I have been thinking about this book, on and off, for almost 18 years. The genesis of this project was when I was a member of the University of Western Australia Jessup Moot team, for which I needed to plead reliance on a General Principle. I quickly grew frustrated with what I saw as lack of clarity and precision surrounding Article 38(1)(c) in the literature and the jurisprudence. ‘But what are they? And how do you find one?’ was a common refrain, and my thanks to Bronwyn Grieve, Sarah Knuckey, Andrew Lodder, Benjamin Spagnolo and Julie Taylor both for being there when it all started, and for putting up with my many rants on the subject. The project took shape with the guidance of two mentors who were instrumental in supporting and challenging me to encourage the development of my ideas, analysis and theories. At the first stage, my attempts to answer my own questions grew into the subject matter for my honours dissertation for my LLB degree. Justice James Edelman was an ever-patient and encouraging supervisor, whose only hesitation was that perhaps this topic was too big to be fully addressed in 10,000 words. He was, as is so often the case with Justice Edelman, right.