The previous three editions of this book have established it as the most comprehensive account of precedent in English law for students, teachers and practitioners alike.

The aim of the book is to present a basic guide to the current doctrine of precedent in England, set in the wider context of the jurisprudential problems which any treatment of the topic involves. Such problems include the nature of the ratio decidendi of a precedent and of its binding force, the significance of precedents alongside other sources of law, their role in legal reasoning, and the account which must be taken of them by any general theory of law. In examining these matters, the late Sir Rupert Cross expounded a fairly traditional practitioners' view, and this approach has been preserved in the fourth edition, although references are included to competing answers, taking into account developments in the literature since the third edition. Considerable re-writing has been undertaken to update case-law and take account of the possible implications for the doctrine of precedent of the impact of European community law, making it an indespensable work of reference for readers interested in the past history, present state and future developments of the English rules of precedent.

Dr. J.W. Harris is a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. The late Sir Rupert Cross was formerly Vinerian Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.