“Landbridge” is a concept and a policy in the Afghan foreign policy objectives and rhetoric. The idea is that the country turns into a bridge that can connect the three surrounding regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East for trade, transit, and energy as well as for culture and politics. This thesis is to study the views of the Afghan political elite in this regard and to what extent this concept is realistic given the internal and external obstacles, with the main research question of whether Afghanistan can become a landbridge linking the surrounding regions, and the seven ancillary questions of: what is the definition of ‘Landbridge’ generally and in the Afghan context and what are the threats and opportunities?; what are the current foreign policy objectives of Afghanistan and are they helping the country transform into a landbridge?; how could the disputed “Durand Line” be resolved with Pakistan?; what are the implications of Iran becoming a regional power for Afghanistan as a landbridge?; what are the obstacles in Central Asia for the main research question and can Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India (TAPI) gas pipeline, which is a litmus test for the concept of landbridge eventually materialise?; as the key obstacle for the landbridge concept is insecurity in Afghanistan, what are the root causes of security problems and how could they be tackled?; and how can the politics of centralisation and decentralisation be explained in relation to the main research question? The methods included literature review, field research in Afghanistan, interviews with political leaders and government officials, and interviews with academia and experts. I was able to use connections to senior government officials in Afghanistan as well as Afghan and regional experts in the UK, US and Europe that allowed me to make fresh contributions to the discipline. Numerous International Relations theories have been applied within the framework of analytical eclecticism. The thesis also includes a historical overview and a section on the current political economy of Afghanistan. There is no doubt that the country is naturally strategically positioned to become a regional landbridge, but in order for this to happen, there must be lasting security, the issue of the Durand Line must be finally resolved by recognising it and getting certain concessions from Pakistan in return which would call for compromise on the part of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Relations with Iran must be continuously developed, in the sense that Iran should not feel threatened by the presence of Western forces on the Afghan soil. Afghanistan should have friendly and cordial relations with all its neighbours and the West. These requirements are vital for domestic security, whether or not landbridge status is to be acquired. TAPI would make a strong contribution to the landbridge idea and will be a very good indicator to measure the development of the country into a landbridge, but the obstacles are currently many. Decentralisation and in the long-term federalism would appear to be more conducive to an active regional role on the part of Afghanistan and will be accompanied by a strong national identity which incorporates and transcends ethnic differences. Afghan foreign policy should be very active and proactive and must continue to learn from the findings of this thesis if progress towards Afghanistan becoming a landbridge for the region is to be made, and work to develop a consistent and stable regional and international identity for the country. This thesis takes a contextualist stance to the issues of national and international identity alongside international behaviour to understand how Afghanistan can achieve its aim of becoming an economic, commercial, cultural, and political landbridge in Asia. It concludes that an international identity of a ‘stable’ state requires national unity, which will in turn depend on the development of a strong national identity or sense of nationhood. It is then that the country will be ready to become a regional hub or a landbridge. This thesis looks at the period 2001 to 2010 and, therefore, covering any literature from the last three years does not seem essential. Moreover, the key arguments of the thesis are still valid. Some of them have become even stronger, given the developments that have unfolded since 2010 such as the increased ethnic tension amongst the key groups.

The overarching argument of this thesis is that, contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals have, to varying degrees, exerted significant impacts on judicial, legislative, and executive, thoughts, processes, and actions within conflict, post-conflict and non-conflict states in the Commonwealth. This thesis analyzes evidence of these impacts by examining states in the Commonwealth, where contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals have operational and jurisdictional relevance. It does this by categorizing such states into four groups of states, conflict, post-conflict, non-conflict states and states where contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals have made marginal impacts. The thesis evaluates the impacts of contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals in these states by analyzing evidence, garnered from a study of judicial, legislative and executive actions and processes influenced directly or indirectly by contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals with operational and jurisdictional relevance in the Commonwealth. The thesis also undertakes an assessment of the overall impact of contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals in the Commonwealth on judicial, legislative and executive thoughts, actions and processes. In assessing the impact, the thesis is framed by two overarching arguments which set the tone for the discussions and analysis undertaken here. The first is that, certain factors such as engagement by the different courts and tribunals with states, the role of states actors and institutions; have helped contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals exert marginal to major influences on judicial, legislative and executive thoughts, processes and actions within the Commonwealth. The second overarching argument made in the thesis in assessing the impact of these contemporary international criminal courts and tribunals is that, certain factors such as the poor visibility of international criminal courts and tribunals within Commonwealth States, conflicting visions of justice that these courts and tribunals ought to dispense by relevant stakeholders and the non-transposition of the norms of international criminal law and international humanitarian law within Commonwealth States; have inhibited the impact of these courts and tribunals on judicial, legislative and executive thoughts, processes and actions within the Commonwealth. It concludes by noting that international criminal courts and tribunals have had different levels of impacts on states across the Commonwealth due to the coalescence of the foregoing factors.

