This thesis offers a critical analysis of the role of the free press in liberal democracies. The purpose is to explore why this institution remains a fundamental element of this political system despite its limitations in the mediation of social reality. Although the critical literature has substantially contributed to unveiling the problems of the ‘free press’, however, it has not been able to contribute in the same way to explaining its resilience. This is because the critical literature has generally conceived the problem of the free press as one of false consciousness, as something that might be removable or disposable, hence, the ‘illusion of the free press’. This thesis supercedes this critical approach. It starts from the assumption that the illusion of the free press is not removable. It is, by contrast, structurally ingrained in the institution itself and in its modes of production. It is expressed both in the aspiration of the press to communicate reality as it is and in the correspondent expectation of the public that it will achieve this aim. The idea of the free press is, in other words, founded on the union between freedom and truth, values whose realization require modes of communication which contradict each other. This thesis runs an immanent critique of liberal theories of the free press in order to explore within established liberal discourse the contradictions ingrained in this institution. This analysis will reveal that truth has a significant place in the most prominent justifications of the free press, although its contemporary versions, such as democratic and autonomy theories, have traditionally rejected its truth-seeking purpose. These findings are a contribution to the critical literature on the subject and reaffirm the urgent task of re-thinking the role of the free press in liberal democracies in consonance with its limitations and actual possibilities.

Arbitration is now generally accepted as a principle method of solving disputes in commercial transactions. It is no longer a product to be advertised in seminars or symposiums related to international trade, rather it is a must in international business transactions. Because we have reached a point where most countries have adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on arbitration and become party to the 1958 New York Convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards, we believe that some studies from the Islamic perspective are necessary in order to find a route to the theory of the delocalisation of arbitration. Moreover, at the time when practitioners are calling for the internationalisation of arbitration, I believe that my duty as a former Secretary of the Arbitration Board at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh is to discuss, evaluate, and present the situation as it stands today. It is also, our responsibility to propose a route to its harmonisation within the international standards of arbitration. The idea of providing a historical background to arbitration is not solely for the purpose of historical research. However, as we will see in later chapters when we describe the Saudi legal system, Shari'a law and Islamic jurisprudence are the main laws of the land, and they are applicable whenever there is a statutory vacuum. Therefore, an Islamic solution has to be found when addressing any problems related to arbitration in this research. Also, the purpose of this research is to set down the reasons that have made people believe that Saudi Arabia, of all the Arab Middle Eastern countries, is indeed the one in most need of a well-developed arbitration system, since some of the major banking and commercial activities are not permitted to come before the Shari'a courts. Moreover, in the year 2000 Saudi Arabia implemented the Foreign Investment Act, which liberalizes foreign investment in the Kingdom. The Saudi Arabian Government Investment Authority, which has responsibility for licensing all new foreign investment in Saudi Arabia, was created under the Act. This of course comes as a result of the government's desire to diversify the sources of national income. All these reasons should have an affect on developing commercial law in general and arbitration in particular.

This thesis starts from the perspective that although certain sections of the Nigeria‘s Arbitration and Conciliation Act 2004 need to be reformed, the principles of the Act are centered on enforceability, fairness, impartiality, avoidance of unnecessary delay, party autonomy and the restriction of unnecessary court intervention. These principles reflect the basis of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International commercial arbitration 1985, the New York Convention 1958 and many modern Arbitration Laws. The object of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act can also be illustrated by Nigeria‘s ratification of the New York Convention in June 1970 and the adoption of the UNCITRAL Model law on international commercial arbitration and model rules in 1985. With the ratification of the New York Convention, the Nigerian national courts have been supporting the enforcements of international commercial arbitration agreements and foreign arbitration awards rendered in any country that is a party to the New York Convention; unless such arbitration agreements and/or awards are contrary to Nigeria‘s public policy as permitted by Article V (Vii) (b) (i) (ii) of the Convention. But, despite all the efforts Nigeria has made in modernising its arbitration laws, and signing up to the major treaties, Nigerian laws and venues are hardly selected in international commercial arbitration agreements most likely because of a lack of awareness by commercial parties that although a few sections of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act need to be reformed, the Act, and indeed, many modern Arbitration laws in Africa are capable of enforcing international commercial arbitration agreements and awards. Accordingly, the present researcher promotes the thesis that, although some sections of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 2004 need to be reformed, the Act is effective, comprehensive, adequate, certain and predictable for the enforcement of international commercial arbitration agreements and awards as those of other countries with modern Arbitration laws.

