This thesis examines the Surrogate Country System adopted by WTO members in their antidumping investigations against non-market-economy (NME) countries. In this paper, the Author points out that the existing relevant WTO regulations can easily become importing countries' tool of protectionism. Meanwhile, the obvious legal gap in the WTO laws helps the protectionism by leaving large discretion to importing countries. To reveal the irrationalities of the Surrogate Country System, this paper uses China, a typical NME country, as a sample to display how the system is applied in practice. Then, the paper examines the irrationalities of existing regulations. Towards above issues, the Author puts forward several proposals in Chapter 4. The Author argues for distinguishing transformational countries from NME countries. In cases involving transformational countries, the Author proposes a three-step methodology to calculate the normal value. The Author also provides several strategies for Chinese Government and exporters.

The United Nations charter-based human rights apparatus has long been plagued by concerns of politicization. This pervasive issue first brought the demise of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2006 and led to the creation of an entirely new entity, the United Nations Human Rights Council, in the hope of answering the concerns of the international community. Although major reforms were undertaken, politicization is now once again cited as one of the main issues of the new Council. In this essay, we identify the source of politicization as the intergovernmental nature of these human rights bodies, and suggest that mitigation of this issue is possible through the reform of the Council’s membership. The creation of a mixed expert-state body will allow for a more functional, depoliticized body in the protection and promotion of human rights.

This thesis examines the Surrogate Country System adopted by WTO members in their antidumping investigations against non-market-economy (NME) countries. In this paper, the Author points out that the existing relevant WTO regulations can easily become importing countries' tool of protectionism. Meanwhile, the obvious legal gap in the WTO laws helps the protectionism by leaving large discretion to importing countries. To reveal the irrationalities of the Surrogate Country System, this paper uses China, a typical NME country, as a sample to display how the system is applied in practice. Then, the paper examines the irrationalities of existing regulations. Towards above issues, the Author puts forward several proposals in Chapter 4. The Author argues for distinguishing transformational countries from NME countries. In cases involving transformational countries, the Author proposes a three-step methodology to calculate the normal value. The Author also provides several strategies for Chinese Government and exporters.

The United Nations charter-based human rights apparatus has long been plagued by concerns of politicization. This pervasive issue first brought the demise of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 2006 and led to the creation of an entirely new entity, the United Nations Human Rights Council, in the hope of answering the concerns of the international community. Although major reforms were undertaken, politicization is now once again cited as one of the main issues of the new Council. In this essay, we identify the source of politicization as the intergovernmental nature of these human rights bodies, and suggest that mitigation of this issue is possible through the reform of the Council’s membership. The creation of a mixed expert-state body will allow for a more functional, depoliticized body in the protection and promotion of human rights.

The issue of Kurdish self-determination within the highly centralized Republic of Turkey has been a controversial issue with its local, national and international dimensions over the years. Without solving this issue, Turkey might not reach the aims of joining the European Union (EU), economic sustainability, literal democracy, pluralism, and peace. After 40 years armed struggle between Kurdish and Turkish sides, two significant suggestions are currently being discussed: a provincial system similar to what the Ottoman Empire accepted with its own multicultural system; second, the current unitary system with more powerful local authorities. This paper analyzes the problem in an inductive method and takes the second approach to evaluate Turkish centralization, modernization, and transformation to French Republicanism. This evaluation concludes with the critique of the French universal citizenship understanding and requirement of more pluralistic, democratic citizenship and administrative model as a solution of minority rights and self-determination problem in Turkey.

This paper proposes a judicial advocacy strategy aimed to challenge the constitutionality of the law that imposes an absolute prohibition of abortion in Chile. Examines the origin of the criminalization provisions in light to the constitutional mandate to protect the life of the unborn, presents an overview of the arguments used in the legislative to request the partial decriminalization of abortion, the tendency of the executive in the past years in this matter, and the criminal strategy that has been used in cases where women have been prosecuted by abortion, based on what has been intended so far the paper conclude a solicitude to declare unconstitutional the criminal abortion provisions because they do not protect the life of the unborn.

The environmental challenges the Arctic region faces in the climate change context have prompted an abundant literature on what is to be done to protect the Arctic environment. The thesis addresses the question of what is international law’s role in promoting Arctic environmental protection, but taking a different perspective than previous research on the issue. It develops a new critical approach to analyze how international law adopted to protect the environment is in fact part of the problem. The theoretical framework bridges Martti Koskenniemi’s critical approach and the interactional account of international law developed by Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Toope. These two approaches provide conceptual and methodological tools to understand the mutual influence of international actors and structures on legal discourse. This framework is applied to four main Arctic environmental challenges in the context of climate change: increased oil and gas activities, increased shipping, adverse effects on indigenous peoples’ environment and culture and biodiversity depletion. For each case study, the thesis provide a three-stage analysis to understand the development of international law to address these issues, the influence of political considerations on such law and the normative potential of each of the different rules, standards, principles and rights to create a sense of legal obligation. This analysis sheds light on when international has enabled practices of legality, where international actors support the rule, right or standard at issue, fell bound by it and follow it in practice. The analysis also reveals the influence of the bias in favour of neoliberal development in legal discourse. This bias has favoured the development, interpretation and application of international law to promote the assertion of sovereignty over natural resources, industry deregulation, the promotion of trade, little consideration for indigenous peoples’ human rights and the consideration of biological resources in economic terms.

