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This authoritative work fills an important gap in the literature on the constitutional and other law and practice of the 14 remaining British overseas territories. These are Anguilla; Bermuda; British Antarctic Territory (BAT); British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT); Cayman Islands; Falkland Islands; Gibraltar; Montserrat; Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands; St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI); Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (in the Island of Cyprus); Turks and Caicos Islands; (British) Virgin Islands. The book does not deal with the Crown Dependencies (Channel Islands and Isle of Man).
The last comprehensive book covering the subject dates from 1966, Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray's Commonwealth and Colonial Law. Since then, there have been important developments in both practice and case-law. Much has happened in terms of decolonization and the changing relationship between Britain and her remaining overseas territories: see, on the latter aspect, the 1999 White Paper Partnership for Progress and Prosperity: Britain and the Overseas Territories.
Like Roberts-Wray, the two authors have considerable practical experience of their subject. Ian Hendry is currently a Constitutional Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). For many years before he was the chief FCO legal adviser dealing, among other things, with overseas territories law. Susan Dickson is an FCO Legal Counsellor, also with a good deal of hands-on experience of the law in this field. The law of the overseas territories is an important part of the work of FCO Legal Advisers. The FCO is fortunate to have enthusiastic and able lawyers working in this field. They are worthy successors to the lawyers of an earlier generation, and of predecessor Departments of State, who dealt with colonial and Commonwealth matters.
In the words of the authors, the aim of British Overseas Territories Law 'is to describe succinctly the law and practice relating to the British overseas territories'. Not all matters are covered, or covered in depth; this is deliberate in a work intended to be accessible and practical. Unlike Roberts-Wray, it does not cover in any detail the Commonwealth as such, or its independent Members, though it has an illuminating chapter on the termination of British sovereignty. It is not...