1 SEARCHING FOR PRIVACY IN A MIXED JURISDICTION Hector L MacQueen * (2006) 21 Tulane E uropean and Civil L aw Forum pp 73-97 INTRODUCTION Reviewing A History of Private Law in Scotland in the Tulane Law Review in 2004, Shael Herman explained how the collection (published in 2000) left him with an impression of the “eclectic, open-textured character of Scots legal evolution”, even if sometimes he had a “a sense of having toured a juridical Australia or Galapagos Islands inhabited by exotic flora and fauna not found elsewhere”. 1 He noted the complexity of the relationship between Scots and English law, and observed: To be sure, between Scotland and England there are striking political and cultural commonalities too numerous to detail. It could hardly be otherwise for two island nations that share a language, a currency, and a border. Yet, as the collection under review shows, the countries’ legal systems have diverged so considerably that Scots private law should be seen as an autonomous creation irrigated by its own wellsprings of inspiration. Although Scots law may episodically follow English law or inspire it, patterns of reciprocal influence are not assured. On a given issue, the two national laws may have little to exchange with one another, * Professor of Private Law and Director, AHRC Research Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, University of Edinburgh. I am grateful to colleagues in the Centre, and also to Gillian Black, John Blackie, Elspeth Reid and Niall Whitty for many helpful discussions and materials on the subject of privacy and personality rights, as well as comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 1 Shael Herman, Book Review, 78 Tul L Rev 1755 (2004), quotations at 1757, 1761. The book under review is Kenneth Reid and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), A History of Private Law in Scotland (Oxford: OUP 2000).