Abstract
This chapter places trusts in their contemporary social, economic, legal, and international context. It first discusses their significance to the world outside the lawyer’s office, and shows that they play an important social and economic role in the lives of ordinary people. The trust operates in key areas such as home, employment, and commerce. The chapter also examines the trust in the context of laws, focusing on how it corresponds to, and coexists with, other legal ideas such as contract, debt, powers, gift, agency, bailment, tax, and corporation, and concludes by looking at the international and comparative dimension of the trust.
