The United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, also known as the New York Convention, is the backbone of the universal mechanism for the enforcement system of foreign arbitral awards. Despite its universal success, Yemen has yet to ratify the Convention. Although Yemen is introducing new legislation on international arbitration, this legislation fails to provide clear guidance on the grounds for refusal of enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, unlike those listed in Article V of the New York Convention, which constitutes the core of the Convention. This thesis aims to examine the grounds of invalidity of arbitration agreements, and the public policy violation embodied in Articles V(1)(a) and V(2)(b) of the Convention. It adopts doctrinal and functional comparative approaches that comprise theoretical discussion and interpretation, as well as application by the courts of contracting States- paying particular attention to English legal practice. This thesis then also critically analyses the corresponding provisions under the new Yemeni legislation. Through a careful comparative analysis, the thesis also seeks to evaluate the degree of compatibility between the grounds’ applications and the relevant principles in operation in Yemen, which are derivative from Islamic Shari 'ah law. The thesis finds that the new Yemen’s legislation on international arbitration has several shortcomings regarding the specific areas of the study, and it makes a set of recommendations for legislative improvement. Moreover, the thesis demonstrates how the Convention is compatible with Shari’ah principles, thereby showing that there are no considerable barriers to its ratification by Yemen. Ultimately, in order to rectify the shortcomings in Yemen’s impending legislation on international arbitration, it is recommended that the Yemeni government considers ratifying the New York Convention. This progressive step will help Yemen adopt a pro-enforcement policy towards foreign arbitral awards and establish Yemen as an arbitration-friendly jurisdiction.

The decision, in 2003, by the United States and the United Kingdom to go to war against Iraq was seen by many as a watershed moment for international law. Operation Iraqi Freedom seemed to herald the ultimate triumph ofthose "realist" critics of international law who had always maintained that powerful states should and did ignore international law when their national interest is at stake. This thesis offers a defence of international law in the face of such criticism. By analysing key Great Power interventions in the Middle East prior to the War on Iraq, it will be shown that international law has always been a minor concern for those leaders who believed their state's national interest would be furthered by intervening in the Middle East. Operation Iraqi Freedom was thus far from being a watershed moment. More importantly, however, the thesis will dispel the notion that international law necessarily conflicts with the national interest of powerful states. A detailed analysis of Great Power interventions in Palestine (1917-1948), at Suez (1956), and in Afghanistan (1979-2011) will demonstrate that in none of these key events did the pursuit of national interest in conscious violation of international law actually benefit the intervenor. Rather, the subsequent "blowback", resulting from these illegal endeavours, was frequently more serious than the danger the intervenor originally sought to combat. Here, too, the Iraq War and its disastrous aftermath seem to have followed the rule, rather than being the exception. The latter conclusion, it will be argued, does allow for some optimism as to the future role of international law. The repeated failure by the Great Powers to obtain their objectives by illegal means evidences that it is not adherence to international law , but rather the conduct of an unrealistic foreign policy in violation of it, that harms a state's national interest. International law, far from being utopian, is grounded in states' past experiences, therefore reflects the realities of international life, and can consequently be a useful guide for a more successful foreign policy.

As a case study, the ECOWAS typifies an absence of effective judicial frameworks to strengthen, or, at least, complement, the integration of markets in the schemes of regional integration in Africa. Two decades since its creation, the Community Court of Justice of the ECOWAS has escaped scholarly analysis, creating a gap in the state of knowledge on regional integration in Africa. Accordingly, this thesis directs attention to the need to study the ECOWAS Court as a distinct actor within the contemporary international legal/political system, particularly in its role in the integration of the West African sub-region. This research work takes a critical look at the role that judicial institutions can play in the furtherance of regional integration in Africa. Adapting social science methodology for analysis of a judicial institution, the thesis undertakes the first comprehensive examination of the law, machinery, practice and procedure of the Court. The court-centred analysis allows for an appraisal of how the Court is shaping the dynamics of integration activities in West Africa. It examines the contribution (both actual and potential) of the Court to moulding the legal and constitutional framework within which the ECOWAS operates. It situates the Court within the organisational context of an emerging regional community and examines how the Court impacts and is impacted upon by the institutions of the ECOWAS. It emphasises the centrality of the Court to the maintenance of the delicate equilibrium necessary for the harmonisation of the competing interests of the Member States and Institutions of the ECOWAS.

