The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices coupled with a promise of speed and convenience makes mobile payments an attractive innovation. However, mobile payments also raise concerns with regards to consumer protection. This thesis evaluates how selected jurisdictions address these concerns. The discussion is premised on the argument that mobile payments may prove counter-productive if there are no clear regulatory rules protecting the end users. This is particularly significant for jurisdictions hoping to exploit this service to address financial exclusion problems. The thesis adopts a typology of consumer policy tools which could be used to address the identified consumer concerns. This typology guides the enquiry into how the selected jurisdictions address the consumer issues in m-payments. The purpose of this enquiry is to identify what best practices Nigerian authorities can emulate from the regulatory approach in other jurisdictions. Building on the findings of the enquiry, the thesis puts forward certain recommendations which are intended to address the shortcomings observed in the Nigerian regime.

One of the key causes of disharmony on a global scale, throughout human history, has been the disregard for the protection of religious expression. This goes some way to explaining why the international community in the post-war era, particularly after World War II, have enacted legal instruments and implemented policies aimed at promoting religious freedoms at global and regional levels. Regionally, the ECHR with implementation mechanisms has led the way in terms of upholding the protection of religious rights and freedoms. Having progressive and effective mechanisms to protect human rights does not mean that decisions of the ECtHR as a judicial body are free of criticism. For example, the ECtHR has ruled in the number of cases against the practice of religious expression, particularly in cases relating to the wearing of the headscarf. These decisions, the ECtHR argues, were taken on the grounds of secularism and prevention of fundamentalism and intolerance. This research, unlike others written on the subject, examines the concepts of fundamentalism and tolerance through a historical and philosophical approach, which will be used to argue that a restriction on the headscarf cannot legally or logically be justified as the bases used by the court to provide a rationale for the rulings are undefined, ambiguous and often in conflict with the principle of religious expression. The ECtHR often prioritises national policies and political considerations such as secularism over the personal right to freedom of religious expression. Notably, recent polices in Turkey which now allow and encourage the wearing of headscarf in public places call into question the validity of previous judgments of the ECtHR supporting the ban on wearing of the headscarf. As a part of the qualitative methodology the researcher has chosen three methods to conduct this research including black-letter, historical and comparative themes. This thesis is critically analysis ECtHR cases relating to freedom of religious expression in the context of the wearing of the headscarf. In doing this thesis further explores the relationship between Article 9 ECHR, the wearing of the headscarf, and the concepts of fundamentalism and intolerance. The researcher argues that the link between the wearing of the headscarf and intolerant or fundamentalist behaviour is a difficult one to prove, and that by supporting the ban on wearing of the headscarf on grounds including intolerance, the ECtHR’s decisions are in effect validating intolerance of religious expression.

This thesis addresses the complicated relationship between sovereign debt and the realisation of economic and social rights (ESR) and applicable international human rights law (IHRL). The central research questions to be addressed by this work include the following: How can sovereign debt threaten the realisation of ESR? What guidance does IHRL provide in relation to the sovereign debt issue? Why have human rights and IHRL been so irrelevant in the design and implementation of responses to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, as the Greek case has dramatically revealed? This thesis advances two main arguments. Firstly, the ‘marketisation’ of sovereign financing can be problematic for the realisation of ESR for reasons that go beyond the negative social impacts of austerity or other fiscal consolidation measures. Secondly, this thesis will argue that IHRL has been ineffective in preventing or mitigating the negative ESR impacts of responses to the crisis, not only because of the normative shortcomings of the existing legal framework, but also, and more fundamentally, because of the hegemony of neoliberal morality and its influence upon international law. The ascendancy of neoliberal assumptions, also in legal and human rights reasoning—which, as I will argue, appears to have been confirmed and reinforced rather than reversed, by some of the legal developments that have occurred since the crisis—limits the possibility of international law to constitute an instrument for the affirmation and protection of ESR. This thesis has two main theoretical objectives. Firstly, to provide a more holistic picture of the relationship between sovereign debt (and sovereign financing more generally) and ESR, that is not limited to the ESR impacts of austerity. Secondly, to review and critically analyse the existing international law on ESR—particularly relating to the use of State resources—and on sovereign debt and ESR, in order to assess its current status and post-crisis developments, explore the possible reasons of its irrelevance in the context of the Eurozone debt crisis, and speculate on its future directions.

