This thesis elucidates the relationship between treaties on transit of energy via pipelines on the one hand and countermeasures as a means of implementation of international responsibility and as circumstances precluding wrongfulness on the other. It begins with an examination of the content and scope of treaty obligations and considers their nature as either bilateral or indivisible international obligations. After illustrating the polychromy of institutional structures created in these treaties for dispute settlement and compliance supervision, this study demonstrates that countermeasures remain the central means of enforcement in this area of international law. It argues that numerous treaty obligations concerning transit of energy via pipelines are oriented towards genuine multilateralisation. This trend has not extinguished countermeasures as a means of unilateral enforcement, but increasingly limits their form. Countermeasures in the form of suspending performance with treaty obligations concerning trade and transit via pipelines are either excluded or do not meet the conditions of lawfulness under general international law.

The subject of this thesis is focused on the peculiar market failure dubbed confusopoly, a combination of confusion and oligopoly. Accordingly, confusopoly can be briefly described as a situation where a group of companies with similar products intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price. Typical examples are utility services such as retail energy, communications and finance services. The thesis starts from the observation that it is very difficult to rectify this market failure either by means of demand-side consumer law or supply-side competition law interventions. This is ultimately related to the problem of identification that is at the core of the long-dated ‘oligopoly problem’, which substantially puts into question the effectiveness (and thus the proportionality) of any kind of public intervention aimed at restoring the competitive process. Nevertheless, it is hard to claim that the observed pattern of tariff proliferation across the market does constitute 'competition on the merits', given that the resulting increase in search costs is not only detrimental to consumers, but also to traders willing to compete fairly. This is because, under confusopoly, it becomes difficult to poach customers who have come to distrust service providers in general and have therefore entrenched low expectations in terms of the benefits of switching. Ultimately, the case for intervention boils down to a collective – that is to say, coordinated - restriction of the competitive process, carried out by frustrating consumers; who, being subject to cognitive overload, end up losing confidence in their collective ability to drive ‘competition on the merits’. Nevertheless, any intervention must be carefully designed in order to mitigate the risk of unintended consequences, specifically: of reducing the incentive to innovate through product and price differentiation; and of facilitating plain price coordination which would otherwise be difficult to sustain.

In this thesis, the South African Constitutional Court’s emerging model for the adjudication of social and economic (SE) rights is used as a starting point from which to consider how courts may give effect to these rights whilst respecting principles of democratic decision-making. The court has chosen to measure government action in this area against a standard of reasonableness. Reasonableness has historically been employed as a highly deferential standard of judicial review in South Africa and other common law jurisdictions. It is also a flexible standard. These features have given rise to charges that an approach based on reasonableness cannot but result in vagueness and weak enforcement of SE rights. The argument in this thesis is that these flaws are not an inevitable consequence of a reasonableness-centred model for SE rights adjudication. The judges’ approach is informed by evolving notions of judicial restraint. A range of factors impact on the intensity of review in SE rights cases. These factors will be relevant, whatever the approach adopted, because courts are bound to adjudicate SE rights within the limits of their constitutional mandate and institutional expertise. The most effective way of creating greater legal certainty and consistency in the judgments is for both judges and litigators to engage with these underlying factors. This thesis draws on Indian and United Kingdom jurisprudence. Studies of both these jurisdictions show that political sensitivity is no longer an automatic bar to the justiciability of disputes. United Kingdom administrative law jurisprudence is used to show that reasonableness, as a standard of review, has the capacity to place onerous demands on government bodies. The Indian case-study serves as a warning against an ad hoc approach to judicial intervention and restraint in SE rights cases. Cases from this jurisdiction illustrate the importance of identifying and working with the factors that inform the intensity with which judges will interrogate government decision-making in SE rights disputes. This kind of engagement will allow courts to move towards a stronger, more principled approach to the rights.

