This abstract is written on the 11th of September 2006---the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by Al-Qaeda. These attacks are taken to be a turning point in the relationship between Islam and the West. For the author, these attacks, the overwhelming counter-attacks by some of the western states on some Islamic states, as well as the endless Palestinian-Israeli disputes, are the result of misunderstanding and misconceptions that Islam and the West have of each other. / While politics and politicians are destroying means of communication amongst these nations by the creation of such a state of war, scholars should exert their best efforts to build bridges of understanding and tolerance. / This thesis is but a single brick in the much needed bridge of communication and understanding between the great civilisations of west and east. It seeks to show how the world's various legal traditions can benefit from each other. It attempts to do so by introducing the Islamic system of diyah and showing how it can interplay with and impact on the interpretation of international law. The example chosen is the existing set of air carrier liability conventions. 9/11 reminds us that attacks on air transport have been a chosen means of sowing conflict. / Yet peaceful use of air transport is among the most practical ties that bind the world together. Air carrier liability conventions render international air transport possible. The thesis shows how Islamic diyah can productively interact with these conventions. It can act as a median point at which the two extremes of the Warsaw System prescribing limited liability and the Montreal Convention prescribing unlimited liability can meet. The thesis shows as well how diyah can provide a useful methodology for integrating air carrier contractual and extra-contractual liability regimes. / To assist the reader unfamiliar with Islamic-fiqh, the thesis it is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to an introduction to Islamic-fiqh, and the second treats the interaction of diyah with the air carrier liability conventions.

This thesis examines the principles of tariff classification in Canadian customs law. Tariff appeals prior to implementation of the Harmonized System in January 1988 are analyzed. The General Rules for Interpretation of the Harmonized System are then discussed. The thesis throughout is that interpretation should not be limited to physical characteristics such as material composition. The naming of goods requires a contextual approach to interpretation which also takes into account their use in application.

The Space WARC resulted in significant changes to the regulatory regime of satellite telecommunications. This dissertation examines the Space WARC and its effects. The basis for an understanding of the relevant issues is established by an overview of the resources and technology involved in satellite telecommunications, a summary of the institutional framework, and a review of the events leading to the Conference. The legal and regulatory regime applicable to satellite telecommunications before the Space WARC is examined, including aspects of international space law and international telecommunications law, and the goal of the Conference--equitable access--is analyzed. Both sessions of the Space WARC and its important intersessional period are reviewed, and its results are detailed. The compliance of the new regimes of satellite telecommunication with international space law and the issues of space law raised at the Conference are also examined. An analysis and conclusions complete this study.

No description available.

The general principles underlying ACP-EEC trade cooperation, as exemplified by the Lome II Convention, are singularly innovative and unprecedented in international economic relations. However, trade liberalization measures are valuable only in so far as they encourage the expansion of trade. Protectionism inherent in the EEC's common agricultural policy, and certain uncoordinated and inconsistent policies being pursued by the Community and its Member States have greatly impaired the benefits that would otherwise have inured to the ACP States. / This thesis seeks to analyse the Lome II Convention and to evaluate it in the light of international law, and in particular the NIEO. If the Lome II Convention is modified and implemented in the manner recommended, it could prove to be a viable model for relations between the developed and the developing countries which is compatible with the aspirations of the international community for a more just and balanced international economic order.

In this thesis, I focus on the relationship between gender and nation in post-colonial India, through the lens of Muslim women, who are located on the margins of both religious community and nation. The contradictory embrace of a composite national identity with an ascriptive religious identity, has had critical consequences for Muslim women, to whom the state has simultaneously granted and denied equal citizenship. The impact is felt primarily in the continuing disadvantage of women through the denial of gender equality within the family. The state's regulation of gender roles and family relationships in the 'private sphere', inevitably has determined women's status as citizens in the public sphere. / In this context, the notion of citizenship becomes a focus of any exploration of the legal status of Muslim women. I explore the idea of citizenship as a space of subaltern secularism that opens up the possibility for Indian women of all faiths, to reclaim a selfhood, free from essentialist definitions of gender interests and prescripted identities. I evaluate the realm of constitutional law as a counter-hegemonic discourse that can challenge existing power structures. Finally, I argue for the need to acknowledge the hybridity of culture and the modernity of tradition, to emphasise the integration of the colonial past with the postcolonial present. Such an understanding is critical to the feminist emancipatory project as it reveals the manner in which oppositional categories of public/private, true Muslim woman/feminist, Muslim/Other, Western/Indian, and modern/traditional, have been used to deny women equal rights.

