This book provides a very clear guide to a complex collection of European Community instruments. As the book sets out the instruments themselves in the Appendices, the guide is able to present a direct and concise account without having to include a great amount of possibly obscure detail.

The guide contains references to relevant case-law; and, though the cases are not generally elaborated in the text, several instances of matters which have come before the European Community’s Commission are usefully given brief descriptions.

The book is not a critique; nor does it set out to be critical. The approach has the great merit that it gives access in one place to the mass of source materials for this topic (with help in managing them), materials which would otherwise have to be culled laboriously from the Official Journal of the European Community. The problem is that the spate of this legislation is unabating. This difficulty has been addressed as best possible by clear indications of when further instruments or action are expected. The real solution, however, can only be updated editions or a loose-leaf work.