'Child law' (Thomson Round Hall, 2005) Geoffrey Shannon

• Author: Ursula Kilkelly
• Position: B.A., LL.M, Ph.D, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University College Cork
• Pages: 191-195

BOOK REVIEW

“CHILD LAW”

(Thomson Round Hall, 2005)

Geoffrey Shannon

URSULA KILKELLY*

Shannon’s text highlights clearly the extent to which child law

has become a subject and an area of law in its own right, separate

from the subject of family law. Ranging from the areas of health and

safety to education, from youth justice to adoption, the book brings

together in one place the many legal issues concerning children. Child

Law is a comprehensive and detailed text, consistent with Shannon’s

own encyclopaedic knowledge of this increasingly broad-ranging

area of law.

Chapter One begins by addressing the legal status of the child

in Irish law addressing the legal provision and protection of children

under the laws of contract and tort, health and safety, employment

regulation and licensing. It addresses the question of succession rights

and marriage, but curiously omits from this analysis the issue of

criminal responsibility, while the area of consent to medical

treatment is dealt with in chapter 4. Shannon then moves on, in

Chapter Two, to the subject of custody and access and analyses the

by now well-established law in this area. Discussion of parental

alienation syndrome, over which thereis little consensus from a

medical perspective, points to the more practical problem created by

one parent frustrating contact with the children by the other. In this

regard, it might have been useful to consider the case-law of the

European Court of Human Rights explaining the duty of the

authorities to supervise implementation of such court orders, as well

as to highlight the Council of Europe Convention on Contact

Concerning Children, which specifically addresses this problem.

Nonetheless, chapter four contains practical elements, including the

access check-list for legal practitioners, and veryimportant

2005] Book Review - “Child Law” 191

*B.A., LL.M, Ph.D, Senior Lecturer,Faculty of Law,University College Cork.