This thesis argues that the nature of socio-economic rights makes their violation central to key poverty and developmental issues in Africa. The thesis further argues that an effective socio-economic rights' legal and institutional framework will aid the realisation of socioeconomic rights as well as poverty reduction and development. In this context, the thesis examines the arrangements made for the promotion and protection of socio-economic rights under the African Charter. It also critically examines challenges to the realisation of socioeconomic rights under the Charter. Using South Africa and Nigeria as case studies in the implementation of socio-economic rights in Africa, the thesis examines how both countries have incorporated the African Charter and the influence if any; the Charter may have on the interpretation of socioeconomic rights in both jurisdictions. The thesis also examines constitutional protection of socio-economic rights as well as other domestic arrangements for the realisation of socioeconomic rights in both countries. As an original contribution to the study of socio-economic rights, the thesis compares how domestic courts in South Africa, a country with constitutionally recognised justiciable socioeconomic rights and Nigeria, a country with constitutionally recognised non-justiciable directive principles of state policies, have interpreted and applied socio-economic rights provisions. Justiciable and non-justiciable socio-economic rights provisions both guide and shape legislative action, policy formulation and executive/administrative decision making. Against a backdrop of the above, the increasing role of civil society organisations in the realisation of socio-economic rights is also examined. The thesis hypothesised that the Constitutional Court of South Africa will not provide a fundamental right to individuals to claim positive judicially enforceable action and services from the state. As an original contribution to the study of socio-economic rights, this hypothesis is tested by conducting qualitative analyses of socio-economic rights cases where litigants invoked the socio-economic rights provisions of the South African Constitution.

ISP copyright liability for copyright infringement over the Internet is a now widely adopted approach for tackling extensive online copyright piracy in various jurisdictions. However, in China, the inconsistent ISP knowledge standard and the lack of peer-to-peer file-sharing liability provisions in the existing legal framework are among the factors that impede effective copyright law enforcement on the Internet. The adoption of a broad knowledge standard and its application in case law, both in the U.S. and Germany, which have great influence on a Chinese ISP copyright liability system, are discussed along with a similar knowledge standard provided by the Chinese Online Copyright Regulations and its application to ultimately show the need of a broad knowledge standard in a Chinese ISP copyright liability system. As for the liability issues over peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, analysis of several prominent cases and the enacted or proposed legislation in this regard in an international context sheds light on the importance of a filtering mandate in effectively deterring copyright piracy. In a Chinese context, the absence of peer-to-peer file-sharing liability legislation and the inadequacy of the applied provisions in the existing legislation entail the examination of the need and the possibility of the mandatory use of filters in a Chinese ISP copyright liability system. For an enhanced Chinese ISP copyright liability regime, the thesis concludes with two recommendations that a broad ISP knowledge standard should be retained in the Chinese ISP copyright liability system and a filtering mandate is needed and should be legislated for efforts against widespread unlawful peer-to-peer file-sharing.

Dealing only with the latter years of the Scottish parliament allows greater detailed consideration than was practicable in the 8tandard studies of Terry and of Rait. The unicameral parliament comprised both elective and non-elective elements: these are dealt with at the outset along wi th those viho might by legal right attend. '~'he parliament's constitutional basis being the representation of land the electorate is also outlined. Parliamentary sessions are next considered in a general Yvay alone with the distinctions bet'ween parliament and convention, the latter with its limited powers being a peculiarity of the constitution. An outline of procedure follows with incidental emphasis on the importance attached to such formal matters as precedence. With the off'icers of' the house, an attempt is made to differentiate the powers of' President and Commissioner with some regard to the position of a powerf'ul Commissioner like Lauderdale. Next studied is procedure in such matters as debate and voting with a detailed survey of' the committee system, notably the Articles, and with some ref'erence to opposition. Legislative procedure f'ollows including private business which occupied so much of' the house's time, and the exercise of' judicial functions as the effective supreme judicature. Bef'ore dealing with dissolution, the privileges of parliament are dealt with, such position being no accident of arrangement, since they did not attain that same importance in Scotland as in England. Background history is sketched where it leads to a cleare~ understanding of the working of parliament and its accomplishments, since both the eftective working and practical effectiveness of the parliament have been conSistently underestimated by virtually all writers, not least by Dr. Rait.

