This is an extraordinary book, in which I am honoured to be included, and which I am even more privileged to be able to introduce. It contains contributions from an array of the leading thinkers in the field of product liability; and it provides substantial food (non-standard, and certainly not defective) for thought for practitioners, academics and students alike. The British Institute of International and Comparative Law has been in the forefront of debate in the field of product liability, organising conferences from which no self-respecting practitioner or academic in the area could afford to be absent, and now, after ‘rounding-up all the usual suspects’, producing this totally riveting book.

As the judge in the Hepatitis C litigation, I had the opportunity of climbing a steep learning curve, supervised by Counsel, but educated by leading academics not only from the United Kingdom, but from Europe and of course Australia. Now they are all collected together in one place. They may not agree (either with each other, or – even! – with the Hepatitis C judgment) but, taken together, their views constitute the corpus of present thinking, and it makes a stimulating and enlightening read.