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.

No description available.

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.

No description available.

If this thesis has to be expressed in one sentence and not in many thousand words, it is the following: Judges should love all those who are affected by their decisions as they love themselves. This is the key idea of the whole thesis. The argument for the importance of the principle of love starts from the consideration of two theories: the psychological theory of law developed by a Polish-Russian academic, Leon Petrazycki, and the moral theology of Thomas Aquinas. The theory of Petrazycki, which is almost unknown in the West, is important because it grounds the principle of love in the emotions and impulsions of those who are involved in the legal process. He sees the whole law as a complex interaction of individual impulsions, among which love is the most noble. The theory of Thomas Aquinas is important because it contains a developed idea of conscience. His search for the essential characteristic of a good conscience also points to love, even though he did not articulate it clearly. The combination of both theories allows us to look at the principle of love as the essential characteristic of a good conscience from different angles, and helps us to see that the whole process of judicial decision-making is a complicated phenomenon which comprises both moral intuitions and rational deliberations. The central place in the thesis is devoted to elaboration of the method of agapic casuistry which is a complex of skills and techniques of application of the principle of love in particular situations. The meaning of the principle of love is clarified through drawing on the traditions of Christian ethics. Love is understood as a care for another, as a genuine willingness to do good to others for the sake of the others. The method requires that the judges apply legal rules in a flexible way after reaching as deep an understanding as possible of the motives and moral views of the parties to the process, and after examining themselves with the purpose of neutralising moral prejudices and biases. Based on this method, the practices of impartial sympathy judgement and watchfulness are considered paramount in order for the principle of neighbourly love to operate effectively in the process of judicial decision making. The practical character of agapic casuistry is illustrated by examples of judicial decisions in four different courts: the House of Lords, the Scottish High Court of Justiciary, the Russian Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights. Four different aspects of judicial decision-making are taken in order to demonstrate that the judges can and do love their neighbours actively.

The present work examines naval exclusion zones, with particular emphasis on the jus in bello applicable to such zones. The issues presented by the establishment and use of naval exclusion relate to many aspects of the law of the sea and naval warfare. Naval exclusion zones represent an important issue for national security policy makers, in that the use of such zones during armed conflicts at sea can limit the geographic scope of the conflict. While such zones may promote the principles enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter and discourage belligerents from waging naval warfare on a global scale, the use of such zones have the potential for disaster, in that naval commanders who mistakenly operate under the assumption that such zones are “free-fire zones” run the risk of unlawfully sinking hospital ships or other protected vessels. Moreover, naval exclusion zones have become increasingly common during modern naval conflicts, including the Falklands, Iran-Iraq and Persian Gulf Wars. Finally, even when used within the bounds of international law, naval exclusion zones still have the potential to disrupt commercial uses of the seas since they often cut across the claims of neutrals, potentially interfering with neutral commerce, oil exploration or fishing. This thesis traces the development of naval exclusion zones, with particular emphasis on the following: • The historical uses of such zones • The permissible threatres of naval operations under the modern law of the sea regime • The permissible scope of activity within such zones vis-à- vis belligerent warships and merchant vessels • The rights of neutrals in and around naval exclusion zones • The legality of such zones as analysed through the traditional sources of international law The thesis then concludes with recommendations for clarifying and strengthening the rules concerning the scope of permissible activity within such zones.