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The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyse the scope and extent of judicial involvement in international commercial arbitration, with specific emphasis on its consequences for Iran. As an alternative form of dispute resolution under the jurisdiction of national courts, arbitration involves the establishment of a private jurisdiction over disputes, and is implemented through the creation of commercial contracts that derive their authority from the parties’ free will and autonomy. However, in reality, arbitration is not a separate and free-standing system of justice. It is a system established and regulated pursuant to law, which is never independent from the supervisory authority and control of national courts over the arbitration system. International commercial arbitration involves finding a balance between individual freedom of contract and the sovereign right of states as exercised through their national courts to exert some control and influence over the international arbitration process. Arbitration in practice is essentially a mixture of contract and litigation. The voluntary consent of the parties is a reflection of its contractual bedrock, while its binding character draws elements of the judiciary into it. A richer grasp of the application of the principles of party autonomy and states’ jurisdictional rights in arbitration is therefore vital to a full comprehension of the operation of international commercial arbitration. Thus, this thesis examines and critically analyses the freedom of the parties in arbitration, the limits of the parties’ freedom or autonomy, the role of national laws in setting those limits, and the role of national courts in regulating those limits in both the place of seat and enforcement place. It is frequently emphasized that modern international commercial arbitration needs more freedom from the supervision of the state courts. While many states’ legislations recognise the principle of party autonomy, at the same time, in practice, they also seek to establish a framework for judicial intervention in arbitral proceedings in certain instances, such as public policy. National legal systems have reserved space for the domestic system to restrain the potential excesses of free will, so that party autonomy cannot go beyond it. This thesis advances the concept of ‘nationality’ as an essential aspect of the way in which the modern international arbitral framework seeks to strike a balance between party autonomy and public policy. It concludes that by fixing the nationality, parties are able to identify the primary and secondary jurisdictional authority, mandatory rules and the procedural law applicable to the whole arbitration process. The primary authority exercises its powers to intervene in the arbitration process to provide the necessary assistance and support to arbitration. iii This thesis concludes that the Iranian Civil Procedure Code, legal doctrines, and arbitral practices have generally recognised the party autonomy principle and enforce it in individual contractual relationships. According to Iranian law, the intention and consent of citizens is important in entering into contracts and, without the consent of the parties, there is no valid contract. Iranian legislators also provide the grounds on which party autonomy and parties’ free will are limited.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role and impact that uniformed women play in UN peacekeeping operations, and to further establish how appropriate pre-deployment training (PDT) supports the performance of women in operational zones. The research questions posed are ‘whether women make a difference to peacekeeping operations’ and ‘to what extent PDT enables them to do so’. To answer these questions, the thesis takes a two-pronged approach. Firstly, a literature search evaluates the nature of uniformed women’s participation in UN peacekeeping missions, their contribution to effective peacekeeping and the UN policies supporting women’s participation in its missions. The main resources accessed for the literature research are the UN and contributing countries’ official policies, publication and reports. Secondly, primary data were acquired through field research on the training needs of three Southeast Asian countries, namely Indonesia, the Philippines and Country A. Across these sample states, empirical research data was gathered through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 37 female peacekeepers, 17 trainers and seven decision-makers. The literature reveals that women participate in UN peacekeeping missions in two ways, those that form part of a contingent and others that act as individual military experts, observers or staff officers. Women make a difference by allowing a UN mission to have greater reach to the local community, especially to the female population in segregated communities, including the survivors of sexual- and gender-based violence. The field research also reveals that the three Southeast Asian country case studies provide different PDT to their personnel, although the UN provides standardised training materials. Interview data from all three countries indicate that women and men receive combined PDT training, with the majority of the respondents arguing that there is no need for segregated gender training. However, they endorse differentiated training for specialist skills, such as for mentoring teams by same sex members to discuss biological and logistical issues in deployment, including, for instance, the best strategy for ensuring continuity in the supply of women’s sanitary requirements. Not all the three sample countries support uniformed women deployment on par with male peacekeeper deployment, and rarely support women holding leadership positions, due to discrimination in military education access, limitations on human resources and apprehension at putting women into dangerous positions. Such constraints limit the roles that women can play in UN field missions.