The aim of this interdisciplinary thesis is to deconstruct the concept of witness vulnerability in the Northern Ireland criminal justice system. Despite a vast amount of quantitative and qualitative research, the scientific understanding of witness vulnerability is limited. This study has made an original contribution.to the 'social scientific understanding of witness vulnerability in two ways: first, by applying an ecological approach and second, by the creation of the theoretical Ecological Model of Witness Vulnerability (EMWV). This thesis fulfilled three objectives: the first was to critically review legislation, . academic and policy literature which revealed that the legal definition of vulnerable witnesses is too exclusive and ignores a range of variables that may influence witness vulnerability. For the purposes of this thesis, witness vulnerability was defined as the outcome of the dynamic interaction between a range of psychological, social and criminal justice variables which can diminish a witness's capacity to provide their best evidence in a criminal trial. Second, over a 24 month period, courthouse observations and 81 semi-structured interviews with victims, complainants, witnesses, key staff and . volunteers explored the experiences and perceptions of witness vulnerability. Interviews were . analysed inductively using Thematic Data Analysis which identified the key themes and patterns. Third, drawing on literature and primary data, the EMWV, which identified the factors influencing witness vulnerability, was created. It is concluded that special measures are being regularly offered to young witnesses and rape victims but not vulnerable adults who continue to face structural obstacles in the criminal justice system. The Liverpool City Council Investigations Support Unit is presented as a proposed solution to the problems experienced by vulnerable adults at trial. It is recommended that the Department of Justice gives serious consideration to the establishment of a specialist support service for vulnerable adults in Northern Ireland.

This research studies the historical and political move from secrecy to transparency in international negotiation, and investigates to what extent the latter constitutes a political progress. • Exploring century-old texts on diplomatic practice, Chapter 1 shows how secrecy was constructed as the norm of international negotiations (from the Renaissance to the apex of absolute monarchy): both the negotiation process and outcome could be veiled. • Secrecy has then been contested by the principle of publicity, the philosophical roots of which are examined (from the Enlightenment to Wilson): negotiation process could remain secret, but it became generally agreed that its outcome should be made public (Chapter 2). • Chapter 3 introduces the concept of injunction of transparency: in contemporary times, secrecy is contested by a powerful demand for exposure, which gradually expands into negotiation arenas. Consequently, the negotiation process itself is under an increasing pressure to be made public. Simmel' s works on secret societies help analyse this evolution. It is then demonstrated, from the viewpoint of negotiation theories and techniques, that secrecy and transparency towards third-parties constitute a dilemma - or a tension, as the literature puts it - between efficiency of the process and legitimacy of the outcome. Chapter 4 builds two ideal-types of negotiations - totally secret or totally transparent towards third parties - to highlight their key characteristics. Extreme transparency dissolves the boundary between the negotiation table and "the rest of the world", enabling stakeholders to interfere. The original concepts of quasi-negotiator and quasi-multilateral negotiations are constructed. • Chapter 5 examines how the dilemma is handled in practice. Consideration is given to the "closed door diplomacy" model, followed by a discussion of partial secrecy, and temporal secrecy. The issue of asymmetry is addressed, in relation with the sustainability of secrecy over time. • In order to verify the previous findings, Chapter 6 provides a case study of the international negotiations on air services agreements, based on the 1944 Chicago Convention, and which feature the interplay between secrecy and transparency.

