Introduction The relationship of private and public law is an immense topic – too large to be exhausted by a single collection of essays. Statements of the relationship are also notoriously complicated by a lack of terminological clarity. What is it that one intends to contrast with what, when one distinguishes private law from public law, and what is one’s purpose in doing so? Is one’s objective simply an interpretive, classificatory one – a process of sorting and better understanding legal material so as to bring to it some greater rational order – or is the purpose instead a normative one – to change the legal order for the better in some way or illuminate its deficiencies from a particular point of view? Is defining the relationship between private and public law intended to make the practical task of legal actors easier – to make it simpler, for example, for a court to dispose of a particular case before it? Is the aim to promote consistency in decision-making? None of this is very clear. The truth is that the nature and purpose of inquiries into the relationship between private and public law depends entirely on the inquirer and that there is a great deal of variation on such matters.