In the nineteenth century, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the supreme appellate tribunal for the British Empire, held sway over the lives, liberties and property of more than a quarter of the world's inhabitants, for it had the duty of hearing and determining appeals from some 150 colonial, Indian, Admiralty, Vice-Admiralty, prize, ecclesiastical and consular jurisdictions. It also had to dispose of certain patent and copyright matters...