It has become something of a tradition in any book dealing with constitutional and administrative law to spend a good portion of time demonstrating, with varying degrees of vitriol, how wrong Dicey was. Alison Young's book is therefore refreshing, presenting as it does an unashamed application of Dicey's principles to an age where the traditional conception of sovereignty is under more pressure than ever before.

There are many things that Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act does not do. One of the downsides of starting with a supportive attitude to Dicey is that there is a big assumption required of the reader at the outset. This is far more acceptable than many assumptions the reader of academic monographs is asked to make because at least Dicey (probably) represents constitutional orthodoxy, but it does necessarily leave an interesting debate without exploration. Alternative starting points can be glossed over quite quickly because they operate on another plane. This is only a shame because Young writes very well, and it would be interesting to see her arguments in much more detail about why Dicey should be the starting point. Perhaps that is another book for another day.

Instead, the reader is given a carefully plotted argument through the sovereignty maze after the HRA has been imposed upon it. Young starts by drawing a distinction between sovereignty and supremacy. While Parliament is generally discussed in terms of it being sovereign, the all-encompassing nature of sovereignty renders the term less helpful. Taking this point enables Young to sidestep debates about whether sovereignty can be split between the political and legal and instead focus attention on whether the nature of Parliament's supremacy is continuing or self-embracing; whether each Parliament is supreme, or whether Parliament over the course of its existence must be supreme, the latter classically permitting Parliament to impost manner and form restrictions upon later incarnations of itself. The sovereignty/supremacy split does not always work smoothly. For a start the book might have been more properly titled “Parliamentary Supremacy and the Human Rights Act”, but more important is the use by Young of an interesting split between sovereignty in the form of power over first-order rules (governing individuals) and over second-order rules (governing the legislature and the process of law-making). The distinction is one drawn by Mackie (in (1955) Mind 200) but Young never explains in her discussion of the issue why this internal division is appropriate but a political-legal split is not (see pp.165–170). Similarly, in her introductory chapter there is a rather detailed discussion of section 19 of the HRA and the potential impact on sovereignty from Ministerial statements of compatibility, but given the complete lack of relevance a failure to issue a section 19 statement had in R.(Animal Defenders International) v. Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport [2008] UKHL 15; [2008] A.C. 1312, the point is perhaps given more weight than it can bear.

Overall the argument Young makes is a coherent and convincing one. Her discussion in chapter five of the sadly under-used theory of democratic dialogue in the context of the HRA is extremely compelling, with an admirable eye for the details of how dialogue would work. Inter-institutional dialogue does have the potential, as yet untapped, to work in the manner Young argues for and provide a stronger protection of rights by prioritising the role of different institutions under the alternative statutory mechanisms of sections 3 and 4. The application of her distinction between hard cases (dealt with by section 4 for legislative resolution) and easy cases (section 3) will not be practically straightforward – it is partially dependent upon how a case is pleaded, and given that it will be the court making the choice between the provisions one might fear a bias – but it is at least theoretically attractive. The way in which Young carefully sets out a theory of adjudication to meet her categorisation in chapter six may go some way towards allowing for a more practical application, but splitting cases into those which deal with a contestable rights issue and those which do not might be thought to give rise to an undue risk of arguments about arguments rather than dealing with the actual substantive dispute. Nonetheless, the argument presented over the course of the two chapters is one which should be taken seriously by commentators who are concerned with dialogue, deference and the applications of sections 3 and 4 of the HRA.

Young has an admirable talent for accurately and succinctly distilling the arguments of other writers, especially those like Loughlin and Allan whose work is often expressed in quite complicated terms (see, for example, pp.17–20). Her overall thesis, that the HRA works to support continuing Parliamentary legislative supremacy because of its facilitation of inter-institutional comity, is attractive. It is tautly argued and runs consistently through the early chapters on implied repeal and constitutional statutes, and the focus on dialogue and adjudication. However, there are three problems with Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act. First, there is the slightly selfish complaint that it is relatively short. This reviewer would have liked to see what Young had to say, at least in much more detail, about whether starting with Dicey is normatively justifiable. Secondly, there were only infrequent suggestions of how Young's approach would alter under a written constitution. The point is purely hypothetical, but there must be a strong argument that inter-institutional comity would be at just as important, if not more so, under a single written document and it would be interesting to reason that through more carefully. Thirdly, the continuing speculation over the future of the HRA – arising not least from the Ministry of Justice's recent Green Paper on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities – means that what is a very good book may become purely academic. It is to be sincerely hoped that the HRA is around for long enough that other writers and the courts have the opportunity to consider and respond to Young's valuable contribution to the continuing debate on sovereignty (and supremacy).