What makes a great book? If the determining factors are the content, authorship and timing of publication then this collection of essays from some of Europe’s most eminent judges and jurists satisfies all three criteria. Readers will here find the expanded versions of the speeches given at a one-day conference in London to mark, from a legal point of view, the beginning of the new millennium. In a thoughtful and predominantly comparative manner the distinguished speakers explore the cross fertilisation of ideas that is taking place between the Common and Civil law systems in such important topics as human rights, commercial law, and comparative methodology. The contributors include Lords Irvine, Bingham, Woolf, Steyn, and Goff, the President of the Court of the European Communities, Dr Iglesias, the President of the Court of Human Rights, Dr Wildhaber, the President of the German Constitutional Court, Professor Limbach, Justices Lenoir and Mirabelli, respectively of the French and Italian Constitutional Courts, the Professor Walter van Gerven, former Advocate General of the Court of the European Communities, Professor Klaus Hopt, co-Director of the Max-Planck Institute of Hamburg, Professor Christian von Bar, Director of the Institute of Comparative Law at the University of Osnabruck and the organiser of the conference, Professor Basil Markesinis, Director of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law. The book commences with a Foreword by Keith Clark, Senior Partner of the multinational law firm, Clifford Chance, who have sponsored the conference. This is a unique book about legal practice in the increasingly integrated world of tomorrow.