Requirements for the defendant to actively participate in the criminal process have been increasing in recent years such that the defendant can now be penalised for his non-cooperation. This thesis explores the procedural implications of penalising a defendant’s non-cooperation, particularly its effect on the English adversarial system. This thesis uses three key examples: 1) limitations placed on the privilege against self-incrimination, 2) adverse inferences drawn from a defendant’s silence, and 3) adverse inferences drawn from defence non-disclosure. The thesis explores how laws regarding the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to silence and pre-trial disclosure came to be reformed such that the defendant can now be penalised for his non-cooperation, and how these laws have been approached by the courts. A normative theory of criminal procedure is developed in the thesis and is used to challenge the idea of penalising defendant non-cooperation in the criminal process. The theory proposes that the criminal process should operate as a mechanism for calling the state to account for its accusations and request for official condemnation and punishment of the accused. Within this framework, the defendant should be free to choose whether or not to cooperate and participate throughout the process. The theory rests upon a broad interpretation of the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial, and a conception of the relationship between citizen and state. Conversely, the thesis finds that, by placing participatory requirements on the defendant and penalising him for his non-cooperation, a participatory model of procedure has developed. This model relies on the active participation of the defendant in pursuit of efficient fact finding. The participatory model is far removed from England’s history of adversarialism and, unfortunately, has less regard for legitimacy, fairness and respect for defence rights.

Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER)—that corporations can and should play an active role in the governance of environmental protection—is justified primarily by reference to the business case; the claim that behaving responsibly pays. In privileging a market voice for the environment, however, the business case alone is an inadequate justification for CER. As such, this thesis considers a qualitatively different justification: that there exists normative and pragmatic space for CER within contemporary approaches to environmental law and regulation. The thesis suggests that CER is best understood and justified by reference to the positive and normative implications of decentred regulation, where regulation is no longer the preserve of government and, in view of the limitations of governmental control, nor should it be. A waste-based case study illustrates the potential and limits of CER in this regard. However, this normative space for CER in decentred environmental regulation is not mirrored within corporate law and governance. Notwithstanding references to the ‘environment’ in the Companies Act 2006, the theoretical orthodoxy and its influence over the positive mainstays of UK corporate governance regard environmental concerns as largely irrelevant to company law and decision-making. In order to remedy this problematic position of corporate environmental irrelevance, as well as to more generally enhance CERs limited normative appeal, the thesis examines the nature and location of a voice for the environment within corporations. It argues that intra-corporate environmental voice should be enhanced through company law, providing environmental management systems (EMSs) as one possible example of ways in which company law might provide room for corporate environmental conscience to breathe.

The tension between the law on foreign investment and environmental concerns of host states has been increasingly recognised. There are circumstances where a host state's environmental measures result in the restriction of foreign investors' interests and a dispute between the affected investor and the host state reaches investment treaty arbitration. In such 'environment-investment' conflicts, there has been a tendency among arbitral tribunals to prioritise investors' interests over environmental concerns of host states. This thesis proposes a way to redress the existing Imbalance between the protection of foreign investment and environmental protection in investment treaty arbitration. It proposes 'interpretative linkage', that is. linking certain international environmental norms to investment treaties through the interpretation of investment protection provisions, as a means to seek a balance between them. This thesis focuses on the precautionary principle, the polluter pays principle and the principle of sustainable development as the former, and provisions on expropriation and the fair and equitable standard of treatment as the latter. This thesis first establishes the theoretical bases for interpretative linkage by examining: (i) the openness of the investment treaty arbitration regime towards 'external' international norms; (ii) the legal status of the three environmental principles and ways by which these principles may influence treaty interpretation; and (iii) certain interpretative rules that promote interpretative linkage. It then examines how expropriation provisions and the fair and equitable standard of treatment should be interpreted in the light of the three environmental principles where bona fide environmental measures are concerned. The central argument is that these principles, if used in the proper context in interpretative linkage, can be potent tools for achieving a shift towards greener interpretation and therefore contribute to more environmentally sensitive outcomes.

The Abduction Convention is in trouble and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties may be able to rescue it. The Abduction Convention is classified by the Hague Conference on Private International Law as a child welfare treaty, adopted as part of its mandate to facilitate the progressive unification of private international law. In 1980 it was hailed by the Conference as a blow struck for social justice. The Interpretive provisions of the VCLT (Articles 31-33) incorporate the principles of international treaty interpretation developed though international practice, which note and accommodate the unique differences and goals of treaty-based law, and prescribe the method for its interpretation. The Abduction Convention has failed to deliver on its promise of social justice because it has been neither progressive nor unified in its application. This paper postulates that application of the VCLT Interpretive rules can ‘correct’ Abduction Convention jurisprudence by identifying appropriate ‘evidence’ for interpretation and suggesting a process by which a progressive application can include developing legal concepts on children’s and family rights as well as emerging information on social and family dynamics. This paper undertakes to use the VCLT Interpretive Rules in their entirety to discover the object and purpose of the Abduction Convention in light of which its disputed terms may be interpreted, and in so doing provides a template for interpretation of other treaties, and the process and evidence for further interpretation of the Abduction Convention itself. It concludes that harmonization of interpretation through the uniform use of the international rules and principles can lead to a progressive application of the Abduction Convention that may allow it to recover its former potential.