This thesis analyses “health care litigation” in Brazil and England. By health care litigation I mean those lawsuits in which claimants demand from the State the provision of a certain health treatment based on their entitlement to receive health care from the public health system or funded by it. The question that guides this thesis is whether courts intervening in rationing decisions make the public health system more or less fair. The concept of fairness I use in this thesis draws on the idea of “accountability for reasonableness” developed by Norman Daniel and Charles Sabin. This research will analyse the case-law of courts in Brazil and England, and the impact of litigation on the public health system. Based on this research, I argue that health care litigation in Brazil, where courts interpret the right to health as an individual trump against rationing decisions, is making the public health system less fair. Conversely, in England, where courts mainly control the procedure rather than the substance of the rationing decisions, litigation contributed to make health authorities more accountable and rationing decisions more public and based on better reasons, robust evidence and fair principles. Interestingly, even though courts in both countries have judged their cases in different ways, in the long term, litigation was one of the reasons for the creation of health technology assessment systems that try to legitimate rationing decisions through more public and better reasoned decisions: CONITEC in Brazil and NICE in England. The analysis of healthcare litigation in Brazil and England also contributes to the broader debate about social rights adjudication. These cases provide empirical and nuanced evidence that can be compared with the experience of other jurisdictions to shed light on the potential, risks and limits of courts controlling the allocation of resources in social policies using the language of social rights.

Many convicted offenders around the world do not vote in elections because they have been disenfranchised, which is the legal deprivation of their voting rights as a consequence of their convictions. Addressing this practice from the perspective of legal and constitutional theory, this dissertation deals with the question of how modern democracies should understand the connection between the right to vote and the commission of a criminal offence. After careful analysis of issues related to the democratic importance of the right to vote, the civic virtue of offenders and the requirements of a democratic punishment, the dissertation argues that disenfranchisement is a practice that constitutes an unjustified exception to the general principle of universal suffrage. However, it may also critically express and shape some of our general ideas about democracy and citizenship. In particular, it is argued that the exclusionary and degrading aspects of disenfranchisement can illuminate inclusionary aspects associated to the right to vote. In making this argument, it is suggested that the right to vote not only works as a right of participation but also embodies a mechanism of democratic recognition. Addressing the current common law jurisprudential trends on disenfranchisement, it formulates a case for a strong judicial review of legislation in cases in which voting eligibility is at stake.

This research investigates the relative effectiveness of different modes of regulation of access to personal data on social networking services in the UK. A review of the literature demonstrated that there was a gap in research comparing different regulatory modes applied to online social networking services (SNSs). A model of regulation was developed based on Lessig’s four modes of regulating the internet. Risk to individual users was selected as a way of testing different regulatory approaches, using the premise that risk-based regulation has become a key consideration in European regulation. The regulatory effects were tested using: online surveys, interviews with industry experts, content analysis of privacy policies, and a legislative review. The research data are appended to the main body of the thesis. The research demonstrated the potential of risk as a means of distinguishing between different regulatory modes and concluded that a combination of regulatory approaches was the most effective way of protecting individuals against abuse of personal data on online SNSs. Further research suggested includes: looking at risk from the perspective of companies, and of society; further development of the regulatory model; and country comparisons to discover whether the findings of this study are more generally applicable.

