The present thesis examines how and to what extent EU (public procurement) law has an influence on the way a public authority organises and discharges its public service tasks. The object of the thesis is limited to cooperative agreements (public contracts and service concessions) concluded between public authorities as a means to organise or discharge public service tasks. The objectives of EU internal market law and public procurement law bring the decision of public authorities to cooperate within the scope of EU law. Each time such decision could distort competition or hinder market access, EU internal market law applies. The CJEU has elaborated criteria on the basis of the public procurement Directives, which determine when such distortion or hindrance is present. These criteria determine when EU (public procurement) law influences national administrative law. This influence is apparent in the case law of the Supreme Courts in France and England.

There is an increasing recognition within the international system, of the need to understand Islamic law and legal system. This is due to the realisation that it either underpins or at least influences to some degree not only the legal but also the socio-cultural outlook of about a quarter of the world’s population. In line with this reality, this study investigates delictual liability of the state under Saudi law. It evaluates what is the position of the Saudi courts in determining the liability of public authorities for delict and the extent to which the applications of the current principles of delictual liability are useful and sufficient for effectively tackling the growing number of cases that are confronting the public bodies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A focal point of this study is the focus on a system of law which claims universal applicability, even more, a law for all times. For Muslims, the Shar’iah is a code that covers all aspects of life and is applicable to all situations. It governs individual and social relations and as such is claimed to be applied, to various degrees, all across the Muslim world and beyond even where Muslims live as minorities. However, a persistent concern, with advocates and sceptics of the system, remains the viability of a legal system steeped in a specific historical and even contextual setting, in societies and climes across the world. This study has sought to engage an aspect of that issue; namely the applicability of Shar’iah principles to state liability for delictual conduct through an interrogation of the experience in Saudi Arabia, commonly perceived to be a conservative Islamic society. The exploration in this study hopefully provides a useful insight on the veracity or otherwise of the adaptability of Islamic law to all aspects of life and in the contemporary period. The position argued in this study is that Shari’ah does contain mechanisms that make its application viable even in complex areas of law like the delictual liability of the state.

It has become a trend today that states adopt universal jurisdiction in their domestic law. At the same time, the actual exercise of universal jurisdiction has often led to a dispute among states. While there are many ‘international’ aspects relating to this phenomenon, there is still no consensus among international scholars even over the scope of crimes that are subject to universal jurisdiction, let alone the modalities of its exercise. This confusion is caused by the way in which jurisdiction is conceptualized: while prevailing view sees jurisdiction as a right or entitlement attributed by international law, this view is premised on a particular understanding of the legal system of jurisdiction that sees it as a set of permissive rules of international law. However, it may not capture the reality of jurisdiction, where international law does not always regulate the assertion of prescriptive jurisdiction, while the actual exercise of jurisdiction is still subject to several restraint either in relation to other states or with regard to the rights of accused individuals. Against this background, Part I of the dissertation re-examines the legal system of jurisdiction and applies it to the specific framework of universal jurisdiction. First, this study seeks to find the elements that actually restraint the exercise of jurisdiction in general. It concludes that the exercise of jurisdiction should be examined from the perspective of whether and to what extent it may secure effectiveness of enforcement, legitimacy (necessity) of claim, and foreseeability of law and forum. Building on this analysis, this study further seeks for a justifying ground of universal jurisdiction by applying the general framework of jurisdiction. It is suggested that at least the legitimacy (necessity) of claim is provided by the fact that states have been less interested in tolerating impunity for certain types of international crimes and also been more aware of the necessity for the exercise of jurisdiction in order to compensate for the failure of territorial or national states of the offender in the suppression of these crimes With those insights, Part II further explores a framework in which the conflict resulting from the concurrent claims of jurisdiction. The focus is on the idea of subsidiarity, which designates universal jurisdiction as a default mechanism. While this idea has been gaining support, it is pointed out that the feasibility of subsidiarity depends on how situations of inability and unwillingness are identified in a decentralized discourse. Regarding this, this study argues that the notion of obligation to prosecute can play a key role: a state of non-performance of obligation to prosecute can be conceived as an abusive use of power on the part of territorial or national states, thereby vesting the assessment of inability and unwillingness with certain objectivity. This provides a ground for legal discourse between territorial or national states and states exercising universal jurisdiction.