This thesis identifies the main characteristics of EU food safety regulation and explores its impact on stakeholders in Thailand. It provides an overview of the principles and mechanisms that underpin EU food safety law and presents two detailed case studies in the areas of baby corn and poultry. The account presented is based not only on doctrinal analysis and but also upon in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders in Thailand. The case studies highlight the far-reaching cross-border impacts of both official EU food safety regulation and of private standards, such as those put in place by EU supermarket chains. Positive and negative cross-border impacts are identified. The most striking and pervasive negative effects arise in relation to private standards. The thesis argues that this is in part because mechanisms to ensure the external accountability of private standard-setting bodies are absent or deficient in several respects. This stands in contrast to the situation in relation to official EU food safety regulation where the World Trade Organisation and what is described as the ‘Competent Authority Model’ succeed in instantiating effective external accountability relationships between the EU and affected stakeholders abroad. Using insights gained from stakeholders’ experiences and concerns, this thesis evaluates the principles and mechanisms that underpin EU official food safety regulation and private standards and, crucially, it also puts forward constructive suggestions to help resolve or mitigate the cross-border problems that arise.

This thesis explores the philosophical nature of the relationship between equality, individual rights, and human dignity, and seeks a normative framework for resolving seemingly incommensurable conflicts of fundamental rights. Part I explores theories of individual partiality, and the potential for consonance between contemporary egalitarian rights theory and a specificationist methodology for the resolution of incommensurable value conflicts. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 put forward an interpretation of human dignity based upon particular conceptions of individual moral equality and partiality; while chapter 5 moves on to explore the relationship between egalitarian rights theory and specification theory, with a view to providing a theoretical framework for resolving seemingly incommensurable conflicts of rights. Part II comprises three in-depth chapters providing close legal analyses of contemporary constitutional rights conflicts, demonstrating how the normative understanding of the nature of rights and their conflicts gained in Part I can inform the way we think about real life value conflicts. Chapters 6 explores the conflict in liberal values between religious liberty and women’s equal dignity; Chapter 7 considers the normative implications of BRCA genetic patenting for human dignity; and Chapter 8 investigates the recent US Supreme Court decision to strike down the equal protection clauses of the US Voting Rights Act 1965 as unconstitutional, and explores the role the past ought to play in the justification of contemporary rights. These case studies apply an egalitarian-specificationist methodology to the critical analysis of contemporary conflicts of constitutional rights, with a view to critiquing the normative implications of our current approach to resolving seemingly irreconcilable conflicts of fundamental rights today.

This thesis looks at how Papua New Guinea‟s two most prominent legal orders; customary law and state law sanction wrongs. The mode of analysis is primarily economic while also acknowledging the reality of deep legal pluralism. In a society subject to a legal transplant such as Papua New Guinea there will be wrongs under customary law and wrongs under state law. Some of these wrongs will be common to both legal orders, common wrongs, and some will be unique to each legal order, idiosyncratic wrongs. Sanctions used to correct these wrongs will either be wrongs under the other legal order or not. The thesis analyses the interactions of the two legal orders using this typology. The empirical element provides an overview of the level of wrongdoing in the New Guinea Islands; how the two legal orders sanction wrongs; differing conceptions of wrongs; the degree that the legal orders are seen as substitutes; the degree to which the legal orders support or undermine each other; and the effect their interaction may have on the deterrence against wrongs. It is argued that in relation to grave common wrongs the sanctions of the two legal orders are broadly substitutable. However, the state does not generally see them as so and in recent times the courts have shown an increasingly intolerant stance toward customary law sanctions. It is argued that the state‟s effort to use the criminal law as a tool for social change has failed and has contributed to a lack of personal security in many parts of Papua New Guinea. In light of previously failed reforms, and based on the empirical research, it is argued that greater recognition of customary law through the prosecution process should ameliorate many of the most problematic interactions between the legal orders in the control of wrongs.