The thesis is first and foremost the examination of the notion and consequences of ‘state failure’ in international law. The disputes surrounding criteria for creation and recognition of states pertain to efforts to analyse legal and factual issues unravelling throughout the continuing existence of states, as best evidenced by the ‘state failure’ phenomenon. It is argued that although the ‘statehood’ of failed states remains uncontested, their sovereignty is increasingly considered to be dependent on the existence of effective governments. The second part of this thesis focuses on the examinations of the legal consequences of the continuing existence of failed states in the context of jus ad bellum. Since the creation of the United Nations the ability of states to resort to armed force without violating what might be considered as the single most important norm of international law, has been considerably limited. State failure and increasing importance of non-state actors has become a greatly topical issue within recent years in both scholarship and the popular imagination. There have been important legal developments within international law, which have provoked much academic, and in particular, legal commentary. On one level, the thesis contributes to this commentary. Despite the fact that the international community continues to perpetuate a notion of ‘statehood’ which allows the state-centric system of international law to exist, when dealing with practical and political realities of state failure, international law may no longer consider external sovereignty of states as an undeniable entitlement to statehood. Accordingly, the main research question of this thesis is whether the implicit and explicit invocation of the state failure provides sufficient legal basis for the intervention in self-defence against non-state actors in located in failed states. It has been argued that state failure has a profound impact, the extent of which is yet to be fully explored, on the modern landscape of peace and security.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy in which both Islam and cultural traditions influence every sphere of human activity in the country, including legal and law reform. This thesis is concerned with arbitration law reform in the country, with a special focus on the process of the new 2012 arbitration law reform and the internal and external factors which have affected this process. In the last few years, law reform in the country was mainly derived from the desire to escape the nature of its rentier economy and its heavy reliance on oil to diversify the sources of its income, with a special focus on attracting foreign direct investments. As a result, much of law reform occurred for the purpose of providing a friendly and secure investment environment in the Kingdom. The main focus of this thesis is therefore, to examine the process of arbitration law making , which in this case has taken almost 30 years to the completion of the new 2012 Arbitration Law which has replaced the old 1983 arbitration law. This examination of arbitration reform adopts two main approaches: first, a political economy approach which examines the impact of the nature of the rentier economy on law reform in the country and, second, a socio-legal-political approach which examine the impact of the ruling regime, religion and society on the process of the arbitration reform process. The thesis approaches the issue of arbitration reform in the Kingdom by looking at certain specific issues. The thesis thus, explores the nature of the constitutional regime and commercial laws of the country in an attempt to understand the country under investigation; the thesis moves on to examine the position of the Kingdom towards arbitration as a mean of solving disputes. The thesis examines the process of law making in the Kingdom, and separate chapters examine the impact of economic and social factors on law reform in the country. The contents of the new arbitral legislation are evaluated in light of international commercial arbitration law. The final chapters illustrate the observations and the findings of the thesis. The thesis finds that the delays in terms of arbitration law reform can be explained by two main factors; one is the historical experience factor (1958 Saudi Arabia v. Arabian American Oil Co.), the and second is the socio-legal factor (the conservative traditionalists' position), which have each played a role in the 30-year delay in Saudi arbitration reform.

