The Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was conceived of as the Court’s gatekeeper and empowered in the Rome Statute to provide an essential counterbalance to the significant discretionary powers granted to the Prosecutor. This thesis analyses in detail the PTC’s powers at the different stages of the Court’s proceedings in which it is called to intervene – ie pre-investigation, investigation and pre-trial stages – and argues that, in general terms and save some limitations, the PTC has the necessary tools to carry out its function. In particular, the PTC has been empowered to prevent possible abuses of power and shield the Prosecutor from external pressures through the judicial review of his most critical discretionary decisions. By way of that judicial control, the PTC is meant to examine the rationale behind the Prosecutor’s decisions in order to guarantee that the exercise of discretion is not abusive or the result of improper political pressures. This is necessary to safeguard the legitimacy of the institution as a whole and to protect the rights of those that can be affected by the Court’s investigations and prosecutions. However, a systematic evaluation of the way in which these powers have been applied reveals that the PTC’s judges have adopted a rather cautious approach to their role, showing some reluctance to firmly scrutinise the Prosecutor’s exercise of discretion. As a result of the Court’s inherent limitations and the political climate in which it operates, there is a concrete risk that external actors may try to politicise the role of the Court, exerting political pressures on the Prosecutor. The adoption of a more proactive and firm role by the PTC will not only encourage a more transparent decision-making process by the Prosecutor, but will also urge cooperation and genuine investigations and prosecutions at the national level, therefore minimising the risk of the Court’s political instrumentalisation. Accordingly, this thesis argues that, for as long as the PTC boldly embraces its full powers, the ICC will function smoothly and strengthen its reputation as a fair and impartial means by which to obtain international criminal justice.

The argument of this thesis is that measures taken by international bodies to establish the rule of law in postconflict situations are undertaken in the mistaken belief that they will automatically enhance conditions for the rule of law to flourish. In fact, examination of the situation in Southern Sudan demonstrates that there is a wide disconnection between the measures pursued and the outcome of the process. This study will therefore inquire into the different meanings attributed to the concept of the rule of law in order to establish what the concept signifies in the context of statebuilding, with a focus on Southern Sudan. How does the theoretical understanding of the rule of law correlate with the legal and institutional measures taken by international organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union to build the effectiveness of the state in Southern Sudan? The study will further address issues such as what kind of state institutions are envisaged by rule of law reforms, together with the historical and theoretical imperatives which orient and drive the rule of law building process in post-conflict situations. The research is envisaged as a contribution to the debate on how to make ‘rule of law work on the ground’. It is hoped that if practitioners and policy makers take into account the findings of this study, their contribution to rule of law reforms in countries like Southern Sudan that have experienced protracted conflicts will not only achieve their objectives of reforms but also significantly improve the social and economic wellbeing and human rights protection of the people in whose name these reforms are pursued.

This study investigates the effect of the application of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia on the finality of arbitral awards on the basis of questions of law and public policy. International arbitration laws tend to circumvent the two issues by limiting the scope of their applicability. Based on the need to retain a degree of authority over enforcement of arbitral awards and other internationally issued legal determinations, this study finds that the Saudi Arbitration Law 2012 Act has some positive features and moves closer to international law in comparison to the Old Saudi Law, specifically on the issue of finality. The study finds that although not on a par with international law, it is a step in the right direction for Saudi Law to work more flexibly in the international sphere with issues involving finality. Where in the past, issues would not have been resolved due to the refusal to enforce arbitral awards, a more facilitating scenario comes about and the scope of enforcement of finality is set to rise due to the New Saudi Law. In addition, this study finds that the Saudi 2012 Act demonstrates the willingness of the Kingdom to cooperate with international laws. Although this is a breakthrough in dealing with finality, a fundamental principle of Saudi law is that the new Saudi law Act conforms to Sharia and the Kingdom’s public policy. However, with a lack of empirical cases specifically involving the New Saudi Law, it is yet to be established that it has achieved the positive impact intended. This study supports continued efforts and ultimately recommends the decision to work towards the amendment of Saudi law to better aid the achievement of finality without undue subjection to unnecessary scrutiny based on public policy requirements and also to realign Saudi public policy with international standards while maintaining fidelity to the values and principles of Sharia law.

