State immunity under international law extends to protect some individuals from criminal prosecution before national courts. This thesis aims to identify which individuals are immune from prosecution before the English courts, for what conduct, and for what period. The justifications for immunity are examined, and the extent of immunity ratione personae and immunity ratione materiae are explored. This thesis argues that immunity ratione personae is only narrowly available to high state officials, and that the immunity accorded, by consent, to special missions is sufficient to cover other official visits. In Pinochet (No 3) all seven judges agreed: 1. An ex-head of state is immune from prosecution for murder and conspiracy to murder alleged to have been committed in the forum state. 2. All state officials no matter how minor are entitled to continuing immunity This thesis analyses state practice in arresting or prosecuting foreign state officials, and argues that both of these statements are incorrect. This thesis argues that immunity does not attach to conduct alone, for a person to have continuing immunity ratione materiae they must have had immunity ratione personae. The forum state must have agreed to the official being present on its territory, and agreed to the purpose of the visit. Those officials present on the territory of a foreign state with the consent of that state who have immunity ratione personae have continuing immunity ratione materiae only for official conduct, acta jure imperii. This does not extend to acts of violence. Finally the development of the regime for the prosecution and punishment of international crimes by national courts is considered. The conflict with immunity is examined, and a possible reconciliation between the two principles is suggested by using the complementarity principle in the statute of the International Criminal Court.

Traditionally, the enforcement of competition rules in Europe has been predominantly via public enforcement. Following the European Court of Justice’s ruling in 2001 in which was established the right for compensation of harms suffered by any victim of antitrust infringements, the European Commission has made proposals to create a private antitrust enforcement regime. While compensation of victims is the first and foremost guiding principle, the regime thus created, should, according to the Commission, also deliver overall better compliance with competition rules whilst creating and sustaining a competitive European economy. In designing the system the Commission contends that it should not be grounded on similar features to that of the United States private enforcement mechanism as it has resulted in abuses of the system by private parties for private interests. A deconstructive reading of the Commission proposals, however, reveals that the envisaged regime contains more characteristics of the United States system than is explicitly presented. Furthermore, a direct comparison of common prohibitions in both systems exposes a significant lack of safeguards against misuse of the rules by private parties in the European system. This thesis also compares the envisaged European regime with the Canadian public enforcement regime. Despite the restricted cause of action accorded to private parties, the Canadian system is not immune from exploitation of the rules by private parties for self-interest. These findings call into question whether the proposed system will deliver the stated aims. This thesis concludes that considering the costs of private enforcement, European competition law should be solely the competence of public officials. It is argued that although not formally recognised either in the literature nor in the case law of the EU courts, the Commission is already legally empowered to award compensation to victims of antitrust violations. This thesis presents suggestions for an enhancement of the current public enforcement framework.

One of the most comprehensive collective rights regimes has been developed in the area of indigenous peoples and respective land and resource rights in particular. International legal instruments (ILO C169 and UNDRIPS) and Inter-American jurisprudence (e.g. the Saramaka and Sarayaku cases) significantly safeguard such rights. The latter materialise in the form of prior consultation mechanisms regarding natural resource extraction and ultimately exemplify indigenous peoples’ self-determination. However, practice shows that such collective mechanisms are established without truly taking indigenous peoples’ representative institutions according to their customs and traditions into account. This can be attributed to the fact that the interplay and local dynamics between indigenous communities, leaders and representative organisations are too complex to be reduced to collective wholes. In order to disentangle such dynamics, power relations between the players, issues of legitimacy, representativity and accountability of participatory mechanisms, and the inclusion of subgroups and individuals in collective decision-making are examined. By combining international legal standards and ethnographic research, a legal anthropological perspective informs this piece of research. Firstly, insights are gained by understanding individual or ‘subgroup’ rights in relation to collective claims in international and regional legal standards. Secondly, this relationship is observed by means of two case studies in the Bolivian Lowlands that shall shed light upon the implementation of such standards in the extractive sector. Thereby, specific subgroups are chosen to illustrate participatory exclusion and inequalities, including women (I), different age groups (II), monolingual people and persons with lower education levels (III) and local leaders (IV). Empirical insights draw on a prior consultation process with Guaraní people in the hydrocarbon sector and collective decision-making mechanisms in the case of Chiquitano people in the mining sector. Based on such empirical observations, a catalogue of guiding principles will be proposed in order to refine the existing UNDRIPS framework.