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This work looks at the legal texts known as the Tomb Robbery Papyri of the 19th and 20th Dynasties, with particular focus on the social and pragmatic power dynamic between the Tribunal and the Accused. The aim is to examine how far the strategies and wants of the Tribunal and Accused can be assessed through pragmatic theory and social status, and what effect these strategies and wants have on the discourse. This has been done through Politeness Theory, Face Threatening Acts, Questioning Strategy (Interrogatives/Speech Acts), Response Strategy, and similar courtroom situations such as the Early Modern English Courtroom. Upon examining these interactions, it becomes clear that not only did the Tribunal have a questioning strategy designed to elicit the most information through Face Threatening Acts and Impoliteness, but the response strategy of the Accused, despite their lack of legal representation, is, in some cases, a fairly substantial rebuttal for those in such a weak position. It becomes evident that while some Accused were prompted to provide long narrative answers of their misdeeds (often as a result of torture, though not without their own strategy of implicating others), or utilise what are termed in this thesis as “denial phrases”, such as bpy=i ptr (I did not see) or wA r=i wA r Ha=i (Far from me, far from my body), with their testimonies being relatively short and containing little information, others chose a more combative stance. These more combative responses are shown to have a greater number of back and forth responses between Tribunal and Accused, which often involve each discourse participant changing strategy so as to gain leverage, albeit temporarily, over the other. This type of answering strategy is also shown to contain more ‘focus constructions’ such as the Second Tense or Pseudo Cleft sentence, which demonstrate the Accused’s attempts to subvert the questioning narrative of the Tribunal and replace it with their own ‘truth’. This thesis demonstrates that there is more to the interactions between Tribunal and Accused in this corpus than simply well-ordered questions and responses.

This thesis concerns the implementation of the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (henceforth, NYC). It addresses some contemporary problems associated with the implementation of the NYC and considers the Arab Gulf states (henceforth, GCC states) as a case study to illustrate these problems. The thesis first examines how different judicial interpretations of the NYC provisions may weaken the efficiency of the well-established legal framework that regulates the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards as established by the NYC, and developed by the practice of many jurisdictions during the last fifty years. Following this, it examines whether the laws and court decisions on the NYC in the GCC states are compatible with the best standards of international practice in this field.

This thesis is a comparative study of outcomes of the criminal process in customary and magistrate courts in Botswana with specific reference to sentencing outcomes. The main objective of the study was to determine whether differences in the structure of the sentencing discretion of judges of customary and magistrate courts as regards the types and combinations of punishments they may impose in respect of any offence triable in either type of court resulted in the imposition of unjustifiably dissimilar punishments for similar offences. Accordingly, the study examined and compared disposals and sentencing patterns of the customary and magistrate courts more generally, and more specifically the use and severity of multiple punishment(s) awarded by the two courts in respect of similar offences in the period 1991-2001. The primary hypothesis was substantially, if only partially supported, in so far as it assumed that differences in the use and severity of multiple punishments could be explained primarily in terms of differences in the discretion of the judges as regards combinations of punishments they may employ against any particular triable-either-way offence. The study found that, though some of the differences in types and combinations of multiple punishments deployed by the two courts could be attributed to differences in the structure of the discretion as to combination of punishments as postulated, some could not be explained in those terms despite the apparent exclusive use by one type of court as against the other of particular combinations of multiple punishments. Nevertheless, the study found that when customary courts employed multiple punishments, they tended to punish more severely than magistrate courts did similar offences. This was evident from the following general patterns: (a) the variety of punishment combinations deployed by customary courts exceeded those employed by magistrate courts, sometimes by a very wide margin (b) it was not unusual for the average number of multiple punishments used to punish a single offence in customary courts to exceed three whereas those deployed by magistrate courts rarely exceeded two (c)customary courts registered the highest severity scores across all offence groups considered (d) the severity score differentials ranged from large to very large. Taken together, these differences amounted to unjustifiable disparities between the sentencing outcomes of the two courts.