Foreword to the 21st Edition

• Author: Isobel Kennedy
• Position: Court of Appeal, Criminal Courts of Justice
• Pages: 6-7

(2022) 21 COLR vi

vi

FOREWORD TO THE 21ST EDITION

It is a true honour to be invited to provide the Foreword to the 21st Edition of the Cork Online

Law Review, a most impressive, entirely student-run publication. The articles in this years’

edition speak to the high standard of legal teaching, and indeed, legal thinking, present in

University College Cork and beyond.

I remember fondly my own time at the Law School in University College, Cork; it is the place

where I became in thrall to the law, the importance of justice and the rule of law. I am

honoured to follow the previous authors of the foreword, the academics and members of the

judiciary who filled this role before me. To name just three inspirational jurists; former

Supreme Court Judge and former president of the Law Reform Commission; Catherine

McGuinness, current Supreme Court Judges; Mr Justice Gerard Hogan and Ms Justice Marie

Baker, all of whom epitomise for me the qualities of independence, justice, and fairness. Their

contributions to Irish legal life are legendary.

Reading through this year’s edition I was struck by the level of independent thinking that

went into the articles and by their relevance to today’s world. The contributors have chosen a

mixture of topics, some of general appeal and others, with a more narrow focus. This allows

the reader to learn of new developments in the law and be updated on others.

I was especially impressed to note two French language articles. In one of these articles,

Francisco Hernández Fernández analyses the doctrine of evolutive interpretation as applied by

the European Court of Human Rights and in another French language article, Dr Elise Lefeuvre

accounts the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis on Ireland, through the lens of the

Dublin case.

This stream of high standard articles flowed throughout the rest of the Review; Giovanni

Chiarini provides an interesting discussion on the increasingly-relevant crime of ecocide and a

proposal to add ecocide as a new crime to the ICC Rome Statute. Peter Murphy addresses the

Banking Union as set up in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and puts forward

proposals for its reform. Ciara Barbara O’Rourke deals with the potential impact of the

proposed Digital Services Act on victims of image-based sexual abuse. Niall Prior bravely

tackles the difficult issue of legislating for assisted suicide and the role disabled persons should

have in that process and Margot Donze outlines the Rockall Fishing dispute between the UK