The UN-sponsored international conventions on terrorism and organised crime deal with a specific type of criminality which spreads across national frontiers. The suppression of these crimes is possible through state cooperation in extradition and mutual legal assistance. Hence, the object of these conventions is to facilitate law enforcement cooperation. To achieve this aim, the conventions have established certain mandatory obligations in order to ensure harmony among the legal systems of states parties with a view to make them conducive to law enforcement cooperation. Harmony is needed to satisfy certain requirements of extradition and mutual legal assistance proceedings which necessitate similarity in the legal systems of the requesting and requested states. These requirements can be classified into distinct categories of conditions and procedure. Conditions refer to conditions associated with the principle of reciprocity or exchange of comparable favours, upon which the laws and treaties on extradition and mutual legal assistance are based. It demands similar legal prescriptions or equivalent conceptions of justice under the laws of the requesting and requested state with respect to the act concerning which surrender or interrogation is sought. To enable the parties to satisfy conditions, the international conventions impose mandatory obligations to implement their rules concerning jurisdiction, criminalisation and fair treatment. Procedure implies the procedure of applying or executing the enforcement devices of aut dedere aut judicare and confiscation of the proceeds of crime. The application of both these devices necessitates similarity in the laws of the requesting and requested states with respect to procedure of enforcement. Similarity is needed to ensure that a foreign request may not be refused due to the requested state lacking enabling procedural rules or the request not being consistent with its procedural law. To establish similarity, the conventions impose mandatory obligations to implement the mechanisms of aut dedere aut judicare and confiscation of the proceeds of crimes. This thesis critically examines the impact of these obligations on state cooperation in bringing to justice transnational offenders. The central argument of the thesis is that the mandatory obligations under the counter-terrorism and organised crime conventions are required to be implemented in accordance with and, to the extent permissible, under the national law of state parties. Accordingly, when they are translated domestically, they do not achieve a level of harmony, sufficient to facilitate the fulfilment of the requirements of extradition and mutual legal assistance, i.e. ‘double conditions’ and procedural similarity needed to enforce aut dedere aut judicare and confiscation. Resultantly, discretion rests with the requested state to grant or refuse cooperation depending upon its political and diplomatic relations with the requesting state. This contradicts the objective of facilitating law enforcement cooperation in the specific context of borderless or transnational crimes. Following this approach, state cooperation concerning transnational crimes remains as discretionary and as unregulated as cooperation in regard to ordinary crimes. This calls into question the utility of reliance on mandatory obligations as tools to facilitate law enforcement cooperation. As an alternative, some bilateral/regional treaties and domestic laws adopt the strategy of relaxing ‘double conditions’ and simplifying the procedure of applying aut dedere aut judicare and confiscation. This strategy also aims at facilitating law enforcement cooperation; however, it takes the route of regulating the requirements of extradition and mutual legal assistance rather than harmonising national justice systems to make them conducive to their demands. Given that this system carries greater potential for facilitating law enforcement cooperation, this thesis recommends that the makers of the international counter-terrorism and organised crime conventions should substitute or complement the mandatory obligations with it. Significantly, states have, by agreeing not to apply political and fiscal offence exception to extradition and interrogation proceedings involving these crimes, shown their willingness to accept this approach of facilitating law enforcement cooperation in the specific context of transnational crimes.

