Preface

This book is a substantially revised version of my Ph.D. thesis. The revisions have been made over nearly three years. I owe thanks to various people for helping me reach this point, a published book.

Professor Raymond Wacks, one of my two thesis supervisors, for his helpful comments and suggestions. Professor David Campbell, a friend and former colleague, whose Hegelian and Kantian views — so different from my own — were a constant source of contemplation and re-examination. Professor Simon Blackbum, an external examiner for my thesis, whose comments on that earlier work have been most useful in making many later revisions and whose encouragement to seek publication was much appreciated. Dr. Sherwin Klein, the editor of this series, for his many thoughtful criticisms, comments and suggestions. Finally, Mr Mark Fisher, the other of my two original supervisors, who for years gave freely of his time, opinions and experience, and did so with care and attention. Mark, more than any other, helped me think through the views expressed in this book. To him I am most grateful.

I would also like to thank Rosita Chan, Jillian Tourelle, Lynda Stevens and Amanda McDowall for their cumulative help over the years with the word processing of this book. As well, I owe thanks to Owen Lancer and Jacqueline Pavlovic at Peter Lang Publishing for their help in the final production of this book.

I am grateful, too, to the University of Otago for its support by means of an Otago Research Grant.

Finally, I would not want to end this preface without acknowledging the long-smiling fates. From them I have had the incalculable advantages and joys of wonderfully supportive parents, who placed a high premium on education, and of a wife, Heather, whose patience, encouragement, sense of humour and love never once seemed to flag.

Somewhat less than a third of this book has been published already in various journals and as a book chapter, albeit in earlier, slightly different forms. I would like, therefore, to acknowledge and thank the editors and publishers of Hume Studies, the Connecticut Journal of International Law, the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy Bulletin, Auslegung, the Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, the Anglo-American Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Ratio Juris (and Blackwell Publishers), and the

publishers of the book Hong Kong, China and 1997: Essays in Legal Theory.