Two sociological endeavours have been combined in this study of white-collar crime: 1. The presentation of the natural history pertaining to the enactment of British food and drug adulteration prevention legislation, involving the definition of the problem, the agitation for amelioration of it, policy determination and reform; and 2. the construction of a substantive theory of criminalisation based on the, case study data. In order to accomplish the latter, the collection of the data ha~( been informed by a combined conflict~interactionist perspective. A processual model has been developed which embodies the concerns of social structure and the interactive patterns as they pertain to law-making, law-breaking, law-enforcing, law-confirming and public opinion. The food and drug laws were selected because they were deemed representative of the embodiment of strict liability in public welfare legislation, a focal concept of this study. The antecedents to a legislative cycle, as well as the intended and unintended consequences of legislative and judicial decisions, have been incorporated in the interpretative case study and the theory of criminalisation. Both aspects of the study have been ordered under the aegis of the model. Four major legislative cycles between 1850 and 1900 have demonstrated the conflict-antagonistic cooperation-accommodation processes accompanying the resolution of conflicts in an area of status politics between lawmakers, law-breakers and law-enforcers. Strict liability rather than disrupt the accommodation patterns has stabilised them, r4s contributed to a real diminishing of serious law-breaking, and has provided a barrier to stigmatisation ~. criminalisation. Public welfare legislation embodying strict liability exhibits its own typical features. These have been exposed.

This thesis investigates the laws on shareholders' rights and remedies in Malaysia from a comparative perspective. Law is given a broad meaning which gives this research a multidisciplinary character. British colonial business interests resulted in the transplantation of Malaysia's corporate and other commercial laws; this transplantation process continues in the post-colonial period due to the desire to conform to internationally recognised norms and standards and the lack of local innovation. The interaction of the transplanted laws with institutions and other elements in the local setting creates gaps between the law-in-the-books and law-in-action. In particular, the transplanted governance regime which focuses on the director-shareholder agency problem is inappropriate for an environment where controlling shareholders created the largest agency problems. Malaysians are also reluctant to seek redress through the official legal system (again a product of transplantation) for cultural, historical, political and economic factors. The poor quality of the legal institutions, access to court issues, poor public governance and the abdication of the judiciary of its' duties to protect individual rights vis-a.-vis the state further compromised the value of the law-in-the-books. These are compounded by the uncritical and often inappropriate reliance to case laws of other Commonwealth countries, and the general apathy of the judiciary to the rights of shareholders. In conclusion, it is argued that the law-in-the-books may appear to provide adequate protection to shareholders; however the value of the law must be examined in a larger perspective. The administration and implementation of the law as well as a healthy respect for the rule of law is as important as the substantive law itself.

Before colonial rule, dispute settlement procedures in the tribal societies of Kenya and Tanzania varied from communal procedures centred on self-help in the clan societies to a rudimentary adversarial system in the chiefly societies. On the arrival of the British and the Germans in the two countries respectively however, procedures started to change towards a uniform adversarial system. This process continued after independence. The thesis endeavours to find out whether there have been any consistent principles followed in the development of the law relating to civil litigation'in'Kenya and Tanzania. The major questions which the thesis addresses itself to are: (i) What were the procedures in the customary dispute settlement institutions? (ii) Were these changed after the establishment of colonial rule, and, if so, how? (iii) What were the principles behind these changes? (iv) What steps have the two Governments taken since independence respecting the law of civil procedure? (v) How far has the law reflected social circumstances of the two countries? Since the law of civil procedure in Kenya and Tanzania has been adopted from India, it has also been necessary to study the development of the Indian Code. The aim of this study was to discover the policies leading to the Code's adoption in Kenya and Tanzania. Although the two countries have since independence adopted different political and economic policies, the adversarial procedures which were developed during the period of colonial rule have been retained by both. However, the Indian-based law introduced technical procedures; incomprehensible to many litigants. Furthermore, legal assistance in the two countries is hard to get because of the smallness of the Bar and the poverty of the litigants. Thus, although the research has led to the conclusion that the adversarial procedures are there to stay, they must be modified so as to ensure that justice is actually done. Some Judges have been advocating that the court should play a more active role in assisting the parties, but this is difficult to achieve since the number of Judges and Magistrates is insufficient, and the legal knowledge of the supporting staff is inadequate. Many informal tribunals have developed as a result, but these lack the necessary powers of enforcement. The research is based on archival material, current public documents, Statutes and oral interviews.