This thesis explores the meaning of human dignity in law and its potential value as a legal concept. It claims that existing methods of analysis are predominantly caught up with seeking a fixed and conventional meaning, which has proven difficult and has invariably led to claims that the concept is vague or vacuous. In this light, the thesis proposes a fresh method of conceptual analysis that progresses the current debate on the meaning of the concept in a more fruitful and productive direction. It seeks to shift the focus of analysis away from the formal search for a clear concept that is simply there to be applied or repeated, in favour of constructing the concept to respond to the shifting problems that emerge in life, as well as unlocking new pathways to promote more dynamic, rich, active and joyful modes of living. In this respect, it is argued that a concept of dignity should be assessed not by how well it reflects the past, but how it can be constructed to produce change that unlocks new potentialities and creative tendencies in the present. In deploying this methodology, the author seeks to construct a theoretically informed concept of human dignity that progresses beyond the limited focus on dignity as autonomy to encompass a more holistic, dynamic and interdependent view of human personality. The author explores a notion of dignity that he terms an ‘investment concept’. On this account, the value of human life is situated in its creative potential that is inherent, which requires investment from the community and the individual in order to be nurtured. It depends on a relational view of humanity that sees the creative potentiality of an individual as always unfolding in relation to others in the community. This potential is promoted through increasing the power of acting and rest for both the body and mind that is joyful rather than sad. This establishes a multifaceted view of humanity that moves beyond the mainstream separation of mind-body, independence-dependence, emotion-reason, in favour of a more joined up and connected perspective on humanity that recognises that humans are vulnerable beings whose development depends upon the relationships and connections of which they are always a part. The thesis explores the implication of this construction for the law in England and Wales, considering how the concept can be connected to existing legal pathways, as well as extending or unlocking new legal paths to create a better future for the most vulnerable. The process of connecting the concept to the existing legal framework is also treated as an important foundation for refining and enriching the concept by drawing on the complexity of human experience. In this sense, connecting human dignity to law is treated as a basis for reflecting on the way in which dignity can be refined, adapted or modified to address the concrete problems or experiences faced in life. The final part of the thesis explores the potential transformative implications of investment dignity for concepts that have been connected to human dignity, such as the rule of law and democracy, which affect the relationship between the individual and the community.

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In 2006, in an effort to nurture its corporate rescue culture, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) enacted a rescue-oriented bankruptcy law, the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law 2006 (the EBL 2006). However, it remains unknown as to how effective the implementation of this new corporate rescue regime will be. This thesis aims to address this uncertainty by drawing upon data from an empirical study, which covers a period of nearly five years of enforcement, investigating how this law has been translated from the law in the books into the law in action. This thesis has four research questions. The first question examines the extent to which China’s new corporate rescue law is used to rehabilitate troubled companies. The second seeks to identify which party dominates the existing corporate rescue processes. The third explores how economic value is preserved and distributed in corporate rescues. The final question assesses whether court confirmation of reorganization plans is adequate in fulfilling the goals of the corporate reorganization regime in China. By reviewing and analysing the collected data, this thesis has found that the PRC Bankruptcy Law has been mainly used to reorganize large companies in China. As for the nature of control over the legal process in rescues, this thesis has found that most PRC rescues use an administrator-in-possession model. The data suggest that China’s new rescue law has been effective in preserving going concern value as it has increased the average unsecured creditor recovery rate from less than ten per cent in liquidations to thirty-four per cent in reorganizations. But, great challenges arise in distributing value, especially in listed company reorganizations, as this thesis finds that two fundamental distribution principles – the absolute priority and pari passu principles - are often breached in China’s corporate rescue cases. Finally, the data demonstrate that China’s courts are currently unable to fulfil the legal policy goals of the PRC’s corporate rescue regime when confirming corporate reorganization plans; this failure can largely be attributed to the lack of judicial independence.

This thesis seeks to answer a seemingly intractable question in English human rights law: how should we understand the nature, constituent elements and application of a human right to enabled suicide? A moral framework is developed, based on the theories of Alan Gewirth and Deryck Beyleveld, in order to critique the approach to such a right in English law. The thesis argues that current approaches have failed to articulate the status of this right fully, in particular as regards the balance between its exercise and the protection of the right to life of others. Thus, the thesis seeks to use Gewirthian theory to defend an alternative understanding of the human right to enabled suicide. This ethically justified right is used to resolve the intractable questions of human rights law that, it is argued, have undermined the legal response to the right to enabled suicide thus far. Specifically, the thesis will address the problem of a slippery slope resulting from possible abuse of procedures designed to give effect to the right. The thesis will also consider the defensibility of apparent inconsistency between English laws prohibiting assisted suicide and laws regulating different courses of ‘suicidal’ conduct such as refusal of vital treatments and ‘life-shortening’ treatment. The thesis will not claim that there is one ideal form of human rights-compliant legal response to these questions, but it will seek to justify certain minimal requirements of a Gewirthian conception of a human right to enabled suicide. The original and significant contribution of this thesis to knowledge is therefore the development of a detailed framework to govern the balance between the right to enabled suicide and the countervailing right to life, and the application of this framework to English law on assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.

Faced with the constant challenge of adapting to different contexts, the current understanding of transitional justice held by worldwide institutions, NGOs, donors and successor administrations cannot rely on international law alone as a framework of reference for the design and implementation of transitional processes - although the identification, interpretation and uses of local norms is inherently problematic. This thesis considers the tension between different rules applicable to transitional justice and explores their coexistence in the context of legal pluralism, drawing on comparative law perspectives to investigate the distinctive concept of legal truth and the victims’ right to it, within the broader transitional aims of accountability, justice and reconciliation after a history of serious abuse. The particular focus on Muslim-majority legal systems provides further appreciation of how transitional justice can be relocated from international law to a given local setting, discussing the difficulties in doing so and the possible solutions with reference to Islamic law and jurisprudence. Rejecting the universalist v relativist deadlock in favour of an interpretation of international law which is permeable to local practices (also channeled through states), this thesis argues that comparative law can help uncover the legal formants of a system and piece together a global set of rules for transitional justice which rely on different normative provenances. Based on a victim-centred approach to transitional justice and the acknowledgement of structural power struggles within societies facing radical political change, this work argues that local and global norms of transitional justice have the potential to cross-fertilise in delivering the key transitional aims. Cultural ownership of rules should not be limited to international actors, national or community leaders: if local unofficial norms resonate with victims and survivors of abuse, provided they do not contrast the transitional objectives, they are likely to contribute to given processes, and in turn influence the global paradigm of transitional justice.