This monograph, which the author submits as a Thesis for LL.D. degree of the University of London, deals with a controversial subject. In fact, the problem of application of private law in international law is so controversial that in the course of the writing of this thesis doubts were frequently arising in the mind of the author whether the subject ought to be dealt with in a University dissertation. These doubts have rather increased than diminished since he decided not to confine himself as a mere registration of opinions of publicists and writers of text-books, but to examine whether the current opinion is in accordance with the practice of states, and whether it has been really incorporated into the science of international law.

The thesis provides an analysis of multilateral trade lawmaking in the GATT and the WTO from the late 1940s to the current Doha Round negotiations. It investigates the discourses, practices, techniques, and legal concepts that have come to define what it means to make trade law. These elements are essential to multilateral trade lawmaking insofar as they provide trade negotiators with a way to frame their arguments and to go about negotiating, and with the tools to construct trade policy disciplines and to record them in legal form. On the other hand, they are also limiting, in that they endorse certain ways of going about trade lawmaking as normal, and delimit what negotiators and their audiences perceive as reasonable, legitimate, and realistic arguments in the lawmaking process. The aim of the thesis is to destabilise these elements of trade lawmaking by revealing their contingent and often contested origins, and by showing how they foreclose alternative conceptions of the objectives, means, and possibilities of trade lawmaking. While the dissertation does not provide a full-fledged normative critique of the elements of lawmaking, it attempts to elucidate the discursive, practical, technical, and legal underpinnings of trade lawmaking that any such reform effort will, of necessity, confront.

The present thesis comprehensively examines the right of any member of the public to access environmental information held by mainly public bodies and the obligation of these bodies to provide it upon request. In doing this, we do not claim to present the reader with a brand new theory. However this thesis is original in the way that it combines in a single piece of work all the aspects of the subject: both legal and non-legal. With respect to the legal aspects of the subject, these are analysed in regard of not only national law, but also international, EC law and also the law of the European Convention on Human Rights. In other words, the present thesis is a synthesis that has never been done before. In our introductory chapter we set the limits of our examination by stating that we will mainly examine the legal rules that grant a right to individuals to access environmental information upon request. We also examine the historical evolution of the right to access to environmental information. Then, in Chapter I, which is the core chapter of the present work, we explain in detail the substantive provisions of the legal instruments granting a right to access environmental information upon request: the Aarhus convention, the 2003/4IEC Environmental Information Directive on public access to Environmental Information and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, which transpose into UK law this Directive and the information provisions of the Aarhus convention. It should be stressed that we analyse in parallel the equivalent provisions of EC law, international law and UK law, thus avoiding repeating the identical parts of these instruments. This parallel examination of all legal rules that grant a right to access environmental information is also a feature that renders the present work original, since there is no other written work on the subject adopting such an approach. In chapter 2 we examine other specific UK enactments that grant a right to access specific kinds of environmental information which is recorded on registers. Moreover, we highlight the fact that the statutory provisions on registers serve a different function than the environmental information regulations, as they also create a statutory duty for some public authorities to collect and compile certain types of environmental information and place it on registers. In chapter 3 we examine the relevant ECHR articles which have been interpreted by the Court of Strasbourg as including a right to access environmental information. Thus, we analyse how in some limited circumstances the right to access environmental information can be of a fundamental nature. Finally, in chapter 4 we examine how the 90/313IEEC Directive (the precursor of Directive 2003/41EC) was transposed in French ,law, in comparison with England. We conclude that the English method of transposition has been more in conformity with the aim of the right to access environmental information: environmental protection. We also conclude that this important finding is also of some relevance today, even after the enactment of the 2003 Directive and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The present work is concluded by showing that: I) the right of access to environmental information is what could be called a 'multi-layered' right, which stems from various legal instruments of different levels (the EC level, international level and UK national level). This is the reason why the right to environmental information is a right with uncertain boundaries and content, since, although all these instruments go into the same direction of recognising a right to access environmental information to any person, they all contain different limitations and exceptions to the scope of this right; 2) the right to access environmental information is fundamentally different from the general right to access information held by public bodies, since it aims at achieving better environmental protection; 3) as a consequence, the correct approach to any analysis of the right to access environmental information is to understand and acknowledge that, first, this right stems from various European, national and international legal instruments, and second, that although it is a right similar to the general right to access information, it is conceptually different as it aims to protect the environment.

