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This work examines in depth the issue of the accused's own words as evidence against him in a Scottish criminal court. The work begins with a brief consideration of the historic development of the modern Scottish criminal justice system with particular emphasis on the position of the accused within that system. The literature of the topic is next considered. The right to silence is discussed in some detail, encompassing the modern law in both Scotland and England as well as the various, mainly English, proposals to attenuate the right under the guise of law reform. The early history of confessions in Scotland is examined before turning to the issue of the admissibility of confession evidence. The bulk of this discussion focusses, not surprisingly, on confessions to the police with the development of the law being traced on a case-by-case basis, but all other types of confession evidence are also treated. A comparative note on the English law is included. The issue of corroboration of confession evidence has recently received a considerable amount of attention in the press both legal and lay, and the present work examines both the general issues involved as well as the particular dangers caused by the development of the so-called `special knowledge' confession. Once again comparison is made with English law. The exceptional situation in Northern Ireland is considered in order to demonstrate, albeit in an extreme form, the dangers of unsupervised interrogation and other activities by the forces of `law and order' and the inquisitorial system is likewise considered to see what lessons, if any, can be learned and to identify the dangers and pitfalls of the main alternative procedural system.

Accidents involving vessels carrying oil or other hazardous and noxious substances have been in many cases the cause of spillage with devastating consequences on the local economic and the environment. This was highlighted by the Torrey Canyon incident, in March 1967, which proved that there is inadequate legal means, at international level, to cope with the problems in the recovery of the considerable expenditure involved in taking preventive measures, cleaning up and damage to the third parties and the environment. This thesis is an attempt to explore, analyse and develop a legal framework aimed at compensating and insuring against pollution liability at sea. The international response in providing liability and compensation and the role of insurance in solving these problems has been carefully considered throughout this thesis. This thesis is divided in 5 parts beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion and bibliography. Part one, which comprises six chapters, seeks to overview the range of legal cases whereby liability for compensation and insurance of pollution damage may be established. The role of Tort or Delict, principally Negligence, Trespass and Nuisance, in establishing liability forms section one of this part. Chapter two outlines the role of two voluntary agreements, TOVALOP and CRISTAL, in settling the question of the liability and financial cover of the casts of oil spillage by tankers. A descriptive and analytical approach, regarding the compensation and insurance, is linked to the discussion of mandatory conventional liability for oil and other noxious substances. This is considered in chapter three, chapter four and chapter five, under the MARPOL 73/78, CLC, FC and HNS in full. Chapter six considers the place of liability cover in the marine insurance market and seeks to find a place for pollution liability cover.

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Principally, joint stock companies are governed by the principle of majority rule, which means that while they are formed and continue to work through participation of every shareholder, only those who hold a majority of voting shares can make decisions in companies. The principle relies on contract and is often supported by company law. In the main, it is advantageous to companies, the Judiciary and the economy. It facilitates collective action, allows management to focus on the daily running of the company business and encourages corporate financing, which is decisively important for corporations. It also saves, by curbing minority actions, the courts’ time and the public budget. In one sense, however, it can also be dangerous to the rights and interests of minority shareholders. Using the majority rule, majority shareholders may fix for themselves private benefits or adopt policies which are poor and consequently harmful to companies. Such danger could discourage likely investors from investing their capital in companies and might undermine one of the main purposes of the corporation as an institution introduced by law and business practice to solve problems encountered in raising substantial amounts of capital. This research seeks to study in the light of English and Iranian company laws difficulties deriving from application of the majority rule for minority shareholders and possible ways and mechanisms which can be used to sensibly curb the occurrence of such difficulties. To this objective, it identifies four factors which can explain how and why the rule is liable to abuse by majority shareholders and examines the mechanisms provided by company laws of England and Iran which attempt to strike a balance between the rule of majority and interests of minority shareholders.

Recent managerial and organisational changes through the new public management, organisational restructuring and consumerism are studied from the backgrounds of each country, for example, the significance, peculiarity and influence of public sector reforms in the UK or in China or elsewhere. Fewer articles have centred on a comparative perspective in public sector reforms, which have occurred recently in both the UK and China. The aim of this study was to provide readers with a better understanding of the major thrusts of administrative reforms, how they have affected those managing the services, and their restructuring, and how public sector reform ideas have integrated with the practice of public sector reforms. A comparative legal method was employed by which these changes were investigated and studied theoretically and practically, with a wide range of studies from government documents, both published openly and internally, a literature search from academic sources and interviews. The results indicated that similar objectives, namely streamlining governmental institutions, raising efficiency and effectiveness in administrative management, and the primacy of consumers, are pursued in both China and the UK although the developments varied in degree and scope. These findings suggest that a comparative approach might be the most suitable in seeking to provide an interpretative rationale rather than a purely abstract analysis of administrative reform agenda. No one should accept the ready-made blueprints of public sector reforms without considering their own economic circumstances, social culture and political manifesto.

This thesis comprises an examination of choice of law rules in property. The study is principally concerned with the Scottish rules of international private law, but these, in turn, rely heavily upon, and in many respects are indistinguishable from, the equivalent English rules. Indeed, they seem in places to be mutually dependent. An examination is conducted of choice of law methodology, including in particular, an analysis of the configuration of choice of law rules. Consideration is given to the role of the connecting factor, and to the definition thereof, in its spatial, temporal and dimensional contexts. Throughout the thesis, a contrast is drawn between the jurisdiction-selecting approach of Scottish and English international private law, and the rule-selecting techniques which are employed in the United States of America. Central to the thesis is an examination of the role and definition of the connecting factor in the particular context of choice of law rules in property. The study traces the development of the lex situs rule, and its application to dealings with immovable property, corporeal moveable property and incorporeal moveable property, as well as the special case of dealings with 'cultural property'. Arguments in favour of, and against, the lex situs rule, in these various contexts, are considered, and special attention is paid to instances of latent and patent avoidance of the lex situs rule. In order to integrate the methodology analysis with the detailed study of choice of law in property, two alternative Models of suggested choice of law rules in property are presented for consideration; Model 1 is intended to be a draft international instrument, whereas Model 2, the more moderate proposal, is intended only as a draft national measure. The Models seek to embody the author's desire to inject a greater degree of flexibility into choice of law rules in property, and to attempt to formulate even-handed solutions to the complex problems (of space, time and policy) which arise in this area of the conflict of laws.

This thesis attempts to deal with the question of whether the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizens of the Member States of the European Community should be entrusted to a uniformly applied set of norms. In other words, it discusses whether the legal area of human rights should be subjected to the process of integration that has been characteristic of the development of the European Community in the last fifty years. In doing so, the thesis initially introduces the principles of efficiency and uniformity and presumes that efficiency of protection of human rights exists when protection is afforded by means of uniformly applied sets of norms, whereas inefficiency exists when protection is fragmented. The validity of these presumptions is then tested on two non unitary entities, the European Community and the United States of America. This is done by means of an analysis of the whole spectrum of the protective measures available in these entities, which includes the uniformly applied sets of norms for each one of them, the European Convention on Human Rights, as regards the European Community, and the Bill of Rights of the American Constitution, as regards the United States of America. As a result of this analysis the thesis questions the validity of the two presumptions initially made. Indeed in Europe, where the protection of the human rights of the individual is significantly fragmented, there are no indications that this protection is inefficient. In the United States of America, on the other hand, where the protection of the rights of individual is overwhelmingly bestowed upon the uniformly applied provisions of the federal Bill of Rights, efficiency problems seem to exist.