Current historiography on French empire building in the early modern period rests on a host of unexamined terms, including colony, empire, monopoly, company, and trading privileges. Yet, these terms were anything but fixed, certain or uncomplicated to contemporaries. This dissertation takes as its subject the exercise of authority in New France through proprietorships and companies to get to the political, legal, and ideological heart of French empire building. Organized chronologically, each chapter corresponds to a different constellation of authority, ranging from a proprietorship in which the titleholder subdelegated his trading privileges and administrative authority to two separate parties to a commercial company that managed both jurisdictions. Engaging with cutting-edge international literature on sovereignty, empire formation, and early modern state building, this thesis resituates the story of the colonization of French North America in an Atlantic framework. It relies partly on civil suits that arose in France during the first three decades of the seventeenth century over powers and privileges in New France. This frequent litigation has traditionally been ignored by historians of New France; however, my research suggests that it was an integral part of the process of colonization. On the ground, claimants fought for ascendancy using instruments of legal authority and personal power. These contests in New France often had a second act in the courts of France, where parties’ actions exposed preoccupations quite removed from the colonial enterprise, particularly jurisdictional rivalries, both personal and institutional. New France became part of the admiral’s efforts to consolidate and extend his authority, thereby incorporating the colony into an existing French institution. Royal ambitions to control maritime commerce and navigation conflicted with the admiral’s growing jurisdiction, leading to plays for power in New France. Domestic challenges to exclusive trading privileges overseas were intimately connected to concerns over royal encroachment on provincial jurisdiction. Such examples highlight both the intimate connections between the construction of sovereignty in the colonial realm and the process of state formation in France and the contingency and contestation associated with these processes in the early seventeenth-century Atlantic.

Current historiography on French empire building in the early modern period rests on a host of unexamined terms, including colony, empire, monopoly, company, and trading privileges. Yet, these terms were anything but fixed, certain or uncomplicated to contemporaries. This dissertation takes as its subject the exercise of authority in New France through proprietorships and companies to get to the political, legal, and ideological heart of French empire building. Organized chronologically, each chapter corresponds to a different constellation of authority, ranging from a proprietorship in which the titleholder subdelegated his trading privileges and administrative authority to two separate parties to a commercial company that managed both jurisdictions. Engaging with cutting-edge international literature on sovereignty, empire formation, and early modern state building, this thesis resituates the story of the colonization of French North America in an Atlantic framework. It relies partly on civil suits that arose in France during the first three decades of the seventeenth century over powers and privileges in New France. This frequent litigation has traditionally been ignored by historians of New France; however, my research suggests that it was an integral part of the process of colonization. On the ground, claimants fought for ascendancy using instruments of legal authority and personal power. These contests in New France often had a second act in the courts of France, where parties’ actions exposed preoccupations quite removed from the colonial enterprise, particularly jurisdictional rivalries, both personal and institutional. New France became part of the admiral’s efforts to consolidate and extend his authority, thereby incorporating the colony into an existing French institution. Royal ambitions to control maritime commerce and navigation conflicted with the admiral’s growing jurisdiction, leading to plays for power in New France. Domestic challenges to exclusive trading privileges overseas were intimately connected to concerns over royal encroachment on provincial jurisdiction. Such examples highlight both the intimate connections between the construction of sovereignty in the colonial realm and the process of state formation in France and the contingency and contestation associated with these processes in the early seventeenth-century Atlantic.

Rationing of lifesaving resources in pandemics is likely to be an increasingly relevant issue. While the broad legal and ethical implications of pandemic preparedness have been explored at length, little attention has been paid to the legal issues associated with rationing. This thesis seeks to analyze the potential for administrative and private law challenges to governments’ rationing of vaccines, ventilators and antivirals. The wide variety of statutory authorities, and their associated conditions and discretionary limitations, that governments may rely on for mandating rationing protocols, makes them susceptible to administrative law challenges on the grounds of errors of jurisdiction. An analysis of the tort liability of governments, hospitals and physicians suggests that negligence suits will likely not be successful due to a lack of proximity required for a private law duty of care, the policy-making immunity of governments and a contextual standard of care.