A tremendous disparity exists between the few countries with expansive access to information and communications technologies, and the many others still lacking the basic infrastructure and unable to participate in the information age. / While the current trade regime under the Basic Telecommunications Agreement, which forms part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, offers many opportunities for developing countries, its potential for bridging the digital divide through increased flows of FDI is likely to benefit only those countries with large, lucrative markets. Global market failures would result in deepening the digital divide facing the poorest of the developing countries. Unable to come under the new liberalization paradigm, these countries are likely to be left even further behind. / A legal approach to bridging the digital divide requires going beyond the current trade regime and engaging in a new regime-building exercise. Drawing upon the domestic universal service concept, this thesis calls for a global universal service and access (GUSA) regime. Such a regime entails a new form of international cooperation that harnesses all available resources and includes the recasting of international accounting rates and a revitalization of official development assistance. It also involves institutional reform and reconfiguration through the creation of a new international financial institution, a Global Universal Service Fund (GUSF) as well as the strengthening of the role of the ITU as the custodian of the GUSA regime. / The GUSF would be an independently managed, politically balanced and internationally accountable institution. Because of its flexibility and its mandate to supplement market mechanisms and respond to global market failures, the fund would go a long way towards subsidizing network build out programs in the poorest developing countries, and ensuring widespread connectivity. The proposal is legally defensible under human rights law as well as trade and telecommunications laws, is economically justified under the global public goods doctrine, and technologically feasible given current capacity to connect the world and create the global village.

This thesis seeks to address corporate governance from both a practical as well as an academic perspective. It searches for solutions to self-interest and agency costs, problems that it is posited are innate to the anthropomorphism of the corporation and to the separation of management and ownership of widely held, publicly traded, corporations. / Practically, this dissertation is anchored in experience, garnered from empirical research, based on in depth and general surveys, as well as detailed interviews. It examines the workings of corporations, including their boards of directors, of gatekeepers, of checks and balances and of shareholders and the relative importance and rationale for the roles that they play. Based on the academic and empirical efforts it is posited that self-interest and the funneling syndrome, (a process whereby information required for decision making is constrained and managed by those in control), almost always predetermines the outcome of the corporate formal decision making process involving the board of directors. This facilitates abuse. When it occurs and there appears to be no accountability, confidence essential to the capital markets, quite understandably, suffers. / A hypothesis is advanced to explain the complexity of a potential failure of corporate governance through a relatively simple formula. It draws conclusions as to what is required to help address the challenges raised by the breakdown in effective corporate governance and to help instill greater investor confidence. A self-assessment mechanism to help quantify how effectively a corporation is dealing with corporate governance, both on an absolute basis (comparing itself year over year) and on a relative basis (compared to one's peers) is proffered. This tool of more effective corporate governance, seeks to identify the causes for breakdowns in corporate governance and to assist a board of directors in dealing more proactively with this challenge.

