Editorial

Citation

Chynoweth, P. (2009), "Editorial", International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlbe.2009.41101caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, Volume 1, Issue 3

With this issue the International Journal of Law in the Built Environment celebrates the publication of its first complete annual volume of articles and looks forward to further challenges during the coming year and beyond.

I would like to express my personal thanks to all those who have helped to ensure that the journal’s first year of life has been a healthy and productive one, and one which provides us with a sound basis for the future. I am grateful to all the authors who continue to submit such varied and high-quality manuscripts from every continent of the world, and across the whole range of legal topics that make up the law relating to the built environment. I am also indebted to the great army of anonymous reviewers, and to my colleagues on the editorial advisory board, who have all contributed so much to the journal’s success. The bemused patience of the publishing and production teams at Emerald also deserves particular commendation. The never-ending stream of strange and exotic demands from a journal which seeks to straddle the cultural territories inhabited by both legal and built environment scholars must at times have made them wonder what on earth they had taken on.

This third issue of the journal continues its international treatment of the many legal topics confronting the built environment with contributions from North America, Asia and Europe. In the first article Brown addresses the concept of regulatory takings (where the state takes the use and enjoyment of property from an owner as a consequence of regulation) from a Canadian perspective. He examines the relevant Canadian substantive law in this area and argues that the contradictions within it make it both internally and externally incoherent.

We then turn to two articles, which provide us with an international perspective on the subject of construction law. Mason’s paper on the Society of Construction Law’s Statement of Ethical Principles provides an analysis of the prospects for improving standards of ethical conduct within the worldwide construction industry through the introduction of a single industry-wide code. Shekar Raj, Jan-Bertram Hillig and Will Hughes’ empirical study on the FIDIC White Book then uses a form of content analysis to track recent changes to this international form of standard building contract. Echoing some of Mason’s findings, a large proportion of the changes are found to have been introduced as a response to moves, internationally, to discourage corruption in the industry, as well as to encourage the use of alternative dispute resolution.

As with the journal’s first two issues, the current issue once again addresses the long-neglected subject of building control reform which is now assuming such importance in so many countries across the globe. Yau’s article on the proposed private certification of building works in Hong Kong describes an empirical study into the attitudes of building professionals in the territory towards the planned reforms. It will provide valuable insights for those with responsibility for implementing the new regime, as well as for scholars seeking to make international comparisons in the field.

We then move to Europe for our final two papers. Adshead’s paper on the European Union Water Framework Directive employs a desk-top study to scrutinise this particular aspect of European Union Law in the context of the theoretical literature on integrated water basin management and legislative and inter-agency integration within the union. The study highlights some of the directive’s limitations, both in terms of its contribution to wider land use planning issues, and its capacity to integrate practice across the various member states. Finally, Mansfield’s critical review of recent developments in English law relating to the treatment of notices in the management of commercial property provides particular lessons for all property and legal professionals about the need for clarity of language and attention to detail in all legal matters affecting the built environment.

Looking ahead to Volume 2 of the journal, the first issue of the new volume will be published towards the end of April 2010. I then hand over the editorial reins for the following issue to my editorial advisory board colleagues, Dr Alice Christudason and Dr Padraic Kenna, retrospectively of National University of Singapore and National University of Ireland at Galway, respectively. I am very pleased to welcome them as guest editors of this issue which will present a series of articles drawing on legal papers presented to the recent European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) conference in Prague. I should also express my sincere thanks to the ENHR’s legal aspects working group leader Dr Jane Ball, of the University of Sheffield, UK, for her support in coordinating arrangements for the publication of this special issue.

Paul Chynoweth