There is no novelty in the idea that technology presents a continuing challenge to Society in terms of the decisions which must be taken over the use and control of new developments and, indirectly, to the legal system which must acquire and apply the techniques of control desired by Society. However, there is novelty in the sheer pace at which technology is presenting this challenge to international society in relation to the exploitation of the resources of the sea. Within little more than a decade after the great U.N. Geneva Conferences on the Law of the Sea of 1958 and 1960—which introduced substantial codification—a general demand for revision of the law has led to plans for a new Conference on the Law of the Sea in 1973. The scope of the proposed conference is extremely wide and it is the purpose of this article to examine only one of the proposed topics, namely, the “international sea-bed area.” This is a topic which is currently exciting interest throughout the world, in Parliaments, Foreign Offices, Universities, learned societies, conferences, oil companies and even the popular press (the order does not indicate a hierarchy of influence). Behind this interest there lies, of course, money and—possibly a countervailing pressure—the increasing concern with the protection of the maritime environment in addition to the normal considerations of prestige, military security and national interest which condition any State's approach to questions of maritime jurisdiction. In order to appreciate the extent of this interest some brief mention should be made of the resources currently estimated to lie in or on the sea-bed outside national jurisdiction.

IN Vizcaya Partners Ltd. v Picard [2016] UKPC 5, the Privy Council considered an attempt to enforce a New York judgment in Gibraltar. The judgment debtor was not present in New York at the time the New York court assumed jurisdiction, which suggested that enforcement of the US judgment would be refused for want of jurisdiction. However, the argument of the judgment creditor was that an express choice of New York law in the contract, coupled with other factors, was sufficient to imply submission of the parties to the courts of New York (and, accordingly, vest the New York courts with jurisdiction for the purposes of enforcement of the New York judgment). The crux of the case was thus whether the terms of the contract could indicate submission to the jurisdiction of a foreign court, even if that submission was not crystallised in the form of an express contractual provision. The Privy Council held that, while, in principle, it might be possible to imply submission, on the facts, there was no such submission so that the judgment was unenforceable.

In the three complementary parts into which this book is divided, namely, The Story, The Legal Solutions, and The Financial Solution, Sir Cecil Kisch has set out the several aspects of the famous Portuguese Bank Note Case (Banco de Portugal v. Waterlow & Sons, Ltd. [1932] A. C. 452) in a way to quicken the mind and gladden the heart of lawyer, economist and dilettante in detection alike. The primary purpose of the book, however, is to put to the test of economicanalysis the various views brought out in the course of the case as to the measure of loss to the Bank of Portugal arising from the fraudulent issue of Vasco da Gama notes

It is a remarkable achievement for anyone to be celebrating their 100th birthday, and the Cambridge Law Journal must be one of the few legal journals anywhere to have done so. In this, its 100th year of publication, the Journal continues to enjoy a global reputation, and every congratulation must go to all the editors and contributors over the period of its publication, not to forget the publishers.

In English law the definitions of the most important crimes were framed in an age when economic conditions and social relations were simple and when the paramount need was to give protection rather against violence than against deceit. As time passed a much more complicated economic order developed and in consequence of this evolution the intellectual aspect of crime gained an ever increasing prominence at the expense of the physical aspect. Not only did more subtle forms of transgression in the economic sphere, such as are now the crimes of forgery, obtaining by false pretences, etc., make their appearance, but also the lines of demarcation between what should be regarded as business astuteness and what should be stigmatized as criminal fraud became more and more difficult to draw.

At this juncture it is convenient in connection with the older authorities concerned with obtaining money or chattels by false pretences to mention a point of some importance in relation to the Theft Act 1968. That is an Act designed to simplify the law—it uses words in their natural meaning and is to be construed thus to produce sensible results; when that Act is under examination, this Court deprecates attempts to bring into too close consideration the finer distinctions in the civil law as to the precise moment when contractual communications take effect or when property passes.

A Case which will be of interest to students of medical law, public law and human rights, North West Lancashire Health Authority v. A, D, & G [1999] Lloyd's Rep. Med. 399, concerned three transsexuals who wanted “sex-change” operations. The health authority's policy was to give low funding priority to procedures it considered of little or no clinical benefit; the authority would not fund “gender reassignment” except in cases of “overriding clinical need” or other exceptional circumstances, though it would fund psychotherapy.

Twenty years ago Mr. Cairns set himself the task of looking at law from three points of view, that of the social sciences, that of logic and the empirical sciences, and that of philosophy. Law and the Social Sciences was published in 1935, the Theory of Legal Science in 1941. The volume under review completes the trilogy. The object of all these volumes is the same—‘To construct the foundation of a theory of law which is the necessary antecedeat of a possible jurisprudence’. All those who have come under the spell of Mr. Cairns' stimulating thought will look forward with the greatest interest to the application and expansion of his conclusions which is now promised us in a projected final work, The Elements of Legal Theory.