The thesis focuses on comparative criminal evidence law and sets out to explore whether it is possible to devise rules of criminal evidence that would suit different jurisdictions. This work should be treated as an exploratory project as it aims to find a suitable approach and then test it using three different rubrics of evidence law – evidence of prior convictions, hearsay evidence and standard of proof. Those rubrics in six different jurisdictions will be examined. The thesis first discusses the mainstream dichotomous approach to comparative criminal procedure and evidence, concluding that the inquisitorial-adversarial distinction has by today lost much of its descriptive power and was never meant to be a normative model. Instead, the author finds that all Western style jurisdictions today are concerned with accurate fact-finding and in order to facilitate accurate fact-finding, should take into consideration the cognitive needs and abilities of fact-finders. Since for the most part human cognition is universally the same, this psychology-based approach can serve as a foundation for evaluating the evidentiary regulation – and unless some extra-epistemic factors prevail, should guide legislatures towards optimizing and unifying their evidentiary regulation. Based on the recent studies in legal psychology, the author offers recommendations that would be workable in all sample jurisdictions. This is in part possible because empirical research tends to debunk often-held beliefs about professional judges being far superior fact-finders immune from the cognitive biases and emotional appeal usually attributed to jurors.

This dissertation examines aspects of John Millar's philosophical history in order to provide grounds for a critical appraisal of the content of his contribution to social and historical science. Using Millar's published books and lectures in civil law as primary sources, it is suggested that Millar applied an empiricist method to the principles of jurisprudence. Millar shared this method with Hume and Smith. Implicit within the method was the abstraction of an ideal observer or spectator. This abstraction was derived from the use of an empiricist method to understand the operations of the minds of particular individual subjects on the pre-determined experience of immediate circumstances. The method assumed that the operations of subjects' minds on the objects of their experience included classification, comparison, generalisation, conjecture, inference, imaginative identification and experiment. Millar's method is therefore characterised as both conjectural and individualistic. Through a critique of Ronald Meek's seminal statements on Millar's materialism, certain issues are investigated for further critical appraisal. These include Millar's political economy, his conception of civil society, and his political theory. It is argued that Millar had a conception of generalised commodity production and exchange; that this conception was derived from the assumption that subjects are self-interest; and that the latter assumption was necessary to explain the origins, emergence and development of civil and political society. Millar assumed that individuals' pursuit of self-interested goals gave rise to ideas of positive law, freely alienable property, different distributions of property, and feelings of liberty. It is suggested that Millar's theorisation of the effect of the latter on forms of government is derived from a combined use of Smith's principles of authority and utility with Hume's commercialised Harringtonianism.

This research aims to contribute to the analysis of the laws and regulations related to remuneration practices. It is also intends to offer recommendations and solutions to the problem of setting levels and Structures of remuneration in Saudi Arabia, an area which is currently neglected despite its importance. Remuneration is a crucial tool in solving the agency problem between shareholders and managers in public companies where the separation of ownership and control exists by providing incentives. However, in Saudi Arabia this practice shows a tendency towards high fixed remuneration and variable remuneration set without any clear links between this and performance, causing variable remuneration to become another salary. Since inadequate laws and regulation have been found to be at least partially responsible for this state of affairs, solving this problem requires careful analysis of the most important jurisdictions which have developed laws and regulations. Thus, the thesis adopts a comparative legal study of the relevant laws and regulations within a descriptive and analytical framework, presenting a detailed discussion of remuneration regulation in the UK, EU and USA. Moreover, informal discussions have been conducted with individuals in the public sectors of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) and the Capital Market Authority (CMA), in order to complement the black letter law analysis of the research, by providing a realistic insight into the nature of the challenges in formulating the policy process in Saudi Arabia. Serious flaws and shortcomings were found in the existing law and regulation regarding remuneration in Saudi Arabia, and recommendations for reform of these are provided.

