The main result of this paper is that every non-reflexive subspace Y of L 1 [0, 1] fails the fixed point property for closed, bounded, convex subsets C of Y and nonexpansive (or contractive) mappings on C. Combined with a theorem of Maurey we get that for subspaces Y of L 1 [0, 1], Y is reflexive if and only if Y has the fixed point property. For general Banach spaces the question as to whether...