Thesis (LLM (Public Law))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The first part of this thesis deals with the right of lateral and subjacent support and explains how it should be applied in South African law. The thesis illustrates how the neighbour law principles of lateral support were incorrectly extended to govern conflicts pertaining to subjacent support that arose in South African mining law. From 1911 right up to 2007, these two clearly distinguishable concepts were treated as synonymous principles in both academic writing and case law. The thesis plots the historical development of this extension of lateral support principles to subjacent support conflicts. In doing so, it examines the main source of South Africa’s law of support, namely English law. The thesis then shows how the Supreme Court of Appeal in Anglo Operations Ltd v Sandhurst Estates (Pty) Ltd 2007 (2) SA 363 (SCA) illustrated how the English law doctrine of subjacent support, with all its attendant ramifications, could not be useful in resolving disputes that arise between a land surface owner and a mineral rights holder in South African mining law. The second of half of the thesis investigates the constitutional implications of the Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision in Anglo Operations in light of the systemic changes introduced by the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002. In terms of this new Act, all the mineral and petroleum resources of South Africa are the common heritage of the people of South Africa, and the state is the custodian thereof. This means that landowners are no longer involved in the granting of mineral rights to subsequent holders. In light of the Anglo Operations decision, landowners in the new dispensation of mineral exploitation face the danger of losing the use and enjoyment of some/all their land. The thesis therefore examines the implications of the statutory provisions in South African legislation (new and old) that have/had an impact on the relationship between landowners and mineral right holders with regard to the question of subjacent support, as well as the implications of the Anglo Operations decision for cases where mineral rights have been granted under the statutory framework. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die eerste deel van die tesis handel oor die reg op sydelingse en oppervlakstut en hoe dit in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg toegepas behoort te word. Die tesis wys hoe die bureregbeginsels rakende sydelingse stut verkeerdelik uitgebrei is na konflikte rakende oppervlakstut wat in die Suid-Afrikaanse mynreg ontstaan het. Vanaf 1911 en tot in 2007 is hierdie twee duidelik verskillende konsepte in sowel akademiese geskrifte en in die regspraak as sinonieme behandel. Die tesis sit die historiese ontwikkeling van die uitbreiding van laterale stut-beginsels na oppervlakstut-konflikte uiteen. In die proses word die hoofbron van die Suid-Afrikaanse reg ten aansien van steun, naamlik die Engelse reg, ondersoek. Die tesis wys uit hoe die Hoogste Hof van Appèl in Anglo Operations Ltd v Sandhurst Estates (Pty) Ltd 2007 (2) SA 363 (SCA) beslis het dat die Engelse leerstuk van oppervlakstut met al sy meegaande implikasies nie in die Suid-Afrikaanse reg sinvol aangewend kan word om dispute wat tussen die oppervlakeienaar van grond en die mineraalreghouer ontstaan, op te los nie. Die tweede helfte van die tesis ondersoek die grondwetlike implikasies van die Hoogste Hof van Appèl se beslissing in Anglo Operations in die lig van die sistemiese wysigings wat deur die Wet op Ontwikkeling van Minerale en Petroleumhulpbronne 28 van 2002 tot stand gebring is. Ingevolge die nuwe Wet is alle mineraal- en petroleumhulpbronne die gemeenskaplike erfenis van alle mense van Suid-Afrika en die staat is die bewaarder daarvan. Dit beteken dat grondeienaars nie meer betrokke is by die toekenning van mineraalregte aan houers daarvan nie. In die lig van die Anglo Operations-beslissing loop grondeienaars die gevaar om die voordeel en gebruik van al of dele van hulle grond te verloor. Die tesis ondersoek daarom die implikasies van verskillende bepalings in Suid-Afrikaanse wetgewing (oud en nuut) wat ‘n impak op die verhouding tussen die grondeienaar en die houer van die mineraalregte het, sowel as die implikasies van Anglo Operations vir gevalle waar mineraalregte onder die nuwe statutêre raamwerk en toegeken is.

If, as author Toni Morrison believes, we tell stories about what we find most terrifying, then our cultural narratives suggest an overwhelming preoccupation with the murderous mother ??? the monster in our minds. This dissertation examines some of the most powerful and enduring stories told about the murderous mother and considers how these stories are shaped by the unconscious fears and fantasies that dominate the cultural psyche. Revolving around the idea of infanticide as an ???imaginary??? crime, this dissertation uncovers the psychoanalytic foundations of the obsessive telling and consumption of stories of maternal child-murder in Western culture and contends that infanticide narratives can be read as symptoms of psychocultural dis(-)ease. Underlying all stories about the murderous mother is an unconscious fear of infanticide and fantasy of maternal destructiveness that is repressed in the individual psyche. These fears and fantasies are expressed in our cultural narratives. Chapter 1 examines fairytales as the literary form that most clearly elaborates individual fears and psychic conflict and locates the phantasmic murderous mother within psychoanalytic narratives of individuation. Chapter 2 shows how individual fears and fantasies of maternal monstrosity are transferred to society and revealed in the myths through which our culture is transmitted. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the particular neuroses of ancient Greek society and early modern culture and consider stories of the murderous mother that most powerfully reflect anxieties of maternal origin and fantasies of maternal power. Chapters 5 and 6 shift to a contemporary setting and consider stories that reveal, in differing ways, how the murderous mother haunts the cultural psyche. Examining a variety of texts and drawing material from a spectrum of disciplines, including law, literature, criminology, theology, philosophy, and medicine, this dissertation concludes that it is only by exposing the underpinnings of our cultural stories about the murderous mother that we can hope to break free from the unconscious attitudes that imprison us. Emerging from this study is an original and important theoretical framework concerning conceptualisations of infanticide, the ways in which we imagine maternal child-murder and the limits of that imagination, and how we might escape the murderous maternal monster buried deep in the labyrinths of the mind.