The latest edition of the 2018 Common Law World Review is dedicated to papers first delivered at a joint seminar of the British Association of Comparative Law and the Irish Society of Comparative Law, held at University College Dublin on 5 September 2017. This was the first time BACL and ISCL had collaborated in this way and hopefully it will not be the last! The theme of the seminar was the ongoing relationship between UK and Irish law, particularly in the light of Brexit. The speakers were asked to choose an area of law in which UK/Irish comparisons would prove useful and provide an illuminating insight into the law of two jurisdictions sharing a common law heritage. We were fortunate to attract excellent speakers, based in universities in England, Northern Ireland and Ireland, who were able to speak on a diverse range of topics including property law, banking law, consumer law reform and the legislative treatment of language diversity. As the table of contents below indicates, the articles in this volume seek to examine different features of the relationship between Irish and UK law: the tensions of the past, prospects for the future and the similar problems faced by two common law jurisdictions in the light of a global banking crisis, linguistic diversity and demands for consumer and land law reform.
In such changing times, with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 receiving Royal Assent on 26 June 2018 and UK and Irish lawyers now contemplating with nervousness the impact of Brexit on both law and legal practice, this special edition of the Common Law World Review is timely. As the papers in this collection indicate, it is now even more important to reflect on how the UK and Ireland can maintain a relationship—which has not always been an easy one—despite the changes ahead. These papers will, it is hoped, encourage ongoing discussion of and reflection on the UK–Irish special relationship and highlight the many different areas in which UK–Irish comparisons will prove both of interest, but also of real importance in terms of legal development.
Contents:
Special issue: Comparing UK and Irish law: A special relationship?
Guest editor: Paula Giliker
Editorial
Comparing UK and Irish law: A special relationship? 3
Paula Giliker
Articles
Land law, property ideologies and the British–Irish relationship 7
Rachael Walsh and Lorna Fox O’Mahony
Individual accountability in Irish credit institutions—Lessons to be
learned from the United Kingdom’s Senior Managers’ Regime 35
Blanaid Clarke
Consumer reform in Ireland and the UK: Regulatory divergence
before, after and without Brexit 53
Cliona Kelly
Official status of languages in the United Kingdom and Ireland 77
Daithı´ Mac Sı´thigh
All the articles are downloadable via Westlaw. The topic for this year’s BACL annual seminar is ‘Comparative law in troubled times’ and the seminar will take place at Queen Mary University of London on September 4, 2018. To register or see the programme, please click on https://www.eventbrite.com/e/comparative-law-in-troubled-times-bacl-annual-seminar-tickets-46412407761.
Posted by Professor Paula Giliker, Professor of Comparative Law, University of Bristol and former President of the British Association of Comparative Law (paula.giliker [at] bristol.ac.uk).
British Association of Comparative Law 