This thesis discusses the adaptation and convergence in corporate governance to international norms in Pakistan. Pakistan is an underdeveloped but an emerging market with inefficient legal, regulatory, judicial, institutional and governance norms. In recent times there have been some reforms in the corporate sector of Pakistan but lack of infrastructure and a dearth of research were barriers to reform generally. Therefore, this thesis seeks to identify corporate governance issues in Pakistan, and discusses analytically the possibility and effectiveness of convergence in corporate governance to international norms in Pakistan. To this end, it focuses on three aspects of convergence in corporate governance in Pakistan. First, it discusses the prospects and application of convergence in corporate governance in Pakistan. Second, it analyses critically, from a comparative perspective, three core corporate governance issues in Pakistan. The corporate sector in Pakistan is highly concentrated with an underdeveloped capital market and inefficient enforcement mechanisms. The conflict between shareholders and management, and shareholders inter se are major issues of corporate governance in Pakistan. The former conflict is addressed by reducing agency cost and the latter by ensuring minority protection. These conflicts are analysed comprehensively through comparative studies. Furthermore, the market and judiciary in Pakistan have failed to provide investors with protection. This thesis discusses the reform process in the market and judiciary in order to improve enforcement mechanisms. In addition, it discusses the possibility of convergence and effectiveness of adaptation in these issues. Third, as Pakistan is an ideological country whose constitution prescribes Islam as the state religion which, in turn, prescribes Islamic injunctions as basic norms, convergence to any foreign corporate governance feature will have to pass the litmus test of Islamic norms. Therefore, the thesis also identifies the possibility of filtration of foreign governance features through Islamic norms. The thesis concludes that the corporate sector in Pakistan is underdeveloped with weak investor rights and enforcement mechanisms. There is, therefore, a need to enhance investor protection in order to improve corporate governance which, in turn, will improve the economy of the country. In addition, the conclusion is reached that in convergence to Western corporate governance features in Pakistan, Islamic norms may act as a litmus test which may not be as problematic as it appears at first sight.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the role of corporate social responsibility (hereinafter ‘CSR’) in corporate governance in the context of employment. This is done through a comparative study of the United Kingdom (hereinafter ‘UK’) and China in which it is determined whether Chinese companies can adopt UK companies’ CSR practices in employment. The thesis begins with an overview of the theory of corporate governance and the necessity of CSR in corporate governance. The different models and principles of corporate governance and CSR, and how the main corporate organs operate in corporate governance and apply CSR in decision-making to meet stakeholders’ needs are introduced. The study then demonstrates the rationale behind the emergence of CSR, the legal impact of CSR on stakeholders and the global application of CSR initiatives, especially the techniques and mechanisms adopted in the UK and China. The research specifically presents CSR practices in employment in the UK and China against a theoretical background. This comparative study is mainly dependent on companies’ information disclosure, since all data were collected from their official CSR reports. The quality of the information disclosure is assured through effective monitoring as stated in the various reports. The implication of the comparative research on the information disclosure collected demonstrates the difference in CSR implementation in employment between UK and Chinese companies. The thesis analyses the possibility of adopting UK CSR practice in employment in Chinese companies in terms of the economic, social and political barriers to, and current situation of, CSR in China. As China has opened up the global market, overseas companies have invested in the Chinese market. This comparative study of CSR implementation in the context of employment in the UK and China, and the analysis of the current status of Chinese CSR practices also provide foreign enterprises experience to relate their CSR policies in corporate governance to Chinese context.

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse whether contracts made by electronic agents1 might be made enforceable under Islamic law. It discusses what constitutes an enforceable contract under Islamic law and whether this is applicable when a contract is made by an electronic agent. The enforceability of these contracts under Islamic law is especially important in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) where Islamic law constitutes the legal system. Ignoring the doctrine of Islamic law in relation to the enforceability of these contracts could, therefore, fundamentally affect the future viability of these contracts in the KSA. The dissertation argues first that the principle of mutual consent under Islamic law is not satisfied in contracts made by electronic agents because there is no communication of an offer and acceptance by the contracting parties (users). Secondly, while electronic agents function like human agents, there are a number of doctrinal requirements under Islamic agency theory that prevent electronic agents from being agents proper. Thirdly, the term ‘legal personality’ is categorised in Islamic law under ‘Dhimmah’, an ethical concept designed principally for human beings which cannot, therefore, be attributed to electronic agents. This dissertation demonstrates that Islamic law creates conceptual obstacles which prevent contracts made by electronic agents being enforceable in the KSA. One implication of this will be a risk of negative impact on the development of these contracts in the KSA because they are contradictory to Islamic law. Islamic law must avoid narrow traditional interpretations of its legal concepts, because a lack of reform in this area will create difficulties and barriers against the enforceability of these contracts under Islamic law.