The object of this thesis is to assess the legality of the use of force against Iraq in 2003. To do so, the study examines the validity of the justifications put forward by the US and the UK for their action in light of the existing regulations on the use of force. These justifications are as follows: i) the Security Council authorization for the use of force; ii) the right of self-defence in pre-emptive action against threats from Iraq; iii) the right of pro-democratic intervention in Iraq in order to relieve the Iraqi people of vast and continuing human rights violations by the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein. The thesis begins with an introduction which indicates the scope of the study, the approach adopted and the outline of the thesis. The opening chapter reviews the regulation of the use of force under the UN Charter. The second chapter examines the Iran-Iraq war 1980-1988. The third chapter analyses the Kuwait crisis and its sequels. Chapter Four interprets Resolution 678 according to the rules of interpretation in order to determine whether the mandate of that resolution was extinguished after Iraq had been expelled from Kuwait, or still governed the situation in 2003. Chapter Five investigates the rules governing armistice agreements in order to explore whether the coalition forces had the right to terminate the cease-fire and resume hostilities, without new authorization of force, on grounds of Iraq's violations of the conditions established in the cease-fire Resolution 687. The sixth chapter scrutinizes the legality of the disarmament sanctions imposed upon Iraq in Resolution 687 and Iraq's right to defy the implementation of these measures, should their imposition be proved to be an ultra vires act by the Security Council. Chapter Seven examines the validity of the argument that the invasion was a pre-emptive self-defence against threats from Iraq. Chapter Eight inspects whether the invasion can be characterized and justified as a `prodemocratic' war. Finally, the conclusion summarises the findings of the research.

This study examines the suppression through international law of the illicit production, supply and use of drugs. The study focuses upon the provisions relating to the suppression of illicit drugs in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Psychotropic Convention, the 1972 Protocol to the Single Convention and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Drug Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. It examines the content of the obligations imposed on states party by these conventions, and gives select examples of how these provisions have been incorporated into domestic law. Chapter one introduces the global drug problem, the policy options available to deal with it, and the regulation of this problem by a system established by international law. Chapter two places the international drug control system in historical context. Chapter three examines the crimes and penalties that the drug conventions require Parties to create in their national law. Chapter four examines the provisions in the drug conventions that deal with jurisdiction over drug offences, extradition of drug offenders, and miscellaneous procedural provisions. Chapter five investigates the international regulation of enforcement in the sense of actual policing, prosecution and punishment of drug offenders. Chapter six examines the alternative methods of control of illicit drug related activities provided for under international law, such as treatment and rehabilitation. Chapter seven examines the supervisory organs of the international drug control system, the supervision of the system and its execution and enforcement. Chapter eight attempts a general comment upon the nature of the system and its aim of suppressing illicit drug use. While the major concern of this study is an examination of the technical rules of international law designed to suppress illicit drugs, it is also concerned with the policy of prohibition that underpins these rules, because of the interrelationship between this policy and the shape of the international legal provisions designed to implement it.

Since the late 1980s, the terms of 'sustainable development' have been frequently referred to both in international environmental law instruments and in the doctrine. In spite of such references, however, sustainable development has remained poorly developed in terms of its meaning and of its practical and normative implications. This thesis purports to come out with a partial picture of what sustainable development means (or does not mean) in the restricted context of international environmental law. To do so, it will try to identify in which respect and how far sustainable development has influenced and has been reflected in the evolution of some selected principles of that law. Each principles is considered in an evolutionary perspective, from the time of its inception to the time of its 'association' to sustainable development.

There is a ‘right to life’ Article in a number of international and regional human rights treaties which is not currently being employed to give the full potential effect to the right. There are issues arising ‘beyond the horizons’, particularly with regard to the identity of the rights-bearer, the ‘human’ in the international law of human rights, that fail to be addressed by a restrictive interpretation. For instance, a failure to recognise the human represented by human genetic material and to record it the respect called for by an expanded notion of human dignity has implications for the future, when ‘new humans’ – clones, hybrids, chimera – might enter the realm of created beings, with, it is argued here, a valid claim to respect for their human rights entitlements, including that their right to life shall be protected by law. In order to establish the potential scope of the right to life treaty provision, the texts are introduced and a case is made for the validity of a dynamic and evolving interpretation of the right, the ‘living instrument’ approach, within the international legal framework established by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The human identity is then examined across a number of disciplines, as well as in law, in order to challenge an interpretation that places any requirements on the rights-bearer of ‘personhood’. The proposed solution is to argue for broader definitions, both of the human and of the life protected, than is currently the case, and for a greater realisation of what is at stake in human rights jurisprudence regarding the right, involving issues of the moral nature of the protecting law. A failure to realise and act upon the issues raised will allow intolerable injustice to be perpetrated.

