Baron Raffaele Garofalo's memorable treatise Criminology ends (almost as an afterthought) with an Appendix entitled “Outline of Principles Suggested as a Basis for an International Penal Code”. In barely twelve pages he formulates: principles of criminal liability; an enumeration of categories of offenders; a system of penalties to be adopted to combat crime; and some basic rules of procedure for bringing offenders to justice. Garofalo was not a cranky, lofty or flamboyant idealist. Together with Cesare Lombroso and Enrico Ferri he was the founder of the famous Positivist School of Criminology launched in Italy towards the end of the nineteenth century. He was a High Court Judge, a tough realist with a sharp and incisive mind. Staunch traditional conservative that he was, he might instead have been expected to advocate that each nation should be free to express its unique individuality through its own distinctive legal and penal edifice.

A Decade or so since the decisions in Re Furse and Brown v. Browne it is time to return to those intriguing cases and to the test for personal domicile which they employed. Outwardly, at least, little has changed since Fox J. held that Mr. Furse died domiciled in England, making his estate liable for estate duty; or since the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Mr. Brown, whose domicile for jurisdictional purposes was challenged by his wife in their divorce proceedings. But at a deeper level both cases beg questions of principle which have yet to be resolved. They also sowed the seeds of a better law of domicile which have begun to germinate, if Hoffman J.'s more recent decision in Plummer v. Inland Revenue Comrs. is any guide. The subtle realignment of the test for domicile disclosed by Furse, Brown, and Plummer is this article's concern. Its conclusion is that all three cases suggest how factual connection is coming to replace intention as the touchstone for a change of domicile.