This thesis is an inquiry into the inherent divergence and emerging convergence of ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration. Based on the argument that investor-State arbitration is an intricate interplay of diverse actors with compatible or disparate interests, this study investigates the substantial divergences between ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration by evaluating the jurisdiction of tribunals, the role of institutions, post-awards remedies and the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards. It also examines the consequential, but discrepant, impact of the divergences on the safeguarding of State sovereignty, the protection of foreign investors’ rights, the enhancement of legitimacy of investment arbitration and the endorsement of public interests. It further puts forward fair, efficient, accountable and legitimate ways that would tentatively or constructively improve the entire dispute resolution system in the realm of international investment. In scrutinizing the interplay and interaction between ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration, the thesis argues that the symbiosis of ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration creates and maintains a relatively stable environment where a number of factors serve as engines for promoting directly or indirectly the convergence of ICSID and non-ICSID arbitration.

This thesis conducts a robust and granular examination of the concept of ‘object’ under Article 101(1) TFEU and its resulting legal and practical implications. To that end, a methodology focusing on the case law of the European Courts and other primary sources is adopted. This enables a legal analysis of the meaning, application and role of restrictions of competition by object to be undertaken. The case law reveals three key approaches adopted by the European Courts to restrictions by object: the ‘orthodox approach’, the ‘more analytical approach’ and an amalgamation of these two approaches, the ‘hybrid approach’. This finding immediately questions the dominance of the orthodox approach within legal discourse over the years. The orthodox approach contends that a limited category of agreements are considered by law to automatically restrict competition by virtue of their object. This is reflected in the European Commission’s Article 81(3) Guidelines and is encapsulated by the widely recognised ‘object box’. This thesis poses a direct challenge to such narrow interpretation of the law. It argues that this depiction of the law does not fully reflect the jurisprudence of the European Courts. Rather the case law reveals an alternative interpretation of the concept of object based on the seminal case of Société Technique Minière concerned more with determining the aim of the agreement within its legal and economic context as opposed to its categorisation. Moreover, the ‘more analytical approach’ benefits from greater judicial support. Having established the three key approaches and their application under Article 101(1) TFEU, the question of what is the best interpretation of the law on restrictions of competition by ‘object’ is reflected on. Based on the case law of the European Courts, it is argued the more analytical approach provides the best interpretation of the law. This is assessed in relation to the framework of Article 101 TFEU as a whole. Finally, this thesis briefly explores whether such conclusion is then consistent with the optimum function of the object criterion from an enforcement perspective.

This work attempt to trace the development of criminal law in Jamaica from 1655 when the English captured the Island, up to 1900. In tracing this development emphasis is placed more on legislative enactments and their policies than on judicial decisions, for it was in the field of penal legislation the Jamaican law tended to differ from English law. In chapter 1, the introduction of English law into the Island is outline, and a theory as to Jamaica's status is proposed. In Chapters 2 and 3 the background in which the penal legislation was enacted and administered in the 18th and 19th centuries is related. This necessitates an examination of the inhabitants, the legislators, the judiciary and the legal institutions. In Chapters 4 and 5 the penal legislation relating to slaves is discussed. The various legislative devices aimed at preventing rebellions and at protecting the slave owners' property are related. In Chapters 6, 7 and 8 the laws to protect the State, Persons and Property respectively are outlined. In Chapter 9, four problems of particular importance to Jamaica are examined. These problems are Piracy, Obeah, Praedial larceny and Vagrancy. In Chapter 10 the attempt to codify the criminal law is related. Reasons for the failure at codification are suggested. In Chapter 11 a brief look is taken at certain trends in penal legislation in the 20th century. In Chapter 12, conclusions are drawn on the data provided in the preceding Chapters and certain proposals relative to the criminal law of Jamaica are put forward.