This study investigates the effect of the application of Sharia law in Saudi Arabia on the finality of arbitral awards on the basis of questions of law and public policy. International arbitration laws tend to circumvent the two issues by limiting the scope of their applicability. Based on the need to retain a degree of authority over enforcement of arbitral awards and other internationally issued legal determinations, this study finds that the Saudi Arbitration Law 2012 Act has some positive features and moves closer to international law in comparison to the Old Saudi Law, specifically on the issue of finality. The study finds that although not on a par with international law, it is a step in the right direction for Saudi Law to work more flexibly in the international sphere with issues involving finality. Where in the past, issues would not have been resolved due to the refusal to enforce arbitral awards, a more facilitating scenario comes about and the scope of enforcement of finality is set to rise due to the New Saudi Law. In addition, this study finds that the Saudi 2012 Act demonstrates the willingness of the Kingdom to cooperate with international laws. Although this is a breakthrough in dealing with finality, a fundamental principle of Saudi law is that the new Saudi law Act conforms to Sharia and the Kingdom’s public policy. However, with a lack of empirical cases specifically involving the New Saudi Law, it is yet to be established that it has achieved the positive impact intended. This study supports continued efforts and ultimately recommends the decision to work towards the amendment of Saudi law to better aid the achievement of finality without undue subjection to unnecessary scrutiny based on public policy requirements and also to realign Saudi public policy with international standards while maintaining fidelity to the values and principles of Sharia law.

This thesis is a critical exposition of attrition in cases involving crimes of child sexual exploitation in England. More specifically, this thesis offers an analysis of policy texts and empirical data, to interrogate the conditions of possibility for attrition in contemporary discourses on child sexual exploitation. It does so by employing a Foucauldian feminist theoretical framework and critical discourse analysis. It shows that knowledge statements within child sexual exploitation discourses around the notion of risk, about children as (un)knowing and as (a)sexual coupled with techniques of power such as the processes of assessing risk, the deployment of the rhetoric of consent and the requirement for an avowing subject, construct multiple subject positions which sexually exploited children come to occupy. It contends that specific rationalities underpinning the current forms of thinking within practitioners' discourse about the problem of attrition in child sexual exploitation cases in conjunction with the deployment within policy discourse of specific strategies for tackling crimes of child sexual exploitation, such as the disruption of perpetrators, lead to the de-prioritisation of prosecutions as a rational response to the crimes of child sexual exploitation. It stresses that children's experiences of sexual exploitation emerge into a discursive space enclosed by three axes namely: the fields of knowledge, processes of normalisation, and the modes of subject formation. It contends that these three axes enclosing the child sexual exploitation discursive space intersect at various sites within child sexual exploitation practice thereby producing the conditions in which attrition in these cases becomes possible.

The following study has three principle aims and objectives: 1) understand how the police deal with ‘Burglary other Building’ incidents; 2) appreciate which investigative activities and operations undertaken lead to the successful detection of these BOB incidents; 3) assess the scope for adjusting existing investigative operational procedures into crimes classified by the police as ‘Burglary other Building’, or non-residential burglary, with a view to boosting detections. The research was based on a sample drawn from a population of 7070 ‘burglary other building’ incidents recorded by West Midlands Police over a six month period between April 1st and September 31st 1998. The study made use of both contemporaneous primary, and secondary sources of data. The primary data was provided by police officer questionnaires, whilst the secondary data was collected from police records and databases. The police solved a significant minority of cases (15.3%). The police were found to use a number of diverse methods to achieve this success. The principle means of detection were the arresting of offenders at or near the scene and the use of evidence gathered at the scene either through the questioning of individuals or through SOCO examination. Allied to this, more proactive investigative techniques proved useful in the investigative process. There appear, however, to be a number of areas that may still offer some scope for improvement.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the educational disadvantage currently being suffered by Roma children in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, and to identify the most appropriate human rights mechanism with which to remedy the situation. Education is vitally important for oppressed minorities such as the Roma since, without it, individuals will be unable to fully access the complete range of their fundamental rights and so will be unable to challenge the disadvantage and discrimination that they suffer. This thesis first submits, therefore, that the traditional liberal democratic model of governance as featured in contemporary Europe is insufficient to adequately address the needs of minorities. To address this insufficiency, states must recognise a version of multiculturalism that both embraces critical pluralism and is compatible with liberal theory. Secondly, this thesis suggests that the individualistic focus of rights protection should be enhanced through an increased recognition of children’s rights so that the individual child is firmly entrenched as an autonomous rights holder. The type of education system that would exist in such a rights environment should serve to develop the autonomy and competence of individual children but also to facilitate their security within their own culture. This type of multicultural education can only be achieved if the various international instruments concerning the right to education can be required to place a more onerous burden on states parties when it comes to minority accommodation. At a domestic level, this thesis suggests that the most appropriate means by which to accommodate the Roma within the national education systems of the four countries would be through a culturally sensitive mainstreaming approach adapted from that used in England.

