At international (United Nations) and regional (Council of Europe) level, post-war initiatives have seen the gradual emergence of a multitude of human rights instruments with direct and indirect applicability to prison conditions and prisoner treatment. In particular, the Council of Europe, via its Convention on and Court of Human Rights, has succeeded at ushering in the prisoner as a legitimate rights holder as any other human agent. Nearly a decade into the new millennium and past 50 years since the inception of the European Convention, the present study attempts to explore the dynamics of human rights in prisons against the latter' s unwavering popularity. Having only prisoners on board, it sets off to document their awareness, understanding and conceptualisations of the idea and application of human rights to the carceral context. The objective is to unravel the potentiality (-ies) of human rights in prisons, if any, and its implications for imprisonment as a state punishment. To this end, we are taken to two Western European countries-England & Wales and the Netherlands. There, 9 prisons and a probation office are visited where 63 adult men and women assess the state and viability of human rights in jail through interviews and questionnaires. Their differences in terms of the context of their imprisonment aspire to discern elements, which are conducive to making prison work-if possible.

This thesis takes the view that there has been a spillover from internal market integration into the area of health care policy, consistent with the neo-functionalist theory of European integration, in spite of the reluctance of the Member States to relinquish control in this area. This research considers the responses of the EU institutions to the patient mobility judgements and evaluates the legislative and policy initiatives leading from the case law, and influenced by it. It is contended that the impact of the case law has been significantly wider than simply according individuals the right to be reimbursed for cross border treatment. In particular, it is argued that the case law has acted both as a catalyst, and as a justification, for policy development and attempts at legislative action in the field of health care, which seek to go beyond a codification of the case law into other aspects of health care policy. Furthermore, whilst the case law starts from an internal market perspective, an analysis of the relationship between the conditions for access to cross border care contained in the case law on patient mobility and the fundamental right to health care shows a substantial degree of consistency between the two. In conclusion, it is suggested that, in the evolving role of the EU in relation to health care, there are signs of a shift away from the conception of health care as a service within the internal market and towards an approach which recognises an autonomous right to health care.

The aim of this thesis has been to analyse the Laws of Settlement. It is based on a collection of documents at the Northamptonshire Record Office which originated in the offices of several long-established firms of solicitors. It is obvious that the firms were deeply involved with settlement appeal cases. From the large number of barrister's briefs and case summaries found, it has been possible to reconstruct much of the work undertaken, not only by the solicitors, but also by the magistrates and the overseers of the poor. The method used has been to analyse a number of cases, to demonstrate the various points of law and to show how these were interpreted in practice. To explain the points of law correctly, much use has been made of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century books written as aids for the justices, solicitors and overseers. With the additional use of some of the parish collections for the county, the last chapter of the thesis deals specifically with the work of the justices, solicitors and overseers, with the final section given over to the study of the effects the settlement laws had on the paupers themselves. The first four chapters deal in turn with the four most common ways in which a man or woman could gain a new settlement, while the fifth chapter deals with the settlement certificates and how they were used. Chapter six is a study of a number of cases where the complexity of the settlement laws either led to parish officers making mistakes in their interpretation of the legislation, or where it seems that deliberate attempts were made to 'bend' the laws to benefit for their own parishes.

This thesis examines the limitations of the legal responses to ‘domestic violence’ from the perspective of two central arguments; first, domestic violence is a social problem, rather than one caused by the deviancy of particular individuals, and, secondly, legal and societal understandings display a misplaced focus on ‘violence’ as the defining feature of an abusive relationship. By failing to address the root social causes or comprehend the true dynamics of abusive relationships as a range of coercive and controlling strategies, incidents of mainly physical violence and the behaviour and personality of the abused woman become the social and legal focus. The thesis asserts that the root causes of domestic violence are the gendered expectations placed upon masculinity and femininity, thus explaining why it is women that are predominantly the victims. To refute the common misconception that women would exit an abusive relationship if they wanted to, a comparison is made between domestic violence and capture crimes such as kidnapping, and the range of social and psychological difficulties encountered by women as a result of the abusive relationship are used to support the claim that the sense of self, autonomy and decision-making ability of the victim is so undermined by the abuser’s tactics that they become entrapped in the abusive relationship. It is then argued that societal and legal misunderstandings of the dynamics and impact of the abuse lead to misinformed legal responses based upon the premise that women are able to safely report domestic violence and receive an adequate response, should they choose to do so. Bringing together critiques of the operation of the civil and criminal justice system in this context with the possibilities and limitations of the international human rights system, the thesis aims to demonstrate not just where the legal responses pertaining to domestic violence are limited, but also why. The research concludes that a legal approach to this problem which overlooks the root causes and over-emphasises isolated incidents of mainly physical violence does not and cannot work; the causes and impacts of domestic violence must be understood and addressed at a society-wide level.

