European Community, are obliged to apply the rules laid down in the EEC's Rome Convention on the Law Applicable to contractual obligations, in respect of international contracts concluded after that date. In the United Kingdom, the Convention is given the force of law by the Contracts (Applicable Law) Act 1990. It is likely that at some time in the not too distant future, national appellate courts of the contracting States will have the power to refer questions of interpretation of the Convention to the European court of Justice in Luxembourg.
The book sets out to explain and to construe the new uniform system of rules governing laws applicable to international contracts, in the light of the preexisting English private international law of contract, which itself continues to apply in relation to certain types of transactions.