This thesis carries out a conceptual analysis of good faith in the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) through a comparative study of the principle in French law, the Shari'a, English law and the US Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). The CISG was developed with the aim of establishing a uniform law to be applied to contracts for the international sale of goods. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental issues affecting the successful application of the Convention is the divergent interpretation and application of its provision on good faith by national courts and arbitral tribunals. This is mainly due to the lack of a harmonised conceptualisation of good faith at an international level under the CISG. Therefore, this thesis addresses this particular issue of the application of a harmonised application of good faith under the Convention. This issue was approached in this thesis through a conceptual study of the principle by using a comparative analysis, as the CISG is the construct of a comparative study. The chosen legal systems for this comparative analysis have had an important impact on the drafting and development of the CISG. In its comparative analysis, this thesis shows that good faith is commonly understood as reasonableness and that its main role across the studied legal systems is as an implied term used to interpret the contract. Upon the application of the comparative results of the study against the context of the CISG, this thesis identifies that a harmonised application of good faith under the Convention is possible. In this regard, it is shown in this thesis that good faith under the CISG amounts to what is considered to be commercially reasonable conduct and that it is measured against the standard of the reasonable person. Also, based on the comparative analysis carried out, this thesis concludes that the common approach towards good faith in the CISG would be to apply it to the interpretation of the Convention. Therefore, this thesis makes a conceptual contribution to the harmonisation of the principle of good faith in the CISG and offers tools for other scholarly work that relates to the concept of good faith and its harmonisation or uniformity.

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The adoption of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, and the Principles of European Contract (PECL) has marked a new step in development of international commercial law. Resulting from considerable efforts to unify and harmonise international commercial and, in case of the PECL, European law, these Instruments have become important and truly international sources of contract and commercial law. The thesis seeks to examine the remedy of damages under these Instruments. Damages are a key remedy because, amongst other reasons, it is likely to be exercised more often than any other remedy and can be used exclusively or in conjunction with other remedies. The examination is confined to international sales transactions. The work examines some of the central parts of the law of damages such as the definition and purposes of the award of damages; basis for the right to claim damages; principles underlying the award of damages; the idea of limiting damages; classification of losses; categories of loss; causation; foreseeability; mitigation; standards of proving loss and determining the amount of damages. The work draws heavily on cases decided in various jurisdictions and arbitration tribunals and uses the method of comparative analysis which helped identify the problems that had to be addressed and provided a wider range of possible solutions. However, every solution put forward by this work is based on the mandate of the Instruments to respect their autonomous and international character and the need to promote uniformity in their application as well as on the author's views as to what are the policies, considerations, and values that underlie the Instruments. The work is original in terms of its scope and the extent to which the issues relating to damages under these Instruments are examined.

This research is aimed to seek the avenues open to remodeling the laws regulating rights of suit under the contract of carriage of goods by sea in China by identifying the problems incurred and analysing the solutions provided under the English and Chinese law with a comparative study of the Draft Instrument on transport law proposed by United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). This research will elucidate the relevant provisions in the Chinese legal system; outline the problems caused by the lack of particular doctrines or inconsistencies among the present clauses in the Chinese Maritime Code; highlight the pitfalls that might arise for litigants; examine and evaluate the solutions provided in judicial practice by judges or conceived by academics; indicate where the law should be amended; and propose the draft of new provisions with reformative suggestions. This research will examine the history and development of the English law in the area of rights of suit under the contract of carriage; outline the similarities and distinctions among English law, the Draft Instrument and Chinese law in relation to rights of suit under the contract of carriage; and expose and evaluate the latest developments of English case law in this area. The research will explore and evaluate the provisions regarding rights of suit in the area of carriage of goods by sea embraced in the Draft Instrument, with a view to considering the feasibilities and desirability of including these provisions in such an international regime and the possibilities of applying these provisions under Chinese jurisdiction. The result of this research is a new draft bill regulating the cargo claimant's locus standi for the P.R.China. The subject matter of this thesis will be divided into five topics and each will be dealt with in a separate chapter. Chapter 1 is a study on the shipper's title to sue; Chapter 2 is a study on the holder's title to sue; Chapter 3 is a study on the shipper's liability towards the carrier; Chapter 4 is a study on the holder's liability towards the carrier; Chapter 5 is a study on the cargo claimant's locus standi and straight bills of lading; Chapter 6 concludes with proposals for amendments to the Chinese Maritime Code 1993 in respect of the cargo claimant's locus standi as a conclusion to the whole research.

