The Law Bod is delighted to have received the first volume of the new, fifth edition of Halsbury’s Laws of England. You will be able to find the fifth edition shelved just after the fourth at Cw UK 510 H196a5. The new edition will arrive a volume at a time and gradually replace the old, but for the moment both can be consulted on the main reading room floor. Halsbury’s Laws of England is also available electronically via LexisNexis Butterworths, with the new volumes updating the old as they are published.
The fifth edition marks several changes to the famous comprehensive guide to the laws of England. Halsbury’s Laws is now edited by Lord Mackay of Clashfern and published by LexisNexis. It also sports a black binding, distinct from the brown of the fourth edition. But the greatest change is that the number of volumes in the complete set will have nearly doubled since the last edition. The fourth edition boasted a ‘mere’ 56 volumes; the fifth edition is expanding to 102.
That fourth edition was published between 1973 and 1987, so the rapid growth in the volume of legislation in the last 35 years is readily apparent. Commentators, such as Christopher Hope of the Daily Telegraph, have interpreted this as evidence that Britain is an “overly regulated” country. Yet others point out that the advent of new technologies, political realities (the European Union), and the importance now placed on such issues as human rights, anti-discrimination, employment protection and freedom of information, account for much necessary legislative expansion. Whatever the case, the Law Bod will have to eventually find room for it all!
