The potential significance of choice of law to the determination of cross-border disputes is well known to scholars and practitioners in private international law. In many cases, the success (or failure) of the parties’ claims and the remedies available to them hinge on the system of law which applies to the dispute being litigated. In order to ensure a greater degree of certainty, parties are well advised to designate the law governing their relationship from the outset. Such an exercise in party autonomy has a long-standing tradition in contractual relations and has gained prominence in matters relating to tort, family law and succession. At least two important questions in this context have attracted debate among legal commentators: first, what is the true nature of choice of law agreements; and, second, how should the principle of party autonomy in choice of law be regulated?

In The Choice of Law Contract, Dr Maria Hook seeks to answer these questions. The author argues that the parties’ designation of the applicable law creates a binding contract between them. This contractual agreement is, however, ‘peculiar’ (12) as it ‘is not an agreement that creates, transfers, modifies or extinguishes in personam rights or obligations’ (33–34). Due to its nature, Dr Hook contends that an ‘integrated approach’, which combines the various considerations within choice of law and contract, is required to bring the choice of law contract out of a ‘regulatory twilight zone’ (2). According to the author, ‘what is needed … is a fusion of the law of contract and choice of law to regulate the freedom to choose the applicable law’ (16). This approach, which is outlined in great detail in the book, ‘requires courts to give effect to basic principles of contract when establishing the parties’ agreement on the applicable law … and it also requires a more proactive use of modal choice of law’ (225).

The Choice of Law Contract is the latest addition to the Bloomsbury/Hart Publishing's expanding ‘Series in Private International Law’. It comprises nine chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene by introducing the scope of the enquiry. The substantive discussion begins, in Chapter 2, with the author arguing that choice of law agreements are contractual in nature, albeit with certain unusual features. Dr Hook proceeds, in Chapter 3, to examine the question of when the parties should be granted the freedom to choose the law governing their relationship. In the next stage of the enquiry, in Chapter 4, the author examines the interrelationship between the choice of law contract and the overarching contract that the chosen law is supposed to regulate. The chief contention here is that the choice of law agreement ought to be understood as a ‘contract in its own right’ which is ‘self-sufficient and does not depend on the existence or validity of an underlying contract’ (75). Chapter 5 is concerned with questions relating to the regulation of the choice of law contract. Having sought to outline the confines of a contractual framework for the regulation of the choice of law agreement, Chapters 6–8 pursue two objectives: ‘to evaluate the existing regime that determines the existence and validity of choice of law contracts and, where appropriate, to propose changes to the regime itself or to the way it is given effect’ (132). Chapter 9 pulls the threads of the discussion together.

In this ambitious and well-researched book, Dr Hook has been able to put together and analyse material which had not been previously accessible in one book. In doing so, the author has painstakingly drawn on sources from a wide range of jurisdictions—namely, England, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland—as well as international instruments (European Regulations on the choice of law and the work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law). This comparative approach to the material is one of the book's main strengths, rendering it of potential interest to private international law scholars in all parts of the world. Another strength is the book's breadth of coverage. In the main, previous studies of party autonomy have been concerned with contractual relationships. Dr Hook, though, has sought to analyse the notion in a wider set of legal relationships including tort, family and succession.

Despite its many virtues, however, there is one minor aspect of the work with which a reviewer might wish to quibble. Given the prominence of theoretical discussion in the book, it might have been helpful to a reader not as closely engaged with the material as the author if there had been better linkage between the chapters. One way of achieving this objective would have been through the inclusion of clear introductory and concluding sections in each of the substantive chapters. However, with the exception of Chapters 6–8, none of the other substantive chapters in the book have designated introductory and concluding sections (Chapter 4 had a conclusion). As a result, in the relevant chapters, the scope of the enquiry and how it connected with the discussion in the chapters before and after it were not as easily detectable as they might otherwise have been.

These observations should in no way detract from the fact that The Choice of Law Contract is a scholarly book. It will without doubt be of interest to scholars in private international law in numerous jurisdictions across the globe.