There are many people I wish to thank for their help, friendship and guidance along the way. This work began in Oxford and it has been written in three countries: the UK; Ireland; and finally, New Zealand (Aotearoa), which is my original home. It is ongoing work and I plan to do other things with my existing datasets and build upon them in the future. It is hoped that this book will provide an introduction to this complex area, but it is just that: an introduction. The references provided in the footnotes and bibliography should allow readers to explore issues they are interested in further.

I should firstly like to express my gratitude to Lilian Edwards, Burkhard Schafer and Edina Harbinja, the editors of the Future Law series for Edinburgh University Press. This is my first book and I am delighted to be able to contribute to such an interesting and timely series. I should also like to thank Laura Williamson, David Lonergan, Eddie Clark, Naomi Farmer, Zuzana Ihnatova, Rebecca Mackenzie and everyone at Edinburgh University Press, and my copy-editor Helen Johnston and my indexer Lesley Wilson.

I wish to particularly thank Jonathan Herring for his guidance and invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this book. I also wish to particularly thank Stuart Newman for his comments at a much later stage. A special thank you also to my friend Saira Mian. From my time at Oxford, I also wish to thank my doctoral supervisor Jane Kaye and everyone at Oxford's HeLEX Centre, and thank you as well to my friends and colleagues, Charles Foster, Marina Jirotka, Sigrid Sterckx, Julian Cockbain, Donna Dickenson, Thana de Campos, Teresa Finlay, Michael Morrison, and Fiona Coldwell.