This thesis will consider UK labour law’s role in promoting fairness for carers. Building upon Fineman’s work, I will argue that caring relationships are of vital importance to society and should be supported by the state. The principle of justice as fairness, substantiated by the capabilities approach, will underpin this argument. I will focus upon modifying the workplace through care centric labour laws to achieve fairness for carers. Care centric legislation, developed by Busby, focuses upon promoting carers’ rights to work, rather than workers’ rights to care. Much of the analysis will focus upon reconciliation legislation, which aims to support people providing care within the paid workplace. This is because it has been the main way successive UK governments have aimed to help people reconcile these competing commitments. Although this body of legislation has gone some way towards achieving this, I will show that it could have done more. To make labour law care centric, something more radical is required. In this regard, I will analyse a right to care. To conclude, I will highlight the need for more empirical work in this context to further understand how fairness for all carers could be achieved.

This thesis examines crime analysts’ experiences of working with the traumatic material of others. Initially, the challenges faced by employees working with the traumatic material of others are considered. A systematic review of the literature was conducted, with emphasis on the nature of psychological effects of working with traumatic material upon non front line staff working within the criminal justice system. Current research was identified as varied, inconsistent and inconclusive due to the heterogeneity of the studies. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was examined for it’s utility in measuring for well-being within crime analysts. The measure was investigated in terms of its reliability and validity, with reference to its use within clinical and general population settings. Finally, an empirical research study exploring the work of crime analysts employed within the criminal justice system, exposed to the traumatic material of others is described with particular focus on factors that exacerbate their experiences and those factors that are protective to them. The study employed a qualitative approach and template analysis. Results revealed respondents were reporting both positive and negative factors within their work. Their accounts suggested that they were using individual, self-taught approaches to how they managed these factors. Broader organisational issues impacted upon how analysts experienced and managed their exposure to traumatic material. The difficulties of drawing conclusions from cross sectional studies are highlighted throughout the thesis. The utility of the findings are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical implications, with consideration of future research.

Law is often perceived as an instrument that can effect social change. National law in Trinidad and Tobago, prima facie providing for gender equality, does not fully contemplate issues of particular concern to women, such as domestic violence. Gender equality and domestic violence are unwitting partners as women cannot achieve the former without first addressing the latter. Additionally, problems such as male dominance in politico-legal structures and lack of political will create practical obstacles to the realisation of gender equality and/or the full potential of the law. A case study of Trinidad and Tobago shows that the achievement of legal advances for women is particularly difficult where practical measures are not implemented domestically. Honouring international commitments subsequently becomes problematic as they do not guarantee change nationally and they, too, are sidelined. Gender equality and domestic violence are not given priority domestically and laws aimed towards protecting women and women’s rights are ineffective, scant and/or not enforced. The only way to achieve gender equality is through a multilevel approach from above (the UN) and, perhaps, more importantly, from below, as women have the potential to effect real national and international legal and institutional change to ensure gender equality at both levels.