This thesis conducts a conceptual analysis of the proportionality of non-consensual adoptions in England and Wales. It does so by examining the English legislation and case law on adoption and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This thesis considers and applies rights from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to determine when non-consensual adoption may be regarded as a necessary and proportionate interference with children’s and parents’ rights. The proportionality principle requires the domestic courts and the ECtHR to strike a balance between the various rights and interests of children and parents while taking into account children’s welfare. The final strand of the proportionality principle identifies whether the State measure is the least restrictive measure available to satisfy the State’s objective. This strand is not applied in all non-consensual adoption cases heard by the domestic courts or the ECtHR. However, this thesis argues it is essential to identify whether less restrictive alternatives exist as these measures may prove equally effective in protecting children’s welfare when compared with adoption, and may also protect children’s and parents’ rights. This thesis makes a conceptual contribution to the academic scholarship on non-consensual adoption law by identifying how the UNCRC, the ECHR, the best interests principle and ECtHR jurisprudence can be applied so as to provide optimal protection for children’s and parents’ rights in adoption cases. This thesis concludes that judicial reasoning in the courts should routinely consider UNCRC rights and the effectiveness of less restrictive alternatives. Furthermore, it argues that there is a positive obligation under ECHR Article 8 to provide State assistance in circumstances where children can safely be raised by their parents, which is not yet recognised in English case law.

This thesis investigates the impact of international organizations on the making of international law by applying insights on how international organizations work—or fail to work—to the process of institutionalized treaty making. Specifically, I probe the relationship between the World Health Organization (“WHO”) and international infectious disease law, focusing in particular on the 2005 International Health Regulations (“2005 IHR”), which was negotiated, adopted, and is now being implemented under WHO’s auspices. The 2005 IHR is the most recent development in international infectious disease law, the history of which extends back to the beginning of international health cooperation in the mid-nineteenth century, before any international health organization was formed. Relying on secondary sources, WHO documents, archival materials, and personal interviews, I chronologically trace the evolution of international infectious disease law across changing institutional settings. I first examine the incremental growth of the older “barrier” approach to infectious disease regulation, initially developed in the absence of any international health organization and then with the aid of one of WHO’s predecessor organizations. I then analyze the decline of the barrier approach and the rise of the new “epidemiological” approach embodied by the 2005 IHR, with the aid of WHO. Based on my empirical analysis, I conclude that WHO has radically changed the process of making international infectious disease law as well as its content. On its own initiative and without member state demand, WHO’s permanent staff experimented with novel practices that subsequently became the basis for the 2005 IHR. WHO’s work reduced the length of formal negotiation needed to arrive at a new agreement and the uncertainty associated with adopting a novel regulatory system. Its influence also raises normative questions about the proper role of international organizations in making international law—questions that require further exploration.

This thesis examines various aspects of English and Canadian charity law in terms of their relationship with the contested categories of ‘public law’ and ‘private law’. It argues that the law of charities can be regarded as a hybrid legal discipline in both a general or categorical sense, and in the context-specific or functional sense that both the conditions for obtaining charitable status, and the regulation of the conduct of charities and their trustees, are continually being adjusted in such a way as to maintain in a broad sense a functional equilibrium between individual project pursuit and collective project pursuit; that is to say, an equilibrium between the protection of the autonomy of property-owning individuals to control and direct their own wealth, and the furtherance of competing public interests or visions of the good. After sketching out the history and nature of the common law charities tradition and the contemporary English and Canadian regulatory regimes, the thesis pursues its analytical and comparative hypotheses by examining two important features of English and Canadian charity law, the public benefit doctrine and the rules of locus standi that determine who may seek relief for misapplications of charity property. It then addresses the comparatively modern issue of the governmental co-optation of charitable resources, considering to what extent modern pressures associated with the retrenchment of welfare states threaten to destabilize charity law’s hybrid equilibrium in EW and Canada. The thesis then turns to the emerging phenomenon of social enterprise, arguing that shifts to charity law’s functional equilibrium may explain the emergence of this ‘post-charitable’ legal form. The thesis concludes with some observations on the hybrid nature of the law of charities, and on the different functional equilibriums between individual project pursuit and collective project pursuit that have been reached by English and Canadian charity law.

Recent policies in England and Wales and the United States have recognised for the first time enforcement mechanisms for victims of crime under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) in the United States as well the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime in England and Wales (the Code). Although very different from one another, these policies ostensibly aimed to provide a stronger commitment to victims’ rights, by recognising an accessible, timely and impartial process that recognises accountability and provides individual remedies in cases of breaches. This thesis engages in a careful in-depth analysis of these mechanisms and their implementation based on elite qualitative interviews, case law analysis and a multidisciplinary examination of the relevant literature. It argues that on the whole, these mechanisms have presented a number of limitations, and thus in many respects cannot and have not delivered accessible, and timely means to respond to victims’ rights breaches. Most importantly, it demonstrates that for certain types of breaches and in certain contextual settings, these mechanisms have recognised only limited or no redress at all for breaches. This research takes the available victims’ literature further by arguing that many of these promises have been closer to rhetoric than reality and providing a more nuanced portrait of the substantial difficulties and limitations that relate to these enforcement mechanisms. In effect, these limitations can be understood in light of the nature and structural components of these selected mechanisms, as well as the ways they have been implemented by the main actors involved in these processes and the different contexts under which the different types of breaches take place. Finally, despite their limitations, when compared to one another, each mechanism can be considered a better option for access, timeliness and redress – depending on context and the type of breach. Following from this analysis, a complementary approach is developed which can facilitate and increase opportunity for redress for a wider range of situations. It is important to bear in mind however the limits of the complementary approach; namely, that it only includes elements inspired from the two mechanisms examined in this thesis and that there are several limitations that relate to transplants and policy transfers.