The Gazette 1994

GAZETTE

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994

other people's money or why indeed they bother is there for all to see in those business pages. Getting to grips with the jargon, the abbreviations and the institutions is another matter. Alan Molloy works as an Investment Director with James Bowen & Associates in Dublin. He succeeds within a hundred pages, using layman's language, in explaining those terms in a succinct and demonstrative fashion. The reader is quickly paving a course through tracker bonds, offshore unit funds, UCITs, section 23 property schemes and leveraged futures. Following the dissertation are another thirty pages of appendices of graphic guidance and a glossary thrown in to keep the mind refreshed. David Givens of Oak Tree Press has once again shown us that he can spot a writer with a feel for his subject. Already, there would appear to be scope for another edition. The EC has become the EU; The Uruguay Round is over, IBEC is spawning further acronyms. We must wait for it. For those who pause on that journey through the business and finance pages of the newspapers, a brief perusal of Alan Molloy's book will peel away the layers of darkness and enlighten the forager. Justin McKenna • By Henry Murdoch, second edition. Topaz Publications, 1993, xii 604pp. "There's no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth" In this dictionary the author quite rightly does not concern himself with a lawyer's interpretation of the truth, but rather the lawyer's tools of the trade, legal words and terminology, to which he gives simple and readily understandable definitions and explanations. Jean Giraudoux. A Dictionary of Irish Law

At the launch of A Dictionary of Irish Law were l-r: Dick Spring, TD, Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs; Harold Whelehan, SC, Attorney General; the author of the dictionary, Henry Murdoch, and Liam McKechnie, SC, Vice Chairman of the Bar Council.

Sometimes the definitions are dealt with discursively and relevant case law is quoted where necessary. The dictionary is also extensively cross referenced. It will prove useful for existing lawyers and also those interested in starting the study of law. In the foreword to the first edition, The Hon. Thomas A. Finlay, Chief Justice, stated that this dictionary provided an excellent tool in the hands of lawyers while providing at the same time an extremely convenient, if not indispensable, piece of equipment to persons of other disciplines who have, from time to time or consistently, recourse to the law or concern with the law or legal documents. The second edition has been published to take account of the substantial changes which have occurred in the law in the five years since the first edition. There are many new entries in the second edition and some previous entries have been updated. The second edition will prove, as did the first, a very useful reference book and source of information, while still fulfilling the basic job of a dictionary;

providing concise and intelligible definitions.

Ronan Baird

Basic Documents on Human Rights

Edited by Ian Brownlie, Oxford University Press, 1992. 627 pp. The third edition of this compendium of International Declarations and Conventions in the Human Rights area has been much expanded to include Conventions Against Torture, on the Rights of the Child, on the Rights of i Migrant Workers etc., which were introduced in the 1980s. The terrible conflict in the former Yugoslavia has drawn attention to the significance of the Conventions on Genocide, Status of Refugees, and the Status of Stateless Persons. Though the contents of the volume are extremely wide ranging, the author suffered from that variation of Muqjhy's Law which prescribes that if a topic is omitted from or given little attention in any work it will