Coral reefs are one of the most beautiful natural habitats found on the Earth and one of the more productive. As a source of food, or as a basis for tourism, these formations support many local communities, industries and economies. Coral reefs also protect shorelines through dissipating the force of waves and act as a catalyst for the formation of land suitable for human habitation. However, like many other ecosystems, humans are increasingly placing coral reefs under intense pressure from pollution, unsustainable practices, and climate change. This thesis considers the measures international law is taking to tackle some of these threats to coral reefs through promoting one conservation strategy, namely marine protected areas. The analysis provided is based upon an investigation into developments under a number of global multilateral environmental agreements and, as such, is the first time treaties like the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the World Heritage Convention, have been considered in detail from this perspective. Ultimately we shall see how a number of initiatives are being pursued under international law which promote such enclave strategies in the marine environment for the conservation of these vital ecosystems.

It is well known that in the early stages of legal development in Commonwealth jurisdictions, when these countries were still colonies of the British Empire, there was uniformity in their laws as the English common law was received by these countries and applied by their judiciaries with little or no modifications. As time passed, with the shift towards independence in these former British colonies, some Commonwealth countries have diverged from the English common law by providing for judicial solutions that are perceived to best fit their individual circumstances, values and needs. In other words, there has been a break up of Commonwealth common law. Whilst there has been much academic discussion on this phenomenon in relation to for example, tort and contract, hardly any has been written on private international law. Accordingly, it is the purpose of this thesis to address the paucity of academic writing on this subject matter by undertaking a comparative study of two areas of private international law, namely the doctrine of forum non conveniens and tort choice of law in Australia, Canada and Singapore, with the relevant English common law positions as the key reference point. Specifically, this thesis began by establishing the existence as well as the nature and extent of the break up of forum non conveniens and tort choice of law in our selected Commonwealth jurisdictions. It is then argued that one reason for this phenomenon is that there are differences in the judicial treatment of policies, concepts and other wider considerations relevant to these areas of private international law in these countries. Subsequently, the issue of how these jurisdictions should respond to this phenomenon was examined and we concluded that the prospects for the harmonisation of jurisdictional and tort choice of law rules at the global, regional and Commonwealth level has been largely unpromising. Accordingly, it is argued that the way forward is for our selected Commonwealth jurisdictions to develop their own rules on these areas of private international law with their own social, economic and political circumstances in mind.

This thesis exammes the interaction of law and medico-psychology in homicide cases, where the defences of insanity and diminished responsibility in particular are raised. If the defendant's mental state is subject to scrutiny through the defences, then expert medico-psychological evidence is required, yet law and medico-psychology have very different understandings on the mind and very different roles with regard to assessing individuals. Expert medico-psychological evidence can be submitted in the consideration of criminal responsibility, when sentencing is concerned with whether prison or hospital is most appropriate, and for release decisions involving judgments about the defendant's potential risk and dangerousness. The examination of the interaction between law and medico-psychology incorporated three dimensions. First, an exposition of the respective theoretical positions of the two disciplines on the mind, detailing the pertinent legislative and common law rules. The second analysed the judicial interpretations of the medico-psychological terms and concepts contained in the substantive law, and in addition, the controls developed through judicial reasoning on the procedural role of the expert and the admission of expert testimony. Finally, the practitioners' perspective is explicated, which was obtained by conducting interviews with lawyers and medico-psychological expert witnesses. There are two facets to the research conclusions, which simplistically stated are: first, in terms of the interaction between law and medico-psychology, the law uses medico-psychological concepts and evidence in a symbolic manner to facilitate legal objectives. Secondly, the examination of the nature of the interaction through the three dimensions exposed the fundamental difference between the theoretical legal debates and the practitioners' perspective. Although the former normally informs legislative and reform discussions, it seems from this research that consideration needs to be given to all the dimensions in future reform debates.