Contemporary international legal scholarship is concerned about the fragmentation of international law into specialised systems such as trade, environment and human rights. Fragmentation raises questions about intra-systemic interaction between the specialised systems and general international law. It also raises questions about the inter-systemic interaction between the various specialised systems of international law, which is the focus of this study.

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This thesis seeks to balance trade and environmental concerns in international law. It studies a number of multilateral environmental and trade agreements to observe the extent to which environmental and trade treaty regimes have made allowances for each other's interests, and whether allowed such interests to be disregarded or overridden in practice. Serious questions remain, however, about the compatibility between overlapping environmental and trade rules in the absence of a clear authority relationship or means of securing unity in the international legal order as a whole. The international legal system does not possess well-developed hierarchies; thus, none of the agreements inherently takes precedence in the event of a conflict. Consequently, the aim should be to achieve a better harmonization of the two regimes through available mechanisms. The multilateral trade agreements have made allowances and included exceptions with regard to the protection of environmental concerns. However, the precise way in which trade institutions balance environmental considerations by comparison with trade considerations is likely to prove critically important for the protection of the environment. It is for this reason that this thesis analyses the current balance between trade and environmental considerations in the international legal order, and proposes ways for improving its coherence.

This thesis addresses the issue of rules of origin and their impact on trade flows. Four objectives are sought: i) to provide further evidence on the impact on trade of product-specific preferential rules of origin; ii) to develop a restrictiveness index based on empirical findings; iii) to open the path for the impact of the rules of origin on particular sectors other than textiles; and iv) to contribute with further evidence on regime-wide provisions. Literature on rules of origin is reviewed in Chapter 2. While theoretical literature establishes certain conditions under which rules of origin can increase welfare, empirical literature is unanimous about the negative effects they have on trade flows. Two main aspects stem from the review of the empirical literature. First, empirical literature on rules of origin remains still very limited in scope. Second, in order to proxy the stringency of the rules, traditional literature relies on restrictiveness indices based on an ex-ante observation rule. This rule depends on the authors’ appreciation, which can potentially be incorrect. Chapter 3 provides a broad explanation about the different type of product specific and regime-wide rules of origin. The framework to assess the impact of specific rules and regime-wide provisions on trade flows is developed in Chapter 4. The analysis is conducted using a gravity model of disaggregated panel data for four reporting countries and 16 FTA partners, controlling for reporter and partner fixed effects. In order to account for different ways of modeling specific rules of origin, four different methods are confronted. Data sources and explanations are also provided in this Chapter. Each of the methods is estimated for total trade flows, exports and imports, as a way to improve the validity of the estimates. The results, along some issues regarding the proper form of the specification are presented in Chapter 5. The results prove significant for every specification and suggest that regional value content type of rules, as well as self-certification procedures promote trade within the FTAs. Using the estimates from the previous chapter, an ex-post restrictiveness index is constructed in Chapter 6. This index is subsequently used to assess the stringency of the rules of origin by sector and by agreement stringency levels. One of the main differences of this index with past indices is the relatively high level of leniency it assigns to regional value content rules. The validity of the ex-post index is checked by estimating the impact of rules of origin on North-South trade as well as on agricultural, industrial and textile imports, finding support on the results. After analyzing the state of play of rules of origin in today’s world, policy recommendations are provided in Chapter 7. There is a practical unanimity on the need to reform the rules of origin as they currently stand. The possibility to choose across-the-board between a regional value content rule and current rules, coupled with self-certification procedures appears to address the concerns of researchers, industry and policy makers.