This research project stems from a single puzzle: how can constitutional amendments be unconstitutional? Adopting a combination of theoretical and comparative enquiries, this thesis establishes the nature and scope of constitutional amendment powers by focusing on the question of substantive limitations on the amendment power, looking at both their prevalence in practice and the conceptual coherence of the very idea of limitations to amendment powers. The thesis is composed of three parts. The first part is comparative. It examines substantive explicit and implicit limitations on constitutional amendment powers through manifold descriptions of a similar constitutional phenomenon across countries, demonstrating a comprehensive pattern of a constitutional behaviour. This process is theory-driven, and the second part of the thesis constructs a general theory of unamendability, which explains the nature and scope of amendment powers. The third part explains how judicial review of amendments is to be conceived in light of the theory of unamendability, and further assesses the possible objections to the theory of unamendability. The theory of unamendability identifies and develops a middle ground between constituent power and pure constituted power, a middle ground that is suggested by the French literature on ‘derived constituent power’. Undergirding the discussion, therefore, is a simple yet fundamental distinction between primary constituent (constitution-making) power and secondary constituent (constitution-amending) power. This distinction, understood in terms of an act of delegation of powers, enables the construction of a theory of the limited (explicitly or implicitly) scope of secondary constituent powers. This distinction is supplemented by a further one, between various shades of secondary constituent powers along a ‘spectrum’, a theoretical construct that links amendment procedures to limitations on amendment powers. The theory of unamendability explicates the limited nature of amendment powers and the practice of judicial review of amendments, thus clarifying the puzzle of unconstitutional constitutional amendments.

During the 2000s the terms ‘imperialism’ and ‘empire’ made a reappearance. This reappearance followed ‘unilateral’ military interventions by the United States and its allies. Because these military interventions were all justified using international legal argument that the international legal discipline also became increasingly concerned with these terms. Given this, it is unsurprising that there also arose two critical schools of thinking about international law, who foregrounded its relationship to imperialism. These were those working in the Marxist tradition and the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) movement. Both of these intellectual movements are contemporary examples of older traditions. Despite this popularity, there has been little sustained attention to the specific concepts of imperialism that underlie these debates. This thesis attempts to move beyond this, through mapping the way in which Marxist and TWAIL scholars have understood imperialism and its relationship to international law. The thesis begins by reconstructing the conceptual history of the terms ‘colonialism’, ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’, drawing out how they are enmeshed in broader theoretical and historical moments. In particular it pays close attention to the historical and political consequences of adopting particular understandings of these concepts. It then examines how these understandings have played out concretely. It reconstructs earlier Third Worldist thinking about imperialism and international law, before showing how contemporary TWAIL scholars have understood this relationship. It then looks at how the Marxist tradition has understood imperialism, before turning specifically to Marxist international legal theory. Finally, it turns to the interrelationship between Marxist and Third Worldist theory, arguing that each tradition can contribute to remedying the limitations in the other. In so doing it also attempts to flag up the complex historical inter-relation between these two traditions of thinking about imperialism and international law.

This research investigates the theoretical foundations of EU competition tying law. While tying prohibitions have existed in the EEC Treaty since 1957 the theoretical foundations of tying are not well understood. This thesis provides crucial insight into the theory and theoretical validity of tying law. This thesis focuses on answering three questions in relation to tying: One, what was the original economic theory underlying the prohibition on tying? Two, how has this changed and on what economic principles is tying law currently based? Three, are these principles appropriately aligned with the current state of economic thinking? In order to answer these three questions this thesis considers three leading schools of thought in competition law (Ordoliberalism, the Chicago School of antitrust analysis and post-Chicago antitrust analysis) before analysing the jurisprudence of the EU Commission and courts and establishing which theory forms the foundation of EU tying law. This research makes an interdisciplinary contribution through the use of both legal-historical analysis and legal-economic analysis. This yields important results on the historical development of tying law in Europe and also provides an economic analysis of the validity of EU law, assessing whether the aims of the law are economically valid and effectively applied. Where there are failures in the application of the law, normative proposals are given in order to demonstrate how the law and its application can be improved. The result of this analysis is to establish two distinct periods of theoretical influence (the author calls these the mono- and di-theoretical periods). A novel analysis of the tying decisions made in the software market is also presented and a new theory of foreclosure proposed that explains the decisions made in that market.

The thesis identifies the relevant canons in the 1983 Code of Canon Law and other norms and reviews the areas which require consultation with experts. Part I focuses on the administrative forum, in particular: art, architecture and finance; admission to and suitability for Holy Orders and Religious Institutes; and education. Part II examines the use of experts in relation to marriage nullity cases. THe dissertation suggests not only that through the use of experts the law of the Church enables a direct dialogue with expertise outside the faithful in wider society, but some practices concerning experts particularly in the judicial forum, in the work of the marraige tribunals studied, raise serious issues about compliance with the legal norms of the Church resulting in adverse implications for the exercise of rights of those affected by judical decisions in the field of marriage nullity, including non-Catholics.