This dissertation seeks to contribute to the development of the comparative study of international commercial arbitration by focusing on the Middle Eastern experience in commercial dispute resolution. Theoretical and practical criticism is offered and suggestions for an improved regional legislative framework are made. With the ever-increasing importance of international trade to Middle Eastern countries, research upon the effective dispute resolution mechanisms of commercial arbitration has become imperative. The process of harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become the subject of wider international and regional research studies, and the aim of this work is to contribute to the field in the context of the Middle Eastern region. This thesis examines "regionalism" and the process of harmonisation in international commercial arbitration. Within the philosophical framework of international commercial arbitration, international contract principles and dispute resolution mechanisms, the objective is to analyse existing cultural deviations and boundaries, and ascertain how these have prevented effective law reform within the region itself, obstructing the harmonisation process. Despite regional variations, in practice the process, of harmonisation is essential if the Middle East is to benefit from and participate in the phenomenon of globalisation. Whilst regional culture has become increasingly significant, harmonisation of commercial arbitration has become more urgent. The thesis argues that harmonisation with the international commercial arbitration Model Law can be achieved when the concept of regionalism is taken into consideration. Different aspects manifested within regionalism regarded as legal cultural deviation can be accommodated, making for an efficient arbitration law reform in accordance with the international accepted substantive and procedural principles of the UNCITRAL Model Law.

This thesis explores the role of environmental rights in British planning. It reviews the evolution of the concept of human rights and proposes a suitable definition of "rights" to be used in planning research. It discusses typologies and statutory entrenchment environmental rights, showing that while rights have gained a privileged position in political discourse, the actual work of rights to a specific realm of public policy has been left unexplored. Within planing, the concept of rights appears to be deployed in four different discourses covering: property; participation; ethics; and rights as a device. The concept of a "rights-frame" for planing is developed to provide a coherent framework for assessing the role of rights. This is used to develop an empirical investigation focusing on one environmental right, third party right of appeal (TPRA) and explores this by reviewing debate over its introduction in the UK and examining TPRA in Ireland. A key finding is while the value of rights is assumed to rest on their strength as legal instruments, this tends to result in conservative outcomes and that much potential lies in their use as a tool for argumentation and political mobilisation through political discourse. This points to the importance of understanding the social-construction of rights and an appreciation of the context of rights-claims. The thesis proposes that environmental rights should rightly be seen as having four discrete roles in planning, functioning as: i) A statement of the ethical principles of the planning system, standing as non-derogable objectives of land use regulation; ii) A tool for promoting public participation by motivating engagement around issues of justice and citizenship; iii) A heuristic tool for analyzing the outcomes of the planning process, by highlighting discrepancies between rhetorical values and actual outcomes planning practice; and iv) In a more conventional sense, a tool for legal protection.

This thesis seeks to add to the existing literature by specifically attempting to examine from an African perspective, the regime of the Area, having regard to the changes introduced by the 1994 Agreement. It seeks to explore what Africa's contribution to the evolution and development of the regime was and to place this contribution in the context of certain historical, social, political and economic factors not only before and during Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III), but also after the coming into force of Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) 1982, as well as the 1994 New York Implementation Agreement. Further, the thesis seeks to suggest that for African states the regime went beyond a mere set of legal rules, but rather had undertones that epitomise the recurring antagonism in international law and politics between the African states, as part of the developing states of the south, and the developed industrialised states of the north. In addition, the thesis considers the degree of African participation in the regime, and the possible hindrances to the actual participation of African states in deep seabed mining activities and the prospects of such participation in the near future.

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This thesis explores the role of human rights and reformist lawyers in incipient legal mobilisation strategies, as members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) communities seek to advance and/or uphold their rights through the Chilean judicial system. Given the inaccessibility of the legislative arena for securing legal change, legal mobilisation strategies are increasingly being deployed by civil society actors promoting rights pertaining to sexual diversity. Drawing on legal ethnographic research, I examine the difficulties for members of these populations in securing legal representation and articulating their voice. I examine how individuals overcome barriers, such as mitigating the ‘stigma contagion’, in a highly hetero-normative socio-cultural and political context, and access the necessary legal resources to mount a legal challenge. Scholarship on stigma, deviancy and identity, and social justice serves as the point of departure for studying the interaction between lawyers and claimants. In Chile in the late 2000s, legal mobilisation is emerging and consolidating as a strategy to achieve social and legal change. I analyse the social processes occurring in tandem with aforementioned legal processes. I focus specifically on the role of activist lawyers in ‘brokering’ these cases and how, as a consequence, LGBTI identities are becoming more visible in multiple public domains.

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The first aim of the thesis is to set out and analyse critically the main principles of the (common) law of medical negligence. An overview of the bases of liability and their development is given as a precursor to this. The second aim of the thesis is to put forward the writer's proposals for reform, which, it is submitted, would ameliorate the unsatisfactory aspects of the present approach. The topics selected for consideration are principally the duty and standard of care, causation and the justification for the fault principle, including underlying aims where appropriate. Analysis of these yields the result that the present law is not satisfactory, in that its aims are insufficiently achieved. The most important of the aims which are identified and discussed comprise compensation, deterrence and accountability. Although many suggest that the deterrent aim is now obsolete, the writer argues that it is inconsistent and haphazard in its application to medical negligence. However, as a goal, it should be retained albeit interpreted more broadly than hitherto. Alternative approaches such as no-fault compensation are also discussed. In putting forward his proposals for reform, the writer argues that attempting to meet these underlying aims by the combined mechanism of the action for damages is unsatisfactory, and that they are best met by provision for separate mechanisms in respect of the fundamental avenues of compensation and deterrence/accountability. In essence, social security provides a vehicle for distributing the former (assessment being separate), and the writer's suggested approach of an enhanced, non-adversarial medical audit and reporting systems as a vehicle for the latter.

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