Book Reviews
| Published date | 01 April 1967 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1967.tb00666.x |
| Date | 01 April 1967 |
Book Reviews
Annual
Survey
of
Commonwealth
Law, 1965, BRITISH INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE
LAW,
Buttenoorths, pp. 755; £8 8s.
00.
-----------------------------
This
is a notable book.
It
is
the
first
of
a series
of
annual volumes surveying
legal developments -statute and case law - in all
the
countries
of
the
British
Commonwealth. With such a weight
of
material the editors and contributors
have performed aremarkable feat
of
selection, classification
and
compression.
The
narrative is clear, informative and readable.
There
are twenty chapters,
each under aseparate subject-heading and dealing with a separate branch
of
the
law: each contributed by a distinguished lawyer who is an expert in
his subject.
For
instance, under the heading Constitutional Law,
the
con-
tributor surveys constitutional developments first in the Commonwealth
generally, then in
the
United Kingdom and, in
tum,
in every Commonwealth
country; under the heading Contract are reviewed all
the
important cases on
contract received during
the
year from each territory
of
the
Commonwealth
and
the
relevant statutory provisions. Similar individual surveys are under-
taken for each Commonwealth country in the realms
of
Criminal
LaW,
Tort,
Real Property,
Trusts,
Commercial Law, Taxation, Procedure, Courts,
Evidence, Family Law, Maritime Law
and
the
rest.
Thus,
for
the
first time,
practitioners and others who wish to discover how far the law
of
other
Commonwealth territories can elucidate their problems, have, spread before
them, asystematic survey
of
new law throughout all those territories. HithertO
such knowledge,
if
it
it
was available at all, could only be obtained by search-
ing through a great bulk
of
unclassified material. Now a vast body
of
neW
and
useful law is made readily available.
For reasons
of
space, this review can only mention a few
of
the
more
salient features
of
this volume
of
the
survey, concentrating uponthose develoP-
ments which have a general, as well as a purely legal interest.
In
the realm
of
Constitutional Law, in the United Kingdom
the
most
controversial measure
of
the
Parliamentary session was
the
War Damage
Act, 1965, which reversed with retroactive effect a decision
of
the House of
Lords holding
that
subjects were entitled at common law to
｣ｯｭｰ･ｮｳ｡ｴｩｯｾ
from the Crown for the deliberate, though lawful, destruction
of
thelt
property under
the
royal preogative in time
of
war.
In
1942,as the Japanese
army was approaching Rangoon,
the
Burma Oil Company's installations were
destroyed on the instructions
of
the
G.O.C. Burma in pursuance of
ｴｨｾ
United Kingdom Government's 'scorched earth' policy.
The
Burma 0
Company, 'who, after protracted litigationi,
had
established their right to
compensation in
the
highest court in the United Kingdom were
Ｈｰｵｲｳｾｴ
to a prior warning) deprived
of
the
fruits
of
their victory by retroacU\,e
legislation instituted by the Government, (in effect)
the
defeated
ｐｾ
As the learned author
of
this section states:
'It
is to be hoped that
ｴｨｩｾ
A
by
will not be regarded as a precedent
of
any kind. Attempts to justify It
reference to other precedents have been unconvincing.'
!Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate, 1963. S.C.
410.
134
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