States may avoid categorising responses to terrorism as armed conflict and yet still use lethal force, administrative detention and other tactics or procedures more usually associated with armed conflict. States are then potentially able to derogate from certain liberty and fair trial norms under the human rights treaties that some suggest are irreducible if international humanitarian law is applicable. States may also interpret the requirement of humane treatment in line with what may appear to be a lower standard of treatment required by certain of the human rights treaties. This thesis examines whether the fundamental rights to liberty, fair trial and humane treatment differ during responses to contemporary terrorism above or below the armed conflict threshold. The thesis concludes that there is little difference between the two regimes of international humanitarian law and human rights law in relation to the irreducible core of these fundamental rights and so it may not be important, in these respects at least, to be clear whether or not an armed conflict exists in legal terms. However, for these fundamental rights, States parties to any of the regional human rights treaties are increasingly unlikely to be able to claim a lack of jurisdiction and so a rights vacuum for those they would call terrorists during extra-territorial operations.

The Olympic Movement has a constantly expanding mandate which has seen it venture into many fields other than simple staging of the Olympic Games. For example, it has extended its mandate into the equal representation of women in sport, but more importantly, this thesis examines its new mandate of building peace through sport, which is contained in the Olympic Charter’s 2nd Fundamental Principle of Olympism. It has also indirectly influenced the production of the UNGA Olympic Truce Resolutions, by calling on the UN to revive the ‘concept of ekecheiria’. However, the Olympic Truce Resolutions are frequently flouted, and more often than not, by the Host Nation itself, including the UK and the USA in recent years. This thesis examines a possible solution to this failing, which is the Olympic Truce Resolutions codification into a binding Treaty where states and the entire Movement are party to it. This thesis recognises that there is the inherent problem in this, in that the Olympic Movement is not comprised of states. Its core actors are the International Olympic Committee, National Olympic Committees, and International Sporting Federations (and to a lesser extent OCOGs). Hence this thesis submits the novel concept of Olympic Singularity, eight unusual features that amplify the EU doctrine of the specificity of sport on the Olympic playing field. These eight cumulative features unite to allow the Movement to be co-signatories to the Truce Treaty, alongside states. It also enables the Movement to govern the Truce Treaty and any sanctions thereof. Again, this is because of the features of Olympic Singularity, the most notable of which is that the Movement is unusual because of its universal singular webbed framework which necessitates its consideration as a single powerful organ capable of action on the international stage equivalent to states. Olympic Singularity justifies the Movement’s special treatment before law, in the form of an atypical international law subject, in that it unites independent actors into one organ, enabling them to have capacity on a par with those reserved to states and international governmental organisations. This would only take the form of governing and sanctioning a Truce Treaty. This thesis examines precedent for this in that the ancient Olympic Games were governed by a single state who dispensed real sanctions for the breach of ekecheiria. It also examines in a case study, South Africa which shows that the end of apartheid was assisted by the UN and the Movement uniting and using sport by way of a binding international Treaty, ICAAS 1985. Hence the capacity of the state system was required alongside the recognition of all involved that it was a Treaty.

In the contemporary political world order that continues to be structured by the principle of national sovereignty, states remain the most important instrument for the delivery of rights. If we want to understand how human rights can be realized in practice, we therefore have to study the conditions and processes of their institutionalization on the state level. While the United Kingdom was relatively slow, compared to other western European democracies, in the domestic institutionalization of international human rights norms and standards, governments in Britain have between 1998 and 2008 created a complex human rights regime that still awaits a comprehensive analysis and assessment. This thesis fills that gap. Focusing on the Human Rights Act as the legal centerpiece, the Joint Committee on Human Rights as the parliamentary scrutiny body, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission for Great Britain as the largest human rights commission, this thesis examines the extent to which the British Human Rights Regime has contributed to the institutionalization of human rights in the UK. To that end, it develops and deploys the sociological ideal type of the human rights state as a qualitative analytical framework and as an external benchmark that is able to integrate the legal, political, and wider societal dimensions of effective human rights institutionalization. Based on the thematic analysis of case law, official documents and elite interviews with public officials, this thesis argues that the Human Rights Act, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have contributed to a significant institutional change in the domestic recognition and protection of human rights. They have introduced new rights norms and safeguards into British law, established new mechanisms for judicial and political rights review, and brought about important legislative and policy changes. Yet, their efficacy suffers from structural limitations that have been imposed so as not to fundamentally disturb the concentration of political power in the executive which is preserved by the constitutional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. In the Westminster system of parliamentary government, this doctrine continues to allow the executive to dominate the legislative process without strong constitutional human rights safeguards that would be domestically enforceable against primary legislation. While the preservation of parliamentary sovereignty was a key political requirement that enabled progress to the present state of domestic human rights institutionalization, it also prevents the sustainable entrenchment of human rights as fundamental and universally binding norms for the legitimate exercise of all juridical, legislative and executive state power, thereby leaving the British Human Rights Regime at permanent risk of abolishment or degradation.