The thesis aims to explore the differences between the two Conventions namely the Unidroit Convention on International Factoring and the UNCITRAL Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade and the effects of American and English laws on these Conventions. In this connection, apart from introduction and conclusion chapters, the thesis contains chapters examining harmonisation of secured transactions laws, applicability policies of these two Conventions, formal validity of assignments under these Conventions, party autonomy provisions, absence of positive liability, debtor protection issues, assignments of bulk and future receivables, anti-assigriment provisions and priority issues. The thesis includes four appendices. These are the texts of the UNCITRAL and Unidroit Conventions, a chart describing the variants on applicability of the UNCITRAL Convention with regard to priority and the current status of these Conventions. The thesis also includes bibliography, table of cases comprised of cases from different jurisdictions and table of contents.

The embryo has become much more important as a concept than as the physical matter of which it is made. It is a tricky subject for discussion. It is a vague and in many ways ambiguous entity. In my analysis, rather than taking this as the conclusion for how it is we understand embryos, I have taken it as the starting point. I take a 'constructionist' approach to the embryo and tease out the ways in which the embryo can be important. The analysis focuses on two specific ways in which the embryo can be understood. The first of these is the moral significance attached to the embryo as it exists within the broader category of 'the unborn'. The second is the relationship between embryos and future people. In considering these two issues I have provided an account of how we might evaluate regulation for the 'reproductive' embryo, and provided a theoretical framework within which future analysis can take place. Any regulation of what we can do to the human embryo will often find itself based on shaky and uncertain moral and legal ground. The aim here is to take different concepts that are used in both law and ethics and seek to tie these concepts into a whole-scale picture of the embryo.

The term 'corporate governance' generally refers to the sets of mechanisms aimed at ensuring that a firm, as a productive organization, is managed effectively in pursuit of its objectives; its meaning has evolved over time often in response to corporate failures or systems crises which have occurred internationally. Each crisis or major corporate failure has, however, been attributable to incompetence, fraud and abuse and consequently met by new strategies and tighter measures of governance. In this process of continuing change, developed countries, in particular have established a variety of laws, regulations, institutions and enforcement tools. The objectives of these varied defensive methods are to align the interests of companies with greater justice, accountability and transparency. Developing countries, including Saudi Arabia, in comparison, have made far less effort to improve corporate governance practices. The reasons have been generally associated with weak legal and regulatory systems, poor banking practices, ineffective oversight by corporate boards of directors and the apparent negligence of minority shareholders. Moreover, the proven neglect by political leaders of corporate governance as a system of proper measures and private companies' unawareness of the importance of good governance for their profitability have further aggravated the situation. It is exactly in this context that the present study aims to (i) explore the Saudi approach to corporate governance, comparing it with those approaches found in the US and the UK; (ii) evaluate the efforts made by the Saudi legal authorities to reform the regulation of publicly held companies in Saudi Arabia; and (iii) provide solutions and make recommendations believed to reform the Saudi system so that countries in the Gulf region as well as other countries in similar situations, can benefit from the Saudi experience. The importance of this study stems from the fact that it represents the first attempt to explore the Saudi system of corporate governance from a legal perspective, using comparative and analytical approaches; in academic terms this has not been done before.

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