Despite all the advantages of international arbitration, it has never been considered as an entirely independent and complete dispute settlement system and as such has been traditionally assisted by national courts. Nevertheless, the optimum model for courts’ involvements in international arbitration is not clear. More importantly, given the latest development in the theory and practice of international arbitration, the necessity and nature of such involvement is under question. Accordingly, this thesis aims to determine the optimum scenario of court involvement in international arbitration in order to enhance its efficiency by providing a fairly harmonised (transnational) approach regarding court involvement in the various stages of international arbitration. Taking efficiency consideration as the main guidance and indicator in modern legal scholarship, the thesis will develop normative discourse regarding harmonization of court involvement in international arbitration based on the comparative and analytical study of two major jurisdictions, the United Kingdom and the United States, and will suggest different solutions which can minimize the need for court’s involvements through their substitution by other mechanisms such as party autonomy as well as the expansion of the competence and the authorities of arbitral tribunals. To achieve the desired result, this thesis will analyse and respond to the following fundamental questions: (a) Why, where and when can national courts become involved in arbitration cases? (b) Is there any potential conflict between national courts’ competence and the historical facts regarding independence of international arbitration? (c) What are the potential solutions to harmonize court involvement in international arbitration at each stage? (d) To what extent can it be argued that national courts should waive part of their authority in favour of international arbitration in order to enhance the efficiency of international arbitration? (e) What are the potential avenues that need to be explored in order to harmonize court involvement in international arbitration?After examining the above mentioned questions, the thesis concludes that courts’ involvement in international arbitration may occur in 4 different stages, namely, before the establishment of arbitral tribunal, at the commencement of arbitration process, during the arbitration and finally at the time of recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral award. It also suggests that prior to establishment of arbitral tribunal, recognition of a concurrent jurisdiction for the court of the place of arbitration can significantly remove the potential obstacles in front of the conclusion of the tribunal. Moreover, and given the extended role of party autonomy in selecting substantive and procedural law, arbitrating parties can minimizes the possibility of recourse to national courts at the commencement of the tribunal and during the process by submitting their claims arbitration institutions which can offer most of the services offered by national courts and as such will remove the need for national courts intervention. Finally, the thesis proposes that although recognition and enforcement of arbitral award may inevitably require the involvement of local courts, development of a transnational notion of public policy and arbtirability based on efficiency will lead to a sort of universal approach in the enforcement of international awards regardless of the place of business or the nationality of the party-debtor in arbitration.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is the preeminent international security institution spanning Europe and North America. This means that NATO’s engagement with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) is of particular salience to examine. NATO’s role as a ‘teaching machine’ sharing lessons on gender and UNSCR 1325, means the organisation represents a key site for the transfer of learning on the value of the WPS agenda. Despite this, and the wide range of literature examining the implementation of UNSCR 1325, NATO’s implementation of the women, peace and security agenda remains under examined. This thesis contributes a feminist approach to theorising international security institutions, drawing upon an institutional approach to understand how NATO’s gendered organisational structure has contributed to shaping a particular understanding of UNSCR 1325. Notably, the WPS agenda has mapped onto NATO’s long existing concern with the status of women in the military, and UNSCR 1325 has come to be supported, in the military structure, by the existing gender machinery established to support this agenda. The thesis identifies the key actors and drivers involved in NATO’s adoption and implementation of UNSCR 1325. In particular, the central role of partner states has contributed to the framing of the WPS agenda as external to the Alliance, or within a silo, both practically and symbolically. This supports the argument that member and partner states have come to learn the value of UNSCR 1325 as a diplomatic tool and a means of providing influence incommensurate with status. It also challenges notions that NATO is an organisation whose agenda is dictated (solely) by the US. In addition to identifying femocrats operating within NATO, the thesis draws attention to the importance of leadership for driving the agenda, most significantly through the appointment of the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative on Women, Peace and Security in 2012. The thesis exposes the ‘added value’ of UNSCR 1325 not only for member states, but for NATO. This finds the Resolution valued as a tool to increase operational effectiveness, in part because its adoption was shaped by NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan. NATO’s implementation of UNSCR 1325 has also been utilised by as a public diplomacy tool by NATO, for example, utilising stories of Afghan military women as a ‘good news story’ about NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan.