Until 1963, the High Court regarded decisions of the House of Lords binding,[31] and there was substantial uniformity between Australian and English common law. In 1978, the High Court declared that it was no longer bound by decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,[32] the last appeals to the Privy Council were abolished by the Australia Acts of 1986, and there is now a measure of divergence between the two common law systems. This has been particularly evident with the growing influence on the English common law of the law of the European Union, in which modern common law developments in the United Kingdom are influenced by European law and conventions.